Battle of Concord - Marike Blauw
Concord is a village twenty miles northwest of Boston, and was the
objective of a British expedition in 1775 that opened the War
of Independence with the Battle of
Lexington and Concord.
On april 14, 1775, General Thomas Gage
received secret orders from the earl
of Dartmouth to proceed against the "open rebellion" that
existed in the colony, even at the risk of conflict. Gage
decided to move quickly against the major militia's supply
depot at Concord.
On the night of April 18 Lt.Col. Francis Smith and Maj. John Pitcairn of the marines gathered 700 men and set out for Lexington and Concord to destroy the suplies overthere. But local patriots got wind of the plan and sent Paul Revere and William Dawes by seperate routes on their famous ride to spread the alarm in Lexington and Concord. After a short intermezzo in Lexington, the British officers moved on to Concord. There the Americans already had carried off most of their stores, but the British destroyed what they could (gun carriages, entrenching tools, flour and a liberty pole). At Concord's North Bridge the growing American forces inflicted fourteen casualties on a British platoon, and about noon Smith began marching his forces back to Boston. The road back had turned into a gauntlet as the embattled farmers from "every Middlesex village and farm" sniped from behind stone walls, trees, barns, houses, all the way back to Charlestown peninsula.
By nightfall the survivors were safe under the protection of the fleet and army at Boston, having lost 273 men along the way, while the Americans lost 95.
