led to have the slightest inkling of what was so
near at hand.

While we had been making simple plans for the future, loitering in
Boston when we might have been of service elsewhere, our people were
being shot down by the lobster backs, and as these thoughts came into my
mind I felt as if I had committed some grievous sin in laying up against
Samuel Hadley the charge of being inhospitable, for he was among the
first to yield his life in behalf of the Cause.

Doctor Warren was there, and also my father, while most like the old
woman's son, Hiram Griffin, helped to do that which proclaimed to the
king our readiness to give our lives rather than submit to injustice. As
I counted over those whom I knew and guessed had taken part in that
battle, it seemed to me as if of all who would serve the Cause, our
Minute Boys were the only ones absent.

It is needless for me to set down all the unavailing words of regret
which were spoken among us that night after having heard the news, for
it can readily be fancied how we reproached ourselves, and how bitter
was our disappointment. In our shortsightedness and inability to realize
that the work at Lexington and Concord was but the beginning of the
struggle against the king, we failed to understand that we would again
and again have ample opportunity of showing what it might be possible
for us lads of Boston to do.

What at this day seems to me strangest, was that in our grief and
vexation we failed to make any plans for future work. It was as if we
had come to believe that the butchery at Lexington ended it all, and we
Minute Boys would no longer be needed.

Perhaps our dullness may be accounted for by the fact that there was so
much of excitement on this night and the next day, that we hardly had
time to think of ourselves. Those yet remaining in Boston, who were
devoted to the Cause, gathered here and there to talk over what at the
same time brought us sorrow and rejoicing--sorrow that so many of our
people had been slaughtered, and rejoicing that the struggle against
British misrule had finally begun.

The Tories made a big show of themselves, taking good care to appear in
public and boast that this first lesson was but the beginning of a
series which the king would teach us. They talked so loudly and gave
themselves so wholly over to rejoicing that one would have believed a
great victory had been won, whereas, as a matter of fact, our people,
all unused to the art of war a