British toward Concord, capturing seven stragglers-the first prisoners taken in the war. Then followed the fight at Concord, where 450 Americans, instead of 38, were rallied to meet the British. The fighting took place between two detachments at the North Bridge, where Before 5 A.M. on April 19, 1775, the British troops had reached Lexington Green, where thirty-eight men, under Captain Parker, stood up before 600 or 800 to be shot at, their captain saying, "Don't fire unless you are fired on; but if they want a war, let it begin here." It began there; they were fired upon; they fired rather ineffectually in return, while seven were killed and nine wounded. The rest, after retreating, re-formed and pursued the There the American captain, Isaac Davis, "once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world." was killed at the first shot-he who had said, when his company was placed at the head of the little column, "I haven't a man that is afraid to go." He fell, and Major Buttrick gave the order, "Fire! for God's sake, fire!" in return. The British Gentlener troops met the returning fugitives, and formed a hollow square, into which they ran and threw themselves on the ground exhausted. Then Percy in turn fell back. Militia still came pouring in from Dorchester, Milton, Dedham, as well as the nearer The Carberous Wardeis carmiled in our innocent Brithrows on Aidu pray thi inflent, tramed it thi ath End our Children from the butcher zug FAC-SIMILE OF WARREN'S ADDRESS. росс detachment retreated in disorder, but their main body was too strong to be attacked, so they disabled a few cannon, destroyed some barrels of flour, cut down the libertypole, set fire to the court-house, and then began their return march. It ended in a flight; they were exposed to a constant guerrilla fire; minute-men flocked behind every tree and house; and only the foresight of Colonel Smith in sending for reenforcements had averted a surrender. At 2 P.M., near Lexington, Percy with his towns. A company from Danvers marched sixteen miles in four hours. The Americans lost 93 in killed, wounded, and missing that day; the British, 273. But the important result was that every American colony now recognized that war had begun. How men's minds were affected may best be seen by a glimpse at a day in the life of one leading patriot. Early on the morning of the 19th of April, 1775, a messenger came hastily to the door of Dr. Joseph Warren, physician, in Boston, and chairman of the Boston Committee of Safety, with the news that there had been fighting at Lexington and Concord. Dr. Warren, doing first the duty that came nearest, summoned his pupil, Mr. Eustis, and directed him to take care of his patients for that day; then mounted his horse and rode to the Charlestown Ferry. As he entered the boat he remarked to an acquaintance: "Keep up a brave heart. They have begun it-that, either party can do; and we'll end it-that, only we can do." After landing in Charlestown he met a certain Dr. Welch, who says, in a manuscript statement: "Eight o'clock in the morning saw Dr. Joseph Warren just come out of Boston, horseback. I said, 'Well, they are gone out.' 'Yes,' he said, 'and we will be up with them before night." Apparently the two physicians jogged on together, tried to pass Lord Percy's column of re-enforcements, but were stopped by bayonets. Then Dr. Welch went home, and Dr. Warren probably attended a meeting of the Committee of Safety, held "at the Black Horse in Menotomy, or West Cambridge. This committee had authority from the Provincial Congress to order out the militia, and General Heath, who was a member of the committee, rode to take command of the provincials, with Warren by his side, who was sufficiently exposed that day to have a musket ball strike the pin out of the hair of his ear-lock." The two continued to gether till the British army had crossed Charlestown Neck on its retreat, and made a stand on Bunker Hill. There they were covered by the ships. The militia were ordered to pursue no further, and General Heath held the first council of war of the Revolution, at the foot of Prospect Hill. With the fervor of that day's experience upon him, Warren wrote, on the day following, this circular to the town in behalf of the Committee of Safety. The original still exists in the Massachusetts archives, marked with much interlineation. “GENTLEMEN, — The barbarous murders committed on our innocent brethren on Wednesday, the 19th instant, have made it absolutely necessary that we immediately raise an army to defend our wives and our children from the butchering hands of an inhuman soldiery, who, incensed at the obstacles they met with in their bloody progress, and enraged at being repulsed from the field of slaughter, will without the least doubt take the first opportunity in their power to ravage this devoted country with fire and sword. We conjure you, therefore, by all that is dear, by all that is sacred, that you give all assistance possible in forming an army. Our all is at stake. Death and devastation are the instant consequences of delay. Every moment is infinitely precious. An hour lost may deluge your country in blood, and entail perpetual slavery upon the few of your posterity who may survive the carnage. We beg and entreat, as you will answer to your country, to your own consciences, and above all, as you will answer to God himself, that you will hasten and encourage by all possible means the enlistment of men to form the army, and send them forward to headquarters at Cambridge with that expedition which the vast importance and instant urgency of the affair demand." It is always hard to interpret the precise condition of public feeling just before a war. It is plain that the Massachusetts committee expected something more than a contest of words when they made so many preparations. On the other hand, it is evident that hardly any one looked forward to any serious and prolonged strife. Dr. Warren wrote, soon after the 19th of April: "The people never seemed in earnest about the matter until after the engagement of the 19th ult., and I verily believe that the night preceding the barbarous outrages committed by the soldiery at Lexington, Concord, etc., there were not fifty people in the whole colony that ever expected any blood would be shed in the contest between us and Great Britain." Two days after the fight at Lexington, in contrast to this previous unconsciousness of what was coming, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety resolved to enlist 8000 men. Two days after that the news reached New York at noon. There was a popular outbreak; the royal troops were disarmed, the fort and magazines seized, and two transports for Boston unloaded. At five on Monday afternoon the tidings reached Philadelphia, when the bell in Independence Hall was rung, and the people gathered. When it got so far as Charleston, South Carolina, the people seized the arsenal, and the Provincial Congress proclaimed them “ready to sacrifice their lives and fortunes." In Savannah, Georgia, a mob took possession of the powder magazine, and raised a liberty-pole. In Kentucky a party of hunters, hearing of the battle, gave their encampment the name of Lexington, which it still bears. Meantime the Provincial troops were Meanwhile on May 10 the Continental | the British, without attack. At another Congress convened, and on the same day time, "all of Weymouth, Braintree, and Ethan Allen took possession of the strong Hingham," according to Mrs. Adams, fortress of Ticonderoga. It was the first turned out to drive away a British deact of positive aggression by the patriotic tachment from Grape Island, where the party, for at both Lexington and Concord Americans then landed, burned a quantity they were acting on the defensive. The of hay, and brought away cattle. A larger expedition was planned in Connecticut skirmish took place at Noddle's Island, and re-enforced in Western Massachu- near East Boston, where the Americans setts, but the main reliance was to be destroyed a schooner, dismantled a sloop, placed on Ethan Allen and his "Green and captured twelve swivels and four Mountain Boys," whose daring and en- 4-pound cannon. Putnam commanded ergy were already well known. Bene- in this engagement, and the enthusiasm dict Arnold, who had been commissioned which it called out secured his unanimous in Massachusetts for the same purpose, ar- election as major-general. rived only in time to join the expedition. as a volunteer. On May 10, 1775, eighty-gathering for what the Essex Gazette, of three men crossed the lake with Allen. June 8, called, with rather premature adWhen they had landed, he warned them miration, "the grand American army"— that it was a dangerous enterprise, and an army whose returns for June 9 showed called for volunteers. Every man volun- 7644 men. "Nothing could be in a more teered. The rest took but a few moments. confused state," wrote Dr. Eliot, "than They entered with a war-whoop the open the army which first assembled at Camwicket-gate, pressing by the sentinel, and bridge. This undisciplined body of men when the half-clad commander appeared were kept together by a few who deserved and asked their authority, Allen answer- well of their country." President John ed with the words that have become his- | Adams, writing long after (June 19, 1818), toric, "In the name of the great Jehovah thus summed up the condition of these and the Continental Congress." The forces: Congress was only to meet that day, but it was already exercising a sort of antenatal authority. A fortress which had cost eight million pounds sterling and many lives was placed in its hands by a mere stroke of boldness. Crown Point gave itself up with equal ease to Seth Warner, and another dramatic surprise was given to the new-born nation. "The army at Cambridge was not a national army, for there was no nation. It was not a United States army, for there were no United States. It was not an army of united colonies, for it could not be said in any sense that the colonies were united. The centre of their union, the Congress of Philadelphia, had not adopted nor acknowledged the army at Cambridge. It was not a New England army, for New England had not associated. New England had no legal legislature, nor any common executive authority, even upon the principles of original authority, or even of original power in the people. Massachusetts had her army, Connecticut her army, New Hampshire her army, and Rhode Island her army. These four armies met at Cambridge, and imprisoned the British army in Boston. sovereign of this united, or rather congregated, army, and who its commander-in-chief? It had dependent of Ward as Ward was of them." none. But who was the Putnam, Poor, and Greene were as in In the neighborhood of Boston the month of May was devoted to additional preparations, and to what are called, in the old stage directions of Shakspeare's plays, "alarums and excursions." At one time, when a sally from Boston was expected, the Committee of Safety ordered the officers of the ten nearest towns to assemble one-half the militia and all the minute - men, and march to Roxbury. While this was being done, General Thomas, with an ingenuity quite in the style of the above stage motto, marched his seven This was the state of the forces outside, hundred men round and round a high while the army inside was impatiently hill, visible from Boston, to mislead the waiting for re-enforcements, and chafing British. At another time, when men were at the ignoble delay. On May 25 three more numerous, General Putnam marched British generals (Howe, Clinton, and Burall the troops in Cambridge, twenty-two goyne) arrived with troops. The newspahundred in number, to Charlestown Fer- | pers of the day say that when these officers ry, the column being spread over a mile were going into Boston harbor they met and a half, and passing under the guns of a packet coming out, when General Bur goyne asked the skipper of the packet toward it." Dr. Warren, on the other what news there was. And being told hand, wrote (May 16) that if General Gage that the town was surrounded by ten thou- would only make a sally from Boston, he sand country people, asked how many would "gratify thousands who impatiently regulars there were in Boston; and wait to avenge the blood of their murderbeing answered, “About five thousand," ed countrymen." With such dispositions cried out, with astonishment: "What! on both sides, the collision could not be and ten thousand peasants keep five thou-far off. Kinglake says that the reasons sand king's troops shut up! Well, let us get in, and we'll soon find elbow-room." After this conversation the nickname of "Elbow-room" was permanently fastened on General Burgoyne. He used to relate that after his reverses, while a prisoner of war, he was received with great courtesy by the people of Boston as he stepped from the Charlestown ferry-boat, but was a little annoyed when an old lady, perched on a shed above the crowd, cried out in a shrill voice: "Make way! make way! The general's coming; give him elbow-room.” for a battle rarely seem conclusive except to a general who has some positive taste for fighting. Had not something of this impulse existed on both sides in 1775, the American rebels would probably not have fortified Bunker Hill, and the English general might have besieged and starved them out without firing a shot. It is needless to add another to the innumerable descriptions of the battle of Bunker Hill. Every Englishman who comes to America feels renewed astonishment that a monument should have been Two days before the battle of Bunker built on the scene of a defeat. Every Hill, Mrs. Adams wrote to her husband, American school boy understands that John Adams: "Gage's proclamation you the monument celebrates a fact more imwill receive by this conveyance, and the portant than most victories, namely, that records of time can not produce a blacker the raw provincials faced the British army page. Satan when driven from the realms for two hours, they themselves being unof bliss exhibited not more malice. Sure- der so little organization that it is imposly the father of lies is superseded. Yet sible to tell even at this day who was their we think it the best proclamation he could commander; that they did this with only have issued." This proclamation an- the protection of an unfinished earth-work nounced martial law, but offered pardon and a rail fence, retreating only when to those who would give in their allegi- their powder was out. Tried by the ance to the government, "excepting only standards of regular warfare even at that from the benefit of such pardon Samuel day, a breast work twice that of Bunker Adams and John Hancock, whose offenses Hill would have been accounted but a are of too flagitious a nature to admit of moderate obstacle. When in the preany other consideration than that of con- vious century the frightened citizens of dign punishment." He afterward remark- Dorchester, England, had asked a military ed that the rebels added "insult to out- engineer whether their breastworks could rage" as, "with a preposterous parade of resist Prince Rupert's soldiers, he answermilitary arrangement, they affected to ed, "I have seen them running up walls hold the army besieged." twenty feet high; these defenses of yours may possibly keep them out half an hour." The flimsy defenses of Bunker Hill kept back General Howe's soldiers for two hours, and until the untried provincials had fired their last shot. It was a fact worth a monument. Two things contributed to bring about the battle of Bunker Hill: the impatience of British troops under the "affectation" of a siege; on the other hand, the great increase of self-confidence among the provincials after Lexington and Concord. It was a military necessity, no doubt, for each side, to occupy the Charlestown heights; but there was also a growing disposition to bring matters to a crisis on the first favorable opportunity. Captain (afterward Lord) Harris wrote home to England (June 12): "I wish the Americans may be brought to a sense of their duty. One good drubbing, which I long to give them by way of retaliation, might have a good effect The best descriptions of the battle itself are to be found in the letters of provincial officers and soldiers preserved in the appendix to Richard Frothingham's Siege of Boston. It is the descriptions of raw soldiers that are always most graphic; as they grow more familiar with war, their narratives grow tame. It is a sufficient proof of the impression made in England by the affair that the newspapers of that |