Realizing The Danger They Were In, The British Troops Began
Their Retreat Of Eighteen Miles.
They had eaten little or
nothing for fourteen hours.
Ages ago freedom loving Nature had
conspired to aid the Americans by shaping the field of battle.
Huge boulders had been left by the glacier, the potent rays of
the April sun made dense masses of verdure in willows, which
thus became an ally of the pine. Stone fences and haystacks
became ready-made fortifications, and every rising spot was
filled with irate hostile yeoman who harried them with aim true
and deadly. They soon began to run and leave their wounded
behind, and in place of a retreat their disorderly flight must
have had the appearance of a Marathon race, the rattle of
musketry acting or serving as signals for each to do his best on
the home stretch.
They were almost exhausted when they fell into a little hollow
square made by Percy's men to receive them. Here the weary,
frightened Redcoats took refuge as in a sanctuary, and
immediately threw themselves upon the ground to rest. Many of
them had either lost or thrown away their muskets. Pitcairn had
lost both his horse and the elegant pistols with which. the
first shot of the war for independence had been fired. They may
now be seen in the town library of Lexington. When the British
soldiers reached Arlington, several miles from Boston, they had
an obstinate fight with the Yanks. The road swarmed with Minute
Men and they could not keep order - but at sunset, when they
entered Charlestown under the welcome shelter of the fleet, it
was upon the full run. Considered as a race, the British stood
far in the lead. Two hundred and seventy-three British were lost
and but ninety-three Americans.
As we still lingered on the banks of the sleeping river we
recalled these lines from Emerson: "My home stands in lowland
with limited outlook, and on the outskirts of the village. But I
go with my friend to the shore of our little river, and with one
stroke of the paddle I leave the village politics and
personalities behind and pass into a delicate realm of sunset
and moonlight." Alert and watchful still stood the figure near
the bridge, and as we turned away from this quiet spot "his
attitude of eternal vigilance still seemed prophetic." He became
at once the noble spirit of a brave Anglo-Saxon, standing for
Freedom and Right; the spirit that gained our independence; that
of 1867 that freed the slave; and that of 1917 that sent the
sons of America across the ocean. This glorious Freeman should
be placed on some lofty mountain peak in the pure, free air of
heaven, where all might read the lesson of Freedom and Human
Rights. This is one of America's shrines of which she may be
duly proud. Could the European tourist carry back no other
memory, it would be well to cross the Atlantic to see this
sight.
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