5th ELA/SS: Part 2 – Session 1 “The Shot Heard Round the World”

Following resolutions made by the Continental Congress (1774), armed conflict seemed imminent with England. So King George declared the colonies in a state of rebellion and authorized sending more British soldiers to reinforce those who had occupied Boston since In April 1775, after learning of the existence of a large colonial arsenal in the town of Concord about 20 miles outside of Boston, General Thomas Gage was sent to disarm the colonists and to arrest the leaders of the rebellion. He was looking for John Hancock and Samuel Adams. Upon arriving in Boston, General Gage then sent a detachment of 700 troops under Colonel Francis Smith to march to Concord for the purposes of seizing and destroying artillery and ammunition. The Colonists, however, already knew their weapons were in jeopardy and had moved most of them to secret locations before the arrival of the Redcoats. The Shot Heard Round the World

As British troops mobilized in Boston, Dr. Joseph Warren alerted members of the Sons of Liberty – Paul Revere and William Dawes, to the British plans. Dawes promptly rode to Concord to warn Hancock and Adams and Revere rode through the countryside yelling “The Regulars are Coming” or “The Regulars are Out.” Regulars being the name the regular British Army troops were called. By dawn, about 70 armed Minutemen (Massachusetts militia) had gathered in the Lexington town common awaiting the arrival of the British soldiers on their way to Concord. Gage’s own wife, Margaret Kemble Gage, is thought to have given Warren information about her husband’s planned raid in sympathy to the Revolution.

When the British arrived on the scene, the situation became tense. Words were exchanged and then someone fired a shot. Historians still disagree on which side fired first, or, if the shot came from a spectator. Regardless, the British troops unleashed devastating volleys of gunfire before charging the Minutemen with their bayonets. The minutemen scattered, eight Minutemen were killed and ten were wounded. While the British marched on to Concord, additional Minutemen arrived from surrounding towns and farms growing their group‘s numbers. This larger colonial group then retreated to a ridge about a mile from Concord across the North Bridge to wait for the British return march back to Boston. Meanwhile British troops, upon arriving Concord, destroyed several cannons and burned leftover ammunition.

On their way back to Boston, while passing through Concord, the two sides met at the North Bridge. A gun battle erupted and in a stunning turn of events for both sides, the Minutemen held the bridge. This forced the Redcoats to retreat back to Boston and while on their way, hundreds or even thousands of farmers and other colonial workers had positioned themselves behind trees, rocks, in pastures, under bridges, and in places they could not be seen by the British, firing at them as they marched on. Desperate Redcoats, frustrated by an enemy they could not see, and in revenge for the brutal scalping of one of their dead, sometimes pillaging houses and communities along the way, killing dozens of colonists. Colonial militias, however, continued to snipe away the lines of Redcoats. By the time the British troops finally had made it back to Boston, 73 Redcoats were killed and 174 were wounded. The American Revolution had officially begun.

London Gazette, 10 June 1775