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.

[Illustration:  The old battle ground.]

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.”

[Illustration:  R. Waldo Emerson]

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