Long before morning, nearly two-score of the villagers, under Captain Parker, gathered on the green, near the church, waiting for the red-coats, who came at double-quick, Major Pitcairn exclaiming, "Disperse, ye villains! Lay down your arms, ye rebels, and disperse!" Unmoved, Captain Parker said to his men, "Don't fire unless you are fired on; but if they want a war, let it begin here." The Revolutionary War began there, to end only when America should be free. Seven Americans were killed, nine wounded, and the rest were put to flight; but the blood shed on Lexington Green made liberty dear to every heart. The British now marched to Concord, where, in the early morning, they found four hundred and fifty men gathered to receive them. Captain Isaac Davis, who said, when his company led the force, "I haven't a man that is afraid to go," was killed at the first shot, at the North Bridge. The British troops destroyed all the stores they could find, though most had been removed, and then started toward Boston. All along the road the indignant Americans fired upon them from behind stone fences and clumps of bushes. Tired by their night march, having lost three hundred in killed and wounded, over three times as many as the Americans, they were glad to meet Lord Percy coming to their rescue with one thousand men. He formed a hollow square, and, faint and exhausted, the soldiers threw themselves on the ground within it, and rested. The whole country seemed to rise to arms. Men came pouring into Boston with such weapons as they could find. Noble Israel Putnam of Connecticut left his plough in the field and hastened to the war. May 10, Congress again met at Philadelphia. They sent a second petition to King George, which John Adams called an "imbecile measure." They made plans for the support of the army already gathered at Cambridge from the different States. Who should be the commander of this growing army? Then John Adams spoke of the gentleman from Virginia, "whose skill and experience as an officer, whose independent fortune, great talents, and excellent universal character, would command the approbation of all America, and unite the cordial exertions of all the colonies better than any other person in the Union." June 5, Washington was unanimously elected commander-in-chief.