Since 2000, many reenactors have asserted that haversacks were commonly worn by Massachusetts militia and minute companies when they fielded against British forces on April 19, 1775. The two most common arguments advanced have been that militia and minutemen were in possession of haversacks because they were previously issued to Massachusetts troops during the French and Indian War, or that the item was acquired on the eve of the American Revolution from a third-party source.
Early this year, National Park Service archeologists working at Minute Man National Historical Park discovered five musket balls that were fired during the
world-changing event known as “The Shot Heard Round the World” on April 19, 1775.
Early analysis of the 18th-century musket balls indicates they were fired by colonial militia members at British forces during the North Bridge fight.
When did the American Revolution begin? At the North Bridge on April 19, 1775, with “the shot heard round the world”? In Philadelphia on July 4, 1776, with the Declaration of Independence? John Adams thought the Revolution was over by the time the first guns were fired. It “was effected in the minds and hearts of the people.”
Arguably, that crucial turning-point occurred in Concord two hundred fifty years ago, when on October 11, 1774, delegates from all over Massachusetts, roughly 243 representatives from close to 200 towns, including the District of Maine, gathered in the Congregational meetinghouse (now First Parish) to deal with “the dangerous and alarming situation of public affairs” touched off by Britain’s harsh reaction to the Boston Tea Party.
Isabel Bliss hurried her three children, aged four through seven, off to bed on the night of March 20, 1775. The two men who had come to her door looked like local farmers seeking counsel from her husband, lawyer Daniel Bliss. They wore the homespun coats of plain country folk, but the muskets they carried told a different story.
As the men huddled with Daniel in the parlor, talking in whispers, Isabel was startled by another knock at the door. She opened it cautiously and was relieved to see the familiar face of a neighbor. The woman was out of breath, and tears stained her cheeks. She begged Isabel to forgive her, because she had given the two strangers directions to the Bliss home without knowing who they were.
On Monday, September 2, 2024 (Labor Day), Lafayette reenactor Benjamin J. Goldman will come to First Parish in Concord, commemorating the day and site where the town gave the French general a hero’s welcome two hundred years ago. The public is warmly invited to assemble on the lawn of First Parish to watch a reenactment of Lafayette’s visit to Concord at 3:00 this Labor Day.
With the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Great Britain was now in control of North America: the 13 British colonies along the seaboard were safe and sound from their enemies, while all French territory east of the Mississippi, as well as Spanish Florida, now belonged to King George III. For the first time since 1701, Great Britain was at peace. But the empire was also broke.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the globe come to Concord, Lexington, and the surrounding towns to witness the time-honored traditions, tactical demonstrations, and festive commemorations that pay tribute to the first battle of the American Revolution.
On April 19, 1775, an estimated twenty to forty colonists of African or Native American descent fought in the first battle of the American Revolution. On that historic day, those men, often termed “Patriots of Color,” joined approximately 4,000 other men fighting British Regular soldiers along the “Battle Road” from Concord to Boston.
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