The Shots at Lexington

Lt. William Sutherland was riding in front of the British expedition to Concord on 19 Apr 1775. He reported: “On coming within Gunshot of the village of Lexington a fellow from the corner of the road on the right hand Cock’d his piece at me, [and] burnt priming.” In other words, a local had tried to take a shot at him.

And then: “we still went on further when a few shot more were fired at us from the Corner of a house to the right of the Church which is sacred truth as I hope for mercy.” This building appears to have been Buckman’s tavern, facing onto the Lexington common.

On the other hand, locals insisted that the first shot came from the regulars. In fact, Simon Winship, one of the late-night riders that the British had confined within their ranks, declared on 25 April:

within about half a quarter of a mile of said [Lexington] meeting-house, where an officer commanded the troops to halt, and then to prime and load;

this being done, the said troops marched on till they came within a few rods of Capt. [John] Parker and company, who were partly collected on the place of parade, when said Winship observed an officer at the head of said troops, nourishing his sword, and with a loud voice giving the word fire! which was instantly followed by a discharge of arms from said regular troops; and said Winship is positive, and in the most solemn manner declares, that there was no discharge of arms on either side, till the word fire was given by said officer as above.

Of course, witnesses on both sides had reasons to blame the other.

After the shooting, the British commanders apparently acknowledged that the Middlesex countryside was already alarmed, so there was no use in detaining people to keep that secret. Furthermore, to complete their mission the regulars had to move on to Concord as quickly as possible. The officers therefore decided to release their prisoners.

Silas Dean’s Brief History of the Town of Stoneham (1870) described what happened to two of those prisoners, Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson, apparently drawing on descendants’ understandings:

Richardson requested permission to return [i.e., go home], and was told by the individual to go to another person, who would no doubt give him a release; but in case the second person he went to told him to run he was by the first ordered not to run; being informed that if he did run he would be shot.

Richardson did as he was told to do; and though he was told to run, he walked away, and was not injured. The reason why he was ordered to run was this: that the guard might think him a deserter, and thereby, in the discharge of their duty, shoot him.

Mr. Porter not being apprised of their artifice in telling him to run, got permission, in the same way of Richardson. Having liberty to go, he sat out upon the run. On getting over a wall a short distance off, he was fired upon and received his death wound.

Did British soldiers truly mistake Porter to be a deserter? Other authors suggest that the two men were released “on condition they departed without attracting any especial observation,” and then Porter drew attention to himself. And maybe a soldier (or officer) was just fed up with defiant Yankees. However it happened, sources agree that Richardson (and, presumably, Winship) walked away safely while Porter ran and was shot dead.

TOMORROW: The aftermath of Asahel Porter’s death.

“Ordered to March in the Midst of the Body”

On the 18-19 Apr 1775 expedition to Concord, Lt. William Sutherland of the 38th Regiment volunteered to ride out ahead of the British army column and scout for trouble. In a 26 April report for Lt. Col. Francis Smith, he wrote that he heard:

Lieut. [Jesse] Adair of the Marines who was a little before me in front Call out, here are 2 fellows galloping express to Alarm the Country, on which I immediately rode up to them, Seized one of them & our guide [Samuel Murray?] the other, dismounted them & by Major [John] Pitcairns directions gave them in charge to the men,

A little after we were joined by Lieut. [William] Grant of the Royal Artillery who told us the Country, he was afraid was alarmed, of which we had little reason to doubt as he heared several shot being then between 3 & 4 in the morning (a very unusual hour for firing) when we were joined by Major [Edward] Mitchell, Capt. [Charles] Cochrane, Capt. [Charles] Lumm & several other Gentlemen who told us the whole Country was Alarm’d & had Gallopped for their lives, or words to that purpose, that they had taken Paul Revierre but was obliged to lett him go after having cutt his girths & Stirrups.

In his edition of Sutherland’s manuscript, Harold Murdock suggested that those “2 fellows galloping express to Alarm the Country” were Asahel Porter and Josiah Richardson. Sutherland and the other British officers whose accounts I’ve read don’t describe capturing any other pair of men together, so that seems likely.

Murdock tended to lean toward the British, and he suggested Porter and Richardson had actually “been sent out from Lexington as scouts.” But the two farmers might truly have been traveling on business, as they claimed, and tried to gallop away only after they spotted the officers. It’s notable that in the 1820s and later men from Lexington acknowledged that some of them were scouting the roads that night, but they never said Porter and Richardson were doing so.

The regulars took Porter and Richardson’s horses and farm goods, made sure they were unarmed, and ordered them to walk in the middle of the ranks. As the column got closer to Lexington, the mounted officers spotted another young man on horseback.

On 25 April that man, Simon Winship, signed a deposition describing how the officers treating him:

on the 19th April instant, about four o’clock in the morning, as he was passing the public road in said Lexington, peaceably and unarmed, about two miles and a half distant from the meeting-house in said Lexington, he was met by a body of the king’s regular troops, and being stopped by some officers of said troops, was commanded to dismount.

Upon asking why he must dismount, he was obliged by force to quit his horse, and ordered to march in the midst of the body; and, being examined whether he had been warning the minutemen, he answered, “No, but had been out, and was then returning to his father’s.”

Again, the British officers were suspicious of Winship’s story. And even if he hadn’t been trying to spread the alarm at 4:00 A.M., he almost certainly would do so if they let him go.

So the British column moved on toward Lexington, with Porter, Richardson, and Winship in the vanguard as prisoners surrounded by soldiers.

TOMORROW: Asahel Porter released.