Paul Revere's Ride (56 page)

This suggests that estimates of time by British officers were in general roughly accurate when understood as local apparent solar time. Secondary accounts by Coburn and French deliberately altered these times for the march from Cambridge to Concord, to conform with their understanding of events. They all believed that Col. Smith was “slow,” and could not square that assumption with primary estimates of the rapidity of the British march. Rather than rethinking their assumption, they revised the evidence. A comparison of solar times with contemporary estimates shows that these revisions were erroneous. The student of the battle should in general trust the preponderance of primary temporal estimates, and reject those in secondary accounts by Coburn and French. These secondary works remain very valuable in other respects, but not on questions of chronology.

SOURCE: Nathaniel Low,
An Astronomical Diary; Or, Almanack for the Year of Christian Era, 1775
(Boston, 1775); solar tables, 1993.

APPENDIX O

The Lexington Militia: Quantitative Research by Jeremy Stern for this volume

Strength:
The muster rolls of the Lexington Company, and lists compiled by Charles Hudson for his history of Lexington identify 141 men of all ranks. Of this number as many as 75 have been identified as present on Lexington Green when the first shot was fired. The total number of male polls in 1771 was 185; in 1775, 208; in 1785, 196; in 1790, 205. The number of males aged 16 and older in the census of 1790 was 251. The total population of the town was enumerated at 755 in 1770 and 941 in 1790.

Age:
The youngest militiaman was 16; the oldest, 66. Of those whose ages are known, 16.4% were under the age of 20; 25.5% were 20-29; 36.5% were 30-39; 13.6% were 40-49; and 8.2% were 50 and older. A total of 58.3% were 30 and older. Mean and median ages were in the range of 31.8 to 32.8. The Lexington militia were older than the Concord minutemen, as estimated by Robert Gross. In general, minutemen in many towns appear to have been younger than the militia, and much younger than men on the alarm lists, and not representative of the men who mustered and fought that day.

Prior Military Service:
From incomplete records, Charles Hudson estimated that a minimum of 28 to 33 men in Lexington,
ca.
1775, who had seen active service in the French and Indian War. Probably the true number was much higher. The age of veterans in Captain Parker’s company ranged from 62-year-old Ensign Robert Munroe to Amos Locke, aged 32.

Wealth:
A linkage of various 1775 muster lists with the 1771 tax list shows that nearly all of these men were small landowners, neither rich nor poor. Of 141 men, 78 could not be located on the tax list of 1771, in almost all cases because they were under 21, or had not moved into the town, or could not be conclusively identified. Of 63 militiamen who could be identified, 58 were landowners in the town. Only 5 owned no land. The largest holding was assessed at 19 pounds annual worth, a comfortable but modest estate. Captain Parker was assessed at 11 pounds. Of the ten richest men on the list, eight were privates.

Kinship:
The muster lists of the Lexington company included 16 Munroes, 13 Harringtons, 11 Smiths, 8 Reeds, 4 Browns, 4 Hadleys, 4 Muzzys, 4 Hastings, 4 Tidds, 3 Simonds, 3 Wellingtons, 3 Winships, and many pairs. Only 27 men of 141 did not share a name with another member of the company. The great majority belonged to one extended cousinage.

APPENDIX P

American Casualties, April 19, 1775, by town:

Acton:
killed (3) Isaac Davis, James Hayward, Abner Hosmer; wounded (1) Luther Blanchard.

Bedford:
killed (1) Capt. Jonathan Wilson; wounded (1) Job Lane.

Beverly:
killed (1) Reuben Kenyme; wounded (3) Nathaniel Cleves, William Dodge III, Samuel Woodbury.

Billerica:
wounded (2) Timothy Blanchard, John Nichols.

Brookline:
killed (1) Isaac Gardner.

Cambridge:
killed (6) John Hicks, William Marcy (noncombatant?), Moses Richardson, Jason Russell, Jason Winship (noncombatant), Jabez Wyman (noncombatant); wounded (1), Samuel Whittemore; missing (2) Samuel Frost, Seth Russell.

Charlestown:
killed (2) Edward Barber (a 14-year-old noncombatant), James Miller.

Chelmsford:
wounded (2) Oliver Barron, Aaron Chamberlain.

Concord:
killed (none); wounded (5) Nathan Barrett, Jonas Brown, Charles Miles, George Minot, Abel Prescott, Jr.

Danvers:
killed (7) Samuel Cook, Benjamin Deland, Ebenezer Golwait, Henry Jacobs, Perley Putnam, George Southwick, Jothan Webb; wounded (2) Nathan Putnam, Dennis Wallace; missing (1) Joseph Bell.

Dedham:
killed (1) Elias Haven; wounded (1) Israel Everett.

Framingham:
wounded (1) Daniel Hemminway.

Lexington:
killed (10) John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Jonas Parker, Jedidiah Munroe, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzy, John Raymond, Nathaniel Wyman; wounded (10) Francis Brown, Joseph Comee, Prince Estabrook, Nathaniel Farmer, Ebenezer Munroe Jr., Jedidiah Munroe, Solomon Pierce, John Robbins, John Tidd, Thomas Winship.

Lynn:
killed (4) William Flint, Thomas Hadley, Abednego Ramsdell, Daniel Townsend; wounded (2) Joseph Felt, Timothy Monroe; missing (1) Josiah Breed.

Medford:
killed (2) Henry Putnam, William Holly.

Needham:
killed (5) John Bacon, Nathaniel Chamberlain, Amos Mills, Elisha Mills, Jonathan Parker; wounded (2) Eleazer Kingsbury, Tolman.

Newton:
wounded (1) Noah Wiswell.

Roxbury:
missing (1) Elijah Seaver.

Salem:
killed (1) Benjamin Pierce.

Stow:
wounded (1) Daniel Conant.

Sudbury:
killed (2) Deacon Josiah Haynes (aet. 80), Asahael Reed; died of wounds (1), Thomas Bent (1); wounded (1) Joshua Haynesjr.

Watertown:
killed (1) Joseph Coolidge.

Woburn:
killed (2) Daniel Thompson, Asahel Porter; wounded (3), Jacob Bacon, Johnson, George Reed.

TOTAL: killed and died of wounds, 50; wounded, 39; missing, 5; total casualties, 94; towns with casualties: 23

SOURCES: Elias Phinney,
History of the Battle at Lexington…
(Boston, 1825), 27-30; John Farmer in
MHSC,
XVIII; Frothingham,
History of the Siege of Boston,
80-81.

APPENDIX Q

British Casualties, April 19, 1775

Estimate by Stephen Kemble, Gage’s Intelligence [!] Officer: “We lost about 25 killed and about 150 wounded.” Kemble Journals, N-YHS, 42-43.

Estimate by John Pope, a British soldier: 90 killed, 181 wounded, total 271

Estimate by an anonymous British soldier: “might have amounted to 500 killed and wounded” (Kehoe, “We Were There!” I, 174).

Estimates of casualties by regiment:

4th Foot:
“Our regiment had about four or five men killed, and about 25 wounded” (Evelyn); Gage reported 8 killed, 25 wounded, 8 missing.

5th Foot:
Of the grenadiers, “half the company and Lt. Baker were killed or wounded.” For the entire regiment, Gage reported 5 killed, 18 wounded, 1 missing.