USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Old landmarks and historic fields of Middlesex > Part 33
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HISTORIC FIELDS AND MANSIONS OF MIDDLESEX.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD.
" That same man that runnith awaie, Maie again fight an other daie." ERASMUS.
THE area which we have been thus circumstantial in de- scribing was, on the morning of the battle, a scene of mingled activity, disorder, and consternation.' The troops were occupied in searching the houses of the suspected, and in de- stroying or damaging such stores as they could find. Reserve companies stood in the principal avenue ready to move on any point, for Smith was too good a soldier to disperse his whole command. The court-house was set on fire by the soldiers, but they extinguished the flames at the intercession of Mrs. Moul- ton, an aged woman of over eighty. The garret contained a quantity of powder, which would, in exploding, have destroyed the houses in the vicinity. Colonel Shattuck's was also a hiding-place for public property. The inhabitants, though " sulky," certainly behaved with address and self-possession in the emergency in which they found themselves.
All this time the storm without was gathering head. The troops had entered the town at seven. It was now nearly ten o'clock. So far the British had little reason to complain of their success, but in reality the provincial magazines had met with trifling injury.
A magnetism easily accounted for conducted our footsteps along the half-mile of well-beaten road that leads to the site of the battle-ground, as it is called. A shady avenue, bordered with odoriferous pines and firs, parts from the road at the westward side and leads you in a few rods to the spot. Briefly, this was the old road to Carlisle, which here spanned the river
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THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD.
by a simple wooden bridge resting upon piles. The passage of the bridge was secured by Smith's orders, who did not omit to possess himself of all the avenues leading into the town. A detachment under Captain Parsons, of the 10th, crossed the bridge and proceeded to the house of Colonel Barrett, a leader among the patriots, and custodian of the Colony stores. Cap- tain Laurie of the 43d had the honor to command the troops left to protect the bridge.
The monument is built of Carlisle granite, the corner-stone having been laid in 1825 in the presence of sixty survivors of the battle, who listened to an eloquent word-painting of their deeds from the lips of Everett. The Bunker Hill Monument Association aided greatly in advancing its erection. The pil- grim, as in duty bound, reads the inscription on the marble tab- let of the eastern face : -
Here On the 19th of April, 1775, was made the first forcible resistance to British Aggression. On the opposite bank stood the American militia, and on this spot the first of the enemy fell in the War of the Revolution, which gave Independence to these United States. In gratitude to God, and in the love of Freedom, This monument was erected, A. D. 1836.
What need to amplify the history after this simple conden- sation ! We seated ourselves on a boulder invitingly placed at the root of an elm that droops gracefully over the placid stream, and which stands close to the old roadway. Beyond, where you might easily toss a pebble, were the remains of the farther abutment of the old bridge, for the mastery of which deadly strife took place between the yeomen of Middlesex and the trained soldiers from the isles. For our own part we have never fallen upon so delightful a nook for scholar's revery or lovers' tryst. The beauty, harmony, and peacefulness of the landscape drove the pictures of war, which we came to retouch, clean away from our mental vision. Not a leaf trembled. The
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river in its almost imperceptible flow glided on without ripple or eddy. The trees, which had become embedded in the mould accumulated above the farther embankment, cast their black shadows across its quiet surface. A vagrant cow grazed quietly at the base of the monument, where the tablet tells us the newly springing sod was fertilized by the life-blood of the first slain foeman.
" By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, IIere once the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard round the world."
The ground upon which the monument stands was given to the town by Dr. Ripley in 1834, for the purpose, and formed originally a part of the parsonage demesne. We cannot choose but challenge the anachronism of the inscription as well as the fitness of the site. The first declares that " here was made the first forcible resistance to British aggression." By substituting the word " American " for " British " we should adhere to his- toric truth ; for, to the eternal honor of those Middlesex farmers, they were the aggressors, while "here " stood the enemy. The British fired the first volley, but the Americans were moving upon them with arms in their hands.
When Thomas Hughes, Esq., better known as "Tom Brown," was here, he is said to have exclaimed, " British aggression ! I thought America was a colony of Great Britain, and that her soldiers had a right to march where they pleased !"
This monument, therefore, marks the spot where the British soldiers fought and fell, while the place where the gallant yeo- men gave up their lives is commemorated by a statue. A wealthy citizen of Concord bequeathed by his will a sum to be applied to the restoration of the old bridge, taken down in 1793, and for the erection of a monument on the farther shore. A committee of intelligent and patriotic gentlemen have ful- filled the conditions of Mr. Hubbard's legacy, thus permanently fixing the positions of the combatants when the collision took place. A spirited figure in bronze, by French, presents to us the minute-man of 1775 hastening to the conflict. The
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THE RETREAT FROM CONCORD.
artist has succeeded in investing his subject with a good deal of martial fire. Eagerness and determination are well expressed in the attitude of the youthful soldier. The rebuilding of the bridge brings the warlike scene vividly before us.
A few paces from the monument, beside a stone-wall, are the graves of the two British soldiers who were killed here, their place of sepulture marked by two rough stones. One of these has so nearly disappeared by acts of vandalism as to be scarcely visible above the sod. A large fragment of another was placed under the corner of the soldiers' monument in the public square, with what object we are unable to conjecture.
At this place the river, which before flowed easterly, bends a little to the north. The old road, after passing the stream, ran parallel with it along the wet ground for some distance be- fore ascending the heights beyond. The muster-field of the provincials is now owned by Mr. George Keyes, who has found flints such as were then used where the Americans stood in battle-array. Were they dropped there by some wavering spirit who feared to stain his soul with bloodshed, or were they dis- carded by some of sterner cast ?- a Hayward, perhaps, who drew up his gun at the same moment the Briton levelled his own, and gave and received the death-shot.
Mr. Keyes has also ploughed up a number of arrow-heads, axes, pestles, and other of the rude stone implements of the original owners of the soil, who kept faith with the white man as he had kept faith with them. Hardships fell to the settlers' lot, but peace and concord endured, in token of the name which Peter Bulkley, their first minister, gave the plantation.
The Old Manse has received immortality through the genius of Hawthorne. It was built in 1765, the year of the Stamp Act, for Rev. William Emerson, the fighting parson, the same who vehemently opposed retreating from before the British in the morning at Concord ; the same who died a chaplain in the army. The same reverend gentleman likewise officiated as chaplain to the Provincial Congress when it sat in Concord.
Standing back from the road, a walk bordered by black ash-
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trees, now somewhat in the decline of life, leads to the front door. The house looks as if it had never received the coat of paint, the prospect of which so alarmed Hawthorne's sensibili- ties. It is of two stories with gambrel roof and a chimney peeping above at either end. The front faces the road, the back is towards the river ; one end looks up the street by which you have come from the town, while the other com- mands a view of the old abandoned road to the bridge, - the boundary of the demesne in that direction. A considerable tract of open land extends upon all sides.
The Manse is among modern structures what a Gray Friar in cowl and cassock might be in an assemblage of fashionably dressed individuals. The single dormer window in the garret looks as if it might have made a quaint setting for the head of the old clergyman, with his silver hairs escaping from beneath his nightcap. If he looked forth of a summer's twilight to scan the heavens, fireflies flitted sparkling across the fields, as if some invisible hand had traced an evanescent flash in the air. Behind the house, among the rushes of the river meadows, the frogs sang jubilee in every key from the deep diapason of the patriarchal croaker to the shrill piping of juvenile amphibian. Discord unspeakable followed the shores of the Concord along its windings even to its confluence with the Assabeth. The din of these night-disturbers seemed to us, as we stood on the riv- er's bank, like the gibings of many demons let loose to murder sleep. And one fellow - doubt it if you will, reader - actu- ally brayed with the lungs of a donkey.
" As the worn war-horse, at the trumpet's sound, Erects his mane and neighs and paws the ground."
Walking around to the rear of the Manse, we see a section of the roof continued down into a leanto, - a thing so unusual that we make a note thereon, the gambrel being the successor of the leanto in our architecture. The back entrance is completely embowered in syringas, whose beautiful waxen flowers form a striking contrast with the gray walls. Vines climb and cling to the house as if ineffectually seeking an entrance, imparting
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to it a picturesqueness answerable to and harmonizing with the general effect of the mansion. We give a glance at the garden where Hawthorne grew his summer squashes, of which he talks so poetically. What, Hawthorne delving among pota- toes, cabbages, and squashes ! We can scarce bend our imagina- tion to meet such an exigency. It is only a little way down to the river where he moored his boat, in which he floated and . dreamed with Ellery Channing.
We enter the house. A hall divides it in the middle, giving comfortable apartments at either hand. Some mementos of the old residents serve to carry us back to their day and gener- ation. A portrait of the Rev. Dr. Ripley, the successor of Mr. Emerson, and inhabitant of the house many years, hangs upon the wall. His descendants still possess the Manse. On the mantel is framed an invitation to General Washington's table, addressed, perhaps, to Dr. Emerson. The ink is faded and the grammar might be improved ; but the dinner, we doubt not, was none the less unexceptionable.
Hawthorne's study was in an upper room, but let none but himself describe it.
" There was in the rear of the house the most delightful little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to the scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote 'Nature'; for he was then an in- habitant of the Manse.
" There was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael's Madon- nas and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The only other decorations were a vase of flowers, always fresh, and a bronze one containing ferns. My books (few, and by no means choice ; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed.
"The study had three windows, set with little old-fashioned panes of glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the westeru side looked, or rather peeped, between the willow branches down into the orchard, with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, facing northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of his- tory. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle
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between two nations : he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side of the river and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank. He awaited in an agony of suspense the rattle of the musketry. It came ; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle smoke around this quiet house."
In 1843 Hawthorne - whom many here name Haw-thorne as they would say " Haw-buck " to their oxen - came to dwell at the Manse. The place would not have suited him now. The railway coming from Lexington passes at no great distance, and the scream of the steam-whistle would have rudely interrupted his meditative fancies. He lived here the life of a recluse, re- ceiving the visits of only a few chosen friends, such as Whit- tier, Lowell, Emerson, Channing, Thoreau, and perhaps a few others. Here he passed the first years of his married life, and here his first child was born. The townspeople knew him only by sight as a reserved, absorbed, and thoughtful man.
The house opposite the Manse, now the residence of Mr. J. S. Keyes, is another witness of the events of that April day. The then resident was named Jones, who, from being a spee- tator of the scenes at the bridge, maddened at the sight, wished to fire upon the redcoats. It is said that he levelled his gun from the window, but his wife, more prudent, prevented him from pulling the trigger. He at last stationed himself at the open door of the shed as the regulars passed by, when he was fired at, and with evil intent, as you may see by the bullet- hole near the door. Farther our informant did not proceed ; but in the angry swarm that clung to and stung the Britons' column all that day, we doubt not Jones at last emptied the contents of his musket.
In Mr. Keyes's house we saw a marble mantel beautifully sculptured in relief. It is a relic from the old Chamber of Representatives at Washington. On the fender the feet of Adams, Clay, Webster, Calhoun, and the master spirits of that old hall have often rested. Before the emblematic fasces the great Carolinian brooded how to loose the bands. The cau- cuses, bickerings, and party tacties that fireplace could tell of would make a curious volume. Ascending the hill behind the
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house you have a ravishing landscape, with blue Wachusett looming in the distance.
The Concord deserves to be known in all time as the Rubicon of our history. The affair at Lexington was but a butchery : here the Americans gave shot for shot and life for life. Their blood on fire with the rage of battle and the fall of their friends, it is most unaccountable that the patriots allowed Par- sons and his command to repass the bridge unmolested. These last must have stepped over the dead bodies of their con- rades stretched in their path, gathering evil augury from the sight.
This ended the advance, and here begins the retreat, which we should say is one of the most extraordinary in the annals of war, for the pertinacity of the pursuit by an armed rabble and for the complete demoralization of eight hundred disci- plined soldiers, led by officers of experience. The old song makes the British grenadier recite in drawling recitative :-
" For fifteen miles they followed and pelted us, we scarce had time to draw a trigger ;
But did you ever know a retreat conducted with more vigour ?
For we did it in two hours, which saved us from perdition ;
"T was not in going out but in returning, consisted our expedition."
The British detachment from the North Bridge buried one of their slain at the point of the hill as they turned into the square, where the house of Mr. Keyes formerly stood. The wounded were carried into Dr. Minott's. All being at length collected, the troops begin their march, - the main body by the road, a strong flanking column by the burying-ground hill. This hill terminates at the distance of a mile from the centre of the town at Meriam's Corner. The flanking column had to descend the hill at this point, where the road passes the low meadow by a causeway until it reaches the hill beyond. Near the corner was a little bridge thrown over a brook, which the road crossed.
Meriam's house and barn are still seen in the angle where the Bedford road unites with that coming from Lexington. From behind these buildings gallant John Brooks with his 17*
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HISTORIC FIELDS AND MANSIONS OF MIDDLESEX.
Reading company arrived in time to pour a volley among the enemy as they were passing the bridge. Brooks, a captain in Bridge's regiment, had received his colonel's permission to push on while the regiment halted for refreshment. Loamni Bald- win came up with the Woburn men, who drifted in a cloud along the British flank. The men of Sudbury, of Lincoln, and even Parkers's from Lexington, joined in the race, for race it was beginning to be. The fields grew armed men, and the highway was fringed with fire-arms.
The six miles from Concord back to Lexington were per- fectly adapted to the guerilla-fighting of the Americans. They abounded in defiles and places for ambush. On the other hand, the retreating enemy was somewhat covered by the stone-walls as long as the flank guards could keep them clear of foemen ; but the column was fired at in front, in rear, and on all sides at once. Ranks, platoons, and the semblance of military order were soon lost. We need no ghost to tell us what such a retreat must have been. The dust trampled into stifling clouds, and en- veloping everything ; the burning thirst which men brave death to assuage ; no time to halt ; tongues parched and cleaving to the roof of the mouth ; haggard faces, and red, bloodshot eyes ; the proud array and martial bearing all gone ; burnished arms and uniforms stained with powder and dirt ; one by one a comrade dropping with a bullet in his heart, or another falling out, ex- hausted, to await his fate in dogged despair, -this is what it meant to retreat fighting from Concord to Lexington. The col- umn, like some bleeding reptile, scotched but not killed, dragged its weary length along. Stedman, the British historian, says the regulars were driven like sheep. Harassed, humiliated, and despairing, the men became fiends, divested of every semblance of humanity. Every shot that whistled through the broken battalion proclaimed aloud, "The Province is dead ! Long live the Republic !"
That same prowling ensign, Bernicre, tells his own tale : -
" At last, after we got through Lexington, the officers got to the front and presented their bayonets and told the men if they advanced they should die. Upon this they began to form under a very heavy
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fire ; but at this instant the first brigade joined us, consisting of the 4th, 23d, and 47th regiments, and two divisions of marines, under the command of Brigadier-General Lord Percy ; he brought two field-pieces with him, which were immediately brought to bear upon the rebels, and soon silenced their fire. After a little firing the whole halted for about half an hour to rest."
Percy opened his ranks and received the fugitives within his squares. His cannon, a new element for the militia to deal with, were unlimbered and began to play on the hunt- ers. Smith's men threw themselves upon the ground, "with their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like those of dogs after a chase." Certainly, my lord was near being too late.
This was the first appearance of the Royal Artillery in the war. The 4th battalion was in Boston under command of Colonel Cleaveland, who also served on the staff of the army as brigadier, as did most of the colonels of the line regiments. In relation to the report sent to England that the pieces were not well provided with ammunition, Colonel Cleaveland stated that Lord Percy refused to take an ammunition-wagon, which was on the parade, fearing it might retard the march, and did not imagine there could be occasion for more than was in the side boxes. A more serious complaint was preferred against Cleave- land at Bunker Hill, where, according to Stedman, he sent balls too large for the guns, which rendered the artillery use- less until the error could be rectified. Allusion is also made to this occurrence in a letter in the British Detail and Conduct of the War, in which it is said, " The wretched blunder of the over-sized balls sprung from the dotage of an officer of rank in that corps, who spends his whole time in dallying with the schoolmaster's daughters." This language is attributed to Sir William Howe, and the Misses Lovell are referred to. Colonel Cleaveland, however, says he sent sixty rounds with each of the twelve guns that accompanied the troops, but that not more than half were fired. The name of a brother of the " school- master's daughters " has been mixed up with this accident, which is also referred to in the song :-
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" Our conductor he got broke For his misconduct, sure, sir ; The shot he sent for twelve-pound guns Were made for twenty-four, sir."
The companies of the Royal Artillery were numbered, and wore in full dress a laced hat with black feather, hair clubbed and powdered, white stock, white breeches and stockings. They were armed with a carbine and bayonet. The Conti- mental artillery were formed upon the same model.
The place where Percy met the fugitives is about half a mile below Lexington Common. One of his cannon was placed upon a little eminence near the present site of the Town Hall. This elevation has since been levelled. The other gun was posted on the hill above the old Munroe Tavern, and back of the residence of the late Deacon Mulliken. These pieces com- manded the road for a considerable distance in front, and one of them sent a shot through the old meeting-house.
The old inn of William Munroe, which was used as a hos- pital for the British wounded during their halt in its vicinity, yet stands, somewhat altered in appearance, but still the same building as in 1775. It presents its end to the high-road, and faces you as you pass up towards Lexington Common. The place is still owned by the Munroe family, the house being at present occupied by Everett E. Smith. A short distance be- yond, the road from Woburn unites with that in which we are journeying, which was the old post-road to No. Four, Crown Point, and the New Hampshire Grants.
Gage had received the express, and at nine o'clock despatched the Earl with something less than a thousand men and two field-pieces. The noble Northumbrian marched out over Boston Neck with the Royal Welsh, King's Own, 47th, and his cannon at his heels, to the tune of Yankee Doodle. We feel that al- lowance must be made for Gordon's statement that a smart boy attracted his Lordship's attention by recalling Chevy Chase to him, - a circumstance at which his Lordship seemed much affected ; but as we now know no other means of ascertaining the truth than by a resort to supernatural agencies, - to which,
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however, it is possible the noble Earl's ethereal part might fail to respond, - we willingly refer the subject to the reader as a tough historical morsel.
Yankee Doodle, from whatever cause, ceased to be popular with the English after this day. On the return from Lexing- ton one Briton asked a brother officer " how he liked the tune now." " Damn them !" was the reply, "they made us dance it till we were tired." Yankee Doodle was beat along the American line at the surrender of Burgoyne.
At eight o'clock on the morning of the 19th the people of Boston first knew that a collision between the troops and people had occurred, though an express had arrived at the Gen- eral's quarters at an earlier hour. The anxiety to know the circumstances was extreme, especially when Percy's brigade was seen under arms. Word was immediately sent to Watertown by a sure hand, and at ten o'clock Trial Bissell mounted his horse, carrying the first intelligence of the events thus far, - namely, the slaughter at Lexington and the momentarily ex- pected arrival of the first brigade. He took the great southern highway. The town committees on the route made copies of his despatch and gave him fresh horses. Worcester, Hartford, New Haven, were in turn reached and electrified. At the time the express rider left Watertown the idea of preventing the junction of Smith with Percy was circulating, but no combina- tion to that end could be effected.
At noon Gage gave out to the inhabitants of Boston, by his aide-de-camp, that no one had been killed. He had not, it is said, been informed of the massacre on Lexington Com- mon until late in the afternoon. Rumors then flew thickly, raising the excitement within the town to the highest pitch. Percy and Haldimand were both reported killed. But the reader knows by what exaggerated accounts the news of battle is usually heralded.
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