John Finn 7: A Short History of a Long Day

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The Boston News-Letter, a paper of overt Loyalist sympathies, published a one paragraph account the day afterward: “Last Tuesday Night the Grenadier and Light Companies belonging to the several Regiments in this Town were ferryed in Long Boats from the Bottom of the Common over to Phips’s Farm in Cambridge, from whence they proceeded on their way to Concord where they arrived Yesterday: the First Brigade, commanded by Lord Piercy,” (‘Percy’ was his name. The errant spelling of the period was less of a problem than the erring fact) “with two pieces of Artillery, set off from here yesterday morning at Ten o’Clock as a Re-inforcement, which with the Grenadiers and Light Companies, made about eighteen Hundred Men. Upon the People’s having Notice of this Movement on Tuesday Night, alarm Guns were fired throughout the Country, and Expresses sent off to the different Towns, so that very early Yesterday Morning large Numbers were assembled from all Parts of the Country. A general Battle ensued, which from what we can learn, was supported with great Spirit on both sides, and continued until the King’s Troops retreated to Charlestown, which was after Sunset. The Reports concerning this unhappy Affair, and the Causes that concurred to bring on an Engagement, are so various that we are not able to collect any Thing consistent or regular, and cannot therefore with certainty give our Readers any further Account of this shocking Introduction to all the Miseries of a Civil War.”

On April 25th, with clearly different sympathies, the Salem Gazette reported: “Last Wednesday the 19th of April, the troops of his Britannick Majesty commenced hostilities upon the people of this province, attended with circumstances of cruelty not less brutal than what our venerable ancestors received from the vilest savages of the wilderness…”

By May 3rd, two weeks after those first ‘shots heard round the world,’ printer and publisher Isaiah Thomas, also a participant in the event, was reporting in the Massachusetts Spy, “Americans! Forever bear in mind the Battle of Lexington! Where British Troops unmolested and unprovoked wantonly, and in a most inhuman manner fired upon and killed a number of our countrymen, then robbed them of their provisions, ransacked, plundered and burnt their houses! Nor could the tears of defenseless women, some of whom were in the pains of childbirth, the cries of helpless babes, nor the prayers of old age, confined to beds and sickness, appease their thirst for blood! Or divert them from the DESIGN of MURDER and ROBBERY!”

It is in those last lines of Thomas’s appeal, alluding to defenseless women, childbirth, the cries of babes and the aged confined to beds and sickness that we have the first reporting of what had happened not in Lexington but at Menotomy.

My interest was clearly in that specific place mid-way on the larger map of events that day. I might have to understand the broader circumstance and thus investigate what had happened immediately before and after, but most important to me was what had happened in that part of West Cambridge then known as Menotomy. Because it was there that more British and Americans died during that long day than anywhere else, and it was there that a young woman and a boy were lost in the well of time.

The cause of all of this cannot be laid at the feet of William Legge (you entertain yourself as best you can when you are doing dry research), second Earl of Dartmouth and Secretary of State for the Colonies in England. Legge was the stepson of Lord North, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, and one of the most powerful human beings on the face of the Earth. It was he who gave the actual order to confront the rebellious colonists then draining the British Exchequer with their stubborn refusal to obey the Parliament and the King. But Legge was a reasonable man, founder of foundling hospitals, an opponent of slavery, and namesake to a college in the wilderness. There were many possible ways to accomplish his goal.

Certainly the Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia against the Kings wishes, carried responsibility for much of the continuing tensions which might otherwise have faded with the seasons. Their demands denied the powers of Parliament and offered little compromise. But then, historically speaking, it was only a matter of time before the natural tendencies of the offspring who had often been required to take care of themselves would break with the tenuous bonds of the mother country.

The British soldiers—the Regulars as they were known—were following orders, as soldiers must do, without a morally compelling reason to refuse. Certainly they were acting within the purview of commonly understood authority. They were on British soil, and they had a right to protect themselves.

No, the responsibility for what happened that day must be laid at the feet of a single man. General Thomas Gage.

It is important to remember that Thomas Gage was not a stupid man. Quite the opposite. He was, however, a product of his age–a General manufactured by custom and class. He had earned his rank at the battles of Fortenay and Culloden. But as the grandson of a peer, it is a fact that he purchased his first military positions, as was the practice at the time. He had been wounded as a field commander during the French and Indian Wars, had lead the attack on Fort Ticonderoga in 1757, and succeeded by merit to the position of Commander in Chief of all British Forces in America.

Thomas Gage loved America. He had planned to retire here. He had married an American girl from New Jersey, Margaret Kemble, whom he loved dearly. They had five daughters and six sons. There is tragedy to be found in the story of this man whose greatest folly was to begin the American Revolution. His loss was in common with every farmer and shopkeeper and sailor who awoke on the morning of April 19, 1775, believing themselves to be British, and ended that day wondering what else they had become. At the end of that day, his dreams, his career, and his marriage, were in shambles.

I understood that fact, but I saw no direct connection between Thomas Gage and Mary Andrews. Her fate, and that of her family, had most certainly been altered by the orders of Thomas Gage to Francis Smith, John Pitcairn, and Hugh Percy. And her death was not the doing of those officers, only the circumstances that had made it possible.

Ensign Jeremy Lister who was with the Tenth Regiment of Foot reports clearly enough on the friction which had arisen between Provincials and Soldiers, “being in eminent danger every Evening of being insulted by the Inhabitants the worst Language was continually in our Ears often dirt thrown at us they went so far as to wound some officers with their Watch Crooks…who had nothing to lay to his charge only he was walking in the streets alone therefore thought him easy pray.”

On a Sunday in March, when a portion of the 43rd regiment was out on practice maneuvers, they happened to halt opposite a church for a few minutes to rest and “the Congregation imagined they was going to fire in to the Church or at least take them all prisoners, jump’d out of the Windows as fast as possible and was quite confused.”

“Things begun now to draw near a Crisis and we expected daily coming to blows,” Ensign Lister says, in his narrative, written seven years later, ‘..on the 18th of April in the Evening there was a detachment ordered under Armes to go on a secret expedition, under command of Lt. Col. Smith of our Regt the detachment consisted of Light-Infantry and Grenadiers of the Army…”

The Diary of Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own Regiment says they were ashore at Lechmere Point at 11 o’clock that night, the very same hour Paul Revere left over Charlestown neck. Lieutenant Colonel Smith of the tenth Regiment was in command, accompanied by Lieutenant Colonel Bernard of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and Major Pitcairn of the Marines.

The regulars climbed from their long boats into waist deep water on the Cambridge side, traversed several tidal inlets and began their march about midnight.

They were already cold, and starting out tired for having missed a nights sleep. The wet leather of their boots must have made a frog-like chorus of their march in the moonlight for the first mile or two. That march was steady but not quick. They passed through Menotomy for the first time with only minor incident just before 3 AM.

Samuel Abbott Smith, in his short but generally accurate history ‘West Cambridge 1775’ notes: “The Committee of Safety on the day before (the eighteenth) had held their session at the Black Horse tavern in West Cambridge, kept by Wetherby, which stood near the site of the old almshouse.” Three members of that body, future “Vice-President Gerry and Cols. Lee and Orne, spent the night here, and arose from their beds to view the unwonted sight. They watched the soldiers passing by, till, as the centre was opposite, an officer and a file of men were detached to search the house. This movement gave them the hint of danger, and they hurried down stairs. Gerry in his perturbation being on the point of opening the door in their faces, when the landlord cried out to him, ‘For God’s sake don’t open that door!’ and led them to the back part of the house, whence they escaped into the corn-field before the officer had posted his guards about the doors. There was nothing to conceal them from view in the broad field but the corn-stubble which had been left the previous fall a foot or two high, and that was little protection in the bright moonlight. Gerry stumbled and fell, and called out to his friend, ‘Stop, Orne ; stop for me till I can get up; I have hurt myself!’ This suggested the idea, and they all threw themselves flat on the ground, and, concealed by the stubble, remained there half-clothed as they had left their beds, till the troops had passed on. Col. Lee never recovered from the effects of that midnight exposure; he died in less than a month from that night. The house was searched in vain…”

Further along the road, Henry Whittemore “was alert and came to the door to see what was stirring. A soldier, leaving the ranks, asked him for a drink of water; he refused, saying, ‘What are you out, at this time of night, for?’ As soon as they passed he at once began to warn the company, and at day-break they were formed on the common ready for active service.”

Not everyone was so concerned. “Though it was so long after midnight, some young men were busily engaged playing cards in a shop…and they did not leave their game till they were startled by the near approach of the British troops.” Seeing a “glimmer of a light through the shutter of the house, a soldier was sent to inquire. The wife replied that her “old man was sick, and she was making some herb tea.” The soldier was satisfied with the answer, and rejoined his comrades.” But the “old shoemaker and his wife had just been melting their pewter plates into bullets, and when startled by the loud knock at the door, the old man had thrown himself upon the bed, and his wife had upset the skillet of molten lead into the turf ashes before she unlocked the door.”

The stepson of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Lord North, was not the only political power intimately involved in this day. William Legge, Lord Dartmouth had given orders which were unpopular with many, including Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland, the son-in-law of Lord Brute, perhaps the most powerful Whig in Parliament, and one of the wealthiest. Hugh Percy at 33 years old was an unhealthy and visibly ugly man who suffered from hereditary gout and poor eyesight—he was also a gentleman of impeccable manners, and a brave and excellent soldier beloved by his men. He had been in numerous battles before, and as Brigadier General and Colonel of the 5th regiment of Foot, it was his job to march on that April morning in relief of the beleaguered Smith.

From the beginning, Percy was against the Gage plan “for being petty and fraught with risks,” as one historian notes. It was thus inevitable that it should be Percy who would have to salvage the venture.

The British field officer was the unsung hero of that Empire. The glory so often went to the Navy. But it was Wellington who defeated Napoleon, not Nelson. And until the Old Men annihilated that special breed by tossing them against the machine guns in World War One, it was the British field officer who built and preserved the Empire. Losses on the world stage were few, given the far-flung nature of their exploits. A study of their failure in America would be a book on the inherent weakness of occupation, not of the soldier.

Opposing them was an unlikely network of rebels, relatively undisciplined, untrained, and ill-equipped. The stuff that legends are made of. But the myths of the American Revolution have never quite matched the reality. The reality was that much greater in every respect.

I was not interested in challenging those myths with my small story. I wanted a simpler focus on the death of this young woman and this boy, and the reasons their murder might have happened at that time and place. Clearly they were murdered. The ultimate crime. And the time and place offered a terrific circumstance. I was sure there must be a story to tell.

“It was then young flood, the Ship was winding, and the moon was Rising,” Paul Revere said.

I have long believed Revere to be the first American. Not the great Franklin, or Washington, or Jefferson. Revere. This forty-year old Apollo was more than a patriot. He called himself a ‘mechanic.’ He was a craftsman, a father and a husband. He was an entrepreneur and engineer. He was an engraver and artist. He was not a wordsmith, but a revolutionary. The spirit of the new-formed American character was in him.

Revere had ridden in his cause far beyond Concord, and more than once–to New York and Philadelphia. He had what was often called ‘native genius.’ He was capable of walking through the only gunpowder mill in the colonies, a closely held technology the British had banned in their effort to suppress rebellion, and comprehend what he saw without taking notes, and then remember enough to duplicate it again in nearby Canton—a resource the Revolution could not have done without, and a crucial bit of spying for the war to come.

I don’t believe I have ever been strong enough, even after boot camp, to make a four hundred mile ride over rough roads, but I can appreciate the misery of it. Always as brave as what was necessary to the moment, Revere was never heedless and seldom reckless. And until that night in April, he was an Englishman. Because he acted before the first shots were fired, and because he was present when those shots were fired, and because he fully accepted the consequence of his actions from that first moment, I believe he uniquely belongs to history.

The lights in the church tower are known to most. The wonderful Longfellow poem certainly made myth of it. And that there were others who rode in the night has always been known and is often retold, as if this somehow debunks the fact of Revere’s accomplishment. But because fine historians have detailed the adventure from start to finish, there is no need for me to recount his ride in full. What is most important to my own story is that Revere passed through Menotomy shortly before midnight. He had ridden many miles and had many more to go over dark roads made ugly by spring thaw and natural erosion. That he was a superb horseman is seldom noted, perhaps because it was assumed or else he would not have been given the task. But that he bravely paused at each house to call the warning is a better deed still. He was a hunted man. There were British officers on the road, put in place to stop him. His life was very immediately in danger, and stopping again and again did not make his chances of reaching Hancock and Adams in Lexington any easier. But he did this. And it was important to me that any house on his way would have been awake. The Andrews house was not directly on Revere’s route, but close enough to have been alerted shortly after his passing, when “alarm Guns were fired throughout the Country.” I believe Isaak Andrews and his family would have been awake, at least from that moment on. And certainly by the time the 700 British soldiers under Smith marched in the moonlight soon afterward.

When I was teaching high school history I used to spend a week on just this one day. The school would not give me a bus to take my classes out, so I walked them through it in the room and the hall. In fact, it was in the hall that I got into trouble with a math teacher, that last year before I quit. He objected to the popping of balloons. I explained the fact that we were not allowed to have guns—even fake guns. He wouldn’t listen. Math is a quiet and insidious subject.

In any case, even the worst schools teach a little about the confrontation, though they get the facts screwed. But what they tell is only what happened at Lexington and Concord. The battles of Menotomy is pretty much ignored outside of the town of Arlington itself.

Ensign Jeremy Lister wrote of the confrontation that morning, “it was at Lexington when we saw one of their companys drawn up in regular order Major Pitcairn of the Marines second in Command call’d to them to disperce, but their not seeming willing he desired us to mind our space which we did when they gave us a fire then run of to get behind a wall. We had one man wounded in our Compy in the Leg his name was Johnson also Major Pitcairns Horse who was shot in the Flank we return’d their Salute, and before we proceeded on our March from Lexington I believe we kill’d and Wounded either 7 or 8 men. We Marchd forward without further interruption till we arriv’d at Concord, tho large bodies of Men was collected together and with Armes yet as we approached they retired.”

Lieutenant John Barker says in his diary, “We met with no interruption till within a mile or two of the Town, where the Country People had occupied a hill which commanded the road; the Light Infantry were order’d away to the right and ascended the height in one line, upon which the Yankees quitted it without firing, [this was Rev. Emerson who was persuaded to change his mind about “if we die let us die here” by Eleazer Brooks of Lincoln] which they did likewise for one or two more successively. They then crossed the River beyond the Town.”

Provincial Capt. Amos Barrett led his company before the British playing their drums and fifes. It is important to remember that at this point there were only about 100 armed Provincials from Concord and Lincoln, in all.

Smith broke his troops defensively to cover his position and sent detachments forward to accomplish the objectives of his orders. Lister describes the defense at the Concord River: “I proposed destroying the Bridge, but before we got one plank of they got so near as to begin their Fire which was a very heavy one, tho. Our Compys was drawn up in order to fire Street firing, yet the weight of their fire was such that we was oblidg’d to give way then run with the greatest precipitance at this place there was 4 Men of the 4th Compy Killd who was afterwards scalp’d their Eye goug’s their Noses and Ears cut of, such barbarity exercis’d upon the Corps could scarcely be paralelld by the most uncivilized Savages.”

It is noteworthy that Lister remembers this detail of barbarity, which he did not witness because he had already withdrawn with ‘precipitance’, so much more clearly than the crucial events he actually participated in. The fog of war has always been the saving grace of the soldier with adrenaline pumping. The imagined cruelty of the enemy has always been the just cause of the warrior.

Lister notes specifically, “there was a good number Wounded amongst which was a Lt Hull 43rd through the Right Brest, of which with other Wounds recd that day he died three or four days after. L. Gould 4th and Lt Kelly 10th also Lt Sunderland a Voluntier Wounded…” These were comrades he knew personally. Lt. Gould and Lt. Barker were the only officers who were at the skirmish at Concord Bridge. Lister continued, “after we had got to Concord again my situation with the remains of the Compy was a most fatigueing one, being detached to watch the Motions of the Rebels, we was kept continually running from hill to hill as they changed their position…”

Re-gathering his forces before noon, Smith started his retreat to Boston. Lister says, “…the Rebels begun a brisk fire but at so great a distance it was without effect, but as they kept marching nearer when the Granadiers found them within shot they returned their fire just about that time I recd a shot through by Right Elbow joint which effectually disabled that Arme, it then became a general firing upon us from all quarters, from behind hedges and Walls we return’d the fir every opportunity.”

Low on ammunition and quickly being outnumbered by the gathering forces of rebels as word of the confrontation spread, Smith and his Regulars were happy to meet with re-enforcements under the command of Hugh Percy as they again reached Lexington just before 3 pm. It is there they stopped for a brief rest.

I believe it is important that most of the looting began in Lexington, during the retreat, and after Smith was wounded. It was there that Percy took command of the situation. Historian Frank Coburn, quoting from Historical Society Proceeding and the Journals of the Provincial Congress, cited the loses of individual property owners. Coburn believed “the wonton and needless destruction of property must have been by the express command,” as it occurred, “within a few rods of where Percy sat on his white horse.” I see no other interpretation. And if the mind-set of Percy’s soldiers had been turned to pillage and plunder, it might have encouraged other thoughts as well. “While Smith’s soldier’s were resting, some of those under Percy…wandered about that part of the village bent on mischief and pillage, not the kind usually indulged in by the average rowdy element in the army, but on a much larger and grander scale. Houses were looted and burned…together with such of their contents as could not be carried away…To him belongs the blame…for the killing of such helpless old men as Raymond, the summary removal of Hannah Adams and her infant from child-bed, for the killing of feeble minded William Marcy; for the killing of fourteen-year Edward Barbor. His entire march back to Charlestown was thickly dotted with just such incidents, unrelieved by any conspicuous merciful action, or by any deed of bravery. It was a masterful retreat, indeed, and it was a brutal one…”

It was a wonder to me that this fine officer and gentleman had allowed his soldiers to run rampant in that way. He must have had a purpose. But nothing of that was clear in any correspondence or testimony available on-line or in various databases.

Still, the Regulars were, “13 miles to Bunkers Hill, under continual fire from all Quarters as before…” Having been wounded, Lister was given a horse but it was then they were approaching Menotomy: “…When I had Road about two miles I found the Balls whistled so smartly about my Ears I thought it more prudent to dismount and as the Balls came thicker from one side or the other so I went from one side of the Horse to the other for some time when a Horse was shot dead close by me…”

Menotomy is forgotten because it was not where first blood was drawn for the great cause. This is part of the American obsession with firsts. First editions. First nights. First loves. But Menotomy must be remembered as part of that first day-long battle, when the gorge of blood replaced the choke of words in American throats.

That the brutality of the day was inconsistent was made clear by many small incidents. Samuel Smith notes: “A little girl, named Nabby Blackington, as they marched by, was watching her mother’s cow while she fed by the road-side; the cow took her way directly through the passing column, and the child, faithful to her trust, followed through the ranks bristling with bayonets. ‘We will not hurt the child,’ they said.”

Perhaps knowing that Percy had chosen to carry minimal supplies with him in order to move more quickly in relief of the earlier expedition, General Gage smartly made the decision to send a resupply of ammunition by wagon with military escort. But the rebels had torn up the planks on the bridges to impede just this sort of possibility and the wagon was delayed long enough to allow a small group of the ‘old guard’ to rally in ambush. These were men with military experience but not well enough to be moving quickly in pursuit of the main force of the British. Close by the First Parish Meetinghouse at the crossroads the British detachment was caught by surprise, the lead horse of the wagon shot, the several regulars killed or wounded. In desperation, others fled west along the shores of Spy Pond. There “they met an old woman named Mother Batherick, digging dandelions, to whom they surrendered themselves, asking her protection. She led them to the house of Capt. Ephraim Frost, where there was a party of our men, saying to her prisoners, as she gave them up. ‘If you ever live to get back, you tell King George that an old woman took’ six of his grenadiers prisoners.”

It is an interesting note that these may be counted the first British prisoners taken in the Revolutionary War.

Later, it was close by this place that the retreating Regulars, busily pillaging every house near to the main road, broke into the home of deacon Joseph Adams. This was an odd story. Adam’s wife was still there with five children hiding beneath her bed and a newborn infant, in her arms.

“A soldier opened the curtains and pointed his bayonet at her breast; she cried out for mercy, and another soldier who stood near, said, ‘We will not hurt the woman if she will go out of the house, but we will surely burn it.’ She threw a blanket over her, and with her infant in her arms, crawled to the corn-crib close by.” From beneath the bed the children “watched the feet of the soldiers moving about the room. Joel Adams, a boy of nine years old, curiosity getting the better of his fears, lifted up a corner of the valance, to get a better view… A soldier saw him, and said, ‘Why don’t you come out here?’ The boy answered, ‘You’ll kill me if I do.’ ‘No we won’t,’ the soldier replied, and the boy came out of his hiding-place, and followed them round.” His father, as church deacon, was responsible for keeping the silver communion service and as the soldier took this along with the family silver the boy yelled at them with indignation, ‘Don’t you touch them ‘ere things. Daddy ‘l lick you if you do.”

Poor lad. His father had failed to prepare for the return of the Regulars, and when they did, the deacon had fled, leaving them all behind, and was even then hiding in the barn while his helpless family faced the kindness of soldiers. When the enemy was gone, it was the children who were left to extinguish the fire using a pot of home-brewed beer and rain water from a barrel.

The Jason Russell house is on a small rise above the Concord road, with the mill brook further below. It still stands amidst the congestion of modern Arlington. And it was there that old Russell, feeling too infirm to flee to safety, had barricaded his gate and prepared to fight, saying ‘An Englishman’s house is his castle.’

Some Danvers and Woburn men, finding themselves flanked by the Regulars, had foolishly chosen the house as a place to make a stand as well. Shot and bayoneted, Mr. Russell died there in his doorway shortly before five o’clock that afternoon. Others died in rooms throughout the house where Mrs. Russell later found the blood ‘ankle deep.’ But several of the Woburn men had hidden in the basement and escaped.

One of the best stories took place on the Concord road close to this. There, old Samuel Whittemore lay in wait behind a stone wall for the return of the soldiers, the well-oiled pistols and muskets he had used in the wars with the French on the ground beside him. His spot was too close and he had been warned to take better cover, but refused. One thinks he might have chosen this better way to die after a long life. “He fired some half dozen shots at the enemy. He had just loaded his gun when he heard the wall rattle and saw five soldiers of the flank guard approaching shoulder to shoulder. Besides being eighty years old he was lame, and knew that it was no use to attempt to escape. With his musket he shot one of the soldiers, and, instantly drawing his pistol, fired at another. He aimed the second pistol and discharged it just as they fired at him; one of the soldiers was seen to clap his hand to his breast. As he fired the third time a ball struck him in the head, and he fell senseless. The soldiers beat him with their muskets, bayoneted him, and left him for dead. After the British had passed by, our people, finding that there was some life left in him, carried him to Cooper’s tavern, where the surgeon, Dr. Tufts of Medford, said it was useless to dress his wounds, for he could not live. He dressed the wounds however, and the old hero lived another eighteen years after this, dying in 1793 at the age of 98.”

The rebels continued to gather from all quarters as fighting had intensified through Menotomy. British ammunition was almost depleted. With the daylight nearly gone and faced with the more densely populated parts of Cambridge still ahead, Lord Percy was forced to make another crucial decision. Abruptly, he changed direction and moved his columns for the peninsula of Charlestown and the cover of the guns on British ships.

The great historian David Hackett Fischer, summed up that first day with a poignant clarity in his book Paul Revere’s Ride. With the provincial militias following close at the heels of the regulars, “on Boston’s Beacon Hill, crowds of spectators could see the muzzle-flashes twinkling like fireflies in the gathering darkness.”

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