The Battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775

This month, we mark the 250th anniversary of the first battles of the Revolutionary War. But the American Revolution was already in motion, long before men began fighting and dying.

In 1763, at the end of the French and Indian War (which was only the North American theater of a global war between the British and French Empires), the victorious British had a huge empire to maintain — and bills to pay. New taxes soon followed, prompting growing discontent among American colonists, though they were arguably the freest people in the world at the time.

Colonists saw that freedom being pulled back, and the taxes — tariffs, duties, and otherwise — as a new and unwelcome cost-of-living increase, particularly galling because the colonists had no representatives in the Parliament that enacted them. Resistance grew, from demonstrations, boycotts, riots, and rampant smuggling, ultimately to the Boston Tea Party in December 1773.

Parliament, many of whose members had personal stakes in the East India Tea Company, overreacted to the destruction of valuable cargo by punishing Boston severely. The port was closed, and all trade — the lifeblood of New England’s economy — was officially halted until someone paid for that tea. That wouldn’t happen, of course.

What had been a disjointed but effective resistance became much more coordinated in the face of this tyranny. Organizers in most of the colonies, recognizing the threat to the liberty of all, agreed to meet at the First Continental Congress in the spring of 1774.

Sensing the growing threat to their authority, the British sent Gen. Thomas Gage to occupy Boston with 3,000 troops to keep the peace and to intercept smuggling. But when Gage arrived, he saw a surrounding countryside seething with defiance and bristling with arms. He soon devised a plan to enhance his security by disarming the populace.

House-to-house confiscation of personal weapons was out of the question, but Gage found that the colonials had long since established local “powder houses,” where hastily assembled militiamen could receive ample supplies of gunpowder for their weapons before going out to meet any threat. Gage planned to send troops out to confiscate this powder; he claimed the right to do this since the colonials, all of them British subjects, already referred to these community supplies as “the King’s Powder.”

The result: a series of four raids that colonials would remember as the Powder Alarms. The first, at Cambridge, was so successful, he tried again. At the next target, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the militia responded to a warning from Paul Revere, who had ridden all day on ice-covered roads. They reached the powder house, a fort with a very small garrison of British regulars, long before Gage’s raiders. Shots were fired, but no one was hit – otherwise, this would be the first battle we all remember.

The third raid, at Salem, was headed off so completely that the regulars found nothing but an empty powder house and a town full of rebels, who mocked them as they marched back to Boston in failure.

Such defiance shocked Gen. Gage: Colonial militiamen had previously only fought in coordination with, or alongside, his regular troops (those professional soldiers in the red coats). Now, in a rage at this outright rebellion, Gage targeted the largest remaining powder house in New England, at Concord. He sent over 700 troops this time, on a risky overland march of over 20 miles that was doomed from the start.

The road to Concord passed through the town of Lexington, where rebel leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock were in hiding. The militia there had received word from Paul Revere hours beforehand. Revere, by the way, never shouted “The British are coming!” This wouldn’t have made sense since everyone was British at the time. And he wouldn’t have shouted, for fear of being intercepted.

Instead, he and his counterpart that evening, William Dawes, went straight to the homes of militia officers in each town, notifying them that “the regulars are coming out” and they should gather their men. At each stop, other riders then took off to spread the message in all directions. Those first three raids had given colonials valuable practice in spreading alarms.

The Lexington commander, Col. Parker, assembled his men near the road on Lexington Green, and when the regulars arrived, he refused to stand down. In a tense confrontation, someone — history has never proven who — fired a shot, and within seconds, the quick reflexes of the redcoats resulted in the deaths of eight men of Lexington.

Word of the shooting spread throughout the countryside at lightning speed, and thousands of men responded. When the regulars arrived at Concord, they found a considerably larger and much more determined force of militiamen, who drove them away after a pitched battle. All along the return march to Boston, the regulars were fired on by smaller groups of late-arriving militia, including Col. Parker’s reassembled men, who avenged their neighbors and kin.

In the end, the regulars suffered 272 casualties, as opposed to only 94 militiamen, and the war was on. What had begun as an attempt by otherwise loyal subjects to get the King’s attention had, over a decade, slowly morphed into an active resistance, with each side too proud to back down. Now that blood had been spilled, there was no turning back.

Jonathan Bill taught history in Peninsula schools for 32 years. Recently retired, he still lives on the Key Peninsula.

Editor’s note: Next month, Ethan Allen and Fort Ticonderoga.