USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Acton > History of the town of Acton > Part 10
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1 See Coburn, page 80, note 1.
2 See depositions of Capt. Barrett and fifteen others in Journals of each Provincial Congress in Mass., p. 672.
a Statement of Aaron Jones, a member of the company, in Adam's speech, page 21.
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there arose the smoke of fires newly kindled; also across the river stood Lexington, at that moment mourning over the corpses slain on its common. The only possible decision to which the council could arrive was, "To march into the middle of the town for its defence, or die in the attempt".1
Forthwith Colonel Barrett gave the order to Major John Buttrick to lead an advance over the bridge and into the village, instructing him as had Capt. Parker a few hours before, - not to fire unless fired upon.
It was then between nine and ten o'clock.2 Colonel Barrett re- tired to the rear on higher ground,3 and Major Buttrick hastened to execute the order. His choice for a company to lead was naturally one from Concord but the captain of the one designated replied that he would rather not. In any event it is now a matter of inescapeable record that Buttrick turned to Davis and asked him if he was afraid to go, to which he responded promptly, "No, I am not; and I haven't a man that is".4
He immediately gave the command to march, and the men of Acton wheeled from the left of the line to the right, and with Barker and Blanchard once more playing his favorite tune, he led his com- pany down the hillside and along the causeway to the bridge.
Apropos of this act no paragraph can be more potent than that in the impassioned speech of Rev. Woodbury in his appeal before the Massachusetts legislature, without which the imposing monument on Acton Common would not exist. In that address he said,5
Davis' case is without parallel and was considered by the Legislature and Congress when they granted aid to his widow. There never can be another. There can be but one man who headed the first column of attack on the King's troops in the Revolutionary war, and Isaac Davis was that man. Others fell, but not exactly as he fell. Give them the marble. Vote them the monument, one that shall speak to all future generations and speak to the terror of kings and to the encouragement of all who will be free and who, when the bloody crisis comes to strike for it, "are not afraid to go."
Major John Buttrick of Concord led in person this little army down the slope toward the river but not until he had offered the com- mand to a superior officer who happened to be present, namely Lt. Col. John Robinson of Westford. Robinson lived in Westford and
1 Survivors testified that both Buttrick and Davis used the same words. See Ripley's History of Concord Fight.
2 Journal of Capt. David Brown of Concord.
3 Ripley.
4 Depositions of Bradley Stone and Solomon Smith. Appendix XII.
5 Fletcher, page 261, col. 1.
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had responded to the alarm. This honor he did not accept but he did ask that he might march by Buttrick's side, which request was graciously granted.
Then in column by twos came Davis and his company, followed by the Concord company under Capt. Charles Miles; then two more Concord companies under Capt. David Brown and Capt. Nathan Barrett. The Acton company commanded by Simon Hunt then fell in, followed by the companies from Bedford and Lincoln and the remaining company from Acton.1
The causeway, which was low and always submerged at moderate flood waters, was wet in places. It formed an angle, the first side leading toward the south, the second turning eastward toward the bridge. Just as the head of the column rounded the vertex of the angle the British began to tear up the planking according to Capt. Lawrie's previous design. Major Buttrick shouted to them to desist, whereupon they left the bridge and hastily formed for action at the easterly approach. The American advance continued with de- liberation and when they were about ten rods from the west end of the bridge the first sound of a gun in the Battle of Concord was heard. A few desultory shots followed by a volley came from the British and Solomon Smith, a member of Davis' company saw where a ball struck the river on his right.2
Without sign of a pause the march continued. At this stage of events Davis inquired as to whether the grenadiers were using am- munition. In reply Blanchard indicated that he had been hit and remarked3 "If it had gone an inch further one way it would have killed me, and if an inch in the opposite direction it would not have hit me at all." Realizing that first blood had been drawn and that no longer was a peaceful entry into the town possible Major Buttrick shouted, "Fire, For God's sake fire!"
1A letter written by Amasa Piper, now in the possession of Mrs. Stuart Allen, when he was sixty seven, tells how thrilled he was as a teen aged boy to witness the events at Concord Bridge.
2 First deposition of Solomon Smith, Appendix XII.
3 Fletcher is in error when he leaves the impression on page 256 that Blanchard died that night in a hospital in Cambridge. On April 24th twenty three men from Acton enlisted for the siege of Boston and were placed with Lincoln soldiers in a company commanded by Capt. William Smith of Lincoln and assigned to the regiment of Col. John Nixon. Blanchard's name appears among the men in that company accredited to Acton. Furthermore his name appears on the roll of Smith's company of Nixon's regiment as of August 1, 1775. In addition, in a notation dated Sept. 30, 1775, Luther Blanchard, Corporal, of Smith's company of Nixon's regiment, belonging to Acton, is reported as deceased. (See State Archives, vol. 56, page 28.)
The final paragraph of Hudson's Memorial to Luther Blanchard makes it amply clear that he died in Cambridge in the early autumn of 1775 as a result of the wound received at Concord Bridge, even though it at first appeared inconsequential and despite the fact that for several weeks he performed fully his duties as a soldier.
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CONANT HOUSE
ROBBINS HOUSE
Unita
CHAS. TUTTLE HOUSE
HOSMER HOUSE
LOTTERY HOUSES
..
I
1
SECOND MEETING HOUSE, 1807 From pencil sketch by A. F. Davis
The order was promptly obeyed. The British responded, killing Capt. Davis by a shot through the heart just as he was taking aim. Abner Hosmer fell simultaneously with a bullet through the head.1 Ezekiel Davis, brother of Isaac was wounded as was also Joshua Brooks of Lincoln.2 The first American volley had killed one British private and wounded several others, including lieutenants Hull, Gould, Kelley, and Sutherland.
The Americans continued across the bridge and the British gave way and retreated toward the center of Concord. When they were almost there they were met by reinforcements consisting of two or three companies under Col. Smith himself, who had come in response to a request for immediate assistance sent by Capt. Lawrie before a shot was fired at the bridge. Mr. Emerson in his account tells of the "great fickleness and inconstancy of mind" of the British at this stage of events, and relates how they marched and countermarched for half an hour. One can hardly blame them for nervousness since part of their force was still at the south bridge and at least five hundred angry and aroused provincials now lay between them and the rest of their force still out at Col. Barrett's.
With the death of Davis and the crossing of the bridge all sem- blance of military discipline likewise ceased among the Americans. Thomas Thorp of Davis' company stated in a subsequent deposition3 that, "Our company and most of the others pursued but in great dis- order" and Solomon Smith asserted that, "The loss of our captain was the cause of much confusion that followed."4 At this specific time the pursuit of the British continued only for a furlong or so. Due to military inexperience the Americans halted on the east side of the road to the rear of the Elisha Jones house (still standing). Further- more they paid no attention to the contingent in their rear. Presum- ably it was the idea that when the British were reinforced they would return to the attack and that the position behind the Jones house, with a good stone wall as a breastworks, was a decided advantage in such
1 A run-of-the-mine historical novel entitled "Concord Bridge", a sort of apoligia for British general Gage, written by Mr. Howard Horne and pub- lished in 1952 by Bobbs-Merrill Co., gives some erroneous ideas of events at the bridge. The author sticks to the truth in stating that Davis led the attack upon the British and was first to be killed but departs radically when he confuses Abner Hosmer with Francis Barker and asserts that Acton's only other casualty was a fifteen year old drummer boy. The facts are that the Acton drummer, Francis Barker, had just turned nineteen and was entirely unscathed in the engagement and died in his fifties. Abner Hosmer would have been twenty the following August.
The extremes to which some writers can go is best illustrated by a magazine article published in August of 1953 which had the British entering Concord from Lexington via the North Bridge and also had Buttrick and Davis going about picking up the dead and wounded sometime after noon.
2 Ancestor of Rev. Frederick Brooks Noyes.
3 See first deposition of Thomas Thorp; Appendix XII.
See the first deposition of Solomon Smith; ibid.
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case. Col. Smith, however, likewise understood the situation and turned his troops back to the center of the village.
Thereupon several of the minute men repaired to the North Bridge and carried the bodies of Isaac Davis and Abner Hosmer lo the home of Major Buttrick.1 Later in the day they were conveyed to Acton. Blanchard in the meantime had had his wound dressed at the home of Humphrey Barrett and had returned to the pursuit of the British.
Shortly after ten o'clock Col. Smith had reassembled his entire command in Concord village. He was seventeen miles from Boston with a force of weary soldiers, most of whom had had no sleep the pre- vious night. They had been subjected to high mental tension, had seen their comrades wounded and killed, and must return under the attack of a constantly augmented and determined enemy.2
At approximately noon Col. Smith gave the order to begin the return to Charlestown. At first all went well. The march along the Lexington road for a mile or more to Merriam's Corner was unevent- ful, but at that point the struggle was renewed. The pursuers, who had been moving along parallel to the line of march but hidden from view by the long ridge to the north of the highway, came within easy musket range of the enemy. In addition some score or more of fresh American companies, too late for the engagements of the earlier part of the day but ready and willing to get into the fray at the first opportunity, came upon the scene at this point. These were the men from Billerica, Chelmsford, Framingham, Reading, Sudbury, Woburn, and Westford, eleven hundred and forty seven in all, who, had arrived as soon as humanly possible from their more remote locations.
Even before this serious addition to his misfortunes, Lt. Col. Smith had realized that his command was in for a grim retreat. In conse- quence he threw out strong flanking parties on either side of the line of march. It was due to this precaution, and the ignorance of the American soldiers, that most of the Provincial casualties of the day resulted. 'Time after time, as the yeomanry knelt behind ledges and walls, they were killed or wounded from the rear by these flankers, and because green troops were coming in by the score all along the line of march there were always those who had not been told of the
1 Second deposition of Solomon Smith; Appendix XII.
2 Among the papers of the Marquis of Rockingham recently opened to his- torians is a manuscript copy of a letter sent to England from Boston dated April 23, 1775. The signature has been purposely cancelled beyond recognition for reasons unknown. In the body of the letter appears the following signifi- cant sentence. "The Enthusiastic zeal with which those people behaved must convince every reasonable man what a difficult and unpleasant task General Gage has before him, even Weamin had firelocks, one was seen to fire a Blunder bus between her Father and Husband from their windows; there they three with an Infant Child soon suffered the fury of the day." William and Mary Quarterly, January 1953, page 106.
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dangerous technique of the enemy.
On the easterly slope of Fiske Hill, well inside the town line of Lexington, stood the farmhouse of Benjamin Fiske. As the British marched past the house they were exhausted and in ill humor. They had been severely mauled all the way up the long westerly approach to the summit and they could see gathering ahead of them the minute men of Lexington, grim from the events of the early morning, waiting on the equally long slope of Concord Hill. This they must climb in the dust and heat; and beyond lay Lexington village. The prospect was dismal and the men were desperate.
The stragglers from the British column had entered the Fiske House for pillage. The entire family had fled. James Hayward, even though exempt because of his dismembered foot, had followed thus far and had stepped into the yard to obtain a drink at the well. One Briton, who had lingered longer than the rest, emerged from the house and, perceiving Hayward to be an enemy, raised his gun and exclaimed, "You are a dead man!"
"And so are you", replied Hayward. Both men fired and both fell, the Britisher killed instantly and Hayward mortally wounded, the ball piercing his powder horn1 and carrying with it the splinters into his side. He lived eight hours and was conscious to the last. His father, Deacon Samuel Hayward, had time to reach Lexington and comfort him with conversation and prayer. He warned his son that he would doubtless be a corpse by the morrow and desired to know if he were sorry that he had marched forth with the minute men in the morning. The reply has been handed down to us through the generations and the words are those of a soldier and a Christian:2
"Father, hand me my powder horn and bullet pouch. I started with one pound of powder and forty balls, you see what is left, (he had used all but two or three,) you se what I have been about. I never did such a forenoon's work before. Tell mother not to mourn too much for me for I am not sorry I turned out. I die willingly for my country. She will now, I doubt not, by the help of God, be free. And tell whom I loved better than my mother, you know who I mean, that I am not sorry. I shall never see her again. May I meet her in heaven."
Thus died the Acton schoolmaster, the crippled hero of the first battle of the Revolution, who walked five miles in the glow of the morning to be at Concord Bridge, and almost six miles more to re- ceive his mortal wound in the heat of the afternoon.
" The powder horn with the hole in it now reposes among the relics in the Acton Library.
2 Fletcher, p. 257.
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This ends the commonly recorded history of the Acton men in the day's events. For the sake of completeness, however, it should be pointed out that the conflict was by no means over and most Acton men participated in it. This is certainly true of Blanchard and many others who went all the way to Cambridge.1
The British straggled into Lexington, a beaten and demoralized mass of sweating and parched humanity where they were met by reinforcements under Earl Percy.2 Legend has it that some of the men lay on their bellies in the road and drank from the puddles.3 Percy pillaged and burned the town to a considerable degree and his soldiers, who had not been under fire thus far, were guilty of several needless killings of non-combatants. Eventually the whole force set out for Boston convinced that the yokels had had enough, and were thoroughly cowed. They were shortly to discover, how- ever, that from the point of view of bloodletting the worst was yet to come. As they marched through Menotomy (now Arlington) they were set upon by some eighteen4 hundred fresh rebels at a place called "Foot-of-the Rocks" where they suffered the greatest casual- ties of the day.
At about five o'clock Percy marched out of Arlington and at sunset was dragging his chastened command forward at about the location of Union Square, Somerville. He describes the gunfire as inces- sant. As they toiled up Bunker Hill they could5 look back in the gathering dusk to the top of Winter Hill a mile away and witness three hundred more Americans just arriving from Salem under Col. Timothy Pickering. As the sun went down that April evening it was never to rise again on Middlesex County under kingly rule.6
Quite apart from the military debacle of the one day campaign of April 19th the primary objective, namely the destruction of stores of war, was successful to only a very limited degree. The cannon
1 First deposition of Thomas Thorp; Appendix XII.
2 Between two and three o'clock. Coburn p. 121.
3 Handed down in the Reed family as reported by Joseph Reed of Davis' company.
4 These were the men from Watertown, Medford, Malden, Roxbury, Dedham, Needham, Lynn, Menotomy, Charlestown and Newton. See Coburn, page 134, for details.
" The sun set at seven o'clock on April 19, 1775. See Low's Almanack, Boston, 1775.
6 British casualties for the day: 1 lieutenant killed; 2 Lt. Cols. wounded; 2 Captains wounded; 9 lieutenants wounded; 1 lieutenant missing; 2 ensigns wounded; 1 serganet killed, 7 wounded, 2 missing; 1 drummer killed, 1 wounded; 62 rank and file killed, 157 wounded, 24 missing.
American casualties: 49 killed, wounded 42; missing 5. Coburn, pages 157-58.
Note: A modern mystery story, Hardly a Man is now Alive, by Herbert Brean, William Morrow & Co., New York, 1950, largely about Concord Fight, contains a fictitious character named Joseph Wilder of Acton. No Wilders appear in the town records. The author may have had in the mind the Wilde family which had two representatives named Joseph but both were born after the Revolution.
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had been previously hidden in Stow and Groton and Acton and the diverse other supplies were distributed throughout these same and other neighboring towns to such an extent that the sum total found by the British was negligible. Moreover, of the portion they did not burn and tried to carry with them on the retreat, a considerable amount was abandoned during the latter part of the day as haste became paramount.
The several towns that had been unfortunate enough to lose sons in the engagement attended within the next few days the funerals of their beloved dead. On the faces of the mourners the lines of grim determination were wet with the tears of resentment. Among the solemn corteges wending their ways over the highways of the county was that in Acton enroute to the three open graves in the old burying ground where the bodies of Davis, Hayward and Hosmer were laid among the bones of their fathers there to remain for three quarters of a century until carried in honor to a more noble and befitting resting place under the great granite shaft on the town common.
Very naturally the news of the bloodshed of April 19th spread throughout the colonies like wildfire and the reaction of the populace was immediate. Broadsides such as the one shown herewith were struck off almost before the smoke had cleared away and were plastered on walls and buildings for unbelieveable distances. This particular broadside, which was written up in the Saturday Evening Post of June 15, 1929, was sixteen inches by twenty two inches. The forty black coffins that emblazoned the masthead were memorials to the dead and above each was printed the name of the one killed. Those dedicated to the men of Acton were the last three at the right end of the top row. In the haste to get out the broadside, however, the printers neglected to obtain the first name of Abner Hosmer and the name J. Howard appears in the place of James Hayward.
Broadsides were not, however, the full fruit of the British march to Concord. Scarcely were the burial obsequies concluded before enlistees appeared by the score for the defense of the Province. Of these twenty three were from Acton. They were mustered in on April 24th and allotted to Capt. William Smith's company of Col. John Nixon's regiment. They acquitted themselves well under very heavy fighting at Bunker Hill. The list of Acton men is given below;1
John Heald, Lieutenant, Luther Blanchard, Corporal,
Oliver Emerson, Sergeant,
Francis Barker. Drummer
Moses Woods, Sergeant,
Ephraim Billings, Private,
John Davis, Corporal,
Joseph Chaffin, Private,
Stephen Shepherd, Corporal,
David Davis, Private,
1 Mass. Archives, volume labelled eight months service, No. 39.
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James Fletcher, Private, Jonas Hunt, Private, Andrew Law, Private, John Oliver, Private, Joseph Reed, Private, Solomon Smith, Private, Jonathan Stratten, Private,
Thomas Thorp, Private, Samuel Temple, Private, William Thomas, Private, Abram Young, Private, John Barker, Private, James Law, Private,
In the meantime the civilian affairs of the town had to go on as usual insofar as was possible under the circumstances. On May 16th the question of maintaining a women's school was propounded but no action was taken. The meeting, did, however, elect Josiah Hayward to represent the town in the Provincial Congress.
On November 7, 1775 the town lost its first and most beloved pastor, Rev. John Swift, who had served long and well since 1738. In consequence of his demise a special town meeting was convened on December 11th and it was voted that Francis Faulkner, Dea. Joseph Brabrook, and Dea. Samuel Hayward be a committee to provide preaching and that in the meantime a Rev. Mr. Sprague supply the pulpit until the May meeting.
At the same meeting Lt. John Heald, Ephraim Hosmer, Capt. Simon Hunt, Dea. Joseph Brabrook and Capt. John Robbins were chosen as a committee of correspondence, inspection and safety. Il should be noted that two new functions had been added to the original duties of this group. Whereas at first such men were select- ed to keep the town in touch with the march of political events they were now expected to look to the safety of the community and to check on subversive moves from within.
On December 20th the Province began to plan seriously for a long campaign. Among other items we find Acton being required to provide one ton of English hay1 as part of a general assessment wherein Concord was to furnish five tons, Lincoln three tons and Littleton one ton, at a price of five pounds per ton. About two weeks later the quota for blankets was Littleton and Acton ten each,2 Con- cord twenty, Stow eleven, and Groton eighteen. In addition those who reenlisted were to receive a penny per mile to and from camp.3 Furthermore an act was passed to raise 4368 men to reinforce the Continental Army until the following April according to a plan which demanded thirteen from Acton, twenty four from Chelmsford, twenty three from Westford, fourteen from Littleton, and scventeen from Stow.4
1 Acts and Resolves of the Province of Mass., vol. XIX, p. 178
2 ibid. p. 197.
3 ibid. p. 205
* ibid. p. 219
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Through the winter of 1775-76 the Rev. Mr. Sprague preached according to the agreement made the previous autumn but at the annual meeting held on May 14, 1776 it was voted that the town should hear four candidates for the ministry and that each candidate should preach for four Sundays. As a committee to secure the candidates Dea. Samuel Hayward, Francis Faulkner, Nathaniel Edwards, and Lt. John Heald were selected. They were instructed, "to procure the said gentlemen and take advice of the president of the college and neighboring ministers as to who the candidates shall be".
At the same meeting it was voted to raise thirty two pounds for a reading and writing school but in addition it was permitted that each district or society might spend up to thirty shillings for a "woamans' " school should it desire to do so.
During these months the subject of complete independence had raised its head among the Boston group led by Samuel Adams and once raised it was not allowed to languish for lack of support from men of his turn of mind. However little this objective had been envisioned at the beginning of strained relations with the mother country it was certainly out in the open by the spring of 1776. Acton was immediately agreeable to the idea. At a special town meeting held on June 14th, 1776 it was propounded whether the town would instruct its representative to give consent in the name of his con- stituents that the colonies be made independent of Great Britain whenever the Continental Congress should think proper to declare the same. The vote was heavily in the affirmative and the following is a copy of the record:
"It was propounded whether the Town will give Instruc- tions to the Representative voted in the affirmative and the following Instructions were given to Mr. Mark White, Sr. our not Being favored with the Resolution of the Hon. House of Representatives Calling upon the Several Towns in this Colony to Express their minds with Respect to the Important Question of American Independence is the Ocation of our not Expressing our minds Sooner but we now Chearfully Imbrace this Oppertunity to Instruct you on that Important Question the Subverting our Constitu- tion the many Injuries and Unheard of Barbarities which these Colonies have Received from Grate Bretain Confirms us in the Opinion that the Present age will be Defitiant in their Duty to God their Posterity and themselves if they Do not Establish an American Republic, this is the only form of Government we wish to Se Established but we mean not to Dictate we freely Submit this Interesting affair to the Wisdom of the Hon. Continantle Congress whom we
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