The Story of American History Part 11

Near-by towns and the other colonies came to their help by sending food and other needed articles. The southern colonies sent flour and rice, the middle furnished corn and money, and many towns sent sheep and cattle. One town in Connecticut sent a flock of two hundred and fifty sheep. Marblehead sent fish, and other towns grain.

Warm sympathy came from Virginia. "If need be," said Was.h.i.+ngton, "I will raise a thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston." In fact all the colonies took up the cause of Boston as their own. Of course the blockade made great hards.h.i.+p for the poor. There was much suffering from the scarcity of fuel and food. Still the people, as resolute as their leaders, made little complaint and caused no disorder.

Dr. Joseph Warren overheard some British officers boast that if a patriot ever addressed the people again in the Old South Church, he would surely lose his life. This was enough. Warren begged the honor.

The church was so crowded that he had to get a ladder and climb in through a window at the back of the pulpit. Many British officers were present who annoyed the speaker with groans and hisses. The fearless patriot, however, made a stirring speech "on the baneful influence of standing armies in time of peace."

=147. The Home Government adopts Stringent Measures.=--The charter of Ma.s.sachusetts was annulled, and its free government taken away. General Gage, the commander of the British army in America, was ordered to Boston with several regiments and was appointed military governor with despotic power. Cannon were mounted on the heights, tents pitched on the Common, and companies of red-coats were marching to and fro in the streets.

The effect was exactly what the wisest men in Parliament had predicted.

They had said that the colonies would unite more firmly, and that the American people would be driven into open rebellion. King George was obstinate and used all his influence to push the most obnoxious Acts through Parliament.

=148. The First Continental Congress.=--The first Continental Congress held its first meeting at Philadelphia in September, 1774. The ablest men of the colonies were sent as delegates. They forwarded to the king a candid statement of their grievances. It did no good. Ma.s.sachusetts was declared in a state of rebellion. In truth, it looked like it.

Such a condition of affairs could not last long. The feeling was intense against the king and his all-powerful friends. Arguments were useless.

The royal authority was boldly and stubbornly defied. The sword and the bayonet must now decide whether king or people were to rule in America.

"The contest may be severe, but the end will be glorious," said the martyr-patriot Warren, who soon after fell at Bunker Hill.

CHAPTER XI.

LEXINGTON AND CONCORD.

=149. The Patriots prepare for War.=--When General Gage began to increase slowly the number of troops in Boston, and especially when he began to fortify Boston Neck, it was plain enough that this meant war. The people on their part began to prepare anxiously for the coming struggle. Every one felt that desperate times were near at hand. The patriots quickly collected arms and ammunition and, having packed them in loads of hay and similar disguises to deceive the British spies, sent them for safe keeping to Concord, about sixteen miles northwest of Boston.

=150. Gage forms Plans to capture Military Stores.=--General Gage soon learned this, and made secret preparations to capture these supplies.

Inasmuch as in previous expeditions of this kind he had met with failure, the advantage of a surprise was this time to be increased by the presence of a large force. The Americans, however, were quite as keen of sight and hearing as their enemies, and had even more reason to keep a sharp lookout.

About midnight on the 18th of April, 1775, Gage quietly sent out from Boston nearly eight hundred soldiers. He had two objects in view; to seize the military stores at Concord, and to arrest Samuel Adams and "his ready and willing tool," that "terrible desperado," John Hanc.o.c.k.

Gage thought the start of his midnight soldiers was quite unknown to the Americans. He never suspected that Warren and other vigilant patriots had been watching every movement, and were determined to thwart his plans. At about ten or eleven o'clock, two hours before the British soldiers embarked, a signal lantern hung out of the belfry of the Old North Church in Boston, and in a few minutes another by its side--"One, if by land, and two, if by sea"--flashed the tidings of the coming expedition.

=151. The Country about Boston aroused.=--An hour or two before the British troops began to cross in boats to Charlestown, two hors.e.m.e.n, who had been watching for the lantern lights in the steeple, dashed out on swift steeds by different roads towards Lexington and Concord: William Dawes went like an arrow over Boston Neck, and then through Roxbury and Watertown, while Paul Revere across the water sped as if on wings from Charlestown. Their swift horses' hoofs clattered sharply in the quiet of this beautiful night, striking fire from the stones in the darkness.

But at almost every house they paused a moment to arouse the sleepers.

"Wake up!" they shouted. Windows flew open.

"What's the matter?"--"What's the mat-ter?"

"Matter enough, you'll find, by daylight!" was the hurried reply. "The British are coming!"

=152. The Night March to Concord.=--Meanwhile the British soldiers were marching along rapidly through the cool April night. They made no noise.

There was no drumbeat; the officers gave their commands almost in whispers. Only the clatter of the horses' hoofs and the steady tramp of the marching men broke the silence. When day dawned they approached the village of Lexington, ten miles from Boston and about two-thirds of the way to Concord. They were not entirely surprised to find, even so early, a squad of armed minute-men awaiting them, for they had heard church bells ringing and had seen, all along their march, lights moving to and fro in the farm houses.

=153. The Patriots make a stand at Lexington.=--The British arrived at Lexington about half-past four. Ready to meet them were some sixty or seventy men drawn up on the village green close beside the meeting-house, with loaded guns. As they stood there, silent and fearless, on that sweet spring morning, April 19, 1775, their leader, Captain John Parker, who fifteen years before had climbed the Heights of Abraham by the side of Wolfe, addressed them briefly.

"Stand your ground. Don't fire unless fired upon," said Parker; "but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!" Seventy men against eight hundred! War it was, and it did begin there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAUL REVERE'S RIDE.]

Major Pitcairn, who soon afterwards fell at Bunker Hill, rode up and cried out:--

"Disperse, you villains! Throw down your arms, you rebels, and go home!"

He then discharged his pistol and, turning to his soldiers, cried, "Fire!" Instantly flashed out the first volley of the Revolutionary War, and eight of the farmer minute-men fell dead!

The number of the Americans was so small in proportion to that of the British that the only sensible course was to retreat. They retired with a few parting shots at the enemy. Then the red-coats, giving three cheers, marched on towards Concord, six miles farther.

The patriots at Concord had the day before received some hint of the proposed capture, and had removed most of the military stores to the woods. The British found two cannon, which they spiked, and some cannon b.a.l.l.s and gunpowder, which they threw into the river. Then they destroyed a quant.i.ty of flour, cut down the liberty-pole, and set fire to the courthouse.

=154. The Fight at Concord Bridge.=--While they were busy doing this, fresh minute-men, about four hundred in number, were coming in from all the adjoining towns. They gathered near the old North Bridge to drive away some regulars who had begun to take up the planks. As the militia approached, the British soldiers fired and killed several. Among the dead was Captain Isaac Davis. Long after life was extinct, the fingers of this brave patriot, as if still true to his purpose, held firm grasp on his gun.

Major b.u.t.trick, a leader among the soldier-farmers, shouted, "Fire, fellow-soldiers! Fire!" Obedient to this order, the Americans in return "fired the shot heard round the world!" The regulars fell back in confusion. The minute-men held the bridge, and the enemy began a hasty retreat.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MINUTE-MEN ATTACKING THE BRITISH REGULARS ON THE RETREAT.]

Our men were too few in number to join in a square pitched battle with the trained British soldiers; but as soon as these began to withdraw, the patriots followed them closely and kept up a brisk discharge of musketry. The previous volleys and the bell-ringing had aroused the whole adjacent country, and fresh men came pouring in from every side.

Most of them were without their coats; but they had guns in their hands and they knew how to use them.

=155. The British begin their Retreat.=--Occasionally the retreating soldiers would stop and shoot back, and then hurry on and even run, to escape the deadly bullets. Soon the minute-men, leaping over the stone walls, ran on ahead, or, cutting across at some bend of the road, got a long distance in advance. Then as the column came on, the Americans, from behind barns, trees, rocks, and walls, would pour a storm of shot into the staggering ranks. So from right and left, behind and before, came in showers the fatal b.a.l.l.s of the minute-men. A British officer afterwards said, "It seemed as if men dropped from the clouds."

You remember Longfellow's description:--

How the British regulars fired and fled, How the farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farm-yard wall, Chasing the red-coats down the lane, Then crossing the fields to emerge again, Under the trees at the turn of the road, And pausing only to fire and load.

The British suffered fearfully in this six-mile march. The weather was as sultry as in midsummer, and the dust was suffocating. They had been on the road without food or water from midnight to noon. They were worn and exhausted, and the ceaseless shot of the Americans, who were all trained to the use of the rifle, brought down some of the regulars at almost every step. To go on was perilous, to pause long was fatal. Dead and wounded men and horses lay all along the road.

Thus beset, the British pushed on, hurrying back over the dreadful distance till they reached Lexington. Here they were rejoiced to find a thousand soldiers sent out from Boston under Lord Percy to meet them.

These had marched out of Boston to the tune of Yankee Doodle! They were formed in a hollow square, and into this shelter rushed the runaway red-coats, falling upon the green gra.s.s from pure exhaustion, "with their tongues hanging out of their mouths, like dogs after a chase."

Lord Percy allowed a rest of only about half an hour, knowing very well that the longer he delayed the greater would be the increasing swarm of armed men gathering around him.

=156. The Panic-Stricken British Regulars at last reach the Shelter of the Men-of-War.=--The British commander had now in all nearly eighteen hundred men, and he made straight for Charlestown, the nearest point of safety. But in spite of this large force, the minute-men with their unerring aim kept on his flanks, picking off the regulars, especially the officers, all along the road. In vain the officers threatened; the men ran like sheep. At sunset the British reached Charlestown and found themselves safe under the shelter of their men-of-war.

If Percy's reinforcements had not come up, all the British soldiers that started back from Concord would have been killed or taken prisoners. The king's regulars had been driven in rout and almost panic before the stout-hearted minute-men. Well might General Gage feel keenly the disgrace.

The loss on both sides at Lexington and Concord was small. Most of the fighting took place on the retreat, where the loss of the Americans was about fifty killed and forty-three wounded, while the British lost in all two hundred and seventy-three men.

=157. What the Eventful Day showed.=--Thus began and ended one of the most eventful days in the history of our country. It witnessed the opening conflict of the American Revolution.

When that st.u.r.dy patriot, Samuel Adams, heard the crackle of the musketry, he exclaimed, "What a glorious morning is this!" He knew that the time had come when the people must draw the sword.

The Americans had now shown that they could fight. They saw the promptness with which they could a.s.semble, and they felt that, if need were, they could defend themselves. The British also learned that the American farmers could fight, and that, too, on the spur of the moment.

They found that the colonies were not to be frightened into submission.

It became plain to each side that very serious work was near at hand.

The grim figure of WAR cast its long black shadow into the future.

The shots of these resolute farmers echoed far and wide. They told the whole world that a people stood ready to give their lives in defense of their rights; that they fought after their own fas.h.i.+on, and they fought hard.