Of their firing from behind fences he makes a great pother;
Every fence has two sides, they made use of one, and we only forgot to use the other;
Then we turned our backs and ran away so fast; don't let that disgrace us,
'Twas only to make good what Sandwich said, that the Yankees—could not face us.
As they could not get before us, how could they look us in the face?
We took care they shouldn't, by scampering away apace.
That they had not much to brag of, is a very plain case;
For if they beat us in the fight, we beat them in the race.
Pennsylvania Evening Post, March 30, 1776.
How the alarm of the fight spread through the countryside, how men left the plough, the loom, the anvil, and hastened, musket in hand, to the land's defence that day, has been told and retold in song and story. Here is the story of Morgan Stanwood, one among hundreds such.
MORGAN STANWOOD
CAPE ANN, 1775
Morgan Stanwood, patriot!
Little more is known;
Nothing of his home is left
But the door-step stone.
Morgan Stanwood, to our thought
You return once more;
Once again the meadows lift
Daisies to your door.
Once again the morn is sweet,
Half the hay is down,—
Hark! what means that sudden clang
From the distant town?
Larum bell and rolling drum
Answer sea-borne guns;
Larum bell and rolling drum
Summon Freedom's sons!