Lexington And Concord

On April 19, 1775, British soldiers and Patriot militiamen from the Thirteen Colonies clashed for the first time in significant combat during what became the American Revolutionary War. This clash, remembered as the Battles of Lexington and Concord, unfolded across an entire day as troops fought running skirmishes through Middlesex County in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, sweeping through Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (known today as Arlington), and Cambridge.

The road to this conflict began with the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which prompted Parliament to pass a series of punishing measures in early 1774 known as the Intolerable Acts, among them the harsh Massachusetts Government Act. Colonial leaders in Suffolk County responded by drafting the Suffolk Resolves as a form of defiance. These same leaders established their own governing body, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and urged local militia units to prepare for potential armed conflict. Outside Boston itself, this provisional congress held effective control over the colony. When the First Continental Congress gave its backing to the Suffolk Resolves on September 17, the British government answered in February 1775 by officially proclaiming that Massachusetts had descended into rebellion.

Roughly 700 British Regulars stationed in Boston were given confidential orders on April 18, 1775. Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, was instructed to seize and destroy colonial weapons and supplies believed to be hidden in Concord. However, colonial leadership had already gotten wind of the danger to their stockpiles weeks earlier through their intelligence network, and had relocated most of the materials elsewhere by the time the British set out. As night fell before the fighting began, riders including Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott spread word to militias throughout the countryside, alerting them to the British column advancing from Boston.

At Lexington, as the sun rose on April 19, the first exchange of fire between colonial militiamen and British troops occurred. Eight militiamen lost their lives and ten more sustained wounds, while the British suffered only a single wounded soldier. Facing superior numbers, the militia retreated, allowing the Regulars to push onward toward Concord, where they divided into smaller units to hunt for the hidden supplies. Around eleven in the morning at Concord's Old North Bridge, roughly 400 militiamen faced off against 100 Regulars, and both sides took casualties in the ensuing fight. Overwhelmed, the Regulars withdrew and rejoined the larger British force in Concord.

With their search for supplies largely fruitless, the British then commenced their withdrawal toward Boston. As they marched, their numbers grew more exposed since militiamen from surrounding towns kept converging along their path. Throughout that day, gunfire erupted repeatedly between the two sides at numerous points along the retreat. A critical turning point came at Lexington when Brigadier General Earl Percy arrived with reinforcements for Smith's beleaguered troops. Together this combined force, now numbering about 1,700 men, fought its way back toward Boston under relentless fire, finally finding refuge in Charlestown despite suffering severe casualties along the way. In the aftermath, militia forces sealed off the narrow overland routes into Charlestown and Boston, marking the beginning of the siege of Boston.