Paul Revere's Ride (86 page)

77
. Again the best accounts are Galvin, Coburn, Hurd, and Sabin.

78
. This was the place where Foster wrote, fifty years afterward, that there was “little or no discipline or order, on the part of the Americans during the remainder of that day. Each sought his own place and opportunity to attack and annoy the enemy from behind trees, rocks, fences and buildings, as seemed most convenient.” This memory appears to be correct in what happened after the engagement began at the Bloody Curve, but it is certainly incorrect for the “rest of the day.” As we shall see, attacks were mounted in company and even regimental strength later in the morning, and Percy noted that the British column was closely pursued by a large body of American troops in close formation.

79
. Sabin, “April 19, 1775,” V, 17.

80
. The best account of the fighting at the Hartwell farms is in Sabin, “April 19,1775,” V, 18.

81
. The town line ran through the rock-strewn pasture. The wooded slope to the northeast, sometimes called Pine Hill, lay just inside Lexington. Today it is just east of Airport Road, and the National Park Visitor Center. The terrain and foliage today on Parker’s Hill are very similar to what existed at the time of the battle, except that the undergrowth has been browsed by deer, which are more abundant two centuries later than in 1775. When the author and park historian Douglas Sabin climbed this hill on April 16,1993, deer droppings were abundant on top of the rocky hill.

82
. Several antiquarian accounts have identified a rock only thirty feet from the road as the place where Thorning (still a local hero) made his stand. This “Minuteman Rock” is another myth. No evidence survives to document the place, and a position only ten yards from the highway would have been suicidal. Another factor is that the ground close to the road is very soft in the Spring; on April 16, 1993, there was much standing water on both sides of the old road. Cf. Hersey,
Heroes of Battle Road,
27-29; and the correction by Sabin, “April 19, 1775,” V, 25.

83
. Historians and eyewitnesses disagree as to the location of the Lexington ambush. Coburn (p. 104) places it in Lincoln, “not far from the Nelson and Hastings homes.” French (p. 223) puts it further east, “within the bounds of Lexington.” Hudson (p. 195) believed that it happened “in Lincoln” with Parker’s company “taking a position in the fields.” Ezra Ripley,
A History of the Fight at Concord,
31, placed Parker’s men in the woods within the boundary of Lexington south of the road. Malcolm, in her Grounds report, finds no woodland south of the road, but a large woodlot to the north. Galvin, with his eye for terrain, thinks that Parker “selected the hill east of Nelson’s bridge as his ambush position… the first hill inside the Lexington line” (p. 190). One of Parker’s militia, Nathan Munroe, remembered, “We met the enemy within the bounds of Lincoln,” but fought them in Lexington. Archaeological evidence of fighting was found in 1895 on the high ground north of the road (Coburn,
Battle
…, 106). These various materials can be reconciled with the interpretation presented in the text.

84
. On the death of Jedidiah Munroe see Galvin,
Minute Men,
193; Hudson,
Lexington,
154; Coburn,
Battle…,
130. Munroe was killed on Pine Hill in Lexington. Here is another indication that Parker put his men on both sides of the road, in the field and on the wooded hill.

Historians have differed on the place where Colonel Smith was wounded. Coburn (p. 107) believes that it happened on Fiske Hill. Sabin suggests that the site was Concord Hill further east (VI, 7); Galvin (p. 192) favors Pine Hill and the Parker ambush site. The best primary source on the British side is De Berniere’s Report to Gage, which states that Smith had already been wounded before the column was “within a mile” of Lexington. Fiske Hill was about 1.5 miles from Lexington Common; Parker’s ambush was about 1.9 miles. Another clue may be found in Pitcairn’s conduct, which suggests that he had assumed active command of the column before Fiske’s Hill, but that Smith was still in that role before
crossing the Lincoln line. This suggests that Parker’s men shot him from their ambush near the town line.

85
. Fiske Hill is today at the eastern end of the National Park, just west of Route 128.

86
. Foster, “Narrative”; Galvin,
Minute Men,
193-94; Coburn,
Battle
…, 108-10.

87
. Hay ward had lost his toes in a chopping accident and was exempt from service, but he mustered anyway. See Coburn,
Battle
…, 108; Fletcher,
Acton;
Adams,
Address Delivered at Acton,
48. A well is still there at approximately the same spot, and was full of water in April 1993 when last visited by the author and Douglas Sabin.

88
. Galvin,
Minute Men,
194.

89
. Simonds, “The Affair in the Lexington Meetinghouse.”

90
. De Berniere, Report to Gage; the terrain in this stretch of road has been radically altered by the construction of Route 128 (Interstate 95), the broad modern beltway around Boston that passes between Fiske’s Hill and Concord Hill.

91
.
Ibid.

92
. Barker,
The British in Boston,
35, 37.

93
. Percy to the Duke of Northumberland, April 20, 1775,
Percy Letters,
54.

15.
A Circle of Fire

1
. Gage had earlier prepared the 1st Brigade for its mission this day. On March 29,1775, he ordered “the first brigade to be under arms tomorrow morning at six o’clock with their knapsacks on. The brigade will assemble on the Grand parade, with four companies of light infantry, and four companies of Grenadiers, to the right of the whole.” The next day Barker noted in his diary, “The 1st Brigade marched into the country at 6 o’clock in the morning; it alarmed the people a good deal. Expresses were sent off to every town near: at Watertown about 9 miles off, they got two pieces of cannon to the bridge and loaded ‘em but nobody would stay to fire them; at Cambridge, they were so alarmed that they pulled up the bridge.” Extracts of Orders given to the British Army in America,” n.d. [March 29, 1775?], WO 36/1, PRO; Barker,
British in Boston,
27 (March 30, 1775).

2
. On Captain Moncrieffe’s career, see
Gage Correspondence,
II, 74, 300, 383, 409, 430-32, 461-62, 486, 610, 630, 667, 688.

3
. Letter from an officer in the 5th Foot, July 5,1775; printed in
Detail and Conduct of the American War
(3rd ed., London, 1780), 10; and Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
75-

4
. Samuel Eliot Morison,
The Life and Letters of Harrison Gray Otis, Federalist, 1765—1818,
2 vols. (Boston, 1913), I, 13.

5
. Frothingham,
Siege of Boston,
75; Mackenzie,
Diary,
I, 19.

6
. John Cannon,
Aristocratic Century; The Peerage of Eighteenth-Century England
(Cambridge, 1984, 1987), solidly documents the growing power of the English aristocracy in this period. To his trenchant analysis a chapter might be added on the aristocracy in the Empire, and the American colonies in particular.

7
. David Carradine,
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy
(New Haven, 1990), 710. An illegitimate son of the first Duke, James Smithson, was raised as James Macie by his mother. Later in life he changed his name to Smithson, developed republican leanings, and left a large fortune to the United States to found the Smithsonian Institution, in hopes that his name would “live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and the Percies are extinct and forgotten.” The founder of the Smithsonian was a half-brother of our Lord Percy.

8
. Percy to Northumberland, July 27, 1774, Bolton (ed.),
Percy Letters,
30.

9
. His hospitality has inspired a delightful piece of historical whimsy by Harold Murdock,
Earl Percy’s Dinner-Table
(Boston, 1907).

10
.
Percy Letters,
21.

11
. Percy to the Rev. Thomas Percy, Oct. 27, 1774,
ibid.,
40.

12
.
Percy to Northumberland, July 27, 1774; to Henry Reveley, Aug. 8, 1774,
ibid.,
31.

13
. Percy to the Rev. Thomas Percy, Nov 25, 1774,
ibid.,
44.

14
. Percy to Northumberland, July 27, 1774,
ibid.,
27.

15
. L. I. Cowper,
The King’s Own: The Story of a Royal Regiment
(Oxford, 1939), 226.

16
. Murdock,
Earl Percy’s Dinner-Table,
69.

17
. The regiment’s defiant spelling of Welch led to a two hundred years’ war with higher authority. The War Office capitulated in 1920.

18
. For an account of the regiment’s celebration of St. David’s Day in Boston, March 1, 1775, see Mackenzie,
Diary,
I, 8. According to another account by Lt. Richard Williams, the goat got loose at the dinner and escaped into Boston, hotly pursued by the regiment and its guests.

19
. The regiment has been awarded 144 battle honors in many wars, but none for the American War of Independence, the only major war in modern British history for which no honors were given (at least for fighting in British North America itself). This was said to be at the command of George III, on the grounds that the American Revolution was only a domestic insurrection.

20
. Haldimand to Gage, July 28, 1774; Gage to Haldimand, Aug. 7, 1774, Haldimand Papers, add. ms. 21665, BL.

21
. Major John Pitcairn to Col. John Mackenzie, Feb. 16, 1775, Mackenzie Papers, add. ms. 39190, BL; for the order of march, see Mackenzie,
Diary,
I, 19.

22
. Antony Beevor,
Inside the British Army
(London, 1990, 1991), 368.

23
. Statement by George Leonard, May 4, 1775, French,
General Gage’s Informers,
57.

24
. French,
Day of Concord and Lexington, 229n,
citing Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, June 5, 1775; also Gordon, “Letter,”
AA4,
II, 438; and
History,
I, 312. The of trepeated error that Percy’s men marched to the ballad “Chevy Chase” is a misreading of this source.

25
. Percy to Gage, April 20, 1775,
Percy Letters,
50.

26
. Coburn,
Battle…,
117; Edward Everett Hale in
Memorial History of Boston,
III, xxx.

27
. Percy to Gage, April 20, 1775, draft,
Percy Letters,
51n.

28
. Percy to General Harvey, April 20, 1775,
ibid.,
52; Barker,
British in Boston,
35.

29
. Mackenzie,
Diary,
I, 20; Sutherland to Kemble, April 27, 1775; Galvin,
Minute Men,
207.

30
. Col. R. A. Cleveland to master of ordnance, n.d., in W. G. Evelyn,
Memoir and Letters of Captain W. Glanville Evelyn of the 4th Regiment {“King’s Own”), from North America, 1774— 1776,
ed. G. D. Scull (Oxford, 1879), 98-99. Colonel Cleveland reported that the side boxes held 24 rounds for each gun. But Ensign Lister believed that they had only 7 rounds.

31
. Many legends surround this event. The most detailed account in Smith,
West Cambridge in 1775,
31-32, identifies David Lamson as the leader and names as participants Jason and Joe Belknap, James Budge, Israel Mead, and Ammi Cutter, and others to the number twelve. Another account by Joseph Thaxter asserts that the leader was a clergyman, Edward Brooks of Medford; a third version names a Chelsea minister, Payson, as the leader (cf. French,
Day of Concord and Lexington,
230).

32
. American Anglophile historians heaped scorn on this episode and the “anniversary oratory” that it inspired; cf. Murdock,
Nineteenth of April,
100; but much evidence exists; David McClure,
Diary,
April 19, 1775, ed. F. B. Dexter (1899), 161; Joseph Thaxter, Narrative, Nov. 30, 1824,
United States Literary Gazette
I (1825): 264; Coburn,
Battle of April 19,
119—20; Smith,
West Cambridge in 1775,
27-30; French,
Day of Concord and Lexington,
230.

33
. Smith,
West Cambridge in 1775,
30.

34
. Percy to Gage, April 20, 1775,
Percy Letters,
50.

35
. Mackenzie,
Diary,
I, 23.

36
. The total effective strength of the three marching regiments and Marine battalion in Percy’s brigade on April 1 was 1,363. Of that number, 322 had marched with Smith’s force, which also included 519 others. If we assume that half of the killed and missing had been lost on the return to Lexington, and add 50 men for Mitchell’s patrol, the Royal Artillery,
and others on special assignment, then Percy’s force numbered 1,886 men when it left Lexington.

37
. Percy to Gage, April 20, 1775, CO5/92, PRO.

38
. The grenadiers and light infantry appear to have alternated in the lead. Sutherland reported that at the beginning of the march the light infantry came first. A different order appears in Galvin,
Minute Men,
218.

39
. A different interpretation appears in Galvin
(ibid.,
219), who believes that “the order of march was Percy’s only major mistake this day.” But given Percy’s choices, it is difficult to fault his dispositions.

40
. For the speed of the march, see Appendix M, below.

41
.
Memoirs of Major-General William Heath by Himself,
ed. William Abbott (1798; New York, 1901), 5ff.

42
.
Ibid.,
3.

43
. Stiles,
Literary Diary,
I, 551—52; (May 12, 1775).