Paul Revere’s ride and the Battles of Lexington and Concord
On April 16 Revere rode to Concord, a town 20 miles (32 km) northwest of Boston, to advise local compatriots to secure their military stores in advance of British troop movements. Two nights later Revere rode from Charlestown—where he confirmed that the local Sons of Liberty had seen the two lanterns that were posted in Boston’s Old North Church, signaling a British approach across the Charles River—to Lexington to warn that the British were on the march.
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Revolutionary leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams fled Lexington to safety, and Revere was joined by fellow riders William Dawes and Samuel Prescott. The trio were apprehended outside Lexington by a British patrol, but Prescott escaped custody and was able to continue on to Concord. Revere’s “midnight ride” provided the colonists with vital information about British intentions, and it was later immortalized in a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
Some 700 British troops spent the evening of April 18, 1775, forming ranks on Boston Common, with orders to seize the colonial armory at Concord. The lengthy public display ensured that Gage had lost any chance at secrecy, and by the time the force had been transported across the Charles River to Cambridge it was 2:00 am the following morning.
The march to Lexington was an exercise in misery. It began in a swamp, and the British were forced to wade through brackish water that was, in places, waist deep. By the time the soaked infantry members arrived in Lexington about 5:00 am, 77 minutemen were among those who had assembled on the village green. Officers on both sides ordered their troops to hold their positions but not to fire their weapons.
It is unclear who fired “the shot heard ’round the world,” but it sparked a skirmish that left eight Americans dead. The colonial force evaporated, and the British moved on to Concord, where they were met with determined resistance from hundreds of militia members. Now outnumbered and running low on ammunition, the British column was forced to retire to Boston. On the return march, American snipers took a deadly toll on the British, and only the timely arrival of 1,100 reinforcements prevented the retreat from becoming a rout. Those killed and wounded at the Battles of Lexington and Concord numbered 273 British and 95 Americans.
