upon their door, and the wild
cry, "The regulars are coming!" the heroic patriots were routed from
their beds.

At Lexington Mrs. Harrington, a brave and trusty heroine, heard the
midnight cry, and she sprang from her bed, ran to the chamber door, and
shouted to her son, who was a minute-man, "John, get up! The regulars
are coming!"

By the time day-light began to dawn, the minute-men were in arms, and
the whole region round about was fired with the courage and enthusiasm
of men resolved to be free or die. When the British troops reached
Lexington at five o'clock on the morning of April 19, they found a
hundred minute-men drawn up in battle array. Major Pitcairn rode up
to them, and shouted:

"Disperse, you rebels! Throw down your arms and disperse!"

His order was followed by a volley of musketry right into the faces of
the Lexington soldiers, killing four and wounding several others. The
minute-men dispersed, and the British troops hurried on to Concord. Here
they met with an unexpectedly hot reception by several hundred
minute-men, who had come through the darkness to defend their supplies
and the town. Every hour their number increased by the accession of
heroes, who came from even twenty miles away to meet the foe.

The British commander was forced to order a retreat, in which his army
suffered even more than it did in the battle. The minute-men, from
behind trees, houses, barns, and stone walls, picked off the red-coats,
so that when the invaders reached Lexington, on their retreat, they were
exhausted, depleted, and disheartened. But for the arrival of
reinforcements under Lord Percy, the Yankees would have killed or
captured Colonel Smith and all his force.

Notwithstanding Colonel Smith was reinforced by "sixteen companies of
foot, a corps of marines, and two pieces of artillery," the retreat was
continued. All the way from Lexington to Boston, minute-men, who lived
remote from the route, and heard the startling news too late to hurry to
Concord, annoyed the retreating army by pouring the contents of their
muskets into their ranks from covert places where they concealed
themselves for bloody work. When the British reached Charlestown, they
had sustained a loss of sixty-five killed, one hundred and eighty
wounded, and twenty-eight prisoners. The Americans lost fifty killed and
thirty-four wounded.

That was the opening of the Revolutionary War, in which independence was
achieved. On that nineteenth day