cution. A general discharge
followed, with fatal results. A few of the militia who had been wounded,
or who saw others killed or wounded by their side, no longer hesitated,
but returned the fire of the regulars. Jonas Parker, John Monroe, and
Ebenezer Monroe, Jr., and others, fired before leaving the line; Solomon
Brown and James Brown fired from behind a stone wall; one other person
fired from the back door of Buckman's house; Nathan Monroe, Lieutenant
Benjamin Tidd and others retreated a short distance and fired. Meantime
the regulars continued their fire as long as the militia remained in
sight, killing eight and wounding ten. Jonas Parker, who repeatedly said
he never would run from the British, was wounded at the second fire, but
he still discharged his gun, and was killed by a bayonet. "A truer heart
did not bleed at Thermopylae."

Isaac Muzzy, Jonathan Harrington, and Robert Monroe were also killed on
or near the place where the line was formed. "Harrington's was a cruel
fate. He fell in front of his own house, on the north of the Common. His
wife at the window saw him fall and then start up, the blood gushing
from his breast. He stretched out his hands toward her as if for
assistance, and fell again. Rising once more on his hands and knees, he
crawled across the road toward his dwelling. She ran to meet him at the
door, but it was to see him expire at her feet."

Monroe was the standard-bearer of his company at the capture of
Louisburg. Caleb Harrington was killed as he was running from the
meeting-house after replenishing his stock of powder; Samuel Hadley and
John Brown, after they had left the Common; Asahel Porter, of Woburn,
who had been taken prisoner by the British as he was endeavoring to
effect his escape.

The British suffered but little; a private of the Tenth regiment and
probably one other were wounded, and Major Pitcairn's horse was struck.
Some of the Provincials retreated up the road leading to Bedford, but
most of them across a swamp to a rising ground north of the Common. The
British troops formed on the Common, fired a volley, and gave three
huzzas in token of victory. Colonel Smith, with the remainder of the
troops, soon joined Major Pitcairn, and the whole detachment marched
toward Concord, about six miles distant, which it reached without
further interruption. After it left Lexington six of the regulars were
taken prisoners.

Concord was described in 1775, by Ensign Berniere, as follows