The Lexington Alarm announced, throughout the American Colonies, that the Revolutionary War began with the Battle of Lexington and the Siege of Boston on April 19, 1775. The goal was to rally patriots at a grass roots level to fight against the British Redcoats and support the minutemen of the Massachusetts militia. [1]
As the British Crown and Parliament policies created an increasingly greater divide with American colonists, the Sons of Liberty organization was founded. Samuel Adams led the creation of the Committees of correspondence, including the Committee of safety, to uphold the rights of colonists and communicate and respond to noteworthy events. [2] Adams brought the issue before a town meeting in Boston on November 2, 1772. Soon the organization spread to other towns in Massachusetts and like-minded organizations were established by July 1773, in other colonies. A committee for intercolonial correspondence was established by Virginia's House of Burgesses. [3] By 1774, there were committees established in every colony. [4]
Wherever the power of Great Britain was thrown off or disavowed, all political control passed by its natural course into the hands of the people… Hence the primary movement was to bring the people to understand their interests and act in concert, and the first means used to attain this end was the establishment of Committees of Correspondence in different parts of the country.
The network that was created allowed for planning and execution of activities when the colonial assemblies and the Continental Congress were not in session. [4] Although the committees were not started as revolutionary endeavors, according E. D. Collins' Committees of Correspondence, "Its importance as a piece of revolutionary machinery can hardly be overestimated." [4]
Towns developed the methods that they would use to manage and respond to dispatches, with Boston central to the overall network's operations. [6] There were up to 8,000 delegates, or members, to the committee across the colonies, which became a mechanism for patriots to communicate with other patriots. Loyalists did not have a similar means to communicate throughout the colonies, which impacted the result of the war. [7]
A false alarm was generated when the British removed 250 half-barrels of gun powder from a powder house in Charlestown, Massachusetts on September 1, 1774. Thirteen boats carried 260 British soldiers to carry off with the gun powder. A man warned that British soldiers were headed for Cambridge, initiating the Powder Alarm. At about the same time, a communication was sent of the perceived threat, and a group of men left on horseback to investigate the happenings at the British camp. They reported that there was no movement there. [8] In the meantime, a message that men were shot in Boston by the British was carried through Connecticut to New York by September 5 and the next day to Philadelphia, where the First Continental Congress was held on September 6. [9] The Congress, with Joseph Palmer, planned for a network of couriers to transport messages throughout the colonies. A Committee of safety was formed in October 1774 to evaluate the need for alarms and set them in motion. [10] Its eleven members at the beginning of 1775 were Benjamin Church, Richard Devens, Jabez Fisher, John Hancock, William Heath, Azor Orne, Joseph Palmer, John Pigeon, Joseph Warren, Abraham Watson, and Benjamin White. [11]
Realizing the ramifications of a communication going out that would result in men being mustered and commencing to fight, Joseph Hawley, a member of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, wrote on February 22, 1775,
I have been most seriously contemplating the commission and most important trust of our committee of safety, and especially that branch of it which relates to their mustering the minutemen and others of the militia... The soldiers, when thus mustered... will suppose it their duty to fight... They will suppose that the continent have devolved the resolution ofthat question upon this province, and that this province have devolved it on the committee of safety, and that the committee, by calling them, have decided it... Thus, hostilities will be commenced...
When once the blow is struck it must be followed, and we must conquer, or all is lost forever... I beg of you, therefore, as you love your country, to use your utmost influence with our committee of safety, that the people be not mustered, and that hostilities be not commenced, until we have the express, categorical decision of the continent, that the time is absolutely come that hostilities ought to begin. [11]
At about 10:00 p.m., the night of April 18, 1775, Joseph Warren asked Paul Revere to contact John Hancock and Samuel Adams in Lexington about the movement of British troops. Warren and Hancock were members of the Committee of safety and Revere had been watching the British troops movements as part of a committee of Boston and delivered messages for the Committee of safety. Warren also asked William Dawes to ride to Lexington. [12]
During the nighttime ride to Lexington, Revere ensured that men in Charlestown sent lantern signals to alarm neighboring colonists that the British were coming. He learned from Richard Devens, another safety committee member, that ten British officers had been on the road leaving Lexington. He notified the captain of the militia men at Medford and alarmed others on his way to Lexington. [12]
After meeting with Adams and Hancock, Revere and Dawes set off to warn colonists in Concord. [12] They preceded the British, led by General Thomas Gage, as they marched to Concord to destroy patriots' stores of military weapons and equipment. [1] Responding to the call to arms, colonists went to Concord and fought the British. [1]
On April 19, 1775, Joseph Palmer of the Committee of Safety issued a dispatch to be carried by post riders, men who delivered mail thoughout the colonies. [13] The purpose of the call to arms was to have militias in five colonies rally to support the minutemen of the Massachusetts militia.
A number of post riders carried the "Lexington Alarm" message throughout a network of mail routes in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire. [14]
Isaac Bissell delivered the message west of Worcester to Springfield, Massachusetts, south to Hartford, Connecticut and in other areas in the state over six days. [15] [16]
Israel Bissell (no known relationship) conveyed the message to Worcester, Massachusetts, throughout eastern and southern Connecticut to New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia. [17] [18] Copies of the manuscript, handbills, and newspapers were circulated to other locations, like Maryland, North Carolina, and other areas. [19] [20]
Postriders rode through bad weather, poor road conditions, and moonless nights, which controlled whether they were able to travel three to five miles an hour. [21] [20]
A copy reached Baltimore, Maryland, on April 26, where Mary Katherine Goddard printed the verbiage in the Baltimore Adviser and the Maryland Journal. It was printed in the Maryland Gazetter the following day in Annapolis, Maryland. [22] On April 29, Alexander Purdie printed the message in the Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg, Virginia. [23]
Another copy of the dispatch went to New Bern, North Carolina, where it was endorsed, [24] and another to Charleston, South Carolina. [25] The message was spread to other towns in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina in May. [26] [lower-alpha 1]
Updates provided information about the continuance of fights against the British and related news. New York communicated that martial law was implemented due to riots due to the outbreak of the war. Shipping became unsafe for Baltimore and other areas. [22]
William Dawes Jr. was an American soldier, and was one of several men who, in April 1775, alerted minutemen in Massachusetts of the approach of British regulars prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord at the outset of the American Revolution. For some years, Paul Revere had the most renown for his ride of warning of this event.
Samuel Prescott was an American physician and a Massachusetts Patriot during the American Revolutionary War. He is best known for his role in Paul Revere's "midnight ride" to warn the townspeople of Concord, Massachusetts, of the impending British army move to capture guns and gunpowder kept there at the beginning of the American Revolution. He was the only participant in the ride to reach Concord.
The Powder Alarm was a major popular reaction to the removal of gunpowder from a magazine near Boston by British soldiers under orders from General Thomas Gage, royal governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, on September 1, 1774. In response to this action, amid rumors that blood had been shed, alarm spread through the countryside to Connecticut and beyond, and American Patriots sprang into action, fearing that war was at hand. Thousands of militiamen began streaming toward Boston and Cambridge, and mob action forced Loyalists and some government officials to flee to the protection of the British Army.
The Boston campaign was the opening campaign of the American Revolutionary War, taking place primarily in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The campaign began with the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, in which the local colonial militias interdicted a British government attempt to seize military stores and leaders in Concord, Massachusetts. The entire British expedition suffered significant casualties during a running battle back to Charlestown against an ever-growing number of militia.
Minute Man National Historical Park commemorates the opening battle in the American Revolutionary War. It also includes the Wayside, home in turn to three noted American authors. The National Historical Park is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service and protects 970 acres (392.5 ha) in and around the Massachusetts towns of Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord.
Major General Francis Smith (1723–1791) was a British Army officer. Although Smith had a lengthy and varied career, he is best known as the British commander during most of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts on 19 April 1775. The fighting ignited the American War of Independence that would see thirteen of Britain's American Colonies become a separate nation.
The Gunpowder Incident was a conflict early in the American Revolutionary War between Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia, and militia led by Patrick Henry. On April 21, 1775, one day after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Lord Dunmore ordered the removal of the gunpowder from the magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia to a Royal Navy ship.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord was the first major military campaign of the American Revolutionary War, resulting in an American victory and outpouring of militia support for the anti-British cause. The battles were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy, and Cambridge. They marked the outbreak of armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and Patriot militias from America's thirteen colonies.
Margaret Kemble Gage (1734–1824) was the wife of General Thomas Gage, who led the British Army in Massachusetts in the American Revolutionary War. It is alleged that she played an important role in the outcome of the American Revolution. She was suspected of having divided loyalties and informing the American Revolutionaries of British troop movements.
Isaac Bissell was a patriot post rider who delivered mail between Boston and Hartford, Connecticut. On April 19, 1775, the British made an attack on Lexington and Concord, igniting the American Revolutionary War. He was assigned to alert American colonists of the news and rally them to assist the Massachusetts minutemen. Traveling from Watertown, Massachusetts, on the Upper Post Road to Hartford, Connecticut, and through Connecticut Colony, he carried the Lexington Alarm message from Joseph Palmer. He rode again in July 1779 to deliver the New Haven Alarm. Bissell served the Connecticut Militia throughout the Revolutionary War.
Joseph Palmer (1716–1788) was an English-American general during the American Revolutionary War, beginning with the Siege of Boston and the Battle of Lexington. A Cambridge Committee of Safety member, he issued the Lexington Alarm dispatch for Israel Bissell to ride to warn that the war with Britain had begun. Palmer went on intelligence-gathering missions in Vermont and Rhode Island. George Washington issued letters of commendation to Palmer for his service.
Isaac Davis was a gunsmith and a militia officer who commanded a company of Minutemen from Acton, Massachusetts, during the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. In the months leading up to the Revolution, Davis set unusually high standards for his company in terms of equipment, training, and preparedness. His company was selected to lead the advance on the British Regulars during the Battle of Concord because his men were entirely outfitted with bayonets. During the American advance on the British at the Old North Bridge, Davis was among the first killed and was the first American officer to die in the Revolution.
The Massachusetts Provincial Congress (1774–1780) was a provisional government created in the Province of Massachusetts Bay early in the American Revolution. Based on the terms of the colonial charter, it exercised de facto control over the rebellious portions of the province, and after the British withdrawal from Boston in March 1776, the entire province. When Massachusetts Bay declared its independence in 1776, the Congress continued to govern under this arrangement for several years. Increasing calls for constitutional change led to a failed proposal for a constitution produced by the Congress in 1778, and then a successful constitutional convention that produced a constitution for the state in 1780. The Provincial Congress came to an end with elections in October 1780.
Battle Road, formerly known as the Old Concord Road and the Bay Road, is a historic road in Massachusetts, United States. It was formerly part of the main road connecting Lexington, Lincoln and Concord, three of the main towns involved in the American Revolutionary War. It was on Battle Road that thousands of colonial militia and British regulars fought during the redcoats' retreat from Concord to Boston on the morning and afternoon of April 19, 1775.
Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Minutemen provided a highly mobile, rapidly deployed force that enabled the colonies to respond immediately to military threats. They were an evolution from the prior colonial rapid-response units.
Thaddeus Bowman was the last scout sent out by Capt. John Parker at Lexington, Massachusetts, but the only one to find the approaching British troops and get back to warn the militia on the first day of the American Revolution.
Capt. John Trull (1738–1797) was the commander of the Tewksbury, Massachusetts minuteman company on the first day of the American Revolution, at the Battle of Lexington & Concord.
The Lexington–Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar, sometimes the Lexington–Concord half dollar or Patriot half dollar, is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1925 in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which began the American Revolutionary War. It was designed by Chester Beach and features Daniel Chester French's 1874 The Minute Man statue on the obverse.
Paul Revere's Midnight Ride was an alert given to minutemen in the Province of Massachusetts Bay by local Patriots on the night of April 18, 1775, warning them of the approach of British Army troops prior to the battles of Lexington and Concord. In the preceding weeks, Patriots in the region gained wind of a planned crackdown on the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, then based in Concord, by the British occupational authorities in the colony.
Israel Bissell, also spelled Bissel, was a patriot post rider who delivered mail between Boston, Massachusetts and New York.
