The Shot Heard Around the World
APRIL 19, 1775
Remember, that as wayward children of King George, we (as British subjects), were commanded by our government to surrender our guns and powder.
The actual British order to seize and destroy the American’s guns and supplies, for that day, reads as follows:
“Having received Intelligence, that a Quantity of Ammunition, Provision, Artillery, Tents and small Arms, have been collected at Concord, for the Avowed Purpose of raising and supporting a Rebellion against His Majesty, you will March with the Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your Command, with utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and destroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores whatever …” (Per Order of General Gage to Lt. Colonel F. Smith, of the Kings Troops. The Minute Men The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution, by John R. Galvin, at page 100).
At Concord, house to house searches were conducted by the British to carry out the above order. Remember, the possession of powder, cannon, and other supplies of war might have meant arrest for revolutionary activities. The supplies of arms were substantial:
“Within the town, scattered through the cellars and attics and outbuildings of at least twenty-five houses, the provincials had concealed ten tons of musket balls and cartridges, thirty-five half barrels of powder, 350 tents, fourteen medicine chests, eighty barrels of beef, eight and a half tons of salt fish, seventeen and a half tons of rye, 318 barrels of flour, 100 barrels of salt, … hundreds of axes, canteens, reams of cartridge paper … and … a substantial number of cannon and gun carriages of varying sizes… .” (emphasis added). The Minute Men the First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution, by John R. Galvin, at page 140).
On April 19, 1775, the Americans were prepared to, and did, fight for their liberty and freedom. What would you have done?
Lexington and Concord, battles of (1775), first battle of the American independence war. On receipt of peremptory orders from London on 19 April the military governor of Massachusetts Gen Gage reluctantly sent a force of 700 soldiers from Charlestown to seize militia stores in Concord, followed by a support column out of Boston. An earlier expedition to Salem had retreated in the face of threatening Minutemen (militia who undertook to be ready ‘at a minute’s warning’) and Gage knew that his orders made a showdown inevitable.
Signal lamps and mounted couriers, including the now-legendary night ride of Paul Revere, gave warning. Minutemen made a demonstration on Lexington Green, but they were dispersed with a loss of eight killed and ten wounded. By the time the main column arrived at Concord, the stores had been removed or destroyed, and at the North Bridge Minutemen fired the ‘shot heard around the world’, the first time any British soldiers were killed. In imminent danger of being cut off, the column retreated under heavy sniping. Order broke down in the face of guerrilla tactics for which the troops were unprepared and the rout continued until they came under the guns of the support brigade at Lexington. For the remainder of the retreat the redcoats gave as good as they got, but lost 273 men in exchange for no more than 95 rebel casualties.
Never was it more true that the first clash in a war tends to set the tone. Lexington and Concord emboldened the rebels to besiege Boston/Charlestown and to stand at the battle of Bunker Hill in June, after which Washington took over as commander of what was now the Continental Army. Gage’s successor Howe evacuated the isolated garrison to attack New York the following year.
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Business Meeting for Wednesday 14 April 2010
