Boston under Siege

Using the 18th century Pelham & Jukes map

The “shot heard ‘round the world” that set off the war, was fired at Lexington and Concord nearly a year ago. Now the war has ground to a halt as the British barricade themselves in Boston and the Patriots lay siege from the surrounding shores. Now British soldiers and Loyalist civilians attempt to hold onto the city as the Continental Army amasses across the river in Cambridge.

In the north, Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys—with the aid of Benedict Arnold—captured Fort Ticonderoga and a surplus of valuable artillery on May 10th 1775. The Patriots then attempted an invasion of British Canada, hoping to be supported by Québécois sympathetic to the cause. The lack of revolutionary enthusiasm among the peoples of Canada, plus the onset of winter proved challenging for the army after the successful capture of Montreal and Fort St. Jean.

Though the colonies have not yet declared independence, the leaders of the revolution are preparing for any outcome. The Continental Congress officially established the Continental Army on June 14, 1775, with George Washington as its commander-in-chief. Three days later, the Battle of Bunker Hill resulted in a defeat for the Americans, but the British Army suffered more casualties. Since then, the siege has been effectively at a stalemate.

This full-color map was composited from several high-resolution scans of a period artifact named (ahem) “A plan of Boston in New England with its environs, including Milton, Dorchester, Roxbury, Brooklin, Cambridge, Medford, Charlestown, parts of Malden and Chelsea with the military works constructed in those places in the years 1775 and 1776,” by Henry Pelham and Francis Jukes.

Annotations and rollable tables were made by the Flagbearer Games team following the Ghosts of Saltmarsh format, which does a great job of mixing general information and story hooks + specific details on points of interest and some fun rollable tables. Here’s a GMBinder link to download these pages in full. We’re also excited to be printing cloth maps of the touched-up Pelham and Jukes document for our booth at GenCon in 2 weeks!