1775. CHAP. reality and the rightfulness of human freedom. All XXVII. the centuries bowed themselves from the recesses of a past eternity to cheer in their sacrifice the lowly men who proved themselves worthy of their forerunners, and whose children rise up and call them blessed. April 19. Heedless of his own danger, Samuel Adams, with the voice of a prophet, exclaimed, "Oh! what a glorious morning is this!" for he saw that his country's independence was rapidly hastening on, and, like Columbus in the tempest, knew that the storm did but bear him the more swiftly towards the undiscovered world. CHAPTER XXVIII. TO CONCORD AND BACK TO BOSTON. APRIL NINETEENTH, 1775. THE British troops drew up on the village green, CHAP. fired a volley, huzzaed thrice by way of triumph, and XXVIII after a halt of less than thirty minutes, marched on for 1775. April Concord. There, in the morning hours, children and 19. women fled for shelter to the hills and the woods, and men were hiding what was left of cannon and military stores. The minute companies and militia formed on the usual parade, over which the congregation of the town, for near a century and a half, had passed on every day of 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, were unpretending men, content in their humil XXVIII 1775. CHAP. ity; their energy was derived from their sense of the divine power. This looking to God as their soverApril eign, brought the fathers to their pleasant valley; 19. this controlled the loyalty of the sons; and this has made the name of Concord venerable throughout the world. The alarm company of the place rallied near the liberty pole on the hill, to the right of the Lexington road, in the rear of the meeting-house. They went to the perilous duties of the day, "with seriousness and acknowledgment of God," as though they were to be engaged in acts of worship. The minute company of Lincoln, and a few 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 further north, then across the Concord river by the North bridge, till just beyond it, by a back road they gained high ground, about a mile from the centre of the town. There they waited for aid. About seven o'clock, the British marched with rapid step under the brilliant sunshine into Concord, the light infantry along the hills, and the grenadiers in the lower road. Left in undisputed possession of the hamlet, they made search for stores. To this end, one small party was sent to the South bridge over Concord river; and of six companies under Captain Laurie, three, comprising a hundred soldiers or more, were stationed as a guard at the North bridge, while three others advanced two miles further, to the residence of Barrett, the highest military officer of the neighborhood, where arms were thought XXVIII 1775. to have been concealed. But they found there CHAP. nothing to destroy except some carriages for cannon. His wife at their demand gave them refreshment; but April refused pay, saying: "We are commanded to feed our enemy, if he hunger." At daybreak, the minute men of Acton crowded at the drumbeat 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 his person, a man of few words, earnest even to solemnity, he parted from his wife, saying, "Take good care of the children," as though he had foreseen that his own death was near; and while she gazed after him with resignation, he led off his company to the scene of danger. 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 minute 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-house 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 19. XXVIII 1775. CHAP. had rallied, ran southerly till it met the causeway at right angles. The Americans saw before them within April gunshot British troops holding possession of their 19. bridge; and in the distance a still larger number occupying their town, which, from the rising smoke, seemed to have been set on fire. In Concord itself, Pitcairn had fretted and fumed with oaths and curses at the tavern-keeper for shutting against him the doors of the inn, and exulted over the discovery of two twenty-four pounders in the tavern yard, as though they reimbursed the expedition. These were spiked; sixty barrels of flour were broken in pieces, but so imperfectly, that afterwards half the flour was saved; five hundred pounds of ball were thrown into a mill-pond. The liberty pole and several carriages for artillery were burned; and the court house took fire, though the fire was put out. Private dwellings were rifled; but this slight waste of public stores was all the advantage for which Gage precipitated a civil war. But 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 defence." were they not subjects of the British king? Had not the troops come out in obedience to constituted and 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 |