Lexington & Concord

The night of April 18th, the signal burns in the North Church steeple, and the riders go out — Revere, Dawes, Prescott. Hoofbeats and hammering doors, one cry passed farm to farm: the Regulars are coming out. By the hundreds. For our powder and guns.

On the night of 18 April 1775, riders including Paul Revere and William Dawes spread the alarm that ~700 British troops were marching to seize colonial arms at Concord. 251 years ago.

We gather on Lexington Green before the sun — farmers, mostly, muskets taken down from over the hearth. Seventy-odd of us. And up the Boston road, in the grey light, we can already hear them: drums, boots. Captain Parker forms us in a line, and we wait.

About 77 militia under Captain John Parker assembled on Lexington Green to face some 700 British regulars.

Parker's word runs down the line: stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon. But if they mean to have a war — let it begin here. The Regulars pour onto the green, rank on rank, an officer waving his sword, shouting for us to throw down our arms.

'Stand your ground... if they mean to have a war, let it begin here' is the order tradition attributes to Parker.

No man knows who fired first — a single crack from somewhere, and the world comes apart. The British volley tears into us. Smoke, screaming, men I've known all my life falling on the grass. Eight dead on the green before we can answer. We break, and run.

Someone fired — no one knows who. British volleys left 8 militia dead and 10 wounded at Lexington.

They march on to Concord and take the town apart hunting our stores — but the wagons went into the woods and the swamps days ago. They find almost nothing. And all the while, from every town with a bell, more of us come in. Hundreds. Then thousands.

Forewarned, Concord had hidden or moved most military supplies. Militia converged from surrounding towns through the morning.

At the North Bridge we see smoke climbing over the town and think they mean to burn it. We come down on the Regulars holding the bridge. They fire first — two of us fall. And this time, on command, we fire back. The King's soldiers break and run. It has never happened before.

At Concord's North Bridge, militia returned fire and forced the regulars back — later immortalized by Emerson as 'the shot heard round the world.'

Now it is our turn. The Regulars start the long march back to Boston — eighteen miles of road — and we are behind every stone wall and tree along it. We fire, and fall back, and fire again. Their column bleeds the whole way, cursing an enemy they can barely see.

During the ~18-mile retreat to Boston, militia harried the British column from cover. British losses: ~73 killed, ~174 wounded, ~26 missing.

By nightfall the Regulars stumble back into Boston, bloodied and stunned — and they do not march out again. For we close around the city, thousands upon thousands, muskets turned inward. One day of alarms and running fights, and the one thing no one could take back: the war has begun.

The survivors withdrew into Boston; colonial militia besieged the city. The Revolutionary War had begun. 251 years ago.