ces to receive a parting blessing from their minister, or to
take leave of weeping friends; but in all the roads leading to Concord,
they were hurrying to the scene of action. They carried the firelock
that had fought the Indian, and the drum that beat at Louisburg; and
they were led by men who had served under Wolfe at Quebec. As they drew
near the places of bloodshed and massacre they learned that in both
cases the regulars had been the aggressors--"had fired the first"--and
they were deeply touched by the slaughter of their brethren. Now the
British had fairly passed the Rubicon. If any still counselled
forbearance, moderation, peace, the words were thrown away. The
assembling bands felt that the hour had come in which to hurl back the
insulting charges on their courage that had been repeated for years, and
to make good the solemn words of their public bodies. And they
determined to attack on their return the invaders of their native soil.

Colonel Smith, about twelve o'clock, commenced his march for Boston. His
left was covered by a strong flank-guard that kept the height of land
that borders the Lexington road, leading to Merriam's Corner; his right
was protected by a brook; the main body marched in the road. The British
soon saw how thoroughly the country had been alarmed. It seemed, one of
them writes, that "men had dropped from the clouds," so full were the
hills and roads of the minute-men. The Provincials left the high grounds
near the North bridge and went across the pastures known as "the Great
Fields," to Bedford road. Here the Reading minute-men, under Major
Brooks, afterward Governor Brooks, joined them; and a few minutes after,
Colonel William Thompson, with a body of militia from Billerica and
vicinity, came up. It is certain, from the diaries and petitions of this
period, that minute-men from other towns also came up in season to fire
upon the British while leaving Concord.

The Reverend Foster, who was with the Reading company, relates the
beginning of the afternoon contest in the following manner: "A little
before we came to Merriam's hill we discovered the enemy's flank-guard,
of about eighty or one hundred men, who, on their retreat from Concord,
kept that height of land, the main body in the road. The British troops
and the Americans at that time were equally distant from Merriam's
Corner. About twenty rods short of that place the Americans made a halt.
The British marched down the hill, with very