The Shot Heard 'round The World
The background and causes of the American Revolution are very complex. Just the number of acts passed by the British parliament that affected the colonies in the century before 1775 exceeded 100 and the colonists considered many of these to be extremely unfair. The discontent smoldering in the American colonies under British rule flared into open hostilities on April 19, 1775.
The initial fighting in the war was a local action between Britain and the colony of Massachusetts. The British government had clamped down in reaction to the colony's resistance to the mother country's economic policies. For a year a British army, under the command of General Thomas Gage, had occupied Boston. Pressed by the ministry in London to quell rebellion by arresting the rabble rousers, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. General Gage chose instead to take what he thought was the less inflammatory step of confiscating the colonist's arms supplies in Concord.
He depended on secrecy to seize the arms before the people of Lexington and Concord could resist, but the Boston colonists knew of the operation before his troops left and the arms at Lexington and concord were soon hidden. Couriers Paul Revere and William Dawes notified Adams and Hancock at Lexington that the British troops were on their way. The local militia and minutemen were not the undisciplined mob General Gage took them to be. They had trained for months and had well-rehearsed plans for immediate reaction to a British incursion.
General Gage gave command of the British troops to Lt. Colonel Francis Smith. By the time the advanced troops arrived in Lexington it was dawn. Colonial Captain John Parker had his militia lined up on the Lexington common. Because he had only 77 men, Captain Parker had no thought of engaging the 700 British soldiers. He wanted to make a display of patriot resolve.
But as the American militiamen slowly obeyed the British command to disperse a shot was fired, it is not clear from which side, and the green British soldiers, ignoring orders to stop, began firing at the fleeing Americans. When the British commander regained control, eight Americans lay dead. As the British soldiers continued down the road to Concord, news of the shooting spread to neighboring communities, and the American militiamen flocked to the British line of march for their return to Boston.
At Concord, British soldiers began searching house-to-house for arms. Seven companies were sent across the North Bridge to seize the supplies hidden at Colonel James Barrett's farm. The American militiamen under the command of Major Buttrick advanced on three companies left to guard the bridge.
As the militiamen approached they saw the smoke of burning military supplies rising from town. Fearing that their homes were being put to the torch, they set out to save them. As they started to cross the bridge the British soldiers fired a volley. Major Buttrick said, "Are you going to let them burn our homes?" He then gave the order, "Fire, fellow soldiers, for God's sake, fire!" and for the first time, Americans fired a volley into the ranks of British soldiers. The Revolutionary War was underway, leading to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.