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On January 18th, 1775, General Thomas Gage, military governor and commander of the British troops in Boston wrote to Lord Dartmouth regarding the situation in the Massachusetts colony: “The Eyes of all are turned upon Great Britain, waiting for her Determination; and it’s the opinion of most People, if a respectable Force is seen in the Field, the most obnoxious of the Leaders seized, and a Pardon proclaimed for all other’s, that Government will come off Victorious, and with less Opposition than was expected a few Months ago.”1 Gage began preparations, continuing with the seizure of munitions and gathering information about the rebel opposition while awaiting response from Great Britain. On February 26, 1775, Gage ordered a company of soldiers under the leadership of Colonel Leslie to seize materials stored in Salem. The British were confronted by local militia, and a conflict was narrowly avoided. The alarm, however, provided an exercise for local militia that would be repeated less than two months later.2
Beginning in late February, 1775, General Gage ordered a small group of soldiers to begin gathering information throughout the colony. Historian Frank Coburn describes their covert mission: “Gen. Gage’s instructions to them, under date of February 22, 1775, called for description of the roads, rivers, and hills; available places for encampments; whether or not the churches and church yards were advantageous spots to take post in and capable of being made defensible.”3 Through these scouts, Gage gained the information he had waited for regarding the proper demonstration of force and the potential capture of opposition leaders. The Provincial Congress had been gathering in Concord, where local militias were also stocking supplies. The site was secured and the plan was established: the British would march on Concord.
The route of the British expedition to Concord is marked in red on the map above.
Francis Smith, Lieutenant Colonel of the 10th Regiment of Foot.
At approximately eight o’clock on the evening of April 18, the British Grenadier and Light Infantry companies received orders to report for duty with provisions for one day.4 Led by Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith and Marine Major John Pitcairn, approximately 600 soldiers began a quiet march towards Concord at ten o’clock that evening. Crossing the Charles River in boats and eventually wading through the marshes, the British marched through Cambridge and on towards Menotomy. It was approximately two o’clock in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775 when the British troops crossed Menotomy River (now known as Alewife Brook) and entered the village. Two tall elms marked the entrance to the village on the east end of the Concord Road, now known as Massachusetts Avenue. Though they took all precautions to remain unnoticed, word had already begun to spread across the colony and had awoken the residents of Menotomy. After passing through the elmed archway of the village, the soldiers marching would awaken one resident in particular who would become a formidable foe later in the day- Samuel Whittemore.
Image Sources
Image Sources
Header Background Image and quote background image:
Photograph. Arlington Historical Society. https://arlingtonhistorical.org/arbor-day-2020-special/.
Map:
National Park Service, Routes of the British Expedition and the Patriot Messengers. Map. Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Concord_Expedition_and_Patriot_Messengers.jpg
Francis Smith Image:
Francis Cotes, Francis Smith in 1763, 1763. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Smith_%28British_Army_officer%29#/media/File:Francis_Smith.jpeg
Footnotes
Footnotes
1. Thomas Gage to Lord Dartmouth, January 18, 1775, in The Correspondence of General Gage With the Secretaries of State 1763-1775: Volume One, ed. Clarence Edwin Carter (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1931), 390. The Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/correspondenceof0000comp.
2. Richard Frothingham, Jr., History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill (Boston, MA: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1851), 47-48.
3. Frank Warren Coburn, The Battle of April 19, 1775 in Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Arlington, Cambridge, Somerville and Charlestown, Massachusetts (Lexington, MA: Frank Warren Coburn, 1912), 16.
4. Frederick Mackenzie, A British Fusilier in Revolutionary Boston, ed. Allen French (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 50.
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