Percy's Retreat Through Arlington
It was not far from half-past four when the British crossed the Lexington line and entered into Arlington. Their retreating march in Lexington measured about two and one-quarter miles. Along the road, they had striven to kill in honorable battle. They had succeeded but slightly, and paid an unusual price with a much larger number of their own dead and wounded.
Percy's aim seemed to have been to terrorize his opponents at whatever cost. The life of Raymond was not taken in battle, nor can rapine and incendiarism add glory to his military renown. Lexington's highway to Arlington ran between pillaged and burning homes, and his soldiers staggered along under heavy burdens of property stolen from those whose King was his King. Concord and Lincoln have none of Percy's deeds related in their chronicles, but Lexington, and Arlington, and Cambridge, and Somerville, and Charlestown have good reason to remember his terrible conception of warfare.
Gen. William Heath, as the commanding officer of the Americans, endeavored to organize his forces into something like an army. He did not greatly succeed but re-formed some of the forces that had been scattered by Percy's cannonade, directed towards the meeting-house on Lexington Common.[287]
Descending the high lands in the upper part of Arlington by the road, now known as Appleton Street, that skirts along the base of Arlington Heights, and drops to the "Foot of the Rocks," the Americans pressed in greater numbers and greater courage on Percy's rearguard. The bravery of individuals at this point became conspicuous and often foolishly hazardous. Percy, in his report, speaks of some concealed in houses by the wayside, who would emerge therefrom and approach within ten yards to fire at him and his officers--though sure of a fatal fire in return. He seemed surprised at their enthusiasm, as he called it, evidently forgetting how much he had excited their anger. It is almost beyond belief that he could have escaped through such a gauntlet, mounted as he was, on his beautiful white horse, a conspicuous mark from the hillsides along the way. But he did,--for such is occasionally the fortune of war as granted to brave men. His personal courage was beyond question.
The forces of the Americans were greatly augmented during the pursuit through Arlington. Minute-men from the nearby Middlesex towns, and from Essex and Norfolk counties, arrived at the time and disposed themselves along a line parallel to the highway as their individual fancies dictated, and independent of any commander-in-chief. Along the hillside to the south, behind the walls, and even within buildings adjacent to the road, they were posted, singly and in squads, among them many unerring marksmen, who added greatly to the British loss in killed and wounded. Percy would have been dismayed had he known the number of reinforcements he must then contend with, but they were not paraded for his inspection. His own army at the highest had not numbered over eighteen hundred men, but now considerably depleted, by his losses along the way, it is doubtful if it would equal fifteen hundred really effective soldiers.
The Americans entering the contest at Arlington were from Brookline, Capt. Thomas White and ninety-five men, and possibly two other companies under Col. Thos. Aspinwall and Major Isaac Gardner, number of men unknown;[288] Watertown, Capt. Samuel Barnard, one hundred and thirty-four men; Medford, Capt. Isaac Hall, fifty-nine men; Malden, Capt. Benjamin Blaney, seventy-five men; Roxbury, Capt. Lemuel Child, thirty-five men, Capt. William Draper, fifty men, Capt. Moses Whiting, fifty-five men; Dedham, Capt. Eben Battle, sixty-six men, Capt. Wm. Bullard, fifty-nine men, Capt. Daniel Draper, twenty-four men, Capt. William Ellis, thirty-one men, Capt. David Fairbanks, fourteen men, Capt. Aaron Fuller, sixty-seven men, Capt. George Gould, seventeen men, Capt. Joseph Guild, fifty-nine men; Needham, Capt. Aaron Smith, seventy men, Capt. Robert Smith, seventy-five men, Capt. Caleb Kingsbery, forty men; Lynn, Capt. Nathaniel Bancroft, thirty-eight men, Capt. William Farrington, fifty-two men, Capt. Rufus Mansfield, forty-six men, Capt. Ezra Newhall, forty-nine men, Capt. David Parker, sixty-three men; Beverly, Capt. Caleb Dodge, thirty-two men, Capt. Larkin Thorndike, forty-eight men, Lieut. Peter Shaw, forty-two men; Danvers, Capt. Samuel Epes, eighty-two men, Capt. Samuel Flint, forty-five men, Capt. Israel Hutchinson, fifty-three men, Capt. Caleb Lowe, twenty-three men, Capt. Jeremiah Page, thirty-nine men, Capt. Asa Prince, thirty-seven men, Capt. Edm. Putnam, seventeen men, Capt. John Putnam, thirty-five men; Menotomy, Capt. Benjamin Locke, fifty-three men. Undoubtedly some of Locke's men were engaged earlier in the day, particularly those who lived in Arlington, for twenty-six of them assembled on the Common at daybreak, and must have gone up to Lexington, at least. Of the other members, eleven were from Charlestown, seven from Boston, three from Stoneham, two from Lexington, one from Newton, and one residence unknown. Together these reinforcements at Arlington numbered seventeen hundred and seventy-nine men.
Under the combined efforts of Gen. Heath and Dr. Warren, the minute-men were encouraged to rally and draw nearer the rear guard of Percy's column, to harass and destroy them. The two British field pieces were often turned on the Americans but were too cumbersome for effective use against the elusive minute-men. The cannonballs went tearing up the road, smashing trees and shrubs, toppling over stone walls, pushing jagged holes through buildings, striking terror into the hearts of women and children, and presumably many of the men, who were unused to war.
This renewal of activities commenced in Arlington where the road comes in from Lexington, and skirts along the northerly base of Peirce's Hill now called Arlington Heights. The descent from there to the plain is by a steep grade and the lower end of that part of the highway was then, and is now, known as Foot of the Rocks. This skirting, curved road around Peirce's Hill still exists. Its westerly end is now called Paul Revere Road, and its easterly end, Appleton St. Since that time a straight road with gentler grade has been made to connect the two ends of that part of Battle Road and forms a part of the new Massachusetts Avenue from Boston to the Concord line.
It was at the Foot of the Rocks that Dr. Warren, brave even to recklessness, exposed himself to some vigilant British marksman, who could not fail to notice his enthusiasm and influence. The bullet came dangerously near the doctor's head, so near, in fact, as to strike a pin from his ear-lock.[289] Here, also, Dr. Downer of Roxbury engaged in single combat with a British soldier, whom he slew with a bayonet thrust.[290]
Towards the summit of Peirce's Hill was the Robbins home. The family had fled. Percy's flank-guard ransacked the house, built a fire on the kitchen floor, which burned off a line full of wet clothes hanging over it, letting them fall into the flames which were thereby extinguished.[291]
Down this road, a little farther stood the Tufts Tavern, once occupied by Mr. Cutler, the rich farmer and butcher, but at that time by John Tufts, previously of Medford, whose wife was Rebecca, a daughter of Mr. Cutler. It will be recalled that Tufts had been aroused in the early morning by the British, and when they returned the family had fled. Soldiers broke into the upper end of it, loaded themselves with such plunder as they could carry away, and maliciously destroyed some that they were obliged to leave behind. One thrust his bayonet through the best mirror, the frame of which was long preserved.[292] While others, thinking to serve their King, opened the taps of the casks containing molasses and spirits, allowing them to escape. Then they set fire to the building and left in haste to rejoin their retreating companions. A faithful colored slave of Mr. Cutler's watching from a distance entered soon after their departure and extinguished the fire.
Richer plunder awaited the looters at the home of Joseph Adams, a venerable deacon of the Second Precinct Church. He had remained at home with his family until Percy's troops came into sight up the road. Then fearing his outspoken views, strongly antagonistic to the British ministry, might subject him to abuse by Percy and his soldiers, he determined to make his way across the fields to the Rev. Mr. Cook's barn. He was seen, and a volley of bullets followed, but he reached the barn and hid in the hay. Some of the soldiers followed, even into the barn, and pierced the hay with their bayonets, but he was not exactly there. Some of them burst open the door of his home, and three broke into the chamber, where lay his wife and their infant child, but a few days old. The mother was too ill to arise, even. One of the soldiers opened the bed-curtains and with fixed bayonet, pointing to her breast seemed about to slay her. She begged him not to kill her, but he only angrily replied:
"Damn you!"
Another soldier, with a more humane heart, interceded, and said,
"We will not kill the woman if she will go out of the house, but we will surely burn it."
Inspired by the threat, Mrs. Adams then arose, drew a blanket about herself and little infant,[293] and painfully made her way to the corn-house close by. It was the first journey since her illness, as far as her chamber door even. Other children were left within the house, but she was too weak to be of any assistance to them. They had hidden under a bed, but curiosity getting the better of Joel, aged nine years, the little folks were all discovered, but not harmed. They saw the sheets stripped from the beds and household valuables dumped into them, even including the works of an old clock, an heirloom in the family. Most valuable of all the booty, was the silver tankard belonging to the communion service given to the church in 1769, by Jonathan Butterfield. It was subsequently pawned by the thief, to a Boston silversmith, Austin by name, who read the engraved inscription thereon and notified Deacon Adams. After the evacuation of Boston by the British, the two deacons redeemed the tankard at their own expense and returned it to the church, where it is still in use.
The soldiers of Lord Percy then emptied a basket of chips on the floor, set them on fire with a brand from the hearth, and went on their way. The Adams children put out the blaze with a quantity of home-brewed beer, but not until the floor was badly burned, the ceiling smoked and a quantity of pewter plates on the dresser melted.[294]
A little farther along, on the westerly side of the road, lived Jason Russell, aged fifty-eight years.[295] Somewhat helpless because lame, he had started with his family at noontime for refuge at George Prentiss's on the hill. After going a little way he felt impelled to return and look after the safety of his home. He barricaded his gate with bundles of shingles and from behind them took his position to fire upon the enemy as they should come along and pass by in the road a rod away. Rather a feeble fortress from any military standpoint, and one that proved to be a death trap for its builder. Northerly across the road and across the brook lived Ammi Cutter, a kindly neighbor, who came and pleaded with Russell to abandon his door-yard for a place of greater safety. Russell replied that "An Englishman's house is his castle." Cutter remained by his side until the advancing British were seen up the road, and then started on the run across the road, over the wall and through the fields towards his home. Reaching the old mill-yard, and still running, he stumbled and fell between two logs, and the enemy's bullets scattered bark over him as he lay. They thought him dead because he fell as they fired, and so left him. But he was entirely uninjured.
Back of the Russell house in a southerly direction, the land slopes gently upward for a little way, and then rises to a considerable height. Near the foot of this hill a goodly number of Americans were posted, among them the men from Danvers. Approaching along the slope of the hill, and parallel to the highway, was a strong British flanking party driving all before it. The Americans at that point were too few to openly resist, so retreated and entered the Russell house. Down the road came the main body under Percy, and perceiving the minute-men, advanced and opened fire. Russell being lame, was the last to reach the doorway, where two bullets felled him. The soldiers rushed in and pierced him, as he lay, with eleven bayonet thrusts. Then they entered the house, and within that little home enacted the bloodiest tragedy of the day. Here, the seven men from Danvers were killed. The other Americans retreated to the cellar, and from the foot of the stairs threatened death to any Briton who should come down. One attempted to, and died on the way. Another died in the struggle overhead. Then the house was plundered in accordance with Percy's method of warfare.
After the British had passed, the Americans gathered at the home of Jason Russell. The dead from the yard, and within the house, were laid, side by side, in the little south room. There were twelve of them, and the blood from their wounds mingled in one common pool upon the floor.[296]
The highway from Jason Russell's house, to the center of Arlington village, proved to be the bloodiest half-mile of all the Battle Road. Within this little stretch were killed twenty or more Americans, and as many or more Britons. And here, on the northerly side of the road, not far from where the British convoy was captured, in the forenoon, stood another Adams home. It was punctured with bullets and it was stained with blood, for the dead and dying and wounded were carried thereafter the combatants had passed on.[297]
One of the most unequal duels of any war was fought near here, between the venerable Samuel Whittemore, aged eighty years, and a number of British soldiers, acting as a flanking party, on the easterly side of the road.
Whittemore lived with a son and grandchildren near Menotomy River and had been aroused early in the morning by the passing of Smith's forces on their way to Concord. Mrs. Whittemore then commenced her preparations for flight, to another son's house, near Mystic River, towards Medford. She supposed that her husband intended to accompany her, but was surprised to find him engaged in the warlike occupation of oiling his musket and pistols and sharpening his sword. In his younger days, he had been an officer in the militia. She urged him to accompany her and the children. He refused, with the excuse that he was going "uptown" as he expressed it. He did so, arriving there before the British had returned. When they reached the neighborhood of the present railroad crossing they halted, some of them opposite Mystic Street. Whittemore had posted himself behind a stone wall, down Mystic Street about four hundred and fifty feet, near the corner of the present Chestnut Street. The distance seemed an easy range for him, and he opened fire killing the soldier he aimed at. They must have discovered his hiding-place from the smoke-puff and hastened to close in on him. With one pistol he killed the second Briton, and with his other fatally wounded a third one. In the meantime, the ever-vigilant flank-guard were attracted to the contest, and a ball from one of their muskets struck his head and rendered him unconscious. They rushed to the spot, and clubbed him with their muskets, and pierced him with their bayonets until they felt sure that he was dead. Soon after they left him, he was found by the Americans, and as he seemed to still live they bore him to the Cooper Tavern. Dr. Tufts of Medford was summoned but declared it useless to dress so many wounds as the aged man could not possibly survive. However, he was persuaded to try, and Whittemore lived eighteen more years, dying in 1793, at the age of ninety-eight. When he was recovering, his wife could not forbear asking him if he did not regret he had not remained with the rest of the family from the first. But the old hero, still suffering from his many wounds, replied:
"No! I would run the same chance again."[298]
Four hundred feet farther along, at the corner of the Medford road, now Medford Street, stood the Cooper Tavern, Benjamin Cooper, the landlord. He and his wife, Rachel, were mixing flip at the bar. Two of their guests, and possibly those two were all at the time, were Jason Winship, about forty-five years old, and his brother-in-law, Jabez Wyman, in his fortieth year.[299] Evidently, they were non-combatants, and as such expected to remain unmolested. But the soldiers were lashed to a fury by the reception they had met along the road, particularly that of the last half mile. So many houses along back had concealed minute-men, that about all were freely riddled with bullets, then ransacked, and then set on fire. Cooper Tavern was not considered by them as a privileged exception. More than a hundred bullets were fired into it through the doors and windows. Then the soldiers entered for their finishing strokes. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper escaped to the cellar, but Wyman and Winship, both unarmed, were stabbed in many places, their heads mauled until their skulls were broken, and brains scattered about on the floor and walls.[300]
The death of these two unarmed men, formed the climax of Arlington's part of the battle, for Percy's troops passed through the rest of the town, and crossed Menotomy River into Cambridge without further bloody incident.
The Americans who were killed in Arlington, were Jason Russell, Jason Winship and Jabez Wyman of Arlington; Reuben Kennison, of Beverly; Samuel Cook, Benjamin Daland, Ebenezer Goldthwait, Henry Jacobs, Perley Putnam, George Southwick, and Jotham Webb, of Danvers; Elias Haven of Dedham; William Flint, Thomas Hadley, Abednego Ramsdell, and Daniel Townsend, of Lynn; William Polly and Henry Putnam, of Medford; Lieut. John Bacon, Nathaniel Chamberlain, Amos Mills, Sergt. Elisha Mills, and Jonathan Parker of Needham; Benjamin Peirce of Salem; and Jacob Coolidge of Watertown. These numbered twenty-five and constituted half of all the Americans killed during the day.
The wounded in Arlington were Samuel Whittemore, of Arlington; Nathaniel Cleaves, Samuel Woodbury, and William Dodge, 3rd, of Beverly; Nathan Putnam, and Dennison Wallace of Danvers; Israel Everett of Dedham; Eleazer Kingsbury, and a son of Dr. Tolman, of Needham. They numbered nine out of the thirty-nine Americans wounded during the day.
The British killed in Arlington were at least forty, more than half of all their loss during the day.
The patriot dead of old Menotomy and her sister towns were gathered, and twelve of them placed on a sled and drawn by a yoke of oxen to the little village churchyard. There they were laid away in one large grave, side by side, in the same bloody garments they wore when they fell. One monument marks the place. In the meeting-house close by, friends and relatives met on the following Sabbath, and, we are told that among them were Anna, infant grand-daughter of Jason Russell, born on the day of the battle, and the little son of Jason Winship, who was brought to the altar for baptism. It must have been a sacred and patriotic consecration for all.[301] Some of the other slain from distant towns were borne by their comrades back to their own homes.[302]
In Arlington, then, as the casualties show, the battle reached its climax. The savage ferocity of the personal encounters show to what a maddening frenzy the King's troops had been wrought. As in Lexington, Percy attempted the wholesale destruction of the American homes by the torch, but so closely had he been followed by the ever-increasing minute-men, that his efforts were futile. His soldiers had the time to start the fires, but not the time to fan them into conflagrations, and thus old Menotomy escaped the fate of Lexington.
Percy continued his march through the town of Arlington, crossing Menotomy River into Cambridge between five and six o'clock. The minute-men hovered dangerously near his rearguard so that he paused often long enough to wheel his two six-pounders about and prevent them from coming too near. They were entirely without fatal effect, but inspired at all times a wholesome respect, and kept the Americans farther away.
Percy's Retreat Through Cambridge
Occasionally the contest narrowed down to personal encounters between two or more. It was near the Menotomy River, on the Cambridge side, that Lieut. Bowman, of Arlington, overtook a straggler from the British ranks and engaged him in single combat. Both had guns, but neither one was loaded. The Briton rushed at Bowman with fixed bayonet, but the latter warded it off, and with his musket clubbed his antagonist to the ground. Then he took him prisoner.[303]
Cambridge was the home of Capt. Samuel Thatcher's company of seventy-seven men, but it is probable that Smith had encountered them as far back as Lincoln, for the muster roll in the Massachusetts Archives states that most of them marched twenty-eight miles, which would mean up into Lincoln and return, and to Charlestown Neck and return.
Percy's march through Cambridge, from Menotomy River to the Somerville line, measured nearly a mile and a quarter. The provincials expected that he would return to Boston by the route he came out, that is through Harvard Square over Charles River bridge into Brighton, thence through Roxbury, and along Boston Neck and into Boston. Anticipating as much, it was ordered that the bridge should be made impassable. But Percy deemed it wise to hurry on to Charlestown, trusting that Gen. Gage would have an ample force there to receive and protect him. It was several miles nearer, and with no possibility of dismantled bridges to reconstruct, for his troops to pass over. Nor should it be forgotten that Percy's original plan was to remain that night, at least, in Harvard Square, but he had not counted on such intense hostility, from so large an army of minute-men in open rebellion. He deemed it wiser, therefore, to move constantly forward towards the main army.
This mile and a quarter in Cambridge proved to be one of continual battle, also. The Americans were ever on the alert, and growing more and more active as they realized more and more the real meaning of the invasion. The sight of many of the British soldiers loaded down with plunder; the curling smoke and flames from American dwellings; the dying and the dead, some of them horribly mutilated, scattered all along the highway, were, at last, inspiring an intense feeling of hatred, and a longing for a satisfying vengeance. Percy's army experienced practically the same sensations. Trained as soldiers to the usages of open warfare, they deemed the frontier method of fighting as unfair and cowardly. They held in contempt the man who should remain concealed in safety and shoot down one who was compelled to remain in the open. Undoubtedly, too, the memory of a comrade, lying at the North Bridge with that ugly hatchet death-wound in the head, aroused the most savage instincts, that seemed to cry for brutal retaliation. Whittemore, and Wyman, and Winship seem to have been victims of vengeance rather than of war.
The Americans did not profit much by the lessons which they had received, earlier in the day, for they again fell victims to the British flankers. Quite a number had gathered near the home of Jacob Watson, situated on the southerly side of the highway near the present Rindge Avenue. Their fragile security was a pile of empty casks, not far from the road, from behind which they awaited the oncoming of the British. But the flank-guard came up in their rear, unobserved, and completely surprised them, killing Major Isaac Gardner of Brookline, a favorite son of that town, and the first graduate of Harvard College to fall in the War, and two Cambridge men, John Hicks, nearly fifty years old, and Moses Richardson, fifty-three years old. And near the same place, another Cambridge man, William Marcy, as tradition says[304] of feeble intellect and a non-combatant. He was sitting on the fence, evidently enjoying the military spectacle, and perhaps good-naturedly cheering on the marching red-coats. His friendly demonstrations were entirely mistaken for shouts of derision. In the midst of his simple pleasure, some Briton esteemed it his duty to kill him as an enemy of the King.
The British loss at this place was but one killed.
On they marched, wheeling to the left, into Beech Street, a thoroughfare about seven hundred feet long, and thence out of Cambridge and into Somerville.
Soon after this, the wife of John Hicks, whose home is still standing (1912) at the corner of Dunster and Winthrop Streets, fearing for his safety, sent her son, fourteen years of age, to look for him. He had been absent since morning, and undoubtedly the noise of battle, a mile and a quarter away, coming across the fields, bore a sad burden of prophecy. Her misgivings were well-founded, for the son found his father by the roadside where he fell, and near him the others.
The body of Isaac Gardner was taken to Brookline and there buried the next day. The remains of John Hicks, Moses Richardson, and William Marcy, were immediately taken to the little churchyard near the Common, a mile from where they fell. They were buried in one grave, without coffins or shrouds even. A son of Moses Richardson, standing by, realizing that the earth was to fall directly on their faces, jumped down into the grave and arranged the cape of his father's coat, that it might shield him somewhat from the falling earth.
We may wonder now, at that hasty burial, without much, if any, ceremony; but let us associate with it the trail of the invading army, and of what seemed possible for the morrow, if it should return, greatly reinforced, for vengeance. Boston was not far away, and Gen. Gage, even then, might be preparing to move on Cambridge, with a force sufficiently large for its subjection. The Americans did not fully realize their own power or their own courage, not even as well as Gen. Gage did, who wisely decreed to remain in Boston and Charlestown, and decide later whether to pursue an aggressive or a defensive campaign. The spontaneous rousing of the country was an impressive one to the British commander.
It had evidently been Percy's plan to camp on Cambridge Common that night, and while awaiting expected reinforcements, or upon their arrival, lay the buildings of Harvard College, and others, in ruins. Such a course would have been in harmony with his warfare in Lexington and Arlington, and serve as a practical lesson to those in rebellion, of the disposition and readiness of their King to wreak a swift and terrible vengeance upon his enemies.[305] But Percy's plans were rudely disarranged, and he commenced to realize that he was really being driven back to Boston.
FOOTNOTES:
[287] Heath's Memoirs.
[288] Bolton's Brookline. White's was the only company to file claim for pay, however. See Mass. Archives.
[289] Heath's Memoirs.
[290] Heath's Memoirs.
[291] Mrs. Lydia Peirce's statement in Smith's Address, page 33.
[292] Mrs. Almira T. Whittemore in Parker's Arlington, page 194. The tavern is still standing, or part of it, numbered 965 Massachusetts Ave., opposite Mt. Vernon Street.
[293] This little child lived into womanhood and became the wife of James Hill.
[294] Mrs. Adams's Deposition and Smith's Address, wherein he quotes Mrs. Thos. Hall, granddaughter of Mrs. Adams, Rev. Mr. Brown's Sermon on James Hill, and S. G. Damon's article in The Christian Register, Oct. 28, 1854. The building, or part of it, is still standing (1912) being the ell of a building on the southerly side of Massachusetts Avenue, third house westerly from Bartlett Avenue.
[295] Born Jan. 25, 1717. Paige's History of Cambridge. The old grave-stone in the cemetery at Arlington calls him 59 years old.
[296] King's Address and Smith's Address. The old home is still standing though removed a few rods back from its original location.
[297] It stood easterly of the present (1911) Town Hall. When the railroad went through, part of the house blocked the way and therefore the whole had to be demolished. The grand old elm that shaded the yard was destroyed in a gale and a smaller one now takes its place.
[298] Statement of F. H. Whittemore. Smith's Address, pages 43, 44.
[299] Cutter's Arlington and Paige's Cambridge.
[300] Deposition of Rachel Cooper.
[301] Smith's Address, page 52.
[302] King's Address, page 14.
[303] Dr. B. Cutter's Statement in Smith's Address, page 47.
[304] Paige's History of Cambridge, page 414.
[305] See Thanksgiving Sermon in the Camp at Roxbury, Nov. 23, 1775, by Rev. Isaac Mansfield, Jr., Chaplain to Gen. Thomas's Regiment. Mr. Mansfield fully believed such plans to have been made and states that his information came so direct that he could not hesitate to accept it but did not feel at liberty to publish the name of his informer.
