THE LEXINGTON - CONCORD BATTLE ROAD Hour-by-hour account of e,,ents preceding and on the History-making day April 19, 1775 CONCORD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE 50c were morally certain of being put their perspiring bodies and parched ro death. themselves in an instant throats. nor will the insurrection here The pond, like almost all fea­ turn out so despicable as it is tures of what was unspoiled coun­ perhaps imagined at home. For tryside or a small village compris­ my part, I never believed, I confess, ing the west end of Charlestown that they wd have attacked the in 1775, disappeared many years ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS king's troops, or have had the per­ ago. Under the impact of urban severance I found in them yester­ growth, this part of Charlesrown - day." was sec off as Somerville in 1842. The Boston National Sites Commission, Mark Percy's column wheeled to the All's Well left onto Beech street, from Mas­ .•. Bertman, Chairman, has petitioned Congress to sachusetts avenue, a quarter of a The last few musket shots establi:sh a national historic park along the Lex­ mile beyond the spot where three fl.ashed in the darkness as Gen. Amer,icans had been killed in the Percy's exhausted troops filed over ington-Concord battle road as a lasting memorial fight at the e_mpry casks, and came Charlescown Neck and reached the to the Minute Man. into the modern Somerville at the protection of Bunker H,ill. There corner of Beech and Elm streets. they flung themselves to the ground and waited, some of them The militia were too inexperi­ for hours, until arrangements could We are indebted to the Commission for the enced and too few in number to be completed and boats provided material in this booklet taken from their complete oppose Percy with anything like a to carry them across the river to frontal attack, but they exposed Boston. Thus ended the opeP-ing and interesting Interim Report to the Congress him to a hot fire from a grove not day of battle in the American of the United States. too far awav and killed several of Revolution. his men. As he had already done more than once on the rerreat, The British losses were 73 killed, Percy was compelled ro unlimber 174 wounded, 26 miss.ing, a total We are also indebted to the Boston Globe for of 273 casualties; while •the Amer­ his two field pieces and with can­ permission to use their edited story and the Boston non shot frighten and drive off icans had 49 fatalities, 41 wounded his adversaries. and five missing, a total casualty Herald for the picture of Meriam's Corner on list of 95. page 17. This sharp encounter took place at the corner of Elm street and Willow avenue in Somerville. Almost a mile farther on, the Cover picture of the Old North Bridge, Redcoats, now moving swiftly in Concord, Massachusetts, courtesy of Keith Martin, the last moments of daylight, came photographer for the Boston National Sites ro a small pond at the foot of the -- present Laurel street and Somer­ Commission. -ville avenue. Overheated by their exertions and frantic with thirst, many of the soldiers threw them­ selves into the water to refresh Page Thirty-Two In the house the Minute Men many or more British were finally who had no bayonets were at a slain in this stretch, which deserv­ great disadvantage, and the Red­ edly has been called "the bloodiest coats readily slew al they could half mile of all the Battle Road." reach. Some men from Beverly, and others, eight in number, fled The bu.ildings along the village into the cellar, and pointing their street of Menocomy had harbored so many Minute Men and made muske!S up the stairway, threatened "­ instant death to any soldiers who the route of the British retreat so Letter to Globe Included should follow. One venturesome hot and tantalizing that it was Redcoat took a chance and y.ras inevitable the harried troops would In Historical Park Report shot on the stairs. Another was sooner or later in their reckless killed in the fight on the floor fury make victims of some of the above. .innocent as well as the guilty. This very thing occurred at the Cooper A letter from an out-of--state couple, published in the After the British had gone, the Tavern. dead in and about the house were Sunday Globe of July 15, 1956, points up the significance at­ Jason Winship, 45, and Jabez gathered in a single room. When tached to the establishment of a National Historical Park along Mrs. Russell came home she found Wyman, 39, had already tarried her husband and eleven Minute too long over their mugs of ale the Lexington-Concord Battle Road of April 19, 1775. Men lying side by side on the floor and the landlord, Benjamin Cooper, in a common pool of blood. and his wife, Rachel, were mixing The letter writers, a man and his wife, who described flip at the bar when the Redcoats They were the largest number began shooting at the doors and themselves as "sad and disturbed," asked such questions as: of combatants, either American or windows and crowded .into the tap­ ._,,. British, to give up their lives in - room. The drinking companions "Is that tiny area all the ·space in Lexington and Concord any one place and at any one never had a chance. time during the course of the you have to spare to commemorate the epic events that day's conflict. The landlord and his spouse, occurred there? who escaped for their lives into (The Jason Russell House, com­ the cellar, made the incident appear mendably saved by the Arlington even more merciless and shocking "Has all the world forgotten? Historical Society in 1823, stands than it probably was. In a later today not far from its original lo­ depos.ition for the Provincial C�n- "Don't the residents of your section realize how vital to cation near the corner of Jason gress they described Winship and the world are the events that occurred there?" street and Massachusetts avenue.) his brother-in-law as "cwo aged gentlemen . most barbarously 5:30 P.M. and inhumanely murdered . The couple went on to state that "the Cradle of Democracy being stabbed thr,ough in many ( including Boston and Bunker Hill) should be a beautiful place, The section of the highway lead­ places, their heads mauled, skulls ing to the Cooper Tavern from the magnificent and shining for everyone to come and visit broke, and their brains beat out .._. ------ Jason Russell House was, indeed, on the floor and walls of the the whole district should be a national park district." the scene of some of •the most _!i.ouse." frenzied and desperate action dur­ ing the running fight over an al­ most continuous battlefield. No The battle had reached the less than 20 Americans and as height of its feroc.ity at Menotomy. Page Thirty end of Menotomy, now Arlington a swift blow before .ficishing him Heights, and half a mile farther on with ��ght inches of cold steel. came down again to lower ground known as the "Foot of the Rocks." Gen. Percy, riding his white Historical Significance of the There once again they were ex­ horse, offered a conspicuous target. posed to a fierce fire as Militia He escaped death or injury, but a 19th of April, 1775 from towns to the eastward and button was shoe from his uniform. nearer the coast began to enter The increasing number of Minute - - the fray. Men brought such pressure on his rear a.nd flanks that Percy .finally The Historical, Significance of the 19th of April, 1775: Beginning at the "Foot of the halted h.is column not far from the direct purpose of the military expedition to Lexington, as pre­ Rocks," the fire power of the Am­ "Rocks" and turned his two field­ ericans was greatly increased as sumed by the patriots who watched every move made by the pieces upon chem. The cannon shoe over 1700 men in no less than 35 hit no one, but temporarily, at British in Boston, wa:s to arrest John Hancock and Samuel companies began to swell the force least, scattered his pursuers. The Adams, who had taken refuge there as guests of the Reverend of Militia that had the Regulars destructive aspect of real war was under attack. Companies from Jonas Clarke following the adjournment of the Provincial Con­ now fully present as cannon balls Watertown, Medford, Malden, blasted the road, smashed into gress at Concord. These patriot leaders had been foremost in Dedham, Needham, Lynn, Bever­ stone walls and trees, and tore fomenting sedition against those acts of oppression and misrule ly, Danvers, Roxbury, Brookline jagged holes through houses. and Menotomy itself now thronged that for more than a decade had characterized the restrictive the roadsides. 5:00 P.M. Colonial policy of the King's ministers and Parliament. If The British were severely har­ captured, they doubtless would have been sent to England and - assed .in some of the bloodiest Jason Russell, 58 and lame, was - .fighting of the day as they re­ tried for treason. From Lexington, the royal troops were to one citizen of Menotomy who be­ treated over the long stretch of lieved that "An Englishman's house advance on Concord and seize the military stores gathered there more than a mile and a half of is his castle." So after tak,ing his by order of the Provincial Congress and the Committees of Massachusetts avenue from the wife and children to a place of "Rocks" to the center of the pres­ Safety and Supplies.