Bunker Hill

Tavern was in Menotomy, and the sound of the regulars awakened the three Committee of Safety members who were staying there—Jeremiah Lee, Azor Orne, and Elbridge Gerry, all from Marblehead. In a panic, Gerry rushed for the front door, only to be stopped by the tavern keeper, who directed the three officials to escape out the back. Gerry proceeded to trip and fall facedown in the stubble of a cornfield, where he was soon joined by the two others, who lay trembling in the damp cold until the regulars had moved on toward Lexington.
    Pitcairn sent ahead an advance guard led by Marine Lieutenant Jesse Adair. Accompanying Adair were several loyalist guides, one of whom, Daniel Bliss from Concord, would be of immense help when it came to accomplishing their primary objective. As they pushed on through the night, they surprised several unsuspecting travelers, including Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson from Woburn, who were quickly captured and forced to march with the column.
    Around 3:30 a.m., about five miles from Lexington, they were approached by a group of horsemen. They were the officers whom Gage had sent out the previous day to guard the road to Concord. Led by Major Edward Mitchell, they had recently captured Paul Revere, who after alerting Samuel Adams and John Hancock had continued with William Dawes toward Concord. Revere had brazenly informed the officers that Smith’s troops “had catched aground in passing the river” and that since he had alarmed the countryside there would soon be as many as five hundred militiamen gathered in Lexington. As Mitchell’s group approached the town green with their captive, they heard a volley of musketry—probably warning shots intended to rouse the town—“which,” Revere later reported, “alarmed them very much.” Mitchell decided he had no choice but to release Revere and warn Smith that “the whole country” knew what they were about.
    In his conversation with Smith’s advance guard, Major Mitchell claimed that he and his fellow officers had been forced to “gallop for their lives” out of Lexington, where the militiamen were already awaiting the arrival of the troops. Seeming to corroborate Mitchell’s overheated assertions were the sounds of bells and signal guns. Beacon fires could be seen flickering in the distant hills. A well-dressed gentleman in a small carriage approached with the news that no less than six hundred militiamen had gathered on the Lexington Green; next came a wagon filled with cordwood for Boston. The driver said there were now one thousand men in Lexington.
    On they pushed through the early-morning darkness, and by 4:00 a.m., with dawn approaching, they began to detect a “vast number of country militia” moving across the boulder-strewn fields on either side of them toward Lexington. The regulars wore heavy red coats and white breeches, their chests crisscrossed by belts burdened with cartridge boxes, swords, and bayonets. The country people posed a very different picture of the “soldier” in their floppy-brimmed hats, baggy, dark-colored coats, gray homespun stockings, and buckled cowhide shoes as they strode through the dim light with their powder horns slung from their shoulders. The only significant similarity between the regulars and these militiamen was that they all carried muskets.
    Accompanying Adair in the advance guard was Lieutenant William Sutherland, who with Adair’s help was able to capture one of these militiamen—thirty-one-year-old Benjamin Wellington of Lexington, whom they relieved of his musket and, unusual for a militiaman, his bayonet. Soon after, a group of horsemen appeared in the road ahead. One of them shouted, “You had better turn back for you shall not enter the town.” As the horsemen began to gallop away, a lone rider turned and raised his musket. A soundless flash of light flared from the base of the barrel. The militiaman had pulled the trigger and ignited the weapon’s priming powder, but for some reason the main charge in the barrel had failed to detonate—what was known as a “flash in the pan.” The militiaman’s intent was unmistakable, but so far no ball had whistled in the regulars’ direction.
    A report was made to Major Pitcairn, who ordered his six companies of light infantrymen to halt. If at least one Yankee was willing to fire upon the king’s troops, he had no choice but to prepare his men for the worst as they marched into Lexington. He ordered them to load. Each