LITMIR.BIZ

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Why don't you lay down your arms and disperse?" The main part of the countrymen stood motionless in the ranks, witnesses against aggression, too few to resist, too brave to fly. At this Pitcairn discharged a pistol, and with a loud voice cried "Fire!" The order was followed first by a few guns, which did no execution, and then by a close and deadly discharge of musketry.

      Jonas Parker, the strongest and best wrestler in Lexington, had promised never to run from British troops, and he kept his vow. A wound brought him on his knees. Having discharged his gun he was preparing to load it again when he was stabbed by a bayonet and lay on the post which he took at the morning's drum beat. So fell Isaac Muzzey, and so died the aged Robert Munroe, who in 1758 had been an ensign at Louisburg. Jonathan Harrington, Jr., was struck in front of his own house on the north of the common. His wife was at the window as he fell. With blood gushing from his breast, he rose in her sight, tottered, fell again, then crawled on hands and knees toward his dwelling; she ran to meet him, but only reached him as he expired on their threshold. Caleb Harrington, who had gone into the meeting house for powder, was shot as he came out. Samuel Hadley and John Brown were pursued and killed after they had left the green. Asabel Porter, of Woburn, who had been taken prisoner by the British on the march, endeavoring to escape, was shot within a few rods of the common. Seven men of Lexington were killed, nine wounded, a quarter part of all who stood in arms on the green.

      There on the green lay in death the gray-haired and the young; the grassy field was red "with the innocent blood of their brethren slain," crying unto God for vengeance from the ground.

      These are the village heroes who were more than of noble blood, proving by their spirit that they were of a race divine. They gave their lives in testimony to the rights of mankind, bequeathing to their country an assurance of success in the mighty struggle which they began. The expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled their duty not from an accidental impulse of the moment; their action was the ripened fruit of Providence and of time.

      Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice of a prophet, exclaimed: "Oh, what a glorious morning is this!" for he saw his country's independence hastening on, and, like Columbus in the tempest, knew that the storm bore him more swiftly toward the undiscovered land.

      The British troops drew up on the village green, fired a volley, huzzaed thrice by way of triumph, and after a halt of less than thirty minutes, marched on for Concord. There, in the morning hours, children and women fled for shelter to the hills and the woods and men were hiding what was left of cannon and military stores.

      The Minute Men and militia formed on the usual parade, over which the congregation of the town for near a century and a half had passed to public worship, the freemen to every town meeting, and lately the patriot members of the Provincial Congress twice a day to their little senate house. Near that spot Winthrop, the father of Massachusetts, had given counsel; and Eliot, the apostle of the Indians, had spoken words of benignity and wisdom. The people of Concord, of whom about two hundred appeared in arms on that day, derived their energy from their sense of the divine power.

      The alarm company of the place rallied near the Liberty Pole on the hill, to the right of the Lexington road, in the front of the meeting house. They went to the perilous duties of the day "with seriousness and acknowledgment of God," as though they were to engage in acts of worship. The minute company of Lincoln, and a few men from Acton, pressed in at an early hour; but the British, as they approached, were seen to be four times as numerous as the Americans. The latter, therefore, retreated, first to an eminence eighty rods farther north, then across Concord River, by the North Bridge, till just beyond it, by a back road, they gained high ground about a mile from the center of the town. There they waited for aid.

      About seven o'clock, under brilliant sunshine, the British marched with rapid step into Concord, the light infantry along the hills and the grenadiers in the lower road.

      At daybreak the Minute Men of Acton crowded at the drum-beat to the house of Isaac Davis, their captain, who "made haste to be ready." Just thirty years old, the father of four little ones, stately in person, a man of few words, earnest even to solemnity, he parted from his wife, saying: "Take good care of the children," and while she gazed after him with resignation he led off his company.

      Between nine and ten the number of Americans on the rising ground above Concord Bridge had increased to more than four hundred. Of these, there were twenty-five men from Bedford, with Jonathan Wilson for their captain; others were from Westford, among them Thaxter, a preacher; others from Littleton, from Carlisle, and from Chelmsford. The Acton company came last and formed on the right; the whole was a gathering not so much of officers and soldiers as of brothers and equals, of whom every one was a man well known in his village, observed in the meeting houses on Sundays, familiar at town meetings and respected as a freeholder or a freeholder's son.

      Near the base of the hill Concord River flows languidly in a winding channel and was approached by a causeway over the wet ground of its left bank. The by-road from the hill on which the Americans had rallied ran southerly till it met the causeway at right angles. The Americans saw before them, within gunshot, British troops holding possession of their bridge, and in the distance a still larger number occupying their town, which, from the rising smoke, seemed to have been set on fire.

      The Americans had as yet received only uncertain rumors of the morning's events at Lexington. At the sight of fire in the village the impulse seized them "to march into the town for its defense." But were they not subjects of the British king? Had not the troops come out in obedience to acknowledged authorities? Was resistance practicable? Was it justifiable? By whom could it be authorized? No union had been formed, no independence proclaimed, no war declared. The husbandmen and mechanics who then stood on the hillock by Concord River were called on to act and their action would be war or peace, submission or independence. Had they doubted, they must have despaired. Prudent statesmanship would have asked for time to ponder. Wise philosophy would have lost from hesitation the glory of opening a new era for mankind. The small bands at Concord acted and God was with them.

      "I never heard from any person the least expression of a wish for a separation," Franklin, not long before, had said to Chatham. In October, 1774, Washington wrote: "No such thing as independence is desired by any thinking man in America." "Before the nineteenth of April, 1775," relates Jefferson, "I never heard a whisper of a disposition to separate from Great Britain." Just thirty-seven days had passed since John Adams published in Boston, "That there are any who pant after independence is the greatest slander on the province."

      The American Revolution grew out of the souls of the people and was an inevitable result of a living affection for freedom, which set in motion harmonious effort as certainly as the beating of the heart sends warmth and color through the system.

      

      The officers, meeting in front of their men, spoke a few words with one another and went back to their places. Barrett, the colonel, on horseback in the rear, then gave the order to advance, but not to fire unless attacked. The calm features of Isaac Davis, of Acton, became changed; the town schoolmaster of Concord, who was present, could never afterwards find words strong enough to express how deeply his face reddened at the word of command. "I have not a man that is afraid to go," said Davis, looking at the men of Acton, and, drawing his sword, he cried: "March!" His company, being on the right, led the way toward the bridge, he himself at their head, and by his side Major John Buttrick, of Concord, with John Robinson, of Westford, lieutenant-colonel in Prescott's regiment, but on this day a volunteer without command.

      These three men walked together in front, followed by Minute Men and militia in double file, training arms. They went down the hillock, entered the by-road, came to its angle with the main road and there turned into the causeway that led straight to the bridge. The British began to take up the planks; to prevent it the Americans quickened their step. At this the British fired one or two shots up the river; then another, by which Luther Blanchard and Jonas Brown were wounded. A volley followed, and Isaac Davis and Abner Hosmer fell dead. Three hours before, Davis had bid his wife farewell. That afternoon he was carried home and laid in her bedroom. His countenance was pleasant in death. The bodies of two others of his company, who were slain that day, were

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