Soon, a rhythmic click, click, click echoed down the canyon of the street, and a moment later the red-coated soldiers came into view. The drums began playing a cadence, accompanied by the shrill tone of dozens of fifes. I held my breath as I waited to see what would happen when they reached this crowd. The mob was looking for a fight, and if the troops were as well, then there could be even more bloodshed.

But the crowd merely held their signs and bloody banners and stood in accusing silence as the troops marched toward them. When the soldiers neared Eighth Street, the crowd filled the street, blocking the way. I had to fight to hold my position on the sidewalk as people around me surged into the street. They made no threatening moves but just stood there, staring down the British.

General Montgomery, still on horseback, called a halt when he was nearly half a block from the crowd. The soldiers stopped behind him, but he rode forward until he was directly in front of the human barricade. “My good people,” he shouted. “Please clear the street.” The people didn’t move, but they also didn’t say anything. They simply stared at the general, who grew flustered. “You don’t want trouble, do you?” he asked, his voice darkening. “We will not hesitate to use force.”

“We have no doubt about that,” a woman’s voice called out from within the crowd. “If you’ll shoot at children, you’ll shoot at us.”

A red flush rose from the general’s high collar to his hairline. He glanced around, and his eyes widened as if he’d just then noticed the placards and the “bloody” cloth banners. He’d been with the first group of soldiers. Did he even know what had happened behind him?

He gestured to another officer on horseback, who took something that looked like a small hand mirror from a pouch on his saddle. He glanced at it, then the color drained from his face. It took him a moment to recover before he kicked his horse forward and showed the object to the general. The general’s flushed face went stark white.

After that, he didn’t ask again for the crowd to move, nor did he order his men forward. Some of the soldiers shifted uncomfortably in their ranks as they glanced at the crowd. These men probably had more in common with the people blocking their way than with the people giving them orders. I wondered if they realized that or if they truly believed in the British cause and the superiority of the magister class.

The British drums had stopped, but a new drumbeat entered the uncomfortable silence. This sound was deeper than the clicking of the British drums and much slower, like a dirge. As the sound came closer, the crowd in the street parted, and a funeral procession came through.