Volume 3, Chapter 69. The Shot Heard Round the World. The Final Conflict Begins.
Despite the mounting tension in the South, the main focus of potential revolutionary conflict was
still Massachusetts. The British authorities ever more attracted to a hard line were becoming
increasingly disenchanted with the timorousness and caution of General Gage, who had actually
asked for heavy reinforcements when everyone knew that the scurvy Americans could be routed by a
mere show of force from the superb British army. 400 Royal Marines and several new regiments were
sent to gauge, but the King, one of the leaders of coercion sentiment, seriously considered removing
gauge from command. There were a few voices of reason in the British government, but they were
The Wiggish Secretary of War, Lord Barrington, urged reliance on the cheap and efficient method of naval blockade, rather than on a land war in the large expanse and forests of America, and General Edward Harvey warned of any attempt to conquer America by land army.
But the cabinet was convinced that 10,000 British regulars, assisted by American tories,
could crush any conceivable American resistance. Underlined this conviction and consequent
British eagerness to wield armed force was a chauvinist and quasi-racist contempt for the
Americans. Thus, General James Grant sneered at the skulking peasants who dared to resist the crown.
Major John Pitcairn, stationed at Boston, was sure that, if he drew his sword but half out of the scabbard, the whole bandit of Massachusetts Bay would flee before him.
Particularly important was the speech in Parliament of the powerful Bedfordite, the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, who sneeringly asked,
Suppose the colonies do abound in men. What does that signify? They are raw, undisciplined, cowardly men. I wish instead of 50,000 of these brave fellows they would produce in the field at least 200,000, the more the better. The easier would be the conquest. The very sound of a cannon would carry them off, as fast as their feet could carry them.
There was another reason it should be noted. For Sandwich's reluctance to use the fleet, rather than the army against the enemy, while the army was to dispatch the Americans, Sandwich wished to use the fleet against France, with which he hoped and expected to be soon at war.
Accordingly, the Crown sent secret orders to Gage, reaching him on April 14.
The Earl of Dartmouth rebuked Gage for being too moderate.
The decision had been made.
Since the people of New England were clearly committed to open rebellion and independence
of Britain, maximum and decisive force must be slammed down hard upon the Americans, immediately.
While reinforcements were underway, it was important for the British troops to launch
a preventive strike by moving hard before an American Revolution could be organized.
Therefore, Gage decided to arrest the leaders of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress,
especially Hancock and Sam Adams.
As in so many other preventive first strikes in history, Great Britain itself precipitated
the one thing it wished most to avoid, a successful revolution. Interestingly enough, the Massachusetts
radicals were at the time rejecting hot-headed plans for first strike by rebel forces who
would thus be throwing away the hard-forged unity of the American colonists. Adams and
Hancock were out of town and out of reach near Concord. So Gage decided to kill two
Two birds with one stone by sending a military expedition to Concord to seize the large stores
of rebel military supplies and to arrest the radical leaders.
Gage determined to send out the force secretly to catch the Americans by surprise.
That way, if armed conflict broke out, the onus for initiating the fray could be laid
on the Americans.
Gage also used a trader high up in radical ranks. Dr. Benjamin Church, of Boston, whom
the British supplied with funds to maintain an expensive mistress, informed on the location
of the supplies and the rebel leaders. Church's perfidy remained undetected for many more
months. Gage learned from Church, furthermore, that the provincial congress, under the prodding
of the Frightened Joseph Hawley had resolved on March 30 not to fight any armed British
expedition, unless it should also bring artillery. By not sending out artillery, Gage figured
that the Americans would not resist the expedition. Gage, however, immediately encountered what
would prove a major difficulty in fighting a counterinsurgency war by a minority ruling
He found that surrounded by a sullen and hostile people, he could not keep any of his troop or fleet movements hidden.
The rebels would quickly discover these movements and spread the news.
On April 15, the day after receiving his orders, Gage relieved his best troops of duty, gathered his boats,
Boats, and on the night of April 18 shipped 700 under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith
to the mainland from which they began to march northwest to Lexington and Concord. But the
Americans quickly discovered what was happening. Someone, perhaps Dr. Joseph Warren, sent Paul
Revere to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock. Hancock, emotional, wanted to join the Minutemen
and Spring to Arms, but the sober intelligence of Sam Adams reminded Hancock of his revolutionary
duty as a top leader of the American forces, and they both fled to safety.
Revere was soon captured, but Dr. Samuel Prescott was able to speed to Concord and bring the
news that the British were coming.
As news of the British march reached the Americans, the Lexington Minutemen gathered under the
the Command of Captain John Parker. Rather absurdly, Parker drew up his handful of seventy
men in open formation across the British path. When Major Pitcairn, in charge of six companies
of the British advance guard, came up to confront the militia, Pitcairn brusquely ordered the
Americans to lay down their arms and disperse. Parker, seeing his error, was more than willing
In the midst of this tense confrontation, shots rang out. No one knows who fired first.
The important thing is that the British, despite Pitcairn's orders to stop, fired far longer
and more heavily than necessary, mercilessly shooting at the fleeing Americans so long
8 Americans were killed in the massacre, including the brave but foolish Parker, who refused to
flee, and 8 wounded, whereas only one British soldier was slightly wounded.
The exuberant and trigger-happy British troops cheered their victory, but the victory at
Lexington would prove pyrrhic indeed.
The blood shed at Lexington made the restraining resolution of Joseph Holly obsolete. The Revolutionary
War had begun. Sam Adams, upon hearing the shooting from some distance away, at once realized
that the fact of the open clash was more significant than who would win the skirmish. Aware that
the showdown had at last arrived, Adams exclaimed, Oh, what a glorious morning is this! The British
British troops marched happily on to Concord. This time the Americans did not try any foolhardy,
open confrontation with the British forces. Instead an infinitely wiser strategy was employed.
In the first place, part of the military stores were carried off by the Americans. Second,
no resistance was offered to the British entry into Concord, thus lulling the troops into
to a further sense of security. While the British were destroying the remaining stores,
three to four hundred militia men gathered at the bridge into Concord and advanced upon
the British rear guard. The British shot first, but were forced to retreat across the bridge,
having suffered three killed and nine wounded. The despised Americans were beginning to make
for the Massacre at Lexington.
Heedless of the ominous signs of the gathering storm,
Colonel Smith, commanding the expedition,
kept his men around Concord for hours
before beginning to march back to Boston.
That march was to become one of the most famous
in the annals of America.
Along the way, beginning a mile out of Concord
at Miriam's Corner, the embattled and neighboring farmers
The farmers and militiamen employed the tactics of guerrilla warfare to devastating effect.
Knowing their home terrain intimately, these undisciplined and individualistic Americans subjected the proud British troops to a continuous, withering and overpowering fire from behind trees, walls and houses.
The march back soon became a nightmare of destruction for the buoyant British.
The British were saved from decimation only by a relief brigade of twelve hundred men under Earl Percy that reached them at Lexington.
Still, Americans continued to join the fray and fire at the troops, despite heavy losses imposed by British flanking parties.
Despite the British reinforcements, the Americans might have been forced to leave the country.
A. Despite heavy losses imposed by British flanking parties. B. Despite the British reinforcements, the Americans might have slaughtered and conquered the British force if
A. They had not suffered from shortages of ammunition.
B. The British had not swerved into Charlestown and embarked for Boston under the protecting guns of the British fleet.
And C. Excessive caution had not held the Americans back from a final blow at the troops on the road to Charlestown.
Even so, the deadly march back to Boston was a glorious victory, physically and psychologically, for the Americans.
Of some fifteen to eighteen hundred redcoats, ninety-nine were killed and missing, and one hundred
seventy-four wounded. The exultant Americans, who numbered about four thousand irregular
individuals that day, suffered ninety-three casualties. Insofar as these individuals were
led that day, it was by Dr. Joseph Warren and William Heath, appointed a general by
by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
Events could not have gone better for the American cause.
Initial aggression and massacre by the arrogant redcoats,
then turned to utter rout by the roused
and angry people of Massachusetts.
It was truly a tale for song and story.
As Willard Wallace writes,
even now the significance of Lexington and Concord
awakens a response in Americans
that goes far beyond the details of the day
For the Identity of the Foe, an un-military people, at first overrun by trained might,
had eventually risen in their wrath and won a hard but splendid triumph.
Above all, as Sam Adams was quick to realize, the stirring events of April 19, 1775 touched
off a general armed conflict, the American Revolution.
In the Immortal Lines of Emerson, penned for the fiftieth anniversary of that day,
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.