Lord Percy came to America with a strong sense of sympathy for the colonists. Like many high aristocrats in 18th-century England, he was a staunch Whig. In Parliament he had voted against the Stamp Act, and regarded Lord North’s American policy as a piece of consummate folly. He had no wish to fight Americans. “Nothing less than the total loss or conquest of the colonies must be the end of it,” he wrote, “either, indeed is disagreeable.” 11
But once in Boston, Lord Percy began to change his mind. He was appalled by what he took to be the narrowness of New England ways, and genuinely shocked by the mobbings that he witnessed in Massachusetts. His outrage was not that of a modern liberal, but of an 18th-century gentleman who came to regard the people of Boston as a race of money-grubbing hypocritical bullies and cowards, utterly devoid of honor, candor, and courage. “Like all other cowards,” he wrote, “they are cruel and tyrannical.” 12
Percy came to believe that the inhabitants of New England were “the most designing artful villains in the world.” He thought that they had “not the least idea of religion or morality.” 13 In particular he detested the Congregational clergy for denying their churches to Loyalists, and despised the Yankee town meetings for their interminable debates. “The people here,” he wrote home, “talk much and do little.” He thought that the men of New England were incapable of action, and utterly contemptible as a military force. “I cannot but despise them completely,” he wrote. On the morning of April 19, 1775, the American education of Lord Percy was about to begin. 14
The 1st Brigade finally marched at about 8:45. It made a brave sight as it left the little town with music playing and colors flying. In the lead was its commander, Lord Percy himself, splendidly mounted on his handsome sorrel horse, and resplendent in a uniform of scarlet and gosling green with trimmings of silver lace.
Behind him came three regiments of British infantry. Pride of place went to the 4th (King’s Own) Foot, proudly bearing the monarch’s cipher on its colors, and the dark blue facings of a Royal regiment on its faded red tunics. Nobody trifled with the King’s Own. Even their nickname in the army connoted high respect. They were called the Lions after their badge, which was the lion rampant of England. That emblem had been awarded for gallantry by William III and was proudly embroidered on all four corners of their regimental colors. In 1773, an inspector described the King’s Own as “a very fine body of men, well dressed and fit.” As it marched from Boston, an expert observer would have noticed that it was also exceptionally well equipped. The 4th had recently been rearmed with a new musket, two inches shorter and two pounds lighter than the previous issue, and so closely bored to the caliber of its ammunition that the regiment was among the first in Gage’s army to be issued steel ramrods. 15
Next in Percy’s brigade came the 47th Foot, unkindly nicknamed the Cauliflowers for their uncommon off-white facings, but highly respected as a fighting regiment. The 47th had brilliantly distinguished itself in the conquest of Quebec, and gloried in the name of “Wolfe’s Own.” The entire army sang a drinking song called “Hot Stuff,” to the tune of “The Lilies of France,” that celebrated its valor:
Come each death-doing dog who dares venture his neck,
Come, follow the hero that goes to Quebec…
And ye that love fighting shall soon have enough:
Wolfe commands us, my boys; we shall give them Hot Stuff…
When the forty-seventh regiment is dashing ashore,
While bullets are whistling and cannons do roar. 16
Percy’s brigade also included one of the most colorful regiments in the army, the 23rd Royal Welch Fusiliers, 17 renowned equally for its steady courage and strange customs. Every St. David’s Day (March 1) its new subalterns were compelled to stand with one foot on a chair and the other on a mess table and swallow a raw leek without flinching, while the regimental drummers beat a solemn roll. On parade, these men marched proudly behind their mascot, a snow white goat with gilded horns from the Royal herd at Windsor, a custom described as “ancient” as early as 1775. The regiment gloried in its nickname of the Nanny Goats. 18 For all its quaint folkways, it was a highly professional unit that had served with distinction at Namur, Blenheim, Ramillies, Oude-narde, Malplaquet, Minden, and many other fields. At Dettingen in 1743 the regiment was commanded by George II, the last British king to lead an army into battle. For its courage the 23rd was allowed to wear the White Horse of Hanover on its colors. 19 When the Royal Welch Fusiliers arrived in America, General Haldimand sent a glowing report in his native French to General Gage: “Je dois en Justice informer votre Excellence que les Fusiliers se sont tres bien conduit ici. Ce corps est bien composé et tres bien commandé.” General Gage replied, “I dare say the Fusiliers will deserve the character you give of them. They were always esteemed a good corps and have gained reputation wherever they served.” 20
Also in the column was Lord Percy’s largest unit, a reinforced battalion of British Marines, the seagoing policemen of the Royal Navy, in brilliant red and blue uniforms with snow-white facings of a distinctive nautical cut. The men of the Marine battalion tended to be smaller in stature than those in the army. Their commander, Major Pitcairn, wrote home to a friend, “I am mortified to find our Marines so much shorter than the marching regiments. I wish you could persuade Lord Sandwich to give an order not to enlist any man under five feet six.” But these men had a fearsome reputation as fighters, in combat and out. They marched behind their drums with a distinctive rolling swagger that marked them as a breed apart from the army. 21
Interspersed between the long red columns of British infantry were the dark blue tunics of the Royal Artillery. Their regimental motto was Ubique, the same as the Royal Engineers. The Gunners insisted that their Ubique meant “Everywhere,” while the slogan of the Sappers should be translated “All over the Place.” In any case, here they were again, marching beside two stout six-pounder field guns, with long trails and massive wooden wheels that rumbled ominously through the streets of Boston. 22
Also traveling with the brigade were armed New England Loyalists in civilian dress, who have rarely been noticed in American histories of the battles. These American Tories were angry men, hungry for revenge against the “Rebels” who cruelly tormented them. Some were employed as mounted scouts. Prominent on horseback at the head of the column was a Boston Tory named George Leonard. Others marched behind the infantry as civilian auxiliaries. One of their number was a Tory barber named Warden, who hated the Whigs of New England so passionately that he shouldered a musket and joined the brigade as a volunteer. 23
The British soldiers were in a merry mood as they left town. No serious trouble was expected from the “country people,” or at least nothing that these proud regiments would not be able to handle. Their fifes and drums played a spirited version of “Yankee Doodle” as a taunt to the inhabitants—a musical joke that would long be remembered in Massachusetts. Afterward, a London wit suggested that a more suitable song might have been “The Ballad of Chevy Chase”:
To drive the deer with hound and horn
Earl Percy took his way.
The child may rue that is unborn
The hunting of that day! 24
The brigade marched south across Boston Neck, then west through the villages of Roxbury and Brookline, and north at the present site of Brighton to the Great Bridge over the Charles River. The long red column crossed into Cambridge, and wound its way past the austere brick buildings of Harvard College.
The towns along the route were normally teeming with activity at that hour, but this morning they appeared to be deserted. “All of the houses were shut up,” Percy wrote, “and there was not the appearance of a single inhabitant. I could get no intelligence concerning them [sic] till I had passed Menotomy.” 25
One of the few people he met was Isaac Smith, an absentminded Harvard tutor who had the misfortune to emerge from the College just as the brigade was passing. Percy asked the way to Lexington. Without thinking, Smith told him.
Those who knew Tutor Smith believed that he did not intend to aid the enemy, but was merely oblivious to the larger world. Even so, the people of Cambridge were not amused. They were so displeased that Isaac Smith “shortly afterwards left the country for a while.” 26
With the help of directions from the distracted Harvard tutor, Percy found the road to Lexington. Still he knew nothing of what had happened to Colonel Smith’s force, or what lay ahead for his own brigade. Not until he reached Menotomy at about one o’clock in the afternoon did he learn of the fighting on Lexington Green. A little further, he met a chaise coming toward him in the road. In it was Lieutenant Edward Gould of the King’s Own, who had been wounded in the foot at Concord Bridge. Gould told Lord Percy that the grenadiers and light infantry had been “attacked by the rebels about daybreak, and were retiring, having expended most of their ammunition.” 27
Percy sent the wounded officer on his way and began to study the countryside with growing concern. A casual tourist might have taken pleasure in its rolling woods and fields, dotted with granite outcroppings and lined with picturesque stone “fences.” But to the trained eye of a professional soldier, the terrain took on a more sinister appearance. “The whole country we had to retire through,” Percy wrote, “was covered with stone walls, and was besides a very hilly stony country.” Many other officers were also looking nervously about them. Lieutenant Barker of the King’s Own noted that “the country was an amazing strong one, full of hills, woods, stone walls, etc.” 28
Two miles beyond Menotomy, the marching men began to hear the rattle of musketry in the distance. As they approached the village of Lexington the sounds of battle suddenly increased. Percy ordered his brigade to deploy on high ground half a mile east of Lexington Green, near a tavern owned by Sergeant William Munroe. The 4th was sent to the northern side of the road, and the 23rd to the south. The brigade rapidly formed into a line of battle on the hills of Lexington, with commanding views of the countryside. The Royal Artillery unlimbered its two guns on high ground and emplaced them with long fields of plunging fire along the road to the west.
Suddenly, beyond the village, the red uniforms of Colonel Smith’s men came into view. The men of the brigade were shocked by the scene that unfolded before their eyes. The grenadiers and light infantry were less a marching column than a running mob, pursued by a cloud of angry countrymen on their flanks and rear. A full regiment of New England militia appeared in close formation behind the Regulars. At extreme range, Percy ordered his artillery to open fire. The cannon balls screamed through the air and the militia instantly dispersed, running for cover from a weapon they had not faced before.
The grenadiers and light infantry of Smith’s shattered force ran up to Percy’s line, and dropped exhausted to the earth. Behind them, the New England men also went to ground and began sniping at the brigade from long range. Their fire did little damage, but goaded the Royal Welch Fusiliers on Percy’s left to break ranks and charge forward without orders. A British officer wrote, “Revenge had so fully possessed the breasts of the soldiers that the battalions broke, regardless of every order, to pursue the affrighted runaways. They were, however, formed again, tho’ with some difficulty.” Percy regained control of his troops, but he was beginning to have the same problems of discipline that had dogged Smith and Pitcairn. He made a point of moving among his men with an air of calm and competence. 29
To keep the New England militia at bay, the British commander sent forward a screen of his own skirmishers. He also ordered his men to set fire to three houses that offered cover to marksmen. As the buildings began to burn, a pall of dark smoke rose over the scene. The firing slackened, and then nearly ceased for half an hour, while the New England regiments rested on one side of the village, and the British brigade remained on the other. Behind the line of Percy’s infantry, the Munroe Tavern became a hospital for the many British wounded. Surgeon’s Mate Simms of the 43rd Foot worked among them, digging the soft lead musket balls from shattered bone and torn flesh.
Percy called his officers together in the Munroe Tavern and considered his position. He had no idea that so many men were in the field against him. Later he wrote to a friend that he was amazed to find “the rebels were in great numbers, the whole country having collected for twenty miles around.” Not having known the magnitude of his task, Percy had left Boston with no reserves of ammunition for his infantry beyond the 36 cartridges that each man carried in his kit. The artillery had only a few rounds in side boxes on the guns. The senior gunner in the garrison had strongly advised the brigade to bring an ammunition wagon, but Percy thought that it would slow his progress, and said that “he did not imagine there would be any occasion for more than there was in the side boxes.” 30
After the brigade had marched, Gage himself intervened, and sent two ammunition wagons with an escort of one officer and thirteen men. This little convoy was intercepted on the road by a party of elderly New England men from the alarm lists, who were exempt from service with the militia by reason of their age. These gray-headed soldiers did not make a formidable appearance, but they were hardened veterans who made up in experience what they lacked in youth, and were brilliantly led by David Lamson, described as a “mulatto” in the records.
With patience and skill these men laid a cunning ambush for the British ammunition wagons, waited until they approached, and demanded their surrender. The British drivers were not impressed by these superannuated warriors, and responded by whipping their teams forward. The old men opened fire. With careful economy of effort, they systematically shot the lead horses in their traces, killed two sergeants, and wounded the officer in command. 31
Lord Percy’s brigade marched with two of these six-pounder field guns. They fired a solid iron ball, approximately three inches in diameter. Their presence forced a change in American tactics during the afternoon. Percy refused to take an ammunition wagon with him; the gunners had only the rounds in the small side boxes that are visible between the wheel and barrel. (Museum of Our National Heritage, Lexington)
The surviving British soldiers took another look at these old men, and fled for their lives. They ran down the road, threw their weapons into a pond, and starting running again. They came upon an old woman named Mother Batherick, so impoverished that she was digging a few weeds from a vacant field for something green to eat. The panic-stricken British troops surrendered to her, and begged her protection. She led them to the house of militia captain Ephraim Frost. 32
Mother Batherick may have been poor in material things, but she was rich in the spirit. As she delivered her captives to Captain Frost, she told them, “If you ever live to get back, you tell King George that an old woman took six of his grenadiers prisoner.” Afterward, English critics of Lord North’s ministry used this episode to teach a lesson in political arithmetic: “If one old Yankee woman can take six grenadiers, how many soldiers will it require to conquer America?” 33
The loss of the ammunition wagons gave Lord Percy another problem of arithmetic. “We had 15 miles to retire, and only our 36 rounds,” he wrote. Colonel Smith’s detachment had almost no ammunition at all. The problem of supply was desperate. 34 Percy summoned an aide-de-camp, a dashing young lieutenant of the King’s Own named Harry Rooke, and asked him to gallop back to Boston with an urgent message for the commander in chief. Rooke was ordered to report that Colonel Smith’s command had been rescued, but that the brigade would have to fight its way home, and that further reinforcement might be necessary.
The gallant young officer set off on a hazardous journey across many miles of hostile territory. The saga of Rooke’s ride might be compared with the midnight journey of Paul Revere. The British courier took the same route back to Boston that Revere had followed coming out—Lexington to Charlestown, and then the ferry to Boston. Along the way he dodged hostile patrols just as Revere had done, but by a different method. Rooke left the road, jumping walls and brooks in a wild cross-country gallop. Not knowing the ground, which was very sof
t in April, he took twice as long to cover the same distance as Revere had done, and did not reach Boston until 4 o’clock in the afternoon, too late to influence the course of events. 35
Even if Rooke had arrived sooner, there was little that General Gage could have done. Half of his effectives were already in the field. His other regiments were needed to hold Boston against its own inhabitants. Gage ordered his small garrison to remain under arms in barracks, ready for a rising of the population. He asked the navy to send two small armed vessels up the Charles River to cover the bridge at Cambridge. Otherwise, the commander in chief could only sit and wait in suspense for the outcome of events that he had set in motion.
While Gage waited in Boston, Percy was busily reorganizing his forces in Lexington for the long march home. He handled his command differently from Colonel Smith. A larger force was at his disposal, between 1800 and 1900 men, counting the survivors of the Concord expedition. 36 For the march back to Boston, Percy decided not to deploy his men in a single road-bound formation, but to distribute them in three columns, with a strong advanced party and a powerful rear guard. Together its interlocking units made something like a mobile British square. Later he wrote that “very strong flanking parties” were “absolutely necessary, as there was not a stone wall, though before in appearance evacuated, from whence the rebels did not fire upon us.” 37
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