This follows a plan in Hudson's _Lexington_, p. 191. The British approached from Lexington by the road (1), and halted in the middle of the town (3). The provincials, who were assembled by the liberty-pole (2), retired along the road (5) by the Rev. William Emerson's house [Hawthorne's "Old Manse"], and across the North Bridge (between 5 and 8) to the high land (6), where they halted, and where reinforcements from the neighboring towns reached them. Colonel Smith, the British commander, now sent out two parties to seek for stores. One, which went by the road (4) to the South Bridge, found little. The other followed the road (5) by the North Bridge, and passing beneath the provincials at 6, turned to their right, and took the road (5) to Colonel Barrett's house, where they destroyed some cannon and other stores. This second party had left a detail at the North Bridge to secure their retreat by that way, for the road (10) did not then exist. The provincials, after the party bound to Colonel Barrett's passed on, descended from 6 to the North Bridge, when the detail defending it, who were near 8, recrossed the bridge. Here the first firing took place, and some were killed on both sides, the river being between the combatants. The British detail now retired towards the centre of the town, the Americans following them across the bridge, but immediately dispersing without military order. While thus scattered, the British party, returning from Barrett's house, recrossed the North Bridge without molestation, and rejoined the main body at the centre of the town. Here the British, after destroying other stores and delaying for about two hours, formed for the return march towards Lexington, the main body following the road (2), while a flanking party took the ridge of high land (2). Cf. also the plans in Frothingham's _Siege of Boston_, 70.] A few days after the 19th, John Adams tells us[534] he rode along "the scene of action toward Lexington for many miles, and inquired of the inhabitants the circumstances." He gives us no particulars, but what he learned was not calculated to diminish his ardor in the cause.[535] The accounts on the British side are almost equally numerous, including the official reports of Gage, Percy, and Smith, already referred to. General Gage sent (April 29)[536] to Gov. Trumbull, of Connecticut, a statement, which was printed at the time in a handbill as a _Circumstantial Account_, and he refers to it "as taken from gentlemen of indisputable honor and veracity, who were eye-witnesses of all the transactions of that day."[537]