Bunker Hill

Fight,” p. 797.
    According to Reverend Emerson’s great-granddaughter Phebe Ripley Chamberlin, Emerson’s wife told her “that she felt hurt because [her husband] did not stay more with her [on April 19] and once when he was feeding the women and children with bread and cheese she knocked on the widow and said to him that she thought she needed him as much as the others,” in
Diaries and Letters of William Emerson
, p. 73. According to William Gordon in a May 17, 1775, letter, Emerson “was nearer the regulars than the killed” when the firing began at the North Bridge; Gordon also writes that Emerson was “very uneasy till he found that the fire was returned,”
AA4
, 2:630. Emerson’s March 13, 1775, sermon is in his
Diaries and Letters
, p. 65. Frederic Hudson writes that Major Buttrick cried, “Fire, fellow soldiers, for God’s sake, fire!” in “The Concord Fight,” p. 797; Thaddeus Blood tells how “the fire was almost simultaneous with the cry” in his Narrative. Lieutenant Lister’s description of how the regulars crumbled before the provincial fire is in Kehoe, p. 116. Amos Barrett’s memory of how the regulars retreated, “running and a hobbling about,” as well as how he and other provincial soldiers lay behind a stone wall on the hill overlooking the North Bridge with their “guns cocked expecting every minute to have the word—fire,” is in
Journal and Letters of Henry True
, p. 33. Thaddeus Blood’s account of how after crossing the North Bridge “everyone appeared to be his own commander” is in his Narrative. William Gordon records the Reverend Emerson’s account of the Ammi White incident: “A young fellow coming over the bridge in order to join the country people, and seeing the soldier wounded and attempting to get up, not being under the feelings of humanity, very barbarously broke his skull, and let out his brains with a small axe” (
AA4
, 2:630). See also Michael Ryan’s “Senseless Act Begets Rage and Propaganda” in February 1999
Concord Magazine
; also available at http://www.concordma.com/magazine/feb99/scalping.html. Jeremy Lister’s account of the rumor instigated by Ammi White’s attack on the wounded regular is in Kehoe, p. 116. The regulars’ claim that the provincials would scalp any soldier “they get alive, that are wounded and cannot get off the ground,” along with the additional claim that the militiamen are “full as bad as the Indians,” is in an April 28, 1775, letter in
AA4
, 2:439.
    On the importance of the flank guards, see Douglas Sabin’s
April 19, 1775
, p. 125. Edmund Foster’s account of how the fighting started on the road back to Lexington is in Ezra Ripley’s
History of the Fight at Concord
, p. 33. Lister’s account of how a musket ball “effectually disabled” his right arm is in Kehoe, p. 117. Barker writes of how the regulars were fired on “from all sides” in his
Diary
, p. 35. Samuel Thompson’s account of how the regulars “stooped for shelter from the walls” is in
BAR
, 3:70. Ellen Chase writes that “50 years later eye-witnesses recalled the peculiar ‘swish, swish’ made by the grass as the regulars brushed through it” in
BAR
, 3:28. Douglas Sabin in
April 19, 1775
, provides a detailed account of the deaths of Jonathan Wilson and Daniel Thompson in the vicinity of the Samuel Hartwell house, pp. 134–35; Sabin also tells of James Hayward’s fatal encounter with a regular at the well near the Fiske house (p. 149). William Gordon writes of how “the people say that the soldiers are worse than the
Indians
” in his May 17, 1775, letter in
AA4
, 2:630. Sarah Bailey writes of Ford and Furbush and the dying grenadier in
Historical Sketches of Andover
, pp. 307–8; see also
BAR
, 3:63–64. Lieutenant Barker writes of being “totally surrounded by such an incessant fire” in his
Diary
, p. 35. David Hackett Fischer in
Paul Revere’s Ride
writes that the hill on which the Lexington militia ambushed Colonel Smith’s column is called today Parker’s Revenge (p. 229). Douglas Sabin in
April 19, 1775
points to Concord Hill as the place at which the column began to collapse, p. 151. Ensign DeBerniere’s account of how the regulars were thrown “into confusion” and “began to run rather than retreat in order” is in Kehoe, p. 122. Lieutenant Barker’s insistence that if Percy’s brigade had not appeared “we must soon have laid down our arms or been picked off by the rebels at their pleasure”