Brave deeds of revolutionary soldiers

Contents

I. The Hornet's Nest

The Story of a Game Boy at Lexington

II. Prescott of Peperell

Chapter I

Jedediah Munroe lived in stirring times. It is hard, in these days of peace, to understand how exciting they were. The post-season series for the baseball championship, the last football games in the fall, a presidential election, or a strike in the steel mills, are mild affairs compared with what was going on when Jedediah Munroe was a young man. For a long time George III, king of England, had been bullying his ministers and Parliament into passing laws for the government of his subjects in America which the Americans refused to obey, because they were unjust laws, and because the Americans had not been given any voice in their making. George III, being a stubborn and rather stupid king, had stormed and threatened, and sent soldiers to Boston to frighten the Americans into obeying his laws. Already there had been some ugly consequences. Citizens of Boston had destroyed stamps King George had sent over as a trick to make them pay him money ; had burned in effigy an officer appointed by the crown to collect the stamp tax ; had thrown into Boston harbor cargoes of taxed tea ; had stood firmly defiant against all his devices. One night some years before British soldiers in Boston had fired into a crowd that was baiting them with snowballs and sticks, killing several. Now it was beginning to look like war ; there seemed to be no other way out of the difficulty.

Imagine the situation. A few colonies scattered up and down the Atlantic coast of America were actually thinking of going to war against the terrible power of England, the mother country. They were not only ready to do so ; they were impatiently waiting for King George to start the trouble. You know how you used to feel when some bigger boy bullied you ; stole your marbles ; ran off with your hat ; broke up your game of ball. You wanted to do something to him that would hurt. You made plans all day long for getting even with him, and lay awake at night thinking about it. That is the way the Americans felt toward their king. They were ready to fight to the death for what they believed to be their rights.

Every little town and hamlet throughout Massachusetts, and neighboring provinces as well, had its band of militia that met each night on the village green for drill under the instruction of some veteran who had fought against the French, twenty odd years before. They were learning how to march and wheel and form and fire their old muskets.

" Minutemen," they were called ; they were ready to turn out and fight at a minute's notice. Signals were arranged for calling them together hastily ; the firing of muskets, the beating of drums, the tolling of bells. The countryside was a vast nest of hornets needing only a little stirring to bring them out, buzzing and stinging.

You can guess that Jedediah Munroe was properly excited over it all. He was one of the minutemen of Lexington, Massachusetts, and was continually in the thick of the talk. Every traveler that put up at his father's tavern on the Medford road brought late news ; and there was never a night, excepting Sunday, or scarcely an hour in the day, when a group was not around the tap-room fire, or lolling around the front door in chairs, discussing the affairs between the colonies and the mother country.

Coming in from drill on an April evening, in the year 1775, with half a dozen comrades, Jedediah Munroe found two strangers holding forth in the tap-room to a group of eager citizens. The young men pressed forward ; any man was likely to bring big news.

" It's to be war," one of them was saying. "There is no longer any doubt that the British mean to bring about a clash of arms, and that King George intends to grind us under a heel of iron. It is now only a question of how and when and where they will strike."

** Let them strike I " cried Jedediah, thumping the lo REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS

floor with the butt of his musket. " They shall find us ready for them."

"Aye, ready enough, I doubt not, young man," returned the other stranger, glancing toward the lad. " But be not too hot for it. It is a weighty matter to take up arms against your king; and we are likely not only to offend God by it, but to bring ourselves to a much worse pass. For what good can we hope to bring out of arousing the king's wrath against us ? His armies would swarm over our lands ; they would sweep us into the sea, and destroy us."

A dozen voices clamored down the one who had spoken.

" Let him try 1 " cried one. " He shall find what work he has on his hands."

" You had better pack off to your friend the king before the ball begins, then," sneered another.

" If he does as you say, it will be because there will be not a man, woman or child left alive in the land ! " exclaimed a third.

" Except such as yourself," a fourth amended.

" Even so ! " exclaimed Jedediah. " 'Twould be better to die at once like men than to be slaves to a tyrant, say I ! "

" Aye, aye ; well said ! " shouted a dozen voices.

" Very well," returned the man who had aroused the storm. " Ye will find me as staunch as the best man. I merely preach caution ; but if the die be cast, I commit myself to it."

THE HORNET'S NEST ii

The speech restored him to a measure of favor with his listeners.

"Why say you that it means war, stranger?" asked Innkeeper Munroe, addressing the first of his guests, taking advantage of a lull to distract attention from the other's embarrassment. " What news do you bring ? "

" The redcoats in Boston are stirring about each day," the man replied. " They march up and down the town, fully accoutred, to the beat of drums. There is much running to and fro of messengers from General Gage to his officers, and an air of secret expectancy about it all that the patriots of the town take for a sign that something is soon to take place."

" Yesterday they were out over Charlestown Neck, two companies of them," the other stranger went on. " Last week a column passed through Somerville, and was hooted by the boys."

" The lobsters are likely to get more than hoots if they come this way," boasted one of the younger militiamen. The British soldiers were called *' lobsters " because of their red coats.

" Not so, lad," reproved Jedediah's father. " We are not to lift a hand against them until they strike the first blow, that you well know."

" And didn't they strike the first blow when they shot down our citizens in Boston?" rejoined the youth.

" Aye, but the time was not then ripe."

" These marching soldiers ; for what did they go out?" asked John Parker, captain of the Lexington militia.

" Why, so that our people might get used to seeing the red-backs about their streets, and so think little of it when they set out about the errand they contemplate."

" What errand is that ? " demanded two or three.

" Why," said the traveler, " I had not thought to alarm you with the rumors that are floating about Boston, for they may be but idle ; but 'tis said they mean to come this way to lay hands on Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who have been stopping with your minister, Jonas Clark, since Congress adjourned at Cambridge three days ago. King George, it is shrewdly whispered, has ordered them sent to London to be put in the Tower and wait for their trial for treason."

The announcement started a hubbub of excitement, in which nothing could be distinctly heard above the hum of angry voices. Several of the younger militiamen rattled the stocks of their guns against the floor.

" A5'^e, and while they are about it they are likely to go on to Concord to seize the stores we have been gathering there," the other traveler added.

" Not while there are men and muskets in Lexington will they pass this way 1 " cried Jedediah.

'* Why didn't they lay hands on Adams and Hancock when they were in Boston ? " demanded one of the young men.

" Aye ; and on Dr. Warren, too, when he spoke in old South Meeting-House on the anniversary of the Boston massacre I "

" Because they were afraid, that is why 1 " jeered Jedediah.

The elder men let the boasts of the young pass by them. They were more concerned with the import of the news that they had listened to. " What reason have you for thinking that they are coming this way?" asked Mr. Munroe.

" Reason enough, in a way," replied his guest. "John Knox, and Paul Revere, and the others who make it their business to watch what goes on in the city have seen many signs that lead them to expect such a move. They do not let a moment pass without watchfulness ; and if you are roused out of your beds some fair night soon by a clatter of hoofs and a shouting you may know that it is Paul Revere come himself to give you warning of what I am telling you."

" It is quite true," said Captain Parker. " I have been told to be prepared. I think we are ready for them," he added, quietly.

" For the whole British army," said the youths.

" So you had better go home and into your beds, lads," Captain Parker went on. " For who knows that it may not be this very night that we shall be called on to strike the first blow for liberty."

At that many brave cries of liberty went up from the party, and a shouting enthusiasm for the promised event. Presently the elders began to scatter to their homes, leaving the young men to ply the two strangers with further questions, and buzz over what they had been told.

It was well into the night when Jedediah left the few stragglers that still remained in the tap-room, and took himself ofi to his bed. Big dreams of the things he would do in the war that was about to break filled his mind, until tardy sleep overtook him.

Gradually, as he lay sleeping, a sense of disturbance crept over his consciousness. He was vaguely aware of a confusion of excited voices in the rooms beneath. Men were talking in short, sharp, unfinished sentences.

He lay listening for some moments, trying to remember where he was ; trying to make out distinctly what was going on. Suddenly definite words struck on his ear. " The regulars are coming," he heard some one say.

The regulars are coming 1 He knew what that meant. He was awake in an instant, and scrambling into his clothes. Five minutes later he was in the tap-room.

A man whom he had never seen before was leaving by another door as Jedediah entered. His father and one or two others were following the stranger from the room, firing questions at him, scarcely waiting for answers. " When did they leave ? " "Which way are they coming?" he heard. Jedediah could not catch the replies.

"What is it, father?" asked the boy, when Mr. Munroe returned to the room alone. The others had gone to spread the news.

" The British 1 They are coming ! They crossed the Charles River at ten o'clock last night and took up their march this way."

" How do you know ? Who told you ? "

" The word has just come from Boston. Hurry I Get your gun, lad. They are like to be here within the hour ! " Jedediah looked at the clock ; it was past two in the morning.

"Who was here, father?" demanded the boy with rising excitement.

" Revere ; Paul Revere ! Come, make haste ! "

Jedediah needed no urging. Running up-stairs, he snatched up musket, powder-horn, and bullet pouch, dashed down again, and into the road running toward the green. Already the bell in the meeting-house was beginning to ring. Its snarling notes sent a shiver up and down the boy's back.

A shot rang out on the air. The reverberations had hardly died when it was followed by another, at a distance, and another, one after the other, until they faded out in the distance of the night. It was the signal ; the alarm of the minutemen.

Hurrying down the road through the dark, Jedediah made his way to Lexington green. Already others had gathered there, and stood in a shadowy group. Each had his musket ; some were loading, some were priming, some were adjusting the flints in their locks. All were preparing to dispute the way with the British.

They were in lively, excited talk when Jedediah joined them, speculating on the probable number of the foe, wondering when they would arrive, discussing rumors that had already sprung up among them, like morning mists from the grass.

"What time is it?" some one asked.

"Two o'clock," another answered.

" They crossed the river at ten. It is twelve miles to Boston. They should be here soon."

" We have sent messengers down the road to look for them," said Captain Parker. "We shall hear presently, without doubt. Remember, you are not to fire until you are fired upon. The redcoats must strike the first blow I "

The group grew. Men and boys came running from all directions, fastening their clothes, dragging their muskets, their powder-horns and bullet pouches rattling at their waists. There was a great clamor of excited talk. The young men were especially noisy, and boastful. It was a striking scene. There were no lights save a patch or two thrown from some window ; they moved about in shadow, like ominous ghosts.

A clatter of hoofs on the Boston road, and a messenger rode up. "They must have turned off the road," he announced. " I can't find them anywhere. Nary a trace ; hide nor hair ; hoof nor head."

Captain Parker took counsel with some of the older heads. " Go back to your homes, boys," he said, at last. " No use waiting here. We'll keep a watch out. If they come we'll sound the alarm again. Sleep with your muskets handy."

Jedediah returned reluctantly to the tavern and flung himself down on a bench in the tap-room. He was too stirred up to sleep, but lay listening to the talk of three or four who had gathered there to discuss the situation. One ear he held pricked for the first sound of the alarm.

It came at last, — the roll of a drum from the village green. He sprang up and started down the road once more, prickling with excitement.

It was half-past four. A faint hint of coming day lay along the eastern horizon. And such a day it would prove, both for him and humanity ! He seemed to feel some premonition as he ran along the road ; a sense of exultant sadness ; a tincture, perhaps, of the joy a martyr feels when he is about to die that something dearer to him than life may live.

Half-past four, and the village green was filling up again with minutemen. Farmers they were, for the most part, and farmers' lads. Lexington was a mere hamlet ; a crossroads. Most of the houses in the village itself were farmhouses, with their fields behind them.

Jedediah had scarcely joined the band, and was sitting against a stone wall, panting to regain his breath, when a horseman rode up trembling with excitement. "They're coming!" he cried. "The regulars are coming ! They're not half a mile down the road 1 "

"Let them come," said more than one of the farmers. "We have a welcome for them."

" Adams and Hancock ; where are they ? " asked Jedediah, thinking of the errand of the British troops.

" Gone to Woburn long ago," the other replied. " Revere stopped to give them warning before he raised the town."

" Hancock was all for coming over to lead the militia against the lobster-backs, but the others would have none of it, telling him he was too important a man in these big times to run the risk of being shot down or taken ofi to the tower."

" Aye, and right they were ; right they were," commented another.

" Hush ! Here they come ! "

The day had lightened imperceptibly as they talked and waited. Now, by its faint dusk, they could see a deep rank of red-coated soldiers swinging up the Boston road, behind the meeting-house. It was not strange that the one who had first seen them had cried out : " Hush 1 " They were an imposing sight, an awesome sight, coming through the gloom of the April morning. They were enough to cast an awed silence upon a tiny group of farmers and their boys, swinging down upon them in quick, smooth, even step, their arms gleaming, their uniforms spick and span. They looked like a great, threatening machine.

But it was not sight enough to do more than awe them ; not enough to frighten them ; they did not stir from their places.

" Form in line ! " said Captain Parker, quietly. ** Do not fire unless they fire," he repeated, adding, " And if any man runs I will shoot him down like a dog 1 " No one minded his saying that, for no one intended to run.

"Whacky, but there are a lot of them!" exclaimed Jedediah, staring at the advancing column. Rank after rank was wheeling into sight along the road.

An officer rode in front ; it was Major Pitcairn. The men of Lexington heard him give an order, and saw the column divide, part of it coming on along the road, and part swinging in behind the meeting-house. With steady step they came on and on, meeting again on the green, and spreading into a long line. The thirty or forty militiamen, straggling in a thin rank along the edge of the green confronting the splendid soldiery of England, would have made a comic sight, if it had not been one of the most dramatic the world had ever seen.

Major Pitcairn rode forward. " Disperse, curse ye I Why don't ye disperse, ye rebels?" he shouted.

Silence along the thin, grim rank of farmers.

The British officer turned to his troops. " Fire ! " he cried.

They would not fire. It was no little thing to shoot down men in cold blood, especially when those men were brothers against whom they had no war. The call of race was strong ; these farmers, in the eyes of the British soldiers, were Englishmen.

The man on the horse stiffened in his saddle ; his eyes flashed. " Fire ! " he cried again. He pulled his pistols from their holsters, took a snap aim at the farmers, twenty paces away from him on the edge of the green, and pulled triggers. Two tiny spouts of flame leaped from the pistols' muzzles ; two little flashes of fire that were destined to start a mighty conflagration whose flames would weld thirteen straggling colonies into a mighty nation.

The sound of the pistol shots was still in the air when a sputtering fire ran along the ranks of the British soldiers, followed by a solid volley. At the discharge of the first gun Jedediah Munroe glanced swiftly from side to side among his fellows to see what harm had been done. He was watching one of his comrades, who had been hit, writhing on the ground, and wondering pitifully at the sight of a well man stricken down, when a hot flash of pain ran through his shoulder. He was staggered under the impact of a blow that had been so quick and abrupt that he had been scarcely aware of it. The next instant he was on his knees, staring at the ground, steadying his brain.

A shot rang out close to his ear. Another, and another. His companions were returning the fire. The noise drove home a consciousness of what it all meant. Struggling to his feet, he picked up his musket, which had fallen, leveled it, and pulled the trigger.

There was no response from the gun. The powder had been spilled from the firing-pan. With steady hand and cool head he poured out some more, adjusted the flint in the lock, took steady aim, and fired. He did not feel the jump of the musket butt against his cheek ; he did not feel the great burning hurt that ran through and through his shoulder. He only knew that the redcoats had fired upon the Americans, and that the time had come when patriots might fight for what they held dear.

The fire back and forth was brisk. In the midst of the rattle the boy heard the voice of Captain John Parker, calm and firm. " Disperse," he ordered. " There is no use in sacrificing ourselves ; they are too many for us."

Men at Jedediah's side began to fall back ; the ranks were dissolving. Stopping for one last shot, Jedediah backed away from the foe, reluctantly, shouting defiance. He saw a dozen of his friends and comrades lying on the ground where the minutemen had stood as he backed away. His heart burned with rage and hate against their slayers. One or two of the British had sunk to the ground ; he rejoiced in that, and wondered whether his bullets had found a mark.

The redcoats came on with a rush when the American ranks broke. Jedediah turned and ran for a stone wall fifty yards from the green. He ran because he wanted to keep out of the enemy's hands, so that he might fight again. There was no thought of fear in his action.

Glancing over his shoulder as he crossed the field near the stone wall, he saw some one kneeling on the green leveling his musket at the British. Between the man's knees was a hat filled with cartridges. It was Jonas Parker. Jonas had sworn that he would never run from the regulars, and was making good his boast. Even as jedediah looked two infantrymen ran up to the kneeling man and plunged their bayonets into him, thrusting him savagely to the ground, where he kicked and lay still. In his heart Jedediah wished that he were Jonas Parker ; but his own time was fast approaching.

When the half-back on your team, bowled* over in a scrimmage, picks himself up from the dirt and staggers into his place behind the line, you know how it makes you feel. You know how your heart gets big under your overcoaty and something clutches you at the throat to see him go back into the game, at the risk of another hurt, for the honor and glory of his school. How much more would you feel if your comrade arose bleeding from a bullet blow that had laid him in the dust, and returned to a fray where death lurked in every noisy instant !

That is what Jedediah Munroe did. He had scarcely gained the shelter of the stone wall when weakness seized him, and he sank to the ground. The bullet wound was a growing hurt. It throbbed and burned ;

a hot lameness spread through his shoulder and neck, and down his arm. He grew sick and faint with the suffering.

He sat on the ground, leaning against the wall, gasping, sobbing. Now and then a bullet would spat against the stones, or whistle above him. He gritted his teeth and set his will to conquer the sickness that assailed him. The hand that he unconsciously pressed against the bullet hole came away sopping with blood. For a moment he stared at it. Then he tore off his neckerchief, made a wad of it, pressed it against the wound, and bound it there as well as he could, using the cord of his powder-flask. The flask he put into his pocket.

He had barely finished doing this when he saw two British soldiers vault over the wall a hundred feet away, and look about them. Catching sight of him, they raised their guns and fired. One bullet kicked up the dust a foot from the boy's knee ; the other sent his hat spinning in the air. Without waiting to pick it up Jedediah started to his feet and ran along the wall away from the soldiers, crouching low to avoid exposing his head to the redcoats still in the green, of whom he caught glimpses between the top stones as he ran.

Finding that the others did not follow, Jedediah crept around the corner of an outhouse, which he entered by the back door. He crawled into a stall to wait. For ten minutes he lay there before he ventured to look out again. When he thrust his head around the edge of the building he saw the first files of the British marching off the green in the direction of Concord, and saw another column approaching from the Boston road.

It seemed to him, looking at them, that the entire British army had come that way. He had never seen so many soldiers at once in his whole life. Their dust could be seen away down the Boston road. He watched them in fascinated admiration, forgetting his wound for a moment, and his hate.

The second column, which was Colonel Smith's command, and the main body of the force, halted for a short time on the green while Smith and Pitcairn refreshed themselves at Buckman's tavern, and then followed the advance into the Concord road. They had not passed out of sight when Jedediah Munroe, picking up his musket, went skirting through the field on their flanks. Such a matter as a bullet wound, more or less, was not going to keep him out of the fight. He had a score to pay, he had ; a long score, partly his own, and partly that of his countrymen, who had suffered enough from a British tyrant.

His wound hurt him ; he could not make good time. Now and then he was obliged to stop and rest. The rumble of the column moving along the Concord road grew fainter and fainter. But Jedediah did not care. They must come back that way, those redcoats, and he would have one good shot at them, — if he lived long enough. His wound was hurting him bitterly.

He was suddenly aware that two men were walking beside him ; that he was talking with them. They were two of the militiamen. He remembered then that they had been in the outhouse where he had hid ; that they had come away with him, and been with him since he started. He had been too excited to notice them particularly. They were urging him to go home ; to leave the rest to others. They made him angry. He told them to tend to their own affairs ; that he was going to kill some of those redcoats if it did cost him his life. He wasn't very agreeable about it, but they were rather pleased with his spirit, nevertheless.

As the three trudged along they fell in with others following the British. Some of them had been on the green earlier. Some of them had just come up from farms close by. Some of them lived over Woburn way. Three lads had come all the way from Woburn, having been alarmed by a messenger sent out by Captain Parker when Revere brought the first word to Lexington.

Mile by mile the number grew. The little group that had begun with three was no longer a distinct party. A straggling procession of grim farmers and their lads dotted the long road. Each moment the number was increased. And always the newcomers had arrived from greater and greater distances. The hornets were beginning to buzz. The hive had been stirred.

It was broad morning now. The sun shone warm from a clear sky ; unusually warm, for April. Birds were singing in the trees ; cattle looked up from their browsing in pastures to stare stupidly at the rout of men streaming along the road, usually so quiet. They did not know what to make of it, apparently. Already they had been sufficiently astonished to see more men than an average cow had ever dreamed of go walking by in red coats. Now the roads were filled again with men. Undoubtedly the cows wondered that the world contained so many men.

Jedediah Munroe could not keep up. The stream of men, hastening toward Concord in the wake of the British, brushed past him. More and more often he was obliged to sit down by the side of the road. His wound hurt him bitterly ; his whole shoulder was afire with the pain of it. The bandage kept slipping ; he made it the excuse for resting.