On This Day in History: ‘The Shot Heard ’Round The World’

April 20—On April 19, 1775, the American Revolutionary war officially began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts.

There had already been several years’ of friction between the American Colonies and England, and negotiations to reconcile the two sides had failed. In February 1775, the British Parliament had declared the colony of Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. On April 14, Gen. Thomas Gage had received orders to put down the rebels, and subsequently sent orders to Lt. Col. Smith, 10th Regiment Foot to “…March with a Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your Command, with the utmost expedition and Secrecy to Concord, where you will seize and distroy [sic] all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military Stores whatever….”

Seven hundred British soldiers marched to Concord on the night of April 18, but Paul Revere was deployed by American patriots Samuel Adams and John Hancock to ride to Concord and Lexington to warn the local militia to prepare for battle. Revere was joined by two other riders—William Dawes and Dr. Samuel Prescott—who took slightly different routes to spread the word; Prescott was the only one of the three to reach Concord.

“Warned of the British troops’ movements, the Lexington patriots had assembled in an effort to halt British progress toward Concord. Both sides stood their ground, and in a tense moment, a shot was fired. Though it’s unclear which side, British soldier or American patriot, fired that first ‘shot heard ’round the world,’ history remembers it as the start of the American Revolutionary War,” noted the Gilder Lehrman Institute.

“Sending these orders to Captain John Currier on the day of the battles, patriot Colonel Isaac Merrill wrote that after the engagement at Lexington (which left eight Americans dead) the British troops ‘thence proceed to Concord Killing and Destroying our men and interest.’ He ordered Currier to ’Mobilize and muster as many of your under officers and Soldiers as you can possible to meet immediately to Some Suitable place: and then to march of forthwith to Concord or Elsewhere as in your Discretion you Shall think best to the relief of our Friend[s] and Country.” [Spelling as in the original.] By the end of April 19, the British had suffered 273 casualties; the Americans, 93.

“Americans immediately understood the momentous significance of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Ezekiel Russell, a Salem, Massachusetts printer, quickly produced this broadside entitled ‘Bloody Butchery by the British Troops,’ which detailed the battles and the American casualties. Recognizing the historic weight of the day, Russell’s broadside urged ‘a perpetual memorial of that important event, on which, perhaps, may depend the future Freedom and Greatness of the Commonwealth of America.’”

On the 250th anniversary of this battle, The LaRouche Organization posted an excellent video of its symposium on the topic.