The Champ is Bloodied...
Pennsylvania Gazette
A fictional article dated April 25, 1775 describes the battles of Lexington and Concord.
As tensions continued to rise in Boston, a plan was devised on the evening of April 18, 1775 to alert the colonists of any movement of British troops as King George had promised to send more soldiers to put a stop to colonists’ protests of injustices.
Bostonian minutemen had stored guns and ammunition at a warehouse in Concord, a few miles south of Boston. Military General and Governor of Massachusetts, Thomas Gage, ordered 800 British soldiers to capture the supplies in a surprise raid. A plan was developed to alert the colonists of this attack.
The strategy would be for Robert Newman, sexton of the Old North Church, to
hold two lanterns to alert minutemen in Lexington of the coming British troops
if arriving on sea. One lantern was to be hung in the steeple if the British
were coming by land. Dr. Joseph Warren, head of the Committees of Correspondence,
commissioned the aid of Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott.
Revere was to travel by horseback on the road to Concord, while Dawes and
Prescott would alert the colonists southwest of Boston. When the two lanterns
were noticed in the Old North Church, Revere crossed the Charles River and rode
through Charlestown’s countryside shouting and banging on doors, "The
British are coming." (Accounts of Revere’s writings claim he shouted,
"The regulars are out.") When Revere arrived at Lexington which was
first on the trip, he warned John Hancock and Sam Adams to escape for the
British planned to stop at Lexington and arrest them on their way on to
Concord.
Adams and Hancock were hiding in Lexington about to leave for the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia. They made their escape; however, when Revere rode on
to Concord, he was captured. William Dawes fled, and Dr. Prescott finished the
warning.
When the British troops arrived into Lexington as night turned into day, they found 70 minutemen waiting for them. The soldiers stared at each other, not really wanting to fight. Some minutemen began to turn and leave, believing there was no reason to stay. Suddenly, a shot rang out which has become known as "the shot heard round the world." No one knows who fired that shot, or on whose side it came from.
As a response to that shot, the British fired two volleys. The first volley went over the Americans’ heads, but the second killed Captain John Parker, leader of the minutemen. The minutemen fired additional shots, and then retreated. The battle lasted about 15 minutes and from there the British marched on to Concord.
The British wanted to reach Concord to capture the guns, gunpowder, 500
pounds of musket balls, some cannon, flour, and trenching tools. However, the
previous night, residents of Concord moved those supplies to nearby woods.
When the minutemen reached Concord, they kept their distance from the British, not wanting to fight again. They were also outnumbered about 700 to 250.
That night, the British troops started a bonfire in the center of town. The minutemen, gathered in the outskirts of town, began to feel uneasy because thoughts of the British setting Concord ablaze ran through their minds. The fire bothered them so much, they decided to extinguish it; however, to reach the bonfire, they had to pass one British unit. That unit was guarding a bridge the minutemen had to cross.
As the minutemen advanced, the British unit started to destroy the bridge by ripping the planks off. This would prevent the Americans from crossing the bridge and putting out the bonfire.
When the Americans advanced even more, the British moved faster and worked harder. Suddenly, both armies were halted by a shot. In the exchange of fire that followed three British soldiers were killed and about nine wounded. The rest of the British retreated. Minutemen were too afraid to extinguish the bonfire as they really did not wish to continue the fight and lose more men.
The British troops planned to retreat to Boston, so the minutemen lined the
road to Boston, peering out through the nearby woods.
In two hours the British began to march. When they saw the minutemen, the British shot a volley of rifle fire. Unfortunately for the British not one minuteman was killed.
The minutemen returned the fire, and brought down the British using guerrilla warfare. Minutemen shot from the woods, ran to a farmhouse, shot, then ran somewhere else. The redcoats were confused as they had been used to formal army formations.
The British retreated to Lexington, without 73 of their men, who had been killed. They also had 174 wounded and 26 missing compared to colonists’ 94 casualties. Ammunition and supplies were never discovered and the battle caused concern with the British as they wondered how a group of inexperienced colonial farmers and shopkeepers could have come away so victorious. It was time to take this fight seriously.