[541] Siege of Boston, 63.
[542] Hist. of Lexington, 225.
[543] Stedman, who was not present, and most British writers, say the Americans fired first, as did Pitcairn, whose representations, as reported by Stiles in his diary, are given by Frothingham (p. 62), and by Irving (Life of Washington, i. 393). One tory, on talking with the British soldiers afterwards, was satisfied that they were the aggressors. (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xiii. 60.) Hudson, in a paper on Pitcairn in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xvii. 318, examines the question. (Cf. Frothingham's Warren, 488; Evelyns in America, 299, 303; Mahon's England, vi. 36.) A deposition of one Sylvanus Wood, taken in 1826, says that the stories in this country of the Americans firing first were started long after the event. Dawson (i. 22) prints this document.
[544] Reprinted in 1875 at Boston. The literary sources with interest centering in Lexington are Edward Everett's address in 1835 (Orations, i. 526), where he noted (p. 561) the survivors of Captain Parker's company taking part in the celebration; Everett's Mount Vernon Papers, no. 47; Hudson's Hist. of Lexington, ch. 6, and his Abstract (1876); Harper's Magazine, vol. xx.; R. H. Dana's Address in 1875; C. Hudson's and E. G. Porter's Proceedings at the Centennial Celebration, 1875; The Centennial Souvenir of 1775; Henry Westcott's Lexington Centennial Sermons (1875); A. B. Muzzey's Battle of Lexington (New Eng. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1877, and separately, 1877); E. S. Thomas's Reminiscences of the last Sixty Years, commencing with the battle of Lexington (Hartford, 1840); William D. Howells's Three Villages; Poole's Index, under "Lexington." See Mr. R. C. Winthrop's remarks on Chas. Hudson in Mass. Hist. Proc., xviii. 418; cf. also N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., 1881, p. 395, and Worcester Soc. of Antiq. Proc., 1881, p. 46.
Geo. W. Curtis made the oration in 1875, and J. R. Lowell's ode is printed in Atlantic Monthly, June, 1875. The town of Concord printed in 1875 an account of its centennial celebration. Cf. Poole's Index, under "Concord."
The orations of 1875 at Concord and Lexington, with an account of the celebration, are given in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1875; and there are additional particulars in the reports of the two towns for 1875-1876.
[545] This was reissued in 1832,—both editions at Concord, and the side of that town was again espoused by Lemuel Shattuck, in his History of Concord, whose views were, however, examined in the North American Review, vol. xlii. (Cf. notice of Shattuck in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Apr., 1860.)
Among the literary sources with their interest centering in Concord may be named Edward Everett's oration in 1825 (Orations, i. p. 73); Grindall Reynolds in Unitarian Review, April, 1875, and his chapter xvii. in Drake's Middlesex County; Frederic Hudson's illustrated paper in Harper's Mag. (May, 1875).
[546] For Acton,—the Centennial Address of Josiah Adams (1835), and his Letter to Shattuck (1850); James T. Woodbury's Speech in the Massachusetts Legislature (1851) for a bill to erect a monument to Capt. Davis, killed at the North Bridge. Cf. a pamphlet by Rufus Hosmer, of Stowe (1833).
For Danvers,—D. P. King's Address on the seven young men of Danvers slain at Lexington (Salem, 1835).