on a stout “cord-wood stick”; Samuel Gray, one of the rope-makers, was shot as he stood with his hands in his bosom, and just as he had said, “My lads, they will not fire”; Patrick Carr, on hearing the alarm-bell, had left his house full of fight, and, as he was crossing the street, was mortally wounded; James Caldwell, in like manner summoned from his home, was killed as he was standing in the middle of the street; Samuel Maverick, a lad of seventeen, ran out of the house to go to a fire, and was shot as he was crossing the street; six others were wounded.  But fifteen or twenty minutes had elapsed from the time the sergeant went from the main guard to the time of the firing.  The people, on the report of the guns, fell back, but instinctively and instantly returned for the killed and wounded, when the infuriated soldiers prepared to fire again, but were checked by Captain Preston, and were withdrawn across the street to the main guard.  The drums beat; several companies of the Twenty-Ninth Regiment, under Colonel Carr, promptly appeared in the street, and were formed in three divisions in front of the main guard, the front division near the northeast corner of the Town-House, in the kneeling posture for street-firing.  The Fourteenth Regiment was ordered under arms, but remained at their barracks.

The report now spread that “the troops had risen on the people”; and the beat of drums, the church-bells, and the cry of fire summoned the inhabitants from their homes, and they rushed through the streets to the place of alarm.  In a few minutes thousands collected, and the cry was, “To arms! to arms!” The whole town was in the utmost confusion; while in King Street there was, what the Patriots had so long predicted, dreaded, and vainly endeavored to avert, an indignant population and an exasperated soldiery face to face.  The excitement was terrible.  The care of the popular leaders for their cause, since the mob-days of the Stamp Act, had been like the care of their personal honor:  it drew them forth as the prompt and brave controlling power in every crisis; and they were among the concourse on this “night of consternation.”  Joseph Warren, early on the ground to act the good physician as well as the fearless patriot, gives the impression produced on himself and his co-laborers as they saw the first blood flowing that was shed for American liberty.  “Language,” he says, “is too feeble to paint the emotions of our souls, when our streets were stained with the blood of our brethren, when our ears were wounded by the groans of the dying, and our eyes were tormented by the sight of the mangled bodies of the dead.”  “Our hearts beat to arms; we snatched our weapons, almost resolved by one decisive stroke to avenge the death of our slaughtered brethren.”