There had been time to hide the military stores, so the British could not get at those. But they cut down the liberty pole, set fire to the courthouse, spiked a few cannon, and emptied some barrels of flour.
About two hundred of them stood guard at the North Bridge, while a body of minutemen gathered on a hill on the opposite side. When the minutemen had increased to four hundred, they advanced to the bridge and brought on a fight which resulted in loss of life on both sides. Then, pushing on across the bridge, they forced the British to withdraw into the town.
The affair had become more serious than the British had expected. Even in the town they could not rest, for an ever-increasing body of minutemen kept swarming into Concord from every direction.
By noon Colonel Smith could see that it would be unwise to delay the return to Boston. So, although his men had marched twenty miles, and had had little or no food for fourteen hours, he gave the order for the return march.
But when they started back, the minutemen kept after them and began a deadly attack. It was an unequal fight. The minutemen, trained to woodland warfare, slipped from tree to tree, shot down the worn and helpless British soldiers, and then retreated only to return and repeat the harassing attack.
The wooded country through which they were passing favored this kind of fighting. But even in the open country every stone wall and hill, every house and barn seemed to the exhausted British troops to bristle with the guns of minutemen. The retreating army dragged wearily forward, fighting as bravely as possible, but on the verge of confusion and panic.
They reached Lexington Common at two oclock, quite overcome with fatigue. There they were met by one thousand two hundred fresh troops, under Lord Percy, whose timely arrival saved the entire force from capture. Lord Percys men formed a square for the protection of the retreating soldiers, and into it they staggered, falling upon the ground, with their tongues hanging out of their mouths like those of dogs after a chase.
After resting for an hour, the British again took up their march to Boston. The minutemen, increasing in numbers every moment, kept up the same kind of running attack that they had made between Concord and Lexington until, late in the day, the redcoats came under the protection of the guns of the war vessels in Boston Harbor.
The British had failed. There was no denying that. They had been driven back, almost in a panic, to Boston, with a loss of nearly three hundred men. The Americans had not lost one hundred.
But the King was not aroused to the situation. He had a vision of his superb regiments in their brilliant uniforms overriding all before them.
And how did the Provincials, as the British called the Americans, regard the situation? They saw clearly and without glamour the deadly nature of the struggle upon which they had entered and the strength of the opposing army against which they must measure their own strength.
The people of Massachusetts for miles around Boston were now in a state of great excitement. Farmers, mechanics, men in all walks of life flocked to the army, and within a few days the Americans, sixteen thousand strong, were surrounding the British in Boston.
While the people of Massachusetts were in the midst of these stirring scenes, an event of deep meaning to all the colonies was taking place in Philadelphia. Here the Continental Congress, coming together for the second time, was making plans for carrying on the war by voting money for war purposes and by making George Washington commander-in-chief of the Continental army, of which the troops around Boston were the beginning. Thus did the colonies recognize that war had come and that they must stand together in the fight.
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A Better Person. Army Strong.by goarmyvideos11,338 views
I love how your dog hangs out in the water. Cool dog even though its not a "pitbull' ;)
bulletbreedband 1 year ago