Editor's Note: This 1995 article was reprinted by Permission of the Gold Country Chapter No. 7 of the CSSAR and was slightly edited by the Sons of Liberty Chapter of the CSSAR

Patriot's Day April 19, 1775 and the Siege of Boston

On the night of April 18th, 1775, a British force of seven hundred men departed Boston Town for Concord to seize and destroy arms and munitions stored there by New England colonists legally organized as Minutemen.

It was a long and difficult night for the British force made no easier by the obvious fact that the country side had been aroused, was armed and shadowing their march. Lexington, eleven miles north west of Boston brought the first confrontation in what would become the American Revolution. Major Pitcairn and a detachment from the main British force encountered John Parker's company of colonial militia drawn up on the village green. The colonials had no intention of resistance nor attack, rather a show of force to indicate the colonists displeasure at the royal incursion. History does not declare who fired the first shot, an edgy soldier or an accidental firing by a colonial. It does record that the first organized volley was fired by Pitcairn's troops. Several colonists were killed and others wounded before falling back. The British suffered no casualties. Pitcairn having dispersed the "rabble" joined the main force that had proceeded to Concord.

In Concord what arms and ammunition that could be found was gathered on the green to be destroyed or burned. A detachment of regulars was sent to cross the "Old North Bridge" and seek out other stores of arms. Armed colonials or "Minutemen" shadowed this force, still with no intention to interfere with or confront the "King's Regulars." The Redcoats, having returned from their expedition across the bridge, were drawn up on the east side watching the colonists who had drawn up on the west side in order to maintain a surveillance of the British force.

Minutemen drawn up on the west side of the now famous bridge sighted smoke rising from the area of the Town Common, a half-mile away. The Minutemen thinking that the British were burning the town, advanced to face the Redcoats on the east side of the bridge. The Minutemen, upon sighting what they thought was the burning of Concord, moved forward to the planking of the bridge. No instruction had been given to the Colonials to resist the British, only to shadow them. Disturbed by what appeared to be the preparation of a coming attack the British fired a volley in what they later stated was a warning not to advance further. There was no response to the British volley until Silas Marner, a Minuteman grazed by a bullet, shouted "Fire, for God's sake fire." Here, by an accumulation of events was the first intentional colonial resistance by an authorized and organized colonial force. Here at this bridge was fired the "Shot, heard round the world" now immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson in a poem written in 1837.

"By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag in the April breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

and fired the shot, heard round the world."

Two British soldiers in the confrontation were killed outright, one wounded. The retreating force left them where they fell to be buried by local authorities who entombed them under an inscribed boulder on the east side of the bridge where they lie until this day. The regulars fell back before the rush of Colonials across the bridge beginning a disorderly retreat. The Minutemen did not pursue, but the Redcoats hastened the half-mile into Concord and the safety of their main force.

The battle was now joined with no real plan on either side. The British had been aware that they were outnumbered on the march out of Boston. Minutemen were responding from towns near and far. Now it was the British whose only aim was to retreat in good order and suffer as few losses as possible. Originally the colonists only aim was to harass them back to their barracks. What began as an orderly withdrawal became a retreat, then a rout, which ended only when a relief force of a thousand regulars arrived to rescue what remained of the seven hundred. Even then, the Redcoats were harassed the remaining way to Boston by the Minutemen who continued to arrive, joining in the pursuit. By day's end it was a conservative estimate that more than four thousand Minutemen had responded from near and far to the call to arms; while more continued to arrive throughout the night and following day.

Like a powder keg the countryside had exploded. What had begun as a simple march into the country to destroy arms and munitions had turned into rebellion. The safe return of the troops to Boston barracks was not the end of the action. Hasty forts were set up by the Minuteman Militia to ring the city. From this time on, no British soldier would ever march beyond the outer limits of Boston Town. Little more than a year later on March 17, 1776 the last British soldier would leave Boston never to return.

New Englanders were joined by men from all the colonies; the name of Minutemen being applied to all militia from all thirteen colonies. No longer would they consider themselves as colonists, but Americans, a new nation in the making. At one of these forts the battle at Breed's Hill, historically called Bunker Hill, would be manned and defended by men from all the colonies. Authorized by the Convention at Philadelphia, it was the beginning of the Continental Army, generally thought of as the forerunner or beginning of the present day United States Army. New Englanders believe that the Minutemen and their resistance at Concord's Old North Bridge was the first organized resistance and from their action flowed the Armed Forces of the United States.

While not recognized as Armed Forces Day but as Patriot's day, April 19th should be recognized for more than The Boston Marathon. Please fly the Flag on April 19th in honor of those who fought and fell on that day and for all the patriots who served our nation in the Continental Army and in the follow-on Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Air Force.

Following is an account of the "The Siege of Boston" which began with the battles of Lexington and Concord, April 19, 1775 and ended in March 17, 1776.

The siege of Boston was the first intentional act of war on the part of the colonists. Begun on the night of April 19th as a logical follow up on the day's battle begun at the Old North Bridge in Concord. Up until the time of the beginning of the siege, Revolution had not been planned, simply a reaction to the acts of King George III, his ministers, Parliament and movements of British troops. When the Minutemen found themselves surrounding Boston and all British troops inside the city, reality set in. The action of April 19th and the night following placed the Minutemen in a state of open rebellion against the British Crown.

The new situation was apparent to the local leaders but not to the Minutemen whose organization to this point had been strictly reactionary - to guard and defend - but not to oppose the King in open rebellion. The Minutemen, relatively leaderless, began to disperse as rapidly as they had come; farmers for the most part, they began to return to their farms and families, for this was the season to begin preparation for the year's crops.

The local leaders realized that whether they had intended rebellion or not, the actions of the day and night of the 19th of April had created a declaration of war. This message was made more forceful by the large losses suffered by the British and subsequent bottling up of their forces within the city of Boston.

Fortunately, the British Commander, General Gage, was impressed by the effectiveness of the Minutemen on the way back to Boston and their seeming determination to continue the conflict by their effective and timely occupation of the area around the city. The actual turmoil within the colonists' ranks was not observable. All he saw was the continued fortification and strengthening of the rude forts surrounding his position, indicating that they were in place and planned to stay there. Additionally, there was the cutting off of all supplies from the countryside upon which the citizens of Boston and British defenders were totally dependent.

Neither the British nor Americans were prepared for the situation in which they now found themselves. Adding to the confusion was the failure of both the Americans and the British to properly assess the other's actual capabilities. The Americans underestimated the British capability and fortunately for the Americans, General Gage vastly underestimated the American forces, their determination and ability to fight.

In the beginning the Americans lacked weapons, ammunition and any commitment by the Minutemen to serve beyond an emergency. And above all, they lacked a central leadership to direct and support troops in the enforcement of a siege. Neither was there any preparation or plan to feed, clothe and house a large force even by the day, not to mention the requirement for an extended siege. Surely if there ever was an army whose motto should be "In God We Trust" this was it.

The siege bumbled along for a few weeks as leaders appeared on the scene. and as Colonies rallied to the cause, committing interim funds, supplies and bodies. The so-called "rabble" that Major Pitcairn had dispersed at Lexington was on its way to becoming an army sufficiently formidable to not only defy the vaunted British Regulars but thirteen months later on March 17th, 1776, see the last British soldier board ship and sail away. The scent of blood was in the air and the colonists were gaining purchase on the vision of success against a force which was heretofore deemed to be indomitable.