The Sage of Concord Recalled the Shot Heard Round the World

An accurate depiction of the physical scene and disposition of forces on Lexington Green as the local Militia under Capt. Parker take mass fire from the British Regulars.

Yesterday we saw the overture to the Revolution—Paul Revere’s ride through the eyes William Wadsworth Longfellow—the inventor of American epic/historical poetry.  Fifty years after the fact Ralph Waldo Emerson commemorated the curtain raising battles, part of which was fought on the road that passed his Concord home.

On April 19, 1775 British Regulars, a mixed company drawn from 11 regiments of infantry, grenadiers, and Royal Marines  then quartered in Boston set out, supposedly in secret, to seize Patriot arms, including cannon, at Concord and if possible round up leaders like Sam Adams and John Hancock.  But the intelligence operation of Dr. Josiah Warren had been tipped off about the immanent movement, perhaps by the New Jersey born wife of British commanding General Thomas Gage, a Patriot sympathizer.  

Paul Revere, William Dawes, and relays of dispatch riders roused the countryside. Patriot militia, known as Minutemen, had time to arm and assemble. As the main body of troops, got bogged down crossing the swampy ground after their landfall from crossing the Bay by boat they became aware by hearing signal bells and gunfire that the militia was being rallied.  Lt. Colonel Francis Smith in overall command dispatched Major John Pitcairn and six companies of light infantry ahead on a quick march to Concord. 

In Lexington Col. John Parker (the grandfather of Unitarian preacher and abolitionist Theodore Parker) mustered his home guard militia at a tavern on the town Green. These men were not designated as Minutemen, who were ready to rally and be dispatched as ordered, but rather were “training band” for local defense.  As the Regulars noisily approached, Parker and his men spilled out of the tavern and formed ranks on the Green. A company of Royal Marines charged toward the Green, shouting as they came while Pitcairn and three companies took position on the Patriot flank. 

Seeing his men out numbered Parker ordered them to withdraw in an orderly fashion. He never said, as legend records it, “Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.” 

At some point an officer, possibly Pitcairn, rode forward and ordered the men to lay down their arms and disperse, possibly also calling the men “you damn rebels.” In the confusion, possibly because Parker, who suffered from tuberculosis, could not be heard by all of his men, the militia began a slow retreat carrying their arms while some still stood in rank.  Both sides were under orders to hold fire. 

Then a shot was fired from an unknown source.  Neither groups of men facing each other on the Green fired. Speculation has been that a bystander—40 to 100 residents were gathered to watch the scene—may have fired from behind a hedge or from inside the tavern. The Regulars responded first with a rattle of individual fire. Return fire was desultory and ineffective. Then devastating volleys tore into the militia ranks sending the men running for their lives.  

Some were shot in the back. At least one, a cousin of Parker’s was run through by a bayonet by the charging troops.  Some troops turned fire on surrounding buildings, sending witnesses scrambling and were preparing to enter homes when Col. Smith came up and ordered the men to cease fire and assemble. 

Eight militia men were killed and ten wounded, including a Black slave serving in the company.  One Regular was injured and Major Pitcairn’s horse took two balls. 

The Redcoats rearmed and resumed their march toward Concord. Revere, who had been captured and released by a patrol, was able to get Adams and Hancock out of the village to safety.  

A 1775 print by Amos Doolittle, an eye witness, show the British entering Concord.

Meanwhile militia from Lincoln and Concord gathered in the latter town. They quickly received word that musket fire had been heard in Lexington and that the Regulars were advancing. Unsure of what to do as more militiamen filtered in from the surrounding area, a column of about 250 men advanced down the road to Lexington to check on the situation. About a mile and a half out they came in sight of the Redcoat column.  Recognizing that they were outnumbered more than two to one, they fell back on Concord in relatively good order staying just out of musket range from the troops. 

After retreating to a ridge at the end of town the Militia officer in charge, Col. James Barrett, surrendered the town and was allowed to retire with his men still in arms.  They took up positions just across Concord’s North Bridge where they could monitor Redcoat movements while they gathered strength. 

The Regulars, now under tight discipline, conducted an orderly search of the town and nearby farms. Most of the arms and all of the powder had been moved and/or well hidden. All the troops were able to find were three old 24 lb. cannon, far too heavy for use in the field but potentially useful for laying siege to Boston. They disabled those guns. They also turned up some gun carriages, which were destroyed, about 500 rounds of musket balls, and barrels of salt pork and flour for rations. The lead and provisions were tossed in the mill pond, but were retrieved latter. 

At this point Col. Smith split his forces. He sent detachments to secure the South and North Bridges leading to the town.  The bulk of the men sent to the North Bridge, four companies in all under Captain Pearson were sent a mile and a half ahead to search Col. Barrett’s farm, which is where Loyalists had reported most of the missing military supplies had been hidden.  Inexperience Captain Walter Laurie was left with two companies of raw light infantry to defend the bridge.  Col. Barrett ordered his men to advance down the road to the bridge but to hold their fire. By now he had 400 men with five full companies of Minutemen and the local militias of Acton and Bedford reinforcing the Concord men.  Laurie had only 90 men to face them. 

He ceded a commanding hill to the Patriots.  Barrett’s men in a long column and confined to the road by ground that was boggy from the spring floods continued to advance and Laurie pulled his men back across the bridge.  Laurie formed his men in a position for “street fighting,” i.e. concentrating fire down a lane between buildings where he should have fanned out so his men could fire on the Colonists confined to the road from both sides. 

The rapidly gathering Militia surprised the British by holding their ground at Concord's North Bridge and repulsing the British advance with heavy losses.

After tense stand-off with the two sides facing each other over the river, a British officer discharged a pistol setting of a ragged burst of fire. Then the Regulars got off an organized volley down the road killing the two privates in advance of the patriot column.  But instead of breaking ranks, the militia responded with well aimed volleys.  Four of the eight officers and sergeants leading the Regulars were shot and injured.  Three or four privates were killed or mortally wounded and eight others injured. 

The panicked Redcoats broke and fled back towards Concord where they were met by a force of Grenadiers coming up under Col. Smith himself.  Captain Parsons and the men at Barrett’s farm were now cut off from the main force.  After a tense standoff, Barrett allowed Parson’s men to pass unmolested and join the main body under Col. Smith. After pausing in town to continue the fruitless search for the missing arms and to eat lunch, Col. Smith turned his command back up the road back to Lexington and Boston. 

But the delay allowed more colonial troops to arrive. The militia ranks grew to a 1,000 then to 2,000 in units from across a broad swath of Massachusetts. They harried the retreating British and engaged in several stand-up fights with them.  The Redding militia engaged the troops as they retreated over a small bridge at Merium’s Corner. 

A mile down the road 500 men from Chelmsford occupied Brooks Hill commanding the road.  Redcoat charges to clear the hill were repulsed with heavy casualties. Pushing on Smith’s men mauled a company of Framingham militia at Brooks Tavern while he withdrew his troops from the hill. 

The road entered a densely wooded area and took a sharp turn.  200 men from Lincoln and Bedford taking cover behind timber and stone walls   enfiladed the regulars with a merciless crossfire as the pursuing Concord militia fired from their rear. Thirty Redcoats were killed at Bloody Angle with a loss of only 5 militiamen. 

Fire from ambush continued through the route, but British flankers were twice able to take militia units from the rear. But despite those success, casualties were mounting and ammunition was running low. 

On the approach to Lexington another sharp engagement broke out. By some accounts Captain Parker and the battered Lexington Training Band ambushed Col. Smith from a small hill.  Smith was unhorsed and wounded.  Pitcairn   and two light infantry companies cleared the hill and two others but were peppered by fire and the Captain was also wounded. This turned an orderly retreat into a headlong rout as Regulars ran in disorder while their few remaining officers and sergeants fruitlessly tried to reform the men. Then one uninjured officer in the leading three companies was actually contemplating surrender when Earl Percy with a thousand men and field guns arrived from Boston in relief.  

At Lexington Percy opened fire at long range with his cannon dispersing the militia and allowing the exhausted remnant’s of Smith’s force to reach his lines.   But he had arrived at the battlefield without sufficient ammunition for his men and artillery.   Two wagons of munitions sent by General Gage were ambushed and captured by small party of men over 60 years old who were not part of the active militia but had been called out on the alarm.  They wounded the officer in charge, killed two sergeants and captured the rest of the small escort. 

Without this ammunition, Percy’s men had only 36 rounds of shot apiece and the cannon only what could be carried in their side boxes.   After a rest in Lexington, Percy began his retreat with strong flankers and rear-guard.  Militia Brigadier General William Heath arrived with Josiah Warren to take command.  He ordered his men to now avoid confronting the enemy in ordered ranks which could be smashed by cannon fire. Instead he devised a rolling ambush with units firing at a safe distance as the Redcoat column passed and then leapfrogging ahead to take a new positions down the road.   In this manner the Regulars were now under sustained pressure without having targets at which they could strike back. 

Militia units organized a leapfrog ambush of the retreating British inflicting heavy losses from fire behind stone walls and trees all the way to Cambridge.

As the column entered more heavily populated Menotomy and Cambridge house to house fighting erupted as flankers tried to clear ambushers.  Percy lost control of his troops and atrocities were committed on civilians and captured militia were executed on the spot.  Taverns were looted and soon many of the troops were both drunk and enraged. This part of the running battle was the bloodiest of the day. The Militia lost about 25 men killed and nine wounded (the discrepancy between wounded and dead is a good indication that prisoners and the wounded were executed). The Regulars lost 40 killed and 80 wounded. 

After an intense skirmish at Watkins Corners in which he used his artillery with deadly effect on a late arriving militia unit in close formation, Percy unexpectedly diverted his men up the road to Charleston, thus for the first time breaking his encirclement. A large, fresh force from Salem and Marblehead under Col. Timothy Pickering inexplicably allowed the Regulars to pass their advantageous position on Winter Hill. 

The exhausted troops finally found shelter in Charleston under the guns of Royal Navy ships and with reinforcements sent by Gage from Boston.  An attempt to fortify the surrounding hills was begun but abandoned.   

After seeing the strength of the British position, General Heath withdrew his most battle weary militia companies to Cambridge.  But troops continued to poor in. 

Within days 15,000 militia not only from Massachusetts but from throughout New England arrived to surround and lay siege to Boston. These units would be mustered into the new Continental Army by Congress and placed under the command of Virginian George Washington. 

Eventually the siege would succeed and the British would be forced to evacuate the epicenter of colonial resistance, Boston. 

As the column entered more heavily populated Menotomy and Cambridge house to house fighting erupted as flankers tried to clear ambushers.  Percy lost control of his troops and atrocities were committed on civilians and captured militia were executed on the spot.  Taverns were looted and soon many of the troops were both drunk and enraged. This part of the running battle was the bloodiest of the day. The Militia lost about 25 men killed and nine wounded (the discrepancy between wounded and dead is a good indication that prisoners and the wounded were executed). The Regulars lost 40 killed and 80 wounded. 

After an intense skirmish at Watkins Corners in which he used his artillery with deadly effect on a late arriving militia unit in close formation, Percy unexpectedly diverted his men up the road to Charleston, thus for the first time breaking his encirclement. A large, fresh force from Salem and Marblehead under Col. Timothy Pickering inexplicably allowed the Regulars to pass their advantageous position on Winter Hill. 

The exhausted troops finally found shelter in Charleston under the guns of Royal Navy ships and with reinforcements sent by Gage from Boston.  An attempt to fortify the surrounding hills was begun but abandoned.   

After seeing the strength of the British position, General Heath withdrew his most battle weary militia companies to Cambridge.  But troops continued to poor in. 

Within days 15,000 militia not only from Massachusetts but from throughout New England arrived to surround and lay siege to Boston. These units would be mustered into the new Continental Army by Congress and placed under the command of Virginian George Washington. 

Eventually the siege would succeed and the British would be forced to evacuate the epicenter of colonial resistance, Boston. 

Ralf Waldo Emerson was a noted preacher and a lecturer of widening fame but still a young man when his Concord townsmen asked him to write a dedication poem for an obelisk monument commemorating the 50th anniversary of the battle.

The events of the first day of battle became enshrouded in legend and myth. In   1836 Ralph Waldo Emerson commemorated the battle of Concord Bridge, in which his grandfather Rev. William Emerson had served and which took place at the very doorstep of the Old Manse which was both the residence of his ancestor and his own home. In addition to the Obelisk monument that Emerson dedicated fifty years later, verses of his poem were later inscribed on the famed Minuteman statue.  In Lexington an equally famous statue memorialized Captain Parker. 

Emerson was the towering intellectual colossus of the New England Renaissance and the unquestioned leader of the Transcendentalist movement.  The little poem he composed for the battle anniversary was not his usual high flown intellectual and spiritual contemplations.  But it was eminently readable and perfect for generations of school children to memorize and recite.

A contemporary illustration of the Concord Monument where Emerson read his poem.

Concord Hymn

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.

The foe long since in silence slept;

    Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;

And Time the ruined bridge has swept

    Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,

    We set to-day a votive stone;

That memory may their deed redeem,

    When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare

    To die, and leave their children free,

Bid Time and Nature gently spare

    The shaft we raise to them and thee.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Composed for and read at the dedication of the Obelisk, a monument to the battles of Lexington and Concord erected at Concord in 1836.