Seeing this manoeuvre the Americans slowly advanced and took up their position on the hill at the west of the bridge which the British now began to destroy. Colonel Isaac Davis of Acton now offered to lead the attack, saying, "I have not a man who is afraid to go," and he was given the place in front of the advancing column, and fell at the first volley from the British, who were posted on the other bank of the river. Major Buttrick then ordered his troops to fire, and dashed on to the bridge, driving the enemy back to the main road, down which they soon retreated to the Common, to join the Grenadiers and Marines who there awaited them. The Minute-men crossed over the hills and fields to Merriam's corner when they again attacked the British, who were marching back to Boston, and killed and wounded several of the enemy without injury to themselves. Meanwhile the three companies had returned from Colonel Barrett's and marched safely over the bridge which had been abandoned by both sides, and joined the main force of the British who had waited for them on the Common.
After the skirmish at Merriam's corner, the fighting was continued in true Indian fashion from behind walls and buildings with such effect that the British would have been captured had they not been re-enforced at Lexington by a large force with field pieces.
In 1836, the spot on which the British stood was marked by a plain monument, and in 1875 the place near which Captain Isaac Davis and his companions fell was made forever memorable by the noble bronze statue of the Minute-man by Daniel Chester French in which the artist has carefully copied every detail of dress and implement, from the ancient firelock, to the old plough on which he leans.
In order to prove her claim to the peaceful name of Concord, this village seems to have taken an active part in every warlike enterprise which followed. Several of her men fought at Bunker Hill and one was killed there. In Shay's Rebellion Job Shattuck of Groton attempted to prevent the court, which assembled in Concord, from transacting its business, by an armed force. In the war of 1812, Concord men served well, and in the old anti-slavery days many a fierce battle of tongue and pen was waged by the early supporters of the then unpopular cause. John Brown spent his fifty-eighth birthday in the town the week before he left for Harper's Ferry, and the gallows from which his "soul went marching on." The United States officials who came to arrest Mr. Sanborn for his knowledge of Brown's movements were advised by the women and men of Concord to retreat down the old Boston road a la British; and when the call came for troops to put down the late Rebellion, Concord was among the first to send her militia to the field under the gallant young farmer-soldier, Colonel Prescott, who at Petersburg,
"Showed how a soldier ought to fight,
And a Christian ought to die."
In memory of the brave who found in Concord "a birthplace, home or grave" the plain shaft in the public square was erected on the spot where the Minute-men were probably first drawn up on the morning of the nineteenth of April. 1775 to listen to the inspiring words of their young preacher, Rev. William Emerson, and ninety years after in the same place his grandson R.W. Emerson recounted the noble deeds of the men who had gallantly proved themselves worthy to bear the names made famous by their ancestors at Concord fight. The Rev. William Emerson in 1775 occupied and owned The Old Manse, which was built for him about ten years before, on the occasion of his marriage to Miss. Phoebe Bliss, the daughter of one of the early ministers of Concord. Mr. Emerson was so patriotic and eager to attack the invaders at once, that he was compelled by his people to remain in his house, from which he is said to have watched the battle at the bridge from a window commanding the field. He soon after joined the army as chaplain and died the next year at Rutland, and his widow married some years after the Rev. Dr. Ripley who succeeded him in his church and home, and lived until his death in the Manse which has always remained in the possession of his descendants. Dr. Ripley ruled the church and town with the iron sway of an old-fashioned New England minister, and the old Manse has for years been a literary centre. In the old dining room, the solemn conclave of clergymen have cracked many a hard doctrine and many a merry jest, seated in the high-backed leather chairs which have stood for one hundred and twenty years around the old table. Here Mrs. Sarah Ripley fitted many a noted scholar for college in the intervals of her housekeeping labors before the open kitchen fireplace. In an attic room, called the Saint's chamber, from the penciled names of honored occupants, Emerson is said to have written Nature, and perhaps other works, as much of his time was spent in the Manse at various periods of his life. Here Hawthorne came on his wedding tour and lived for two happy years and wrote the Mosses from an Old Manse and other works. In his study over the dining-room, his name is written with a diamond on one of the little window panes, and with the same instrument his wife has recorded on the dining-room window annals of her daughter who was born in the house.
On the hill opposite, the solitary poplar, the last of a group set out by some school-girls eighty years ago, still stands. Each of its companions died about the time of the decease of its lady planter, and as the one who set out the present tree has lately died, the poplar suffered last year from a stroke of lightning which may cause it to follow soon.
Nearly opposite the Manse on the road toward the village is the well preserved house, formerly the home of Elisha Jones, which bears in the L the mark of a bullet fired into it on the day of Concord fight. On the same side of the way a little farther down is a house, a portion of which was built by Humphrey Barrett as early as 1640. As the route of the retreating British from the bridge is followed for half a mile down this road the common is reached, which is bounded on the Northern end by the stores, from which the British took flour and other Continental supplies, and at the opposite end stands Wright tavern which the gallant Pitcairn immortalized by stirring his brandy with a bloody finger, unconscious that the rebel blood he promised to stir would cause his own to flow at Bunker Hill.
Opposite Wright tavern is one of the oldest burying hills in the country, on which may be seen the stone of Joseph Merriam, who died in 1677 and those of Colonel Barrett who commanded the troops, and of Major Buttrick who led them at the bridge, and of his son the fifer who furnished the music to which they marched. Here also is the inscription to John Jack famous for its alliteration, and the tablets of the old ministers and founders of church and State. Some of these headstones bear coats of arms and rough portraits in stone, while others more symbolic, are content with the winged cherubim or solemn weeping willow, and others older still preserve the antique coffin shape. About one quarter of a mile in the rear of this historic Burying Hill is Sleepy Hollow, the cemetery now so famous, which will be for centuries as now, the Mecca of pious pilgrims, for here Emerson sleeps beneath the giant pine of which he loved to write and which in grateful recognition ever whispers its solemn dirge over the dead poet, who will live forever in his writings. His grave is now marked by a rough rock of beautiful pink crystal-quartz, and his son Waldo lies close beside him, with no monument but the imperishable one of Threnody. Mrs. Ruth Emerson, the mother of the poet and his brothers, nephews and grandchildren rest near him, and close by is the grave of Miss Mary Moody Emerson, the eccentric genius whom he well appreciated.