Samuel Adams had left behind him somewhere on the road his immortal saying:--
"What a glorious morning for America is this."[58]
Revere and Lowell reached Buckman Tavern, and there learned from a man who had just come up the road that the troops were within two miles. They proceeded to a chamber for the trunk, which they secured, and looking out of the window towards Boston, saw the King's soldiers but a little way off. They quickly made their exit from the Tavern, passed along the Common through Captain Parker's Company, or rather a small part of it, and heard his words:--
"Let the troops pass by and don't molest them without they begin first."[59]
When a little farther along, "_not half gun shot off_," as Revere expresses it, he heard a single gun, turned and saw the smoke of it rising just in front of the troops, heard them give a great shout, saw them run a few paces, heard irregular firing as of an advance guard, and then firing by platoons.
The American Revolution had indeed commenced.
[58] It has sometimes been written that Hancock and Adams first went to a little wooded hill southeasterly from the parsonage overlooking Lexington Common, and perhaps half a mile away, and where they remained concealed until after the British had passed, and that Adams, looking down upon that first scene of bloodshed expressed himself as above quoted. But I cannot reconcile that statement with Revere's own version of the flight wherein he speaks of going with them two miles and then returning for Hancock's trunk at the Buckman Tavern, and which he succeeded in getting just before the British arrived there at five o'clock. Thus Adams could not have witnessed the opening scene on Lexington Common.
[59] Revere's Narrative. Otherwise quoted as "Don't fire unless fired upon, but if they want war, let it begin here." Lexington Hist. Soc. I, 46.
It must not be imagined that information of the night march of the troops was known only along the highway to their destination in Concord. There were fleet messengers in every direction, through the Counties of Middlesex and Essex and Norfolk. Those lanterns in the North Church steeple meant as much to many others as to those on the Charlestown shore. But few details of their rides have been left to us. Yet everywhere the hoof-beats, the shadowy form of the horseman--his cry of alarm, the drums--the bells--the guns--the assembling of the minute men,--their hurried march towards that one long and thin highway from Boston to Concord; some of these are known, and can be written of, as a part of the record of that day.