When I was a boy, my father would ring my brother, me, and my dog right after the sunrise on Patriot Day. We walked to the bottom of the street and got a glimpse of the men and boys marching down Strawberry Hill Road towards Concord’s old North Bridge.
Although not more than a few dozen from Acton, I’ve heard the drums long before I passed through the tall thick trees along the streets of the town of Massachusetts. Sometimes musket shots cracked the morning air. The dog hated it. He couldn’t grasp why we were standing there, waiting for what sounded like an advancing army.
If you don’t know where it came from or what it cost, you cannot hold your inheritance.
But it was unforgettable for us. It felt like history was marching towards us. A lifelong thrill.
Last Saturday, 250 years ago there were no ceremonial shots. There’s no crowd. There are no celebrations. A militia, determined to be just strict, passing through the cold New England aviation, summoned by the alarm of a church bell echoing through the countryside.
The British were there. And the men of Acton went out to meet them.
At the time there were far fewer trees. As the sun rose, the man could look out over the open farmland for miles.
Today, Concord is truly Tony. However, in April 1775 it was still a rough country – at the age of 140, carved from the wilderness by people who lived from the land. The forest was more than just a view. It was essential for survival: fire fuel, wood for the house, barriers to cold and the unknown.
A few years later, the most deceptive man in town was not a red coat or a tory. It was a broken, self-important poet who could burn the forest while trying to make chowder. His name? Henry David Thoreau.
But on that frozen April morning, there was no one in philosophy. When Minutemen turned to Barretts Mill Road, Lowell Road, they may have got a glimpse of their fellow militia gathering on the ridge above the bridge that straddles the Concord River.
I’ll set up the town first. They and between: British light infantry, armed and formed.
In 1775, the British Empire ranged from Bengal to Bermuda. It held all 13 American colonies and also ruled eastern Canada after victory in the French and Indian wars. The British were undefeated, disciplined, wearing red coats and white pants sharply.
However, under the uniforms, most were poor. Soldiers were not considered honor. It was a last resort for other men without prospects – desperate enough to take the King’s Shilling.
On the eve of the battle, those men were being called out from the barracks in Boston, a world away from where they were called home. They boarded a small boat and silently crossed the Charles River. Seven hundred men, soaked in their skin, ran 10 miles through the darkness to Lexington Green.
Approximately 80 American militias were waiting there. They were called up at night and armed, but not sure. As the British Pillars approached, fear spread through their lines. The enemy just kept coming.
Their captains were veterans of war in Canada and knew the possibility. He arranged his men in a parade formation and told them not to fire them. He wasn’t there to win. He was trying to avoid the massacre.
The British officer on horseback had his eyes cold and had barked orders to drop and disperse weapons in the militia. The sun was still nearly two hours after the shot started to rise.
No one knows who was fired first, but the British responded by volley.
They shot and killed their own compatriots – eight people killed and ten wounded – shattered the small town before continuing their march to Concord.
The shock was immediate and profound. Tensions had been simmering for several months, but no war had been declared. The declaration of independence was still over a year away. The British were fired five years ago in Boston for an unruly mob, but this was different. This time they fired at the peaceful militia. And this time they were marching inland to grab their arms and cannons – something they’ve done before without bloodshed.
This time I changed everything.
By the time the British arrived at Concord seven miles west, the town already knew what had happened. Colonial spies were tracking every move in the Army. Paul Revere watched the boat leave Boston. The militia were scattered with many weapons and ammunition across nearby fields. There’s no longer a surprise element.
Unlike Lexington, Concord rebelliously did not meet with the army – at least not at first. The soldiers paid the townspeople for supplies. No shots were fired. But on the hill in Barrett, Minuteman looked.
They were peasants, blacksmiths, merchants, and their sons. Some fought against the French. Others were fighting the Indians. However, most had never faced a trained soldier.
They were not military – until that moment.
Now they were outweighing the redcoat. Then smoke rose from the town – the cannon carriages were burned up by the British.
His eyesight caused anger.
“Would you let them burn the town?” cried Joseph Hosmer.
The Americans did not respond in words. They crossed the hills and across the bridges and across history.
When I was a child, “I heard Shot ‘going the world'” was the definitive story of the American Revolution. We went on a field trip to the battlefield and beat the bike to see a re-enactment with Dad. As teenagers, we turned beer and cigars along the quiet river after it got dark.
I imagined men who stood in their shoes and faced a global empire for their rights – barely more than boys. I thought about their strength, courage and solution. They suffered, bleed, and died for our inheritance.
For us, they were heroes.
Since I started traveling as I grew older, I have noticed that there is actually little war in the town where I grew up. I knew my ancestors fought at Monmouth. Others in my family took weapons for the Southern crown. But in my imagination, wars have always been Lexington, Concord, the Boston Massacre, Bunker Hill.
Travel shattered that illusion.
I was standing on a hill in New Jersey where my family held a line against indicting Hessian mercenaries. A few miles away, I visited a house marked with plaques. A man was hanged there by those suspected of loyalty to the king.
The biggest battle was in the south. That’s where the war won.
One branch of my family knew the cost of neutrality. Former officers of the French and Indian wars refused to side with the revolution when it broke out. Local townspeople tried to lynch him. He was forced into exile and joined the Loyalist.
While he fought, his wife provided information to the Americans – protecting the farm and many of its children from retaliation. Her actions received him pardon. After the war, he returned from exile and served in the North Carolina Legislature.
The revolution was not a beautiful myth. It was a civil war, bitter and personal. And my family, like many, lived on both sides.
I used to have beer and lobster rolls in quiet Connecticut Beach where Long Island spies landed on news of British movements. Washington’s army bent over the cold waters of Delaware, crossing bitter Christmas Eve.
By walking where history took place, we cannot teach you what you learn. Breathing the same air, hearing the same wind, standing where the great man once stood.
Over time I came to see how big the revolution has become. And it’s ugly. The line between positive and wrong has become blurred. The deeper you go, the more complicated it becomes. That’s the price of understanding and the price of growth.
Still, Concord is always with me.
I know that the red man was not a monster. They were cold, far from home, and followed the order. “They went 3,000 miles and died to keep the past on the throne,” reads the marker on the river grave. “Over the unprecedented, sea tide, their British mother moaned her.”
But I know the other side too. The peasants who opposed them were neither radical nor rebels. They were citizens. They were noble. And when the moment came, they chose to act.
If you don’t know where it came from or what it cost, you cannot hold your inheritance.
So next time I’ll stand on a “rude, arched bridge with my son” and tell him what happened there.
Emerson’s poem: Concord Hymn
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