Battle of Lexington and Concord

The Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 was the first battle of the American Revolutionary War, marking Emerson's "shot heard round the world."

About 900 British Army regulars under Lt. Col. Francis Smith were ordered to capture military supplies stored by the Massachusetts Militia at Concord. Weeks before this expedition, the American Patriots had acted on good intelligence by moving nearly all these supplies to safety. The Patriots had also received details about British plans on the night before the battle, and this information was rapidly supplied to their militias.

The first shots were fired at Lexington during the British Army's advance, resulting in a skirmish victory over the Lexington Militia. Things improved for the Patriots at Concord's North Bridge, where three companies of the King's troops broke ranks and fled from the "Minutemen" after a pitched battle in open territory.

More Minutemen arrived in the following hours and inflicted heavy damage on the British regulars returning from Concord. Smith's expedition was rescued upon returning to Lexington by reinforcments under Percy. This combined force of about 1900 men marched back to Boston under heavy fire. The retreat was a success, and the British Army reached the safety of Charlestown.

The Concord expedition failed to maintain the secrecy and speed required to conduct a successful strike into hostile territory, and they seized no weaponry of significance. However, most British regulars returned to Boston unharmed. The occupation of surrounding areas by the Massachusetts Militia that evening marked the beginning the Siege of Boston.

Background

The British Army had occupied Boston since 1768 and had been augmented by naval forces and marines to enforce the Intolerable Acts. Governor General Thomas Gage still had no control over Massachusetts outside of Boston where the Massachusetts Government Act had increased tensions between the American Patriot (Whig) majority and the Loyalist (Tory) minority. Gage's plan was to avoid conflict by removing military supplies from the Whig militias using small, secret, and rapid strikes. This struggle for supplies led to one British success and then to several Patriot successes in a series of nearly bloodless conflicts known as the Powder Alarms. Gage considered himself to be a friend of liberty even while imposing martial law on the colony. Edmund Burke described Gage's conflicted relationship with Massachusetts by saying in Parliament, "An Englishman is the unfittest person on Earth to argue another Englishman into slavery.

The opposing forces are described in Minutemen (militia) and British Forces in Boston (Winter 1774–1775)

Dartmouth's instructions and Gage's orders

On April 14, 1775, Gage received instructions from the Earl of Dartmouth to disarm the population and to arrest and imprison the rebellion's ringleaders, but Dartmouth gave Gage considerable discretion.

On the morning of April 18, the day before the battle, Gage ordered a mounted patrol of about 20 men into the surrounding country to intercept messengers who might be out on horseback. This patrol behaved differently from patrols sent out from Boston in the past, staying out after dark and asking travellers about the location of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. This had the unintended effect of alarming many residents and increasing their preparedness. The Lexington Militia in particular began to muster early that evening, hours before receiving any word from Boston. One farmer mistook this British patrol for his countrymen after nightfall and asked them, "Have you heard anything about when the regulars are coming out?" He was slashed on his scalp with a sword.

Lt Col Francis Smith's received orders from Gage on the afternoon of April 18 with instructions that he was not to read them until his troops were underway. They were to proceed from Boston "with utmost expedition and secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy...all Military stores...But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property." Gage apparently used his discretion and did not issue written orders for the arrest of rebel leaders.

Successful Patriot Intelligence

The rebellion's ringleaders--with the exception of Paul Revere and Joseph Warren--had all left Boston by April 8. They had received word of Dartmouth's secret instructions to General Gage from sources in London long before they had reached Gage himself. Samuel Adams and John Hancock had fled Boston to the home of one of Hancock's relatives in Lexington where they thought they would be safe.

The Massachusetts Militia had indeed been gathering a stock of weapons, powder, and supplies at Concord, but word reached the Patriots that British officers had been observed examining the roads to Concord, and the people of the town were instructed on April 8 to remove the stores and distribute them among other towns nearby.

The Patriots were also aware of the upcoming mission on April 19 despite it having been hidden from all the British rank and file and even from all the officers on the mission. There is much reasonable speculation that the confidential source of this intelligence was Dr. Warren's relationship with Margaret Gage, General Gage's American-born wife.

Between 9:00 P.M. and 10:00 P.M. on the night of April 18, 1775, Warren told William Dawes and Paul Revere that the King's troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the most likely objectives of the British Army's movements later that night would be the capture of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They worried less about the possibility of regulars marching to Concord. After all, the supplies at Concord were safe, but they thought their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere and Dawes were sent out to warn them and alert Patriots in nearby towns.

The Militia are warned

Dawes covered the southern land-route by horseback across the Boston Neck and over the Great Bridge to Lexington. Revere first gave instructions to send a signal to Charlestown (see the Old North Church for the facts behind this famous true story.), and then he travelled the northern water-route. He crossed the Charles River by rowboat, slipping past the British warship HMS Somerset at anchor. Crossings were banned at that hour, but Revere safely landed in Charlestown and rode to Lexington, avoiding the British patrol and later warning almost every house along the route. The warned men and the Charlestown Patriots dispatched additional riders to the north.

After they arrived in Lexington, Revere, Dawes, Hancock, and Adams discussed the situation with the militia assembling there. They decided that the forces leaving the city were too large for the sole task of arresting two men and that Concord was the main target. The Lexington men dispatched riders in all directions (except south to Waltham for unknown reasons), and Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord. They were met at about 1 A.M. by Samuel Prescott. These three ran into the British patrol, and only Prescott managed to warn Concord. Additional riders were sent out from Concord.

Revere and Dawes triggered a flexible command, control, and communication system that had been carefully developed months before following the Powder Alarm. In addition to other express riders delivering their message, bells, drums, alarm guns, and even a trumpet were used for rapid communication from town to town, notifying the Patriots in dozens of eastern Massachusetts villages that they should muster their militias because the regulars were leaving Boston. These early warnings played a critical role in assembling a sufficient number of irregulars to inflict heavy damage on the British Army later in the day. Samuel Adams and John Hancock were eventually moved to safety, first to what is now Burlington and later to Billerica.

British Army and Royal Marines move out

The British regulars, 900 strong, were led by Colonel Francis Smith and were drawn from the elite light infantry and grenadier companies in Gage's occupying regiments. Most were marching without their own officers.

The British began to awaken their troops at 10 P.M. on the night of April 18, and their regiments marched to their boats at 11 PM. The British march to and from Concord was a terrible experience from start to finish. The boats were packed so tightly that there was no room to sit down, and they disembarked at Cambridge into waist-deep water at midnight. Many of them would get no sleep from the morning of April 18 to the evening of April 19. Some of them would march over 40 miles (64 km) by the end of the day.

After a lengthy halt to unload their gear, the 900 regulars began their 17 mile (27 km) march to Concord at about 2:00 A.M. They carried heavy loads of pack, musket, and equipment on uncomfortable shoes and soggy clothes. As they marched through Menotomy (modern Arlington), sounds throughout the countryside notified the few officers who were aware of their mission that they had lost the element of surprise. At about 3 A.M., Colonel Smith sent Major Pitcairn ahead with six companies of light infantry ordered to quick march to Concord. At about 4 A.M., he made the wise but belated decision to send back to Boston for reinforcements.

The battles

Lexington

As the British Army's advance troops under Pitcairn entered Lexington at sunrise on April 19, 1775, about 75 Lexington militiamen led by Captain John Parker waited on the village green watching them, and a number of spectators (somewhere between 40 and 100) watched from along the side of the road. Parker made a statement that is now engraved in stone at the site of the battle, "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here."

Rather than turn left towards Concord, Marine lieutenant Jesse Adair at the head of three advance companies decided on his own to protect the flank of his troops by first turning right and then leading two companies down the green itself. These men ran towards the Lexington militia loudly crying "Huzzah!" to set up a line of battle. Major Pitcairn arrived from the rear of the advance force and led his three companies to the left and halted them. Next Pitcairn himself rode forward, waving his sword around, and yelled "Disperse you rebels; damn you, throw down your arms and disperse!" Captain Parker told his men to disperse, but some didn't hear him, some left very slowly, and none laid down arms. Both Parker and Pitcairn ordered their men to hold fire, but a shot was fired from an unknown source. Some witnesses among the regulars reported the first shot was fired by an American spectator behind a hedge or around the corner of a tavern. Some Lexington militiamen reported a British officer firing first.

Several intermittent shots were fired from both sides before the lines of regulars began to fire volleys without receiving orders to do so. A few of the militiamen believed at first that the regulars were only firing powder with no ball, but then they realized the truth and many among the militia returned fire. Pitcairn's horse was hit in two places. The regulars charged forward with bayonets. Captain Parker witnessed his cousin Jonas run through. Eight Massachusetts men were killed and ten were wounded against only one British wounded. The eight American dead, the first to die in the Revolutionary War, were John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathon Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzy, Jonas Parker, and Ashahel Porter. Jonathon Harrington, fatally wounded by a British musket ball, managed to crawl back to his home, and died upon his doorstep.

The infantry under Pitcairn were beyond their officers' control. They were firing in different directions and preparing to enter private homes. Then the main body marched into town and Colonel Smith restored order. The British reformed their units, fired a victory salute, gave three cheers, and continued to Concord.

Concord

The older militiamen of Concord urged caution until they could be reinforced by troops from towns nearby. The middle-aged men wanted to stay and defend the town. The younger elite Minutemen wanted to move east and greet the British Army from superior terrain. As the regulars began to approach, all three groups did their own thing. The Minutemen watched from a hill as Smith deployed light infantry against them. They began a series of marching retreats into the town. The older and middle-aged men had occupied a hill in town, and they argued about what to do next while watching the young men approach with the regulars behind them. The Lincoln militia arrived and joined in the debate. The older men prevailed, and Colonel Barrett surrendered the town of Concord and led the men across Old North Bridge to a hill about a mile north of town where they could continue to watch the troop movements of the British.

The Regulars follow Gage's orders

Smith's troops divided into multiple forces to fulfill Gage's orders. One company of light infantry secured South Bridge and seven companies of light infantry secured Old North Bridge near Barrett's force. Of those seven, four companies were next sent two miles past the bridge to search Barrett's property, two companies (from the 4th and 10th Regiments of Foot) were sent across the bridge to guard their return route, and one company (from the 43rd Regiment of Foot) remained guarding the bridge itself.

The grenadier companies searched the town for military supplies. Pitcairn held a Whig leader at gunpoint until he led them to three buried cannon. Pitcairn then bought him breakfast. The grenadiers burned some gun carriages found in the town hall and when the fire spread to the hall itself, the soldiers and residents joined forces in a bucket brigade to save the building. Nearly a hundred barrels of flour and 550 pounds (250 kg) of shot were thrown into the mill pond. The shot was recovered the next day.

Barrett's house had been an arsenal weeks before but few weapons remained now, and these were quickly buried in furrows to look like a crop had been planted. The companies sent there would march more than any other troops that day and they found nothing at Barrett's except breakfast, which some of them demanded from Mrs. Barrett.

Old North Bridge

Col Barrett's troops saw the smaller units directly below them and they agreed (after consultation) to march towards a flat hilltop about 300 yards from Old North Bridge. This land belonged to Major John Buttrick who led the Minuteman units under Barrett. It was also their muster field. A British company held this position, but they marched in retreat down towards the bridge and yielded the hill to Barrett's men.

Five full companies of Minutemen and five of non-Minuteman militia occupied this hill along with groups of other men streaming in, totaling about 500 against the light infantry companies from the 4th, 10th, and 43rd Regiments of Foot under Captain Laurie, a force totalling about 115 men. Barrett ordered the Massachusetts men to form one long line two deep running parallel to the river, and then he called for another consultation.

At this moment, they first saw the smoke from the burning gun carriages rising over Concord and many thought the regulars had begun to burn the town down. Col. Barrett ordered the men to load their weapons and not to fire unless fired upon. Then he ordered them to advance. Both British companies used as guards were ordered to retreat back across Old North Bridge, and many started to pull up the planks. Major Buttrick began to yell at these regulars to stop destroying the bridge. They were standing on his land, and he presumably felt like the bridge itself belonged to him and to the people in his lines. The Minutemen and normal militia advanced in formation on the light infantry as a regular army would. Their fifer played "The White Cockade," a popular Jacobite tune, in opposition to the Hanoverian King George III.

Captain Laurie then made a poor tactical maneuver. He ordered his men to form positions for "street firing" behind the bridge in a line running perpendicular to the river. This formation was appropriate for sending a large volume of fire into a narrow alley between the buildings of a city, but not for an open path behind a bridge. Confusion reigned as regulars retreating over the bridge tried to avoid and then join up with the street-firing position of their own troops. A Lieutenant in the rear of the formation saw Laurie's mistake and ordered flankers to be sent out, but he was from a different company than the men under his command, and only three soldiers obeyed him. The remainder tried to follow the orders of the superior officer. The opponents faced each other like the two lines of an upper-case letter T with the top horizontal line representing the Patriots and the bottom vertical line representing both the bridge and Laurie's British troops behind it.

A shot rang out, and this time there is certainty on both sides that it was from the British Army's ranks. Two other regulars fired and then the narrow group up front fired a volley before Laurie could stop them. Two of the Acton Minutemen in the unfortunate center of the line behind the bridge were cut down and killed instantly and four were wounded (including the fifer), but the Massachusetts irregulars continued to advance in regular formation, holding their fire until receiving orders. The order was given by Major Buttrick when the lines were separated by the Concord River and only 50 yards. Four of the eight British officers on the field were wounded by the volley. At least three privates were killed and nine wounded. The regulars found themselves trapped in a situation where they were both outnumbered and outmaneuvered. They defied their officers, abandoned their wounded, and fled.

After the fight

The Patriots were stunned by their success. Some advanced. Some retreated. At least one went home. One man crushed in a wounded British soldier's head with a hatchet, exposing his brains and scalping him but not killing him. Barrett eventually began to recover control and chose to divide his forces. He moved the militia back to the hilltop 300 yards away and sent Buttrick with the Minutemen across the bridge to a defensive position on a hill behind a stone wall.

Lt Col Smith, leader of the British expedition, heard the exchange of fire from his position in the town moments after he received a request for reinforcements from Laurie. Smith assembled two companies of grenadiers to lead towards Old North Bridge himself. As these troops marched, they met the broken forces of three companies running the other way. Smith was concerned about the four companies who'd been at Barrett's. Their route to return safely was gone. Then he saw the Minutemen in the distance behind their wall and he halted his two companies and moved forward with only his officers to take a closer look.

In the written words of a Minuteman behind that wall: "If we had fird I beleave we could kild all most every officseer thair was in the front, but we had no orders to fire and their want a gun fird." During this tense standoff of about 10 minutes, a madman wandered through both sides selling hard cider. Smith returned his grenadiers to the town and hoped for the best for the remaining four companies.

These men hurried back from Barrett's, in fear of getting cut off. They passed unharmed underneath Barrett's militia and through the former battlefield, saw their scalped comrade dying on the bridge, and then passed unharmed underneath Buttrick's Minutemen. The regulars had all returned to the town by 11:30. Even after a small field battle and with superior forces, the New Englanders (at this point in the day) still did not fire unless fired upon, and this time the regulars did nothing to provoke them. The British Army left Concord at noon.

The return march

Militia units friendly to the rebel cause continued to gather as an unorganized force along the 20 miles (30 km) back to Charlestown, ultimately totaling as many as 4,000 men. The rebels fired from walls and fences, ravines and farms along the road. The light infantry would send out flanking parties and disperse them, but casualties continued. By the time his column got back to Lexington, it more closely resembled a fleeing mob and the carriages were loaded with the wounded.

They paused at Lexington around noon. Pitcairn held the perimeter while Smith began to restore what order he could to his tired men, now low on ammunition. Here they met the reinforcement they had asked for. General Hugh Percy brought 1,000 men, fresh ammunition, and some cannon. Marching through Roxbury and Cambridge he met the returning troop at Lexington and took command. By 2:00 in the afternoon the expanded column continued, but so did the fighting.

The nearer they got to Boston, the more concentrated became their opposition. At Menotomy (modern Arlington) forty men fell on both sides. Expecting to retrace his overland route, the resistance made Percy change his mind at Cambridge and head for Charlestown. The last two miles (3 km) were a continuous battle. The British would unlimber their guns, temporarily driving back the rebels. But, as the British turned to move on, the fight would resume.

At last by the end of the day, the exhausted column reached Charlestown, and was under the cover of the British warships in the harbor. Many of the men had been up for two straight days, and had marched 40 miles (60 km). The vaunted British discipline had proved lacking. The rebels rushed into Cambridge and the Siege of Boston had begun.

Aftermath

In terms of accomplishments and casualties this was not a major battle. With 1,800 men engaged, the British losses were 73 dead, 26 missing, and 174 wounded, for 273 total casualties. Estimated rebel losses for 4,000 men were 49 killed, 5 missing, and 41 seriously wounded, for a total of 95 casualties. But the Revolutionary War had begun. The British assumption that they had enough forces at Boston to overwhelm the rebels was now questionable. The next battle, at Bunker Hill would shatter that assumption completely.

The Army of resistance continued to grow as surrounding colonies sent men and supplies. The Continental Congress would adopt and sponsor these men into the beginnings of the Continental Army.

Later historic images

Since the reaction to this battle throughout the colonies, and in Britain, set the ground for six years of war, it certainly was recognized as significant at the time. During the next century however, Lexington and Concord took on an almost mythical quality in the American consciousness.

In 1837, in his Concord Hymn, Ralph Waldo Emerson immortalized the events at Concord Bridge:

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.

After 1860, several generations of schoolchildren memorized Longfellow's poem The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.

In modern times, Patriot's Day is celebrated in Massachusetts, Maine, and Wisconsin in honor of the battle.

See also

• Old North Church

External links

• Why We Remember Lexington and Concord and the 19th of April
• Battles of Lexington and Concord
• Articles about the Concord Fight in Concord Magazine
• Midi file of The White Cockade, the tune played by the Minutemen at Old North Bridge

Principle Source

• Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer ISBN 0195088476