Prelude to Glory, Vol. 1

by Ron Carter

  “Done,” Buttrick said.

  Five minutes later they were in marching order, and each man remained silent, aware that for the first time militia were taking the fight to British regulars. The question again rose to the top of their thoughts like a bright light. Would the militia buckle under fire from the heavy Brown Bess muskets?

  At the bridge, Captain Walter Laurie of the British grenadiers watched as the colonials formed their column and started their march straight at him. He glanced back at the bridge, then once more at the colonials, and gave his orders. “We can defend the bridge better from the other side. Fall out and reassemble on the south side, and assume the street-firing formation and prepare to rotate.”

  Five minutes later the British regulars had formed on the road leading to the bridge from the south, but they were in a column. Those in the rear could neither see the bridge nor fire on it. Laurie did not realize he had limited the number of muskets his command could bring to bear on the bridge!

  A low, swampy bog forced the colonials to march one hundred yards east, then circle back to the bridge, and they approached it from the side, with their column stretched out sixty yards from the bridge entrance, along the bank of the Concord River. Buttrick was in the lead, Davis and Hosmer right beside him, when Buttrick gave his next order. “Halt!”

  The British column was on the south end of the bridge, the colonials on the north end, and for seconds that seemed endless they stood thus, less than fifty yards apart, facing each other. On command the regulars began tearing up the bridge planks to stop the colonials from crossing, and Buttrick shouted at them, “Don’t tear up the bridge.”

  Then, without any command given, from nowhere three musket shots cracked out from the British side of the bridge. For one second of shock and disbelief it seemed as if the world were in suspended animation, and then the British fired their first full volley.

  Captain Isaac Davis and Private Abner Hosmer went down with four other militiamen, and Buttrick suddenly realized what was happening and screamed his next order. “Fire! In the name of heaven, fire!”

  The colonials were strung out along the north riverbank, and from their position they could see the entire length of the British column. Their first volley rolled out like thunder and raked the British column from one end to the other. Of the eight British officers facing them, four went down instantly, with more than twenty regulars. Spread as they were, the colonials reloaded faster than the British, and their second volley knocked more than thirty regulars off their feet.

  Captain Laurie took one look at his column, one-third of them casualties in the first ninety seconds of the fight, and shouted, “Fall back,” but he was too late. The regulars had already broken ranks and were in full retreat, panic-stricken, terrified at the deadly accuracy of the colonial muskets and the fearlessness of the men firing them.

  “Follow me,” Buttrick shouted, and led his command across the bridge and marched three hundred yards towards the town, where he called a halt and told his men to dig in and wait.

  In town, Colonel Francis Smith heard the musket fire to the north and immediately led four companies to secure the North Bridge and stop the firing. As he cleared the edge of town, what he saw across the Green stopped him in his tracks. His regulars were in a full, disorganized, panicked retreat, and he could see red-coated bodies strung out for two hundred yards on his side of the bridge. He hauled his command to a stunned halt and waited for Laurie.

  “Report.”

  The white-faced Laurie stammered, “The North Bridge is lost, sir. The colonials overran our position.”

  “They what?”

  “They had superior numbers and better field position, sir.”

  “Casualties?”

  “I don’t know, sir. Lieutenants Sutherland, Hull, Kelly, and Gould are back there, sir. And a sergeant—I don’t know which one—and a lot of regulars.”

  Sitting his horse, Colonel Smith battled to keep a cool head. He looked at the surrounding hills with colonials on every ridge, then at the North Bridge where Buttrick was now dug in to hold it, Barrett beyond the bridge, waiting, and at Laurie’s command, shattered in less than two minutes. He looked north, past the bridge to where he had sent Parsons and three companies to search the Barrett farm. They were somewhere out there, but in what condition he had no idea. He glanced back at Concord and gave his orders. “Fall back into Concord. We wait for Parsons and his three companies.”

  His bewildered command turned and marched back to the center of town and stood in confused, white-faced rank and file. Minutes stretched into half an hour, with Smith and his command slowly realizing they were surrounded and pinned down and could not leave until Parsons and his three companies returned from the Barrett farm. He turned to look south towards the millpond and the cemetery.

  “Get me a runner,” he barked to his adjutant, and a moment later a young lieutenant stood at rigid attention before him.

  “Go to the South Bridge. Tell the commander to bring his forces to this place immediately, for reinforcements if the militia attack us.”

  The young officer vaulted into his saddle, and twenty minutes later the South Bridge command halted beside Smith’s troops, and the officer in charge saluted. “We heard shots. What happened?”

  “They took the North Bridge.”

  The officer’s mouth dropped open and he clacked it shut, then said, “I don’t understand. The colonials took the North Bridge from us?”

  “Yes. And inflicted heavy casualties.”

  The young officer’s cheeks ballooned and he exhaled slowly. He said nothing. He turned back to his own command.

  Another thirty minutes went by while the British stood in the town center, sweating, white-faced, feeling the rise of tension as all eyes scanned the north hills looking for Parsons’s command to return. On every ridge surrounding the town they watched fresh militia arrive from outlying villages to hunker down and stare back at them in ever increasing numbers.

  At the North Bridge, a sixteen-year-old boy appeared from nowhere, running across the bridge with a hatchet in his hand, apparently to join Barrett and Buttrick and the colonials. He slowed at the sight of the dead and wounded British regulars, sprawled in their red coats, lifeless and dying, and he blanched and began to tremble. It was not supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be glorious and noble. A British corporal groaned and raised a hand to him for help, and the horror-stricken boy gasped and instinctively swung the hatchet, and the blade struck the mortally wounded soldier at the hairline and peeled back the scalp. Sickened, the boy threw the hatchet down and ran crying back whence he had come.

  Colonel Smith’s eyes had not left the north reaches of the valley for half an hour while he endured the torments of imagining what would happen when Parsons tried to get past Barrett’s force, across the bridge, then past Buttrick’s men, dug in and waiting, and in his mind he was seeing Laurie’s command, decimated in less than two minutes by this untrained, ragtag gathering of citizens.

  He began to pace, then signalled to Pitcairn. “Come with me.” Hastily they rode south to the cemetery hill, where their view would be unobstructed, and Smith extended his field glass and locked it onto the road to Barrett’s farm. For long minutes he stood still, watching for the first movement on the road, and then it was there.

  He lowered the glass and pointed and exclaimed, “There! He’s coming! Parsons is coming!”

  He raised the glass once more and watched as Parsons saw that the British regulars were no longer at the North Bridge. Parsons came to a full halt when he saw that Barrett’s command stood ready and waiting, blocking his approach. Smith watched as Parsons pointed across the bridge at Buttrick’s companies, dug in three hundred yards south of the bridge, and he saw Parsons freeze when he caught sight of the red coats littering the road south of the bridge. Parsons stopped his column and for long, agonizing minutes consulted with his officers, and then he gave orders, and Smith watched the column advance at double time towards
the bridge.

  Smith held his breath as he watched Barrett give orders to his men, and then Smith’s eyes widened in utter disbelief. Barrett’s militia was moving aside to give Parsons and his three companies free passage across the bridge!

  “A trap!” Smith exclaimed in anguish. “They’re going to trap Parsons between the two commands!” Pitcairn raised his hand and shook his head, and the two officers watched as Parsons gave orders and raised the pace of his column from double time to a full-out trot. Their boots thumped hollow on the bridge until they cleared the south side, and Parsons paused a moment when he saw the dead corporal at the roadside with his scalp peeled back where the boy’s hatchet had struck. Smith watched him drop to one knee, feel the man’s throat, then rise to run back to the head of his column, and it continued towards Buttrick’s command at a trot.

  Smith jerked the glass down, and his head thrust forward at what happened next. Buttrick’s men were dividing, falling back two hundred yards on each side of the road. They were giving safe passage to Parsons’s outnumbered, tired command, and Parsons did not hesitate. He trotted his men through the divided militia, into town, and did not stop until he reached the safety of Smith’s command.

  “They had him and they let him go!” Smith exclaimed. “Why? Why?” Smith and Pitcairn leaped to their saddles and dug in their spurs and held their horses to a gallop from cemetery hill until they were at the town house, where they pulled their blowing mounts to a stiff-legged stop and dismounted.

  “Report,” he exclaimed to Parsons.

  “We searched the Barrett farm. We found trivial amounts of flour and spread it on the ground.”

  “How much time did you spend?”

  “Not long, sir.”

  “The reason?”

  “The hills and ridges were filling with militia. We were outnumbered, sir.”

  “Do you know why the two militia forces gave you safe passage at the North Bridge just now?”

  “No, sir, I do not.”

  Smith turned to speak to the rest of his officers but Parsons stopped him. “There’s something else, sir. There’s a dead corporal back at the bridge. They tried to scalp him.”

  The cluster of gathered officers heard the report, and the word spread throughout the column. The barbarian colonials are scalping! Scalping!

  Smith started to speak but stopped at the sound of a horse running from the north end of town. A lieutenant reined in his prancing mount and saluted while he spoke in gasps. “Sir, the two militia forces have joined and the entire force is marching directly towards town. They’ll be here in minutes.”

  Smith instantly barked orders to his officers. “Prepare your commands to march immediately. We have but thirty-six rounds per man, and we absolutely cannot undertake a major engagement with this force of colonials without running out of ammunition. We have about seven hours of daylight left. The reinforcements I sent for are not in sight, and gentlemen, we are leaving here, immediately.”

  All too gladly the tired, dirty, thirsty, frightened British regulars jumped to the task of putting their forces into marching order, while the officers mounted their horses and supervised.

  On the ridges east of town, the Boston command under Telford had watched it all. They had leaped to their feet shouting when the militia returned the British volley at the North Bridge and officers and regulars had dropped all along the column, and they raised their fists in triumph when the British regulars broke under the second devastating militia volley and turned their backs and ran! The single question that had haunted them for two days had been answered. The militia had not buckled under fire; the vaunted British regulars had! A full-out, panic-ridden retreat!

  They had settled back into position in studied silence while Barrett and Buttrick gave Parsons’s outnumbered men safe passage over the bridge and into town, and they understood.

  Barrett’s orders still held. Do not fire unless they do.

  Now they were watching the entire British force reassemble with their faces south. They were leaving Concord valley, going back through Lexington to Boston.

  If they go in peace, let them go. But if they shoot, hit them hard.

  Captain Telford remained still and studied the troop movements until he understood that Barrett and Buttrick meant to march straight into the British and force them to make a decision. Stand and fight, or turn around and go back to Boston while they still could. And Barrett intended to hold his fire until the British fired first.

  Telford turned to his own Boston command. “There are homes and families on the Lexington Road, and our orders were to protect them and that’s what we’re going to do. Fall into rank and file. We’re going to march!”

  In the center of town, Colonel Francis Smith took one last look at Barrett’s advancing company and then at the militia jammed on the ridges surrounding Concord, and he waited no longer. “Forwarrrd, march!”

  Their drummers made no cadence; their fifes were silent. The single sound was of their tramping feet, moving south. Smith ordered out his flankers, and they marched past the millpond and the cemetery and swung nearly due east, with the long, low hill on their left. The flankers moved out one hundred yards on each side of the road and trotted through the yards of the homes as they moved east, watching for the place where the hill dropped off into the open fields that formed Meriam’s Corner where the road forked, north to Bedford, east on to Lexington.

  On the opposite side of the hill, Telford gave his orders. “We’re going to be at Meriam’s Corner ahead of them. Stay out of sight on this side of the hill. Let’s go.”

  The Boston company took the lead, running through the tall spring grass, dodging through the scrub oak and maple, leaping small seep streams, watching the ridge to their right for the first sign of redcoats. Bedford and Waltham men came behind, following them, grim faced, watching the skyline, grasping their muskets as they ran. Four hundred yards from the place where the hill sloped off into the meadows of Meriam’s Corner, Telford slowed and pointed, and Tom and John, at his side, saw the fresh militia ahead, from Reading and Billerica and Wilmington, formed in the meadows and fields, waiting. Shouts came from behind and they looked back, and parts of the Barrett and Buttrick command were coming hot on their trail to join them.

  The British were not yet in sight.

  Telford took command. “Spread all along the Lexington Road, three hundred yards back. Do not fire unless fired upon!”

  The militia hesitated for a moment, then began taking positions all along the Lexington Road in rank and file. They settled in facing west, watching for the first sign of the redcoats. Flies buzzed and bees came seeking the spring flowers, and still the men stood in silence, waiting for the first glimpse of red on the road, and then it was there.

  The flankers came first, one hundred yards from the road, and those on the north side saw the militia and slowed and then angled back towards the road, watching over their shoulders as they approached the single bridge that crossed the stream near the fork in the road, and hurried across in single file. While they crossed the bridge, Telford gave orders and the militia began a slow advance, closing the gap until the flankers reached the main column on the road, and then Telford stopped his company, two hundred yards distant from Smith’s command, leading the British column. Smith’s command was moving slowly towards Lexington, but every man among them held his musket at the ready, and every eye was watching each move of the colonials with bright memories of seeing Laurie’s command reeling, staggering, officers and regulars dropping under the blasting roar of the two volleys at the North Bridge.

  Telford remained still, watching intently as the column moved on. The leaders passed the fork in the road and continued on with the column close behind. Telford could see their drawn, tired, frightened faces as they stared at the colonial forces stretched out for a quarter mile facing them.

  Telford held his breath. They might do it. They might pass without firing. They might. I hope they do. I hope they do.


  It came too quick. Suddenly the leading British company pivoted and fired, and the first volley of the heavy .75-caliber balls came whistling at the nearest militia, most of them too high.

  For one heartbeat the echo sounded and then the colonials raised their muskets, and Meriam’s Corner rang once more with the blasting shots, and the white smoke hung heavy in the warm, still afternoon air. The volley slammed into the section of the column not hidden behind the hill, and British officers and regulars on the near side of the first three companies buckled and staggered and went down on the roadbed. Those behind them shrank away, then turned to retreat but could not because the column behind them was still marching forward. Instantly the officers drew their sabers and spurred their horses into their own men, shouting, “Regroup, regroup and keep marching,” and under the threat of the raised sabers the shaken, white-faced troops moved back into formation and slowly resumed their march eastward towards Lexington.

  ______

  Notes

  The description of Concord on the morning of April 19, 1775, is accurate, and the description of the events as they unfolded at the battle of Concord is also accurate. Further, the names of the five families Barrett, Buttrick, Hosmer, Prescott, and Davis—whose people for generations had served their beloved Concord as patriots of the finest order—were prominent in the battle of that day, when the colonials met the British head to head at the North Bridge and turned the battle of Concord into a total rout in which the British retreated in near panic. The words, “Will you let them burn the town down?” uttered by Lieutenant Joseph Hosmer, were the turning point. (See French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, chapters 17 through 22, and particularly p. 187.)

  The incident wherein the sixteen-year-old boy assaults a wounded British regular with an axe is depicted generally consistent with the account provided by French, The Day of Concord and Lexington, pp. 211–12. However, other equally competent sources report the incident not as the act of a startled, distraught boy, but as a deliberate atrocity perpetrated by the militia on the wounded soldier, killing him. The account and the possible reasons for the boy’s actions given by French are used as the basis for the novel’s account only because they seem to cast the militia in a more humane attitude.