Benjamin Cutter, William R. Cutter, History of the town of Arlington, Massachusetts, ormerly the second precinct in Cambridge, or District of Menotomy, afterward the town of West Cambridge. 1635-1879 with a genealogical register of the inhabitants of the precinct.

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[65] as in front and rear. This fire, Stedman, the English historian, affirms ‘it would not have served any purpose to return, as the Americans were concealed, and kept running from front to flank, and from flank to rear, loading their pieces at one place and discharging them at another.’ This fire was continued till sunset.

Beyond Lexington the troops were attacked by men chiefly from Essex County and the lower towns. Gordon says there were never more than about four hundred provincials together attacking at one and the same time, and often scarce that number. The British flankers entered the houses on the line of march, plundering and burning, destroying doors, windows, glasses, &c., and carrying off clothing and other valuable effects.

Major-General William Heath, of Roxbury, who on the 18th of April ‘had been sitting with the Committee of Safety, at Menotomy in Cambridge’ (see Memoirs, p. 11), after proceeding to the Committee of Safety on the morning of the 19th, and from the committee, taking a cross-road to Watertown (the British being in possession of the Lexington road), and giving orders to some militia, who had not marched, whom he found at Watertown, then pushed to join the militia, taking a cross-road toward Lexington, ‘in which he was joined by Dr. Joseph Warren (afterward a Major-General), who kept with him;’ they reached the militia in active engagement, just after Lord Percy had met the British, below the Lexington meeting-house. They assisted in forming a regiment, which had been broken by the shot from the British field-pieces—‘for the discharge of these, together with the flames and smoke of several buildings, to which the British, nearly at the same time, had set fire, opened a new and more terrific scene.’—Memoirs, p. 14. ‘The British having again taken up their retreat, were closely pursued. On descending from the high grounds in Menotomy, on to the plain, the fire was brisk. At this instant, a musket-ball came so near to the head of Dr. Warren, as to strike the pin out of the hair of his earlock. Soon after, the right flank of the British was exposed to the fire of a body of militia, which had come from ’