Best Little Stories from the American Revolution

by C. Brian Kelly

  Prescott, however, was more successful. Before the British could stop him, he and his horse jumped a nearby stone wall and disappeared into the night. Prescott then hurried on toward Concord by way of a farm lane, with a stop en route at the home of Lincoln Minuteman Samuel Hartwell. Mrs. Hartwell then carried the message to a nearby Minuteman officer’s home—as a result of all these warnings, Lincoln’s two Minutemen companies would be the first from outlying towns to reach beleaguered Concord later that morning.

  In Lexington, meanwhile, the Minutemen who had formed up on the Common earlier were dismissed, but told to stay close by and respond immediately if they heard a warning drumbeat. It was now about 1:30 A.M. on April 19. The British, oddly enough, were not yet on the march—they had been delayed for nearly three crucial hours awaiting provisions and ammunition after disembarking from their boats in East Cambridge.

  At 2 A.M. or thereabouts, Prescott rode into Concord and gave the alarm. At the summons of the Town House bell, the first man to respond was local minister William Emerson, destined to be the grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson. As the town’s Minutemen then gathered at Wright’s Tavern in a central square, frantic efforts were made to finish carrying off or hiding the military goods that had not yet been sent away.

  The British, meanwhile, at last began their fateful march. They passed through western Charlestown (today’s Somerville) and soon hit the road to Menotomy on the northwest edge of Cambridge.

  At 2:30 A.M., Revere and the three Lexington scouts were released after their horses were either chased off or, in Revere’s case, commandeered by the British. Revere hastened toward Lexington on foot, determined this time to convince Hancock and Adams to flee the town.

  In Menotomy, local residents heard the measured tramp of the marching British soldiers or saw the gleam of their bayonets in the moonlight. Three leading Patriots spending the night at the Black Horse Tavern stealthily watched the column filing by until they saw a search party break off and approach the tavern itself. One of the Patriots, Eldridge Gerry, unaccountably started to open the front door, but desisted when the landlord cried, “For God’s sake, don’t open that door!”

  The three Patriots then fled into the night from a back door, plunging into a cornfield. Here, Gerry tripped and fell heavily. The other two followed suit more deliberately, and all three successfully hid in the corn stubble until the British had moved on. (Gerry may also be remembered today as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, as an early governor of Massachusetts, as vice president of the United States under President James Madison—and as the political figure for whom the term “gerrymander” was coined, in a dispute over the drawing of voting districts in Massachusetts.)

  Take You There

  TRY TO PICTURE IT. YOU’RE A RESERVIST, A NATIONAL GUARD MEMBER…A militiaman of times past. Tense times, too. And outside the house one night, about two in the morning, the sound of unaccustomed “traffic”—in this case, the clip-clop of horses’ hooves on the dirt road by the house.

  You emerge from the house and in the dark shout at these dimly seen strangers: “Have you heard anything about when the Regulars are coming out?”

  That’s the way it happened to one Josiah Nelson, a Minuteman from Lincoln, Massachusetts, the eventful night of April 18–19, 1775. He shouted, they answered…but not exactly the way he expected. Or wanted.

  Today, more than two centuries later, those shots at Lexington and Concord tend to be remembered in the abstract, the people and events of that distant day only dimly perceived…their emotions hardly ever felt. To Nelson and other actors in the great drama, however, there was nothing in the abstract about it all. It was happening, second by second, all around them…to them.

  He came out of his roadside house in the dark, asked the strangers about the “Regulars”—the British troops expected to show up any day now—and received a rough reply for his troubles. Still three hours before the historic exchange of shots on the Lexington Green, the mounted passersby were the Regulars!

  They were British army officers. They, in fact, were escorting four prisoners back to Lexington—Josiah Nelson, you see, lived between Concord and Lexington, and the Regulars before him were the same who a short while earlier had captured Paul Revere and Lexington’s three scouts.

  Josiah Nelson wouldn’t fare so well at their hands, either. “We will let you know when ‘they’ are coming,” one of the officers declared, while angrily swiping at the American with a sword and opening a lengthy gash on his head. With that, the British added Nelson to their string of prisoners.

  By 2:30 A.M., however, the British had released all five Colonials—without their horses. Nelson briefly returned home, where his wife bound up his head wound, then he set off on horseback to warn citizens—and fellow Minutemen—of nearby Bedford that the British were on the prowl.

  On foot now, Revere hurried toward Lexington, crossing a “burying-ground and some pastures” on the way, he later wrote. He was anxious to reach the local minister’s home where the two Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams were sequestered. With the British marching out from Boston in strength and obviously in no accommodating mood, those two must be moved out of harm’s way immediately!

  Thanks to his timely arrival, they did move on, first to a friendly home in Woburn (now Burlington) about two miles away, then somewhat farther afield, to the home of another minister’s widow. Still later, they wound up at Billerica, about four miles from Lexington. Meanwhile, Revere and Hancock’s clerk had returned to Lexington—“to enquire the News,” Revere later explained.

  At Buckman’s Tavern in town, right by the central green, wrote Revere, “a man who had just come up the road told us the troops were within two miles.” Even so, Revere and Hancock’s clerk were supposed to pick up a trunk full of Hancock’s papers left at Buckman’s Tavern.

  Going upstairs to retrieve the trunk, Revere looked out the window and, “I saw the Ministeral [British] Troops from the Chamber window coming up the Road.”

  As Revere and his companion rushed off to the minister’s house with the trunk, they went right past the Lexington Minutemen, drawn up on the green for their historic encounter with the oncoming British. “We made haste & had to pass thro’ our Militia, who were on a green behind the Meeting house to the number I supposed about 50 or 60.” So close was Revere that he heard the militia commander tell his men, “Lett the troops pass by, & don’t molest them, without they begin first.”

  Now came the British troops, appearing just a short distance away. “They made a short halt, when a gun was fired. I heard the report, turned my head, and saw the smoake in front of the Troops, they imeaditly gave a great shout, ran a few paces, and then the whole [body] fired.”

  It now was still only about five o’clock, daylight edging out the night, that fateful morning in Lexington, Massachusetts.

  At the moment all was confusion—events were not totally clear even to the participants. For instance, who had fired first? That is a question that was never completely cleared up, although by most historical accounts the blame has been placed on the British—one of whose officers already had shown no hesitation in slashing Josiah Nelson across the head with a sword earlier that night.

  Not even Paul Revere as a witness could clear up all the uncertainties. As he explained: “I could first distinguish Iregular fireing, which I suppose was the advance Guard, and then the platoons [all British]. At the time I could not see our Militia, for they were covered from me, by a house at the bottom of the Street.”

  ***

  Additional notes: While it’s never been proven who fired first at Lexington, many American participants and witnesses said in sworn statements that it was the British—whether by passion or calculation—who fired first.

  Captain John Parker, commander of the Lexington Minuteman Company, later said that upon the “sudden approach” of the British regulars, “I immediately ordered our militia to disperse and not to fire.” The redcoats, on the other h
and, “rushing furiously, fired upon and killed eight of our party, without receiving any provocation therefor [sic] from us.”

  In another sworn statement, Simon Winship of Lexington said he was stopped by a body of British troops just outside of Lexington around four in the morning on that April 19. They demanded to know if he had been riding about the countryside to give warning of their approach, but he said no, he was merely returning to his father’s home. Then, forced to march toward Lexington with the British troops, he watched as they stopped a quarter mile outside of town to prime and load their muskets.

  Minutes later, they marched to “within rods of Capt. Parker and company, who were partly collected on the place of parade [the common].” At that point, Winship saw and heard a British officer “at the head of said troops, flourishing his sword and with a loud voice giving the word fire, which was instantly followed by a discharge of arms from said regular troops.” Said Winship: “There was no discharge of arms on either side, till the word was given by said Officer as above.”

  Another eyewitness, Thomas Rice Willard, was watching events on the common from his window. He later swore that the Minutemen had already dispersed when a British officer shouted at them: “Lay down your arms, damn you, why don’t you lay down your arms?” According to this Lexington resident, “There was not a gun fired till the militia of Lexington were dispersed.”

  Others who said the British fired first, with no provocation, included thirty-four of the Lexington Minutemen who had been on the common that morning and who swore “whilst our backs were turned on the [British] troops, we were fired on by them.” Another fourteen of the Minutemen who still were facing the British separately swore the redcoats fired first.

  But now, a final and last word on the subject from one John Bateman, soldier, fifty-second Regiment, Great Britain. Sworn on April 23, 1775, at Lincoln, Massachusetts, he saith:

  “Being at Lexington, in the county of Middlesex, being nigh the meetinghouse in said Lexington, there was a small party of men gathered together in that place, when our said troops marched by; and I testify and declare, that I heard the word of command given to the troops to fire, and some of said troops did fire, and I saw one of said small party lie dead on the ground nigh said meetinghouse; and I testify, that I never heard any of the inhabitants so much as fire one gun on said troops.”

  “First Blood Drawn”

  THEY DISEMBARKED FROM THEIR BOATS AND WERE ON THE MARCH BY 2:30 A.M., first passing through “swamps and slips of the Sea,” wrote Ensign Jeremy Lister of England’s Tenth Regiment of Foot. It was “soon after” he and the troops hit the road to Lexington that “the Country people begun to fire their alarm guns [and] light their Beacons, to raise the Country.”

  He could have guessed right then that it was only the beginning of a long night and day for himself and his fellow soldiers of the Crown. He, for one, would survive, but not entirely unscathed.

  The first action he saw was at Lexington, “the first Blood drawn in this American Rebellion.”

  By his written account, the Americans were drawn up before the British “in regular order.” Major John Pitcairn, second in command of the British light infantry and grenadiers, “call’d to them to disperce.”

  When the Americans showed no sign of obeying the order to disperse, Pitcairn then told his men “to mind our space[,] which we did.” That, according to Lister, was “when they gave us a fire then run of[f] to get behind a wall.”

  A man in his company was wounded in the leg, added Lister. “[H]is name was Johnson also Major Pitcairns Horse was shot in the Flank.” That, of course, was not the end of the affair. “[W]e return’d their Salute, and before we proceeded on our March from Lexington I believe we Kill’d and Wounded either 7 or 8 Men.”

  Now it was on to Concord and more action there.

  Arriving just before 8 A.M. April 19, some of the British immediately began searching the houses and barns for Patriot military stores. Others were posted to guard the south and north bridges, and still others were dispatched to search a suspect farm two miles out of town. Ensign Lister’s light infantry company was one of those posted beyond the North Bridge.

  From all around the countryside, meanwhile, American Minutemen and militia members were converging on the town. With their commander, Colonel James Barrett, stunned by news of the shooting at Lexington and yet unwilling to fire on the British first, the Americans initially made no effort to interfere as the British searched Concord for arms and munitions. By Barrett’s direction, the citizen soldiers assembled on a ridge just beyond the North Bridge and from there watched the search parties in the town below.

  Most of the military stores had been removed or at least well hidden by now, but the British did find a few items—gun carriages, cartridge paper, tents, and entrenching tools. Barrett apparently still thought the British would not fire on his men if they did not fire on the British first…but some of his men were obviously agitated at the armed invasion of their town. They urged Barrett to order an attack on the interlopers. Aware that his numbers were on the increase by the minute but unsure of the ultimate British intentions, Barrett counseled patience.

  But then the invaders piled up the recovered items and set them ablaze.

  That was just too much for the onlooking Americans. “Are you going to let them burn the town down?” demanded one of Barrett’s officers. Well, no, the least he could do, with four hundred men now gathered, would be to organize a show of force. Barrett ordered his men to form up and start marching down the ridge toward town—and the North Bridge in between.

  And so, down they started, two abreast at first, with a fife player from nearby Acton sounding the marching tune “The White Cockade.” Up front, in fact, was an entire company of Minutemen from Acton who had been practicing their marksmanship twice a week under their leader, Captain Isaac Davis.

  Now Lister: “[W]e had not been long in this situation [guarding the North Bridge] when we saw a large Body of Men drawn up with the greatest regularity and approach’d us seemingly with an intent to attack.”

  The British retreated across the bridge, but regrouped there, intent on holding the span. As yet, no shots fired.

  The American column still came down the hill, closer and closer to the plank bridge and the massed British. Somewhere far behind would be the four companies of British light infantry that had set out shortly before to search that farm two miles away—Colonel Barrett’s farm, it so happened. The bridge must be held for their use when they returned.

  The Americans solemnly stepped, stepped, stepped. Colonel Barrett had achieved his show of force. The Americans obviously meant to cross the bridge, British or no British. On they came…almost right at the bridge.

  Lister again: “I proposed destroying the bridge, but before we got one plank of[f] they got so near as to begin their Fire[,] which was a very heavy one.”

  Most histories say the firing began, actually, with a few British soldiers letting loose scattered, undisciplined shots into the river, presumably as a warning. But then came a full, disciplined volley by a hundred men of the King’s Own light infantry. The fusillade tore through the first ranks of the American column, into the men from Acton. Their leader, Captain Davis, went down, killed on the spot. So, too, Private Abner Hosmer, while four others were wounded.

  It could have been worse. The British may have fired too high. Even so, as the toll from their volley made clear, they obviously were using killing ammunition in this unprecedented confrontation. Until this moment, few Americans on the scene really had anticipated the use of deadly force.

  Someone in their ranks shouted, “They’re using ball [real bullets]!” Major John Buttrick, who had been marching alongside the stricken Captain Davis seconds before, turned and yelled, “Fire fellow soldiers! For God’s sake, fire!”

  The British soldiers massed at the far end of the bridge were easy targets for the sharpshooting Americans, who now poured their own lethal balls into the adversary’s r
anks. That was Lister’s “heavy” fire. And now, he also recalled, “[T]he weight of their fire was such that we was oblig’d to give way[,] then run with the greatest precipitance.”

  British Captain Walter Laurie, by whose order the redcoats had been massed at the bridge to begin with, was furious with his retreating men. “The whole went to the right about in spite of all that could be done to prevent them,” he later complained.

  None on the scene would have stopped just then to contemplate their place in the history books…as participants in a watershed event of the American Revolution. But that’s what it was, the Battle of Concord Bridge. The very battle that Ralph Waldo Emerson later would call “the shot heard ’round the world.” (And, interestingly enough, his own grandfather, Concord’s young minister William Emerson, had been among the first of those urging Colonel Barrett to attack the British much sooner.)

  Rough Road Home

  THE FAMOUS BATTLE OF CONCORD ENDED IN DESULTORY FASHION, WITH THE British facing a long and rough road home to Boston. First, though, the redcoats rallied in the center of town, while the Americans took cover by the North Bridge. Still at issue was the expected return of four British companies from a search of American Colonel James Barrett’s outlying farm—these redcoats must return by way of the North Bridge, held by the Americans.

  Two or more hours would pass with no one quite knowing what to expect next. Wrote British Ensign Jeremy Lister: “After we had got to Concord again my situation…was a most fatigueing one, being detached to watch the Motions of the Rebels, we was kept continually running from hill to hill as they chang’d their position.”

  In time, the four British companies came into view on the long downhill approach to the North Bridge—“and tho. there was a large Body of Rebels drawn up upon the hill…yet they let him [British Captain Lawrence Parsons and his men] pass without firing a single shot.”