by Howard Fast
From what I heard, listening to this group and that one, there were six assembly points spotted between the Menotomy Road and the Watertown Road. That was to give the Committeemen gathered at these various points the freedom to move north or south, depending upon what road they had to cover. Meanwhile, the Committeemen from west of the Sudbury River and west of the Concord River would converge on the North Bridge, to hold the western bank of the river there. The British would reach Concord, if they had not reached it already, but they would go no further—and after what had happened at the common, some of the men maintained that it would be just as well if the British remained there.
More and more, I began to understand what an amazing piece of organization my father and the other Committeemen had carried out. It was true that no one was shouting orders, that men just drifted in from every direction, without appearing to be in much of a hurry about it, and that the hundred-odd men sprawled about in the pasture looked as unlike an army as anything you might conceive of; but nevertheless they were carrying out their purpose with a calm that astonished me, and they were where they had to be with time enough to spare.
There were a number of men who wore the blue and white ribbon of the militia officer on their hats, and they kept coming to Solomon Chandler, who sat on a bit of stone wall with my Cousin Dover from Lincoln Town. Cousin Dover was trying to make a tally in a small black notebook he carried in his pocket, checking off names with a quill pen. His ink was balanced on a rock, and he sat on the stone wall as serious and businesslike as if he were in the store back at Lincoln and going over his accounts. Meanwhile, Israel Thatcher, the news carrier from Medford, was selling his papers and gathering news to piece together the story of the massacre, and questioning everyone who had been on the common. He attempted to borrow Cousin Dover’s pen and ink and notebook, arguing that an accurate history of the day was more important than any muster book; but Cousin Dover informed him that he would do better to wait until the day was over before he wrote its history, and unless someone had enough sense to bother with a muster book, it might make poor history indeed. Further, he implied that he didn’t think very much of a news carrier who would come out on a day like this one without some writing materials.
Cousin Simmons had a cold meat pie in his jacket pocket, and he insisted that I share it with him. I tried to explain that Solomon Chandler had shared a whole provision bag with me, but that wouldn’t satisfy him a bit. He just knew that I’d feel better if I ate something, so I took half of the pie just to please him. As a matter of fact, after the first bite I enjoyed it thoroughly. I had never considered Goody Simmons to be much of a cook, but I must say that she did an old-fashioned meat pie as well as anyone.
“I guess Moses is dead,” he said to me. “There’s no doubt, is there?”
“No, sir. They brought him into the house.”
“Who did?”
“Mother and Granny and Cousin Rebecca.”
I told him about the smokehouse and how Levi had found me there; and then he took hold of my hands and told me, plain and quiet, that while nothing could ever replace Moses Cooper in my heart, I could turn to him just as I would to a father. It meant a good deal to me to hear him say that, because he was not just saying it. He meant it. It wasn’t very easy to get to know Joseph Simmons. He was one of those big, heavy-muscled, slow-speaking men who seem to think through every word they utter; but once he set his mind to something, he did it, no matter what price he had to pay, and if he gave his word, he kept his word. He knew what had happened on the common, and running away was worse for him than it was for me, since he was a man grown.
“We’re going to fight them today, Adam,” he said to me.
“I know.”
“Things happen in fighting.”
“Yes, sir. I guess the most terrible and unexpected things happen.”
“I pray to God to spare us both, Adam.”
“Amen to that.”
“But no one knows. As Jehovah wills it, so it will be, but if anything does happen, I want you to tell it to Ruth, and be kind and considerate of her, Adam. A girl is a frail thing, and not easy in the world until she has a home and a family of her own.”
I promised him, even though I couldn’t think of Ruth Simmons as a frail thing. She was one of the strongest and healthiest girls in our town.
We heard gunfire. It was distant and faint and in the direction of Concord, but it brought everyone in the pasture to his feet, and we stood there listening and staring. Then a rider came across the fields, spurring his horse, sailing over a stone wall, and pulling up hard and sharp at the pasture, with everybody crowding around him to hear the news that he brought. Church bells were ringing again. It was hard to say exactly where the bells were, but you could hear them from the south and from the west.
The rider brought news that the British army was in Concord. Most everything had been taken away from there and hidden, only some hogsheads of wheat flour left. Who would have dreamed that the redcoats would smash them up and strew the flour all over the place, but according to the rider, that was exactly what they had done. The redcoat officers were sitting outside of the inn, drinking everything and paying for nothing, and making a great picnic out of the whole thing. There were no men to speak of left in Concord, only women and children.
“But the gunfire?” demanded Solomon Chandler. “What of the gunfire, man?”
The rider didn’t know. He had only heard the gunfire as he approached us. But he did know that there had been talk among the British of destroying the North Bridge. And the militia were on the west bank of the river. There might have been a fight at the river.
There was more gunfire while we questioned him, scattered bursts, and then single shots popping lightly, so faint it was hardly possible to define them with any certainty.
“Well, what are their plans? Do they leave Concord?”
He didn’t know. He pleaded his thirst, and someone handed him a water bottle. The day was turning hot and preparing to be the hottest day of the year until then.
“Do you have the nerve to go back there?” he was asked.
He did. He nodded his head vigorously. His horse was a beautiful chestnut gelding. He was about nineteen years old, and proud of his riding. He said that if it had to be, he’d ride through the redcoat army.
“Never you mind such tricks.”
Well, what did we want him to do?
“Go back and listen for when they march.”
“And then?”
“Cut into the road and ride down before them, yelling an alarm. You’re a young man. You got a good set of lungs.”
“Well, don’t shoot at me by mistake.”
“Go on with you!”
He rode away, waving back at us.
Solomon Chandler stood up on the stone wall, and the men gathered around. I didn’t count them then, but I am sure there were well over a hundred in the pasture. One man had two hunting dogs with him.
“Send the dogs home, neighbor,” Chandler said. “There’s no need to flush what we hunt.” It raised a laugh, and I could see how much they enjoyed the old man. He stood up on the stone wall, tall and skinny as a fence rail, his hands in his pocket, his long rifle slung over his back, his pipe in his mouth. Then he tapped out his pipe on the back of one hand, and said:
“Well, here we are, neighbors, and who ever would have thought it would come to fighting on a fine Middlesex morning like this one? But it has. It has. The redcoats danced, didn’t they, and now they got to pay the piper. It wouldn’t be at all proper to let them go home and exact no payment. I know that the Reverend could say all and more that must be said, and when he does, I do hope that he will turn to Exodus 21, for it is written there, ‘He that smiteth a man, so that he die, shall be surely put to death. And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbor, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine
altar, that he may die.’”
“Amen!” came up from the pasture.
“Amen. Now how many of you are riflemen, raise your weapons!”
About twenty men raised rifles, holding them up over their heads for Solomon Chandler to see.
“Good!” the old man said. “Go over to my left and separate yourselves, and I’ll be captain with you, and Joshua Dover with the muskets and bird guns. Unless anyone wants to propose it differently. If they do, I’m willing to hear.”
“Why can’t we stay together, Solomon?”
“You answer that, son. A musket gun carries a hundred paces. A rifle carries four hundred paces. That calls for two different kinds of tactics entirely. Now just let me explain what I have in mind. Consider the five miles of road between here and Lexington. It seems plain to me that the redcoats are going to march down that stretch of road. It would be five miles more by way of Lincoln to Watertown, and no sense whatsoever, so it’s safe to presume they’ll take the road to the north of us. All that five miles to Lexington, and ten miles more to Charlestown, we’ll give them no peace whatsoever. At least half the stretch of that road is binded with stone wall. We’ll lie down behind that wall and make them mighty uncomfortable.”
I wondered. Could you be shot down and run away in such fear as we had on the common, and then fight and win—and all of it on the same day? It was one thing to see the redcoats in the distance, and something else to have them close up against you. If someone had to tell them, I was still not the one. I went with Cousin Simmons in the file of men walking toward the road, and it didn’t seem possible that we were at war, not even with the shots popping like Indian corn in the distance. The Reverend was with us. He had a gun now, a bag of shot, and a bottle of powder, and under the day’s growth of whiskers his face was sad and lonely. Solomon Chandler came over to wish me Godspeed.
“Prime your gun careful, and don’t ever fire unless the man’s upon you. Count his buttons. A gun like yours won’t stop a man at more than thirty paces.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I’ll heed your words.”
“Take no pleasure in it. Let it hurt, but become hard in the sorrow.”
“Would you tell him that?” the Reverend asked.
“And you, too, Reverend. I tell you that. We’ll weep for them, but they brought the killing to us, not us to them.”
“God help all of us,” the Reverend said.
“I say amen to that. We fight in God’s cause.”
“Nobody fights in God’s cause,” the Reverend replied harshly. “Isn’t it enough to kill in freedom’s name? No one kills in God’s cause. He can only ask God’s forgiveness.”
The old man heard this respectfully. “As you say, Reverend. I would like to dispute it somewhat, but there ain’t time.” Then he turned off with his riflemen to find a hummock overlooking the road, while we filed through a scrub of woods to the stone wall that lined the road. We took our places on the blind side of the wall, a man of us every few yards, stretching down along the road to where it curved out of sight, and with the road itself not ten paces from where we were.
“We’ll keep down after we shoot,” Cousin Simmons said, “and get out. Then we can take other places down the road. It’s just death to try to remain here with the roadway full of British regulars.” Most everyone agreed with him, and when Cousin Joshua came down the wall to check our positions, he said the same thing.
“How long to wait, Joshua?” the Reverend asked him. The Reverend was on one side of me, Cousin Simmons on the other.
“I hear the shooting plainer, don’t you?”
We were sitting on top of the wall; it was strange to see the men sitting there, as far as the wall stretched, and I couldn’t remember anything like it that I had ever seen before.
“Plainer, I think.”
It was so. The pop, pop, pop of gunfire was becoming louder. It no longer sounded like Indian corn. My heart began to hammer wildly, and suddenly I felt that I would burst if I didn’t pass water.
“Do it here,” Cousin Simmons said.
“Can’t with the Reverend watching.”
“Don’t be a fool, boy. Don’t you think the Reverend does the same thing? He’ll be doing it enough before the day’s through.”
“Go ahead and put modesty away, Adam,” the Reverend agreed.
I did it. It was woefully hot, the sweat pouring down my face, and Cousin Simmons said why didn’t I take off my coat. I replied that I couldn’t, because I might lose it in the excitement, and it was the very best jacket coat I ever owned and brand new in the bargain. “And you wore it last night!” Cousin Simmons cried. The Reverend burst into laughter.
It was the first time any of us had laughed since the morn ing began.
The rider from Concord was as good as his word. He came spurring and whooping down the road, his horse kicking up clouds of dust, shouting:
“They’re a-coming! By God, they’re a-coming, they are!”
We heard him before he ever showed, and we heard him yelling after he was out of sight. Solomon Chandler hadn’t misjudged the strength of his lungs, not at all. I think you could have heard him a mile away, and he was bursting at every seam with importance. I have observed that being up on a horse changes the whole character of a man, and when a very small man is up on a saddle, he’d like as not prefer to eat his meals there. That’s understandable, and I appreciate the sentiment. As for this rider, I never saw him before or afterwards and never saw him dismounted, so whether he stood tall or short in his shoes, I can’t say; but I do know that he gave the day tone and distinction. The last thing in the world that resembled a war was our line of farmers and storekeepers and mechanics perched on top of a stone wall, and this dashing rider made us feel a good deal sharper and more alert to the situation.
We came down off the wall as if he had toppled all of us, and we crouched behind it. I have heard people talk with contempt about the British regulars, but that only proves that a lot of people talk about things of which they are deplorably ignorant. Whatever we felt about the redcoats, we respected them in terms of their trade, which was killing; and I know that I, myself, was nauseated with apprehension and fear and that my hands were soaking wet where they held my gun. I wanted to wipe my flint, but I didn’t dare to, the state my hands were in, just as I didn’t dare to do anything about the priming. The gun would fire or not, just as chance willed. I put a lot more trust in my two legs than in the gun, because the most important thing I had learned about war was that you could run away and survive to talk about it.
The gunfire, which was so near that it seemed just a piece up the road now, stopped for long enough to count to twenty; and in that brief interval, a redcoat officer came tearing down the road, whipping his horse fit to kill. I don’t know whether he was after our rider, who had gone by a minute before, or whether he was simply scouting conditions; but when he passed us by, a musket roared, and he reared his horse, swung it around, and began to whip it back in the direction from which he had come. He was a fine and showy rider, but his skill was wasted on us. From above me and somewhere behind me, a rifle cracked. The redcoat officer collapsed like a punctured bolster, and the horse reared and threw him from the saddle, except that one booted foot caught in the stirrup. Half crazed by the weight dragging, the dust, and the heat, the horse leaped our wall, dashing out the rider’s brains against it, and leaving him lying there among us—while the horse crashed away through the brush.
It was my initiation to war and the insane symphony war plays; for what had happened on the common was only terror and flight; but this grinning, broken head, not ten feet away from me, was the sharp definition of what my reality had become.
And now the redcoats were coming, and the gunfire was a part of the dust cloud on the road to the west of us. I must state that the faster things happened, the slower they happened; the passage and rhythm of time changed, and when I remember back to what happened then, each event is a separate and frozen incident. In my r
ecollection, there was a long interval between the death of the officer and the appearance of the first of the retreating redcoats, and in that interval the dust cloud over the road seems to hover indefinitely. Yet it could not have been more than a matter of seconds, and then the front of the British army came into view.
It was only hours since I had last seen them, but they had changed and I had changed. In the very front rank, two men were wounded and staggered along, trailing blood behind them. No drummers here, no pipers, and the red coats were covered with a fine film of dust. They marched with bayonets fixed, and as fixed on their faces was anger, fear, and torment. Rank after rank of them came down the road, and the faces were all the same, and they walked in a sea of dust.
“Committeemen, hold your fire! Hold your fire!” a voice called, and what made it even more terrible and unreal was that the redcoat ranks never paused for an instant, only some of them glancing toward the stone wall, from behind which the voice came.
The front of their column had already passed us, when another officer came riding down the side of the road, not five paces from where we were. My Cousin Simmons carried a musket, but he had loaded it with bird shot, and as the officer came opposite him, he rose up behind the wall and fired. One moment there was a man in the saddle; the next a headless horror on a horse that bolted through the redcoat ranks, and during the next second or two, we all of us fired into the suddenly disorganized column of soldiers. One moment, the road was filled with disciplined troops, marching four by four with a purpose as implacable as death; the next, a cloud of gun smoke covered a screaming fury of sound, out of which the redcoat soldiers emerged with their bayonets and their cursing fury.