Part 17

"Where are we going?" Lieutenant Edward Gould of the King's Own put the question to Captain Lawrie.

"I suppose General Gage and the Lord, and perhaps Colonel Smith, know, but I don't," the captain replied, as he stepped into a boat with his company.

It was eleven o'clock when the last boat-load of troops reached Lechmere's Point,--not landing on solid ground, but amid the last year's reeds and marshes. The tide was flowing into the creek and eddies, and the mud beneath the feet of the king's troops was soft and slippery.

"May his satanic majesty take the man who ordered us into this bog," said a soldier whose feet suddenly went out from under him and sent him sprawling into the slimy oose.

"By holy Saint Patrick, isn't the water nice and warm!" said one of the marines as he waded into the flowing tide fresh from the sea.

"Gineral Gage intends to teach us how to swim," said another.

With jokes upon their lips, but inwardly cursing whoever had directed them to march across the marsh, the troops splashed through the water, reached the main road leading to Menotomy, and waited while the commissary distributed their rations. It was past two o'clock before Colonel Smith was ready to move on. Looking at his watch in the moonlight and seeing how late it was, he directed Major Pitcairn to take six companies of the light infantry and hasten on to Lexington.

* * * * *

From the house of Reverend Mr. Clark, Paul Revere, William Dawes, and young Doctor Prescott of Concord, who had been sparking his intended wife in Lexington village, started on their horses up the road towards Concord. From the deep shade of the alders a half dozen men suddenly confronted them.

"Surrender, or I will blow out your brains!" shouts one of the officers.

Revere and Dawes are prisoners; but Doctor Prescott, quick of eye, ear, and motion, is leaping his horse over the stone wall, riding through fields and pastures, along bypaths, his saddle-bags flopping, his horse, young and fresh, bearing him swiftly on over the meadows to the slumbering village, with the news that the redcoats are coming.[57]

[Footnote 57: Longfellow in his poem has Revere riding on to Concord bridge.

"It was two by the village clock, When he came to the bridge in Concord town."

Revere's account reads:--

"We had got nearly half way; Mr. Dawes and the Doctor stopped to alarm the people of a house. I was about one hundred rods ahead when I saw two men, in nearly the same situation as those officers were near Charlestown. I called for the Doctor and Dawes to come up; in an instant I was surrounded by four.... We tried to get out there; the Doctor jumped his horse over a low stone wall and got to Concord. I observed a wood at a small distance and made for that. When I got there, out rushed six officers on horseback and ordered me to dismount."]

"Tell us where we can find those arch traitors to his majesty the king, or you are dead men," the threat of an officer.

Paul Revere sees the muzzle of the pistol within a foot of his breast, but it does not frighten him.

"Ah, gentlemen, you have missed your aim."

"What aim?"

"You won't get what you came for. I left Boston an hour before your troops were ready to cross Charles River. Messengers left before me, and the alarm will soon be fifty miles away. Had I not known it, I would have risked a shot from you before allowing myself to be captured."

From the belfry of the meetinghouse the bell was sending its peals far and wide over fields and woodlands.

"Do you not hear it? The town is alarmed," said Revere.

"Rub-a-dub-dub! rub-a-dub-dub! rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub-dub!" It was the drummer beating the long roll.

"The minute-men are forming; you are dead men!" said Dawes.

The drumbeat, with the clanging bell, was breaking the stillness of the early morning. The officers put their heads together and whispered a moment.

"Get off your horses," ordered Captain Parsons of the king's Tenth Regiment.

Revere and Dawes obeyed.

"We'll keep this; the other is only fit for the crows to pick," said one of the officers, cutting the saddle-girth of Dawes's horse, turning it loose, and mounting Bucephalus. Then all rode away, dashing past the minute-men on Lexington Green.

"The minute-men are forming,--three hundred of them," reported the officers to Colonel Smith, who was marching up the road.[58]

[Footnote 58: "We heard there were some hundreds of people collected there, intending to oppose us and stop our going out. At five o'clock we arrived there, and a number of people, I believe between two and three hundred, formed on a common in the middle of the town." "Diary of a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]

The bell and the drumbeat, the lights in Buckman's tavern and the other houses, the minute-men in line by the meetinghouse, had quickened the imagination of the excited Britishers.

"The country is alarmed. It is reported there are five hundred rebels gathered to oppose me. I shall need reinforcements." Such was the message of Colonel Smith to General Gage.

He directed Major Pitcairn to push on rapidly with six companies of light infantry.

"Jonathan! Jonathan! Get up quick! The redcoats are coming and something must be done!"[59]

[Footnote 59: There were two Jonathan Harringtons. The fifer to the Lexington minute-men was sixteen years old. He died March 27, 1854, the last survivor of the battle, and was buried with distinguished honors. See _Hist. Lexington_.]

Abigail Harrington shouted it, bursting into her son Jonathan's chamber. He had not heard the bell, nor the commotion in the street. Jonathan was only sixteen years old, but was fifer for the minute-men. In a twinkling he was dressed, and seizing his fife ran to join the company forming in line by the meetinghouse; answering to their names, as clerk Daniel Harrington called the roll.

John Hancock and Samuel Adams hear the drumbeat; Hancock seizes his gun.

"This is no place for you; you must go to a place of safety," said Reverend Mr. Clark.

"Never will I turn my back to the redcoats," said Hancock.

"The country will need your counsels. Others must meet the enemy face to face," was the calm, wise reply of the patriotic minister.

Other friends expostulate; they cross the road and enter a thick wood crowning the hill.

"Stand your ground. If war is to come, let it begin here. Don't fire till you are fired upon," said Captain John Parker, walking along the lines of his company.

The sun is just rising. Its level beams glint from the brightly polished gun-barrels and bayonets of the light infantry of King George, as the battalion under Major Pitcairn marches towards Lexington meetinghouse. The trees above them have put forth their tender leaves. The rising sun, the green foliage, the white cross-belts, the shining buckles, the scarlet coats of the soldiers, and the farmers standing in line, firmly grasping their muskets, make up the picture of the morning.

Major Pitcairn, sitting in his saddle, beholds the line of minute-men, rebels in arms against the sovereign, formed in line to dispute his way. What right have they to be standing there? King George is supreme!

"Disperse, you rebels! Lay down your arms and disperse!" he shouts.

Captain John Parker hears it. The men behind him, citizens in their everyday clothes, with powder-horns slung under their right arms, hear it, but stand firm and resolute in their places. They see the Britisher raise his arm; his pistol flashes. Instantly the front platoon of redcoats raise their muskets. A volley rends the air. Not a man has been injured. Another volley, and a half dozen are reeling to the ground. John Munroe, Jonas Parker, and their comrades bring their muskets to a level and pull the triggers. With the beams of the rising sun falling on their faces, they accept the conflict with arbitrary power.

"What a glorious morning is this!" the exclamation of Samuel Adams on yonder hill.

Seven minute-men have been killed, nine wounded. Captain Parker sees that it is useless for his little handful of men to contend with a force ten times larger, and orders them to disperse.

The redcoats look down exultantly upon the dying and the dead, give a hurrah, and shoot at the fleeing rebels.[60]

[Footnote 60: "We then formed on the Common, but with some difficulty. The men were so wild they could hear no orders. We waited a considerable time, and at length proceeded on our way to Concord, which we then learned was our destination." "Diary of a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]

Jonas Parker will not run.

"Others may do as they will, I never will turn my back to a redcoat," he said a few minutes ago. He is on his knees now, wounded, but reloading his gun. The charge is rammed home, the priming in the pan, but his strength is going; his arms are weary; his hands feeble. The redcoats rush upon him, and a bayonet pierces his breast. He dies where he fell.

With the blood spurting from his breast, Jonathan Harrington staggers towards his home. His loving wife is standing in the doorway. He reaches out his arms to her, and falls dead at her feet.

Caleb Harrington falls by the meetinghouse step. A ball plows through the arm of John Comee, by Mr. Munroe's doorway.

The Britishers are wild with excitement, and remorselessly take aim at the fleeing provincials. They have conquered and dispersed the rebels. Colonel Smith joins Major Pitcairn, and, glorying over the easy victory, they swing their hats, hurrah for King George, and march on towards Concord.

XVII.

BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.

Roger Stanley, asleep in the old farmhouse on the banks of Concord River, was aroused from slumber by his mother.

"Roger! Roger! the meetinghouse bell is ringing!" she shouted up the stairs to him.

With a bound he was on his feet, raised the window and heard the sweet-toned bell. He understood its meaning, that the redcoats were coming. Quickly putting on his clothes, he seized the powder-horn and bullet-pouch which his father carried at Louisburg.

"You must eat something, Roger, before you go," said his mother.

A moment later and his breakfast was on the table, bread and butter, a slice of cold beef, a mug of cider.

"There's no knowing when I shall be back, mother, for if the war has begun, as I fear it has, I shall be in the ranks till the last redcoat is driven from the country."

"I know it, Roger. Your father would have done just what you are doing. I know you'll do your duty. You won't show the white feather. Here's some lunch for you," she said, putting a package into his knapsack.

"Good-by."

Her arms were about his neck; tears were on her cheeks as she kissed his lips.

He ran across the meadow to the village. The minute-men and militia were gathering. In the stillness of the morning they could hear the report of guns far away, and knew that they of Sudbury and Acton were hearing the alarm. People were hurrying to and fro in the village, loading barrels of flour into carts, removing the supplies purchased by the Committee of Safety. Reverend Mr. Emerson was there with his gun and powder-horn. Many times Roger had listened to his preaching. It was gratifying to see him ready to stand in the ranks with his parishioners. He told the women not to be frightened, and smiled upon the boys who took off their hats, and the girls who courtesied to him.

They heard, far away, the drumbeat of the advancing British.

No messengers had arrived to inform the minute-men of Concord what had happened at Lexington; for Doctor Prescott did not know that British muskets had fired a fatal volley.

From the burial ground Roger could look far down the road and see the sunlight glinting from the bayonets of the grenadiers, as the red-coated platoons emerged from the woodland into the open highway.

Major Buttrick with the minute-men and Colonel Barrett with the militia formed in line by the liberty pole.

"Prime and load!" his order.

Roger poured the powder into the palm of his hand, emptied it into the gun, and rammed it home with a ball. Never had he experienced such a sensation as at the moment. He was not doing it to take aim at a deer or fox, but to send it through the heart of a fellow-being if need be; to maintain justice and liberty. He could die in their defense; why should it trouble him, then, to think of shooting those who were assailing what he held so dear?

"I am doing right. Liberty shall live, cost what it may," he said to himself as he poured the priming into the pan.

On in serried ranks came the British.

"We are too few, they are three to our one. We must cross the river and wait till we are stronger," said Colonel Barrett.

They were only two hundred. They filed into the road, marched past the Reverend Mr. Emerson's house to the north bridge, crossed the river, and came to a halt on a hill overlooking the meadows, the village, and surrounding country. They could see the British dividing,--one party crossing the south bridge and going towards Colonel Barrett's house to destroy the supplies collected there; another party advancing to the north bridge. Roger saw groups of officers in the graveyard using their spy-glasses. A soldier was cutting down the liberty pole. Other soldiers were entering houses, helping themselves to what food was left on the breakfast-tables or in the pantries. Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn rested themselves in Mr. Wright's tavern.

"I'll stir the Yankee blood before night, just as I stir this brandy," said Pitcairn, stirring the spirit in his tumbler with his finger.

A party of British crossed the south bridge, made their way to Colonel Barrett's house, and burned the cannon carriages stored in his barn.

Roger was glad to see Captain Isaac Davis and the minute-men of Acton march up the hill to join them. Captain Davis was thirty years old. He had kissed his young wife and four children good-by.

"Take good care of the children, Hannah," he said as he bade her farewell.

Twice a week he had drilled his company. He was brave, resolute, kind-hearted. His men loved him because he demanded strict obedience. They had stopped long enough at his home for his young wife to powder their hair, that they might appear neat and trim like gentlemen when meeting the British. They were thirty-five, all told. Keeping step to Luther Blanchard's fifing of the White Cockade, and Francis Barker's drumming, they marched past the men from Concord and formed on their left.

"Order arms!" They rested their muskets on the ground and wiped the perspiration from their foreheads.

Men from Westford, Lincoln, and Carlisle are arriving. They are four hundred now. The officers stand apart, talking in low tones. The redcoats had crossed the bridge to the western bank.

"Let us drive the redcoats across the river," said Captain Smith.

"I haven't a man that is afraid," said Captain Davis.

He was heavy-hearted in the early morning when he kissed the young wife and took the baby from the cradle in his arms, but is resolute now.

"Attention, battalion! Trail arms! Left in front! March!" Luther Blanchard pipes the tune, and the battalion--the men of Acton leading--descends the hill.

The redcoats had recrossed the river and were taking up the planks of the bridge. A moment later muskets flash beneath the elms, and maples along the farthest bank and there is a whistling of bullets in the air. Roger's heart is in his throat, but he gulps it down. Another volley, and Captain Davis, Abner Hosmer, and Luther Blanchard reel to the ground. Never again will Hannah receive a parting kiss, or the father caress the baby crooning in the cradle.[61]

[Footnote 61: "The fire soon began from a dropping shot on our side, when they and the front company fired almost at the same instant." "Diary of a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]

"Fire! For God's sake, fire!" shouts Major Buttrick. Roger cocks his gun, takes aim at the line of scarlet beneath the trees and pulls the trigger. Through the smoke he sees men throw up their arms and tumble to the ground. The scarlet line dissolves, the soldiers fleeing in confusion. No longer is Roger's heart in his throat. His nerves are iron and the hot blood is coursing through his veins. King George has begun the war; no longer is he his subject, but a rebel, never more to owe him allegiance.

* * * * *

The forenoon wore away. The British were returning from Colonel Barrett's, having destroyed the cannon carriages, thrown some bullets into a well, and broken open several barrels of flour. It was past noon when they formed in line once more to return to Boston.

"We will head them off at Merriam's Corner," said Colonel Barrett.

The planks which the British had removed from the bridge were quickly replaced. The minute-men crossed the stream, turned into a field to the left, and hastened over the meadow to the road leading to Bedford. It was past three o'clock when they reached Mr. Merriam's house. Roger saw the British marching down the road. Suddenly a platoon wheeled towards the minute-men and brought their guns to a level. There was a flash, a white cloud, and bullets whistled over their heads. Once more he took aim, as did others, and several redcoats fell. Before he could reload, the serried ranks disappeared, marching rapidly towards Lexington. The minute-men hastened on, and at the tavern of Mr. Brooks he sent another bullet into the ranks of the retreating foe.[62]

[Footnote 62: "We set out upon our return. Before the whole had quitted the town we were fired on from houses and behind trees, and before we had gone half a mile we were fired on from all sides, but mostly from the rear, where the people had hid themselves in houses till we passed." "Diary of a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]

"Scatter now! Get upon their flank! Pepper 'em from behind walls and trees!" shouted Colonel Barrett, who saw that it would be useless to follow the retreating enemy in battalion order, but each man, acting for himself, could run through fields and pastures and keep up a tormenting fire.

Acting upon the order, Roger and James Heywood ran through a piece of woods towards Fiske Hill. They came upon a British soldier drinking at a well by a house.

"You are a dead man," shouted the redcoat, raising his gun.

"So are you," said Heywood. Their muskets flashed and both fell, the Britisher with a bullet through his heart, and Heywood mortally wounded.

From rock heap, tree, fence, and thicket the guns of the minute-men were flashing. The soldiers who had marched so proudly, keeping step to the drumbeat in the morning, were running now. No hurrah went up as at sunrise on Lexington Common. There was no halting at Buckman's tavern, where they had fired their first volley. Their ranks were in confusion. Officers were trying to rally them, threatening to cut them down with their swords if they did not show a bold front to the minute-men, but the Yankees seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere. Bullets were coming from every direction, yet the British could see no men in line, no ranks at which they could take aim or charge with the bayonet. They were still twelve miles from Boston, and their ammunition failing. They were worn and weary with the all-night march, and were hungry and thirsty. The road was strewn with their fallen comrades. The wounded were increasing in number, impeding their retreat. Their ranks were broken. All was confusion. Every moment some one was falling.[63] Blessed the sight that greeted them,--the brigade of Earl Percy, drawn up in hollow square by Mr. Munroe's tavern, with two cannon upon the hillocks by the roadside. They rushed into the square and dropped upon the ground, panting and exhausted with their rapid retreat.

[Footnote 63: "They were so concealed there was hardly any seeing them. In this way we marched between nine and ten miles, their numbers increasing from all parts, while ours was reducing by deaths, wounds, and fatigue, and we were totally surrounded with such an incessant fire as it is impossible to conceive. Our ammunition was likewise near expended." "Diary of a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.]

Roger halted a few minutes on Lexington Green, where the conflict began in the morning. He saw the ground stained with the blood of those who had fallen,--crossed the threshold where Jonathan Harrington had died in the arms of his wife. Across the Common the house and barn of Joseph Loring were in flames, set on fire by the British.

Earl Percy's troops were ransacking the houses a little farther down the road. In Mr. Munroe's tavern they were compelling old John Raymond to bring them food, and because he could not give them what they wanted, sent a bullet through his heart.[64]

[Footnote 64: "We marched pretty quiet for about two miles, when they began to pepper us again. We were now obliged to force almost every house in the road, for the rebels had taken possession of them and galled us exceedingly; but they suffered for their temerity, _for all that were found in the houses were put to death._" "Diary of a British Officer," _Atlantic Monthly_, April, 1877.

Earl Percy made the tavern of Mr. Munroe his headquarters.

"A party entered the tavern and, helping themselves, or rather compelling the inmates of the house to help them to whatever they wanted, they treacherously and with ruthlessness shot down John Raymond, an infirm old man, only because he, alarmed at this roughness and brutal conduct, was about leaving the house to seek a place of greater safety." Hudson's _Hist. of Lexington_.]

Once more the British were on the march.

Roger, rested and invigorated, ran through a pasture, crouched behind a bowlder, rested his gun upon it, and sent a bullet into the ranks. He was delighted when Doctor Joseph Warren came galloping over the hill. The doctor said he left Boston in the morning, rode to Cambridge and Watertown, then hastened on to Lexington. He was glad the minute-men and militia had resisted the British. While talking with Roger and those around him, a bullet whizzed past the doctor's head, knocking a pin from his ear-lock.

The rattling fire of the minute-men was increasing once more,--answered by volleys from Percy's platoons. The British, smarting under the tormenting fusilade, angry over the thought that they were being assailed by a rabble of farmers and were on the defensive, became wanton and barbaric, pillaging houses, and murdering inoffensive old men.

Roger was delighted to hear from Jonathan Loring, one of the Lexington minute-men, how his sister Lydia, fearing that the British would steal the communion cups and platters belonging to the church of which her father was deacon, took them in her apron, ran out into the orchard, and hid them under a pile of brush.

Pitiful it was to see Widow Mulliken's house in flames,--wantonly set on fire by the red-coated ruffians.

Roger saw a soldier deliberately raise his gun, take aim, and send a bullet through the heart of Jason Russel, an old gray-haired man, standing in his own door. Again, at closer range, he took aim at the retreating column.