At sunrise on April 19, 1775, about 80 American townsmen in Lexington, Massachusetts, filed out of Buckman Tavern onto Lexington Green. They were commanded by French and Indian War veteran John Parker. Parker was restrained. His words were, “Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
On the other side, the British regular troops lined up in formation under the command of Major John Pitcairn. He ordered the Americans to disperse, but a shot was fired from somewhere, and the British then opened fire and rushed on the Minutemen, killing eight. American fire grazed one British soldier. The Americans, outmanned and outgunned, fell back and scattered to look for supplies. Most had never fired their weapons.
Eyewitness accounts are, of course, confused and contradictory. But we know the names of the dead: John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathon Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Asahel Porter, and Jonas Parker. Among the wounded was Prince Estabrook, a member of the militia who also happened to be a black slave.
Fighting for freedom was a paradoxical enterprise from the start.
Score one for King George. But the skirmish, which we Americans have elevated to the “Battle of Lexington Green,” carried significance far beyond the numbers. Americans had finally been pushed to the point of armed rebellion. And they reached this point with planning and organization. Paul Revere and Dawes had gotten the word to Lexington, “The British are coming!,” in time for the colonists to rise, arm themselves, and summon the courage to stand against a contingent of the mightiest army in the world. They surely knew that the risk of being killed on the spot was very high.
Lexington was merely a waystation on the road to Concord, where the British expected to capture an American arms depot. The day that started as a cakewalk for the British would begin to deteriorate after that. Word reached Concord of what had happened in Lexington, giving the American militia time to prepare a defense. They withdrew from Concord proper, crossing the North Bridge to reach the top of Punkatasset Hill. As they waited, more and more Minutemen from other villages joined them, swelling their ranks to about 400. The British, meeting no immediate resistance, split up in the search for arms, burning some of what they found.
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The smoke rising above Concord prompted the Americans, who feared that the British were burning the town, to march down to the bridge and attack. The British detachment holding the bridge were routed, and soon the British marched out of Concord on their way back to Boston. Emerson wasn’t the only one to elevate this small exchange of arms. His Concord Hymn, written 68 years after the event, used to be sealed in the memory of every American schoolchild. Would that it still were. It opens:
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.
Emerson wrote this on the occasion of the completion of the Battle Monument at Concord. For the last 17 months, the National Association of Scholars has been raising its own series of monuments on each 250th anniversary of the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. Some of these monuments have been more than footstones; they are little markers that used to be placed opposite the headstones at the foot of a grave. Small events gain in significance when they add to a greater whole.
The British lost far more soldiers on their retreat to Boston, as they were subject to constant sniping from those farmers. Some of the farmers who didn’t understand British tactics lost their lives too, when detachments of British flankers ambushed them from behind.
If war was now a reality, the Americans clearly needed military leadership in addition to arms and courage. George Washington would be appointed Commander-in-Chief by the Continental Congress in June. Until then, the Massachusetts militia would lay siege to Boston. The farmers had planted themselves.
The powers that be often overestimate their settled control over a situation. Joseph Biden, January 16, 2023: If you want “to take on the federal government, you need some f-15s … I am going to get assault weapons banned.” Turns out, all you need is some farmers and an election.
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Thank you! I rarely see articles about the founding of our great country.
I think this needs to be viewed in the context of Leslie’s Retreat of two months earlier.
It was a situation very similar to the Cold War — neither side wanted a shooting war and hence there was brinksmanship. Parker’s “if they want a war” line being indicative of this, as was the the decision to neither execute nor imprison Revere. Asking the “Serjant” if his horse was tired could have been the excuse to take Revere’s — one would think that all the horses would be equally tired, and hence this would be a pretext.
As to the shot fired in Lexington, I’ve always suspected a Loyalist — the intent being to get the Crown to put an end to this Patriot stuff for once and all.
The Revolution was a lot like Vietnam, the Crown as screwed up as we were in Vietnam.
After this the troops (and Loyalists) evacuate to Boston, which essentially is an island. The Army is at war — the Navy is not, and the Navy stayed in port. Hence, because of wind patterns, American privateers were able to seize British supply ships within sight of Boston, with the Navy being downwind and hence stuck in port.
I’ve never seen Gage’s rationale for what he did on the 19th, although (like Vietnam) it may have involved denying the commander on the ground the authority to act in a dynamic situation. They sent back for reinforcements, but didn’t wait for them; they were planning on the element of surprise and continued after knowing they’d lost that (they found someone on Boston Common speculating that the mission was Concord), and they fell into the same trap as the Guard at Kent State, firing en masse in response to a sniper’s round.
But Revere (as well as Prescott and Dawes) considered themselves British — it wasn’t until the Declaration of Independence that they would think of themselves as not — and hence they wouldn’t tell a bunch of British subjects that “the British” were coming. No, they would have instead warned that the Regular Army (i.e. “The Regulars”) were coming — and “Regular Army” is a term we use today to contrast between Reserve and National Guard units.
One version I heard was that all the three were supposed to do was warn people to hide their weaponry and to warn Sam Adams & John Hancock that the British intended to arrest them — but each stop was at a tavern, where (of course) a drink of rum would be offered. So the alert “To Arms!” became “The Regulars are Coming!”
And the Minutemen in Lexington had been in Buckman Tavern, centuries before the legal prohibition on serving alcohol before 8AM. Of course they were drinking, that’s what men did in a tavern. That’s an aspect of this that is rarely mentioned.