Lexington and Concord: The Shot Heard Round the World
In the first battle of the Revolutionary War, professional British soldiers faced off against amateur American militiamen — and lost. At daybreak, they chased off a little group of armed Americans; by nightfall, they themselves had been chased back to where they started, and were besieged there by an ever-growing American force.
British Commander-in-Chief Thomas Gage sent several hundred troops out of Boston on the night of April 18, 1775. Their mission was to capture the American revolutionary leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were hiding out in Lexington; and to destroy the American military supplies at Concord. Thanks to Paul Revere and William Dawes, who rode through the night to warn them, Adams and Hancock got out of the way in time.
Instead, it was a group of about 70 minutemen who were waiting for the British when they came marching into Lexington about daybreak. A British officer recorded what happened next:
We still continued advancing, keeping prepared against an attack tho’ without intending to attack them; but on our coming near them they fired one or two shots, upon which our Men without any orders rushed in upon them, fired and put ’em to flight; several of them were killed, we cou’d not tell how many, because they were got behind Walls and into the Woods; We had a Man of the 10th light Infantry wounded, nobody else hurt.
“A British Officer in Boston in 1775”. In The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXXIX, No. CCXXXIV (April 1877), pages 398 and 400. 1
Once that first shot was fired, the redcoats opened fire on the minutemen, killing eight and wounding ten; the rest of the Americans scattered. Only one British soldier and one officer’s horse were slightly wounded. (Note that many Americans accused the British of firing first, and to this day it’s uncertain who really fired that first shot.)
The next stop was Concord. Samuel Prescott had brought the news there early in the morning, and some of the supplies had been removed or hidden. The British found and destroyed some of the ammunition, wagon wheels, food and tools that were left. The American militia stayed out of the way for a while, gathering on a hill outside town. Eventually — there were a few hundred of them by this time — they decided they had to act, and they drove back the British troops guarding the North Bridge. Before too long, the entire British force began retreating toward Boston.
But the whole countryside was alarmed now, and men were pouring in from every direction. As the redcoats retreated, the rebels fired at them constantly from behind cover. The same British officer wrote:
Before we had gone 1/2 a mile we were fired on from all sides, but mostly from the Rear, where People had hid themselves in houses till we had passed, and then fired; the Country was an amazing strong one, full of Hills, Woods, stone Walls, &c., which the Rebels did not fail to take advantage of, for they were all lined with People who kept an incessant fire upon us, as we did too upon them, but not with the same advantage, for they were so concealed there was hardly any seeing them: in this way we marched between 9 and 10 miles, their numbers increasing from all parts, while ours was reducing by deaths, wounds, and fatigue; and we were totally surrounded with such an incessant fire as it’s impossible to conceive; our ammunition was likewise near expended.
Fortunately for the retreating British, reinforcements from Boston, led by Earl Percy, met them on the way back. By nightfall, they reached Charlestown, where they were safe (at least for the moment) under the guns of the British warships in Boston harbor. About 270 of them had been killed or wounded during the day, as opposed to about 95 American casualties. The rebel forces, unwilling to make a frontal attack, besieged Boston. But while this was the end of the battle, it was the beginning of the war. The line had been crossed, the “shot heard round the world” had been fired — and the war was on.
Notes
The phrase “the shot heard round the world” was coined by Ralph Waldo Emerson in a poem he wrote for the dedication of a monument at Concord’s North Bridge. His grandfather, the Reverend William Emerson, was in Concord on the day of the battle.
The full map can be viewed on the Library of Congress website at https://www.loc.gov/item/gm71002447