[68] the pond. They passed along its margin, and crossed the road directly in front of the British column. On the north side of the road, they took position behind a ditch wall. From this casual redoubt they fired upon the enemy as long as any of them were within reach of their muskets.Gen. Foster discharged his musket at the enemy a number of times (he thought eleven), with two balls each time, and with well directed aim. His comrade, Nathaniel Cleaves, of Beverly, who was then standing by his side, had his finger and ramrod cut away by a shot from the enemy.1 The ‘walled enclosure’ into which many of the Danvers men went, and piled shingles which were lying there, to strengthen their breastwork, with the expectation of intercepting the British retreat; and where others selected trees on the hill-side, from which they might assail the enemy, was near the house of Jason Russell, which is still standing, and here a monumental tablet has lately been erected (1878), with the following inscription: ‘Site of the house of Jason Russell, where he and eleven others were captured, disarmed and killed by the retreating British, April 19, 1775.’ This was the ‘neighboring house’ where some of the men in the enclosure, when overpowered by the British, sought shelter; and the place where a number on both sides were slain, and others, after they had surrendered themselves prisoners of war, were butchered, Hanson, the historian of Danvers, says that when Foster's men threw themselves behind the enclosure from which they fired, Hutchinson (apparently Israel Hutchinson, captain of a company of Danvers minute-men), whose experience in the French War gave him knowledge, warned them to beware of the flank-guard. But in their unacquaintance with military affairs, they knew nothing of
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Boston: David Clapp and son. 564 Washington Street, 1880.
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