A motley rabble of men and boys, led by Crispus Attucks, a negro, and shouting, “The way to get rid of these soldiers is to attack the main guard; strike at the root; this is the nest!” with more valor than discretion, they rushed to King Street, and were fired upon by Captain Preston’s company. Crispus Attucks was the first to fall; he and Samuel Gray and Jonas Caldwell were killed on the spot. Samuel Maverick and Patrick Carr were mortally wounded. The excitement which followed was intense. The bells of the town were rung; an impromptu 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 in Boston were closed; all the bells of Boston and neighboring towns were rung. It was said that a greater number of persons assembled on this occasion than were ever before gathered on the continent for a similar purpose. The body of Attucks, the negro 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 in Union Street, and Gray from his brother’s, in Royal Exchange Lane. The four hearses formed a junction in King Street, and there the procession marched on 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 the following 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 and Maverick fell.” The anniversary of this event was publicly commemorated in Boston, by an oration 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 general celebration. Not only was the occasion 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, which, to say the most, was only skin-deep. A single passage from 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:--