LITMIR.BIZ

      John Hancock.

      Statue of Minuteman

       at Concord.

      141. Gage’s Purpose.—It was not long before blood was shed. There were certain military stores at Concord, and General Gage determined to seize them. For this purpose he dispatched very secretly about eight hundred men, under Lieutenant Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn. The expedition had still another object. The king having ordered the arrest of John Hancock and Samuel Adams, these leaders had withdrawn from Boston and were the guests of a friend in Lexington. Gage had learned where they were and had ordered their seizure by the troops bound for Concord. The British force, after taking the greatest precautions for secrecy, left the city on the night of the 18th of April. But the vigilant eye of a patriot, Dr. Warren, had detected the purpose of the movement.

      142. The Ride of Paul Revere.—In spite of Gage’s orders that nobody should leave Boston that night, Paul Revere, a Boston goldsmith, succeeded in crossing the Charles River—having previously attended to setting an alarm signal in the tower of the Old North Church—and galloped by the Medford road toward Lexington, shouting at every house that the British were coming.

      143. Battles of Lexington and Concord.—The minutemen instantly assembled and drew up on Lexington Common to meet the British when they appeared. Pitcairn ordered them to disperse, but seeing no signs of their moving, first fired his own pistols and then ordered a volley. Eight men were killed and ten wounded. Although the Americans fired in return, they were in no condition to offer battle. Hancock and Adams, having received the necessary warning, made timely escape. The troops pushed on to Concord, but found that the greater part of the stores had been removed. Four hundred Americans then charged across the Concord bridge and drove back the British. The minutemen were by this time streaming in from every direction, and as the British were fired upon from behind trees and fences, they had nothing to do but to beat a retreat. They were saved only by a timely reënforcement of twelve hundred men under Lord Percy. In the course of the expedition the British lost two hundred and seventy-three; the Americans, eighty-eight. The battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775, proclaimed to everybody that war had begun. The readiness with which the people responded to the call was shown by the fact that among the killed and wounded on that day there were representatives of twenty-three different towns. Within less than a week General Gage found himself surrounded in Boston by a motley force of sixteen thousand Americans armed with such weapons as they could secure.

      References for Chapters VI.–VII.—Sir G. O. Trevelyan, American Revolution, Vol. I., contains probably the best account of the Boston campaign; J. Fiske, American Revolution (2 vols.), is a delightful presentation of the whole period; H. C. Lodge, Story of the Revolution (2 vols.); G. Bancroft, History of the United States (revised edition); R. Hildreth, History of the United States, Vol. III.; W. E. H. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth Century, the part relating to the American war is exceedingly thorough, careful, and valuable; Lord Mahon, History of England (7 vols.), more inclined to the British view than Lecky or Trevelyan; M. C. Tyler, Literary History of the American Revolution (2 vols.), an invaluable work on the history of public opinion during the period, and especially noteworthy in showing the power of the Tories; M. C. Tyler, Patrick Henry; H. C. Lodge, George Washington (2 vols.); E. J. Lowell, Hessians; T. Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. II.; Burke, Speech on Conciliation with America; Channing and Hart, Guide to American History; W. Niles, Principles and Acts of the American Revolution; J. Parton, Life of Franklin, Life of Jefferson; for other biographies, see Channing and Hart’s Guide, §§ 25, 32, 33, and 135; G. C. Eggleston, American War Ballads; W. Sargent, Loyalist Poetry of the Revolution; J. F. Cooper, The Spy, an admirable account of Tories about the Hudson; S. Weir Mitchell, Hugh Wynne, a picture of social conditions about Philadelphia; P. L. Ford, Janice Meredith, a portrayal of life in New Jersey during nearly the whole period of the war; H. Frederic, In the Valley, life on the Mohawk in the Revolutionary period; W. G. Simms, The Partisan, Mellichampe, The Scout, Katharine Walton, The Forayers, Eutaw, all relate to the conflict in the South; J. P. Kennedy, Horse-Shoe Robinson, also deals with the war in the South. For Paul Revere’s ride, see Longfellow’s poem in Tales of a Wayside Inn.