XXXI. CHAPTER Survivors scattered at once, and the regulars marched on to Concord. As they approached that village, another 1775. body of minute men was seen assembled on a hill in front of the meeting-house; but, as the regulars advanced, they retired across a bridge to another hill back of the town. The bridge was taken possession of by the regulars, a guard of three companies was stationed at it, and three other companies were sent across to destroy some stores at a distance. The main body halted near the meeting-house, and commenced destroying the stores found there. The minute men on the hill, increased by constant accessions, presently advanced toward the bridge. The guard of regulars, having retired across it, began to take up the planks, and, as the minute men continued to approach, they fired. The fire was returned, and several regulars were killed; yet such was the hesitation at this first shedding of blood, that the three British companies beyond the bridge were suffered to recross without molestation. They fell back to the village, and the whole detachment commenced a speedy retreat. It was time. The alarm had spread; the country was up. The minute men, hurrying in from every side, threatened the rear, the flanks, the front of the retreating column, and from behind trees, fences, and stone walls, poured in an irregular but galling and fatal fire. The British suffered very severely; the commanding officer was wounded; the retreat was fast turning into a rout; the whole party would have fallen into the hands of the provincials but for seasonable aid found at Lexington, whither Gage, with wise caution, had dispatched Lord Percy with a supporting column of nine hundred men and two pieces of cannon. The artillery kept the minute men at bay; Percy's men received their exhausted companions within a hollow XXXI. square, and the retreat, after a short halt, was again re- CHAPTER commenced. By throwing out strong flanking parties, Percy covered his main body, and by sunset the regu- 1775, lars reached Charlestown, worn out with fatigue, and with a loss in killed and wounded of near three hundred men. The provincial loss was about eighty-five. The exhausted regulars encamped on Bunker Hill, under cover of the ships of war in the river. The next day they crossed the ferry to Boston. From all parts of New England volunteers marched at once, and within a day or two after the fight, Boston was beleaguered by a considerable but irregular army. The news, forwarded by express, spread fast through the colonies. Yet, with the hottest haste which could then be made, it took twenty days to reach Charleston, in South Carolina. The reassembled Congress of Massachusetts voted to April 22. raise thirteen thousand six hundred men, arranged presently into twenty-seven regiments. The other New England colonies were called upon to make up the army to thirty thousand men. Ward was appointed captain general, Thomas lieutenant general. A regiment of artillery was authorized, the command being given to Gridley, appointed also chief engineer. A captain's commission was promised to any person who would enlist fiftynine men; any body who could procure the enlistment of ten companies was to be made a colonel. This method facilitated raising the men, but brought many incompetent officers into the service. The issue of paper money, one of the greatest miseries of war, disused in Massachusetts for the last quarter of a century, was now revived. Provincial notes were issued to the amount of £100,000, $333,333, in sums small enough to circulate as a currency. CHAPTER XXXI Depositions to show that the regulars had fired first at Lexington, without provocation, were dispatched to 1775. England by a special packet, with a short but energetic address to the inhabitants of Great Britain, expressing the resolution "to die or be free." Franklin, to whom this address and the depositions were inclosed, was requested to have them printed and distributed, and to communicate them especially to the city of London. But Franklin had sailed for America, leaving the Massachusetts agency in the hands of Arthur Lee. The appeal to the other New England colonies was April 25. not made in vain. The Rhode Island Assembly voted an army of observation of fifteen hundred men—a measure opposed, however, by Governor Wanton and two or three of the assistants, who entered a protest against it as dangerous to their charter privileges, likely to involve the colony in a war, and contrary to their oath of allegiance. Stephen Hopkins and Samuel Ward, former governors and political rivals, were reappointed delegates to the Continental Congress. Wanton was rechosen governor at the election shortly after; but, as he did not May 3. appear to take the oaths, the Assembly directed that the April 26. duties of the office should be performed by Deputy-governor Cooke, who continued for the next three years at the head of affairs. A body of Rhode Island volunteers had appeared before Boston, led by Nathaniel Greene, a young iron master, educated a Quaker, but now disowned by that communion on account of his military propensities. He was appointed by the Assembly commander-inchief of the army of observation, with the rank of brigadier. The Connecticut Assembly voted to raise six regiments of a thousand men each, four of them to serve with the army before Boston. Wooster, Spencer, and XXXI. Putnam, already commissioned as generals, were each to CHAPTER have a regiment; the other three were to be commanded by Hinman, Waterbury, and Parsons. Putnam was 1775. already in the camp before Boston. Old man of sixty as he was, on hearing the news of the battle of Lexington, he had left his plow in the furrow to put himself at the head of the Connecticut volunteers. A special convention of delegates from the nearest April 21 towns, called together by the New Hampshire Committee of Safety on hearing the news of the battle of Lexington, did not think it best to anticipate the action of a Provincial Congress, already summoned for the seventeenth of May, by taking steps for organizing an army; but the several towns were requested to forward supplies to the volunteers who had followed Stark to Boston. Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Congress directed enlistments among the New Hampshire soldiers in camp. As the new regiments began to be formed, the volunteers returned home. For some weeks the force before Boston was very small, amounting to only two or three thousand men. In hopes that matters might possibly be reconciled, Governor Trumbull and the Connecticut Assembly sent May 1. a deputation to Gage to act as mediators a step which excited much alarm in Massachusetts. Congress remonstrated against any separate negotia The Provincial tions; and they voted Gage a public enemy, an instru- May 5. ment in the hands of tyrants, whom there was no further obligation to obey. Some correspondence took place between Gage and Trumbull, but nothing came of the Connecticut mediation. The Assembly of New York having refused to appoint delegates to the new Continental Congress, an ardent struggle had taken place in the city, not altogether un- March 16. CHAPTER accompanied with violence, on the question of electing XXXI. members to a Provincial Convention for the purpose of 1775. choosing such delegates. The popular party carried the April 22. day; and by the Convention presently held, twelve delegates were appointed, any five of whom were authorized to represent the province in the Congress. The Corresponding Committee of New York, on receiving news of the battle of Lexington, drew up an Association for the Defense of Colonial Rights, which every body was called upon to sign-an expedient presently adopted in several other of the colonies, those especially in which considerable differences of opinion existed. The same committee also issued a circular to the several county committees, recommending the speedy meeting of a Provincial Congress, "to deliberate on and direct such measures as may be expedient for our common safety." News having arrived of the fight at Lexington, a great April 24. public meeting was held in Philadelphia, at which measures were taken for entering into a volunteer military association, which soon pervaded the whole province. In spite of the admonitions of their elders, many of the young Quakers took a part in this organization. Mifflin was the moving spirit of the whole. John Dickinson accepted the command of a regiment, as did Thomas McKean and James Wilson, leading lawyers in the city. M'Kean was a native of Pennsylvania, of Scotch-Irish descent; Wilson was born in Scotland, but he had studied law and for the last eight years had been a resident in Philadelphia, where his talents had raised him to conMay 1. spicuous notice. The Assembly, which met shortly after, appropriated £1800 toward the expenses of the volunteers. They also appointed a Committee of Safety, of which Franklin, just returned from England, was made chairman. This committee took measures for the de |