The Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, were the first major military actions between the British Army and Patriot militias from British America's Thirteen Colonies during the American Revolutionary War. The opposing forces fought day-long running battles in Middlesex County in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge.
After the Boston Tea Party (1773), the British Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts (early 1774), including the restrictive Massachusetts Government Act. Patriot (Colonial) leaders in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, adopted the Suffolk Resolves in resistance to the acts. The leaders formed a Patriot provisional government, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, and called for local militias to train for possible hostilities. The Provincial Congress effectively controlled the colony outside of Boston. On September 17, the First Continental Congress endorsed the Suffolk Resolves. In response, in February 1775, the British government declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion.
On April 18, 1775, about 700 British Regulars in Boston, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, received secret orders to capture and destroy colonial military supplies reportedly stored at Concord. Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot leaders received word weeks before the British expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. On the night before the battles, several riders, including Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, warned area militias of the British plans and approaching British Army expedition from Boston.
The first shots between Patriot militiamen and Regulars at Lexington were fired at sunrise on April 19. Eight militiamen were killed and ten wounded. Only one British soldier was wounded. The outnumbered militia quickly fell back and the Regulars proceeded to Concord, where they split into companies to search for supplies. At the Old North Bridge in Concord, approximately 400 militiamen engaged 100 Regulars at about 11:00 am, resulting in casualties on both sides. The outnumbered Regulars fell back and rejoined the main body of British troops in Concord.
Then the British forces began a return march to Boston after a mostly unsuccessful search for military supplies. Meanwhile, more militiamen from neighboring towns arrived along the return route. The two forces exchanged gunfire at many places along the march throughout the day. Lieutenant Colonel Smith's troops were reinforced by Brigadier General Earl Percy's force at Lexington at a crucial time during their return. The combined British force of about 1,700 men returned to Boston under heavy fire and eventually reached the safety of Charlestown after incurring heavy losses. The militias then blockaded the narrow land accesses to Charlestown and Boston, starting the siege of Boston.
Background
The British Army occupied Boston in 1768. Royal Navy units and Royal Marines were added to enforce the Coercive Acts of 1774, as colonists named them (later renamed by historians the Intolerable Acts). The British Parliament enacted these measures to punish the Province of Massachusetts Bay for the Boston Tea Party and other acts of protest. In response, in the summer 1774, colonial leaders in Suffolk County, Massachusetts adopted the Suffolk Resolves declaring the Coercive Acts unconstitutional, recommending sanctions against Britain, urging Massachusetts residents to form their own government and to fight in its defense. The First Continental Congress endorsed the Resolves on September 17, 1774. General Thomas Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts, effectively dissolved the existing provincial government pursuant to the Massachusetts Government Act. Then, in line with the Suffolk Resolves, the colonists formed the Massachusetts Provincial Congress.
Gage also was commander-in-chief of the roughly 3,000 British military men garrisoned in Boston. He lost control over Massachusetts outside of Boston due to the colonial resistance where the Patriot Whigs were a majority and the pro-British Tories were a minority. Gage planned to avoid open conflict with the Patriots by removing military supplies from Patriot militias outside Boston through use of small, secret, and rapid military strikes. In one such strike, the British seized supplies but the Patriots succeeded in hiding supplies from other searches in a series of nearly bloodless events known as the Powder Alarms.
Colonial militias were formed from the beginning of colonial settlements to defend against Indian attacks. These forces also saw action in the French and Indian War between 1754 and 1763 while fighting alongside the British. Under New England colonies' laws, towns were required to form militia companies of all males 16 years of age and older (exemptions existed) and to ensure that the members were properly armed. Massachusetts militias operated under the jurisdiction of the provincial government but militia companies elected their own officers, as they did throughout New England.
In a February 1775 address to King George III, both houses of Parliament declared that a state of rebellion existed in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Parliament reported that some of the Massachusetts subjects had encouraged unlawful combinations and engagements in other colonies. They noted that these rebellious actions were unnecessary because Parliament would pay attention to any "real grievances" of the colonists (without further explanation). Parliament requested the king to enforce obedience to the law and authority of Parliament and the king.
British preparations
On April 14, 1775, Gage received instructions from Secretary of State William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, to disarm the rebels and to imprison their leaders. Gage's decision to act promptly may have been influenced by the information he received on April 15 from an unidentified spy in the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, who told Gage that Congress was divided on the need for armed resistance. He also advised that the Congress had sent delegates to other New England colonies asking for cooperation in raising a New England army of 18,000 soldiers.
On the morning of April 18, Gage ordered a mounted patrol of about 20 men under the command of Major Mitchell of the 5th Regiment of Foot into the surrounding country to intercept messengers who might be out on horseback. This patrol behaved differently from past patrols out of Boston, staying out after dark and asking travelers about the location of Samuel Adams and John Hancock. This had the unintended effect of alarming many residents and increasing their preparedness. The Lexington militia, in particular, began to muster early that evening, hours before receiving word directly from Boston.
British Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith received orders from Gage on the afternoon of April 18 that he was not to read until his troops were underway instructing him to conduct an expedition. Gage told Smith to proceed quickly and secretly from Boston to Concord, seize and destroy all military supplies there but to take care that soldiers not plunder or damage private property. Gage decided not to issue written orders for the arrest of rebel leaders, fearing that might spark an uprising.
American preparations
The Massachusetts militias had gathered a stock of weapons, powder, and supplies at Concord and further west in Worcester. After a large contingent of Regulars alarmed the countryside by an expedition from Boston to Watertown on March 30, The Pennsylvania Journal, a newspaper in Philadelphia, reported speculation that the Regulars had been going to Concord, seat of the Provincial Congress and storage site for military stores and provisions. The story further speculated that British troops intended another expedition to Concord to seize the stocks soon.
On March 30, 1775, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress resolved that any march out of Boston by Gage's command numbering 500 men or more, with artillery and baggage ought to be considered an attempt to carry out the late acts of Parliament by force. The resolution stated the attempt ought to be opposed under the recent resolution of the First Continental Congress and that the Patriots should form a military force to act solely on the defensive.
Patriot leaders except Paul Revere and Joseph Warren had left Boston by April 8. The Patriots had received word of Dartmouth's secret instructions to General Gage from sources in London before they reached Gage himself. Adams and Hancock had fled Boston to Hancock–Clarke House, home of one of Hancock's relatives, Jonas Clarke, to avoid the immediate threat of arrest.
Militia assemble
Between 9 and 10 pm on the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren told Paul Revere and William Dawes that British troops were about to embark in boats from Boston bound for Cambridge and the road to Lexington and Concord. Warren's intelligence suggested that the Regulars' most likely objective would be the capture of Adams and Hancock. The Patriots initially did not worry about a possible march of Regulars to Concord, because the supplies at Concord were safe, but they were concerned that their leaders in Lexington were unaware of the potential danger that night. Revere, along with Warren and Dawes first sent a signal to Charlestown using lanterns hung in the steeple of Boston's Old North Church. They used the signal "one if by land, two if by sea", one lantern if the British were leaving Boston solely by land first south across Boston Neck, two lanterns if they were starting with a shorter water transfer north to Charlestown. Revere and Dawes then went on Paul Revere's Midnight Ride to warn Adams and Hancock and to alert colonial militias in nearby towns to muster to oppose the expedition.
The colonists knew that April 19 was the date of the planned expedition, despite Gage's efforts to keep the details hidden from all the British rank and file and even from the officers commanding the mission. Reasonable speculation suggested that the confidential source of this intelligence was Margaret Gage, General Gage's New Jersey-born wife, who had sympathies with the colonial cause and a friendly relationship with Warren.
After Revere and Dawes arrived in Lexington, they discussed the situation with Hancock, Adams and militia leaders. They believed that the approaching British forces were too large solely to arrest two men and that Concord was their main target. Lexington men then dispatched riders to surrounding towns, while Revere and Dawes continued along the road to Concord, accompanied by Samuel Prescott. In Lincoln, the riders encountered a British patrol led by Major Mitchell. Revere was captured, Dawes was thrown from his horse, and only Prescott escaped to reach Concord. More riders were sent to other towns from Concord. Upon hearing Prescott's news, the townspeople of Concord decided to remove remaining stores and send them to other towns nearby.
Revere, Dawes, and Prescott's ride triggered a flexible system of "alarm and muster" that the Patriots carefully developed months before because of the colonists' feeble response to the Powder Alarms. In addition to sending express riders with messages, the colonists used bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires and a trumpet for rapid communication from town to town. They notified Patriots in dozens of eastern Massachusetts villages to muster their militias because over 500 Regulars were coming from Boston. This system was so effective that people in towns 25 miles (40 km) from Boston were aware of the British movements while they were still unloading their boats in Cambridge. These early warnings were crucial for assembling a sufficient number of militiamen to inflict severe casualties on the British troops later in the day. Adams and Hancock were moved to safety, first to the town now called Burlington and later to Billerica.
The total colonial force over the day included some 4,000 militiamen from local militia and minuteman companies. Although the Provincial Congress had organized local companies into regiments and brigades with designated commanders, units turned out piecemeal throughout the day. Thirty towns from the surrounding area sent men into combat. By afternoon, many regimental commanders were present and acted in a coordinated manner. Several provincial generals were en route to the fighting during the day but not in a position to assert overall command. Brigadier General William Heath of Roxbury, Massachusetts, took command of a phase of the fighting toward the day's end.
British advance
Around dusk on April 18, General Gage met with his senior officers at the Province House. He told them that Lord Dartmouth had ordered him to take action against the colonials. Gage informed them that the senior colonel of his regiments, Lieutenant Colonel Smith, would command an expedition, with Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Navy's marines as his executive officer. The meeting adjourned around 8:30 pm. Then, Brigadier General Earl Percy mingled with townspeople on Boston Common. According to one account, the people there were discussing the unusual movement of British soldiers in town. When Percy questioned one man, the man said the Regulars would not succeed in capturing the cannon at Concord. Percy quickly returned to Province House and told a stunned General Gage about this comment. Gage then issued orders to prevent messengers from leaving Boston. Revere and Dawes, however, had already left.
The Regulars, around 700 infantrymen, were drawn from 11 of Gage's 13 occupying infantry regiments. Major Pitcairn commanded ten elite light infantry companies, and Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Bernard commanded 11 grenadier companies, under the overall command of Smith.
The soldiers assigned to the expedition, including 350 from grenadier companies, were from the 4th (King's Own), 5th, 10th, 18th (Royal Irish), 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th, 52nd and 59th Regiments of Foot, and the 1st Battalion of His Majesty's Marine Forces. Protecting the grenadier companies were about 320 light infantry from the 4th, 5th, 10th, 23rd, 38th, 43rd, 47th, 52nd, and 59th Regiments, and the 1st Battalion of the Marines. Each company had its own lieutenant, but the majority of the captains commanding them were volunteers drawn from all the regiments in Boston and attached to the companies randomly. The temporary creation of an ad hoc force from diverse units to perform a specific task was not uncommon but on this occasion the lack of familiarity between commanders and company would cause communication and disciplinary problems during the battles.