The Battles of Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, were the first battles of the Revolutionary War.
General Thomas Gage tried to stop the colonists’ rebellion by sending eight hundred troops to Lexington, twenty miles northwest of Boston. Their mission was to arrest John Hancock and Samuel Adams at Lexington. Then, continue on to Concord to confiscate the Patriots’ cache of arms and ammunition stored there.
They were met by a group of seventy seven militiamen at Lexington. They were commanded by Captain John Parker, who told them, “Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”
The British commander ordered the colonists to throw down their arms and disperse. Some of them followed the order to leave, but then held on to their arms. Then, a shot was fired. Other shots followed. At the end of the battle, eight Americans were dead and ten were wounded. One British soldier was wounded. The outmatched Patriots withdrew, and the British marched on to Concord.
When the British arrived at the North Bridge in Concord, they were met by four hundred militia. When the Patriots advanced, the British troops opened fire, killing two of them.
The Patriots answered with their own volley, killing three British soldiers, and wounding nine others. That’s what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “the shot heard round the world.”
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.
—The Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The British retreated. And on their way back to Boston, they were attacked from all sides by swarms of angry Patriots. Many African-American Patriots, both free and enslaved, joined in the fight with their white neighbors.
These battles were a disaster for the British. They had seventy-five killed, and many wounded, and forty-nine American Patriots were killed.
Those brave Patriots stood and fought for their God-given rights, and they changed the world forever.