Here they landed at half past two in the morning, and the moon at this hour was well up. They marched quietly and rapidly, but not unobserved, and when they approached Lexington Green they found drawn up there a company of minute-men. Smith had become alarmed when, as he was advancing, he found the country aroused in every direction, and sent back for reinforcements. Earl Percy, with the succor, was by some stupidity[366] delayed, and did not get off from Boston till between nine and ten the next morning, and he then took the circuitous route by Roxbury and Cambridge. The critical moment on Lexington Green had then long passed. Major Pitcairn, who commanded Smith's advance-guard, would not or could not prevent that fatal volley in the early morning light, by which several of the small body of provincials were killed before they broke, while, by a scattering return fire, one or two of the British were wounded.[367] Smith, without being aware that Hancock and Adams were at the moment within sound of his musketry, and just then being conducted farther from his reach, waited while his troops gave three cheers, and then resumed his march, passing on towards Concord. The provincials gathered their dead and wounded, and managed as the British passed on to pick up a few stragglers, the first prisoners of the war.[368] On the redcoats went as the day broadened.[369] They followed the road much as it runs to-day, though in places steeps and impediments are now avoided by a better grade. Their march went by the spots which the genius of Hawthorne and Emerson have converted into shrines. In the centre of Concord they halted, while the gathering provincials, who had retired before them, watched the smoke of devastation. Smith had detailed two detachments to find and destroy stores. One of these, sent to Colonel Barrett's, beyond the North Bridge, had some success, and while it was absent the provincials, now increased in numbers from the neighboring towns, approached a guard which had been left at the bridge. Here the British fired at the Americans across the stream, and the volley being returned, a few were killed on both sides, before the British guard retreated upon the main body, whither they were soon followed by the other detachment which was out. Smith took two hours to gather wagons for his wounded and make preparations for his retreat, which had now become imperative, for the militia were seen swarming on the hills.[370] When Smith started he threw out a flanking party on his left, which followed a ridge running parallel to his march; but when the sloping of the land compelled the flankers to descend to the level of the road, the British lost the advantage which the ridge gave them, and the minute-men, who now began to strike the British line of march at every angle, waylaid them at cross-roads, and dropped an incessant fire upon them from copse, hill, and stone wall, until the retreating