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By the Rude Bridge
Author: TriSec
Date: 04/19/2014 11:35:17
Good Morning.
Two hundred thirty-nine years ago at this hour, a wee little kerfuffle was taking place a few miles from where I sit. The regulars had already shot up Colonel Parker and his men on Lexington Green, and were on the march towards the Patriot's arsenal at Concord. In a few hours' time, about 100 men of the expeditionary force would face off against more than 400 Minutemen at the Old North Bridge...and would expediently decide to retreat to Boston.
In past years, we've often visited with some of the participants in this battle. Last year, I missed the occasion, as a very different battle was taking place a few miles in the opposite direction after what had happened on April 15.
This year, we'll not head to the obvious places in Lexington and Concord to peer over history's shoulder. A few years ago, I discovered a virtually unknown house in the neighboring town of Arlington, MA (then known as Menotomy). It was on these lands, just a few miles from the safety of Cambridge, that the most violent battle of the day raged.
Let's set the scene...we all know what happened the night before. Come dawn, the British army soldiers had already been on the move some 8 hours, and had marched the 11 miles from Lechmere to Lexington. After a brief exchange of gunfire with Colonel Parker on Lexington Green, the soldiers form back up and push on another 5 miles to Concord center.
But here they scatter - British intelligence reports a store of arms only somewhere in Concord, and the locals certainly weren't talking. So the soldiers decide to burn the town. The expeditionary force already mentioned at the bridge faced off against the Minutemen, while the Minutemen on the high ground could see the town starting to burn in the distance.
After the regulars passed back through Concord (and helped put out some of the fires their compatriots started), this is where the running battle of yore started. Now faced with an 11-mile retreat to Cambridge, and surrounded on all sides by hostile farmers, the soldiers weren't going to have a good afternoon. Places like "Bloody Angle" and "Parkers' Revenge" and the littering of graves along the Battle Road can attest to the ferocity of the action that day.
Around 5pm, the soldiers had reached Menotomy, and the safety of Cambridge just a few miles distant. The tone of the battle had changed, for as they left the farm territory of Lexington, their route along Massachusetts Avenue became increasingly urbanized as they neared the city. And this is where they passed Jason Russell's house.
Surprisingly enough for me to admit, I only learned about this place within the last 5 years or so. Even for us natives, we get caught up in "LEXINGTON AND CONCORD", and it's easy to overlook the hundreds of other stories that took place that day. Javi and I visited here a couple of springs ago, and we were the only ones on the tour that day. It was astonishing....while Buckminster Tavern on Lexington Green may also bear the scars of war, those bullet holes now lay beneath a protective sheet of plexiglass. At Mr. Russell's house, you can stand in the same places as the Patriots, see the same lines of battle, and if you're so inclined you can touch these places with your own hand, which I did. Two centuries later, the electricity was still palpable.
But of course....I'm a northeast, liberal, effete, so I suppose my patriotism doesn't matter. Come July 4, we'll wish another happy birthday on these United States...but we were conceived on this day 239 years ago.
Two hundred thirty-nine years ago at this hour, a wee little kerfuffle was taking place a few miles from where I sit. The regulars had already shot up Colonel Parker and his men on Lexington Green, and were on the march towards the Patriot's arsenal at Concord. In a few hours' time, about 100 men of the expeditionary force would face off against more than 400 Minutemen at the Old North Bridge...and would expediently decide to retreat to Boston.
In past years, we've often visited with some of the participants in this battle. Last year, I missed the occasion, as a very different battle was taking place a few miles in the opposite direction after what had happened on April 15.
This year, we'll not head to the obvious places in Lexington and Concord to peer over history's shoulder. A few years ago, I discovered a virtually unknown house in the neighboring town of Arlington, MA (then known as Menotomy). It was on these lands, just a few miles from the safety of Cambridge, that the most violent battle of the day raged.
Let's set the scene...we all know what happened the night before. Come dawn, the British army soldiers had already been on the move some 8 hours, and had marched the 11 miles from Lechmere to Lexington. After a brief exchange of gunfire with Colonel Parker on Lexington Green, the soldiers form back up and push on another 5 miles to Concord center.
But here they scatter - British intelligence reports a store of arms only somewhere in Concord, and the locals certainly weren't talking. So the soldiers decide to burn the town. The expeditionary force already mentioned at the bridge faced off against the Minutemen, while the Minutemen on the high ground could see the town starting to burn in the distance.
After the regulars passed back through Concord (and helped put out some of the fires their compatriots started), this is where the running battle of yore started. Now faced with an 11-mile retreat to Cambridge, and surrounded on all sides by hostile farmers, the soldiers weren't going to have a good afternoon. Places like "Bloody Angle" and "Parkers' Revenge" and the littering of graves along the Battle Road can attest to the ferocity of the action that day.
Around 5pm, the soldiers had reached Menotomy, and the safety of Cambridge just a few miles distant. The tone of the battle had changed, for as they left the farm territory of Lexington, their route along Massachusetts Avenue became increasingly urbanized as they neared the city. And this is where they passed Jason Russell's house.
The battle at the Jason Russell House occurred late in the day, around five PM. Light infantry and grenadiers from the detachment which engaged earlier at Lexington and Concord marched toward Boston along the Concord Road. They had been met earlier in Lexington by a brigade led by Lord Percy that brought up the rear and provided strong flanking parties. The Americans kept up incessant fire from behind stone walls and other places of shelter as the British retreated.
These skirmishes erupted into a full fledged battle at the Jason Russell House. A company of minute-men under the command of Gen. Gideon Foster, along with several other companies of minute-men and militia, had left Danvers earlier. All reached Menotomy before the British. Many of them went into a walled enclosure near the Jason Russell House where they planned to intercept the retreating soldiers. Despite being warned to watch for a flank-guard, by Israel Hutchinson, one of their company captains, they focused on the main body of British as it passed. When the party flanking the Concord Road to the south surprised them, the Americans fled to the Jason Russell House.
Jason Russell was 59 and lame. At noon, he had started with his wife and children to seek safety at the George Prentiss house higher up on the hill, but after proceeding part way he sent them on alone and returned to his house. A nearby neighbor, Ammi Cutter advised him to seek safety, but Russell refused, reportedly saying "An Englishman's house is his castle." Cutter himself was nearly killed by fire from an advance flanking party. Stumbling and falling between mill logs as bullets hit their bark around him, he was thought dead and the British passed him by.
Russell was outside his house and joined the minute-men as they fled toward it. Being old and slow, he was in the rear and was shot twice as he reached his own doorway and then stabbed eleven times with bayonets. The British rushed into the house, killing everyone they could see. Eight minute-men made it to the basement and survived by pointing their guns up the stairs. When Jason's wife returned, she found her husband and all of the dead laid side by side in the kitchen. She is reported to have said the blood in that room was almost ankle deep. The house itself was riddled with bullet holes, many of them still visible. The blood stains on the floor were still visible when it was replaced in 1863.
Jason Russell and eleven others were buried in one grave, without coffins. A plain obelisk of New Hampshire granite now stands above the grave. It is reported that Capt. William Adams, who lived nearby, brought a sheet from his house saying he could not bear to have his neighbor buried before his eyes without a winding sheet.
Surprisingly enough for me to admit, I only learned about this place within the last 5 years or so. Even for us natives, we get caught up in "LEXINGTON AND CONCORD", and it's easy to overlook the hundreds of other stories that took place that day. Javi and I visited here a couple of springs ago, and we were the only ones on the tour that day. It was astonishing....while Buckminster Tavern on Lexington Green may also bear the scars of war, those bullet holes now lay beneath a protective sheet of plexiglass. At Mr. Russell's house, you can stand in the same places as the Patriots, see the same lines of battle, and if you're so inclined you can touch these places with your own hand, which I did. Two centuries later, the electricity was still palpable.
But of course....I'm a northeast, liberal, effete, so I suppose my patriotism doesn't matter. Come July 4, we'll wish another happy birthday on these United States...but we were conceived on this day 239 years ago.
