MURDER IN CONCORD: THE EXTENDED VERSION

19-Year-Old Accused Of Murder In Concord Park

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He quickly assembled two companies of grenadiers to lead toward the North Bridge himself. As these troops marched, they met the shattered remnants of the three light infantry companies running towards them. Smith was concerned about the four companies that had been at Barrett's, since their route to town was now unprotected. When he saw the Minutemen in the distance behind their wall, he halted his two companies and moved forward with only his officers to take a closer look. One of the Minutemen behind that wall observed, "If we had fired, I believe we could have killed almost every officer there was in the front, but we had no orders to fire and there wasn't a gun fired.

At this point, the detachment of regulars sent to Barrett's farm marched back from their fruitless search of that area. They passed through the now mostly-deserted battlefield, and saw dead and wounded comrades lying on the bridge. There was one who looked to them as if he had been scalped, which angered and shocked the British soldiers. They crossed the bridge and returned to the town by The regulars continued to search for and destroy colonial military supplies in the town, ate lunch, reassembled for marching, and left Concord after noon.

This delay in departure gave colonial militiamen from outlying towns additional time to reach the road back to Boston. Lieutenant Colonel Smith, concerned about the safety of his men, sent flankers to follow a ridge and protect his forces from the roughly 1, colonials now in the field as the British marched east out of Concord. To cross the narrow bridge, the British had to pull the flankers back into the main column and close ranks to a mere three soldiers abreast.

Colonial militia companies arriving from the north and east had converged at this point, and presented a clear numerical advantage over the regulars. As the last of the British column marched over the narrow bridge, the British rear guard wheeled and fired a volley at the colonial militiamen, who had been firing irregularly and ineffectively from a distance but now had closed to within musket range. Two regulars were killed and perhaps six wounded, with no colonial casualties. Smith sent out his flanking troops again after crossing the small bridge. On Brooks Hill also known as Hardy's Hill about 1 mile 1.

Smith withdrew his men from Brooks Hill, and the column continued on to another small bridge into Lincoln, at Brooks Tavern, where more militia companies intensified the attack from the north side of the road. The regulars soon reached a point in the road now referred to as the "Bloody Angle" where the road rises and curves sharply to the left through a lightly-wooded area.

Additional militia flowing parallel to the road from the engagement at Meriam's Corner positioned themselves on the northwest side of the road, catching the British in a crossfire, while other militia companies on the road closed from behind to attack. In passing through these two sharp curves, the British force lost thirty soldiers killed or wounded, and four colonial militia were also killed, including Captain Jonathan Wilson of Bedford , Captain Nathan Wyman of Billerica , Lt. The British soldiers escaped by breaking into a trot, a pace that the colonials could not maintain through the woods and swampy terrain.

Colonial forces on the road itself behind the British were too densely packed and disorganized to mount more than a harassing attack from the rear.

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As militia forces from other towns continued to arrive, the colonial forces had risen to about 2, men. The road now straightened to the east, with cleared fields and orchards along the sides. Smith sent out flankers again, who succeeded in trapping some militia from behind and inflicting casualties.

British casualties were also mounting from these engagements and from persistent long-range fire from the militiamen, and the exhausted British were running out of ammunition. When the British column neared the boundary between Lincoln and Lexington, it encountered another ambush from a hill overlooking the road, set by Captain John Parker's Lexington militiamen, including some of them bandaged up from the encounter in Lexington earlier in the day. At this point, Lt. Smith was wounded in the thigh and knocked from his horse.

Psychologist says Concord murder suspect is competent to stand trial

Major John Pitcairn assumed effective command of the column and sent light infantry companies up the hill to clear the militia forces. The light infantry cleared two additional hills as the column continued east—"The Bluff" and "Fiske Hill"— and took still more casualties from ambushes set by fresh militia companies joining the battle. In one of the musket volleys from the colonial soldiers, Major Pitcairn's horse bolted in fright, throwing Pitcairn to the ground and injuring his arm. A few surrendered or were captured; some now broke formation and ran forward toward Lexington. In the words of one British officer, "we began to run rather than retreat in order.

We attempted to stop the men and form them two deep, but to no purpose, the confusion increased rather than lessened. Upon this, they began to form up under heavy fire. Only one British officer remained uninjured among the three companies at the head of the British column as it approach Lexington Center. He understood the column's perilous situation: A full brigade, about 1, men with artillery under the command of Earl Percy, had arrived to rescue them.

It was about 2: Joseph Thaxter, wrote of his account:.

We pursued them and killed some; when they got to Lexington, they were so close pursued and fatigued, that they must have soon surrendered, had not Lord Percy met them with a large reinforcement and two field-pieces. They fired them, but the balls went high over our heads. But no cannon ever did more execution, such stories of their effects had been spread by the tories through our troops, that from this time more wont back than pursed.

We pursued to Charlestown Common, and then retired to Cambridge. When the army collected at Cambridge, Colonel Prescott with his regiment of minute men, and John Robinson, his Lieutenant Colonel, were prompt at being at their post. In their accounts afterward, British officers and soldiers alike noted their frustration that the colonial militiamen fired at them from behind trees and stone walls, rather than confronting them in large, linear formations in the style of European warfare.

Reflecting on the British experience that day, Earl Percy understood the significance of the American tactics:. Indeed, they knew too well what was proper, to do so. Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob, will find himself much mistaken. General Gage had anticipated that Lt. Smith's expedition might require reinforcement, so Gage drafted orders for reinforcing units to assemble in Boston at 4 a. But in his obsession for secrecy, Gage had sent only one copy of the orders to the adjutant of the 1st Brigade, whose servant then left the envelope on a table. Also at about 4 a. Smith now had clear indication that all element of surprise had been lost and that alarm was spreading throughout the countryside.

So he sent a rider back to Boston with a request for reinforcements. At about 5 a. Unfortunately for the British, once again only one copy of the orders were sent to each commander, and the order for the Royal Marines was delivered to the desk of Major John Pitcairn, who was already on the Lexington Common with Smith's column at that hour. After these delays, Percy's brigade, about 1, strong, left Boston at about 8: Along the way, the story is told, they marched to the tune of " Yankee Doodle " to taunt the inhabitants of the area.

Percy took the land route across Boston Neck and over the Great Bridge, which some quick-thinking colonists had stripped of its planking to delay the British. The Harvard man, apparently oblivious to the reality of what was happening around him, showed him the proper road without thinking. He was later compelled to leave the country for inadvertently supporting the enemy.

They could hear gunfire in the distance as they set up their cannon and deployed lines of regulars on high ground with commanding views of the town. Colonel Smith's men approached like a fleeing mob with the full complement of colonial militia in close formation pursuing them. Percy ordered his artillery to open fire at extreme range, dispersing the colonial militiamen.

Smith's men collapsed with exhaustion once they reached the safety of Percy's lines. Against the advice of his Master of Ordnance, Percy had left Boston without spare ammunition for his men or for the two artillery pieces they brought with them, thinking the extra wagons would slow him down. Each man in Percy's brigade had only 36 rounds, and each artillery piece was supplied with only a few rounds carried in side-boxes. This convoy was intercepted by a small party of older, veteran militiamen still on the "alarm list," who could not join their militia companies because they were well over 60 years of age.

Battles of Lexington and Concord

These men rose up in ambush and demanded the surrender of the wagons, but the regulars ignored them and drove their horses on. The old men opened fire, shot the lead horses, killed two sergeants, and wounded the officer. The British survivors ran, and six of them threw their weapons into a pond before they surrendered. Percy assumed control of the combined forces of about 1, men and let them rest, eat, drink, and have their wounds tended at field headquarters Munroe Tavern before resuming the march.

They set out from Lexington at about 3: Percy's men were often surrounded, but they had the tactical advantage of interior lines. Percy could shift his units more easily to where they were needed, while the colonial militia were required to move around the outside of his formation. Percy placed Smith's men in the middle of the column, while the 23rd Regiment's line companies made up the column's rear guard.

Because of information provided by Smith and Pitcairn about how the Americans were attacking, Percy ordered the rear guard to be rotated every mile or so, to allow some of his troops to rest briefly. Flanking companies were sent to both sides of the road, and a powerful force of Marines acted as the vanguard to clear the road ahead. During the respite at Lexington, Brigadier General William Heath arrived and took command of the militia.

Earlier in the day, he had traveled first to Watertown to discuss tactics with Joseph Warren, who had left Boston that morning, and other members of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. Heath and Warren reacted to Percy's artillery and flankers by ordering the militiamen to avoid close formations that would attract cannon fire. Instead, they surrounded Percy's marching square with a moving ring of skirmishers at a distance to inflict maximum casualties at minimum risk.

A few mounted militiamen on the road would dismount, fire muskets at the approaching regulars, then remount and gallop ahead to repeat the tactic. Infantry units would apply pressure to the sides of the British column. When it moved out of range, those units would move around and forward to re-engage the column further down the road.

Heath sent messengers out to intercept arriving militia units, directing them to appropriate places along the road to engage the regulars. Some towns sent supply wagons to assist in feeding and rearming the militia. Heath and Warren did lead skirmishers in small actions into battle themselves, but it was the presence of effective leadership that probably had the greatest impact on the success of these tactics. Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob, will find himself very much mistaken. The fighting grew more intense as Percy's forces crossed from Lexington into Menotomy.

Fresh militia poured gunfire into the British ranks from a distance, and individual homeowners began to fight from their own property.

Some homes were also used as sniper positions, turning the situation into a soldier's nightmare: Jason Russell pleaded for his friends to fight alongside him to defend his house by saying, "An Englishman's home is his castle. His friends, depending on which account is to be believed, either hid in the cellar, or died in the house from bullets and bayonets after shooting at the soldiers who followed them in. The Jason Russell House still stands and contains bullet holes from this fight.

A militia unit that attempted an ambush from Russell's orchard was caught by flankers, and eleven men were killed, some allegedly after they had surrendered. Percy lost control of his men, and British soldiers began to commit atrocities to repay for the supposed scalping at the North Bridge and for their own casualties at the hands of a distant, often unseen enemy. Based on the word of Pitcairn and other wounded officers from Smith's command, Percy had learned that the Minutemen were using stone walls, trees and buildings in these more thickly settled towns closer to Boston to hide behind and shoot at the column.

He ordered the flank companies to clear the colonial militiamen out of such places. Many of the junior officers in the flank parties had difficulty stopping their exhausted, enraged men from killing everyone they found inside these buildings. For example, two innocent drunks who refused to hide in the basement of a tavern in Menotomy were killed only because they were suspected of being involved with the day's events.

One church's communion silver was stolen but was later recovered after it was sold in Boston. He recovered from his wounds and later died in at age The colonists lost 25 men killed and nine wounded there, and the British lost 40 killed and 80 wounded, with the 47th Foot and the Marines suffering the highest casualties. Each was about half the day's fatalities. The British troops crossed the Menotomy River today known as Alewife Brook into Cambridge, and the fight grew more intense.

Fresh militia arrived in close array instead of in a scattered formation, and Percy used his two artillery pieces and flankers at a crossroads called Watson's Corner to inflict heavy damage on them. Earlier in the day, Heath had ordered the Great Bridge to be dismantled. Percy's brigade was about to approach the broken-down bridge and a riverbank filled with militia when Percy directed his troops down a narrow track now Beech Street, near present-day Porter Square and onto the road to Charlestown.

The militia now numbering about 4, were unprepared for this movement, and the circle of fire was broken. An American force moved to occupy Prospect Hill in modern-day Somerville , which dominated the road, but Percy moved his cannon to the front and dispersed them with his last rounds of ammunition.

A large militia force arrived from Salem and Marblehead. They might have cut off Percy's route to Charlestown, but these men halted on nearby Winter Hill and allowed the British to escape. Some accused the commander of this force, Colonel Timothy Pickering , of permitting the troops to pass because he still hoped to avoid war by preventing a total defeat of the regulars. Pickering later claimed that he had stopped on Heath's orders, but Heath denied this. The regulars took up strong positions on the hills of Charlestown. But now they held high ground protected by heavy guns from HMS Somerset.

Gage quickly sent over line companies of two fresh regiments—the 10th and 64th—to occupy the high ground in Charlestown and build fortifications. Although they were begun, the fortifications were never completed and would later be a starting point for the militia works built two months later in June before the Battle of Bunker Hill.

General Heath studied the position of the British Army and decided to withdraw the militia to Cambridge. In the morning, Boston was surrounded by a huge militia army, numbering over 15,, which had marched from throughout New England. Now under the leadership of General Artemas Ward , who arrived on the 20th and replaced Brigadier General William Heath , [] they formed a siege line extending from Chelsea , around the peninsulas of Boston and Charlestown, to Roxbury , effectively surrounding Boston on three sides.

In the days immediately following, the size of the colonial forces grew, as militias from New Hampshire , Rhode Island , and Connecticut arrived on the scene. Even now, after open warfare had started, Gage still refused to impose martial law in Boston. He persuaded the town's selectmen to surrender all private weapons in return for promising that any inhabitant could leave town. The battle was not a major one in terms of tactics or casualties. However, in terms of supporting the British political strategy behind the Intolerable Acts and the military strategy behind the Powder Alarms, the battle was a significant failure because the expedition contributed to the fighting it was intended to prevent, and because few weapons were actually seized.

The battle was followed by a war for British political opinion. Within four days of the battle, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had collected scores of sworn testimonies from militiamen and from British prisoners. When word leaked out a week after the battle that Gage was sending his official description of events to London, the Provincial Congress sent a packet of these detailed depositions, signed by over participants in the events, on a faster ship.

The documents were presented to a sympathetic official and printed by the London newspapers two weeks before Gage's report arrived.

George Germain , no friend of the colonists, wrote, "the Bostonians are in the right to make the King's troops the aggressors and claim a victory. The day after the battle, John Adams left his home in Braintree to ride along the battlefields. He became convinced that "the Die was cast, the Rubicon crossed.

But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice? It eventually became the city of Lexington, Kentucky. It was important to the early American government that an image of British fault and American innocence be maintained for this first battle of the war. The history of Patriot preparations, intelligence, warning signals, and uncertainty about the first shot was rarely discussed in the public sphere for decades.

The story of the wounded British soldier at the North Bridge, hors de combat , struck down on the head by a Minuteman using a hatchet, the purported "scalping", was strongly suppressed. Depositions mentioning some of these activities were not published and were returned to the participants this notably happened to Paul Revere. The issue of which side was to blame grew during the early nineteenth century.

For example, older participants' testimony in later life about Lexington and Concord differed greatly from their depositions taken under oath in All now said the British fired first at Lexington, whereas fifty or so years before, they weren't sure. All now said they fired back, but in , they said few were able to. The "Battle" took on an almost mythical quality in the American consciousness. Legend became more important than truth.

A complete shift occurred, and the Patriots were portrayed as actively fighting for their cause, rather than as suffering innocents. Paintings of the Lexington skirmish began to portray the militia standing and fighting back in defiance. The "Concord Hymn" became important because it commemorated the beginning of the American Revolution, and that for much of the 19th century it was a means by which Americans learned about the Revolution, helping to forge the identity of the nation.

After , several generations of schoolchildren memorized Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's poem " Paul Revere's Ride ". Historically it is inaccurate for example, Paul Revere never made it to Concord , but it captures the idea that an individual can change the course of history. In the 20th century, popular and historical opinion varied about the events of the historic day, often reflecting the political mood of the time. Isolationist anti-war sentiments before the World Wars bred skepticism about the nature of Paul Revere's contribution if any to the efforts to rouse the militia.

Anglophilia in the United States after the turn of the twentieth century led to more balanced approaches to the history of the battle. During the Cold War , Revere was used not only as a patriotic symbol, but also as a capitalist one. In , novelist Howard Fast published April Morning , an account of the battle from a fictional year-old's perspective, and reading of the book has been frequently assigned in American secondary schools.

Several memorials commemorating the battle have been established there. The lands surrounding the North Bridge in Concord, as well as approximately 5 miles 8. There are walking trails with interpretive displays along routes that the colonists might have used that skirted the road, and the Park Service often has personnel usually dressed in period dress offering descriptions of the area and explanations of the events of the day. The defense claimed that Michele MacNeill had overdosed on her prescribed medication and fallen into the bathtub and drowned.

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The jury deliberated for 11 hours and on November 9, , found MacNeill guilty of the first degree murder of his wife, Michele, on April 11, He was also convicted by the Provo, Utah , jury of obstruction of justice for hindering the investigation of his wife's murder [16] by attempting to make Michele's death appear accidental. On December 6, , it was reported that he had attempted suicide while in jail. On September 19, , MacNeill was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years up to life in prison for his first-degree murder conviction plus another term of one to 15 years for his conviction on obstruction of justice charges.

MacNeill, 60, committed suicide in prison on April 9, , two and a half years into his sentence. He was found lifeless on an outside yard near the prison's greenhouse. According to the report from the Unified Police Department, MacNeill used a hose and a natural gas line that was in place as a heater for the greenhouse to kill himself.

The television talk show series Dr. November 19, , lay summary interviews Gypsy Willis, the mistress of the former doctor convicted for his wife's murder. Willis discusses the affair, the crime along with her own conviction of fraud. The Makeover Murder season 2, episode 48, air date: The episode details the former beauty queen's death and the years of her sister and daughter's persistence to re-examine her death.

Their commitment finally leads officials to request her cause of death to be re-investigated. The toxicology report reveals lethal levels of painkillers at the time of death, leading to Martin Macneill's arrest, conviction and sentencing for the murder of his wife of 30 years. It was episode 60 of Season From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is an orphan , as no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles ; try the Find link tool for suggestions. Retrieved November 22, Retrieved September 19, Retrieved September 24, Did Utah doctor kill his wife?

Was his wife Michele's death accidental or was it murder? Retrieved September 20, Background on the key players". Retrieved September 22, Retrieved September 23,

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