USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Proceedings of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, for the year 1881-1882 > Part 3
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to pieces about his ears. The frigate Rose, lying in the harbor, made ready for a fight ; her commander declaring he would die before he would surrender ; but his boat sent to the shore to bring off Andros and his attendants was seized and its crew disarmed. Speedy work was now done. Mr. Nelson arran- ged his men on two sides of the fort and pointed his can- non at the same. The Governor was convinced that discretion was the better part of valor and so unconditionally surrendered ; his attendants, most of them going to gaol and he, under a strong guard to the house of Usher. So ends the 18th of April. A grand day's work. The frigate as good as surrendered. The castle was given up, and on the 19th of April, 1689, the willing tool of England's last Stuart king was immured in the fort. It is not unworthy of record that, like a famous man of later times, he tried to make his escape in female apparel ; but was discovered as in the more modern instance by his feet. It is a difficult thing for the Devil and his devotees to hide their hoofs. The first period of Massachusetts history was ended. She was again a ruler to herself.
April 19, 1775.
Concord and Lexington ! What a wealth of associations clusters around these words ! To Massachusetts, to American ears they have come to be talismanic. The historian has accu- rately described and the poet has rhapsodized and yet the theme is ever interesting. The time had again come when something must be done to stem the tide of British arrogance and aggres- sion. The mother had again reached a point where, to her the chief use of Colonies was to pay the expenses of home govern- ment, and firm resistance was necessary. Committees of safety had decided that the stand should be made. Minute men had been drilled. Everything was in readiness for the storm when Gage arranged to send his troops to Concord to destroy the stores and to arrest, if possible, those "arch traitors," Hancock and Samuel Adams.
On the eve of April 18th the lantern gleamed from the spire of the Old North Church' henceforth to be Liberty's beacon.
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Paul Revere on the opposite side of the tide had caught its flashes and was off on his mission of alarm
"Through every Middlesex village and farm, For the country folk to be up and to arm."
Never man rode on holier errand. Ilis hoof-beats had not sunk into silence before the country people were making ready for the conflict that now seemed certain. All along the route, they were grasping their weapons and bidding adieu to those who were to remain at home. To many it was the final farewell. These men had counted the cost and knew perfectly well what they were entering upon. At Lexington he aroused Hancock and Adams and left flashing lights behind him as he rode on to Concord town. It was half past four on the morning of the 19th that the Red Coats entered Lexington, and Maj. Pitcairn commanded the militia to lay down their arms. Colonel Smith gave the command to fire and eight Americans sank in death- the first victims in the strife. But the British could not tarry long in Lexington. They were soon on their way to Concord and how strange that Concord (peace) should be the name of the first battle in the great struggle for freedom. All this time church bells had been ringing and signal guns firing so that the enemy knew perfectly well that it was no easy task they were essaying. Names, since become household words, were now heard for the first time. Parson Emerson appeared accoutred for battle. Major John Buttrick was among the first to bestir himself. Prescott, Faulkner, Parkman ! But where all were so brave, why distinguish ?
It was scarcely more than breakfast time when the British were discovered marching into the town. The morning was such an one as we love to think of associating with the month of April ; but still. noted more for its exceptions than of oe- enrring. In fact it seems very strange that the season should have been so far advanced. We are told that the fruit trees were in blossom and that the grass and grain were high enough to wave in the wind. . The sun shone with peculiar splendor. The morning was a glorious one." It was between nine and ten o'clock when the first stand was made and Americans fired
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that first shot at their foc. Hitherto, as in the Boston Massa- cre and at Lexington, our men had fallen but there had been no determined resistance. But now they were to assume the aggressive. The first British fire had killed Isaac Davis and Abner Hosmer. The Briton had provoked the contest and now came Buttrick's short, incisive command, "Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire." Fighting is always provocative of profan- ity, and men swear then who would not think of doing so at other times. Captain Brown, in much the same language as that which Washington is said to have used at Monmouth to- wards Gen. Lee, commanded his men to fire. British blood is shed, and Noah Parkhurst of Lincoln says, "Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end." Two of the invaders were slain and many were wounded. The enemy had found that the Americans would fight and that henceforth it was not to be a one-sided affair. At noon he was in full retreat with militia menacing him in rear and flank. The Americans were withont system or command. They attacked as they could and did such services as was possible. There were fresh parties constantly coming up from the neighboring towns, and all were anxious to get a shot at the invading foc.
But it is no part of ours to describe in detail the incidents of that gauntlet which the British ran in this retreat. They have been instilled into the minds of American yonth almost from infancy. We were early told that the soldiers suffered so much from heat and fatigue that their tongues lolled from their months like over heated dogs. As they approached Lexington, another set of patriots met them with a warm reception but, alas, three more Americans fell martyrs to their principles. Nothing but the arrival of Lord Percy saved Col. Smith and his company from annihilation. The proud foe of the morning was effectually humbled, ready indeed to surrender his arms could any one have been found in command of the Americans to receive them. The bloody minded Pitcairn who, in the morn, would like to stir Yankee blood even as he stirred the brandy in his glass, was wounded and unhorsed and his steed was afterward sold at auction in Concord. The close of the eventful day saw the battered remnants of the enemy on Bunker's Hill and even there
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safe from capture only by the exhaustion of the pursuers' am- munition. From thirty-one towns had the farmers gathered and well did they do for themselves and for liberty. It seems almost incredible that men so remote from the field as Framingham should have participated in the battle, but like the war horse they must have smelled the fray from afar, and like him must have speeded to the contest.
The day was done and though sorrow went into many house- holds in Middlesex and Essex Counties over those who were sleeping the last sleep, yet it was not. the sorrow of despair. The foe had been met and repulsed. The knowledge of the victory was rapidly winging its way throughout the other Colo- nies. Gallant Putnam was to catch the inspiration and to leave his plow in the furrow while he hurried eastward. This was "the clash of resounding arms" which the magnetic Henry had foretold in Virginia and truly the gale swept it southward. In one sense it was passing strange that this most determined re- sistance to English rule should have been made in the most thoroughly English part of the Colonies where, as Palfrey says, for a hundred and fifty years the orginal stock had suffered little or no admixture ; but on the other hand the fact that they were so pure in their English ancestry made them the less likely to submit to unjust exactions from whatsoever quarter. The same blood that could force Magna Charta from Lackland and that serupled not to behead an ill advised and tyrannical monarch was little likely to yield to what its best promptings pronounced hateful and unlawful. As Hudson says the Concord Fight as- sumed the proportions of a revolution which rolled on for seven years, till British arrogance, in the person of Cornwallis, surren- dered at Yorktown. Another good day's work was done and April was truly assuming wonderful significance in the history of Massachusetts. On the first, her sons had won a bloodless victory over Andros and his servitors. On the second she had shown England that she could fight, if need there was to main- tain her rights.
"By the rude bridge that arched the flood Their flag to April breeze unfurled, Here onee the embattled farmers stood And fired the shot heard 'round the world." (Emerson.)
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April 19, 1861.
But now we approach days nearer us and of which we were, to some extent, a part. Massachusetts no longer contended with a foreign foe. The Briton had long since ceased from his troubling, but other times and other men had aroused new interests, had precipitated new conflicts. The Declaration of Independence had proclaimed freedom for the white portion only of the peo- ple. The serpent of oppression had been scotched, not killed. Boston had seen her most respected citizens forced to turn slave catchers ; pretty business, truly, for the sons of men who had fought at Concord. She had seen Garrison hurried to his death, (could the mob have found a convenient lamp post.) Through her streets had marched United States soldiers, escorting An- thony Burns to the vessel that was to take him back to slavery. Her "Cradle of Liberty" had rocked again when Theodore Par- ker addressed the assembled multitude as "Fellow citizens of Virginia." Our own city of Worcester had seen much of excite- ment in these troublous times. The Slave catcher had been here too ; but public opinion, in this Commonwealth, was decidedly on the side of the fugitive and when Charles Sumner was sent to the United States Senate she put herself in the very van of progress. It took many deeds of violence to lead up to the tragedy of Baltimore. Massachusetts orators had been hissed and rotten egged, her statesmen in peril of their lives before the year 1861 began. But ever on the alert, she found John A. Andrew in the gubernatorial chair in the first dawning of the strife and he, equal to the emergency, early had Massachusetts troops off for the seat of impending battle. While life lasts, will continue a vivid recollection of those feverish moments when maddened South Carolina fired its first gun at Sumter. Were there any lukewarm in the state up to that moment, they were immediate- ly converted into stalwart supporters of the most rigorous meas- ures. It was the proud distinction of this state to offer the first blood on the country's altar. As in 1775, it was the blood of her farmers that became the seed of the republic, so here again the lives of her sons were given that the nation might live. As we regard it, now, it all seems like a dream. Seward thought
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the whole affair a mere emente which would cease in a few days. The proclamation called for only seventy-five thousand men. How little was comprehended the immensity of the task before us? On the very day of the fall of Sumter, Gen. Schouler, Adjutant General of the state, wrote to the War Department at Washington asking for arms and suggesting the proper garrison- ing of the Forts in Boston Harbor. On the 15th, Henry Wilson telegraphed from Washington that twenty companies of her troops be sent to the Capitol at once and there be mustered into service. On the same day, the 3d, 4th, 6th, and 8th Reg- imets were ordered to muster at once on Boston Common. That night there was hurrying through the seaboard towns like that of Paul Revere in days of 1775.
In token of the extreme haste with which the application was responded to, it is said that one of the Massachusetts soldiers, in the city of New York, being asked if there was any thing that could be done for him, hesitated a moment and then lifting his foot exhibited a boot much the worse for wear from which one of his toes even protruded. "How came you here with such a boot as that my friend," said the patriotic citizen. "When the order came for me to join my company, sir," replied the soldier, "I was ploughing in the same field at Concord where my grand- father was ploughing when the British fired on the Massachusetts men at Lexington. Ile did not wait a moment ; and I did not sir." It is needless to add that he was soon supplied with a new pair of boots.
At nine o'clock the 16th, came a train to the Eastern Depot carrying soldiers who were greeted by immense throngs of peo- ple and over all the din of the debarking and press rang the notes of Yankee Doodle. Captain A. W. Bartlett of Newbury- port was said to be the first man to reach Boston and report for duty with his men, something worthy of recollection, though it may as well be stated that just who was the first volunteer will remain a vexed question. The 17th saw the men of the differ- ent regiments getting ready for departure. The 6th marched to the State House and was addressed by the Governor. He gave to the regiment a stand of colors. Col. Jones accepting said "You have given to me this flag, which is the emblem of
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all that stands before you. It represents my entire command ; and so help me God ! I will never disgrace it." Thence to the Boston and Albany Station, the troops were marched and the first detachment of Massachusetts soldiers was off for the war.
On this date the Brookline Transcript published the following lines :-
"Soldiers go! Your country ealls ! See, from Sumter's blackened walls, Floats no more our nation's flag, But the traitor's odious rag.
Long the Patient North hath borne All their treachery, taunts and seorn ; Now let Slavery's despots learn, How our Northern blood can burn. Swift their hours of triumphs past, For their first must be their last.
By the memory of our sires, By the children 'round your fires, By your wive's and mother's love, By the God who reigns above- By all holy things-depart ! Strong in hand and brave in heart.
Nobly strike for truth and right ; We will pray while you shall fight. Mothers, daughters, wives all true To our country and to you- To the breeze our banner show : Traitors meet you when you go, In the name of God on high, Win-or in the conflict die.
In New York city their presence had much to do in settling the Union feeling of that vast aggregation of humanity. At morn Baltimore was reached. The city noted for a great va- riety of things,-its founder, Lord Baltimore,-the writing of the "Star Spangled Banner" near the walls of Fort Me Henry,- its battle monument and its Plug Uglies, especially the latter. It was the same Baltimore whose citizens had threatened as- sassination of President elect, Lincoln, and now was determined
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to withstand the march of Massachusetts men through its streets. Col. Jones, in expectation of this trouble, had ordered his men to load their guns, but not to fire unless first molested. The first seven companies passed through unmolested ; but the re- maining four who were separated from the advance were sub- jected to all the insult and ill treatment that malice and hate could devise. Finally, the crowd thinking the soldiers dared not fight or that they had no ammunition fired into the ranks, and one soldier was killed. Then came the first order, "Fire," and the crowd fell back. The Mayor of the city placed himself be- side Capt. Follansbee of Company C, assuring him of his pro- tection and entreated him to not let liis men fire but his own patience became exhausted and seizing a musket he, himself, shot one of the assailants dead. Four Massachusetts men fell in this encounter. Was there a fatality in this event occurring on this particular day or was it simply one of those amazing coincidences that make us believe that truth is really stranger than fiction ? For the third time was the state linked with the day. Those men dying in the very dawn of the strife did more for the cause of the Union than they could possibly have done had they lived to participate in scores of battles. I have seen the picture of Luther C. Ladd one of the victims on this mem- orable occasion. He was clad in the somewhat peculiar costume of the Massachusetts Militia, and his face young and winsome, obviously taken in boyish pride, (for he was a lad in years as well as name,) at the garb he wore and the mission he was on. But he was to die, not in battle brave but by the hands of an irresponsible mob, frenzied with rage at what it deemed a dese- cration. But let us not wonder that a Southern city should thus object to the passage of Northern troops, for in our own adjoin- ing State of Connecticut, one Gallagher, since a noted politician there, had said, "If Massachusetts men try to pass this State on their way to fight our Southern brethren, kill 'em, damn 'em," and though this term became his sobriquet for years it seemed to lessen, in no degree, the esteem in which he was held by his fellow citizens of a certain class in New Haven. In fact the same sentiments, though in a less profane form, were advanced by the man who has just retired from the United States Senate
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to make room for the gallant Hawley. If the train had been laid before, surely the deeds in Baltimore effectually fired it. The New York Times closed an account of the fray by saying that the Mayor and Governor both notified the President that no more troops could pass through Baltimore unless they fought their way. Did they suppose such a notice as that would deter Massachusetts soldiers? Why, to fight was what they left their native soil for, and they would as soon encounter armed treason in Baltimore as elsewhere, Governor Andrew sent the following message to the Mayor of Baltimore : "I pray you cause the bodies of our Massachusetts soldiers, dead in battle, to be im- mediately laid out, preserved in ice and tenderly sent forward by express to me. All expenses will be paid by this Common- wealth." Notice the character of the man as expressed in that word "tenderly." George W. Bungay made the sentiment the refrain for the following :--
"In their own martial robes arrayed With cap and cloak and shining blade, In the still coffin softly laid, Oh! send them tenderly. Our bleeding country's bleeding corps Of noble dead can sleep no more Where monuments at Baltimore Libel our Liberty.
Oh touch them tenderly, I pray, And softly wipe the blood away From the red lips of wounds, that say How sweet it is to die For one's dear country, at a time Coincidence erowns, with sublime Associations, deeds that chime In human history !
Deal gently with the pale, cold dead For Massachusetts bows her head- But not with shame; her eyes are red With weeping for the slain. Like Rachel. she is sad indeed ; And long her broken heart will bleed For children true in word and deed She cannot meet again.
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Whisper no word of treason when Ye bear away our bravest men From the foul traitor's hateful den, Red with our brother's blood ; A spot that must forever be, Like Sodom sunk beneath the sea,
It sinks in coward treachery Unwept beneath the flood.
Lift up cach gallant son of Mars, And shroud him in the flag of stars, Beneath whose folds he won the scars Through which his spirit fied From glory here, to glory where
The banner blue in field of air
Is bright with stars forever there, Without the stripes of red."
Oh! our hearts go out towards this man Andrew who so thoroughly appreciated the needs of the soldier. Though it was not his to bear a musket nor wield a sword, yet he was as com- pletely a part of the grand defence of the Nation as though he wore the uniform of the army and he fell, at last, worn out by the terrible exactions of those trying days. At Fall River, on the reception of the news, a public meeting was called and ten thousand dollars voted to fit out volunteers. The city of Phila- delphia voted $1,000,000 to equip volunteers and to support their families during their absence. Norwich, Ct., subscribed $14,000 for the same purpose. There were very few Gallaghers and Eatons there. The public pulse had become feverish ; but it soon settled into a firm, steady heart beat which throbbed on till the last vestige of treason had disappeared. The New York Independent of April 23d said, "Massachusetts and Rhode Is- land have won the praise and the blessing of all men. The sons of Massachusetts lay dead in the streets of Baltimore on the anniversary day of the Battle of Lexington, before a single Reg- iment from New York had crossed the border between the slave and the free states. Soldiers from Massachusetts have made their way to Havre d' Grace, seized a steamboat, reached An- napolis, and taken a position by which they could keep open a road to Washington, before a single troop of New York soldiers
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had found a passage into the enemy's country. Troops from Massachusetts and Rhode Island have been sent by sea and were thrown into Fortress Munroe, commanding Norfolk, while the authorities at Albany were debating upon the proper official steps to be taken in regard to the President's Proclamation. God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." The Massa- chusetts Regiments :-
"They were reared on the soil whence the Adamses sprung That to Haneock and Warren gave birth,
Descendants of sires whose proud names have been sung In the noblest hosannas of earth.
They were trained in our shops, they were trained in our schools, They have been taught on our free waves to sail ;
They have learned of Progression the practice and rules, But they know not the meaning of Fail." (Transcript.) Mrs. Sigourney wrote :---
"The Bay State bled at Lexington but every drop that ran, By transmutation strange and strong sprang up an armed man. Yet when the born of Lexington who keep their natal day Were writing four score years and six upon their annals gray, The Bay State bled at Baltimore wherefore I may not speak,
For sad and tender memories rush from heart to moistened check."
When visitors approach the State Flags in the rotunda of the Capitol in Boston, almost always the first question is "where is the flag of the Sixth?" It is not that the sixth Regiment saw so much service, for the affray in Baltimore was its only encoun- ter ; but there is a strange interest in the first of every thing. Concord and Lexington were mere skirmishes, yet they excite emotions that even Saratoga cannot arouse. So here, standing before those war worn ensigns, the eye rests upon the standard of the Sixth and follows it from Boston to Baltimore and again lives over the scenes of that famous day.
Though Massachusetts soil drank not the blood of her slaugh- tered sons, they fell for her and the principles to which she was ever faithful. The day is hers ; thrice bound to her by associ- ations most sacred, and looking down along the line of coming years is there to be another April day to make the fourth in this wonderful list? When, after the lapse of eighty-six years we
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come to 1947 may we expect Massachusetts to again stand for the right? Who can forecast the event and tell us what is to be the issue in those days to call upon sturdy manhood to assert itself? Will the demon of the Commune have made this country the place of its abode? Will it be the Nihilists endeav- oring, by assassination, to overthrow established rule? Will ignorance and vice have so enthroned themselves that Macau- lay's prophecy concerning us will be verified? "Either some Cæsar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with this difference, that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without and that your Huns and Vandals will have been engendered within your country by your own institutions."
But let us hope that Macaulay was a false prophet and that our dismemberment and his New Zealander musing on the ruins of London Bridge were the creatures of a somewhat jaundiced imagination and, moreover, let us hope that the list of coinci- dences is ended that, in the future, unnumbered April days may pass with no need of popular uprisings to withstand the hand of rapacity or oppression. Our tale is told. Of the past we are sure. For the future we are hopeful, and, with Longfellow, let us say
"Sweet April ! Many a thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed ; Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought Life's golden fount is shed."
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Interesting remarks were made by Gen. Sprague, Messrs. Paine, Lovell, Staples, Comins and A. P. Marble. Mr. Paine presented the Society with some manuscript souvenirs of the Battle of Lexington.
The next regular meeting was held on the eve- ning of Tuesday, May 3d, the President in the chair. Twenty-six members and visitors were present.
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