Paul Revere's Ride

by David Hackett Fischer

  Soon the front of his column also began to be attacked, more heavily than Percy had anticipated. Some of the pressure on the van came from mounted militia. A few small units of New England cavalry were on the field that day. Individual militiamen also arrived on horseback—among them older men who were experienced hunters and veterans of earlier wars. They fought not in the traditional manner of the arme blanche, but rather as mounted infantry. They used their mobility with skill, riding ahead of the British column, dismounting, fighting on foot, then riding away to fight again.

  British officers testified ruefully to the effectiveness of these men. “Numbers of them were mounted,” Mackenzie remembered, “and when they had fastened their horses at some little distance from the road, they crept down near enough to have a shot; as soon as the column had passed, they mounted again, and rode round until they got ahead of the column, and found some convenient place from whence they might fire again. These fellows were generally good marksmen, and many of them used long guns made for duck-shooting.” 58

  Many on both sides remembered a middle-aged militiaman named Hezekiah Wyman, from the outlying hamlet of Woburn that is now the town of Winchester. This day was his birthday. On the morning of April 19, 1775, Hezekiah Wyman turned fifty-five. His wife told him that he was too old to fight, but he saddled his “strong white mare” and galloped away. He collided with the British column on the Road east of Lexington, fired at an advancing Regular and brought him down. Hezekiah Wyman became highly visible on the battlefield—a “tall, gaunt” man with long gray locks, mounted on a white horse. The British infantry saw him many times from Lexington to Charlestown, and grew to dread the sight of him. Wyman was a crack shot. Again and again he rode within range of the British vanguard, jumped off his horse, and laid the long barrel of his musket across his saddle. As the Regulars approached he took careful aim, and squeezed off a shot with slow deliberation. Then he remounted and rode ahead to a new position—a grim, gray-headed messenger of mortality, mounted on death’s pale horse. 59

  When the mounted militia attacked from the front, Mackenzie remembered that “at the head of the column… the fire was nearly as severe as in the rear.” The ring of skirmishers was now complete. Lord Percy himself wrote that his brigade was “under incessant fire, which like a moving circle surrounded and followed us wherever we went till we arrived at Charlestown.” 60

  In the marching columns, the British soldiers suffered terribly under this hail of fire, which they remembered as “incessant” and “continual.” Among them was Ensign Lister, who had been painfully wounded in Concord. Surgeon’s Mate Simms had cut a Yankee bullet out of his elbow in the Munroe Tavern at Lexington, while Lister nearly fainted from pain and loss of blood. He was revived by a grenadier who brought him a hatful of dirty water from a horse pond. Another soldier kindly shared a bit of bread and beef with him. At Lexington, Lister was given a horse. He climbed dizzily into the saddle, and rode among the wounded until the firing became very heavy. Later he wrote, “When I had rode about two miles I found the balls whistled so smartly about my ears I thought it more prudent to dismount, and as the balls came thicker from one side or the other so I went from one side of the horse to the other.” 61

  Soon Lister found that the fire was coming from all sides. He remembered that “a horse was shot dead close by me that had a wounded man on his back and three hanging by his sides. They immediately begged the assistance of my horse which I readily granted, and soon after left him wholly in their care.” 62

  Other wounded men rode on the guns of the Royal Artillery, clinging precariously to the long flat sideboxes that were now nearly empty of ammunition. From time to time, when larger formations of militia came in sight, Percy ordered the artillery to disperse them. As the field pieces were wheeled into action, Ensign Martin Hunter of the 52nd Foot remembered watching as the wounded men on the guns went tumbling to the ground. 63

  The column now approached the village of Menotomy, and the fighting grew still more intense. Small parties of green American militia, newly arrived from northern Middlesex County and Essex County, took positions in houses and yards along the road, against the advice of experienced officers. They were joined by individual householders who fought stubbornly from their own doorsteps, even in the face of certain death as British flankers surrounded them.

  One of these embattled householders was Jason Russell, fifty-eight years old and so lame that he could barely walk. Russell sent his family to safety, then made a breastwork from a pile of shingles at his front door. Friends urged him to flee. Russell answered simply, “An Englishman’s home is his castle.” 64 Others rallied with him, and a fierce fight took place in the dooryard of the Russell house. A party of grenadiers was sent to storm the building. Most of the Americans retreated inside or ran away, but Jason Russell was too lame to run. He stayed and fought, until a grenadier killed him in his own doorway. His wife and children returned to find his body pierced with many bayonet wounds. Altogether eleven Americans were found dead at the Russell house.

  In Russell’s orchard, a party of Danvers minutemen decided to organize an ambush before the British arrived. As they built a breastwork of stone and lumber, Captain Israel Hutchinson of another Danvers company passed by. A veteran of long experience, he warned them that they were too close to the road, and urged them to take cover on a distant hill. They ignored his advice, and a British flanking column surprised them. Seven Danvers men were slain, and four from Lynn were killed beside them. 65

  Some of these Americans were killed after surrendering. A Danvers man named Dennison Wallis was captured, and relieved of his watch and money. He watched as the British soldiers began to kill their prisoners, and ran for his life. The Regulars raised their muskets and fired a volley at him. Wallis was hit twelve times, and left for dead. But he survived to speak of what he had seen. The American atrocity at Concord’s North Bridge was repaid many times over in Jason Russell’s orchard. 66

  The fighting in Menotomy was bitter—house to house, room to room, and hand to hand. At close quarters, a Regular attacked Roxbury’s Dr. Eliphalet Downer, and tried to kill him with a bayonet. Downer parried the blow, seized the soldier’s musket, and impaled him on his own weapon. Menotomy’s Lieutenant Solomon Bowman met another British soldier in single combat. Both men fired and missed; Bowman stunned his enemy with a musket butt and took him prisoner. 67

  Menotomy was the home of Samuel Whittemore, seventy-eight years old and badly crippled, but an old soldier and a strong Whig. When he heard that the Regulars were coming, Whittemore armed himself with a musket, two pistols and his old cavalry saber, and took a strong position behind a stone wall, 150 yards from the road. He waited patiently for the British column to approach. When it came in range, Whittemore got off five shots with such speed and accuracy that a large British detachment was sent to root him out. As the Regulars assaulted his position, Whittemore killed one soldier with his musket, and shot two more with his pistols. He was reaching for his saber when a British infantryman came up to him and shot away part of his face. Others thrust their bayonets into his body. After the battle he was found barely alive, bleeding from at least fourteen wounds. Friends carried him to Dr. Cotton Tufts of Medford, who shook his head sadly. But Samuel Whittemore confounded his physician. He lived another eighteen years to the ripe age of ninety-six, and populated a large part of Middlesex County with a progeny of Whittemores who are today as tough and independent as the sturdy old rebel who stood alone against a British brigade. 68

  The Regulars responded savagely to this resistance by individual householders. In defended buildings along the road, no quarter was given. Mackenzie wrote in his diary that “the soldiers were so enraged at suffering from an unseen enemy that they forced open many of the houses from which the fire proceeded, and put to death all those found in them.” Lieutenant Barker, who was with the vanguard wrote candidly, “We were now obliged to force almost every house in the road, for the rebels had taken possession
of them and galled us exceedingly, but they suffered for their temerity, for all that were found in the houses were put to death.” 69

  In the Cooper Tavern at Menotomy, the Regulars found Benjamin and Rachel Cooper and their two steady customers, Jason Winship and Jabez Wyman, who had been fortifying themselves with mugs of flip. A British party broke in and did not stop to inquire what they were doing there. The two topers were later found “stabbed through in many places, their heads mauled, skulls broke and their brains out on the floor and walls of the house.” More than 100 bullet holes were counted in the building. The fury of that attack was a measure of the growing rage and frustration that was felt by the British soldiers, some of whom were drinking heavily themselves from tavern stocks along the road. 70

  The fighting in Menotomy caused the heaviest casualties of the day. The Americans lost twenty-five men killed and only nine wounded, a suspicious ratio that tells much about the savagery of combat there. The British brigade suffered at least forty dead and eighty wounded in this town. Lord Percy himself was nearly killed there. A button on his waistcoat was shot away, but he escaped without a scratch. He wrote later of the “spirit of enthusiasm” which the inhabitants showed against his troops. “Many of them concealed themselves in houses,” he wrote, “and advanced within ten yards to fire at me and other officers, though they were morally certain of being put to death themselves in an instant.”

  Inside the village Percy lost control of his men, who left their units to plunder the houses by the road. Lieutenant Barker of the 4th Foot noted in his diary, “The plundering was shameful; many hardly thought of anything else; what was worse they were encouraged by some officers.” Lieutenant Mackenzie of the 23rd Foot added, “Many houses were plundered by the soldiers, notwithstanding the efforts of the officers to prevent it. I have no doubt this influenced the Rebels, and many of them followed us further than they would otherwise have done.” Colonel Abercrombie of Gage’s staff wrote, “I cannot commend the behaviour of our soldiers on their retreat. They began to plunder and paid no obedience to their officers.” 71

  Here again, as at Lexington and Concord’s North Bridge, the British troops defied officers who tried to stop them. Houses, taverns, and churches near the road were systematically stripped of their valuables. One Regular was shot as he ransacked a chest, and fell dead across the open drawers. Anything that could fit in a haversack was carried away. The British soldiers even stole the church’s communion silver, and sold it in Boston, where it was later recovered. They smashed and destroyed much of what they could not carry, set fire to buildings, and killed livestock in a saturnalia of savagery. “We were much annoyed in a village called Anatomy,” one Regular wrote.

  At last the British troops got clear of Menotomy, crossed a small stream then known as the Menotomy River (today’s Alewife Brook) and entered Cambridge. Here to their horror the fighting grew still more intense. Mackenzie remembered that “as the troops drew nearer to Cambridge, the number and fire of the rebels increased.” In Cambridge, several fresh regiments of militia appeared on the field in formation. Percy ordered his artillery to disperse them. At a crossroads called Watson’s Corner, the combat was as close and bloody as in Menotomy, as newly arrived parties of militia from Cambridge and Brookline were caught and killed by British flanking parties before senior American officers were able to disperse them. 72

  The British brigade was in trouble. The hour was late, and still it had eight miles to go. Ammunition was running low. The artillery’s side boxes were nearly empty. Fire discipline among Percy’s infantry was as poor as Smith’s had been. Mackenzie noted that his men returned fire “with too much eagerness, so that at first much of it was thrown away for want of that coolness and steadiness which distinguishes troops who have been inured to service.… Most of them were young soldiers who had never been in action, and had been taught that everything is to be effected by a quick firing.” 73

  The Charles River still lay between the British column and safety, and the only bridge was just ahead in Cambridge. This was the same span that Percy had used coming out. Commanders on both sides had given much thought to the bridge. On the American side, one of General Heath’s first acts was to send a detachment of Watertown militia with orders to remove the planking from the bridge. This was done, but the thrifty Yankee soldiers carefully piled the planks to the side for safekeeping. General Gage sent a party of engineers under Captain Montresor, who repaired the bridge and departed. The Americans came back, and removed the planks once again, this time hurling them into the Charles River. 74

  As Percy’s brigade marched into Cambridge, Lieutenant Barker in the vanguard looked ahead and observed that the bridge was “broken down,” and blocked by a large force of American militia, with “a great number of men to line the road.” The British column was in grave danger of being cut off and pinned against the riverbank. 75

  Instantly Percy made a bold decision. He abruptly turned his column away from the bridge, and sent it eastward on a narrow track called Kent Lane, toward another road that led to Charlestown. This sudden change of direction, and the brilliant use of an obscure and unexpected road, took the New England men by surprise. It broke the circle of fire around Percy’s brigade. The militia scrambled to get into position again. Another American force moved quickly toward high ground called Prospect Hill, which dominated the road to Charlestown. Percy advanced his cannon to the front of his column, and cleared the hill with a few well-placed rounds. It was the last of his ammunition for the artillery. 76

  The militia kept after him, and its numbers continued to grow. A large force from Salem and Marblehead at last arrived, and could have created a major problem for Lord Percy. But its commander, Colonel Timothy Pickering, was reluctant to engage. He had dallied earlier that day until urged forward by his men. Now he stopped at Winter Hill, north of Percy’s route, and allowed the British brigade to pass. Pickering later fought bravely in the War of Independence. But he was conservative in his politics, and some have suggested that in 1775 he hoped for compromise, and wished to avoid total defeat for the British troops. Pickering later insisted that this was not the case, that he was halted on Heath’s orders—which Heath strongly denied. Whatever the truth, Percy’s brigade was allowed to pass by the last American force that could have stopped it. 77

  At the rear of the British formation, the New England men continued to fight stubbornly. A flurry of firing broke out in that quarter, and Percy turned once again to the British Marines. Major Pitcairn, the senior officer when the first shot was fired at Lexington, also commanded the rear guard in the last engagement of the day. While Pitcairn’s Marines held the militia at bay, Percy’s brigade at last reached Charlestown and safety.

  AFTERMATH

  The Second Battle of Lexington and Concord

  I have now nothing to trouble your Lordship with, but an affair that happened on the 19th instant.”

  —General Gage’s report on Lexington

  and Concord, April 22, 1775

  All eyes are turned upon the tragical event of the 19th.… We are unanimous in the resolution, to die, or be free.”

  —A letter from a gentleman of rank in New England, April 25, 1775 1

  IT WAS NEARLY DARK when Lord Percy’s men entered Charlestown. Behind them the sun was setting on the ruins of an empire. A great blood red disc of fire sank slowly into the hills of Lexington, as the long column of British Regulars marched doggedly down to the sea. The militia of New England followed close at their heels. Fighting continued into the twilight, as fresh regiments continued to arrive from distant towns. On Boston’s Beacon Hill, crowds of spectators could see the muzzle-flashes twinkling like fireflies in the gathering darkness. 2

  Night had fallen when the last weary British troops crossed over Charlestown Neck and took up a strong position on high ground, supported by the heavy guns of HMS Somerset. American General William Heath studied their deployment and decided that “any further attempt upon the enemy, in that pos
ition, would have been futile.” He ordered the militia to “halt and give over the pursuit,” and called a conference of senior officers to make his dispositions for the night. Fearing a British attack, General Heath decided to withdraw the main body of the militia a few miles to the rear. He ordered “centinels to be planted down the neck,” and “patrols to be vigilant in moving during the night.” The rest of the New England troops were sent to Cambridge, and told to “lie on their arms.” 3

  Attack was the last thing in British minds. As the rear guard of British Marines passed over Charlestown Neck, Lord Percy looked at his watch and noted that the hour was past seven o’clock. His men were utterly exhausted. The grenadiers and light infantry had not slept for two days. Some had marched forty miles in twenty-one hours. Most had been under hostile fire for eight hours. The soldiers sank gratefully to the soggy ground on the heights above Charlestown, and fell instantly asleep. One British officer, unconscious of the irony, noted that their refuge was a place called Bunker Hill. 4

  Later that night a cold rain began to fall, as it did so often after an American battle—as if heaven itself were weeping over the pain that mortal men inflicted on one another. Andover militiaman Thomas Boynton remembered that “there was a smart shower and very sharp lightning and thunder, the most of us wet to the skin.” 5

  The many British casualties were ferried across the Charles River to Boston by seamen of HMS Somerset. Ensign De Berniere noted in his diary that “all her boats were employed first in getting over the wounded.” Long rows of broken men with bloody bandages and smoke-stained faces lay quietly at Charlestown’s landing, shivering from the shock of their wounds. One by one, seamen of the Royal Navy lowered them gently into longboats with the special tenderness that men of violence reserve for fallen comrades. 6 A spectator wrote that the boats were busy “till ten o’clock last night bringing over their wounded.” So numerous were the British casualties that the navy needed three hours to ferry them across the river. Later that night, the remaining light infantry and grenadiers were also carried back to Boston. Fresh troops of General Gage’s 2nd Brigade were sent to replace them on the hills of Charlestown. 7