The fighting was savage and often hand-to-hand in the streets and houses of the village. The British lost forty men killed in this fighting, the Revolutionaries twenty-eight. The Menotomy Minute Company was engaged here, which included four free men of color who fought alongside their white counterparts.
For the men of Smith’s command, Menotomy must have been an absolute nightmare. Exhausted, demoralized, and hungry, they vented their rage through shooting into house windows and torching houses along the route. Most companies had lost cohesion, with the loss of officers and noncommissioned officers. “We were most annoyed at a village called Anatomy [sic] having no shot to fire from our cannon on the houses which were full of men," recalled one anonymous British regular. Still, the tired regulars pushed on as the men of Percy’s brigade took over the fighting on the flanks. They were still miles from safety.
Galvin, 222.