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He was James Hayward, of
Acton, twenty-two years old, foremost in that deadly race from
Charlestown to Concord, who raised his piece at the same moment with a
British soldier, each exclaiming, "You are a dead man!" The Briton
dropped, shot through the heart. Hayward fell mortally wounded.
"Father," said he, "I started with forty balls; I have three left. I
never did such a day's work before. Tell mother not to mourn too much;
and tell her whom I love more than my mother that I am not sorry I
turned out."
The last living link with the Revolution has long been broken; and we
who stand here to-day have a sympathy with the men at the old North
Bridge, which those who preceded us here at earlier celebrations could
not know. With them war was a name and a tradition. When they assembled
to celebrate this day, they saw a little group of tottering forms, whose
pride was that, before living memory, they had been minute men of
American Independence.
But with us, how changed! War is no longer a tradition, half romantic
and obscure.


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