The excitement which followed was intense. The bells of the town were rung; an impromptu town meeting was held, and an immense assembly was gathered. Three days after, on the 8th, a public funeral of the martyrs took place. The shops of Boston were closed, and all the bells of Boston and the neighboring towns were rung. It is said that a greater number of persons assembled on this occasion than were ever before gathered on this continent for a similar purpose. The body of Crispus Attucks, the mulatto slave, had been placed in Faneuil Hall, with that of Caldwell, both being strangers in the city. Maverick was buried from his mother’s house, on Union street, and Gray from his brothers, in Royal Exchange Lane. The four hearses formed a junction in King street, and there the procession marched in columns six deep, with a long file of coaches belonging to the most distinguished citizens, to the Middle burying-ground, where the four victims were deposited in one grave, over which a stone was placed with this inscription: "Long as in Freedom’s cause the wise contend, Dear to your country shall your fame extend; While to the world the lettered stone shall tell Where Caldwell, Attucks, Gray, Maverick fell." The anniversary of this event was publicly commemorated in Boston by an ovation and other exercises every year until after our national independence was achieved, when the Fourth of July was substituted for the Fifth of March, as the more proper day for a general celebration. Not only was the event commemorated, but the martyrs who then gave up their lives were remembered and honored. For half a century after the close of the war, the name of Crispus Attucks was honorably mentioned by the most noted men of the country, who were not blinded by foolish prejudice. At the battle of Bunker Hill, Peter Salem, a Negro, distinguished himself by shooting Major Pitcairn, who, in the midst of the battle, having passed the storm of fire without mounting the redoubt, and waving the sword, cried to the rebels to surrender. The fall of Pitcairn ended the battle in favor of liberty. A single passage from Mr. Bancroft’s history will give a succinct and clear account of the condition of the army in respect to colored soldiers, at the time of the battle of Bunker Hill: "Nor should history forget to record that as in the army of Cambridge, so also in this gallant band, the free Negroes of the colony had their representatives. For the right of free Negroes to bear arms in the public defence was at that day as little disputed in New England as their other rights. They took their place, not in a separate corps, but in the ranks with the white man; and their names may be read on the pension rolls of the country, side by side with those of other soldiers of the Revolution."—Bancroft’s History of the United States, Vol. VII, p. 421.