“WH-WHAT?” ANTHONY SAID. He started up and felt the hard bench under him.
“Where … ?” This was no forest. All at once he remembered where he was. He had been lying on his “bed,” a Court House bench in the jury room that was his jail. Now he died inside for the thousandth time, so completely had he dreamed a way out. Captured he had been and still was. Prisoner. Slave.
Dreaming won’t change it, he thought grimly.
But the guards, what? Guards were running every which way, snatching up their weapons, buckling their belts. Anthony was hearing a deep, loud noise that sounded like it could shake the building down. What was going on?
He went to his window. There he saw a large number of people scurrying around the square.
The banging was coming from below. What? Men were trying to break the door down!
Anthony held on to the bars, watching as best he could, until the guards dragged him back. They pulled him to the floor against the blank wall away from the windows. And there he stayed, listening, wondering what was happening.
Below, the attack on the Court House had begun.
The crowd attacked on the west side of the court building. A dozen men, both black and white, had a long plank to use as a battering ram against the door. Others had axes. Still more had brickbats that they threw up at windows to break them. Glass rattled and fell in all directions. Men ducked their heads out of the way of flying splinters. The sound of the battering ram and the axes falling echoed throughout the adjoining streets and up in the court building. More people came running into the square. The leaders of the attack shouted: “Rescue him! Bring him out! Where is he?”
The Court House bell rang an alarm. The Marshal’s guard of 124 had been quickly roused and were at the ready in every hallway and on the stairs. Unknown to the crowd, Marshal Freeman had indeed expected an attack after the Faneuil Hall meeting. He had made sure the Chief of Police had stationed men outside, and he had received a report from them before the crowd reached the Court House.
Now, with Thomas Higginson leading the assault, the west door was broken open. Martin Stowell was by his side with his gun drawn. Before them were guards with guns and cutlasses. There were shouts and startled cries as cutlasses whipped through the air. Higginson felt a swipe of pain against his chin, and then a warm trickling. Shots were fired.
Suddenly, one of the Marshal’s guard, a truckman named Batchelder, fell to the floor, bleeding from his stomach. He said he was stabbed. Other guards managed to get the door closed, and braced themselves against it to keep it shut.
The fallen Batchelder was carried into the Marshal’s office. He died almost at once of his wound, which had severed an artery in his abdomen.
Meantime, all the attackers were on the outside, including Thomas Higginson, who was bleeding heavily from the chin. He urged his comrades on but they were slow to move forward.
“You cowards!” he exclaimed. “Would you desert us now?”
Almost at once, some of the attackers, nine or ten of them, were taken by the Chief of Police and his men, who had finally reached the front of the crowd. Somehow, Thomas Higginson managed to escape. But Martin Stowell did not. He was arrested with the others and taken for disturbing the peace. This quieted the crowd somewhat, and many began to leave the area.
The Mayor at City Hill was notified of the riot by Chief of Police Taylor. He requested two companies of Artillery, one to be stationed in the Court House and the other in City Hall. These and several officers of the municipal government arrived at the Court House by midnight. Half an hour later Court Square was largely deserted.