Patrick Henry was right: The war had begun. British troops flooded the city of Boston. Under strict orders from General Thomas Gage, the soldiers were determined to find the leaders of the rebellion, including Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The soldiers also searched the colonists’ homes for weapons and smuggled goods.
By the middle of April 1775, most of the leaders of the Sons of Liberty had managed to escape Boston. That made General Gage nervous. What if they were planning some sort of uprising? He couldn’t have that happen.
Gage sent a battalion of soldiers to Lexington, a town about twelve miles northwest of Boston, where Adams and Hancock were rumored to be hiding. More soldiers were sent to Concord, a nearby town where the Patriots had stockpiled muskets, bullets, gunpowder, and other weapons. It was time to show the Patriots who was in charge.
The Sons of Liberty heard about Gage’s plans on April 18, and thought it was another job for Paul. They were referring to Paul Revere, of course, the fearless horseman who could always be counted on to spread messages quickly. Along with a handful of other messengers, Revere jumped on his horse and rode through the night, warning colonial minutemen, from Boston to Concord, about the planned British attack.
Though the warning helped the colonists prepare, it didn’t change the fact that the British vastly outnumbered them. The following morning, April 19, 1775, about seventy-five colonial fighters confronted several hundred British Redcoats in an open area called Lexington Green.
At first, the confrontation seemed harmless enough. A British officer ordered the group to break up and leave the green. There was some grumbling from the crowd. But tensions settled, and it looked as though the morning would pass without a shot having been fired.
All of a sudden, a gunshot pierced the air, followed by more gunfire. Eight Patriots lay dead, nine more were wounded, and a British solider was also injured. No one knows who fired the first bullet, but it came to be known many years later as “the shot heard round the world,” since it was the first real battle of the American Revolution.
Artist’s depiction of “the shot heard round the world”
And there was more action to come that morning, as the British soldiers marched on to Concord. Though the Redcoats had had the advantage in Lexington, by the time they reached Concord, many more Patriots had arrived.
Now it was seven hundred British soldiers defending themselves against thousands of colonists. As they retreated to Boston, the Patriots continued to shoot at them from behind trees, walls, and houses. Although the British had the best-trained army in the world at the time, they were easy targets for men hidden from sight. Finally, the British soldiers ditched everything, even their weapons, to make a fast retreat. All total, 73 British soldiers were killed that day and another 174 were wounded. By comparison, 49 colonists died and 39 were wounded.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord ended in victory for the Americans. But they were just the beginning.
On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, in which the colonies formally declared their independence from England. For the next eight and a half years, British and American forces would be locked in a bloody war. As the war continued, there would be setbacks for the Patriots. At no point during the American Revolution was victory assured, and nearly seven thousand Patriots would make the ultimate sacrifice, losing their lives in battle. Even more died as prisoners of the British or from disease.
Although the British army and navy were larger and better trained, the colonists were more committed to their cause, plus they had help from the French and Spanish. In the end, the colonists’ desire for freedom and self-rule proved stronger than the king’s desire to keep control of his colonies. In 1781, az big part of the British army surrendered in Yorktown. But the British still occupied places such as Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and New York, New York. When the Treaty of Paris of 1783 was signed, the thirteen colonies were no more. Instead, they formed a new country, which would be called the United States of America.
In time, the United States of America would grow to fifty states, and its democratic spirit would be a model for many other nations around the world.
A copy of the Declaration of Independence
The war Father and I feared came faster and more furiously than any of us had imagined. We’ve been at war for a year now, and the shelves in Father’s store look very different: Since ships carrying goods from England are no longer coming to the colonies, we’ve learned to get by with less. But we colonists have also learned how to make many of the things we used to import. I am proud to see fabrics woven here in America in Father’s store. I like drinking rose hip tea and knitting with wool I’ve spun myself—just as the Daughters of Liberty do in Boston.
Today I heard the declaration written by the First Continental Congress read aloud on the steps of the courthouse boldly declaring our independence from British rule. No longer will we be subjects of the king, paying taxes we never agreed to, punished for disobeying laws imposed on us unfairly, and ruled by powers an ocean away. I felt shivers when I heard the words:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Father says the war for independence will be long and hard and full of loss and sorrow. I have no doubt that’s true. But I also have no doubt that the struggle will be worth it in the end. For wasn’t I there at the beginning, at that
