On Saturday, just before sunrise, thousands of people flocked to Lexington, Massachusetts, to see a recreation of the American Revolution’s first salvo, complete with gunfire and colonial spin, which took place 250 years ago.
Commencing with Saturday’s commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the nation will reflect on its battle of independence and inquire about the current state of its legacy. On the Lexington Battle Green, militiamen armed with muskets engaged a far larger group of British regulars just after sunrise. As the British withdrew, the bodies of the eight slain and ten wounded Americans were spread throughout the battlefield.
Dr. Samuel Prescott, a horseman, galloped toward the North Bridge to notify towns along the road that the British were coming. Only then would the regulars march to Concord. On Saturday, a lone horseman simulated the ride, and thereafter, there was a ceremony at the bridge and a procession through town.
Not only can we take this day to remember this watershed event in history, but we can also think about the relevance of this struggle in the present.
Richard Howell, who played Samuel Tidd, a Lexington Minuteman, remarked, “It’s truly momentous” after the fight.
“Because of what it represents, this is one of the most sacred pieces of ground in the country, if not the world,” he declared. As a metaphor for what transpired that day, the little town of Lexington became entangled in a web of events.
Lieutenant Colonel Brandon Mace of the Army Reserve, whose great-grandfather Moses Stone served in the militia of Lexington, was one of the spectators during the reenactment.
He described it as “a little emotional” to witness the recreation.
The decision was the same one that my son (also in the Army) and I (and my brother) made, Mace said. The fact that we would be honoring him today was news to him. He had no idea he was a part of the nation’s infancy. His loved ones were in danger, and he knew it.
by the 250th anniversary fast approaching, many are split on how to commemorate the event. Some want a yearlong celebration building up to July 4, 2026, as proposed by Trump, while others believe that any festivities should be balanced by inquiries into the experiences of women, the enslaved, and Indigenous peoples, and the lessons they teach.
Tell me what transpired at Concord and Lexington.
Hundreds of British soldiers, according to historians, marched out of Boston early on April 19, 1775, and converged on Lexington’s town green, some fourteen miles (23 kilometers) northwest.
“Throw down your arms, ye villains, ye rebels!” screamed out by a few British officers, according to eyewitnesses, who also reported hearing a shot fired and “scattered fire” from the same group. The air was thick with the smell of burning powder as the fighting intensified. roughly 250 British and 95 colonists were killed or injured by the end of the day, and the conflict had advanced roughly 7 miles (11 kilometers) west to Concord.
Who fired first and why is a mystery. Even the uprising wasn’t quite a revolution at first; it was more of a call for improved conditions.
According to University of South Carolina early American history professor Woody Holton, the revolt of April 1775 was not an attempt to flee the empire but rather to mend fences with King George III and return to the days before the Stamp Act, the Tea Act, and other scandals of the preceding decade.
He stated that all the colonists wanted to do was go back to 1763.
“Lexington and Concord galvanized opinion precisely as the Massachusetts men hoped it would, though still it would be a long road to a vote for independence, which Adams felt should have been declared on 20 April 1775,” said Stacy Schiff, a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian whose books include biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams.
“It did not seem possible that a mother country and her colony had actually come to blows,” Schiff remarked, referring to the situation at the time.
The battle of the century
Even before the monarchs and subjects had a quarrel, the rebels thought their cause was greater. Thomas Paine’s claim that “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” and the Declaration of Independence were both made in 1776, but they already set themselves in a drama fit for a generation before that.
Proclaiming a life “unfettered by power, unclogged with shackles,” the so-called Suffolk Resolves of 1774, composed by civic leaders of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, vowed to fight for a cause that would decide the “fate of this new world, and of unborn millions.”
Unpredictability and improvising were constant themes throughout the revolution. The second volume in a trilogy on the conflict by military historian Rick Atkinson, “The Fate of the Day,” characterized the battle of Lexington and Concord as “a clear win for the home team,” if for no other reason than that the British had not anticipated such passionate opposition from the colony’s militia.
The British, who consistently failed to see the true strength of what King George called a “deluded and unhappy multitude,” would once again be humiliated as the rebels quickly concocted and spread a story that implicated the royal army.
Because “it was essential that the colonies, and the world, understood who had fired first,” Schiff stated that when shots were fired in Lexington, Samuel Adams and Joseph Warren did everything they could to gather witness accounts and distribute them swiftly. The Lexington skirmish, according to Adams, would go down in American history as one of the most infamous events. In order to identify the assailants, he passed out.
A nation that is always evolving
They didn’t think the conflict would continue eight years, and they weren’t sure what type of nation would emerge from it either. Although they disagreed on the viability of self-government and the best way to implement it, the founders were unified in their pursuit of it.
Power dynamics, voting procedures, and the scope of the call to “All men are created equal” have all been topics of heated debate among Americans for as long as anyone can remember.
Anti-Trump demonstrators were outnumbered by residents, tourists, and history aficionados, but the debate was still very much on show Saturday. “Resist Like Its 1775” was one of several Revolutionary War–inspired placards held by demonstrators, and one individual even brought a Trump dummy with an orange face.
Glenn Stark, a retired physics professor who was present at the North Bridge ceremony with a “No Kings” placard, expressed his belief that the timing is perfect for Americans to rise up against what they perceive as a growing authoritarianism.
Maura Healey, the Democratic governor of Massachusetts, spoke at the North Bridge celebration and also utilized the occasion to warn the enthusiastic audience that several principles battled for during the Revolutionary War are once again in danger.
“We see things that would be familiar to our Revolutionary predecessors — the silencing of critics, the disappearance of people from our streets, demands for unquestioned fealty,” she remarked, describing their common experiences. Everyone has the fundamental right to due process. If something can be thrown out for one person, it may be lost for everyone.
