Salem, because of a little alleged pricking of bayonets when Leslie's expedition was harassed there in February, 1775, has sometimes claimed to have witnessed the first shedding of blood in the war. The principal monograph on the subject is C. M. Endicott's _Account of Leslie's retreat at the North Bridge in Salem, on Sunday, Feb. 26, 1775_ (Salem, 1856).[508] Early resistance to British arms, and even bloodshed in the act, had undoubtedly occurred before the affair at Lexington, and writers have cited the mob at Golden Hill,[509] in New York, and the massacre at Westminster, in the New Hampshire Grants, when an armed body of settlers arose against the authority of the king, as asserted in favor of the jurisdiction of New York in March, 1775.[510]
The precipitation of warfare, however, can only be connected with the expedition to Lexington and Concord. Every stage of the affair has been invested with interest by discussion and illustration. The ride of Paul Revere to give warning has grown to be a household tale in the spirited verse of Longfellow; but, as is the case with almost all of that poet's treatments of historical episodes, he has paid little attention to exactness of fact, and has wildly, and often without poetic necessity, turned the channels of events. In literary treatment, the events of Lexington and Concord form so distinct a group of references that they can be best considered in a later note (A), as can also the sources of information respecting the fight at Bunker Hill (B).
Of the siege of Boston, the chief monograph is Frothingham's, already referred to. Other contributions of a monographic nature are the address and chronicle of the siege by Dr. George E. Ellis in the _Evacuation Memorial of the City of Boston_ (1876); W. W. Wheildon's _Siege and Evacuation of Boston and Charlestown_ (Boston, 1876, pp. 64); and the chapters on the siege in Dawson's _Battles of the United States_, vol. i., and Carrington's _Battles of the Revolution_ (1876).[511]
Among the general historians, Bancroft has made an elaborate study of the siege, devoting to it a large part of his vol. viii. (orig. edition), and all the histories of the United States, Massachusetts, and Boston necessarily cover it.[512]