. Old Concord. was filled withthe alarm companies from Reading and British rear-guard halted, turned, and fired ontheir pursuers. The Americans responded so ac-curately that the regulars fled again. When Igot there, says Barrett, a great many lay dead,and the road was bloody. Another mile, and the British were out of Concordterritory; but in that mile they got their taste ofthat which was to come. From wall and thicket,from hill-top and wood, bullets came from unseenmarksmen. Here and there were flitting figures;but no regiment stopped the road, nor did anyvisible body of troops
. Old Concord. was filled withthe alarm companies from Reading and British rear-guard halted, turned, and fired ontheir pursuers. The Americans responded so ac-curately that the regulars fled again. When Igot there, says Barrett, a great many lay dead,and the road was bloody. Another mile, and the British were out of Concordterritory; but in that mile they got their taste ofthat which was to come. From wall and thicket,from hill-top and wood, bullets came from unseenmarksmen. Here and there were flitting figures;but no regiment stopped the road, nor did anyvisible body of troops present such a challenge asthe honor of the regulars would allow them to ac-cept. Men dropped in the ranks, Pitcairn waswounded and lost his horse, the officers had to turntheir swords upon their own weary and demoralizedmen to keep them from headlong flight, and it issaid that Smith would have surrendered beforereaching Lexington could he have seen any one ofsufficient rank to whom to offer his sword. And [68]. m- The Monument of lSj6, and across the Bridge the Minute Man ®5S. «sasf Military Affairs when at last in Lexington the fleeing redcoats metthe relieving column under Lord Percy, they flungthemselves for rest on the ground, their tongues (inthe words of their own historian) hanging out oftheir mouths like those of dogs after a chase. Alittle rest under the protection of Percys cannon,fifteen miles more of flight and chase, and the troopsreached their own lines, not again to leave themuntil they were driven from Boston, eleven monthslater. Such was, for Concord, the day of the ConcordFight. The numbers engaged were small, the losseson either side were comparatively unimportant,but the act was immensely significant. The his-tory of a continent had changed. But as we look at Frenchs noble statue of the fineyoung Minuteman leaving the plow in the furrow tostart with his rifle for the beginning of a great war,we must not allow ourselves to suppose that in-dividual impulse
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