248 
WALDEN. 
in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, 
that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether 
for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism 
and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage 
it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two 
killed on the patriots’ side, and Luther Blanchard 
wounded! Why here every ant was a Buttrick,— 
“Fire! for God’s sake fire!”—and thousands shared 
the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one 
hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle 
they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to 
avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of 
this battle will be as important and memorable to those 
whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, 
at least. 
I took up the chip on which the three I have particu¬ 
larly described w r ere struggling, carried it into my house, 
and placed it under a tumbler on my window-sill, in or¬ 
der to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first- 
mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduous¬ 
ly gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having 
severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all 
torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the 
jaws of the black warrior, whose breast-plate was appar¬ 
ently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbun¬ 
cles of the sufferer’s eyes shone with ferocity such as 
war only could excite. They struggled half an hour 
longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the 
black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from 
their bodies, and the still living heads were hanging on 
either side of him like ghastly trophies at his saddle¬ 
bow, still apparently as firmly fastened as ever, and he 
was endeavoring with feeble struggles, being without 
