At the foot of the easterly slope of Hardy's Hill is a little stream crossing the road in a northerly direction. It is in Lincoln, and on most maps is put down as Mill Brook, the same that curves around and crosses the road near Meriam's Corner, rather more than a mile back. At Hardy's Hill it has sometimes been called Tanner's Brook.[226]
The British had now reached this point, and were marching rapidly, keeping their flankers out parallel to the highway.
BATTLE ROAD THROUGH CONCORD AND LINCOLN.
1. Col. Barrett. 2. North Bridge. 3. South Bridge. 4. Meriam's Corner. 5. Bloody Angle. 6. Sergt. John Hartwell. 7. Sergt. Samuel Hartwell. 8. Revere Captured. 9. Nelson. 10. Hastings.
Over the bridge and up another slight rise and then the road turns at a sharp angle to the left, northeasterly, to still higher ground about eighty feet higher than Concord village. On the northwesterly side of that road was a heavy growth of trees and on the opposite side a younger growth. On each side of the road, in those two forest growths, many American minute-men were posted.[227] They had anticipated the passing of the British, by hurrying across the Great Fields, so called, from the Bedford Road near Meriam's Corner. Among these were the Bedford company under Capt. Willson. This forest lined road was only about a half of a mile in extent before it turned again to the eastward.
When the foremost British reached this location the Americans poured in a deadly volley, that killed eight and wounded many others.
The contest was by no means one-sided. The attention of the Americans here, as all along the line to Charlestown, was too firmly fixed on the ranks of the enemy marching in the road. The British flankers were unnoticed and unthought of. Silently and rapidly they swung along, on their parallel lines, and very often closed in on those little tell-tale puffs of smoke that arose behind the trees and walls, and among the bowlders. Thus were many Americans surprised and slain—more, probably twice or thrice over, than were killed by the soldiers in the highway.
It was at this bloody angle of Battle Road, that Capt. Jonathan Willson of Bedford met his death. And so did Nathaniel Wyman, a native of Billerica, but a member of Capt. Parker's Company. Daniel Thompson, of Woburn, was also killed here. Another son of Bedford, Job Lane, was severely wounded and disabled for life.[228]