Battle of Worcester

“ Noah Worcester, born at Hollis, New Hampshire, November 25th, 1758, was the son of a farmer, and until the age of twenty-one worked on the farm. His father’s means were limited, and the education of the family was stinted in consequence. When hostilities commenced between the American Colonies and Great Britain, young Worcester, then only about eighteen years of age, became a soldier and fought at the battle of Bunker’s Hill. ”

“ The marvellous escape of Charles II, when his pursuers passed under the oak tree in which he was secreted after the battle of Worcester, is now only commemorated in the city which boasts of being "faithful" to its kings whether their [Pg 210] memory be odorous or not, by some half-dozen boughs of oak being affixed over as many doorways in different streets. ”

“ Glendower by France. On all sides the King’s difficulties seemed to increase. The Earl of Worcester joined the Percies; Richard’s old followers crowded to their standard, and an army, insidiously collected as though for an attack on Scotland, rapidly marched on Shrewsbury to make a junction with the Welsh. Thither Henry, with his son the Prince of Wales, hastened, and the decisive battle of Shrewsbury was fought, in which, after a keen struggle, Hotspur was killed, and most of the other leaders, including Worcester and Douglas, captured. Worcester and the other English leaders were beheaded ”

“ As this age gave way before gunpowder and the Church, as men discovered the uselessness of heavy armor, battle-axe, cross-bow, and lance, and as they were taught the doctrine of the necessity of body-mortification in order to perfection of soul, there prevailed a total disregard of the physical conditions necessary to our well-being. ”

“ But these marauders, although armed by kingly authority, did not always escape scathless. The inhabitants of Worcester rose up and killed two of the chiefs, who were somewhat too arbitrarily exceeding their duty. Hardicanute ordered a Danish army to march at once against the rebels, but when the authorized forces came up, they found the city abandoned; the inhabitants had forsaken their houses, and strongly entrenched themselves in a neighbouring island, and though a great part of the city was destroyed, the people remained unconquered. ”

“ Fall in! Fall in round the ladder!" Men all round took up the cry, waking those asleep. Men cursed and yawned, and yawned and cursed again.
"Who are you a-shaking of? I ain't a ruddy Worcester," growled someone. The darkness was full of bustle and noise as the Worcesters dragged themselves to their feet and groped round for their packs and rifles. Rifles clattered to the deck; men jostled, cursing, against each other, and the Sergeant-Major's voice kept calling out: "Come along, lads! We've got to go ashore! Hurry up, Worcesters! This way, Worcesters! Fall in near the ladder!" ”

“ Worcester, then with a population of little more than three thousand, had full and well disciplined companies of artillery, cavalry, riflemen, and two very large companies of infantry. Mr. Ward took great pleasure in military affairs, and was ambitious to excel and become a good disciplinarian ”

“ Two years thereafter, notwithstanding, he joined himself to the cause of his majesty King Charles II., and at Worcester Fight was grievously wounded, and lay for many days in danger of his life in a certain mean house of that city. Being there found by the rebels, he was thrown into a dungeon, but after a while, by the good offices of my lord Duke of London, was released, and suffered to return home, being now incapable of fighting more, for that his left leg had been shot off by a ball from a great gun, and his right arm disabled by a pistol-shot, at Worcester Fight. ”

“ Certainly there was all the noise of a big attack. The Worcesters were standing-to on the fire-step, firing rifle—grenades and throwing bombs with terrific energy. Every now and then a man fell, and the stretcher-bearers pounced on him, tied him up in bandages, and carried him away to the field dressing-station, whistling as they went, “We won't go home till morning,” in a most heroic way... ”

“ A mile to the north we found a sheltered spot where we could safely disembark and our little party, consisting of Governor Miller armed with a six-shooter, a constabulary captain armed with a Winchester shotgun and a six-shooter, a constabulary soldier armed with a carbine, ex-Insurgent Colonel Pablo Tecson armed with my double-barrelled shotgun, Governor Pack of the Mountain Province, my brother George S. Worcester, and my stenographer, all of whom were without weapons, and myself carrying an automatic Winchester rifle, marched on the town. ”

“ That on the 23rd July the governor and all officers and soldiers of the garrison, with all other persons that will, shall march out of Worcester with their horses, arms, and baggage, that properly belong to them, to any place within one mile of Worcester, which the governor shall choose, where all their horses and arms, except such as are in t& ensuing articles, shall be delivered up to such as His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax shall appoint. ”

“ But the laurels of the past, thickly showered as they were on the “Worcesters,” are little to compare with those of the present, when valour is put to its utmost test, and when war weapons contrary to all international usage, more deadly and treacherous than ever were known before, are employed by the most inhuman and dishonourable of foes. We have only to recall the dramatic scenario of the village of Gheluvelt during the battle of Ypres, when the Worcesters literally saved the day. ”

“ After the disaster at Worcester, the Earl had accompanied the King in his flight, until he was safe in the care of the Pendrells, when, with Lord Lauderdale, Lord Talbot, and about 40 troopers, he started northwards, in the hope of overtaking the remnant of the Scotch army, but when near Nantwich the fugitives fell into the hands of Oliver Edge, [8] a captain in the Manchester regiment, also returning from Worcester. ”

“ Of conditions at this time, and of the circumstances leading to the actual outbreak of hostilities Taylor says:—
“During the latter part of January General Otis was informed on good insurgent authority that the insurgents meditated an attack upon those troops, and he was advised to remove them, as in their exposed position they would kill them all. General MacArthur, under whose command the regiment was, [146] placed two guns in position there, as it was fully expected that the insurgents would direct their attack upon that point, as in fact they did. ”

“ After a disorderly parley, with much cursing and swearing, they beat a retreat, and the court was prevented from sitting. Fresh riots [Pg 181] followed at Worcester and Concord. A regiment of cavalry, sent out by the governor, scoured Middlesex County, and, after a short fight in the woods near Groton, captured Job Shattuck and dispersed his men. But this only exasperated the insurgents. They assembled in Worcester to the number of 1,200 or more, where they lived for two months at free quarters, while Shays organized and drilled them.
The insurrection suppressed by state troops. ”

“ At the moment of the attack the sandatahan should not attempt to secure rifles from their dead enemies, but shall pursue, slashing right and left with bolos until the Americans surrender, and after there remains no enemy who can injure them, they may take the rifles in one hand and the ammunition in the other. ”

“ Worcester satisfied some rancherías, at least, that had been open enemies for generations, whose men, in Mr. Worcester’s graphic expression, had never seen one another except over the tops of their shields, that nothing was to be gained in the long run by this secular warfare; and his purpose in bringing the clans together is to make them know one another on peaceful terms, to show them that if rivalry exists, it can find a vent in wrestling, racing, throwing the spear, in sports generally. And they take naturally to sports, these highlanders. ”

“ During the general rebellion of the Norman lords against William Rufus in 1088 he joined with Roger of Lacy, and Ralph of Mortemer, with the men of Earl Roger of Shrewsbury, and the confederate lords at the head of the forces of Herefordshire and Shropshire, and with a large number of Welsh allies harried Worcestershire and threatened to burn the city of Worcester, to plunder the minster and take the king's castle. ”

“ As the county was now seriously disturbed by the contending parties she suddenly took flight again, visiting Hereford for the last time, and carrying off her trunks and chests and servants to Ham Castle, the seat of her cousin Jeffries, on the banks of the Teme, on the edge of the county of Worcester. Soldiers were still quartered in her house at Hereford, and she pays for work done in making bulwarks to defend the city. ”

“ The Worcestershire clubmen first mustered to the number of about two thousand, and put forth a declaration of their intentions against the Popish party and to preserve the King's rights and the privileges of Parliament. They rapidly increased in force; Prince Rupert strove to pacify them, but in vain; the constables refused to bring in a list of the names of those who thus assembled. By the middle of March their number had increased to fourteen thousand well armed men, and they applied to Colonel Massey, then in command at Gloucester, for assistance to enable them to besiege Hereford. ”

“ It is refreshing to get away from this atmosphere and to go into the trenches where everybody is doing his bit of work, content with somewhat unpleasant circumstances so long as through him England is served. Whenever, in future, I am inclined towards a fit of pessimism, I shall shut my eyes in order to see once again, with the vision of the spirit, a stalwart Britisher of the Worcester Regiment, not very far from the German lines, on a certain afternoon, when a most appalling thunderstorm was raging and some German shells were falling. ”

“ Bishop Geoffrey, with his nephew, ravaging Bath and Berkeley and part of Wiltshire, gathered his forces at Bristol. Roger of Montgomery, sending his troops with Welshmen from Shrewsbury plundered Worcestershire, and was now threatening Worcester, when the king’s knights who guarded the city, relying on the blessing of bishop Wulstan, to whom the keeping of the castle had been committed, few though they were, put to flight their numerous opponents, wounding and killing many, and taking some prisoners. ”

“ Essex, spurred by this affront in the infancy of their affairs, advances the next day, and came to Pershore time enough to be at the funeral of some of his men; and from thence he advances to Worcester.
We marched back to Worcester extremely pleased with the good success of our first attack, and our men were so flushed with this little victory that it put vigour into the whole army. The enemy lost about 3000 men, and we carried away near 150 prisoners, with 500 horses, some standards and arms, and among the prisoners their colonel; but he died a little after of his wounds. ”

“ One would have thought that a containing force of three thousand men, and a flanking movement from eight thousand, would have turned them out, as it has turned them out so often before and since. Yet a long-range action began on Friday, April 20th, and lasted the whole of the 21st, the 22nd, and the 23rd, in which we sustained few losses, but made no impression upon the enemy. Thirty of the 1st Worcesters wandered at night into the wrong line, and were made prisoners, but with this exception the four days of noisy fighting does not appear to have cost either side fifty casualties. ”

“ Noah Worcester was one who so judged, and a few years after he published his very spirited and able essay, The Solemn Review of War.” This famous essay of Worcester’s represents the platform of the great body of American peace workers for a century, the position of men like Channing and Ladd and Jay and Sumner; but to a nonresistant and opponent even of self-defense, like David Dodge, these seemed the exponents of a halfway covenant. ”

“ They openly accuse him of cowardice, Commines asserting that he always fought on horseback to secure a safe retreat. If he was not a butcher like Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, he rarely spared his enemies when they fell into his hands. Of Worcester's love of learning there is no trace in Warwick, and beyond joining his brother George Neville, then bishop of Exeter, in founding in 1460 St. William's College, opposite the east end of York Minster, we do not hear of his devoting any part of his great wealth to public purposes. ”

“ The fog soon rose sufficiently for us to see the enemy's position on a ridge to the west of Middletown, and it was discovered to be a strong one. After driving back Wharton's division, he had not advanced, but opened on us with artillery, and orders were given for concentrating all our guns on him. In the mean time, a force of cavalry was advancing along the Pike, and through the fields to the right of Middletown, thus placing our right and rear in great danger, and Wharton was ordered to form his division at once, and take position to hold the enemy's cavalry in check. ”

“ Great exertions were making to prevent the approaching session of the Court of Common Pleas in Worcester, on the first week of December. Gov. Bowdoin and the council, resolved to adopt vigorous measures to overawe the insurgents. Orders were issued to Major General Warner, to call out the militia of his division, and five regiments were directed to hold themselves in instant readiness to march. Doubts, however, arose, how far reliance could be placed on the troops of an infected district. The sheriff reported, that a sufficient force could not be collected. ”