XXVII. 1775. they were of a race divine. They gave their lives CHAP. in testimony to the rights of mankind, bequeathing to their country an assurance of success in the mighty April struggle which they began. Their names are had in 19. grateful remembrance, and the expanding millions of their countrymen renew and multiply their praise from generation to generation. They fulfilled their duty not from the accidental impulse of the moment; their action was the slowly ripened fruit of Providence and of time. The light that led them on, was combined of rays from the whole history of the race; from the traditions of the Hebrews in the gray of the world's morning; from the heroes and sages of republican Greece and Rome; from the example of Him who laid down his life on the cross for the life of humanity; from the religious creed which proclaimed the divine presence in man, and on this truth as in a life-boat, floated the liberties of nations over the dark flood of the middle ages; from the customs of the Germans transmitted out of their forests to the councils of Saxon England; from the burning faith and courage of Martin Luther; from trust in the inevitable universality of God's sovereignty as taught by Paul of Tarsus, and Augustine, through Calvin and the divines of New England; from the avenging fierceness of the Puritans, who dashed down the mitre on the ruins of the throne; from the bold dissent and creative self assertion of the earliest emigrants to Massachusetts; from the statesmen who made, and the philosophers who expounded, the revolution of England; from the liberal spirit and analyzing inquisitiveness of the eighteenth century; from the cloud of witnesses of all the ages to the XXVII. 1775. April CHAP. reality and the rightfulness of human freedom. All 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. 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. XXVIII 1775. 19. April THE British troops drew up on the village green, CHAP. 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 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 soverApi 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 AmeriThe 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. cans. 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 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. April 19. |