The Battle of Freetown was a skirmish between colonists and a British naval ship during the Revolutionary War. The events took place on Sunday, May 25, 1778 in the part of Freetown, Massachusetts that later became the city of Fall River.

Brief synopsis

Although Freetown was known as a royalist town, a fair number of townspeople were becoming more engaged in the separation efforts by 1776. Early on May 25, 1778, a British ship sailed up the former Quequechan River into lower Freetown. Spotted by a sentinel, the ship was fired upon by several local minutemen, their gunfire returned by cannonfire. Several soldiers disembarked to lay siege to the increasingly anti_royalist towns in southeastern Massachusetts. These soldiers proceded to burn a dwelling house, grist mill, and sawmill, before being fired upon by local Freetown minutemen who had been keeping watch over the river and were alerted by the sentinel. The British soldiers then took one resident as prisoner, set fire to his property, and retreated to their ship. The prisoner was eventually released after several days, and the British retreated from Freetown altogether.

The Freetown minutemen were aided by other colonist minutemen from the Tiverton outpost. The British suffered two casualties as a result of the light fighting. The colonists suffered no losses.