"First light came at 4:00 am on this historic day. Thirty minutes later, with streaks of orange and purple visible in the eastern sky, an advanced party - six companies totaling 238 men - reached Lexington Common, where they found about 60 men, a portion of a single company of the Lexington militia. The colonials were citizen soldiers. Most were diary farmers. A few were craftsmen. To Major John Pitcairn of the Royal Marines, a fiftyt hree year old Scotsman and no nonsense veteran officer who commanded the lead element of regulars, they appeared to be nothing so much as a motley collection of troublemakers. Wasting no time, Pitcairn briskly approached the provincial commander, Captain John Parker, a tall, weather beaten forty six year old farmer who had experienced some combat in the previous war. Pitcairn did not exchange pleasantries. "Lay down your arms, you damned rebels," he curtly demanded. Parker never hesitated
He wanted no part of leading a heavily outnumbered force in the treasonous act of killing the king's soldiers. He commanded his men to step aside, although he did not direct them to surrender their weapons. Not one man laid down his arms.
At this anxious moment, in the half light of daybreak, someone squeezed of a shot. No one ever knew who fired that first shot. It might have been a nervous soldier or an overly zealous man on either side. Some said later that the shooter might even have been a radical hothead hidden behind a nearby stone wall. Although there is no way to know whether the shot was fired by accident or design, what is apparent is that once the shot rang out, several jittery regulars and white faced militiamen instinctively fired. Some got off more than one shot. Others never discharged their weapon. That was especially true of the militiamen, most of whom broke and ran for their lives. A few only got a step or two before they were shot down. Some of the wounded were bayoneted where they lay, killed by regulars now caught up in a frenzy of passion. The incident was over within thirty or forty seconds, but within that space eight colonists had been killed and nine wounded. One regular, a private, had been hit, but not fatally."
from "Almost a Miracle. The American Victory in the War of Independence " by John Ferling
The British were turned at North Bridge in Concord around 11:00 am ,where they were outnumbered by perhaps five to one. They got their asses kicked on the retreat back to Boston, when they got there at dusk they suffered 65 dead and 207 wounded. 94 colonists were killed or wounded that day.
My Late grandfather on my dad's side told us kids growing up that our surname came from a Frenchman coming over to fight with the colonies against the British back then...
He stayed after the fight and migrated to California and married a Spanish woman... Dad used to get invites to the Spanish Mission festivals in Montebello?
MY surname was here in California before it was a State thanks to a French ancestor who came here to fight with the colonists against the British!
"In a time of drastic change, it is the learners who will inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer
"Whenever you fall... Pick something up." - Oswald Every
My wife is a genuine DAR member. Her distant relative was in the Massachusetts ( Colony ) State militia and later in their Navy. The relative's brother was a crew member aboard the Bon Homme Richard - with the Father of the American Navy - John Paul Jones. Both brothers survived the Rev War. My wife's relative got a land grant in western Illinois territory, because the Congress had NO money to give as Back Pay. He then moved from what is now Maine to Illinois. He farmed there and so now she has a link, as do our Son and Daughter. Who knew ?
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Hawk, Sustinemus, 4570govt, kevin, Jim11B20, Iron Major USMC, JEFFJP_N_JJ, blkgunlvr liked this post
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