ly to do so.

All of us who had worked during the night, and a considerable number of
those who had just come up, were ordered to take post within the
redoubt, and it cheered me wondrously to see with Colonel Prescott,
Doctor Warren, that kindly gentleman who never passed a lad without a
friendly smile or word, and who had many for us Minute Boys as we filed
in striving to look as much like soldiers as possible.

As nearly as I can now remember, our two artillery companies were
between the breastwork and the rail fence on the eastern side, and a
small number of men lined the cartway on the right of the redoubt. The
Connecticut and the New Hampshire men were at the rail fence on the west
side of the redoubt, and there were two or three companies drawn up on
the main street at the base of our hill.

Now up to this point I can speak with considerable of certainty, having
Hiram at my elbow to point out this movement or that; but once we were
fronting the Britishers, and the fumes of burning powder assailed my
nostrils, I lost all knowledge of what was being done save immediately
around me, and there were times, when the fight grew hottest, that I
could not for the life of me have told you what I did or said.

This much I must set down in justice to our Minute Boys of Boston: It
was not a cheerful position even for tried soldiers to be in, this
seeing the flower of the king's troops marching up the hill, well fed
and well armed, outnumbering us two to one, while we who had never even
seen warfare, hungry and thirsty to such point that our tongues were
parched dry, and with but a scanty supply of ammunition, stood behind
our breastworks awaiting what surely seemed must be little less than a
slaughter of us all who loved the Cause.

I dare venture to say that every fellow in my company understood full
well all the danger that menaced, and yet not one of them flinched; each
lad did a man's full duty, and performed, I might say, more than is
demanded of a soldier.

It was near to three of the clock in the afternoon before General Gage
was ready to wipe us out. Then we saw those long lines of red moving
steadily forward, and my heart leaped within me when our fifers blew
all their breath into the tune of Yankee Doodle, while an hundred or
more of us sang that song which the Britishers had written as a cheap
way of showing their contempt for those people who had been loyal to the
king until he and his ministers, by cruel opp