slow but steady step,
without music, or a word being spoken that could be heard. Silence
reigned on both sides. As soon as the British had gained the main road,
and passed a small bridge near that corner, they faced about suddenly
and fired a volley of musketry upon us. They overshot; and no one, to my
knowledge, was injured by the fire. The fire was immediately returned by
the Americans, and two British soldiers fell dead, at a little distance
from each other, in the road, near the brook."

The battle now began in earnest, and as the British troops retreated a
severe fire was poured in upon them from every favorable position. Near
Hardy's hill, the Sudbury company, led by Captain Nathaniel Cudworth,
attacked them, and there was a severe skirmish below Brooks' Tavern on
the old road north of the school-house. The woods lined both sides of
the road which the British had to pass, and it was filled with the
minute-men. "The enemy," says Mr. Foster, "was now completely between
two fires, renewed and briskly kept up. They ordered out a flank-guard
on the left to dislodge the Americans from their posts behind large
trees, but they only became a better mark to be shot at." A short and
sharp battle ensued. And for three or four miles along these woody
defiles the British suffered terribly. Woburn had "turned out
extraordinary"; it sent out a force one hundred eighty strong, "well
armed and resolved in defence of the common cause." Major Loammi
Baldwin, afterward Colonel Baldwin, was with this body. At Tanner brook,
at Lincoln bridge, they concluded to scatter, make use of the trees and
walls as defences, and thus attack the British. And in this way they
kept on pursuing and flanking them. In Lincoln, also, Captain Parker's
brave Lexington company again appeared in the field, and did efficient
service. "The enemy," says Colonel Baldwin, "marched very fast, and left
many dead and wounded and a few tired." Eight were buried in Lincoln
graveyard. It was at this time that Captain Jonathan Wilson, of Bedford,
Nathaniel Wyman, of Billerica, and Daniel Thompson, of Woburn, were
killed.

In Lexington, at Fiske's hill, an officer on a fine horse, with a drawn
sword in his hand, was actively engaged in directing the troops, when a
number of the pursuers, from behind a pile of rails, fired at him with
effect. The officer fell, and the horse, in affright, leaped the wall,
and ran toward those who had fired. It was here that Lieutenant-Col