<em>The Battle of Lexington</em>
On the night of April 18, 1775, British troops marched out of Boston with orders to seize the guns and ammunition stored by local militia companies in Concord, Massachusetts. Paul Revere and other riders set out to warn the communities outside Boston. When the British soldiers reached the towns of Lexington and Concord, the militia was waiting for them. On their long march back to Boston, farmers and workmen from the surrounding towns attacked the soldiers from the fields and woods along the route, injuring many. Once the British had reached Boston, militia units—citizen-soldiers, poorly trained, and mostly without uniforms or good weapons—surrounded the city and kept the army trapped there. It was the first military battle of what would become the American Revolution.
Amos Doolittle
Amos Doolittle, <em>Battle of Lexington</em>, engraving, of Ralph Earl, <em>Battle of Lexington</em>, 1775.
1775
1966
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)
Background Reading on Colonial Militias
During the colonial era, when there was no national army and few local police, militias were a central part of American life. Militias were groups of local men who organized themselves to defend their communities against threats—they suppressed slave rebellions and other local uprisings, fought for territory against Indians, and participated in the French and Indian War. All able-bodied white men were required to participate in their local militia company and to provide their own guns. The following describes a muster, or gathering, of the militia in Concord, Massachusetts, in March 1775, one month before the battle of Lexington and Concord that began the American Revolution.
Robert Gross
Robert A. Gross, <em>The Minutemen and Their World</em> (New York: Hill and Wang, 1976), 70-71.
1976
1966
Revolution and New Nation (1751-1815)