I love history firsts. The American Revolutionary War began on April 19, 1775, at the Battle of Lexington and Concord. This was the sharp beginning of America on its road to independence from Great Britain and the Great Experiment in democracy and liberty. It is still a work in progress, and we are going through challenging times now, but I take a long view and see it as a remarkable success.
Even to this day, residents of Lexington say the war started on their village common, while Concord argues that it really started at the Old North Bridge. Clearly, the first action started around sunrise on April 19 at the Lexington Common. But Concord residents say that the first battle, where the two sides fought each other, occurred at Concord. The Lexington militiamen, they claim dismissively, did not fight back.
At the first Centennial in 1875, then President Ulysses S. Grant said that the two towns would have to work it out as he was only going to visit one place in the area on April 19 of that year. But the towns could never reach a compromise, so Grant had two sumptuous meals on the day of the Centennial, one at Lexington and the other at Concord.
I decided I would attend the Lexington reenactment. The fifty-year anniversary will only happen twice in my lifetime. The first time, on April 19, 1975, when I was sixteen years old, I was in a hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, recovering from knee surgery after a basketball injury. On my small black-and-white television, I saw the soldiers firing their muskets from the Old North Bridge and I promised myself I would make the 250th anniversary celebration. Promise kept. (OK, I wasn’t quite that mature at that age to have made such an impressive promise, but the feeling was there.)
Another Revolutionary War enthusiast and history writer, Rob Orrison, was going with some of his Emerging Revolutionary War friends and he had attended the reenactment in prior years. He recommended that if I wanted to get a good view of the reenactment that I arrive at Lexington Common no later than 3:15 a.m. He said that according to some affidavits taken of Lexington residents shortly after the battle, the British had first showed up at the common thirty minutes before sunrise. That would make it about 5:25 a.m. I took his advice.
I drove up from my house in Kensington, Maryland, to my second home in West Kingston, Rhode Island, on Thursday, April 17. The next early evening I drove to the Best Western Hotel at Waltham, Massachusetts, about a twelve-minute drive to Lexington. After I checked into the hotel, had a quick dinner there, and waited until after 8:30 p.m., I drove over to Lexington. Because road closures in the area were instituted at 8:30 p.m. that evening, I wanted to do a test drive to make sure I would avoid them the next morning. I wanted to see where the parking lots were within walking distance of the Lexington village If that did not work out, my backup plan was to use the satellite car park, which was a five-minute drive outside of the village. I arrived in Lexington at the designated parking lots, but there were not many spaces available. Then I drove to the satellite parking area.
I had a beer for dinner and after that, only a few sips of water. I would have no coffee or other liquid the next morning until after the reenactment on Lexington Common. I did not want to risk losing my place or missing any action due to my having to go a port-a-john. Fortunately, the tactic worked.
At the sound of my iPhone alarm in my hotel room at 2 a.m., I got out of bed and showered. For clothing, I dressed in a (mostly) colonial outfit. I figured, why not? I had acquired a decent white fringed hunting frock, and from fifty years ago when I was a teenaged reenactor on the Arnold Expedition to Quebec (from Maine to Quebec), I had a tricornered hat, a billowing white colonial shirt (OK, I could no longer button the third button at the neck), a cartridge box that my father had made, and two hunting bags to strap across my shoulders. I had ordered some breeches from a reenactor supplier, but it did not work out, so I did the best I could with brown slacks. I wore old, scuffed up shoes. I left my tomahawk and musket at home. Only other reenactors could tell I was not legit. In fact, during the day four people asked me to have my photo taken with them and I received lots of smiles from people who assumed I was a reenactor. (I also received a few smirks from British reenactors, but I anticipated that.)
Driving towards Lexington at 2:40 a.m., at the last minute, I decided to drive to the parking lot just outside Lexington to see if there were any parking spots still available. The drive over was happily uneventful, but when I arrived just before 3 a.m., the last of the designated parking spots was taken. In a panic, I decided to park my car next door at a parking lot for a multifamily apartment building. I figured no one was going to have me towed on this special day, and I was right.
It can be quite cold in Massachusetts in April and snow is not uncommon. The night before was a bit chilly and windy. But amazingly, it was warm at 3 a.m. on April 19. In preparation for cool weather, I dressed in a long-sleeve undershirt. After parking my car and exiting into the warm air, I decided to strip off my hunting frock and white shirt and remove my undershirt. It was dark outside, so no one seemed to see or mind.
I walked in the direction where everyone else was walking. On the way, I arrived at a church that was the gathering point for the British army reenactors. Don N. Hagist, editor of the Journal of the American Revolution and historian of British soldiers in the Revolutionary War, said he would be a reenactor in the British 22nd Regiment and was required to appear at the church at 2 a.m. I did not see him, so I carried on to Lexington Common (aka, the Lexington Battle Green, or the Green).
When I arrived, I was at the top of the Green, at its northwest corner. The famous statue of the Minuteman stood at the opposite end of the Green about eighty yards from me. I was on the side of the green opposite the famous Buckman Tavern. Walking areas were fenced off, so I could not go to the other side of the Green. I did not want to risk losing a decent place to see the reenactment by spending time walking closer to the Minuteman statue, not knowing if more areas were fenced off. So, I decided to stay put.
When I arrived, at 3:35 a.m., I was in the third row of the crowd. There were hundreds of other people around me who had arrived before I had. In the first row, a group of youngsters still slumbering in their sleeping bags had arrived prior to midnight. At its height, I estimate the crowd was about 5,000.
I was on a slight rise, and I had an unobstructed view of Buckman Tavern and the green space next to it. I was at the other end of the green from where a lot of the action would occur, but as it turned out, some hot action took place near me too.
I met a few people around me. After all, we had at least two hours to go in the dark. One man hailed from Austin, Texas, another came from a small town in Wisconsin, another drove over from Long Island, and another was from New Jersey. I met a California couple who decided to make the 250 celebration the centerpiece of their trip to the East Coast. We all had one thing in common believing that it was worth the effort and sacrifice to witness this 250th celebration.
The people on the organizing committee that put on the Lexington reenactment do a magnificent job and have it down to a tee. They have done this many times before and know what works. They start by trying to keep close to the actual timing of the events.
I think it was around 3:45 a.m. when the lights at Buckman Tavern came on. Then a few militiamen began to stroll onto the Green. A man on horseback was sent out by Captain John Parker, the commander of the Lexington militia, to find out where the British “Regulars” were (that is, the “Redcoats,” the British soldiers). Parker had received a report that the “Regulars were out” that night from Cambridge.
The statue on Lexington Battle Green is of a minuteman but Lexington did not have any that day. A minuteman was paid a small salary by the town and spent a fair amount of time drilling. Lexington was too cheap to pay the salaries, so it relied on militiamen, who were unpaid and did not spend a lot of time drilling. They were required, however, to have a musket and other military equipment and to show up when called out. That took courage, considering that most had never fought in a battle.
The outfits on this day donned by the Lexington militiamen reenactors were exquisite. They cost more than $2,000 each and each man spent more than $1,000 in addition when the musket and all the other equipment he took with him are considered. The elegant outfits would have been worn in the eighteenth century by wealthy Boston merchants or successful lawyers, not humble farmers who mostly lived in and around Lexington. The Lexington farmers who showed up on the Green that morning would have had multiple layers of non-matching clothes topped by a floppy hat. Still, the outfits the militia reenactors wore on the Green looked great.
One of the men I was standing next to said that he had talked with several of the militia reenactors the prior night, at a reenactment of the appearances on horseback of Paul Revere and William Dawes at the Hancock-Clark House, just a short walk from Lexington Common. Many of the reenactors had been doing it for thirty or forty years. They take their roles seriously, which is important and helps keep the spirit of ’76 (well, ’75) alive.
The reenactors for the British army are known to be sticklers for accuracy in their dress and in the equipment they carry. They make sure, for example, that the buttons they use are of the same material used in 1775. They also do a fantastic job marching and handling their muskets in unison. They would conduct themselves marvelously this day.
Around 4:30 a.m. about fifteen women dressed in flowing colonial dresses and hoods made their appearances on the Green. They were there, according to the announcer on a speaker system set up for the occasion, to see their husbands, sons, and brothers. This did not happen 250 years ago, but it was a way for the modern women of the village to participate in the reenactment. It was also a reminder of the women’s sacrifices on this day, as many took the lead in evacuating their houses and fleeing into the woods with their families and a few valuables. Nothing else was going on at the time, so it was a good distraction while the crowd waited. Rob Orrison later informed me that this was the first time the organizers included these women in the reenactment.
At about 5 a.m., the female reenactors began to depart the Green. Of course, they would not be involved in the violence that was about to occur at the Green. This was helpful to me at the other two reenactments I saw that day: when the women dressed in colonial garb left the field, I know that battlefield action was coming soon.
At about 5:00 a.m., the rider on horseback returned to Buckman Tavern with stunning news. About 1,200 “Regulars” were on the march from Boston and they were approaching the Lexington Green.
Lexington militia gathering at Buckman Tavern, 5:17 am. Sunrise is about 5:54 a.m. (Christian McBurney)
Captain John Parker called out the militia. A bell was rung at the nearby Belfry to alert the villagers and farmers in the surrounding area. As was the case back then, the bell was not too loud, so some militiamen did not hear it and never came back to the Green. But some others did, and others came from drinking at Buckman Tavern. About sixty militiamen gathered on the Green.
Parker then ordered his men to line up on the Green and issued more orders. We in the crowd could hear Parker because he had a mike strapped to him and it was turned on at the key times. The sound system was good.
Why Parker had his men line up on the Green has never been explained. He clearly lacked enough men to stop the British column from marching on to Concord. Everyone knew that Concord was the destination of the British column, as brass cannon stolen from the British were stored there, as well as gunpowder and other military supplies. So, what Parker intended to accomplish by calling out the militia onto the Green and annoying a larger British force was not clear. (Rob Orrison believes Parker wanted to observe the Regulars and to keep them “honest.” He points out that something similar happened in Salem in February 1775 and at the Powder Alarm in September 1774.)
Suddenly, the front of the British column could be seen marching up modern Massachusetts Avenue and entering the southern part of the Green! Captain Parker began encouraging his men, calling some by their full names. Several of them would be killed within minutes, including his brother, Jonas Parker; Prince Estabrook, an enslaved man carrying a musket, would be wounded.
The British force easily outnumbered the militiamen. Parker, now realizing the danger posed, told his men, “Let the troops pass by, and don’t molest them” unless they fired first.
View of the crowd at the northwest part of Lexington Common, 6:05 a.m. Many have been waiting since 3 a.m. or even before (Christian McBurney)
The Regulars are approaching the southern part of Lexington Common, 6:07 a.m.! Note the large man in the orange jacket (Christian McBurney)
British Grenadiers wearing bearskin caps, from the 10th Regiment of Foot, approach Lexington militia, 6:12 a.m. The tension builds (Christian McBurney)
British grenadiers, leading the column of Regulars, marched up to the militiamen and halted in an impressive line. They presented their muskets with bayonets pointing at the militiamen with a hearty yell. A British officer screamed at the assembled militiamen, which could be heard over the sound system: “Lay down your arms” and “Disperse ye damn rebels!” Parker ordered his men to leave the field: “Quit the Field! Quit the Field!” Many do, with their backs turned walking away from the Regulars, but taking their muskets with them. Then a shot is fired.
Who fired the first shot is still unknown to this day. Depositions taken of Lexington participants shortly after the incident at the Green claim that the first shot was fired by a British officer on horseback firing his pistol. Most historians believe it was a Lexington man, but one off to the side behind a stonewall near Buckman Tavern and not one of the militiamen. A Lexington civilian, Solomon Brown, later claimed credit. He was in the area where the first shot was fired, and he had a motive: the day before he had been caught and roughed up by a British scouting party. Massachusetts American Revolution historian J. L. Bell was quoted about Brown in an April 19 Washington Post article, “It’s not that I think he is definitely the man who fired first. But if I could go back in time, he’s the first person on my list I would want to interrogate.”
After the first shot is heard, chaos ensued on the Green. The British fired two volleys. Then they charged the stunned militiamen with bayonets at the charge position. A few militiamen fired back, but most ran away in panic to the north, leaving the Green. The Grenadiers lost control of their anger, acting more like an enraged mob. Finally, British officers got their men back under control and marched them back to their original positions near Buckman Tavern. Rob Orrison and I agree that the action is brilliantly done, especially the chaos that briefly reigned.
After a shot is fired, British soldiers, without orders, fire on the Lexington militiamen. The shooter here is from the light infantry company in the 5th Regiment of Foot. (All references in the captions are to the names of the reenactment military units, which Don N. Hagist provided). (Christian McBurney)
British soldiers, without orders, charge the Lexington militia and act like an out-of-control mob. Most of the attackers are from the Grenadier Company of the 10th Regiment of Foot. They do a great job showing the chaos on the Green (Christian McBurney)
I did not see it live, as my view of some of the action was blocked, but later that day on the CBS national nightly newscast, I saw a video of a British soldier stabbing the ground inches from a wounded militiaman on the field. The British soldiers that day did bayonet to death a few of the wounded.
Left on the field were eight dead Lexington militiamen. Ten more were wounded. The announcer said that one British soldier was killed, but that is inaccurate and may have been an inadvertent misstatement. One British officer claimed he was nicked by a musket ball, but I do not believe his self-serving account is credible.
One of eight militiamen dead on Lexington Common, 6:15 a.m. (Christian McBurney)
Each of the British units then marched past us on the north side of the Green. They looked magnificent. The crowd at first boos “the enemy,” but then they break out clapping in appreciation for the fine performances of the British soldiers.
Don N. Hagist of the British 22nd Regiment is one of the marchers. At my request, Don emailed me a few of his recollections for the day. He wrote, “We assembled at 2 a.m., and by about 4 a.m. we were marching along back roads in Lexington to get to the staging area without being seen by spectators. Marching at night is an unusual activity for reenactors.”
Don added that on April 19, 1775, “most of the British column was not involved in the skirmish on Lexington Green. Most soldiers heard the gunfire, then saw the aftermath as they marched past. And that’s exactly what most of us did on the 250th Anniversary. Crossing the Green and seeing the casualties lying still on the ground was striking, making us think of how disturbing it must have been for the soldiers at the time, when there wasn’t supposed to be any war.”
British soldiers march off the green, 6:25 a.m. This is a combined group consisting of battalion company soldiers of the 17th and 47th Regiments of Foot. Some of the reenactors in the later regiment flew from England for this event (Christian McBurney)
Next the surviving militiamen return to the Green. One of my favorite parts of the day occurs. The announcer states over the sound system, “will the dead please rise.” They did! Well, it was the day before Easter.
The militiamen gather in preparation for more action. They would get a good amount of retribution on British troops later in the day, at a location called Parker’s Revenge. But two more Lexington men would be killed in that action. The small village suffered mightily on this day.
The crowd was in a great mood. We received what we came for.
My only complaints are very minor—when I took my photos, in the viewing area near the British soldiers marching onto the green was a large man wearing a bright orange jacket. And near Buckman Tavern was a man wearing a bright yellow jacket. If they were somehow performing a public safety service, perhaps they could have stored their brightly colored jackets in a duffel bag to be removed in the unlikely case that they would be needed.
I decided to leave Lexington Common before the final announcements were made. I wanted to walk back to my car and drive to the Visitor’s Center at Minuteman National Historical Park and then take a shuttle bus to Concord. I left early to avoid the crowds.
On the way, I finally picked up some coffee, made available and served by Lexington locals. Walking through the British soldiers gathered at the church, I met Nick Johnson, a young and handsome African American drummer. He had just marched with the British on Lexington Green and would join them on the march from Concord back to Lexington. I saw him at one point in the afternoon, resting and tired on this warm day after being harried by militiamen firing from behind stonewalls and trees. But a bit more than an hour after I met him, I saw him marching in the Parade at Concord, with a fierce and determined look in his eyes, drumming for the Middlesex County Volunteers fife and drum corps. He was awesome.
I drove to Minute Man National Historical Park Visitor’s Center and was directed to park a half mile away from the visitor’s center. From there, I caught a shuttle bus to Concord, in time for the big parade in this lovely, quaint, and historic Massachusetts town. I had a great idea. I walked to the Colonial Inn on Monument Square. Nine months previously, when I was touring the town with friends, I jokingly asked if the inn had any rooms available on April 18 and 19 and I asked the cost. The response was a decided laugh and a no, and the cost was something like $550 per room per night. But on this day, the inn was serving a buffet breakfast for $20, and I could eat it on the porch, sitting down at a table overlooking the parade. Wonderful!
The author stands on the porch of the Colonial Inn at Monument Square ready for the Concord Parade’s vanguard to appear (Christian McBurney)
The parade was good, but not as large as I thought it would be. It had a few militia units and bands and horsedrawn carriages. The highlight, other than the Middlesex County Volunteers fife and drum corps, was the University of Massachusetts marching band. There were also two other impressive outfits, the New England Brigade, a Civil War Union group, marching with bayonets affixed to their guns; and the Concord Independent Battery, one of the oldest horse-drawn artillery units in the country.
The marchers and hundreds from the crowd made their way past me for the forty-minute walk to the Old North Bridge. I decided not to join them. No reenactment was occurring there this year. (Rob Orrison informed me that in prior years reenactments have been held there, but the decision was made this year to hold it at Hartwell Tavern given the logistics and the anticipated large crowds, which I think was a good decision.) Most of the time would be spent in crowded conditions listening to speeches by politicians. I would miss the Concord Minutemen firing their muskets on the Old North Bridge, but I did not regret my decision. I did see some of the speeches on a television at the Concord Visitor’s Center. Earlier in the day, at dawn, a remembrance ceremony was held at the bridge.
Massachusetts governor Maury Healey speaks at the Old North Bridge, 9:57 a.m. (Christian McBurney, photograph of television feed)
After a twenty-minute wait, I was lucky to get on a shuttle bus back towards Lexington. Again, because I was a single, I was able to get on the bus, though it would be the last one I would take that day. Unfortunately, in my experience and those of others, there were not enough shuttle buses, and the drivers did not stop at the front of the lines. My goal was to witness the reenactment at Hartwell Tavern.
The reenactment was on a field about a mile from the tavern. The National Park Rangers kept the audience more than one hundred yards from the action. The rangers carried pistols in holsters, the first time I had seen that.
There was a one-hour delay. I hate it when a battle is not on time! I stood waiting there for one and one-half hours. Then the women in flowing dresses left the area and the action soon commenced. At first, we could only hear volleys fired from a distance. Then we saw puffs of smoke in woods across from us—militiamen were firing from behind trees. Finally, the British column appeared. They fired their volleys and performed examples of a flank guard moving off to the sides to clear the area. The rear guard protected against attacks by the militiamen as other soldiers proceeded on their march back towards Lexington.
Action on Battle Road near Hartwell Tavern. A British unit on the left leaves its post after acting as the rear guard. The British unit to its right assumes the role of the rear guard, looking out for rebel soldiers. British troops in the background continue on their march toward Lexington (Christian McBurney)
A young British soldier stops before proceeding to the Captain William Smith House, 12:48 p.m. He is a dismounted trooper of the 16th Light Dragoons. Off to the left is part of the Brigade of Guards (Christian McBurney)
British soldiers from the Light Infantry Company in the 10th Regiment are marching towards Lexington (and the camera), while others rest at the Captain William Smith House. The soldiers standing with their backs to the camera are a composite company, consisting of soldiers of the 40th, 27th, and 52nd Regiments (the last regiment was at the actual battle, one of the few this day that were) (Christian McBurney)
I left a bit early to catch a bus to the Visitor’s Center, where another reenactment was scheduled for 1 p.m. After waiting for the bus for twenty minutes, I decided to walk a mile to the Visitor’s Center.
I was glad I did walk because I came across British soldiers marching on the path to the Captain William Smith House, built in 1692, where they gathered and rested. I met a fine young man with the British 17th Dragoons, dismounted, who still looked fresh enough to march back to Cambridge. He told me that he had met four British reenactors earlier in the day who had decided to do the entire march that day. They took a small boat and landed near Cambridge near where the Regulars did early in the morning of April 19, 1775. But these reenactors had their boat flip in shallow water, soaking them. Still, they decided to continue the march—eleven miles to Concord and eleven miles back, for much of the time being chased by militiamen.
Don Hagist later informed me about his role as a British reenactor around this time: “By the time we started the retreat through Minuteman National Historical Park, we had already been awake and active for twelve hours, after only a little bit of sleep the night before (if any) and we were just getting started. Knowing that we hadn’t marched over twenty miles already (after wading through thigh-deep streams at the march’s beginning), as did the soldiers in the British column on April 19, 1775, it gave us some further appreciation for how robust the professional British soldiers were.”
When I finally did reach the Visitor’s Center I was worn out myself. I had been on my feet most of the day since 2:45 a.m. I was able to find a seat in the small theater at the center, which was being used to provide food and water for Park rangers and volunteers.
I forced myself to walk over to the designated area for the next reenactment. Even though it was forty-five minutes after the assigned time for the reenactment, I knew the British were running late. Stands were set up for the large crowd, but I was able to get a front row seat next to the roped-off area. I was glad I did because I took many of my best photos there.
British rear guard fires a volley at oncoming Massachusetts militia and minutemen at Parker’s Revenge near the Visitor’s Center at Minuteman National Historical Park, 2:19 p.m. This is a battalion company of the 33rd Regiment of Foot; these reenactors came from England, California, Colorado, and a few other states for this event (Christian McBurney)
Again, the ladies departed the field and musket fire was heard in the distance. The British first appeared and performed similar tactics to what I had seen near the Hartwell Tavern. After the British left the main field in front of us, the militia appeared, to the applause of the crowd. A fierce battle then ensued, with each side firing numerous volleys.
Massachusetts minutemen fire at the retreating British column at Parker’s Revenge near the Visitor’s Center at Minuteman National Historical Park, 2:19 p.m. (Christian McBurney)
Suddenly, something remarkable occurred. The British were routed and retreated. A large group of British soldiers began running away—albeit in an organized way but definitely in a hurry. This was unusual for two reasons. First, the British rarely ran away during a battle in the American Revolutionary War. And second, the tired reenactors had to muster a tremendous amount of energy to make the sprint, all the while wearing heavy red coats and carrying heavy muskets for much of the day.
The large crowd enjoyed themselves and clapped in appreciation. After returning to the visitor’s center, it was only 3 p.m., but I decided that my day was done. I had another half mile walk to my car and my feet were killing me. But I was a happy camper. It had been a wonderful day.
Next up is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill! The Bunker Hill Monument, located at the top of Breed’s Hill in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston, is too small and urban to host a reenactment. So it will be held at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on June 21 and June 22. The British soldiers are probably looking forward to the August 2026 250th reenactment of the Battle of Brooklyn, when it was the Patriot soldiers who ran away in retreat.
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