USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Concord > Historic Concord, a handbook of its story and its memorials > Part 4
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Perhaps because of its responsibility for the stores, Concord was earlier than most towns in organizing its minute-men. These were the younger and more active men from among the old organization of the militia of the province; the two companies were en- rolled in January of 1775. There were two militia companies as well, with the Alarm Company, com- posed of old men and boys; but the minute-men were pledged to be ready at a minute's warning. So liter- ally did they take this promise that they carried their guns with them to church and to the field.
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Historic Concord
The minute-men companies of the neighboring towns were organized into a regiment of which John Buttrick of Concord was major. Similarly the militia companies were formed into a regiment of which James Barrett of Concord was colonel. Barrett, the older man, had retired from military duties; but he was recalled. Slow and unwieldy on foot, he was still able to ride his horse, as he proved when occasion demanded. .
Through the winter the companies of all the neigh- boring towns drilled at home and met occasionally in musters. A British officer sent out by General Gage, the British governor in Boston, reported these 'train- ings' with much ridicule, little thinking that he himself would some day retreat before the home- spuns.
Every act of either side drew both parties toward war. The governor and his troops were practically cooped up in Boston. Each practice march that the soldiers made into the country was jealously watched, lest one should be made in earnest. Nothing that Gage did could long be kept a secret from the Boston patriots. Nor could the actions of the provincials be kept entirely secret from the governor. He knew that stores were being assembled in Concord, and that an army was being formed against him. It was only common sense for him to destroy the stores if he could, to make the army helpless. Realizing this, the Com- mittee of Safety, when it held in April its sessions in Concord, required Colonel Barrett to keep men and teams ready, by day or night, on the shortest notice to remove the stores. Then, as if knowing that the emergency was at hand, on the eighteenth the com- mittee ordered the removal of many of the stores to towns farther away. And that very night the work
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began, although no warning had come that in Boston the British expedition was on the move.
For General Gage had at last made up his mind to act. A good administrator, his patience and tact had been great; but he had lost various chances to seize the Massachusetts leaders, and even now he merely tried to take or destroy the stores. He had made no effort to lay hands on Dr. Joseph Warren, openly living in Boston, and the most active man there in watching and blocking the British moves. The me- chanics and craftsmen in Boston spied narrowly on all that was done, and brought the news to Warren. And their reports on the night of the 'eighteenth of April, in seventy-five,' were that troops were on the move, assembling at the foot of the Common, not far from which it was already known that the row- boats of the men-of-war had been moored in waiting. Warren sent for two messengers, both of whom were experienced in riding post for the Committee of Safety.
One of these was William Dawes, whom Warren instructed to attempt to leave Boston by the only land exit, to Roxbury. But as soldiers held the Neck, and Dawes might not be allowed to go out on a night when some movement was in progress, Warren also sent for Paul Revere.
Revere was silversmith and engraver, craftsman ex- traordinary, and also a patriotic messenger on various occasions. He had lately been to Concord with a mes- sage from Warren, and on that occasion had prepared for this very emergency. To Concord, of course, both he and Dawes were sent: it could be the only objective of a secret expedition of the troops. With instructions from Warren, Revere put his plan into execution. Against British orders, he had a hidden boat; but lest
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he fail in his attempt to leave the town, he sent a friend to signal patriots in Charlestown, across the river, that the troops were leaving Boston by boat. The signal was two lanterns hung in the steeple of the North Church. One of those lanterns is now to be seen in Concord, at the Antiquarian House.
Revere succeeded in crossing; though there was light from a young moon, he was not seen by war- ships or British patrols, and on the Charlestown shore he found friends awaiting him. On Deacon Larkin's horse he rode away on his errand. He took the most direct route, toward Cambridge; but blocked by British mounted officers, whom he saw in the moon- light, he turned back, gave them the slip, and gal- loped to Medford. From there, and as far as Lexing- ton, he roused every important household on the route.
LEXINGTON
Until three days before, the Provincial Congress had been sitting at Concord, with its two chief members, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, directing every move. On the night of the eighteenth the two were sleeping at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clarke, in Lexington, with a guard of minute-men outside. When Revere arrived, about midnight, the sergeant asked Revere to make no noise. 'Noise!' he rejoined. 'You'll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out !'
The town was immediately roused. Hancock and Adams rose and dressed; but while Hancock wished to stay and fight, his wiser companion tried to persuade him to go away. The minute-man company assembled, and under its captain, John Parker, mustered on the
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The Lexington Fight
green. Then there was a long waiting. Dawes ar- rived, and he and Revere set out for Concord, ac- companied by young Dr. Samuel Prescott, a Concord man who fortunately happened to be courting his sweetheart in Lexington that night. For when the three met suddenly a second patrol of British officers, Revere was taken and held, Dawes turned back to- ward Boston, and Prescott alone, escaping by jumping his horse over a wall, roused the captain of the Lin- coln minute-men, and himself brought the news to Concord.
The Lexington company, mustered on the green in a night that was moderately cold, received no news from the scouts that they sent down the Boston road. At length their captain dismissed them to houses near by, and to the Buckman Tavern, almost on the green, to assemble instantly on the first summons.
Dawn began to break, a chilly morning, when Re- vere appeared again. His captors, recognizing him, had questioned him, and he had bluffed them with the story that the whole country was in arms and ready for the approaching expedition, of which, to their sur- prise, he appeared to have accurate news. To warn the expected column, these officers hurried to the Boston road, releasing all their prisoners. Revere hastened back to Lexington and told his story to Han- cock and Adams, who quickened their departure. Revere followed them with a trunk of Hancock's papers, which he took to a place of safety. Returning once more, he was just in time to observe what hap- pened on the green.
The detachment which Gage sent out from Boston numbered probably about seven hundred men, con- sisting of the grenadier and light infantry companies of all the regiments in Boston. They were therefore
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unaccustomed to acting together, and not used to their superior officers. These were Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Smith of the Tenth Regiment, and Major John Pitcairn of the Marines. Pitcairn was a steady and sensible officer, not unpopular even with the patriots of Boston. But Smith was heavy, dull, and slow, good for routine duties, but unfitted for an ex- pedition requiring enterprise and initiative.
Blunder after blunder caused delay after delay. The troops mustered late in the evening, but it was some time before they were in their boats, of which there were not enough. Two trips were required to ferry them across the Back Bay and to Lechmere Point in Cambridge. Then there was a long wait for their rations, some of which the men threw away as the food grew heavy on the march. Wet to the knees the men at length began their journey from the marshes; then they went fast. In the very early morn- ing they passed through the outskirts of Cambridge and through Menotomy, now Arlington. Various stories are told of incidents on the way, but nothing happened to stop the troops until they neared Lexing- ton. They met the scouts who had been sent from Lexington for news. But the British advance patrol, marching silently on the sides of the road, made prisoners of them, and the troops marched on. The light infantry were in the lead, under command of Major Pitcairn.
Now came to warn them the mounted officers who had earlier captured Revere. Pitcairn, halting his troops and consulting, also received the statement that an American had attempted to fire at Lieutenant Sutherland, scouting in front. The major therefore ordered the troops to prime and load, and to march on, 'but on no account to Fire, or even attempt it with-
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The Lexington Fight
out orders.' And so the troops moved forward, en- tered the village of Lexington, and approached the green.
Meanwhile the Americans had received their final alarm. Thaddeus Bowman, scouting to find why no further news of the British had come, was warned by his skittish horse, which shied at the advance picket of the British, and enabled him to see, beyond them, the head of the marching column. Galloping back, he brought the news to the Lexington captain. The drum was beat, and the minute-men came running to the green. Their sergeant formed them in two lines. There were perhaps eighty of them, drawn up in full view of the Concord road, by which the British were expected to pass. It was sunrise, and long shadows fell across the green.
Perhaps then Parker uttered the words credited to him. 'Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon; but if they want to begin a war, let it begin here!' Strong words, and suited to a desperate situation; but here was one in which the minute-men, parading without defense, invited annihilation from a force many times their number. Months of inaction had fretted the regulars; they were exasperated by the provocations given by the Yankees. If the Lexington men, drawn up where they had a right to be, had ex- pected the troops to pass by on their mission, they were mistaken. The head of the column swerved, entered the green, and marched directly toward them.
The Lexington church stood then on the green, on the corner nearest Boston. The column passed on one side; and Pitcairn, seeing what was happening, spurred his horse around the other, to take a position where he could command both the troops and the militia. Various mounted officers were with him.
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And Parker saw the unwelcome necessity of the sit- uation. His men could not stand against so many. He gave the order 'to disperse and not to fire.' Slowly and unwillingly his men began to break ranks.
What happened then is not, and probably never will be, clear. Eyewitnesses on both sides disagree: each said the other fired first. The evidence cannot be reconciled. No doubt Pitcairn uttered the words long imputed to him: 'Disperse, ye rebels! Lay down your arms and disperse!' But he solemnly asserted that he ordered his own men not to fire, and tried to prevent it.
But his men were eager for the prey so helpless be- fore them. Paul Revere, just then coming within sight of the green, declared that the first shot fired was from a pistol. Others said the same. Now in all like- lihood the only pistols there were in the hands of the mounted officers, and some were young and hot- headed. However it happened, a shot was fired, then others, and then the advance company fired their guns, and rushed in with their bayonets.
Some Americans fell dead on the spot. Others, mortally wounded, dragged themselves away - like Jonathan Harrington, who reached his own doorstep to die at his wife's feet. And still others, fiercely re- sisting, were bayoneted where they stood - like Jonas Parker, killed while trying to reload.
For the Americans returned the fire, from the green and from the tavern. In the excitement and the smoke they did but little damage: Pitcairn's horse was hurt, and one of the regulars. But the British possessed the ground, and drove from it the remaining minute-men. Eight of the Americans were killed, ten wounded.
The troops, if unrestrained, might have broken into the tavern, the church, and the near-by houses,
i
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The Lexington Fight
bayoneting all that they found. But Pitcairn and his officers, and Smith who now arrived, quieted the men. They were formed again, admonished, and ordered to the road. It could not have been half an hour be- fore they were gone, and the men and women of Lex- ington flocked to the scene, to take up the dead and to care for the wounded.
The townsmen were not cowed. The British had cheered before they marched away. But they would have to come back by that very road, and the men of Lexington prepared for a second encounter, when they could take vengeance for their losses [page 70].
[Guide to Lexington follows.]
GUIDE: TO LEXINGTON FOR TOURISTS COMING FROM BOSTON ON THEIR WAY TO CONCORD
LEXINGTON can be reached by train from the North Station. (Trains no longer go on to Concord.) Busses leave Park Square, Boston, for Lexington; or from Arlington Heights, which can be reached by cars through the Boston Subway via Cambridge. Motorists reach Lexington by Routes 2 and 2A, taking care to turn off on the combined Routes 4 and 25. Route 128 passes through Lexington from the northeast via Woburn or from the southwest via Waltham.
Sightseeing in Lexington confines itself to memorials of April 19th, 1775. As the motorist enters the town from Boston, he sees on the left a sign directing to the Munroe Tavern, above the road. Here Lord Percy with his brigade received and protected the detach- ment fleeing from Concord, powderless and exhausted. The tavern contains interesting reminders of old times. Proceeding, and passing the stone cannon on the right, where a British fieldpiece was placed, also pass- ing the Cary Memorial Hall (right) which contains Sandham's painting of the Fight, one comes to the wide green, little changed since 1775. One must re- member, however, that at the nearer corner, behind Kitson's fine Minute-Man statue, at a spot marked by the stone pulpit, once stood the church, which now stands beyond the farther edge of the green. Behind the church was its free-standing belfry, now on the hill to the left. To the right, across the road from the statue, still stands the Buckman Tavern, much in its original condition, where through the early hours of the morning the minute-men had waited. When called together by the alarm, they mustered at a line now
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Lexington Guide
marked by a boulder, behind the old church site. The stone bears the words of Captain John Parker.
The British column, seeing the minute-men, marched to the right of the church. Pitcairn galloped round it to the left. The British volley was delivered at short range, and then the regulars charged with the bayonet. One man, however, was shot as he tried to flee from the church, where he had gone for powder - a strange place of storage. A Woburn man, captured by the British on their march, was shot as he tried to escape.
The Lexington victims of this killing lie buried at a spot marked by the blunt obelisk near the corner of the green opposite the present church.
If the visitor, turning to the right at the statue, follows Hancock Street, he soon comes to the Han- cock-Clarke house, originally on the left of the road, now on the right. Here John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sleeping when roused by Paul Revere. The house is now the property of the Lexington His- torical Society, and contains a fine collection of relics and antiques, the most notable being Pitcairn's pis- tols, captured with his horse during the fighting of the afternoon, when the British had been driven from Concord.
Returning, the visitor can go to Concord by bus. If motoring, he takes Harrington Road, on which stands the house of Jonathan Harrington, shot in the fight, who died at its doorstep. (The house is not open to the public.) Harrington Road joins Massachusetts Avenue (keep right), which leads to Route 2A and to Concord. About a mile beyond Lexington one passes on the left, at a turn of the road at the bottom of a hill, the house where James Hayward of Acton, pur- suing the retreating British, met a regular at the well.
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Historic Concord
Each killed the other. The modern road to Concord by-passes two old pieces of road which the British followed. The second, turning right at the foot of a hill, leads past the old Hartwell farmhouse, now for some years a popular tavern.
The Reuben Brown House in 1915
CONCORD
OF ALL that had happened Concord knew nothing. Young Dr. Prescott had arrived long before dawn, with Revere's tidings. Longfellow was wrong when he wrote in his poem that Revere 'came to the bridge in Concord town.' Only Prescott's warning came to the town; and so the men in authority, wishing like those in Lexington to learn whether anything was really to happen, while they still kept on with the hid- ing of stores, sent a man to Lexington to bring back news.
This was Reuben Brown, harness maker, whose house still stands on Lexington Road. Mounted, he rode to Lexington to find what might be happening. And he arrived at the green just when the rattle of the British guns rang out, and when smoke enveloped the scene. Bullets whistled; perhaps one came near Brown; and he might have seen the head of the col- umn of grenadiers, advancing on the Boston road. Brown thought he had seen enough, and turned and galloped back.
But Major Buttrick was not satisfied. He asked if the British had fired with ball. Brown's answer is quaintly delicious. 'I do not know, but think it probable.' Buttrick doubtless drew his conclusions; yet action in Concord proceeded on the assumption that the militia must not fire first.
As time passed and still the British did not appear, the minute-man companies were sent down Lexington Road to reconnoiter. They had reached the end of the ridge, at Meriam's Corner, when across the level ground they saw the British column descending the opposite slope. The regulars were so superior in force that the minute-men marched back and reported to the field officers, waiting with the militia on the ridge
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opposite the meetinghouse. It was wise to depart and wait for reinforcements. The little force, consisting of the Concord and Lincoln companies, marched to an- other height overlooking the road to the North Bridge; here Joseph Hosmer was appointed adjutant and the whole put in order. The minister, William Emerson, urged that the place be held. 'Let us stand our ground; if we die, let us die here.' But wiser counsels pre- vailed: the provincials were too few. As the British were seen again, marching toward the bridge, the Americans once more retreated before them.
Two men quitted their posts in the line, leaving the ranks as they passed their own houses, to stay with their families and defend them. One was Elisha Jones: his house is now known as the House with the Bullet Hole. The other man was the minister himself, going to the Manse, where were not only his family, but also the wives and children of some of his parish- ioners. Jones kept himself out of sight. His house contained a number of barrels of beef, with salt fish and other stores, but it was not entered. Neither were the Manse grounds, where the minister, ignoring his wife's entreaties to come indoors, remained outside with his people, watching what happened at the bridge and on the roads.
On their arrival the British had taken possession of the center of the town. Smith and Pitcairn made their headquarters at the Wright Tavern, and they sent out parties to search for munitions. Two large brass cannon, twenty-four pounders, were discovered at the Jones Tavern. The exulting British spiked them and knocked off their trunnions. With the same feeling, the troops cut down the Liberty pole, which was on the ridge. Bullets were found and thrown into the millpond, and barrels of flour were also rolled into
n
The Wright Tavern
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Historic Concord
the water. But later the Americans dragged out both bullets and barrels, when it was found that the barrels had swelled, and only the outer part of the flour had been damaged. No powder was found, nor many of the important stores, for the Yankees turned aside the search of the British by one pretense or another.
Thus in Timothy Wheeler's barn were stored many barrels of flour belonging to the province, together with others of his own. He readily admitted the Brit- ish searching party and showed the barrels. 'This,' he said, pointing to his own property, 'is my own. I am a miller, sir. Yonder stands my mill. This is my wheat; this is my rye; this is mine.'
'Well,' said the officer, 'we do not injure private property.' And he withdrew with his men.
The officers, therefore, were humane, and their men under control. Some of the soldiers, trying to get information from old Deacon Thomas Barrett, threatened him with death as a rebel. He remon- strated mildly: they might save themselves the trou- ble, for he would soon die of himself. 'Well, old daddy,' they replied, 'you may go in peace,' and they released him.
Yet there was plenty of excitement in the town. One woman, as if to receive company, put on one fresh apron after another until she was wearing seven. Her neighbor, wiser, rescued from the church the communion silver and put it in the soft-soap barrel in the Wright Tavern. When taken out next day, it was pot-black.
The excitement grew when cannon carriages which had been found were burned near the Townhouse. Martha Moulton, 'widow-woman,' went to the tavern and begged Pitcairn to extinguish the fire. The officers said good-naturedly, 'O, mother, we
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won't do you any harm. Don't be concerned, mother.' But she persisted, and they sent and extinguished the fire which threatened the building.
It is the more difficult, therefore, to ascribe to Pit- cairn ('a good man in a bad cause,' wrote the patriot Ezra Stiles) the story that at the tavern he stirred his toddy with his finger, and boasted that thus he would stir the Yankee blood that day. Smith, well known as the opposite kind of man, was dull enough not to see the situation that he had put himself in. More than to anyone else, the story belongs to him.
In spite of all care, a fire was started in Reuben Brown's harness shop. It was soon put out. More deliberate was the burning in the Square. The smoke of these fires was seen by the militia beyond the town, and led to action, as we shall see.
Some detachments of the regulars were sent farther away. One company was sent to the South Bridge, and, preventing passage there, searched houses in the neighborhood. A second detachment was sent to the North Bridge. The British knew that some two miles beyond the bridge was the home of Colonel Barrett, where many supplies had been stored. Six companies of light infantry, under Captain Parsons, were there- fore sent on a search. Leaving half of them at the bridge to secure his retreat, Parsons went on with the rest. He did not particularly notice that, as he ap- proached, a man was seen plowing in a field - the only man seen peacefully occupied that day. Nor did any of the British guess that cannon were lying in a furrow, and the man was plowing earth over them.
At the house the search produced no great results. Much had been carried away or concealed. Open barrels in the attic, topped with feathers, hid bullets, flints, and even cartridges; but the soldiers did not
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suspect. More cannon wheels were found, however. When it was proposed to burn them on the spot, and Mrs. Barrett remonstrated for the sake of the barn, they were burned in the road. She refused to take money for food, saying, 'We are commanded to feed our enemies.' When officers threw the money in her unwilling lap she said, 'This is the price of blood.' And when she refused liquor to the men the officers sustained her, saying that they had killed men at Lexington, and more bloody work was sure to follow.
Meanwhile Captain Laurie, in command of the companies at the bridge, posted them across it, one at the bridgehead and two on the hillsides beyond, to watch and prevent any movement by the Americans. These had retreated to Punkatasset Hill, a mile farther away, where slowly reinforcements came in - the Bedford and Acton companies, the smaller one from little Carlisle, near by, and men singly or in groups from Chelmsford, Westford, and Littleton. Concord men returning from hiding the supplies joined their companies. And as the force grew in num- bers, and anxiety for the town increased, they marched down again to a spot overlooking the bridge, where for a time the British below watched them with interest and suspicion.
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