April 19th, 1775

 

In the late evening of April 18th, 1775, two co-conspirators, William Dawes and Paul Revere, were on high alert in Boston.  A contact within the walls of General Sir Thomas Gage's compound had warned them of a probable troop movement overnight toward Lexington and Concord to the west with the goal of raiding and confiscating militia stores: gunpowder, shot, and flints.

Revere rowed across the harbor to Cambridge where he waited for a signal from Dawes who was to hang a lantern in the belfry of the (now 'Old') North Church: one if the troops were marching overland, two if they were to cross the harbor behind Revere.  As Revere watched, two lights shone out from across the water.  He mounted his horse and began to ride toward Lexington.  "The regulars are coming!"  Dawes took the overland route himself to alert militia units not on the direct path of His Majesty's Marines who were tasked with the operation.

At about 5am the Marines arrived in Lexington and were met by 77 militia and 100 spectators who had gathered to watch the action.  A British officer rode forward and ordered the militia to disperse and many of them decided to go home at that point.  Just then, a shot was fired; no one knows to this day who fired the shot, but it was enough to get the battle started.  Following a bayonet charge, the battle of Lexington was over with 8 militia and one British regular dead.

At Concord later that day, perhaps 8am, the British forces clearly did fire the first shot and this was met by effective return fire from the militiamen assembled.  The British managed to do some searching for weapons, but found little or nothing to compensate them for their time.  By mid-morning, other militia companies, perhaps alerted by Dawes, began arriving and jumping into the fray.  By mid-afternoon, it is estimated there were between 2,000 and 4,000 colonial militia engaging the British troops, albeit half-heartedly.  Many clearly thought this was a minor incident and would operate to chasten the regulars and make them leave the colonials alone.  There were enough hardened militia, however, to chase the British troops back to Boston, inflicting 287 casualties along the way.

By the following morning, 20 April 1775, more than 15,000 militia ringed Boston, besieging it.  The War for Independence had begun.

The longest-running mystery in this tale was the identity of the mole within Gage's inner circle, the one who tipped off Dr. Joseph Warren who passed the word to Dawes and Revere.  Historians now believe it was Lady Margaret Kemble Gage, the Governor's New Jersey-born wife.  Gage said he had only told two people of the planned raid: his 2nd-in-command and an unspecified other; Warren was killed at Bunker Hill and never revealed his source.  After the rout at Concord, Gage shipped Lady Margaret off to England — to keep her safe or because he thought she was a spy? — and joined her there after the war ended.  She never saw North America again.