by Ron Carter
John drew a heavy breath. “I talked with Sam Adams and John Hancock this morning. Their orders were to defend the stores and the town. Avoid a fight if possible. Do not fire unless they do.”
John looked back at Barrett, who again raised his hand to the group. “Now, listen well! The British will be here soon. You’ve heard our orders, and I intend carrying them out. We’ve got three hundred tons of food, and cannon and gunpowder and grain hidden all over this valley, and I’ve got cannon and twenty tons of food hidden at my farm two miles north. They want it, and they won’t get it.”
He paused, and the men moved, then settled again.
“This is the plan. Let them come into town. Let them look. Let them take whatever they can find, because I do not think they can find much of it. If they start harming our citizens, or burning or destroying private property, we’ll stop them, or if they find too much of it we’ll stop them, but if they do not, we’ll simply stand by and hold our peace.”
Again he paused, and there was murmuring.
“Do any of you disagree?”
A powerfully built man near the front exclaimed, “Parker let them into Lexington and they killed some of his men. I say we stop them down at the millpond.”
“I understand you,” Barrett replied, “but our orders are specific. Protect the munitions and supplies, but do not fight if we can avoid it.” He brought his eyes directly to those of the husky man. “Do you agree?”
His eyes dropped. “I agree.”
Barrett drew a deep breath. “I’m going to let them into town. We’ll surround the town out of musket range but where they can see us. I doubt they’ll press too hard if they’re surrounded.”
He broke off and turned back to John and Tom.
“We’ve got a seasoned fighting man with us. I’ve asked him to give us some instruction on some things that will save lives if we have a battle.” He turned and nodded to Tom. “Step out here in front, Mr. Sievers.”
Tom looked at John before he moved out to the front of the group. The officers huddled close, silent, intense in their concentration.
“I’m sorry how I look,” Tom began. “I been travellin’ all night. I don’t know much about military thinking, but I did learn some things from the French and the Indians.” He stared at the ground for a moment, selecting words and thoughts. “If we drive them out of this valley, they’ll form a column and march back the way they came, and they’ll expect us to follow in a column because that’s how they’ve been taught wars are fought.”
Tom paused for a moment. “Keep them off balance. Don’t fight them like they been taught. Their companies have been trained to shoot one direction at a time. Get on all sides of the road and shoot from everywhere. Shoot the ones with the gold on their shoulders first. Aim where the white belts cross. Get behind rocks or trees or bushes, or in ditches, or just anywhere you can find cover to shoot. Once you’ve shot, there’s going to be a white cloud of musket smoke hanging out there telling them where you are. So move! Shoot and move! Load while you’re running on down to the next cover. Shoot again, and keep moving. They don’t have no idea how to fight you if you shoot and move. If they form a box, or a wedge, and charge, just run back until they stop, and get behind something, and shoot again. If they got cannon, make a big circle around and come in behind them. They can’t move cannon fast enough to do any good if you circle fast.”
Tom paused again. “They got eighteen miles to cover between here and Boston. If they do it peaceful, we let them go. If they shoot, we can punish them every step of the way.”
He stopped and turned to John. “I miss anything?”
“Just a couple of things,” John answered. “Don’t move in big groups. It’s easier to hit a big group than a small one. And don’t look over the top of a rock or a log. Look around one side or the end, if you can. You’re easier to see if your head shows over the top. And darker clothes are harder to see than light ones.”
Tom nodded, then turned back to Barrett and waited.
Breathing began again in the group, and Barrett nodded his head. “Thank you.” He looked at the group. “When you get back to your companies, repeat what you have been told. Make sure they understand. Now, listen close while I make assignments for your companies.”
Methodically, clearly, he called the names of the towns whence the militia and minutemen had come, and pointed to the hills surrounding the valley, except to the north. On each call, the leader nodded his understanding.
“When you’re all in position we’ll have the valley surrounded except to the north. My Concord companies will take a position just this side of the North Bridge. Does anyone have a question?”
The sound of distant drums brought everything on the Green to an instant standstill, and every eye swung to stare south. The column of colonials that had passed Tom as he came into Concord was now marching back, around the bend by the millpond and the cemetery. Six hundred yards behind them, beating their drums to the identical cadence, the leaders of the British column matched them stride for stride, their red coats and white belts gleaming in the sun.
Barrett shouted to the assembled leaders, “That’s Brown leading the British in. Get your commands to your assigned positions. Move!”
The company commanders scattered on the run, John and Tom following Telford back to the Boston company. Telford shouted his orders, the men fell into formation, and he quickly marched them east across the road, scrambling up to the hill to take a position on the ridge, where they turned and stood in plain view of the entire valley.
John turned to Tom. “How’s Matthew?”
Tom shook his head slightly. “Too much has come down on him too quick. Thorpe’s gone, and Kathleen put him out. We covered eighteen miles last night. He saw the Lexington fight, and we walked right in among the dead and wounded and helped with Parker’s cousin Jonas. He took a bayonet charge alone. Brave man. He’s dead. Too much too fast for Matthew. He hasn’t caught up yet.”
“We’ve got to watch him if shooting starts.”
Tom nodded. “Him and Billy. Killing a man is a hard thing. Even if God wants you to do it, it’s still hard. We’ll have to watch the boys.”
John opened the small packet of food and took out cheese and meat, and moved to Matthew’s side and glanced at his drawn face. “How is it with Kathleen?”
Matthew shook his head but did not look at John. “She made me leave.”
John worked on the food. “You better eat while you can.”
Matthew shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
John continued. “You have to understand, her life—her family—has been destroyed. She’ll need time.”
“I don’t think time will matter.”
“Be patient. Did you see the Lexington fight?”
“I saw. We went down afterwards, among the dead and wounded.”
John dropped his eyes, and he was suddenly back twenty-four years with Tom Sievers, on snowshoes twenty-six miles northeast of Marsden, hidden in the tangled branches of a great windfall maple near a frozen brook. A hill was to their backs, a small, snow-choked valley before them. A force of Indians had hit the Goosequill trading post and left four dead, and Tom and John and five other men found them thirty hours later and laid an ambush. They scarcely breathed as they watched the six Huron warriors trotting on snowshoes beside the brook ice, moving north. They would pass less than fifteen yards from where the men lay, white faced, scared, muskets cocked. The Huron had their fur-lined parkas up, and never stopped turning their heads, looking everywhere, sensing the trap but not expecting it yet. They were directly in front of the great heap of the fallen tree when the first musket cracked, and then the others cracked, all but John’s. John felt the sweat freezing on his face as the Huron tumbled, all but one, and the last one swung his ancient French musket to bear at the tree, and Tom screamed, “Fire!” John buried the front sight of his musket in the midsection of the last Huron and pulled the trigger. He took the solid kick and raised his
eyes, and he saw the Huron fling his musket to the side and grasp at his chest as he staggered back and tripped over his snowshoes and hit the snow, twisting, moving, trying to rise, and then slumped and moved for a moment and then lay still.
As though in a dream, John rose with the other men to go walk among the enemy dead, and John knew he would never forget the bright, hot, searing burn in his chest as he stared down into the flat, dead eyes of the man he had killed, and in his soul he knew he had committed an act forbidden by God and nature. His eyes blurred as he stared, and he felt the scalding tears freezing on his cheeks and he didn’t care. And then he felt Tom’s gentle hand on his shoulder, and Tom looked into his eyes and said nothing, and Tom’s eyes were too bright and he wiped at them and walked away and left John alone.
John looked at Matthew, and he wished from his soul that he could shield him, take the burden from him and bear it on his own shoulders, but he knew he could not. He could only watch and wait and be there when life forced Matthew to decide for himself if he would commit acts that would test him in the crucible. Tom had called it right. Even if God wants you to kill a man, it’s a hard thing. Even if it has to be done to bring about God’s work, it’s a hard thing.
John said softly, “There’s not much that’s worse to look at than men killed in battle.”
Matthew looked into John’s eyes, and John saw the pain and the fear and the doubt and the need for relief.
“I’ve done it,” John continued. “Too many times. Only one thing gets me through it.”
Matthew sucked in air and his eyes pleaded with his father.
“I have to know taking their lives was necessary for the right reasons. If I didn’t have that, I think I would lose my sanity.”
Matthew swallowed hard against the rise in his chest, and he said, “Did those men die for the right reasons at Lexington? Are we here for the right reasons?”
John looked more deeply into his son than ever in his life and spoke with measured words. “Yes. We’re where we belong, doing what must be done. This is in the hands of the Almighty.”
“The killing—those dead men—are part of God’s work?” Matthew’s voice was too high, strained. In his mind he was seeing men who had fallen, arms and legs thrown at odd angles, mouths loose and open, eyes wide, flat, dead. Men who had had wives and children, who only moments earlier had been alive, with hopes and dreams, joys and sorrows. He saw no glory, nothing noble. Only broken, bleeding bodies that were dead and would be put in the ground.
“Yes. So was the death of his Son.”
Matthew gasped as the thought struck him as never before. From the earliest dawn of his memory he had known of the crucifixion of Jesus, but never, never had it been so real as it was to him at this moment. Jesus had looked like one of those men on the ground on the Lexington Green! Bleeding and grotesque, with unseeing eyes, and dead! Jesus, the Son of God!
He stared at John, and John saw the breaking of new understanding in his son, and he waited and he saw Matthew’s mind leaping to accept it. Matthew dropped his eyes and raised his hand to wipe at his mouth, and John remained silent while Matthew’s thoughts raced.
Their thoughts were interrupted by the booming voice of Colonel Barrett from down on the Green, and they turned and fell silent as the Boston company listened and watched.
“Captain Fowler,” they heard Barrett shouting, “take your company and get these women and children off the Green, to Punkatasset Hill. Go now! The rest of you assemble at the North Bridge in rank and file.”
They watched him as he turned to Buttrick. “You come with me to the North Bridge.”
Barrett’s command started north, and Barrett turned once to watch Brown as he led his incoming command past the cemetery and the millpond and Wright’s tavern and headed straight north across the Green towards the North Bridge to assemble with Colonel Barrett’s command. Five minutes later the colonial forces had reached their assigned positions, and they all stopped to see what the British would do when they found the town vacated.
They watched as the British column stopped at the cemetery and quickly the flankers seized the liberty pole and cut it down. The colonials held their wrath at the sight of their beloved flag in the dirt, and they continued their stoney silence as they watched the flankers move into town, up the streets, and across the Green, with the column following, drums banging and fifes playing.
They grimly watched as the British column began its systematic movements. Two companies secured the South Bridge to seal up the south end of the valley. Six companies turned east, crossed the road, and started up the hill towards the militia so visible on the ridge. Before the British reached the top, the militia had disappeared, to reappear farther north, again out of musket range.
Six companies moved straight ahead, directly towards Barrett. Barrett turned and spat orders, and his command crossed the North Bridge to take up position four hundred yards out in the valley. While he watched, all six British companies crossed the bridge, then three of them dropped off and quickly took up positions to seal up the bridge, while the remaining three companies angled left.
Suddenly Barrett reared up. “They’re headed for my farm!” he cried. “Buttrick, take command. I’ve got to go warn my people.” He spun his horse and rammed his spurs home, and his mare hit racing stride in three jumps. Buttrick fell back another two hundred yards to let the British pass unchallenged, and watched as they continued their two-mile march to Barrett’s farm.
In town, the regulars had begun their door-to-door search. They did not find six barrels of gunpowder covered by feathers in an attic, nor twelve barrels of dried fish buried in a compost pile, nor salt beef, medicine chests, harnesses, rifle balls, bayonets, cartridge paper, ropes, salt pork, 318 barrels of flour in fifty barns, 80 barrels of salt in the church cellar, and spades, axes, canteens, and wooden spoons in a hundred pantries and outhouses and stables.
But they did find gun carriages behind the blacksmith shop, and they quickly dragged them to the yard beside the town house and set them on fire, while others continued to bang on doors with their rifle butts. If the door opened they entered to search. If it did not open they smashed it and forced the colonials into a corner at bayonet point and ransacked the place.
On the ridges ringing Concord, the militia remained motionless and silent, but they were beginning to seethe within. Their flag had been stripped and thrown down. They had retreated from the east ridges when the British regulars came up. They had yielded the North Bridge when the six companies made their march to Barrett’s farm. And now they were watching their women and children face British bayonets while the systematic search went on in their town. Worse, the town house was jammed full of munitions and supplies. If it caught fire, barrels of gunpowder inside would level half of Concord. They held their breath and watched.
At his farm, Barrett gave orders to his foreman and checked the fields where cannon were buried, the orchard where 206 barrels of wheat and rye were buried, and attics and hay lofts where clothing and gunpowder were hidden. Then he gathered all his people that were nearby.
“They’re coming. Stay calm. Do what they say. Do not provoke a fight. I have to go back to Concord. God bless you all.”
He again spun his mare and sank spurs into her flanks and headed back to Concord in a cloud of dust on a backroad that would avoid the incoming British column. He pulled his lathered mare to a stop beside Buttrick and leaped down to study the position of the British and of his command. For the half hour he was gone, the two opposing forces had remained each in its place, staring at the other.
In town, the grenadiers had smashed the doors of the town house and entered. Two minutes later they began hauling out barrels of fish and beef and flour, bolts of cloth, wooden spoons, medicine chests, and axes and spades. They stacked them near the burning gun carriages and set them on fire, and the flames leaped and sparks flew into the still-morning sunlight. Within minutes the eaves of the building were smoldering, and then bright fla
mes licked at the roof.
Martha Moulton peered from the window of her home across the street from the town house and clapped her hand over her mouth. “The gunpowder,” she exclaimed. She threw her front door open and ran into the street and up to the nearest British officer.
“Sir, there is no need to burn the town house. You can take the supplies, but spare the building.”
The officer studied the white-faced, panic-stricken woman, and gave orders to a sergeant. Five minutes later a bucket brigade of British regulars had formed, and the eaves and roof of the town house were soaked. It was saved.
Two blocks away, Reuben Brown refused to open the door to his livery. The regulars smashed it and set it on fire, and Reuben Brown gathered his sobbing wife and terrified children away from the flames to comfort them as they watched their life’s work burn and the smoke and sparks rise above the greening, budding trees.
At the North Bridge, Barrett, Buttrick, Davis, and Hosmer stood with gritted teeth, watching the systematic search and the black smoke rising above the trees in the center of town. They could not see what was burning; they only knew buildings were being razed and citizens bullied and supplies destroyed.
Barrett dropped his eyes for a moment. “Do we take the North Bridge?” he asked quietly.
Hosmer turned. “Will you let them burn the town down?”
Barrett looked at his pocket watch—ten thirty-five a.m. on the morning of April 19, 1775—and he gave his orders. “We take the North Bridge. Buttrick, you lead with your command. Go three hundred yards past the bridge and take defensive positions. I’ll keep my companies here and wait for the regulars coming back from my farm.”
Buttrick turned, and before he could give his orders Captain Isaac Davis quietly said, “My Acton men will lead.”
There was no finer, more respected officer than Isaac Davis—quiet, soft-spoken, absolutely dedicated to his men, and fiercely proud of their spirit and determination. There could be no better man and no finer company to lead the fight for the North Bridge.