by Ron Carter
Tom watched in disbelief as that one man, who appeared to Tom to be one of the older members of the militia, jerked his hat from his head and threw it on the ground before him and dropped his powder horn and bullet pouch into it. Tom saw him form the words and shout his defiance at the sea of red-coated regulars as they reloaded. “I will not run!” He scooped his powder horn from his hat and tapped a load into his musket muzzle and was jamming his ramrod home when the regulars shouted the charge and sprinted forward with their bayonets fixed. The man was seating a ball on the patch when the first regular reached him and rammed his bayonet through the man’s right side. The man grasped the British musket and felt his side go numb, and then his vision blurred and he toppled onto his side while the soldier jerked his bayonet out and continued the charge.
Pitcairn and the officers rode storming among their own troops, shouting, “Cease fire,” but the order was unheard and unheeded in the mad bedlam. Colonel Smith came galloping into the battle and instantly shouted to the drummer, “Sound cease fire, sound the cease fire,” and the drummer pounded it out.
The militiamen still standing fired their last volley as they ran, and disappeared northward into the trees and fields bordering the Green while the firing from the regulars slowed and stopped. Colonel Smith ordered the soldiers to fall into rank and file, and they began to reassemble from their bayonet charge.
Across Bedford Road, an indiscernible cry of anguish surged from Tom as he lurched forward, down the incline, towards the Green across the road, Matthew following.
On the Green, Smith confronted Pitcairn. “Get the column reassembled and continue on to Concord.”
While the regulars were reforming, the townspeople of Lexington threw open their doors and ran towards the cloud of gun smoke that hung white in the still morning air. Women wept and men cursed as they moved among the militia left on the field of battle, seeking those who still lived.
“This one’s still alive! Help!” The call came ten times. For the others, there were only the anguished cries of widows and children as they dropped to their knees beside the dead body of a husband or father.
Tom reached the battlefield and worked his way through to the man who alone had stood his ground and now lay on his side, unmoving. A great blot of blood stained the right side of his shirt. Tom knelt and pressed his fingers against the throat, under the slack jaw, then dropped his ear to the chest. There was still warmth, but no heartbeat, no breath. Tom raised his head, frantically looking for Matthew.
Twenty yards behind, Matthew had slowed, then stopped as he came to the first of those who had fallen. He saw the flat, eternal stare in the open eyes of the dead, and their open mouths, and the unnatural lay of their arms and legs in the yellow dandelions and green grass, and he saw the blood from their mortal wounds, and the torn flesh. He heard the moans of the wounded, and saw their movements, and the fear and pleading in their eyes. He saw it and his face paled and he choked at the rise of his gorge.
“Help me!” Tom shouted, and Matthew stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending, before he came running.
A sturdy, round-faced woman dropped to her knees beside Tom, face white, and three teenaged girls stopped behind her, breathing hard, mouths clamped shut at the sight of their father.
“Is he dead?” the woman asked, and Tom heard the deep fear in her voice and saw the pleading in her eyes. He looked down, and in that second the woman knew. Her head rolled back and she bit down to stifle a sob as the searing pain struck. Behind her the girls began to whimper and then sob in the strange, new, grotesque world of dead and wounded, and gun smoke, and groans, and their father at their feet, bloody, not moving.
“I think he’s gone,” Tom said quietly, and he wanted to reach to touch her, to comfort her, but he could not. Tom and Matthew lifted him between them, and the woman reached to touch the slack face, and she gasped and sobbed. Tom turned at the sound of heavy running feet from behind, and John Parker came to a stop, breathing heavily, eyes wide.
“Is he alive?” Parker boomed.
Tom shook his head.
The massive shoulders dropped and the big, homely face bowed, and Tom saw the single shudder and heard the gasp. When Parker raised his face, his brows were peaked, and his mouth was a straight line as he struggled for control. He gathered the weeping woman into his arms like a child, and held her against his chest, softly repeating over and over, “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy . . .”
He straightened, and by strength of will took possession of himself and turned to Tom. “He’s Jonas Parker, my first cousin. Lucy’s his wife. Their home is just across Bedford Road.”
The three men carried Jonas Parker to his home, with Lucy walking beside, holding the limp hand, and they laid him on his bed. Lucy opened his shirt and Tom watched as she stared at the single purple-rimmed puncture wound in his side.
Tom did not know what to say but knew someone had to explain, and he said simply, “It was a bayonet, not a bullet.” It sounded like too little, and awkwardly Tom added, “I don’t know how deep,” and wished he had not said it.
Lucy slumped onto a chair beside the bed and grasped her husband’s square, callused hand in hers. She held it to her face and began to rock back and forth. The three girls stood at the foot of the bed, with sounds of whimpering and choked sobs. Parker stood behind Lucy, silent, giving her time, with a rare tenderness shining from his square, strong face.
He turned to Tom. “Who are you?”
“Tom Sievers, and this is Matthew Dunson. Boston militia.”
Suddenly the door flew open and a young man, musket in hand, burst into the room. “Ma? Where’s Pa? Someone said he—” He stopped short at the sight of the lifeless figure on the bed. He looked with anguish at Lucy, then at John Parker.
“Jonas,” Parker said softly to the young man, “I’m sorry.”
With head bowed, twenty-one-year-old Jonas, Jr., walked slowly over to stand beside his mother, laying a hand on her shoulder.
After a moment of painful silence, the three girls began quietly crying once more.
Then John Parker turned again to Tom. A sense of pleading flitted across Parker’s face as he spoke. “They shot. There was nothing else I . . . I had to . . .” He did not know how to complete his statement, his defense, his question.
Tom’s eyes locked with Parker’s. “I seen it all,” he said steadily. “You did right. You were seventy men and a few more, and you faced eight hundred, and you ordered your men back to avoid a fight just like you was ordered. You did right. I’ll tell them.”
Tom caught the brief flash of gratefulness in Parker’s eyes before Tom turned to Lucy Parker. “Ma’am, you and your family got to know. When the order was given to fall back, it was your husband who covered the retreat. It was him threw his hat on the ground and said he wouldn’t run, and he covered for the militiamen and he took the bayonet charge alone. All alone. Ma’am, I never seen nothing like it, anything so brave. You and your family got to remember that.”
Lucy raised startled, searching eyes to Tom. “Jonas did that? My Jonas did that?”
“I seen it, ma’am.”
Jonas, Jr., eyes wide, looked first at Tom, then with silent wonder at his father. The three girls stopped their sobbing, and they stared at their father as if they were seeing him for the first time. Jonas, Jr., spoke up. “Ma, I’ll go get the rest of the family.”
Lucy nodded, and as her son left, she clutched Tom’s arm. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Tom nodded and turned back to John Parker. “The soldiers was regrouping to move on to Concord.”
“I need to get back to my command.”
Tom shook his head. “Let the soldiers go. Your command needs time with their dead and wounded, and you need time here.”
“I got to send someone to tell them at Concord.”
“Me and Matthew are going.”
“Tell them the regulars fired while we were trying to fall back to avoid a fight.”
“I saw it,” To
m answered. “I’ll tell them.”
“Tell them not to wait. Shoot!” Parker’s voice rang with anger.
“I’ll tell them. You did right.”
Tom and Matthew walked out the door into the bright sunlight, and they looked at the beautiful, flower-covered Green, and the gentle hills to the east, and at the homes and businesses of Lexington. Then Tom once again started west on the Concord Road at his relentless trot, Matthew following.
Ahead one mile, where the road turned as it passed Fiske Hill, Private Samuel Lee, marching in the last company of regulars, mumbled, “It ain’t what they said, this soldierin’. Marchin’ all night through swamps and bugs. Eatin’ hardtack. Shootin’ common folk wot ain’t doin’ nothin’. It ain’t wot they said when I joined.”
He spoke to the soldier next to him. “Is this here soldierin’ to your likin’?”
The man shook his head and said nothing, and they kept step with the drum.
“Ain’t wot they promised,” Lee continued. “Shootin’ folk wot’s retreatin’. Ain’t wot they promised.”
Three minutes later Lee simply slowed. The man next to him turned to look, and Lee shook his head at him, sat down on a rock at the side of the road, and leaned his musket against a tree while the column continued.
“I ain’t goin’ to shoot at no more people,” Lee vowed, “no sir. It ain’t wot they promised, and if they lied to me, I ain’t doin’ nothin’ wrong by quittin’.” He sat for a while, weighing his argument, testing it to see how it would sound if he were caught and brought to a court-martial. The column continued and disappeared in the distance.
Lee was not prepared for the voice that came from directly behind, and he jumped at the single word.
“Sir.”
Lee did not turn. He slowly moved his hands away from his body and said, “I got a rock in my shoe an’ I was just gettin’ ready to catch up. I ain’t no deserter, no sir.”
The voice came again. “Sir.”
Slowly Lee turned to look. Behind him, Sylvanus Wood stood with feet planted and his musket, held at waist level, pointed where the white belts crossed on Lee’s red coat.
Lee’s mouth fell open and his eyes popped. He could hardly see Sylvanus for the musket.
“Sir, you’re my prisoner.”
“I’m your bloody what?”
“I’m one of the militia from Lexington. You’re my prisoner. I’m taking you back.”
Lee threw back his head and roared with laughter. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He brought himself under control and looked at Sylvanus. “So I’m your prisoner.”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got a musket.”
“So have I.”
“Well,” Sylvanus said hesitantly, “don’t touch it. I wish you wouldn’t touch it.”
Lee pondered for a moment. “Wouldn’t think of it. Point that thing somewhere else. ’Ere, take mine. I’m your prisoner. Let’s get on back to Lexington. I might turn out to be a bloody hero over this, who knows?”
Lee started back towards Lexington with Sylvanus trudging along behind, one musket strap over each shoulder, trying to keep up.
Tom saw them coming and slowed, unable to see Sylvanus until Lee was ten yards away. Lee smiled and waved to Tom. Tom stopped to watch them pass by, and Sylvanus looked proudly up at him.
“He’s my prisoner.”
Sylvanus Wood had taken the first British captive of the war.
Ten minutes later Tom heard the British drums ahead, and for the first time sporadic shots cracked out far in the distance.
“Militia,” he said, “shooting at the column.” He turned to Matthew. “We’ve got to get around them to Concord first.”
He left the road and travelled parallel on the north side, slowing occasionally, waiting for Matthew. While still four miles from Concord they saw militia moving through the trees and fields by the score, watching the column, running to get ahead of them. Half an hour later Tom came abreast of the column. Behind him, shots still cracked out from behind trees and rocks.
On the road, Colonel Smith cast worried eyes into the open fields and rolling hills on both sides of the road, watching the militiamen working their way north to Concord. In twos and threes and whole companies they came, watching the column move. Smith had flankers out one hundred yards on both sides, marching through fields, wading streams, climbing rock fences, moving steadily towards Concord, but militia sharpshooters waited for the flankers to pass before they slipped close enough to rest their musket barrels across a rock or tree limb and fire at the passing column.
Smith felt the gathering turmoil in his column, and sensed the reluctance to continue forward to what now appeared to be a head-on, pitched battle with numbers of militia none of the British had ever dreamed possible. How had they gathered such numbers in twelve hours? And worse, what had the point-blank killing at Lexington done to the resolve in the militia? He drew a deep breath and turned at the sound of a horse loping in from behind.
Ensign De Berniere reined in short of Smith. “Sir, some of us are concerned. We underestimated the numbers of militia, and after Lexington, there’s going to be fighting at Concord. It may be good judgment to turn back.”
Smith’s eyes snapped. “I have my orders, and I intend carrying them out. Return to your command.”
De Berniere opened his mouth to reply, then clamped it shut and turned back to relay Smith’s orders to the regulars.
Smith straightened in his saddle and cantered his horse to the head of the column, then fell back even with the flankers out on his left and right and continued on. The column marched up the east slope of Brooks Hill, and at the crest they looked down the west slope.
There, peaceful in bright sunlight that beautiful spring morning, Concord lay spread before them.
None of them noticed the two militiamen to their right, one wiry, the other tall and slender, trotting down the slope toward the Meriam house at Meriam’s Corner, and the town cemetery, and the liberty pole, where the Massachusetts Colony flag shifted in the gentle breeze.
______
Notes
The description of Lexington Green on the morning of April 19, 1775, including the dandelions, is accurate. The formation of the British troops by Smith and Pitcairn, including the fact that they separated the officers from the regulars when they passed the big meetinghouse at the south end of the Green, with the resulting confusion, is also accurate (see French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, p. 108).
Captain John Parker, commander of the minutemen and militia at Lexington, specifically ordered his men not to fire unless the British fired first (see French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, pp. 98–99, 109).
Within a few days after the shooting at Lexington, sixty-two colonial witnesses were gathered and their depositions taken. Each declared under oath that it was the British who confronted the minutemen and militia and who fired the first shot. However, British accounts suggest it was a colonial who fired the first shot. No one has ever proved which side was actually responsible, and the subject has been a source of hot debate ever since. (See French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, pp. 109–28.)
The incident in which militiaman Jonas Parker, cousin of Captain John Parker, throws down his hat and declares he will not run, while he covers the retreat of the militia, with the resulting fatal bayonet wound in his right side, is accurate (see French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, p. 119 n. 3, and p. 143).
The rather comical event involving a colonial Woburn volunteer named Sylvanus Wood, described in this chapter, is also accurate. Wood, just five feet tall, took the first prisoner of war when he happened onto a much larger British grenadier named Samuel Lee, who had simply sat down beside the road to Concord and refused to go further. When Wood, substantially shorter than the two muskets he carried, appeared in Lexington with his captive, the hilarity of the situation did much to raise the spirits of the colonials. (See Galvin, The Minute Men, pp. 122–30.)
Wednesday, April 19, 1775
&n
bsp; Chapter XIII
* * *
A buzz began in the dark, warm regions of the slumbering brain of Corporal Jeremiah Sotheby, orderly to General Thomas Gage, and it battled its way into his consciousness. He understood someone had taken hold of his shoulder, and he moved in his bunk and murmured his protest. The hand shook his shoulder, and someone spoke sharply. Sotheby rose on one elbow to stare into the face of a young lieutenant, sweating, panting, holding a lantern.
“Get Gage. Now.”
Sotheby swallowed at the cotton in his mouth. “What time is it?”
The lieutenant ignored the question. “Get Gage. I’m from Smith’s column.”
Instantly Sotheby bolted upright and seized his pocket watch from the nightstand and stared until his eyes focused. Ten minutes past five o’clock. “I’m sorry, sir. General Gage was up late. I can’t disturb him.”
“On your feet,” the lieutenant ordered. “You’re taking me to him now.”
“Who are you, sir?”
“I told you. I’m from Smith’s column, headed for Concord. They’re in trouble. He sent me back with a message. Get moving.”
Sotheby’s feet hit the cold, polished floor of his quarters, and five minutes later he jerked the door open and the lieutenant followed him into the gray of early dawn. They trotted to Gage’s quarters, and Sotheby paused at the front door to straighten his tunic and his hat before he knocked, then knocked again. A light appeared inside, and Gage opened the door, clad in his royal blue robe with the gold trim. He scowled at the two men.
“Do you know the time? What brings you here?” He glanced past them into the vacant drill and parade ground. Satisfied no one else was there, he waited for Sotheby’s answer.
“Sir,” Sotheby said, “with due apologies, this officer claims he has a message from Colonel Smith.”
For the first time Gage saw the slit eyes and the sweat and the hard set of the lieutenant’s face, and he felt the grab in the pit of his stomach. A badly used up messenger from Smith arriving at dawn could mean only one thing.