That memory may their deed redeem

Beverly and I went for a walk on the North Bridge Saturday. For those a little rusty on their American History that’s the bridge in Concord Mass. where the “shot heard ‘round the world” was fired, beginning the hostilities known as the American Revolutionary War. Although, technically, it’s not the same bridge.

That one was torn down sometime in the 1790’s when the local road plan was altered. But it’s a replica of that “rude bridge”, built in 1875 for the centennial of that historic day, April 19 1775. Emerson paid homage to it in his poem Concord Hymn, a dedication to the monument erected for that same centennial:

Concord Hymn

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April's breeze unfurled.
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heros dare
To die and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.


Embattled farmers were soon met again in Springfield MA in 1787 and Washington PA in 1794 by the newly re-constituted government. History knows these insurrections as Shay’s Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion. Alexander Hamilton, his monied interests, and the Federalist Party were only sealing the deal in what should be called the American Counter-revolution. The bridge of 1775 had indeed come down.

My forefathers and foremothers came to this country in the 19th century, lured by the jobs created after the Civil War and resultant Reconstruction had constructed its monument to wealth. But when that plutocratic structure came crashing down in 1929, a new bridge to democracy was built, the New Deal, a rude way maybe, but one responsible for the wealth and freedoms enjoyed by an enormous working middle class that it had helped create, the one into which I was born.

Yet a silent rebellion has occurred the past 20 years and “embattled farmers” are losing again. This one is a psychological war fought with various marketing strategies. It’s more insidious than past ones. This time they’re turning the guns of heros against themselves with lies of lawyers, guns, and money.

I wonder what country our sons and daughters will live in when we are gone, what freedoms will be lost if this counter-revolution is won and that bridge to the 21st century has been washed away. What tyranny will they need face when that raw deal has gone down? O Spirit, may time and nature gently spare that shaft.