April 1775 Lexington and Concord

 

The below is taken from The America Battlefield Trust  

Doug Wood's comment at our February meeting that Concord and Lexington were much like the confrontation that we saw in February at Salem Massachusetts in which the British were trying go confiscate weapons and ammunition was the first time I had realized what happened in this incident.  The American Battle Trust did such an excellent job of summing up what happened in this event that I have copied from their site.  Here is the URL if you want to look at the site for yourself:

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/revolutionary-war/battles/lexington-and-concord

Thomas Gage was appointed Royal Governor of Massachusetts in 1774 and tasked by the British Parliament with stamping out rising unrest caused by restrictive British policies. Gage inflamed tensions between the colonies and the mother country and practiced harsh enforcement of British law. He drafted the Coercive Acts, a series of laws intended to punish colonists for deeds of defiance against the King, such as the Boston Tea Party.

By April 1775, Gage was facing the threat of outright rebellion. He hoped to prevent violence by ordering the seizure of weapons and powder being stored in Concord, Massachusetts, twenty miles northwest of Boston. But he underestimated the courage and determination of the colonists. Patriot spies got wind of Gage’s plan. On the evening of April 18, Paul Revere and other riders raised the alarm that British regulars were on their way to Concord.  Minute Men and militias rushed to confront them early on April 19. Though it is uncertain who actually fired the first shot that day, it reverberated throughout history. Eight years of war followed, and those who stood their ground against Gage’s troops eventually earned independence from Britain and became citizens of the democratic United States of America.

And from https://www.americanacorner.com/blog/concord

The seven miles to Lexington were shockingly hard on the British as Americans, hiding behind trees and fences, picked off the marching soldiers. Exhausted and running out of ammunition, it seemed the end was near for the Redcoats. Fortunately for them, a detachment of about 1,000 reinforcements under General Hugh Percy was waiting in Lexington.

All told, there were about 100 American casualties and about 300 for the English. More importantly, the Americans had shown the British that we were no rabble to be taken lightly. General Percy remarked, “Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob, will find himself much mistaken. They have men among them who know very well what they are about.”