REVEREND WILLIAM EMERSON’S HOUSE—THE OLD MANSE
The conflict at the Bridge was in plain view from this house
They were only two hundred. They filed into the road, marched past the Reverend Mr. Emerson’s house to the north bridge, crossed the river, and came to a halt on a hill overlooking the meadows, the village, and surrounding country. They could see the British dividing,—one party crossing the south bridge and going towards Colonel Barrett’s house to destroy the supplies collected there; another party advancing to the north bridge. Roger saw groups of officers in the graveyard using their spy-glasses. A soldier was cutting down the liberty pole. Other soldiers were entering houses, helping themselves to what food was left on the breakfast-tables or in the pantries. Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn rested themselves in Mr. Wright’s tavern.
“I’ll stir the Yankee blood before night, just as I stir this brandy,” said Pitcairn, stirring the spirit in his tumbler with his finger.
A party of British crossed the south bridge, made their way to Colonel Barrett’s house, and burned the cannon carriages stored in his barn.
Roger was glad to see Captain Isaac Davis and the minute-men of Acton march up the hill to join them. Captain Davis was thirty years old. He had kissed his young wife and four children good-by.
“Take good care of the children, Hannah,” he said as he bade her farewell.
Twice a week he had drilled his company. He was brave, resolute, kind-hearted. His men loved him because he demanded strict obedience. They had stopped long enough at his home for his young wife to powder their hair, that they might appear neat and trim like gentlemen when meeting the British. They were thirty-five, all told. Keeping step to Luther Blanchard’s fifing of the White Cockade, and Francis Barker’s drumming, they marched past the men from Concord and formed on their left.