passes the guard just in the nick of time to avoid being stopped by an order from the province-house to shut the gates. Once clear of the sentinels, he bends over his horse's neck, digs the spurs into his flanks, and gallops off through the darkness. He has the farthest to ride, but no enemies are in his route. Revere now recollects his signals. If he is fated not to succeed, they, at least, will flash out the alarm. On leaving Warren

he hurries to a friend and asks him to show the lights. He then goes home, puts on his ridingboots and surtout, and, without saying a word of his intentions to his wife, immediately quits the house. Two other friends are hastily summoned, when the three get into Revere's boat, and row with muffled oars swiftly across the river just as the moon is rising.

Revere's friend, be he whom he may, is tried and true. He knows the risk, but does not hesitate. Ten o'clock has struck from the belfries. Soon, high above the twinkling lights of the town, from the steeple of Christ Church the signals shine out strong and clear.2 The watchers at Charlestown see them. Revere leaps on shore, tells the news,

1 Who was this friend? The houor is claimed for Robert Newman, sexton of the North Church, and for Captain John

Pulling, a stanch patriot. Both claims rest upon tradition, but that of Captain Pulling seems the better supported by probability. The display of these signals, being one of the minor incidents of the Revolution, did not then have the celebrity it has since acquired, chiefly through the spirited poem of Mr. Longfellow; nor

did the person showing the signals risk more than imprisonment, since the British general was by no means prepared to inflict a severer penalty in the existing state of affairs. A tradition also exists in the Revere family, that while Paul and his two comrades were on their way to the boat it was suddenly remembered that they had nothing with which to muffle the sound of their oars. One of the two stopped before a certain house at the North End of the town, and made a peculiar signal. An upper window was softly raised, and a hurried colloquy took place in whispers, at the end of which something white fell noiselessly to the ground.

It proved to be a woollen under-garment, still warm from contact with the person of the little rebel.

2 It having been recently questioned whether the signals were really shown from Christ Church or from the Old North, then standing in North Square, the subject has been thoroughly discussed, with the result, we think, of confirming the long-established belief which connects this exploit with the English Church, now commonly called Christ Church, but then familiarly known as the North Church. The object being to display the signals not only where they would be seen at Charlestown, but also be invisible in the vicinity of the church itself, would have been defeated by hanging them in the belfry of the Old North, at a height probably not greater than sixty feet from the ground, and in the immediate vicinity of soldiers' barracks. Moreover, while two claimants appear for the honor of making the signals from Christ Church, not one has, so far as kuown, ever been named in

connection with any other.

darkness and bars his passage. Another approaches. They close in upon him. He reins in his steed, turns quickly about, and dashes off down the road with the pursuers at his heels. One of them plunges into a pit: the other gives over the chase, while Revere, gaining the Medford road, rides on like the wind. He knows every foot of the way, and the moon is now up to light him on.

Revere thinks he will do a stroke of business in Medford. He rouses the captain of the minutemen, and sets the alarm-bells going. Then away over the bridge, with his horse's belly to the ground. Deacon Larkin's nag must prove his mettle this night. Whip and spur! He is ahead of Dawes, though he does not know it; ahead of Smith and Pitcairn, and will keep ahead too, if wind and muscle hold out. Shouting at every house he reaches, startling the affrighted inmates from their slumbers with his wild halloo, this strange herald of danger thunders on through the deserted street of Menotomy, clatters up the bare ledges at its limits, and scuds along the level way into Lexington. At the village green he turns sharply to the right, gets over a quarter of a mile more, and suddenly checks his horse before the old parsonage

house, where the two patriots are quietly in bed, and the guard dozing at the door. Revere dismounts. It is only midnight, and the grenadiers are still shivering where they disembarked. Deacon Larkin's beast has done his twelve miles in an hour.

Revere's arrival puts the guard on the alert. Sergeant Munroe tells him not to make so much noise, he will disturb the household. "Noise!" echoes Revere, "you'll have noise enough before long; the regulars are out!" Hancock puts his head out of a window and bids Revere come in. He is then admitted, and delivers his tidings to those they concern. Dawes has not yet come, but in the course of half an hour he too rides up to the door. The two messengers hastily swallow a few mouthfuls, and, as time presses, again take to the road. Adams does not believe Gage would send an army merely to take two men prisoners, and so Revere and Dawes are hurried away to Concord, to secure the stores there.

Before Revere left Charlestown, Richard Devens, of the Committee of Safety, told him of the British officers who had been seen going towards Lexington on the previous evening. Revere is on the lookout for them. The two messengers are soon joined by young Dr. Samuel Prescott of Concord, who rides on with them, while messengers are rousing the Lexington minute-men, and scouting the road below in order to give timely notice of the approach of the king's troops. The meetinghouse bell strikes heavily in as the horsemen ride away out of town.

When Revere, Dawes, and Prescott are near the Brooks Tavern, half-way to Concord, they ride plump into the picket of officers. Revere tries to Revere tries to escape across the fields, but is stopped. Prescott leaps his horse over a stone-wall, gets clear, and gallops for Concord. Revere is interrogated with

a pistol at his head, accompanied by the threat to scatter his brains in the road if he does not give true answers. He boldly avows his errand, and adds that the country is up in arms. Another prisoner tells his captors they are as good as dead

men.

It is the officers who are now uneasy. One of the rebel conriers has escaped. Concord will be alarmed: so their general's object is defeated. They hear the meeting-house bell in Lexington. Where are the troops? Looking now to their own safety, they ride back towards Lexington, and when near the village order Revere to dismount, cut the saddle girths of the prisoners'1 horses, and gallop off towards Menotomy. Revere runs through the old burying-ground, across pastures, back to Clark's. By this time it is two o'clock in the morning.

At or near two in the morning one hundred minute-men were assembled in arms on Lexington Green. Captain John Parker ordered them to load with ball, and after keeping them.some time under arms, as the scouts who had gone out came back without any news of the troops, and the morning was chilly, he dismissed them with the caution to be ready at the tap of the drum. Some went to the tavern at the angle of the Boston and Bedford roads,- just over the way, some into neighboring houses; and some to their homes. There may have been perplexity in accounting for the non-appearance of the regulars, but Revere's story

and he was in the tavern to tell it was conclusive as to the intended route of the British march. No one could know that at that late hour it had only begun. When it did begin, the alarm had been given in Concord, and a force collected on Lexington Green to oppose it.

1 The three Lexington men taken the previous evening. They had been searched, questioned, and “greatly abused,” as they say.

junction of the Woburn road, half a mile from Lexington Green. In the angle formed by these roads was a low eminence, since levelled. On the left of the Boston road was William Munroe's tavern. At the village the single road divided into two, one to Concord on the left, one to Bedford on the right, enclosing a triangular plot of grass-ground between. Near the apex of the triangle, which pointed towards Boston, stood the village meeting-house. Nearly opposite was Buckman's tavern, where Parker's men had just obeyed the signal to fall in. On the north or farther side of the green were two dwellings and a smith's shop.1

The British light-infantry is near enough to hear distinctly the drum; is halted and ordered to load; then to advance. When within seventy yards the leading platoons plainly see the Americans facing them. A few laggards are straggling towards the company on the green, a few poltroons straggling away from it. The sun is just rising clear and brilliant,the sun of the Revolution. Pitcairn and two other mounted officers push their horses towards the Americans, when the whole column of redcoats, breaking into a run, rushes forward upon the devoted little band, huzzahing like madmen. Pitcairn, brandishing his sabre aloft, vociferates, "Disperse, rebels! Down with your arms, villains! Disperse!"

The sight of this host bearing down upon them might well cause the hearts of the minute-men to beat faster. There was a moment's wavering, but they did not obey the haughty command. Parker sees that resistance is madness, and gives the order to disperse without firing. His men sullenly obey; but while in the act one of the royal officers. Heaven knows whom!-fires his pistol.2 In

In

1 This first and most interesting of American battle-fields fortunately retains its ancient features with so little change that the visitor sees not only the village green, but the same houses with the bullet-holes made on the 19th of April, 1775. Munroe's tavern, Buckman's, the parsonage, with one of the houses, and the smithy on the north of the common, were all standing when the writer visited the spot.

The writer is of opinion that this officer was not Major Pitcairn, but one of the other mounted officers. Several of the minute-men stated on oath that Colonel Smith fired the pistol, but as Smith was not on the ground during the firing their testimony shows them to be ignorant of the persons of the royal officers. Smith was a very fat man, and much of this day's disaster is attributed to his unwieldiness. Pitcairn was not a brutal, blood-thirsty wretch, as some sensational writers delight to represent him, but the reverse. The testimony to this fact, from Americans as well as Englishmen, is convincing. Revere heard and saw the shot, but was probably unable to tell who

stantly two or three shots are heard, then the fatal. command, "Fire!" followed by a rattling volley from the British vanguard, stretched three of the minute-men dead upon the green. The remainder ran for shelter to the stone-walls behind them, from which they returned the fire. A soldier of the 10th was wounded; Pitcairn's horse struck. Excited by this resistance, the regular troops pursued and drove those brave fellows from their hiding-places, with the loss of five more, making the whole number of slain eight. Having thus effectually dispersed the provincials, the lightinfantry were re-formed on the green and celebrated their victory with repeated cheers. The soldiers were so wild that their officers could hardly make them hear any orders, causing a long delay, during which Colonel Smith came up with the grenadiers.

Edward Gibbon, member of parliament during the American War, said, "A single drop of blood fired it, though he knew Major Pitcairn perfectly well. In the excitement and confusion which followed the rush of the British infantry, it is not strange that there were few accurate observers. The English authorities concur in saying that the Americans fired first. The Americans, on the contrary, as positively assert that it was the regular troops. With such flat contradiction before him, it is difficult for a fair-minded historian to decide the question. The different accounts, English and American, have become so firmly rooted in the historical literature of both countries, that the writers of either nation will probably continue to affirm what they find such good authority for maintaining. It is puerile to brand the British accounts as unworthy of belief, though we may prefer to believe our own. Pitcairn reports to Smith, Smith to Gage, Gage to the ministry, that the Americaus fired first. Here, it is true, is but one authority, Pitcairn; but all subordinate officers who were with the light-infantry say the same thing. On the other hand, thirty-four members of Parker's company unite in swearing, “Not a gun was fired by any person fired on us." Fourteen others say, "The regulars fired on the in our company on the regulars, to our knowledge, before they

company before a gun was fired by any of our company on them.". Timothy Smith, a spectator, saw the regular troops fire on the Lexington company before the latter fired a gun.” William Draper swears the regulars "fired before any of Captain Parker's company fired." The object of all these depositions was to show who fired first, not whether the Americans fired at all, that fact was indisputable. It is quite probable that the pistol-shot, which so many concur in saying was the first, was fired in the air to intimidate the Americans, or by accident, and was taken by the royal troops to be a signal to commence firing. It is incredible that the small band of provincials should have the hardihood to fire upon four times their own number when expressly ordered not to do so. The whole affair on the green occupied but a few moments, moments of great excitement and disorder. Pitcairn's intention was probably to disarm and disperse the provincials without bloodshed; but such a purpose, however humane, demanded a coolness in himself, an absolute control over his own soldiers, which he certainly did not possess. It is undeniable that Pitcairn tried to stop the firing after it began, and that both he and Smith deeply regretted it. Trifling circumstances on this day were stronger than men.

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