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April 18, 2001 - Bill Cooper
58:43
Lexington (Stereo)
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Time Text
So, I'm going to play a little bit of it.
I'm happy to be here with you.
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
I'm William Cooper.
Well, I had told you we were going to do something tonight.
We're not going to do that.
the you're listening to the power of the time on william cooper
well i had told you we're going to do something tonight we're not going to do
that you'll find out why very quickly
and uh... i think you're going to uh...
one of your there's much more than what we had planned
But...
At least, I do.
I think most of you will also.
On July 4th, 1837, a memorial was dedicated near the bridge at Concord, and in honor of
the event, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem, which is entitled, The Concord Hymn.
It was set to music and sung at the dedication of the Battle Monument.
And I'm going to try my best to render it as Ralph Waldo Emerson would have wished me to do.
The Concord Hymn By the rude bridge that arced the flood, Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.
The foe, long since silent slept, alike the conqueror silent sleeps, and time the ruined bridge has swept down the dark stream that seaward creeps.
On this green bank, by this soft stream, we place with joy a votive stone.
That memory may their deeds redeem when, like our sires, our sons are gone.
O Thou who made those heroes dare to die and leave their children free, bid time and nature
gently spare the shaft we raise to them and thee.
O Thou who made those heroes dare to die and leave their children free, bid time and nature
gently spare the shaft we raise to them and thee.
O Thou who made those heroes dare to die and leave their children free, bid time and nature
gently spare the shaft we raise to them and thee.
The Revolutionary War of Deeds, which began in earnest on the 19th of April, 1775, was
was preceded by a long and no less significant war of words, with Boston as the principal center of agitation and objective of royal coercion.
Fully living up to her reputation as the metropolis of sedition, Boston was where the first British regiments were sent in 1768 to enforce what seemed, to the inhabitants, the harsh and tyrannical measures of a new British colonial imperialism, and to quell the rebellious rumblings of a few people possessed not only of an ardent passion for freedom, but a jealous knowledge of self-government.
The presence of the Royal Troops provoked the famous Boston Massacre of March 5, 1770.
They were removed from the town temporarily, but were back again in greater numbers After the port was closed by active Parliament following further defiant demonstrations by mobs and the populace in general.
Of these demonstrations, the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773, was an illustrious example.
Tension between patriots and the soldiery had mounted to the breaking point.
And more reinforcements were on the way to aid in the increasingly difficult task of maintaining the King's rule when General Thomas Gage, the military governor of the province, decided to take more positive measures to curb the bold enterprise of the Patriot leaders.
The most important of these measures, for which preparations began to be made in March 1775, was a plan to send an expeditionary force to Concord to destroy powder and other military supplies.
And here, for the first time for most of you, is the actual written order issued by General
Thomas Gage to Lieutenant Colonel Smith of the 10th Regiment Foot.
On April 18, 1775, Boston, Sir, having received intelligence that a quantity of ammunition,
precision, artillery, tents, and small arms have been collected at Concord for the avowed
purpose of raising and supporting a rebellion against His Majesty, you will march with the
Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry, put under your command, with the utmost expectation
and secrecy, to Concord, where you will seize and destroy all artillery and artillery.
Ammunition, provisions, tents, small arms, and all military stores, whatever.
But you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property.
You have a draft of Concord on which is marked the houses, barns, and etc.
which contain the above military stores.
You will order a trunnion to be knocked off each gun.
But if It's found impracticable on any.
They must be spiked, and the carriages destroyed.
The powder and flour must be shook out of the barrels into the river.
The tents burnt, pork or beef destroyed in the best way you can devise.
And the men may put balls of lead in their pockets, throwing them by degrees into ponds, ditches, and etc.
But no quantity together, so that they may be recovered afterwards.
If you meet any brass artillery, you will order their muzzles to be bent or beat in, so as to render them useless.
You will observe by the draft that it will be necessary to secure the two bridges as soon as possible.
You will, therefore, order a party of the best marchers to go on with expedition for the purpose.
A small party on horseback is ordered out to stop all.
Advice of your march getting to Concord before you, and a small number of artillery go out in chases to wait for you on the road, with sledgehammers, spikes, etc.
You will open your business and return with the troops as soon as possible, which I must leave to your own judgment and discretion.
I am, sir, your most obedient, humble servant Thomas Yates
The Greatest Showman The Greatest Showman
March 20th, 1775 MONDAY MORNING GENERAL GAGE, MILITARY GOVERNOR OF THE PROVINCE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY, CONTEMPLATING FUTURE OPERATIONS INTO THE COUNTRY SINCE CAPTAIN BROWN OF THE 52ND REGIMENT, ENSIGN DE BERNIER OF THE 10TH REGIMENT, AND A PRIVATE ON A SECRET SCOUTING TRIP FROM BOSTON TO ROXBURY, BROOKLINE, WESTERN SUDBURY, AND CONCORD.
The three were well-armed and so strikingly disguised in brown clothes and reddish handkerchiefs that they were readily recognized as spying British soldiers.
They nevertheless obtained useful information bearing on the topographical features of the landscape, and with the help of a friend of the Royal Government, learned about the location of military stores being collected at Concord by the Committees of Safety and Supplies set up by the Provincial Congress.
Plans for a night march began to be laid as soon as Brown and DeBernier returned from their mission.
Daniel Bliss, a Tory who lived near the Mill Pond in the center of Concord, assisted Brown and DeBernier.
He left town with them, never to return again.
Thank you.
The grenadiers and light infantry comprising the flank companies of the British regiments in Boston were taken off all duties till further orders.
The reasons given for this step were exercise and new evolutions.
Paul Revere and his self-appointed patrol of patriots noticed the removal of these troops from their normal duties, and reported the fact to Dr. Joseph Warren, who in turn relayed the intelligence to the Committee of Safety in preparations for an expedition into the country to seize the military stores at Concord, some eighteen miles distant where at once suspected.
Afternoon.
The Provincial Congress meeting at Concord.
As the legislative body representative of patriots in the province of Massachusetts Bay, and in defiance of the military governor in Boston, adjourned.
John Hancock and Samuel Adams, who had attended, went to Lexington to stay with the Reverend Jonas Clark, who resided in the dwelling that is preserved by the Lexington Historical Society and known today as the Hancock-Clark House.
The site of the meeting house where the Provincial Congress met late in 1774 and early again in 1775 to lay plans for rebellion is marked by a fitting tablet in front of the present First Parish Church Unitarian on the south side of Lexington Road near the central square of Concord.
April 16th, 1775.
Sunday.
1775, Sunday, midnight, or soon thereafter.
Midnight.
Paul Revere observed, about twelve o'clock at night, the boats
belonging to the transports were all launched and carried under the
sterns of the men of war.
you They had previously been hauled up for repairs.
This move was further interpreted as preparatory to an expedition, especially one that would carry troops by water across the Back Bay to the Cambridge shore.
Paul Revere rode to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams about the British preparations in Boston.
Evening.
Returning to Boston through Charlestown, Revere agreed with a Colonel Conant and some other gentlemen that if the British went out by water, we would show two lanterns in the North Church steeple, and if by land, one as a signal.
For we were apprehensive it would be difficult to cross the Charles River or to get over Boston Neck.
This arrangement was made not to inform Revere, but to notify Colonel Conant and the other gentlemen so they could send word to Lexington and elsewhere if Revere should run into difficulty or be halted by the British in attempting to cross the Charles River or ride out via Boston Neck and Roxbury.
The Old North Church or Christ Church in Boston still survives.
April 17, 1775, Monday morning.
The Committees of Safety and Supplies in session at Concord received word of the British preparations in Boston, probably from John Hancock, to whom Paul Revere had delivered the message in Lexington the day before.
Whereupon the committees voted to transport some of the cannon at Concord to places of greater safety in adjacent towns.
The committee also voted to adjourn and meet again the next day at Mr. Weatherby's at Monotomy, which is Arlington, also known as the Black Horse Tavern.
The Black Horse Tavern no longer exists, but its site on the north side of Massachusetts Avenue between Tufts and Foster Streets and the present Arlington has been marked by a stone tablet.
April 18, 1775 Tuesday morning As voted on the previous day, four six-pounders were hauled away from Concord and started on the way to Groton, about eighteen miles northwest of Concord.
Afternoon.
General Gage sent out mounted officers from Boston to patrol the road between Cambridge and Concord.
A British patrol of ten or more horsemen dined at the Black Horse Tavern before riding further out into the country.
Jasper, a Boston gunsmith, Heard about the intended march of the troops from a British sergeant.
John Ballard, a stableman, overheard a remark in the province house that there would be hell to pay tomorrow.
The province house was the residence of the military governor, General Gage.
This undoubtedly stemmed from a report that General Gage had sent out mounted officers from Boston to patrol the road between Cambridge and Concord.
The cannon sent from Concord arrived at Groton.
The Groton minutemen, curious about the arrival of the Six-Pounders, assembled promptly, and nine of them started for Concord, arriving the next morning long before the British troops entered the town and joining the ranks of the militia who came from points nearer in answer to the alarm.
6.30 P.M.
Solomon Brown, A young man of Lexington, who had been to market in Boston, arrived home with the news that he had overtaken and passed the patrol of British officers.
He reported his observations to Sergeant William Monroe, proprietor of the Monroe Tavern.
Shortly after, an express rider arrived with a message for John Hancock from the Committees of Safety.
The British patrol had been seen at Monotomy.
7 p.m.
William Monroe, sergeant of the Lexington Minutemen, collected eight men in his company and posted a guard at the Hancock-Clark house.
8 p.m.
The British horsemen rode through Lexington without attempting to molest Hancock and Samuel Adams.
The patrol continued on the Old Bay Road to Lincoln.
As soon as the British patrol was through Lexington, about forty Minutemen gathered at the Buckman Tavern on Lexington Green.
8.30 P.M.
The British patrol passed the farmhouse of Sergeant Samuel Hartwell of the Lincoln Minutemen.
After riding a mile or two farther on the Concord Road, the patrol wheeled about and rode back toward Lexington.
The Hartwell House remains today.
9 p.m.
The Lexington Minute Men sent out scouts on horseback to watch the movements of the British patrol.
Elijah Sanderson, later a famous Salem cabinetmaker, Jonathan Loring, and Solomon Brown, who had first spotted the horsemen, volunteered.
10 p.m.
The three scouts from Lexington were seized at pistol point by the British patrol in Lincoln and led into a pasture where they were held for four hours.
The grenadiers and light infantry in Boston were not apprised of the design till just as it was time to march.
They were waked by the sergeants putting their hands on them and whispering to them.
But Dr. Joseph Had the news almost before the British had left their barracks.
He sent for Paul Revere and William Dawes, Jr.
Dawes was dispatched over the route longer by four miles to Lexington via Boston Net, Roxbury, Brookline, Cambridge, and Monodomy.
Today, ladies and gentlemen, you know Monodomy as Arlington.
10.30 p.m.
Revere bid Captain John Pulling, Jr.
have two lanterns hung in the steeple of the old North Church.
He hurried to the north part of the town where he kept a boat and was rowed by two friends across the Charles River.
A little to the eastward were the Somerset Man of War lay.
Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson were the two friends who rowed Revere across the river.
Their oars were muffled by a petticoat.
Yet warm from the body of a fair daughter of liberty.
Revere's boat was kept near the Charlestown Ferry at the foot of Prince Street.
The British detachment of about seven hundred men assembled at the foot of Boston Common under the general command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith of the 10th Regiment Foot, and with Major John Pitcairn of the Marines in charge of the Light Infantry.
Embarkation in boats on the Back Bay began.
The place where the troops entered the boats was probably near the present corner of Boylston and Charles Streets, where the shoreline of the Back Bay then extended back from the Charles River.
The British became well aware of the fact that the secret of the expedition had not been kept successfully.
Earl Percy, Crossing the Boston Common, heard a man say to another, the British troops have marched, but they will miss their aim.
What aim?
inquired Percy.
Why, the man replied, the cannon at Concord.
11 P.M.
Revere arrived on the Charlestown side and was met by Colonel Conant and others who had seen the light of the signal lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church.
Richard Devins of the Committee of Safety, upon being informed that the troops were actually in the boats, procured a horse for Revere from Deacon Larkin and sent him from Deacon Larkin off to give the intelligence at Monotomy and Lexington.
Revere landed at a wharf off Water Street, just north of the present Charlestown Bridge and near City Square.
From there he rode Out the present Main Street and headed for Cambridge.
1130 P.M.
Beyond Charlestown Neck, the present Sullivan Square, Revere was confronted by two British horsemen waiting under a tree at a crossroads.
Turning his horse abruptly, Revere galloped back toward the Neck and took the road for Medford, where he awakened Captain Hall of the Minutemen before proceeding to Monotony.
ALARMING ALMOST EVERY HOUSE ON THE WAY THE BRITISH HORSEMAN, WHO HAD BARRED REVERE'S PATH, WERE ON CAMBRIDGE STREET AT THE PRESENT CHARLESTOWN'S SOMERVILLE LANE.
AFTER WHEELING HIS HORSE, REVERE RODE OVER THE PRESENT BROADWAY IN SOMERVILLE TO WINTER HILL, WHERE HE BORE TO THE RIGHT ON MAIN STREET INTO THE CENTER OF MEDFORD.
his route from there to Monotony, the present Arlington carried him over High Street.
He was a young man, a young man with a dream.
He was a young man with a dream.
Okay.
Amaze!
The Cryptor!
Amaze!
Amaze!
The Cryptor of the world!
Amaze!
Crystal!
the the
the the
the midnight.
Midnight, or soon after.
April 19, 1775, Wednesday, midnight or soon after.
Revere arrived at the Hancock Clark House in Lexington.
Sergeant Monroe of the Lexington Minutemen refused to let Revere pass, stating that the
family did not wish to be disturbed by any noise.
Whereupon Revere cried out, Noise?
You'll have noise enough before long!
The regulars are coming out!
12.30 a.m.
William Dawes, Jr., arriving at the Hancock Clark House from his longer ride over Boston Neck via Ruxbury and Cambridge, set out for Concord with Revere.
On his ride, Dawes had managed to elude the British sentries on Boston Neck.
The bell on the belfry that stood on Lexington Green near the Meeting House rang out the alarm, and the Lexington Minutemen, about one hundred and thirty in number, under Captain John Parker, began to assemble.
Dr. Samuel Prescott, who had spent the evening with his sweetheart, Miss Millican, in Lexington, started on his journey of six miles home to Concord.
He overtook Revere and Dawes, who were soon satisfied that he was a high son of liberty.
Dawes and Prescott rode into the dooryard of a house near the Lexington-Lincoln line And on knocking at the door found Nathaniel Baker, a Lincoln Minute man, still courting a Concord lass, Elizabeth Taylor, who was visiting there.
Baker, who lived in South Lincoln, spread the alarm on his way home.
With his father, brothers, and brother-in-law, he was at Concord Bridge in the morning with the Lincoln Minute men.
He married Elizabeth Taylor in 1776, and no, ladies and gentlemen, That was not her first marriage, and it was not the actress that we are all so familiar with.
1 a.m.
Actually, it was her first marriage, but it was not.
It was not the Elizabeth Taylor that we all know and, of course, love.
Dawes and Prescott were riding about two hundred yards behind Revere when the latter was surprised by two British officers in the road near the opening into the pasture where the three Lexington scouts had been taken prisoner three hours earlier.
Dawes turned his horse quickly and sped down the road back toward Lexington.
He made good his escape.
Prescott jumped his horse over a stone wall, escaped down a farm path by the swamp and carried the alarm to Concord.
Revere made for a wood at the foot of the pasture, but just as he reached it, six of the British officers who were holding the three captured Lexington men grabbed his bridle, put pistols to his breast, and forced him to dismount.
Thus ended the famous ride of Paul Revere.
The site of Revere's capture is marked with a tablet today.
1.30 A.M.
Captain Parker dismissed his men on Lexington Green with orders to respond again at the beating of the drum.
Those who did not live near enough to go home repaired to the Buckman Tavern.
Dr. Prescott came out of a thicket behind the house of Sergeant Samuel Hartwell of the Lincoln Minutemen.
He awakened the family and requested that the news be speeded to Captain William Smith of the Lincoln Minutemen who lived a short distance back on the road to Lexington.
Sookie, a slave girl in terror of the British, refused to leave the house, so Mary Hartwell, the sergeant's wife, placing her five-month-old infant in Sookie's arms, rushed down the road to Captain Smith's house.
The latter mounted his horse and hastened to Lincoln Center, two miles to the south, where the two Lincoln companies eventually assembled and started off for Concord.
They were the first companies to reach Concord from any of the neighboring towns.
Following his capture, Revere was interrogated by the British, who became seriously disturbed when he told them that people for a distance of fifty miles into the country were being notified about their intended march.
Major Mitchell of the 5th British Regiment gave orders for the prisoners to mount, and the party to ride back toward Lexington.
2 A.M.
As the British officers and their prisoners rode down the road to Lexington, the hoofbeats of their horses awakened Josiah Nelson, a Lincoln minute man who had been appointed to keep watch and carry the alarm to Bedford if the British marched.
Leaving his bed hurriedly, Nelson ran out into the road and called out, "'Have you heard anything about when the regulars are coming out?' One of the officers, reaching for his sword, replied in anger,
We will let you know when they are coming!"
and struck Nelson on the crown of his head, cutting a long gash.
Thus was drawn the first blood on the opening morning of the Revolution.
Nelson was taken prisoner, but was soon released and returned to his home to have his wife bind up his wound and dispatch him on horseback to Bedford, where he spread the alarm.
Upon the arrival of Dr. Prescott, Concord was alarmed by the ringing of the townhouse bell.
With gun in hand, Rev.
William Emerson, grandfather of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had built the Old Man's in 1769, was the first to answer the alarm.
Three companies of minutemen and an alarm company soon followed and gathered at Wright's Tavern in the town square.
The task of removing and concealing the military stores that had not been sent away the day before began.
Concord's first townhouse, erected in 1721 and used both for town meetings and county courts, stood until 1794.
The old man's is preserved by the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations.
Both Wright's Tavern and the Reuben Brown House survived.
The British Grenadiers and Light Infantry, who began to embark in boats on the back bay from Boston Common about 10.30 the evening before, crossed to Leshmare Point in East Cambridge.
As the boats were heavily loaded and could not be run in close, the troops had to wade ashore.
They then waded in a dirty road as much as three hours for provisions to be brought up from the boats and divided.
Each soldier Then received a day's rations and thirty-six rounds of ammunition.
This delay was serious, as it gave the country people more time.
The troops were finally ready to advance about 2 a.m.
They proceeded through the west end of Charlestown, now Somerville, and took a road skirting the northern part of Cambridge to Monotony.
2.30 a.m.
And the three Lexington scouts were let loose near the village of Lexington, and the British patrol rode off in haste toward Menetimi.
Revere made his way across a burying ground and some pastures to the Hancock-Clark house to help with the flight of John Hancock and Samuel Adams.
These important patriots were taken first in a chase to the house of Captain James Reed in a part of Woburn.
That is now Burlington, about two miles away, and then a little farther to the home of Madam Jones, a clergyman's widow.
At the latter they were joined later in the morning by Hancock's betrothed, Dorothy Quincy, and his aunt, Mrs. Thomas Hancock, who had also been guests of Reverend Jonas Clark.
The ladies brought with them a fine salmon that Hancock and Adams had forgotten in their hasty departure before sunrise.
The party was about to sit down and make a meal of it when a Lexington farmer rushed in with a false rumor that the British were coming.
They continued their flight and finally sat down to a repast of cold salt pork and potatoes served on a wooden tray at Amos Wyman's in Bellarica, a distance of more than four miles from the Lexington parsonage they had left earlier in the day.
3 a.m.
The British expedition arrived in Menotomy, where the three members of the Committee of Safety from Marblehead, Colonel Jeremiah Lee, Colonel Azor Orney, and Eldridge Elbridge, that's Elbridge Gary, later signer of the Declaration of Independence and Vice President of the United States, were spending the night at the Black Horse Tavern following a session of the committee.
As the troops marched by, Geary and his associates arose from their beds to gaze on the unwanted spectacle, and upon the approach of an officer and file of soldiers to search the house, fled out the back door in their nightclothes and hid in a field of corn stubble.
General Gage, pondering the failure to keep the expedition a secret, ordered Lord Percy to start out from Boston via Ruxbury at this hour with a relief force of 1,000 men.
Blunders in relaying the orders to Percy delayed his start by five hours.
Colonel James Barrett of the Concord Militia, after answering the first alarm, returned to his farmhouse.
Two miles west of the center of town, where some of the military supplies were still stored, and much work remained to be done at daybreak to place them beyond the reach of the British.
Musket balls, flints, and cartridges were put into barrels in the attic, and covered with feathers and kegs of powder were hauled into the woods behind the house and hidden.
A plow and yoke of oxen were gotten out, and the barrels of light cannon and muskets were covered by laying them down in furrows turned up in an adjoining field.
It has been asserted that the plowman was still at work when the British came in sight around 8.30 a.m.
4.30 a.m.
Thaddeus Bowman, the last of four scouts sent down the road from Lexington toward Monodomy, Arlington, To find out how near the British were, returned with the news they were less than half a mile away.
The three other scouts had been taken by a small guard of British flankers sent out ahead of Pictairn's companies of light infantry.
The drum was beat, and the Minutemen reassembled on Lexington Green.
Finally, 77 men of Captain Parker's company were lined up in a double row on the triangle
formed by the Green to await the arrival of the British.
Music playing.
Now ladies and gentlemen, this is where I have to pause and...
pause and...
Let me explain a few things to a few people.
There are those in this nation today who would have called those brave men fools.
Seventy-seven farmers, boys, shopkeepers, tavern owners, none of them schooled in the art of military maneuver.
Seventy-seven only to face the might of the greatest army that ever existed upon the face of the earth.
An army that had conquered most of the known world.
An army that represented, in fact, not a kingdom, but an empire.
An army made up of veterans of many wars in many places.
Troops drilled, trained, who had stood the test of battle, and these seventy-seven men of humble origin, who valued freedom more than their lives, formed up on the green at Lexington to face An army that they knew they could not defeat or stop.
Every man, every boy knew that.
There are those in this nation today who tell me and others who are taking the same stand that those seventy-seven men took back then.
They tell us that we're fools, that it's not worth it That we should not risk our lives.
They would have told those men the same things, would have tried to convince them to go home, would have told them that it is more important to be with your family than to stand on this green and risk certain death.
But those men knew something, that all of these people who repeat this foolish message have never learned in their lives.
if you are not free you cannot have your family you cannot have your religion you
cannot have the safety and security of your home freedom is the most valuable
possession that any man or woman can ever have
of.
Freedom is the ultimate achievement of all humankind, and until this nation was created, no people in this world, ever in the history of the world, had ever possessed it, not even for a second.
The men who assembled on Lexington Green understood that you cannot be free, you cannot have freedom, You cannot have safety and security for your family, for your children, and their children, and their children, what they call their prosperity, unless you are willing to die for it.
They set the example for all of us.
And that's the reason you're listening to this broadcast tonight.
That's the reason I'm delivering this history to you, because most Americans have forgotten it or never knew it to begin with.
If those 77 men had not stood on the green at Lexington, we most probably would not be here today.
This history of our country, the glorious history of the United States of America, would never have materialized.
Most of our ancestors would have been in different places at different times, would have married different people,
and most of us today probably would not even exist.
And we certainly would never have had the opportunities or the freedom throughout the history of this nation that these brave men gave to us.
Can you imagine How much courage it took to run out, poorly equipped, poorly trained, if they had any training at all, with a musket, a few lead balls, a flask of powder, to stand and face the greatest, most experienced, most well-trained army that existed in the world at that time.
There are people who tell us today that the odds we face are insurmountable.
That we will be chased and hunted down by the most powerful army on the face of the earth today!
And yet we know in our hearts that we can beat them because we are willing to die for freedom.
No one is willing to die for the United Nations.
No one.
In the words of a later historian, deeply infused with a sense of the significance of
what those seventy-seven men did, he said, and I quote, They stood there, not merely as soldiers, but as citizens,
nay, almost as statesmen, having the destiny of the country in their hands. End quote.
End quote.
Oscars, Grampian Awards, and many other honors.
This is the first of many awards that will be presented to the Grampians.
Here's to the Grampians!
Descending from the burying ground...
Smith ordered six companies of Light Infantry and then a seventh to proceed to the North Bridge.
There they divided into two parties.
Three companies under Captain Walter Lorry of the 43rd Regiment remained to guard the bridge.
Well, let me back up a little bit here, folks, so I get ahead of it.
Paul Revere and a clerk went to the Buckman Tavern to remove a trunk of papers that belonged to John Hancock.
Before they left, daylight was breaking, and they were able to see the column of the British Light Infantry marching up the road to Lexington Green.
5 a.m.
Major Pitcairn saw the Minutemen drawn up to oppose him.
and formed his men into line of battle.
Captain Parker then gave his famous order to his company.
Stand your ground!
Don't fire unless fired upon!
But if they mean to have a war, let it begin here!
Whereupon Pitcairn rode to the front of his ranks and shouted to the men in Parker's lines, Lay down your arms, you damned rebels, and disperse!
Realizing at last how badly he was outnumbered and how futile his situation was, Parker ordered his men to file away, but not before a single shot rang out and a volley from a British platoon.
Another volley followed, and with bayonets leveled, the Redcoats charged.
Eight men were killed and ten more wounded were able to get away with their fleeing comrades.
The first American blood had been fatally shed.
When those men saw the British charge, after the first shots rang out, they stood their
ground and shot back at the British.
Bye.
Jonathan Harrington, Jr., mortally wounded, was able to drag himself to the door of his house, opposite the northwest corner of the Green, where he died at his wife's feet.
Even more heroic in death was the brave Jonas Parker.
Cousin of the captain who had fired once and yet stood his ground, though wounded by a bullet, and sinking to his knees.
He was trying to reload with bullets, wadding and flints in his hat tossed at his feet when finally cut down by a bayonet thrust.
The main body of the British soon came upon the green.
A cheer rose in token of the victory, and the music struck up as the troops started down the road for Concord.
Any illusion as to the secrecy of their mission was now completely gone.
The bodies of the Eight-Minute Men who gave their lives were placed in a tomb in 1835 behind the monument that was erected on Lexington Green in 1799.
The Jonathan Harrington House still stands and is suitably marked.
The two companies of Lincoln Militia Which had assembled as a result of the alarm spread by Nathaniel Baker and Captain William Smith arrived at Concord.
The Acton Minutemen, either accompanied or soon followed by the nine men from Groton, came from the opposite direction.
The Bedford militia also got there in time to face the British.
A rumor of fatalities at Lexington brought by the men from Lincoln was supported by Reuben Brown of Concord, who had viewed the engagement at Lexington Green and galloped home to report.
An array of about one hundred and fifty men from the companies gathered at Concord marched down the road toward Lexington.
After a mile or mile and a half, they saw the British coming.
As the Minutemen readily observed, the regulars had a force three or more times their numbers.
They prudently turned around and marched back into town ahead of the Redcoats and to the grand music of fife and drum.
7 A.M.
The British approached the center of Concord, observing that some of the Minutemen had taken up a position on a ridge to the right, overlooking the road and the town.
Lieutenant Colonel Smith, the British commander, ordered the Light Infantry out as flankers to clear the ridge while the grenadiers kept to the road.
As the Light Infantry ascended the height in one line, the Minutemen retired without firing onto a second ridge, now known as Ripley Hill, half a mile north of the center and nearly opposite the north bridge that crossed the Concord River.
A Liberty Pole with a flag flying stood near the west end of the first ridge.
After cutting down the pole, the light infantry came off the ridge and halted in the center of town.
Colonel Smith and Major Pitcairn climbed to a cemetery near the site of the Liberty Pole and, through telescopes, stared at the surrounding countryside from among the gravestones, as Smith later reported To General Gage, he very likely saw at this time vast numbers assembling in many parts.
And that's all you're going to hear for tonight, folks.
Tomorrow, the Battle of Concord Bridge and the beginning of the greatest nation that ever existed in the history of humanity that for the first time gave the common man and woman freedom They've never had it in the history of the world.
Made them, in fact, sovereign kings in their own right, and created a government which was meant to serve them.
As we all have observed, that government has been subverted, has been turned against us,
has become a tyrant, and instead of serving us, is now bent upon oppression and enslavement
once again of the human race.
Good night.
Don't miss tomorrow night's broadcast.
God bless each and every single one of you, and may God bless and preserve this republic.
Good night, Annie Poon Allison.
I love you.
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Ladies and gentlemen, soon the minute men in the militia companies will be needed again.
Seek out and join a militia.
And if you cannot find one, form one.
Form one.
Train.
Become ready for the battle that is to come.
And if you think the militia is unlawful, if you've been listening to the communist news networks, the Marxists and Socialist liars in government, Read your own constitutions.
Read your own law.
Most of you will discover that without your knowledge, you are already by law members of the unorganized militia of your state and of the United States of America.
You're listening to the most dangerous radio host in America.
Now you know why.
Oh, and if you're sitting around wondering why, well, I'm going to tell you why.
And if you're sitting around whining and complaining that you're just one lonely, helpless person
and you don't have any money and you've got to take care of your family and you've got
bills to pay and all that kind of stuff.
Hey, hey dummy.
Hey dummy.
What do you think I am?
I'm just one lonely individual and I mean really lonely.
I had to send my family out of the country to save them.
I don't have any money.
Then I got bills to pay, let me tell you.
One of which is a very expensive bill to WBC2 for the international airing of this broadcast.
So stop whining, stop bellyaching, get off your dead ass, and become somebody.
A real American, maybe.
You can do it.
I know you can do it because I did it, and I know better than any of you.
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