Paul Revere's Ride (84 page)

2
. Galvin,
Minute Men,
258.

3
. Emerson,
Diaries and Letters,
71; Shattuck,
History of Concord,
8.

4
. Emerson,
Diaries and Letters,
71—72.

5
. Thaddeus Blood, “Statement on the Battle of April 19.” The location of this hill is not clear in primary sources. Some scholars have assumed it to be the eastern end of Revolutionary Ridge, the long hill that runs parallel to the Concord-Lexington Road from Concord center to Meriam’s Corner. It could also have been Hardy’s Hill, a mile to the east. Statements about the view to the east support the first interpretation; implications of distances marched suggest the second. On balance, the first interpretation is more probable.

6
. Gould, Deposition, April 25, 1775,
AA4,
II, 500-501.

7
. Barrett, letter, 19 April 1825,
AA4,
II, 500.

8
. What flag was flying from the liberty pole? Some scholars believe that it was the “pine tree flag” of New England, a red flag with a pine tree on a white canton. Another New England flag had a red cross of St. George on a white canton above a red field. Also in use were white flags with a green liberty tree, and the motto “An Appeal to Heaven.” The Sons of Liberty in Massachusetts flew a flag with vertical red and white stripes. Cf. Ruth R. Wheeler,
Concord: Climate for Freedom
(Concord, 1967), 116—17.

9
. Abel Conant, interview, Nov. 8, 1832; Shattuck’s Historical Notes, NEHGS; Shattuck,
History of Concord,
105—6.

10
.
Emerson, Diary, April 19, 1775,
Diaries and Letters of William Emerson,
71. The pronoun “us” is interpolated here.

11
. The story of Harry Gould was told by the militiaman himself to James D. Butler. See James D. Butler, Jr., to Edward W. Emerson, April 25, 1888, in Emerson,
Diaries and Letters of William Emerson,
133—34; for the naming of the sons, see Gross,
Minutemen and Their World,
118; and family reconstitution sheets compiled by the Brandeis Concord Group and Robert Gross, Brandeis University.

12
. Brandeis Concord Group, Family Reconstitution Sheets; Gross,
The Minutemen and Their World,
158; French,
Day of Concord and Lexington,
158.

13
. Shattuck,
History of Concord;
Josephine Hosmer, “Memoir of Joseph Hosmer,”
The Centennial of the Concord Social Circle
(Cambridge, Mass., 1882), 116-17; Gross,
Minutemen and Their World,
64—65; Sabin, “April 19, 1775,” III, 29.

14
. Even Concord’s fiery young minister William Emerson wrote, “We were the more careful to prevent a rupture with the King’s troops, as we were uncertain what had happened at Lexington, and knew not they had begun the quarrel.” It was urgently important to these New England men that they should not strike the first blow. See
Diaries and Letters of William Emerson,
72.

15
.
Ibid.,
71—72; Ripley,
Fight at Concord,
16.

16
. Gross,
Minutemen and Their World,
122; accounts of Reuben Brown, William Emerson, Abel Fisk, Dr. Timothy Minot, and Ezekiel Brown, 1775 Folder, Concord Archives, CFPL. Much of the property listed as missing was not looted but taken by order of Colonel Smith for carrying the wounded to Boston.

17
. British strength and dispositions at the North Bridge were variously reported in three eyewitness accounts. Lister thought that five companies were sent to North Bridge; Barker counted six; Laurie reported six were originally sent, and later reinforced by a seventh. Laurie, the senior officer present, appears to have been correct. From various sources seven companies of light infantry can be identified by regimental number as present there: the 4th, 5th, 10th, 38th, 43rd, 52nd, later reinforced by the 23rd. The 43rd remained at the North Bridge, as did the 5th for a time. Captain Parsons led the 38th and the 52nd to Barrett’s, where they were joined by the 5th, and according to Lister the 23rd as well. The 4th and 10th occupied the high ground along their route. See Smith to Gage, April 22, 1775; Lister, Narrative; Barker,
British in Boston,
33-34; Sutherland to Kemble, April 27, 1775; Sutherland to Clinton, April 26, 1775; Laurie to Gage, April 26, 1775; French,
General Gage’s Informers,
98.

18
. Interview with Ephraim Jones by Marquis de Chastelleux, Nov. 7, 1782, in Howard Rice (ed.),
Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782,
2 vols. (Chapel Hill, 1963), II, 481-82.

19
. Trevelyan,
American Revolution,
I, 286; Shattuck supplies a more exact inventory: 60 barrels of flour of which nearly half was later preserved; 3 cannon damaged by smashing of their trunnions; 16 gun carriage wheels burned, a few barrels of wooden trenchers, and spoons burned, and 500 pounds of ball thrown into the millpond, and later rescued.

20
. De Berniere, Narrative.

21
. Shattuck,
History of Concord,
107—9.

22
. Sutherland observed that “part of them formed in a meadow and the rest went still further off with the women and the children, and formed in another meadow on a rising ground. I saw more men in arms on a height that rose above the last mentioned party, which were none of those that passed the bridge sometime before.” Sutherland to Kemble, April 27, 1775; Sutherland to Clinton, April 26, 1775.

23
. The present site of the muster field lies to the west of the 20th-century Buttrick Mansion, now a visitor center in the National Park. Beside it is the old house of Major Buttrick himself.

24
. Josiah Adams,
Letter to Lemuel Shattuck, Esq.
(Boston, 1850), 20—21; Amos Baker, Affadavit; Rantoul,
Oration,
134.

25
. A Hunt family tradition, recorded by French,
Day of Concord and Lexington,
182n.

26
.
Interview with Mrs. Peter Barrett, Nov. 3, 1831, Shattuck’s Historical Notes, NEHGS; Shattuck,
History of Concord,
109; Gross,
Minutemen and Their World,
123.

27
. Shattuck,
History of Concord,
111; Josephine Hosmer, “Memoir of Joseph Hosmer”; Gross,
Minutemen and Their World,
220.

28
. Frothingham, “Statement of Major John Buttrick,” 52; Adams,
Letter to Lemuel Shattuck,
45.

29
. Amos Barrett, Narrative.

30
.
Ibid.

31
. The sequence of events was reported differently by participants on both sides. Eight Lincoln men testified, “We then seeing several fires in the town, thought that the houses in Concord were in danger, and marched towards the said bridge, and the troops who were stationed there, observing our approach, marched back over the bridge, and then took up some planks.” The same words were exactly repeated in a deposition signed by sixteen Concord men.

Colonel Barrett, on the other hand, testified, “I ordered them to march to the North Bridge, so called, which they had passed, and were taking up. I ordered said Militia to march to said bridge and pass the same, but not to fire on the king’s troops, unless they were first fired upon.” Bradbury Robinson and two others deposed that the Regulars “were taking up said bridge, when about three hundred of our militia were advancing towards said bridge.”

Lieutenant Barker recalled, “The rebels marched into the Road and were coming down upon us when Captain Laurie made his men retire to this side of the bridge, which by the by he ought to have done at first, and then he would have had time to make a good disposition.” Cf. Depositions of John Hoar
et al.,
Nathan Barrett
et al.,
and James Barrett, all dated April 23, 1775, published as
A Narrative of the Excursion and Ravages of the King’s Troops Under the Command of General Gage
(Worcester, 1775); rPt in Lincoln,
Journals of Each Provincial Congress,
661-74; also in Wroth
et al.
(eds.),
Province in Rebellion,
doc. 769, pp. 2083—87; and
AA4,
II, 489—502; Barker,
British in Boston,
34.

32
. George Tolman,
Events of April 19,
(Concord, n.d.), 29; Sabin, “April 19, 1775,” II, 38; on the shortage of bayonets, see Amos Baker, Affadavit. Some historians also place Lt.-Col. John Robinson of Westford at the head of the column with Major Buttrick. According to tradition he was invited to take command, but Robinson deferred to Buttrick as his own men were not yet there, and marched as a volunteer. See Edwin R. Hodgman,
History of the Town of Westford
(Lowell, Mass., 1883), 106.

33
. Sutherland to Kemble, April 27, 1775; Lister, Narrative; Laurie to Gage, April 26, 1775; American accounts were similar. Blood recalled “our men marching in very good order along the road,” in “Statement on the Battle of April 19,” CFPL.

34
. For the effective strength of these units, see Appendix K, below.

35
. Lister wrote, “Our companies was drawn up in order to form for Street firing.” The best discussion of this part of the battle is in French,
Lexington and Concord,
195.

36
. Hodgman,
History of the Town of Westford,
106.

37
. The confusion was compounded by another problem. The drill for street firing was not familiar to all the units at the bridge. It had not been included in the 18 evolutions required in the King’s Regulations of 1765. Laurie’s regiment appears to have practiced it, but not the 4th, where it was “not even understood by the officers who thought that by some mistake the companies had got one behind the other.” L. I. Cowper,
The King’s Own; The Story of a Royal Regiment
(Oxford, 1939), 239; Barker,
The British in Boston,
34.

38
. Testimony was mixed, but Captain Laurie himself deposed that “I imagine myself that a man of my company (afterwards killed) did first fire his piece.” Most historians have accepted Laurie’s testimony. Blood recalled that “at that time an officer rode up and a gun was fired. I saw where the ball threw up the water about the middle of the river, then a second and a third shot.” Some have surmised that the first shot may have been fired as a warning; a more likely explanation is an accidental discharge. Cf. Laurie to Gage, April 26, 1775; Blood, “Statement on the Battle of April 19,” CFPL.

39
.
Ibid.;
Baker, Deposition; French,
Concord and Lexington,
198.

40
. The bodies of Davis and Hosmer were exhumed in 1851 for reburial at a monument on Acton Common, and opened for anyone to view the remains. People were able to see where the ball entered Hosmer’s cheek below the left eye and exited at the back of the neck. The remains of Captain Isaac Davis were “remarkably well preserved.” Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men,
30

41
. Amos Barrett recalled in his idiosyncratic spelling which is not altered here, “We marched two deep it was a long being round by the river. Captain Davis had got I be leave within 15 rods of the B[ridge] when they fired three guns one after the other. I see the balls strike in the river to the right of me.” Blood’s memory was generally the same, but differed in one respect: “An officer rode up and a gun was fired. I saw where the ball threw up the water, about the middle of the river, then a second and a third shot.” One wonders if this officer might have been Sutherland, the only one at the North Bridge who was known to be mounted. Sutherland was also in that position on Lexington Green. By comparison with his brother officers, Sutherland’s letters were exceptionally aggressive and hostile to the Americans, and much more insistent that they fired first, even at Concord, where many other witnesses on both sides contradicted him. One wonders if he might have been an instigator on both fields. There is, however, no firm evidence beyond this suspicious pattern. Cf. Amos Barrett, Narrative, in
Journal of Letters of Henry True,
11-14; Blood, “Statement on the Battle of April 19,” CFPL.

42
. Some accounts suggest that every American had a clear shot. Many did, but not all. Blood wrote, “We then was all ordered to fire that could fire and not kill our own men.”

43
. This estimate of casualties follows the report from Captain Walter Laurie, the senior British officer at the bridge: killed, three privates; wounded, four officers, a sergeant and four other ranks. Several scholars have suggested that the toll might have been smaller, but I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of Laurie’s report (allowing that one of his killed may have been mortally wounded. If anything the toll was more likely to have been higher, as British units in the 18th century did not normally report minor wounds but only those that were incapacitating. See Captain Walter Laurie to Gage, April 26,1775, Gage Papers, WCL; published in French,
General Gage’s Informers,
95—98; also Wroth
et al.
(eds.),
Province in Rebellion,
doc. 721, pp. 2023-24; on the scarlet coats at Bunker Hill, Richard M. Ketchum,
Decisive Day: The Battle for Bunker Hill
(1962, new edition, New York, 1974, 1991), 191.

44
. Visual evidence appears in Ralph Earl’s sketch of the action, which he carefully drew after interviewing participants in the weeks immediately following the battle. Earl showed most of the New England men firing simultaneously, nearly all of them with clear shots at the British troops across the bridge. Only the front ranks of the Regulars could fire hack. In terms of naval tactics, the American militia had “crossed the T,” a rare event in land warfare.

45
. Lister, Narrative, in French (ed.),
Concord Fight.

46
. Blood, “Statement on the Battle of April 19,” CFPL.

47
. Nathan Barrett III, Reminiscences, ms., CFPL.