| THE HEROES WHO FIRST FELL. ——— |
| In Acton, a country town of Massachusetts about 30 miles from Boston, and near Concord bridge where the battle was fought in '75, there is a military company which is composed of the descendants of the men who fought and fell in the battle. Their commander's family name since that day has always been Davis¹. On Monday morning, the 15th April, the proclamation of the President of the United States calling for troops was issued. On Tuesday morning, the 16th, at one o'clock, the Acton church bell rang. The men of the town hastily assembled on the green. The President's proclamation was read, and the requisition of the Governor of Massachusetts; and at 9 o'clock that morning the Acton company was in Fanueil Hall, in Boston, ready for service. On Friday, the 19th April, the great day of the company's history, it was engaged in Baltimore; and the heroes of Lexington and Concord of '75 made place in glory beside them, for their sons the heroes of Baltimore fight in '61. |
| Nor is he less a hero who is the official civil and military head of Massachusetts in this solemn hour. Long foreseeing the inevitable result; personally acquainted with leaders of the rebellion, then ripening into full traitors; sprung of the blood which has been the seed of liberty and progressive civilization; an accomplished civilian; a man altogether of the higher type of the old Revolutionary leaders, Governor Andrews [sic]² has been preparing, hoping against hope for a peaceable solution, so that the Massachusetts men could be equipped and forwarded at once. It was their happiness to be first summoned and first in the field. It will be their undying fame that, in the great struggle of us all to maintain the liberty our fathers won, they were again the first to fall. |