April 19, 1775, marked the first battle of the American Revolution. On that day, 700 British soldiers marched from Boston to Concord to seize a stockpile of military arms and supplies. The expedition caused patriot leaders to raise the alarm and muster the militia. The scale of the response is truly staggering and hints at a surprising amount of organization. 

Each town in Massachusetts was required by law to maintain one or more companies of part-time militia, consisting of men ages 16-60, and see to their training four days per year. In October of 1774, with the threat of war looming, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress recommended that towns raise “…companies of fifty privates; at the least, who shall equip and hold themselves in readiness on the shortest notice…” These were the minutemen, volunteer soldiers ready at a minute’s notice. Many towns acted upon the recommendation. For example, by January of 1775, the town of Concord raised two companies of minutemen, 52 men each, and agreed they should turn out to “learn the art military” (drill) “two half day[s] in a week, 3 hours in each half day.” They would be paid “one shilling and four pence” for each half day. Captain David Brown commanded one company and Captain Charles Miles the other. The town also had two militia companies commanded by Captain Nathan Barrett and Captain George Minot. 

On the early morning of April 19, 1775, the people of Concord were awoken by the tolling of the meeting house bell. Dr. Samuel Prescott reported that a large number of British Regular soldiers were headed for Concord. In a short time, Concord’s four companies were assembled. Colonel James Barrett, who was responsible for the military supplies in Concord, detached men from the companies to help disperse whatever supplies were still in town.

Courtesy of the National Park Service. Photo taken by Riley Keefe.

Before dawn, the town of Lincoln arrived with a minuteman company under Captain William Smith (brother of Abigail Adams) with 62 men and a militia company of unknown strength. Together they awaited the arrival of the British troops while pondering rumors of shots fired in Lexington. They did not at that time know that eight militiamen were killed there and ten wounded. 

When the British did finally arrive in Concord, around 7:30 in the morning, the minutemen and militia fell back through town and across the North Bridge to high ground beyond. The British also sent a force across the North Bridge to search Colonel Barrett’s Farm. They left 96 soldiers to guard the bridge.

Sometime around 9:00 am, the assembled minuteman and militia companies formed up in a pasture above the North Bridge, known since as the Muster Field. Joining the Concord and Lincoln companies were a Bedford minute company under Captain Jonathan Willson (who died later that day) and a militia company under Captain John Moore. Last to arrive were the men from Acton in three companies: a minuteman company under Captain Isaac Davis (the first Patriot casualty at the Bridge), and two militia companies under Captain Simon Hunt and Captain Joseph Robins. Anecdotal evidence also suggests there might have been small groups of men from Littleton and Westford. All told, the militia forces in the Muster Field numbered over 400 men. 

Fighting erupted at Concord’s North Bridge around 9:30 that morning. Here, the first British soldiers died. Shortly after noon, the British began their long return march to Boston. In the words of Concord militiaman Thaddeus Blood “…it was thot [sic] best to go to the east part of town & take them as they came back.” As the British column approached Meriam’s Corner, about a mile east of Concord center, nine companies, nearly 400 men, from Reading, Chelmsford, and Billerica arrived and attacked them. Pursuing from the west were the men from Concord, Lincoln, Acton, and Bedford. The British Regulars were outnumbered! 

Just east of Meriam’s Corner was Brooks Hill, named for the family that owned it. Three companies from Framingham and six from Sudbury arrived here and engaged the British column from somewhere south of the road. A little further on, the road descended Brooks Hill, crossed Tanner Brook and ascended into the uplands of the town of Lincoln. Here, three companies from Woburn, about 180 men, joined the fight. As one exhausted British officer put it, “…their numbers increasing from all parts while ours was reducing by deaths, wounds and fatigue…”

All told, 32 companies of minutemen and militia, roughly 1,380 men representing ten towns, entered the fighting in Concord. By the time the fighting ended near Charlestown that evening, 81 companies from 27 towns, numbering over 4,000 men, arrived in time to engage the British column. Within a few days, 20,000 militiamen from across Massachusetts responded to the alarm and began a siege of British-held Boston. And the rest, they say, is history.

Sources

Coburn, Frank W. “Muster Rolls of the Participating Companies of American Militia and Minute Men in the Battle of April 19, 1775,” Lexington MA, 1912. 

Concord Free Public Library. (2021, August). Revolutionary-Era Concord Town Records. Retrieved from Concord Free Public Library: https://concordlibrary.org/ special-collections/revolutionary-era-concord-town-records

Hambrick-Stowe, Charles and Smerlas, Donna, “Massachusetts Militia Companies and Officers in the Lexington Alarm” Society of Colonial Wars in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1976.

Kehoe, Vincent J-R.. We Were There! April 19th 1775. Chelmsford MA: V. J-R Kehoe, 1974. 

Sabin, Doug, “April 19, 1775: A Historiographical Study Part III, Concord,” Minute Man National Historical Park, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, Concord, MA, 1987. 

Small, Edwin, Boston National Historic Sites Commission, “The Lexington-Concord Battle Road: Hour by Hour Account of Events Preceding and On the History-Making Day April 19, 1775,” Concord Chamber of Commerce, 1960.

The Journals of Each Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in 1774 and 1775: And of the Committee of Safety, with an Appendix, Containing the Proceedings of the County Conventions-narratives of the Events of the Nineteenth of April, 1775-papers Relating to Ticonderoga and Crown Point, and Other Documents, Illustrative of the Early History of the American Revolution. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, Printers to the state, 1838.