“Fire, fellow soldiers, fire!”
The American riflemen at once obeyed; as the leaden couriers began to whistle about them the British fell into great confusion and retreated back upon their main body. With defiant shouts, part of the colonists crossed the bridge and took up a position on a hill commanding the main road; the others, bearing their dead, returned to their starting point, and all rested upon their arms watching the redcoats like hawks.
By this time it was well upon noon, and while Concord was holding the column in check, the news of the hostile march of the king’s troops was spreading rapidly through all sections round about, and hundreds of men were hastening toward the scene of action. All the roads that led to Concord were thick with them; they carried the firelock that perhaps had fought the Indian and the drum that beat defiance to the French at Louisburg. And they were led by men who had served with Wolfe at Quebec and suffered the rigors of the seven years’ war.
At noon, Lieutenant-Colonel Smith concluded that nothing further was to be gained by an advance; so he gave the word that the column fall back toward Lexington and Boston. His left was covered by a strong flank guard that kept the height that borders the Lexington road; his right was protected by a stream of water. They had not gone very far when they began to understand how thoroughly the country had been aroused. It seemed as though men dropped from the very clouds. From behind every tree, every stump, every rock, a rifle spat its anger at them.
Near Hardy’s Hill, the Sudbury company attacked the British flank guard; there was a fierce fight on the old road north of the schoolhouse. Here the way was lined with woods upon both sides and the minutemen swarmed upon them from this shelter like gnats. A guard on the left flank was ordered out in desperation; but it proved only a fairer mark to shoot at, and was instantly ordered back.
This woody defile stretched away for three or four miles, and while in it the British suffered terribly.
“From their look,” said Nat Brewster, reloading his piece and wiping the sweat from his face, “they have ceased to regard their expedition as a sort of excursion.”
Ezra Prentiss, to whom these words were addressed, raised his rifle to his shoulder and its report was added to the din.
“And, I think,” said he coolly, as he thrust his hand into his pocket for another cartridge, “that they will never start upon such another one again.”
It was at this point that Woburn added one hundred and eighty men to the little provincial army; at Lincoln, the Lexington company again appeared upon the field.