“Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end.”

When we left the nonagenarian Amos Baker of Lincoln yesterday, he had just described how the commanders of the Middlesex County militiamen massed above the North Bridge in Concord agreed to march toward the British regulars holding that position.

Baker then recounted:

And the order was given to march, and we all marched down without any further order or arrangement.

The British had got up two of the planks of the bridge. It is a mercy they fired on us at the bridge, for we were going to march into the town, and the British could load and fire three times to our once, because we had only powder horns and no cartridge boxes, and it would have been presumptuous. I understood that Colonel Abijah Pierce got the gun of one of the British soldiers who was killed at the bridge, and armed himself with it.

Pierce had come out with nothing but a walking-stick as a weapon. Baker probably exaggerated when he said the provincials had “only powder horns and no cartridge boxes,” emphasizing how much the locals were underdogs. At the bridge they had a clear numerical superiority, which is why the regulars soon retreated.

There were two British soldiers killed at the bridge. I saw them when I went over the bridge, lying close together, side by side, dead.

Joshua Brooks, of Lincoln, was at the bridge and was struck with a ball that cut through his hat, and drew blood on his forehead, and it looked as if it was cut with a knife; and we concluded they were firing jackknives.

When we had fired at the bridge and killed the British, Noah Parkhurst, who was my right hand man, said, “Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end.”

Baker then told the story of James Nichols, an Englishman in the Lincoln company. Richard C. Wiggin wrote about that story and the records behind it here.

I believe I was the only man from Lincoln that had a bayonet. My father got it in the time of the French war.

I went into the house where [Isaac] Davis and [Joseph] Hosmer were carried after they fell, and saw their bodies. I supposed the house to be Major [John] Buttrick’s.

When we marched down to the bridge, Major Buttrick marched first, and Captain Davis next to him. I did not see Colonel [John] Robinson [of Westford] to know him.

I verily believe that I felt better that day, take it all the day through, than if I had stayed at home.

After justice of the peace Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar finished writing this down, the text was read back to Baker and he signed it in front of three witnesses. Baker died later that year, thought to be the last veteran of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

(The picture above is Don Troiani’s painting of the fight at the North Bridge. True to form, he has given the provincial militiamen up front bayonets.)

The Mystery of James Nichols, Reluctant Soldier

One of the most striking anecdotes of the confrontation at the North Bridge in Concord is the story of an Englishman who mustered with his local militia, but decided to go down to talk to the redcoats at the bridge. After that chat he took his gun and went home, not wanting to be part of the fight. However, only one witness recounted this story, and that seventy-five years after the battle. Back in the spring of 2001, D. Michael Ryan pondered the mystery for Concord Magazine, wondering if it was just a legend.

Richard C. Wiggin, author of Embattled Farmers: Campaigns and Profiles of Revolutionary Soldiers from Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1775-1783, has found a longer trail for that Englishman, with a different ending from what the one witness recalled. I asked Rick to share that essay from the book here as a guest blogger.

In 1850, 75 years after the battle at Concord’s North Bridge, Lincoln’s Amos Baker recalled an interesting anecdote about one of the men present:

Before the fighting begun, when we were on the hill, James Nichols, of Lincoln, who was an Englishman, and a droll fellow, and a fine singer, said, “If any of you will hold my gun, I will go down and talk to them.”

Some of them held his gun, and he went down alone to the British soldiers at the bridge and talked to them some time. Then he came back and took his gun and said he was going home, and went off before the fighting. Afterwards he enlisted to go to Dorchester and there deserted to the British, and I never heard of him again.

The story has fascinated generations of history buffs. Amos Baker may never have “heard of him again,” but James Nichols did leave a small trail in the historical records through which we can piece together the rest of the story...and test the mental acuity of the 94-year-old Baker.

The record tells us that shortly after leaving Concord, Nichols enlisted in the provincial army besieging Boston, and he participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill. He served through that summer and fall, and into the following spring. He appears to have served through the fortification of Dorchester Heights—but without deserting to the British. Baker, too, served at Dorchester Heights, albeit in a different unit.

That summer (1776), Nichols appears to have left Lincoln, gone to Weston, then taken up residence in Acton, perhaps an itinerant worker moving from job to job. By wintertime, he was back in militia service at Dorchester—this time in the same unit as Baker, and they evidently renewed their friendship. During their three-month stint, Nichols was recruited into the Continental Army, and one January day Baker discovered his friend gone.

The Continental unit Nichols joined had a handful of other Lincoln men in it. They were marched northward in chase of the British army of General John Burgoyne, who was threatening to split the country along the Hudson River/Lake Champlain corridor. In September 1777, after eight months of Continental service, Nichols was reported as having deserted. He may have become disillusioned at the not-so-rosy life of a Continental soldier. Or gotten cold feet with the approach of what was certain to be a climactic battle. Or perhaps he simply succumbed to itinerant tendencies. The historical record does not reveal what was going on in his head. Two months later, he appears to have returned to militia service in Cambridge, guarding the British and German troops surrendered by General Burgoyne following the climactic battles at Saratoga.

Somewhere along the line, Amos Baker learned of the reported desertion by Nichols, probably from one of the Lincoln men serving in the same unit. Perhaps in the years that followed, he occasionally thought about the good times they had together—the singing, the humor, the storytelling. He recalled the incident at the bridge. He remembered last seeing his friend at Dorchester....

Seventy-plus years later, Baker was feted as the last known surviving participant of the fight at the Concord bridge. Old memories returned, a little worn with age. He was coaxed to write them down for posterity. And he left us with a wonderful snippet of the human side of the developing conflict. He got it almost right; he passes the acuity test. But even he did not know the rest of the story.

Thanks, Rick! The launch party for Embattled Farmers, published by the Lincoln Historical Society, is on Monday, 15 April (Patriot’s Day), at 5:00 P.M. in the Lincoln Public Library.

Exploring Concord on the 19th of April and Beyond

Concord and the Dawn of Revolution: The Untold Truths is a collection of articles by D. Michael Ryan about the details of the outbreak of war in 1775. Published in 2007, it reflects some of the latest research about the traditions of Concord, sorting out which stories seem well rooted in evidence and which are probably no more than legends.

Several of Ryan’s articles appeared in earlier form in the online Concord Magazine, which has collected those links and more in “Concord Fight: A Virtual Booklet.” So you can sample the quality of his work.

For example, there’s the mystery of a man named James Nichols, born in Britain and living in Lincoln in 1775. Reportedly he broke ranks with his militia unit during the stand-off at the North Bridge, walked down to chat with some redcoats, and decided to go home rather than fight.

At least that’s what a survivor of the battle named Amos Baker said decades later. Yet there’s no mention of Nichols in Lincoln town records. On the other hand, that would be a weird story for Baker to make up—what cultural or psychological need might it fulfill? Ryan lays out the mystery and leaves it open for further investigation.

The articles in Concord and the Dawn of Revolution are on bigger topics like James Barrett, Daniel Bliss, and the curious Bedford flag. They’re well researched, and often spotlight corners of the conflict that other books leave out or speed past.

Of course, there’s still more to be found out. For example, it’s unlikely that James Hall was one of the British soldiers buried in Concord, as suggested in this article (not collected in the book). But that’s someone else’s story.

The Real Fight at Concord Bridge

The thumbnail image to the right is N. C. Wyeth’s “Fight at Concord Bridge.” It shows Concord’s “embattled farmers,” apparently standing athwart the town’s North Bridge, blocking the British troops.

In the same spirit is this painting, which allposters.com doesn’t credit to a particular artist. The site labels it “American Minutemen Fight to Hold Off the British Army at Concord Bridge, April 10, 1775.” That’s not only nine days early, but misrepresents how the fighting at the North Bridge in Concord went down.

Many people conceive of that skirmish as the local militiamen taking a stand on the bridge and refusing to let the British troops cross. In fact, the two forces’ movements were much more complicated.

When Lt. Col. Francis Smith’s British expedition came into view east of Concord, the militia companies assembled in town turned and marched west, away from the regular troops and across that North Bridge. They took positions on high ground that overlooked the Concord River, eventually ending up more or less where the North Bridge Visitor Center is now.

Lt. Col. Smith sent seven companies of light infantrymen to that bridge. Four of those companies crossed and went two miles beyond to search the farm of militia colonel James Barrett, where Gen. Thomas Gage had heard (correctly) that the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had hidden weapons. The militia didn’t try to block that search party. Three other British companies remained near the bridge, on either side of the Concord River, in order to guard their comrades’ withdrawal route.

The regulars down by the river watched the militia up on the rise. The militiamen, numbers growing, watched the regulars. The situation was so static that one English-born farmer from Lincoln, James Nichols, walked down the hill to talk to the soldiers, then walked back up and said he was done for the day—he wasn’t interested in fighting his countrymen.

Then some men on the hill spotted smoke from the center of Concord. The grenadiers there had found some cannon carriages and extra wheels, piled them up, and set them on fire. The flames threatened the town house. Officers ordered soldiers to douse the fire, but by then it had done too much damage—not to the building, but to the stalemate back at the bridge.

Lt. Joseph Hosmer asked Col. Barrett, “Will you let them burn the town down?” After hearing from other officers, the militia colonel ordered an advance. Two militia regiments began to march down toward the bridge and the three British companies guarding it.

Clearly outnumbered, those regulars withdrew to the town side of the bridge and started to take up the planks to keep the militia regiments from crossing. To the locals, that looked like more property destruction. Men shouted down at the redcoats, and the militia companies kept marching.

As Capt. Walter Sloane Laurie and Lt. William Sutherland tried to get the British soldiers in formation to protect themselves, three soldiers fired without orders. Capt. Isaac Davis and Pvt. Abner Hosmer of Acton were killed, and four other men were wounded. The provincials fired back, hitting four British officers, killing three privates and wounding five more. The redcoats retreated at a run back to the center of Concord.

Thus, the “embattled farmers” of Middlesex County weren’t trying to keep the redcoats from crossing the Concord River—it was the other way ’round!

TOMORROW: In pulling back from the North Bridge, the British left four companies cut off behind enemy lines. What happened to them?