Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times
Page 19
XVI.
THE MORNING DRUMBEAT.
"Ring the bell!"
Samuel Adams said it, and one of Sergeant Munroe's men ran to thegreen, seized the bell-rope, and set the meetinghouse bell toclanging, sending the alarm far and wide upon the still night air.
In the farmhouses candles were quickly lighted, and the minute-men,who had agreed to obey a summons at a moment's warning, came runningwith musket, bullet-pouch, and powder-horn, to the rendezvous. Theyformed in line, but, no redcoats appearing, broke ranks and went intoBuckman's tavern.
* * * * *
Silently, without tap of drum, the grenadiers and light infantry underColonel Francis Smith, at midnight, marched from their quarters toBarton's Point, together with the marines under Major Pitcairn.
"Where are we going?" Lieutenant Edward Gould of the King's Own putthe question to Captain Lawrie.
"I suppose General Gage and the Lord, and perhaps Colonel Smith, know,but I don't," the captain replied, as he stepped into a boat with hiscompany.
It was eleven o'clock when the last boat-load of troops reachedLechmere's Point,--not landing on solid ground, but amid the lastyear's reeds and marshes. The tide was flowing into the creek andeddies, and the mud beneath the feet of the king's troops was soft andslippery.
"May his satanic majesty take the man who ordered us into this bog,"said a soldier whose feet suddenly went out from under him and senthim sprawling into the slimy oose.
"By holy Saint Patrick, isn't the water nice and warm!" said one ofthe marines as he waded into the flowing tide fresh from the sea.
"Gineral Gage intends to teach us how to swim," said another.
With jokes upon their lips, but inwardly cursing whoever had directedthem to march across the marsh, the troops splashed through the water,reached the main road leading to Menotomy, and waited while thecommissary distributed their rations. It was past two o'clock beforeColonel Smith was ready to move on. Looking at his watch in themoonlight and seeing how late it was, he directed Major Pitcairn totake six companies of the light infantry and hasten on to Lexington.
* * * * *
From the house of Reverend Mr. Clark, Paul Revere, William Dawes, andyoung Doctor Prescott of Concord, who had been sparking his intendedwife in Lexington village, started on their horses up the road towardsConcord. From the deep shade of the alders a half dozen men suddenlyconfronted them.
"Surrender, or I will blow out your brains!" shouts one of theofficers.
BUCKMAN'S TAVERN]
Revere and Dawes are prisoners; but Doctor Prescott, quick of eye,ear, and motion, is leaping his horse over the stone wall, ridingthrough fields and pastures, along bypaths, his saddle-bags flopping,his horse, young and fresh, bearing him swiftly on over the meadows tothe slumbering village, with the news that the redcoats arecoming.[57]
[Footnote 57: Longfellow in his poem has Revere riding on to Concordbridge.
"It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town."
Revere's account reads:--
"We had got nearly half way; Mr. Dawes and the Doctor stopped to alarmthe people of a house. I was about one hundred rods ahead when I sawtwo men, in nearly the same situation as those officers were nearCharlestown. I called for the Doctor and Dawes to come up; in aninstant I was surrounded by four.... We tried to get out there; theDoctor jumped his horse over a low stone wall and got to Concord. Iobserved a wood at a small distance and made for that. When I gotthere, out rushed six officers on horseback and ordered me todismount."]
"Tell us where we can find those arch traitors to his majesty theking, or you are dead men," the threat of an officer.
Paul Revere sees the muzzle of the pistol within a foot of his breast,but it does not frighten him.
"Ah, gentlemen, you have missed your aim."
"What aim?"
"You won't get what you came for. I left Boston an hour before yourtroops were ready to cross Charles River. Messengers left before me,and the alarm will soon be fifty miles away. Had I not known it, Iwould have risked a shot from you before allowing myself to becaptured."
From the belfry of the meetinghouse the bell was sending its pealsfar and wide over fields and woodlands.
"Do you not hear it? The town is alarmed," said Revere.
"Rub-a-dub-dub! rub-a-dub-dub! rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub-dub!"It was the drummer beating the long roll.
"The minute-men are forming; you are dead men!" said Dawes.
The drumbeat, with the clanging bell, was breaking the stillness ofthe early morning. The officers put their heads together and whispereda moment.
"Get off your horses," ordered Captain Parsons of the king's TenthRegiment.
Revere and Dawes obeyed.
"We'll keep this; the other is only fit for the crows to pick," saidone of the officers, cutting the saddle-girth of Dawes's horse,turning it loose, and mounting Bucephalus. Then all rode away, dashingpast the minute-men on Lexington Green.
"The minute-men are forming,--three hundred of them," reported theofficers to Colonel Smith, who was marching up the road.[58]
[Footnote 58: "We heard there were some hundreds of people collectedthere, intending to oppose us and stop our going out. At five o'clockwe arrived there, and a number of people, I believe between two andthree hundred, formed on a common in the middle of the town." "Diaryof a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]
The bell and the drumbeat, the lights in Buckman's tavern and theother houses, the minute-men in line by the meetinghouse, hadquickened the imagination of the excited Britishers.
"The country is alarmed. It is reported there are five hundred rebelsgathered to oppose me. I shall need reinforcements." Such was themessage of Colonel Smith to General Gage.
He directed Major Pitcairn to push on rapidly with six companies oflight infantry.
"Jonathan! Jonathan! Get up quick! The redcoats are coming andsomething must be done!"[59]
[Footnote 59: There were two Jonathan Harringtons. The fifer to theLexington minute-men was sixteen years old. He died March 27, 1854,the last survivor of the battle, and was buried with distinguishedhonors. See _Hist. Lexington_.]
Abigail Harrington shouted it, bursting into her son Jonathan'schamber. He had not heard the bell, nor the commotion in the street.Jonathan was only sixteen years old, but was fifer for the minute-men.In a twinkling he was dressed, and seizing his fife ran to join thecompany forming in line by the meetinghouse; answering to their names,as clerk Daniel Harrington called the roll.
John Hancock and Samuel Adams hear the drumbeat; Hancock seizes hisgun.
"This is no place for you; you must go to a place of safety," saidReverend Mr. Clark.
"Never will I turn my back to the redcoats," said Hancock.
"The country will need your counsels. Others must meet the enemy faceto face," was the calm, wise reply of the patriotic minister.
Other friends expostulate; they cross the road and enter a thick woodcrowning the hill.
"Stand your ground. If war is to come, let it begin here. Don't firetill you are fired upon," said Captain John Parker, walking along thelines of his company.
The sun is just rising. Its level beams glint from the brightlypolished gun-barrels and bayonets of the light infantry of KingGeorge, as the battalion under Major Pitcairn marches towardsLexington meetinghouse. The trees above them have put forth theirtender leaves. The rising sun, the green foliage, the whitecross-belts, the shining buckles, the scarlet coats of the soldiers,and the farmers standing in line, firmly grasping their muskets, makeup the picture of the morning.
Major Pitcairn, sitting in his saddle, beholds the line of minute-men,rebels in arms against the sovereign, formed in line to dispute hisway. What right have they to be standing there? King George issupreme!
"Disperse, you rebels! Lay down your arms and disperse!" he shouts.
Captain John Parker hears it. The men be
hind him, citizens in theireveryday clothes, with powder-horns slung under their right arms, hearit, but stand firm and resolute in their places. They see theBritisher raise his arm; his pistol flashes. Instantly the frontplatoon of redcoats raise their muskets. A volley rends the air. Not aman has been injured. Another volley, and a half dozen are reeling tothe ground. John Munroe, Jonas Parker, and their comrades bring theirmuskets to a level and pull the triggers. With the beams of the risingsun falling on their faces, they accept the conflict with arbitrarypower.
"What a glorious morning is this!" the exclamation of Samuel Adams onyonder hill.
JONATHAN HARRINGTON'S HOUSE Jonathan Harrington waswounded where the stone now stands, and fell dead at the doorstep ofhis house]
Seven minute-men have been killed, nine wounded. Captain Parker seesthat it is useless for his little handful of men to contend with aforce ten times larger, and orders them to disperse.
The redcoats look down exultantly upon the dying and the dead, give ahurrah, and shoot at the fleeing rebels.[60]
[Footnote 60: "We then formed on the Common, but with some difficulty.The men were so wild they could hear no orders. We waited aconsiderable time, and at length proceeded on our way to Concord,which we then learned was our destination." "Diary of a BritishOfficer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]
Jonas Parker will not run.
"Others may do as they will, I never will turn my back to a redcoat,"he said a few minutes ago. He is on his knees now, wounded, butreloading his gun. The charge is rammed home, the priming in the pan,but his strength is going; his arms are weary; his hands feeble. Theredcoats rush upon him, and a bayonet pierces his breast. He dieswhere he fell.
With the blood spurting from his breast, Jonathan Harrington staggerstowards his home. His loving wife is standing in the doorway. Hereaches out his arms to her, and falls dead at her feet.
Caleb Harrington falls by the meetinghouse step. A ball plows throughthe arm of John Comee, by Mr. Munroe's doorway.
The Britishers are wild with excitement, and remorselessly take aim atthe fleeing provincials. They have conquered and dispersed the rebels.Colonel Smith joins Major Pitcairn, and, glorying over the easyvictory, they swing their hats, hurrah for King George, and march ontowards Concord.