now Medford Street, stood the Cooper Tavern, Benjamin Cooper,
landlord. He and his wife, Rachel, were mixing flip at the bar. Two
of their guests, and possibly those two were all at the time, were
Jason Winship, about forty-five years old, and his brother-in-law,
Jabez Wyman, in his fortieth year.[299] Evidently they were
non-combatants, and as such expected to remain unmolested. But the
soldiers were lashed to a fury by the reception they had met along
the road, particularly that of the last half mile. So many houses
along back had concealed minute-men, that about all were freely
riddled with bullets, then ransacked, and then set on fire. Cooper
Tavern was not considered by them as a privileged exception. More
than a hundred bullets were fired into it through the doors and
windows. Then the soldiers entered for their finishing strokes. Mr.
and Mrs. Cooper escaped to the cellar, but Wyman and Winship, both
unarmed, were stabbed in many places, their heads mauled until their
skulls were broken, and brains scattered about on the floor and
walls.[300]
The death of these two unarmed men, formed the climax of Arlington's
part of the battle, for Percy's troops passed through the rest of
the town, and crossed Menotomy River into Cambridge without further
bloody incident.
The Americans who were killed in Arlington, were Jason Russell, Jason
Winship and Jabez Wyman of Arlington; Reuben Kennison, of Beverly;
Samuel Cook, Benjamin Daland, Ebenezer Goldthwait, Henry Jacobs,
Perley Putnam, George Southwick, and Jotham Webb, of Danvers; Elias
Haven of Dedham; William Flint, Thomas Hadley, Abednego Ramsdell, and
Daniel Townsend, of Lynn; William Polly and Henry Putnam, of Medford;
Lieut. John Bacon, Nathaniel Chamberlain, Amos Mills, Sergt. Elisha
Mills, and Jonathan Parker of Needham; Benjamin Peirce of Salem;
and Jacob Coolidge of Watertown. These numbered twenty-five, and
constituted half of all the Americans killed during the day.
The wounded in Arlington were Samuel Whittemore, of Arlington;
Nathaniel Cleaves, Samuel Woodbury, and William Dodge, 3rd, of
Beverly; Nathan Putnam, and Dennison Wallace of Danvers; Israel
Everett of Dedham; Eleazer Kingsbury, and a son of Dr. Tolman, of
Needham. They numbered nine out of the thirty-nine Americans wounded
during the day.
The British killed in Arlington were at least forty, more than half
of all their loss during the day.
The patriot dead of old Menotomy and her sister towns were gathered,
and twelve of them placed on a sled and drawn by a yoke of oxen to
the little village church-yard. There they were laid away in one
large grave, side by side, in the same bloody garments they wore
when they fell. One monument marks the place. In the meeting-house
close by, friends and relatives met on the following Sabbath, and, we
are told that among them were Anna, infant grand-daughter of Jason
Russell, born on the day of the battle, and the little son of Jason
Winship, who was brought to the altar for baptism. It must have been
a sacred and patriotic consecration for all.[301] Some of the other
slain from distant towns, were borne by their comrades back to their
own homes.[302]
In Arlington, then, as the casualties show, the battle reached its
climax. The savage ferocity of the personal encounters show to what a
maddening frenzy the King's troops had been wrought. As in Lexington,
Percy attempted the wholesale destruction of the American homes by
the torch, but so closely had he been followed by the ever-increasing
minute-men, that his efforts were futile. His soldiers had the time
to start the fires, but not the time to fan them into conflagrations,
and thus old Menotomy escaped the fate of Lexington.
Percy continued his march through the town of Arlington, crossing
Menotomy River into Cambridge between five and six o'clock. The
minute-men hovered dangerously near his rear guard so that he paused
often long enough to wheel his two six-pounders about and prevent
them from coming too near. They were entirely without fatal effect,
but inspired at all times a wholesome respect, and kept the Americans
farther away.
FOOTNOTES:
[287] Heath's Memoirs.
[288] Bolton's Brookline. White's was the only company to file claim
for pay, however. See Mass. Archives.
[289] Heath's Memoirs.
[290] Heath's Memoirs.
[291] Mrs. Lydia Peirce's statement in Smith's Address, page 33.
[292] Mrs. Almira T. Whittemore in Parker's Arlington, page 194. The
tavern is still standing, or part of it, numbered 965 Massachusetts
Ave., opposite Mt. Vernon Street.
[293] This little child lived into womanhood and became the wife of
James Hill.
[294] Mrs. Adams's Deposition and Smith's Address, wherein he quotes
Mrs. Thos. Hall, grand-daughter of Mrs. Adams, Rev. Mr. Brown's
Sermon on James Hill, and S. G. Damon's article in The Christian
Register, Oct. 28, 1854. The building, or part of it, is still
standing (1912) being the ell of a building on the southerly side of
Massachusetts Avenue, third house westerly from Bartlett Avenue.
[295] Born Jan. 25, 1717. Paige's History of Cambridge. The old
grave-stone in the cemetery at Arlington calls him 59 years old.
[296] King's Address and Smith's Address. The old home is still
standing though removed a few rods back from its original location.
[297] It stood easterly of the present (1911) Town Hall. When
the railroad went through, part of the house blocked the way and
therefore the whole had to be demolished. The grand old elm that
shaded the yard was destroyed in a gale and a smaller one now takes
its place.
[298] Statement of F. H. Whittemore. Smith's Address, pages 43, 44.
[299] Cutter's Arlington and Paige's Cambridge.
[300] Deposition of Rachel Cooper.
[301] Smith's Address, page 52.
[302] King's Address, page 14.
PERCY'S RETREAT THROUGH CAMBRIDGE.
Occasionally the contest narrowed down to personal encounters between
two or more. It was near the Menotomy River, on the Cambridge side,
that Lieut. Bowman, of Arlington, overtook a straggler from the
British ranks, and engaged him in single combat. Both had guns,
but neither one was loaded. The Briton rushed at Bowman with fixed
bayonet, but the latter warded it off, and with his musket clubbed
his antagonist to the ground. Then he took him prisoner.[303]
Cambridge was the home of Capt. Samuel Thatcher's company of
seventy-seven men, but it is probable that Smith had encountered them
as far back as Lincoln, for the muster roll in the Massachusetts
Archives states that most of them marched twenty-eight miles, which
would mean up into Lincoln and return, and to Charlestown Neck and
return.
Percy's march through Cambridge, from Menotomy River to the
Somerville line, measured nearly a mile and a quarter. The
provincials expected that he would return to Boston by the route he
came out, that is through Harvard Square over Charles River bridge
into Brighton, thence through Roxbury, and along Boston Neck and
into Boston. Anticipating as much, it was ordered that the bridge
should be made impassable. But Percy deemed it wise to hurry on to
Charlestown, trusting that Gen. Gage would have an ample force there
to receive and protect him. It was several miles nearer, and with
no possibility of dismantled bridges to reconstruct, for his troops
to pass over. Nor should it be forgotten that Percy's original plan
was to remain that night, at least, in Harvard Square, but he had
not counted on such intense hostility, from so large an army of
minute-men in open rebellion. He deemed it wiser, therefore, to move
constantly forward towards the main army.
This mile and a quarter in Cambridge proved to be one of continual
battle, also. The Americans were ever on the alert, and growing more
and more active as they realized more and more the real meaning of
the invasion. The sight of many of the British soldiers loaded down
with plunder; the curling smoke and flames from American dwellings;
the dying and the dead, some of them horribly mutilated, scattered
all along the highway, were at last inspiring an intense feeling
of hatred, and a longing for a satisfying vengeance. Percy's army
experienced practically the same sensations. Trained as soldiers
to the usages of open warfare, they deemed the frontier method of
fighting as unfair and cowardly. They held in contempt the man
who should remain concealed in safety and shoot down one who was
compelled to remain in the open. Undoubtedly, too, the memory of a
comrade, lying at the North Bridge with that ugly hatchet death-wound
in the head, aroused the most savage instincts, that seemed to cry
for brutal retaliation. Whittemore, and Wyman, and Winship seem to
have been victims of vengeance rather than of war.
The Americans did not profit much by the lessons which they had
received, earlier in the day, for they again fell victims to the
British flankers. Quite a number had gathered near the home of
Jacob Watson, situated on the southerly side of the highway near
the present Rindge Avenue. Their fragile security was a pile of
empty casks, not far from the road, from behind which they awaited
the oncoming of the British. But the flank-guard came up in their
rear, unobserved, and completely surprised them, killing Major Isaac
Gardner of Brookline, a favorite son of that town, and the first
graduate of Harvard College to fall in the War, and two Cambridge
men, John Hicks, nearly fifty years old, and Moses Richardson,
fifty-three years old. And near the same place, another Cambridge
man, William Marcy, as tradition says[304] of feeble intellect, and
a non-combatant. He was sitting on the fence, evidently enjoying
the military spectacle, and perhaps good-naturedly cheering on
the marching red-coats. His friendly demonstrations were entirely
mistaken for shouts of derision. In the midst of his simple pleasure,
some Briton esteemed it his duty to kill him as an enemy of the King.
The British loss at this place was but one killed.
On they marched, wheeling to the left, into Beech Street, a
thoroughfare about seven hundred feet long, and thence out of
Cambridge and into Somerville.
Soon after this, the wife of John Hicks, whose home is still standing
(1912) at the corner of Dunster and Winthrop Streets, fearing for his
safety, sent her son, fourteen years of age, to look for him. He had
been absent since morning, and undoubtedly the noise of battle, a
mile and a quarter away, coming across the fields, bore a sad burden
of prophecy. Her misgivings were well founded, for the son found his
father by the roadside where he fell, and near him the others.
The body of Isaac Gardner was taken to Brookline and there buried the
next day. The remains of John Hicks, Moses Richardson and William
Marcy, were immediately taken to the little churchyard near the
Common, a mile from where they fell. They were buried in one grave,
without coffins or shrouds even. A son of Moses Richardson, standing
by, realizing that the earth was to fall directly on their faces,
jumped down into the grave and arranged the cape of his father's
coat, that it might shield him somewhat from the falling earth.
We may wonder now, at that hasty burial, without much, if any,
ceremony; but let us associate with it the trail of the invading
army, and of what seemed possible for the morrow, if it should
return, greatly reinforced, for vengeance. Boston was not far away,
and Gen. Gage, even then, might be preparing to move on Cambridge,
with a force sufficiently large for its subjection. The Americans
did not fully realize their own power or their own courage, not even
as well as Gen. Gage did, who wisely decreed to remain in Boston and
Charlestown, and decide later whether to pursue an aggressive or a
defensive campaign. The spontaneous rousing of the country was an
impressive one to the British commander.
It had evidently been Percy's plan to camp on Cambridge Common
that night, and while awaiting expected reinforcements, or upon
their arrival, lay the buildings of Harvard College, and others, in
ruins. Such a course would have been in harmony with his warfare in
Lexington and Arlington, and serve as a practical lesson to those in
rebellion, of the disposition and readiness of their King to wreak
a swift and terrible vengeance upon his enemies.[305] But Percy's
plans were rudely disarranged, and he commenced to realize that he
was really being driven back to Boston.
FOOTNOTES:
[303] Dr. B. Cutter's Statement in Smith's Address, page 47.
[304] Paige's History of Cambridge, page 414.
[305] See Thanksgiving Sermon in the Camp at Roxbury, Nov. 23, 1775,
by Rev. Isaac Mansfield, Jr., Chaplain to Gen. Thomas's Regiment. Mr.
Mansfield fully believed such plans to have been made and states that
his information came so direct that he could not hesitate to accept
it but did not feel at liberty to publish the name of his informer.
PERCY'S RETREAT THROUGH SOMERVILLE.
It was about half past six o'clock when Percy left Cambridge and
entered the present city of Somerville, crossing the line at the
corner of Beech and Elm Streets. Just about at the Somerville line
the battle was hotly renewed. Near the corner of Beech Street, and
on the easterly side of Elm Street, stood, and still stands (1912),
the house of Timothy Tufts. Here Percy halted his army while his
two field-pieces were dragged up the hill back of the Tufts house
and discharged towards his pursuers, with the usual result of his
cannonading--none killed. From out a grove a little way up the road,
came a scattering fire of American sharpshooters and in consequence
quite a number of Britons were killed. They fell in the road, just in
front of the Tufts house, and a tablet there marks where they were
buried.
[Illustration: BATTLE ROAD THROUGH SOMERVILLE AND CHARLESTOWN.
1. Tufts. 2. Hunnewell. 3. Capen. 4. Kent. 5. Rand. 6. Tufts. 7. A
pond. 8. Ireland. 9. Frost. 10. Choate. 11. Piper's Tavern. 12. Shed.
13. Miller Killed. 14. Miller's Home. 15. Revere Stopped by British.
16. Barber.]
Along Elm Street to Oak Street, and then continuing in Somerville
Avenue, was their route, when the march was resumed. At the foot
of Laurel Street on Somerville Avenue was then a little pond. Into
that many weary Britons threw themselves--some for the refreshing
plunge, others to quench their thirst.[306]
Their march was continued rapidly now, and in consequence the
fatalities on the American side were slight, if any, on the road from
the Tufts house through Bow Street, for that was a part of Battle
Road then, to Union Square. From the latter place they continued
through Washington Street, where the American sharpshooters had a
grand opportunity to renew their havoc. Washington Street skirts
along the westerly foot of Prospect Hill, the summit of which
commands easily a stretch of highway for more than half a mile. Many
were killed and wounded, some of the latter of whom were taken into
the house then standing at the corner of Washington and Prospect
Streets. Here Percy paused long enough to train his two field pieces
up the road, and again with his usual lack of fatal results. But he
checked the Americans.
A little way farther along on the northerly side of the road, stood
the home of Samuel Shed. Percy's troops halted there, for the few
moments necessary to turn his field pieces on his pursuers again.
While there one of the Britons, ambitious for plunder, entered
the Shed home, and finding there a bureau or highboy filled with
household effects, commenced the work of selecting what he desired.
It took him too long, for his companions passed on, and left him
still too busy to notice their departure or the coming of the
Americans. Bullets came through the window, one of which killed him,
and three riddled the old bureau, spattering his blood over it, and
on the floor.[307]
A few rods farther, the grassy slope of Prospect Hill descended in a
southerly direction to Washington Street, then called the Cambridge
Road. James Miller, about sixty-six years old, stood there awaiting
the British. With him was a companion, and both fired with deadly
effect, again and again, as the British marched by in the road below.
They were discovered finally, and Miller's companion urged him to
retreat.
"Come, Miller, we've got to go."
"I'm too old to run," replied Miller, and he remained only to be
pierced with a volley of thirteen bullets.[308] His home was but a
short distance down the road, and is still standing, next to the
house on the easterly corner of Washington and Franklin Streets.
Miller was the only American killed in Somerville, as the British
were in too full retreat to act very much on the aggressive. Their
loss was considerable, however, and along the entire Battle Road,
for the minute-men were exceedingly active in the rear and on the
northerly side of the road, particularly.
The policy of property destruction was continued by Percy through
Somerville. The limited time at his command did not allow of very
thorough work, but he accomplished something. The estate of James
Miller whom they killed on the slope of Prospect Hill, was damaged
to the extent of £4, 12s. ($23.00). Ebenezer Shed lost his house,
barn, and another building, valued at £140 ($700), and the damage to
his crop, fences, etc., he estimated at £279, 3s. 2d. ($1395.79). The
widow of Abigal Shed suffered to some extent in the same way.[309]
FOOTNOTES:
[306] Booth, in Somerville Journal. April, 1875.
[307] The old highboy was in existence in 1910 and treasured by a
Somerville man, Francis Tufts, to whom it descended. I have seen it,
with its blood stains and three bullet holes.
[308] E. C. Booth in an article on Somerville in Drake's History of
Middlesex County, Vol. 2, page 312.
[309] J. F. Hunnewell, A Century of Town Life, page 153.
PERCY'S ARRIVAL IN CHARLESTOWN.
The sun set at seven o'clock on that nineteenth day of April, in
1775.[310] It never rose again on Middlesex County under kingly rule.
Percy must have been in the vicinity of Union Square, Somerville, at
that particular moment. The pauses for his artillery demonstration;
the destruction of the few buildings; the killing of Miller; and the
hurried march to the Charlestown line, did not occupy more than half
an hour. It was just dark enough for the musket flashes to be seen
across the marshes and across the waters of the Charles River to the
Boston shore, where were grouped anxious watchers awaiting the news
of battle.
Percy's thirty-six rounds for each of his soldiers had been about all
expended. He describes the fire all around his marching column as
"incessant," coming from behind stone walls, and from houses that he
at first supposed had been evacuated.[311]
[Illustration: GENERAL WILLIAM HEATH.]
Charlestown Common, now Sullivan Square, was soon reached, and his
column gladly wheeled to the right and marched up Bunker Hill. As
they did so, a mile away, on top of Winter Hill, in Somerville, were
just then arriving three hundred more Americans, who had marched from
Salem under Col. Timothy Pickering. They were half an hour late to be
particularly effective. No blame can be attached to them for that,
for there were thousands of other minute-men, from distant towns who
were also late, for April 19th, but who were in ample time to join
the besieging army on April 20th.
At Charlestown Common, on the corner of the road to the Penny Ferry
which crossed the Mystic River to Everett,[312] stood the home of
William Barber, sea captain. His family consisted of his wife, Anne
Hay, and their thirteen children. One of them, Edward, fourteen
years old, sat at the window looking out upon the brilliant pageant
of marching soldiers in the road. Many of the soldiers must have
seen him, for he was not in hiding. One did, at all events, and with
that thirst for killing some one, even though but a boy, shot him
and saw him fall back into the room dead. Thus Edward Barber became
Charlestown's martyr of April 19th.
While Charlestown did not officially contribute to the organized
minute-men who were pursuing Percy, yet many individuals must
have been in the American ranks on that day, for in the afternoon
Gen. Gage wrote to James Russell of Charlestown that he had been
informed people of that town had gone out armed to oppose His
Majesty's Troops, and that if a single man more went out armed, the
most disagreeable consequences might be expected. The people of
Charlestown indeed had reason to be in terror, surrounded as they
were by the soldiers, frenzied with their disastrous retreat from
Lexington. The Selectmen arranged with Percy an armistice, agreeing
that the troops should not be attacked, and that assistance should
be given in getting them across the ferry to Boston, provided they
would not attack the citizens or destroy their homes. This agreement
seems to have been kept in good faith by both parties.[313] British
officers walked up and down the streets, directing the women to keep
within doors.
Percy's force remained on Bunker Hill until arrangements were
completed for their trip across the Charles River to Boston. The
wounded were sent over first, being conveyed by the boats of the
_Somerset_ man-of-war, which still lay there, as it did when Revere
crossed the night before.
Gen. Gage sent pickets from Boston, selected from the Tenth and
Sixty-fourth Regiments to do guard duty in Charlestown.[314]
Gen. William Heath, as commander of the American forces, assembled
the officers of the minute-men at the foot of Prospect Hill, in
Somerville, for a Council of War. Then he ordered the formation of a
guard to be posted near, and sentinels along the road now known as
Washington Street in Somerville, and Cambridge Street in Charlestown,
to Charlestown Neck. The remainder of the force was ordered back to
Cambridge,[315] which place was to be for a while the Headquarters of
the American Army.
FOOTNOTES:
[310] Low's Almanack, Boston, 1775.
[311] See his report to Gen. Gage.
[312] Everett was then a part of Malden.
[313] De Bernicre's Report.
[314] De Bernicre, and Diary of a British Officer in Boston in 1775.
[315] Heath's Memoirs.
AMERICAN KILLED, WOUNDED AND MISSING.
_Acton._ Killed: Capt. Isaac Davis, James Hayward, Abner Hosmer.
Wounded: Luther Blanchard and Ezekiel Davis.
_Arlington._ Killed: Jason Russell, Jason Winship, Jabez Wyman.
Wounded: Samuel Whittemore.
_Bedford._ Killed: Captain Jonathan Willson. Wounded: Job Lane.
_Beverly._ Killed: Reuben Kennison. Wounded: Nathaniel Cleaves,
William Dodge, 3rd, Samuel Woodbury.
_Billerica._ Wounded: Timothy Blanchard, John Nichols.
_Brookline._ Killed: Major Isaac Gardner.
_Cambridge._ Killed: John Hicks, William Marcy, Moses Richardson.
Missing: Samuel Frost, Seth Russell.
_Concord._ Wounded: Capt. Nathan Barrett, Jonas Brown, Capt.
Charles Miles, Capt. George Minot, Abel Prescott, Jr.
_Charlestown._ Killed: Edward Barber.
_Chelmsford._ Wounded: Oliver Barron, Aaron Chamberlain.
_Danvers._ Killed: Samuel Cook, Benjamin Daland, Ebenezer
Goldthwait, Henry Jacobs, Perley Putnam, George Southwick, Jotham
Webb. Wounded: Nathan Putnam, Dennison Wallis. Missing: Joseph
Bell.
_Dedham._ Killed: Elias Haven. Wounded: Israel Everett.
_Framingham._ Wounded: Daniel Hemenway.
_Lexington._ Killed: John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington,
Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Jedediah Munroe, Robert Munroe, Isaac
Muzzy, Jonas Parker, John Raymond, Nathaniel Wyman. Wounded:
Francis Brown, Joseph Comee, Prince Estabrook, Nathaniel Farmer,
Ebenezer Munroe, Jr., Jedediah Munroe (killed later), Solomon
Pierce, John Robbins, John Tidd, Thomas Winship.
_Lincoln._ Wounded: Joshua Brooks.
_Lynn._ Killed: William Flint, Thomas Hadley, Abednego Ramsdell,
Daniel Townsend. Wounded: Joshua Felt, Timothy Monroe. Missing:
Josiah Breed.
_Medford._ Killed: William Polly, Henry Putnam.
_Needham._ Killed: Lieut. John Bacon, Nathaniel Chamberlain, Amos
Mills, Sergt. Elisha Mills, Jonathan Parker. Wounded: Eleazer
Kingsbury, ---- Tolman (son of Dr. Tolman).
_Newton._ Wounded: Noah Wiswell.
_Roxbury._ Missing: Elijah Seaver.
_Salem._ Killed: Benjamin Pierce.
_Somerville._ Killed: James Miller.
_Sudbury._ Killed: Josiah Haynes, Asahel Reed. Wounded: Joshua
Haynes, Jr.
_Stow._ Wounded: Daniel Conant.
_Watertown._ Killed: Joseph Coolidge.
_Woburn._ Killed: Asahel Porter, Daniel Thompson. Wounded: Jacob
Bacon, ---- Johnson, George Reed.
_Totals._ Killed: 49. Wounded: 41. Missing: 5. Total loss: 95.
BRITISH KILLED, WOUNDED, PRISONERS AND MISSING.[316]