British March to Concord: The Shot Heard 'Round the World

British regulars marched up the Charles River toward Concord to seize colonial militia weapons, while Paul Revere and other express riders galloped ahead to warn the countryside. Their midnight alarm roused the minutemen who would confront the redcoats at dawn, triggering the first shots of the American Revolution. The operation began on the night of April 18, 1775, when approximately 700 British soldiers under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith departed Boston by boat across the Charles River, then marched toward Concord where intelligence indicated the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had stockpiled weapons and gunpowder. Dr. Joseph Warren, a leading patriot in Boston, dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes on separate routes to warn the countryside and alert Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were staying in Lexington and would be arrested if the British found them. Revere rode through Medford, Menotomy, and Lexington, warning households along the way. He was briefly captured by a British patrol near Lincoln but was released without his horse. The alarm system worked as designed: riders spread the warning outward in a cascading network that woke militiamen across Middlesex County. By dawn on April 19, seventy-seven militiamen under Captain John Parker stood on Lexington Green to face the approaching column. The confrontation was brief and catastrophic. Someone fired, though which side remains disputed, and the British volley killed eight Americans and wounded ten. The column continued to Concord, where a larger militia force fired on the retreating British at the North Bridge. The march back to Boston became a running battle as militia companies fired from behind stone walls and trees, inflicting 273 British casualties against 95 American losses.