Wilfred Maclay traces April 19, 1775, when British General Thomas Gage sent 700 troops to seize a Patriot supply depot in Concord, triggering clashes at Lexington and Concord that launched the Revolution. Eight Patriots died at Lexington; the British lost 14 at North Bridge before retreating to Boston under militia fire. Longfellow's 1860 poem "Paul Revere's Ride" later shaped how Americans remembered these battles.
Chapters
Hello. My name is Wilfred Maclay and I teach history at Hillsdale College. My assignment today is to relate the story of how the American Revolution began with the dramatic clashes between British regular troops and American militiamen in the New England towns of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. 250 years ago today, the fuse of war was lit at last when orders from Britain reached the royal governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, instructing him to move aggressively to stop the growing rebellion. After careful deliberation, Gage decided he would march 700 red coated British troops to Concord, a town about 20 miles west of Boston, where they would seize a militia supply depot that had been established by the Patriot forces. The fact that such a depot had already been created is an indication of the extent to which the Patriots that this conflict had organized and was preparing for conflict. They were not an unorganized rabble, far from it. They knew that Gage was contemplating some sort of move, although they didn't know where or when exactly it would come until the operation was underway. And they knew it was important to wait and make sure that the British fired the first shots so that the Patriots would be able to claim the high moral ground. Samuel Adams put it this way back in March of 1775. Put your enemy in the wrong and keep him so. This is a wise maxim in politics as well as in war, as indeed it was. The success of Gage's operations depended on secrecy, surprise and sound intelligence. Thus the words of historian David Hackett Fisher. Gage would have to strike at the heart of the rebel movement and cripple it with quick, clean blows, preferably with as little bloodshed as possible. But it didn't quite work out that way. It was a disaster instead for the British. In many ways, the outcome of Lexington and Concord provided the Patriots with a great public relations victory, putting the enemy firmly in the wrong and keeping him there. Along the road to Concord was the town of Lexington, which was not an objective of Gage's troops. And yet, when the British arrived there at dawn, they encountered a group of 70 or so Minutemen gathered in the mist on the town common. The men were there because they'd been warned by means of the famous midnight ride of Paul Revere, who was one of maybe as many as 60 messengers whom he'd help organize. Tasked to inform the scattered militias in the area that the British regulars were coming from Boston, had crossed the Charles river at Cambridge and were now heading west to Concord, they came to Lexington upon an awkward confrontation. After some taunting shouts and argument coming from both sides, the Patriot militiamen appeared to be beginning to withdraw. And then a shot was fired, no one knows by whom, which led to to the British opening fire on the assembled Patriots, killing eight of them. It was more of a skirmish than a full throated battle, but blood was shed on both sides and deaths on the patriot side. News spread quickly throughout the countryside of what was already being called the Massacre at Lexington. Then the British went on to Concord, where they encountered half empty storehouses as the Patriots excellent advance intelligence had indicated a move against Concord was coming, and they cleared out most of their arms and armaments and ammunition and burned the rest. The regulars encountered stiff resistance from the gathered militia troops as they poured in from the countryside and fought bravely and shrewdly against the rather mechanical British. The British lost 14 men in a fight at the Concord North Bridge, which the terrified Regulars turned tail and ran for their lives, breaking discipline, disobeying their officers, and abandoning the wounded. A disgraceful display. The British began to retreat to Boston and would face deadly fire all along the route. Bloody sniper fire. They were outnumbered, outmaneuvered at every turn. In the end, they limped back to Boston, having lost three times as many men as the Americans. And so the war had begun. And now a few words about historical memory. Because that, after all, is why we're here, to remember and to gain the value of remembering our own past. Why is it so important to do that? Much of what we remember Lexington and Concord for today flows from a single poem written in 1860 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem is called Paul Revere's Ride. It used to be memorized by every school age child in America. It opens like listen, my children, and you shall hear of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. On the 18th of April in 75, hardly a man is now alive who remembers that famous day and year. It's really such an infectious poem you catch. It has the rhythm, it has as a rhythm of drum taps. Listen, my children, and you shall hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere. But why did Longfellow address the poem to children? Surely children were not the only audience he had in mind. Maybe not even the primary audience he had in mind. No, but he's indicating something. He's indicating that his poem is primarily meant as an expression of a precious memory, a memory of something that needs to be preserved, needs to be passed along to successive generations, lest it be lost. The memory, in this case, of Paul Revere and his heroic deeds. To be sure, the poem does not provide a fully accurate rendering of the events that took place in those days. For that, I recommend you turn to David Hackett Fisher or other historians who have covered that territory. But the poem does something different. It conveys the essential spiritual meaning of the events, the legacy they had left with us, a meaning that we can and should and must make our own. And it conveyed that meaning at a crucial moment in American history. The poem was composed in 1860, on the cusp of our greatest national crisis and trial, the American Civil War. We were being called to look back by Longfellow. Just as Abraham Lincoln urged Americans to heed the mystic chords of memory when he's inaugurated as president, and to remember the spirit of 76 and their heroic forebears, so Longfellow reminded them of a hero of Lexington and Concord on the very moment when the nation was entering the great trial, the great crisis of revolution. The poem concludes, too, with a haunting prediction that speaks to our moment as well. And let me close with that. For born on the night wind of the past, through all our history to the last, in the hour of darkness and peril and need, the people will waken and listen to hear the hurrying hoofbeats of that steed and the midnight message of Paul Revere. If Longfellow's right, the deeds of Lexington and Concord exemplified enduring qualities of the character of the American people that will continue to manifest themselves if we have the willingness to. To call on those memories, the capacity to respond to darkness with light, to peril with energy and determination, buoyed by the knowledge that others have done these things before us. And, in a sense, for us, what was done before can be done again. Thank you, Sam. Ra.
