"Fire, for God's sake, fire!"
The order was obeyed. The British responded, killing Capt. Davis and one of his privates, Abner Hosmer. Davis on realizing that Blanchard was wounded had taken a firmer position on a flat stepping-stone, and while aiming his gun received a bullet through his heart. Hosmer was killed by a bullet through his head.[196] Ezekiel Davis, brother of the Captain, and a private in his company, was wounded, as was also Joshua Brooks of Lincoln, whose forehead was slightly cut by a bullet which continued through his hat.[197]
The opening volley of the Americans was also effective, killing one private, and wounding Lieut. Hull of the Forty-third Regiment; Lieut. Gould of the Fourth; Lieut. Kelly of the Tenth; Lieut. Sutherland of the Thirty-eighth; and a number of the rank and file.
The Americans under Major Buttrick advanced and the three British companies, under Lowrie, gave way, and retreated towards Concord village. They were met on the way by reinforcements consisting of two or three companies headed by Lieut.-Col. Smith himself, who was responding to a very urgent request for assistance from Capt. Lowrie, sent just before the engagement began. Smith being a "very fat, heavy man," according to the testimony of one of his officers, who has left an interesting diary for our perusal,[198] instead of reaching Lowrie at the Bridge met him but a little way out of the village.
From the moment of that heroic advance of the Americans over the bridge, military discipline among them ceased.[199] They rushed after the retreating British but a few rods, then proceeded to an eminence on the east side of the road back of Elisha Jones's house, taking position there behind a stone wall, and perhaps an eighth of a mile from where the British halted when they were met by their reinforcements.[200]
Why the Americans turned aside instead of pursuing their enemies into Concord village as they had resolved to do, can only be surmised. Why they gave no heed to the small force still behind them up the river, engaged in destroying American property at Col. Barrett's, excites our wonder, too. Not lack of personal courage surely, but rather a lack of military experience.
While these scenes were being enacted at the North Bridge, the British force above alluded to, and consisting of three companies under Capt. Parsons, had gone up the river, to the home of Col. Barrett, nearly two miles from the Bridge. They were under the direct guidance of the spy, Ensign De Bernicre, who had previously gone over the road, and made himself familiar with its topography, and particularly with the hiding of military stores among the homes along the way. He knew thoroughly well of those at Col. Barrett's, and that place above all others was the principal objective.
Early that morning the men in the Barrett family had busied themselves in securing the Colonial stores. They had plowed a tract of land about thirty feet square, south of the old barn and later used as a kitchen garden. One guided a yoke of oxen, in turning over the furrows, into which others dropped the muskets that had been stored in the house. Succeeding furrows covered them nicely. Musket balls were carried to the attic, put into the bottoms of barrels which were then filled with feathers.[201] Other munitions were hidden in the adjoining woods.[202]