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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here for I guess my hundredth Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't, don't. No. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming. Here, give it a try@mintmobile.com switch whenever you're ready.
- [00:23]
Unknown Announcer
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- [00:29]
Unknown Collagen Advertiser
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- [01:34]
Don Wildman
Acast to connect them with their audience. Your brand can speak to your perfect audience too by advertising with Acast. We're home to the biggest names in podcasting, reaching millions of engaged listeners who can only be accessed through acast. From true crime to comedy finance to fitness, your next customer's favorite podcast is an Acast show. Your audience is already here. Speak to them with Acast. Visit go.acast.com ads to get started today. Hello everyone. Don here. Welcome to American history hit. The battles of Lexington and Concord are among the most iconic in American history. Marking the beginning of the Revolutionary War earlier this year, I had the pleasure of joining Matt Lewis, host of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit. Stay tuned as Matt and I explore how these quiet rural villages outside of Boston suddenly became the unlikely setting for the famous shots heard round the world as history was about to change forever. Hope you enjoy.
- [02:52]
Matt Lewis
The peace of the dawn Air is disturbed by the rasp of drums. Their inexorable rhythm is so alien to your rural surroundings that even the pink glow of twilight seems spoiled by the sound. Nearby, you hear the clatter of hooves from a solitary rider. The pace is furious and the heavy panting of the horse is almost as loud as the warning cries from its master. You wonder for how long and how far the poor beast has galloped through the night. Nevertheless, you understand the rider's hurry punctuating the calm morning air. The drums get ever closer. Their snare is unmistakable, and underneath you hear the crunch of marching feet. There can be no doubt what's creating the martial rhythm. As the rider passes each farmhouse, he repeats his warning. From within the wooden buildings, voices rise in response. A tone of panic dominates. Wives wake their husbands, fathers rouse their eldest sons, and the bustle of urgent activity soon joins the muffled cacophony. You recognize the metallic clack of wrought iron and the thud of walnut wood. The tapping of ramrods confirms your suspicions. The residents of this normally quiet town are preparing their firearms. The sound of drums is as clear as the sun above the horizon now, as the warmth of the first light of day creeps across the dewy ground, elongating the shadows of the trees into infinite black chasms. You can almost feel the tremors of hundreds of stamping feet and the rumble of cannon wheels on the road outside town, yet already lining up in well rehearsed formation on the common. Seemingly all the adult men and their barely adult sons of the town are gathered to meet the oncoming force. They don't wear uniforms. They don't have standardized weapons or regulation hairstyles. In fact, there's nothing regular about them at all. They look like nothing more or less than what they are a militia of citizens ready to defend their families. The drums are in the town. The pounding echoes between the houses, and it sounds as if the drums are all around you. You look over your shoulder instinctively, just in case you really are surrounded, but there is nothing. Instead, the real position of the drumming is revealed by the harsh bark of a commanding voice. Forward, the indistinct vocalization that carries the weight of an order that must be followed or discipline will be faced. The militia on the green turn to face the approaching army. Their captain orders them to stand fast, and they obey with nervous determination. When they went to bed last night, they had no idea that they would be so rudely awakened. You fear that most of them won't return to their beds tonight. This small town has never seen anything like this before. But you can see the red jackets and bearskin caps before they come around the corner. The warning cry of the rider resounds in your mind. British soldiers are coming. And today could be a fateful day for more than just the militia on the green. Assassin's Creed 3 gives players a unique chance to take part in the battles of Lexington and Concord and to influence the course of history. But I'd like to know why the British Empire went to war with its own people in these small towns. To help me try to solve this colonial conundrum, I'm joined today by a cousin from across the pond, Don Wildman, the host of the excellent podcast, part of the History hit Family American History Hit. Welcome to Echoes of History. Don, it's fantastic to have you here with us.
- [07:11]
Don Wildman
Oh, I'm really glad to be here. Nice to talk to you.
- [07:13]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, it's great. I don't think we've ever talked before, have we, Don?
- [07:15]
Don Wildman
We have not talked, Matt. They keep us all apart, we podcast hosts. But this is one of my favorite subjects. I am, like all Americans, schooled in the very basics of, of the fundamentals of the American Revolution. And we have a 250th anniversary coming up in 2026, so we're all scurrying and scrambling to understand the subject better.
- [07:39]
Matt Lewis
And that's what we're here to do today. So I'm looking forward to getting underneath the skin of, of kind of why it all kicked off. So we're, we're in 1775. I guess it's fair to say there's a bit of tension in the British colonies. But before we get too far into that, I wondered if you could give us a little bit of. Of context for what's going on. So when we talk about the American colonies, kind of, what are we talking about? How many colonies are there?
- [08:05]
Don Wildman
Well, eventually 13. And at the time of the Lexington and Concord battles, that's indeed what the. How many there are. They all have their own relationships with the mother country, and that was really the point when they were created. You know, you have all of the colonies of, of New England, the states what become the states of New England, which are New Hampshire, not Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York. That's kind of New England at the time. And remember, New England was. I mean, New York was originally Dutch. And so all this has been cobbled together over the past, you know, century, the 1600s and so forth. The mid Atlantic are different. You've got the Pennsylvania, which is really Quakers, Pennsylvania, Maryland, down to Virginia and all the way down to Georgia. Each one of these colonies is set up, you know, kind of autonomously to have its own relationship with the mother country. New England's different. And that's a really fundamental part of this to talk about. New England is really its own world because it has its own relationship to. Based on very different values than otherwise. Remember, this is the Puritan colony. This comes. The pilgrims come in 1620. And over the course of the 1600s, a lot of what, you know, is the general English policy towards all colonies especially affects New England. It is a very autonomous culture, certainly based on its. Its religious values and all the governance that comes from that very strict. But it's also a different kind of mercantile relationship than the other colonies have all the way down into the Caribbean, which are much more plantation Dr. Much more lucrative to England. New New England is a. Much more about the shipping and the export business coming back and forth. It's the closest one to England. And so it has its own sort of relationship. And until 1763, that's a very, very autonomous one. And. And that's kind of where we have the tipping point that leads to Lexington, Concord.
- [09:56]
Matt Lewis
This is quite interesting that all of these colonies are kept kind of separately with their own individual relationships with England and Britain, in the sense that it keeps them from being unified, doesn't it? It keeps them to some extent, all dealing with Britain in a slightly different way, in a slightly different context, and stops them being a united bloc.
- [10:17]
Don Wildman
So what we're talking about when we're leading up to the revolution is a sort of continuum towards tyranny. That's how the colonists see it, because as far as they were concerned, they were English citizens who were running their own world over here in the colonies and for that matter elsewhere in other parts of the world as well, especially in New England, they felt very much on their own, and so they were trusted. The term was salutary neglect, which was said in 1775 by Edmund Burke. This was a sense that the. The Kingdom of England trusted its colonies to work out things on their own. All that changes with the Seven Years War, the French and Indian War, once that war takes place and. And a Huge amount of debt is suddenly saddled by the, by the, by the monarchy. They need to pay this off. And the colonies, especially New England, especially the American colonies, are the source of that income. That's what really changes things. The other aspect of that period is that the king who was in charge for all those previous years, King George II, dies in 1760, and a new king, George III, who we will be burning in effigy very soon, takes over. He's a grandson of George ii and that king has a different idea. He needs to shape things up and pay for the debts that were incurred protecting, as he sees it, these column colonists, the French and Indian war, from the American perspective, has everything to do with setting up the circumstances of taxation without representation and all the changes in laws that start to, you know, create this, what we view as a tyrannical regime overseeing our lives when previously we hadn't had that.
- [11:54]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. So there's an awful lot of change going on. And what is the system of government for the colonies? So we've got the king and parliament in Britain. How do they reach into the colonies?
- [12:06]
Don Wildman
Well, by the time of Lexington Concord, you're talking about the first continental congress, which has met in 1774 in Philadelphia at Carpenter's Hall. That's the result of a whole increasing communication between the colonies that they, previous to all of these acts of parliament and all this tension, hadn't really had. They had had communications, but they really were far apart in those days and didn't really have the ability. It's the emergencies caused by these new acts of parliament in the 17, you know, 50s and 60s that leading up to the 70s that create this need for the, for. For these colonies to communicate. They're called the, the Committee of correspondence. Committees of correspondence. Samuel Adams, figures like him are, are everything to do with sort of tying up these colonies. Another figure who starts to become very important is Paul Revere we will talk about later. He and, and his like are all about communicating between these different governing bodies in these different colonies. So as I say, over time, they end up creating finally a congress that represents all of them, the Continental Congress.
- [13:11]
Matt Lewis
So we're going to talk about Lexington and Concord. Where are they? Whereabouts in the colonies are they located?
- [13:18]
Don Wildman
Well, today we talk about Lexington Concord as suburbs of Boston. They very much are. I mean, people drive in and out of town. It's that close. Of course, in those days they were, you know, they were distant because of the Charles river and Boston harbor and then a good horse's ride from there. But it can Be done in the nighttime, which is what we find out with Paul Revere and William Dawes. It's not that far away. They're directly west. The first one you'll hit is Lexington, and then the second one you'll hit is Concord. But they're very much like all those small communities outside of Boston. These are, you know, agricultural villages in England. It's the same way you have all these farming villages and they all sort of service themselves to a market economy, which is, you know, in the market town. The same thing is true here, where Boston is the centerpiece of all of these different settlements. It's more extensive than you would think. And that's important for people who don't understand early, early America or the colonies. In those days, these villages were way out there. You know, when you hear about the Salem witch trials and so forth, they're way up there in the north. And it's remarkable. Huge distances between these things in those days. Nowadays you can do it in a half an hour.
- [14:26]
Matt Lewis
In Assassin's Creed 3 in Liberation, players are able to ride a horse through Lexington and Concord. You can see all of those towns. Do we have a sense of what they look like? The game tells us there are these big wooden buildings. It's muddy roads. There's big, large, green open spaces. Do we have any concept of what they would have actually looked like in 1775?
- [14:48]
Don Wildman
Yeah, well, these were nice places. I mean, of course they were small places because everything's small in those days. But you have these well built houses by this time. The merchants who've been, you know, working and lawyers and all those sorts of people are. Are living in nice houses on the main street, but that's kind of it. And then beyond that you have farmland. I've been inside these houses and explored inside of them for other shows that I've done. And. And they're well built. Two story houses, House of Seven Gables. These kinds of famous houses that people have heard of in this area are all of that kind of early American style. I guess for the purposes of the game, you'd want to understand that there's a main drag, you know, one street going through that town and then maybe small alleyways off of that, or small little roads off of that. But everything's very, very rural otherwise.
- [15:35]
Matt Lewis
Interesting. So we're talking about a fairly small agricultural community living outside the city of Boston. How do we reach a point where somewhere like Lexington and Concord then becomes a sparking point for a revolution that will kind of redefine an entire nation? What is it about Lexing Concorde that makes everything kick off there?
- [15:57]
Don Wildman
I'm smiling because this is the point where every American either gets on the train or not. There is a tremendous amount of history that leads up to this moment. When we go to school as elementary school students, we learn that taxation without representation led to the shot heard round the world. And the war began and we won, and we were a country. That's kind of how it goes for us. And that's. That's almost understandable, given the fact that when you get into it, the history is very complex, very interesting, but very complex. And it's really 150 years that pressed down on this moment in 1775 when, when these forces meet each other on a bridge in Lexington. I remember when I was a kid, my dad was a historian, and he took me all over the Eastern seaboard, and one of the big ones, of course, was to go to Lexington. And you stand on this rebuilt, built bridge there in the middle of the battlefield where it all happened, and you can't really picture it. It's. It's so small and so sort of minor. And in my case, my father instructed me, well, this is guerrilla tactics. You know, the militia are gathering here. The. The redcoats are coming in, their ranked files, and. And they're walking up this way, and we have the battle. But in fact, that is very much a skirmish, certainly the one in Lexington and then again in Concord, where really this action takes place is in the retreat, so must be considered. But it gets into a very long conversation. What you're asking me about is why here? Why now? What's happening in Lexington? Well, that really dates back to 1774, September of 1774, what is called the powder alarm. Now, at this point, as I've said, a lot is going on that has led to great tensions and friction between England and this colony. The upshot of that is that through these committees of correspondence, malicious have been gathered. It was a law to have a militia, by the way, an English law, because it dates back to the French and Indian War. All these communities had to gather these. It was kind of like having a reserve for the English army, for the British army, for them to call upon when the time was needed. So that idea of organizing into a militia, which eventually in New England becomes the Minutemen, is already a foundation laid. So it's not a far cry for someone to call out and say, hey, we got to get together. Let's get your guns, get your ammunition, let's do this. That's A. A pretty ordinary thing. They've drilled, they've worked this system. They know how to call the alarm and all that stuff, so it doesn't come out of nowhere. So in 1774, a lot of tensions are going on, and they're beginning to realize that there might be some sort of conflict coming down the road. I mean, shots have been fired. We're talking about the Boston Massacre, and things like that have happened in the years prior. So one of the aspects of this is, of this organization is to have a central location where you have your ammunition and your powder. And so this was a very important and protected place. So the British have realized this, and since they've occupied Boston as a result of so much that has gone on over these years, they are sending out patrols to go and locate this stuff and take it home and destroy it. So this happens in 1774, in September, the powder alarm. And it kind of ignites, no pun intended, this. This fire under the forces here. They realize they have to get better at what they're doing. And so the. The communications are made, are ramped up, and the whole system gets more intelligent because of some spying that's going on. And this whole system becomes part of the game that was not being previously played as intensely, and now it is. So they've had this whole experience prior, and they want to protect their powder this time. So when word comes through the intelligence networks. By the way, Thomas Gage is the military governor of Boston sent by the monarchy in 1774. His wife is American. She was born in New Jersey. What becomes New Jersey. And she has a fondness for this cause. And word is. I mean, this is a rumor even today that she may have been in touch with the. The Boston intelligence network. Specifically Joseph Warren, who becomes very important in the story that these things were happening. So they may have had warning through the wife of the governor.
- [20:20]
Matt Lewis
I think it's interesting to have all of this idea of a century and a half of tension going on underneath the surface that is building towards this, because there's a danger of seeing it as, you know, kind of random flashpoint that comes out of nothing, and all of a sudden there's a revolution. But we're talking about something that has been brewing and building for a long, long time before it sparks off at Lexington and Concord.
- [20:45]
Don Wildman
Anybody who wants to look for this information, it's all over the place. I mean, there are lists everywhere about, you know, 10 causes of the American Revolution. Just read them for a very pithy example of what I'm about To blabber about, let's take, let's jump in anywhere. You know, 1773, most famously the Boston Tea Party that is in response to the Tea act, to the tax put on tea. It was also response to various problems that were going on with the ships there and so forth. And, and so it was a cue for the Provincial Congress, I believe they're called in in Boston, headed up by John Hancock to do something about this. Sam Adams also has a lot to do with this. And they dumped the tea in basic American history that is sort of sticks out as the flash, another flashpoint and the cause of things. But you have to understand that that has its own cause. And so there are all these other acts dating back into the 1600s which is so interesting to me. You know, as a result of having the sprawled out empire, the Great Britain has to have a whole kind of economic approach to managing this thing. They're the first empire to really deal on a worldwide basis with a shipping industry. And so they have laws that make it certain that they will get paid by these ships that are coming back. Exports that are sent to Great Britain have to come in on British ships. And all of these things are sort of developed as policies over the 1600s which are fascinating. The Navigation Acts they're called. And a quick check on any of this will give you all the information you need to know. But you'll see them layered and layered up over the period of. From probably 1660, which is all the way through to 1763. There is what's called the Declaratory Act, 1766. So here we are 10 years before Lexington Concord. The Declaratory act is really important. And that's where Parliament says to all the colonies, we're in charge, we'll tell you what to do. You are under our thumbs. And that's the complete change from what was before, which was this salutary neglect that took place. You know, we learned taxation without representation, but all these other terms are as pithy as that and make it easy to understand that there was a process going on here and the result would be the friction that would eventually end in gunfire. I'll be right back after this short break. Meantime, if you'd like us to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas of subject matter we should be looking at, send us an email@ahhistoryhit.com we'd love to hear from you.
- [23:22]
Matt Lewis
I'm Matt Lewis.
- [23:23]
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And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaaniga. And in Gone Medieval we get into the greatest mysteries.
- [23:28]
Matt Lewis
The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, kings and Popes who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by.
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- [23:46]
Matt Lewis
Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [23:52]
Ryan Reynolds
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a.
- [24:03]
Don Wildman
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- [24:09]
Matt Lewis
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Don Wildman
Sold.
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Ryan Reynolds
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Unknown Announcer
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- [24:22]
Unknown Collagen Advertiser
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- [25:28]
Matt Lewis
So what we're seeing really is a gradual change in the relationship between Britain and the colonies that is causing an increasing amount of tension and at some point is going to boil over.
- [25:41]
Don Wildman
Exactly. And, and it, it's several points. You know, it's the Boston Massacre, which is a result of the, the occupation of Boston and all the quartering of of troops that are throughout that place. And you know, you can understand Boston itself is a small town. Even today I say as a New Yorker, as a snobby New Yorker, Boston's a pretty small geographical area and so in those days a very small place. And so you suddenly have these kind of worldwide events happening within these streets. That is amazing. And people are dealing with a whole new population of thousands of British troops that have come into town and are all living everywhere around town. These red coated guys are running the place and it's an occupation, you know, so tensions are really high within Boston. Never mind all the, you know, seditious people outside of town meeting in, in their pubs and so forth. It's really a 10 year period that really starts with the declaratory act back in the 60s.
- [26:41]
Matt Lewis
So is it that moment, that building tension and that increasing difficulty and this higher presence of the British army that explains maybe why this is the flashpoint that you've got redcoats there and you've got people who are feeling the oppression increasingly and it becomes a literal powder keg as well as the powder keg they're looking for?
- [27:00]
Don Wildman
Yeah, I mean it's, it's not even a metaphor that really is the problem. There's powder and, and, but you mentioned something very important that's, that's a critical backdrop to all of this. The British have occupied Boston, which is a very small city. I mean, it's small today compared to New York. You know, it's, it's a small geographical area. It's just kind of a peninsula into the Boston harbor. Into that you throw, I think some 7,000 British troops eventually are occupying Boston during this period of time. That's an extraordinary balance that's been tipped over and it leads to things like the Boston Massacre and, and friction points all over the place, fights. And you know, we probably aren't even aware of how much friction there really was because it just happened every day, I imagine. But it most famously happens with the Boston Massacre in 1770 and then all the things that happens since then. But yeah, this is a time of great tension and enormous suspicions have been confirmed. The British monarchy is against us. We are under their thumb. This is evidence of tyranny. A complete change of the relationship that, that we were our generation, you know, generations of American colonists had been used to. That's a really important fact to really consider. This is a long time that these people have been living under and with an understanding of this relationship in an entirely different paradigm, it's within a short period of time, relatively speaking, of, you know, since the end of the French and Indian war in the 1760s that things begin to change a lot and then ramp up as we get into the 70 70s.
- [28:38]
Matt Lewis
So before we get to the main event of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, could you talk us through some of the key people who are involved, who is around the area at this time and who will be the key players in the conflict?
- [28:53]
Don Wildman
It. Well, there's three very famous names that come down to us as, as lore really, which is to say Sam Adams, who's a critically important person and all that. He's really the, the, the rabble rouser of, of the group. He helps create the committees of correspondence. As I mentioned before. They, they are the ones that start communicating more frequently. And John Hancock is a very, very rich merchant in that area. He's the head of the Provincial Congress there. He's the one who really sitting in the chair for the Boston Tea Party. Joseph Warren is a very famous name because he was kind of the head of an, of an intelligence network in town. He's the one that hangs the lanterns in the Old North Church. One if by land, two if by sea, all of that. There's a long list of names that have to do with the Provincial Congress which has been dissolved and then re. Reunites. You know, this has been sort of boiling up for a long time both inside of Boston and outside.
- [29:56]
Matt Lewis
One name that you, you mentioned a little bit earlier that kind of rang a bell for me is Paul Revere. So for my limited knowledge of American history, I know him as someone who performs this incredible dash, this ride through the night. What precise part do we know that he plays in these events more precisely.
- [30:15]
Don Wildman
Than the history would even suggest? There was actually a system in place for this alarm and he is part of that. It's sort of what results as a result of the powder alarm on the night of, of April 18th. They're aware of the fact that there's going to be a patrol that's leaving Boston through either the harbor or through the, the neck. It's called the land bridge that goes into Massachusetts. And they're used to these things happening, or at least rumors of things happening. And so they have a system in place to prepare the communities that will be affected where they're marching to those British troops. So they Hear that some 700 British troops are going to be leaving Boston in some means. And it's important that they warn those communities where they're heading is going to be Concord. Concord is the place where the Provincial Congress has been meeting it's probably where Hancock and Adams are, who are on the list of most wanted at this point. It's also a center, as the British know, center of. Of storage for the powder and the guns. And so when Revere and who is William Dawes, his partner, leave Boston on the night of April 18th, they're heading out to Lexington Concord to warn those communities that the British are coming. Now, that's the phrase. It's really funny when you read about this because you realize it's not the British who are coming because they're all British. So he was not saying the British are coming. The British are coming. Fascinating. Sidebar. That phrase comes from a legendary poem written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860. And that poem was meant to be more about the Civil War, was a suggestion of the Civil War and the Southerners coming, than it really was about the. The Revolutionary. It was meant to sort of be a metaphor. So that phrase was really fabricated. He would have gone from house to house, very quietly, running around saying, hey, this is what's going on. We're used to this. They're coming. Get ready, get your guns. Everybody who's in the militia, start gathering.
- [32:17]
Matt Lewis
And so we have this famous ride on the night of the 18th of April. What then happens on the 19th? Can you talk us through these events? Because this is a moment that is going to become seminal in the American Revolution. We have the story of the shot heard around the world. How does the day of the 19th of April play out?
- [32:39]
Don Wildman
The day begins very early. It's 5am when the British embark off on their patrol. And there's a lot of those, about 700 British soldiers who are going to transport the American colony. The ride of Paul Revere. Revere and Dawes understand where they're going because of the signal, the famous signal that has been prearranged. One if by land, two if by sea, these are lanterns that are going to be hung in the windows of the old North Church tower, which I have stood in. It's very interesting. It's not the same steeple that was there back then. It's been rebuilt, but it is. It is very visible from all parts of Boston. Especially in those days, it would have been a very, very high spire. So when they see two if by sea, you know, the two lanterns go up. They know that the British will be taking boats to go across Boston harbor and. And that determines the direction they're heading in, which is going to be Lexington and Concord. So in anticipation of that arrival, Revere sets out. Dawes has already set out on Land Bridge, which is the neck of of Boston, which is heading out that way. So they're going to meet up later on on that, that route. But in the meantime, Revere is telling, he gets there a little earlier and he's riding along telling these villagers in the various villages in, along that road that these British troops are coming. He does not famously say the British are coming because he is British. So he wouldn't say that. It's just a warning that the tr. And remember, this is a system that has been in place for a while now. I mean the militias have been organized and the alarm systems have been going on for a while. This is not a one off that Paul Revere is doing by himself. It's not at all.
- [34:28]
Matt Lewis
I'm Matt Lewis.
- [34:29]
Unknown Announcer
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaoniga. And in Gone Medieval we get into.
- [34:32]
Matt Lewis
The greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details, and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and popes who were rarely the best of friends. Murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by.
- [34:50]
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- [34:51]
Matt Lewis
Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [34:58]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [35:20]
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- [35:34]
Matt Lewis
So how then does this idea that the soldiers are coming and there's a little bit of warning going on, how does that spark into a kind of running battle, a serious military conflict? How do we get to the point where we have this shot that's heard around the world?
- [35:51]
Don Wildman
So you can take the Lexington and Concord battles as one. That's traditionally how it's explained. And that's because the, the British troops are marching from Boston, you know, and that's a long parade of troops. As you can imagine, there's 700 British troops marching along a dirt road into the suburbs of Boston. You can imagine what that looks like by the time the British arrive early in the morning on April 19, they are confronted by a gathering of American militia. And this is to say some 77 militia have gathered at this point, understand, to send out the call into the rural lands of Massachusetts. Hey, come on, they're coming. Is going to take time for these militia to gather. So this is a building process over the period of both Lexington and Concord. So at first it's a small gathering. Needless to say, the British have come prepared for this. They set up in their rank and files and they're ready to shoot volley after volley. They do what a professional army does and they win the day, you know, as far as Lexington's concerned, and they march onward. At that point, they break this whole force up into parties and they go off looking for all these things. They came looking for the stores of arms and who they're trying to arrest and so forth. And so this broken up force marches onward to Concord. They're gonna win. Obviously there's a lot more of them than the militia. When the British forces march on Concord, they find the American militia set up at the North Bridge, the famous North Bridge. And it is this point that the shot heard round the world is fired, at least according to the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who coined the phrase in 1837. And that is to say, everything before this might have been a skirmish and who knows who fired on who. And it really was kind of the British doing what the British do. And they weren't really looking for a battle. They were going out there to find something. Now it's a battle. The militia have dug in, they're ready, they're positioned for their arrival and they take a great toll on those forces. Enough so that the British who have succeeded in what they came to do, those parties have gone out and found the cannon, they found the, the powder. They have done what this patrol was meant to do. They turn around and start marching back to Boston. That's where everything turns in the Americans favor. This is where it becomes a so called victory, which it really wasn't until this point. During the course of that retreat, which takes a long time to get back to Boston, the American militia just pick them off. They start, you know, shooting from the, from the trees and, and moving around this, you know, very organized bunch of, of British troops. And this is where the real toll is taken on those troops. I mean, there's a lot of casualties at that point.
- [38:34]
Matt Lewis
Is the idea of the shot heard around the world is that something that is, is kind of retconned? That's, that's created later to point to this as a real moment that will spark what will become the American Revolution, rather than it being, you know, some single shot that was fired, particularly during the battles. It's. It's talking about this battle as a moment. There was a point at which guns were fired that really kicked off the American Revolution.
- [39:01]
Don Wildman
Yeah, it's a. It's a metaphor, you know. Yes, a shot was fired, we can say that. But it was really the idea that finally what had been building up for really a hundred years was shaping up into an actual war. And at that point, you know, the mythology is told in such a way that you really have the beginning of what becomes an enormous change in the world in the British Empire at first, and then the emergence of an American nation. So you have to. In this. In the storytelling of that process, you have to find the beginning. And that change shot is the. Is the beginning. It wasn't physically one. I mean, yes, there was a shot fired, but it was really the idea of. Of this whole rebalancing of the universe. As far as these people were concerned. The world was upside down. That's the way they say it.
- [39:50]
Matt Lewis
And I guess there's an element in which you talked about. It's difficult to work out whether Lexington and Concord is a victory for one side or the other or a particular loss for either side. It sounds like the American militia came out on top a little bit, but it must have felt important for them to portray this as a victory as an early win against the British forces who normally would have seemed so undefeatable.
- [40:13]
Don Wildman
They won. I mean, this is important to take away from this. There were a lot more casualties as a result of that retreat on the British side than the Americans. The estimated casualties of this entire event, I don't mean just Lexington, just Concord, or the retreat. The whole thing is that there were some 393 casualties in total. On the American side, that's 93. On the British, 300. You know, put yourself in that time period. 300 people in the town of Boston, 300 British soldiers have died as a result of what was supposed to be a fairly normal patrol drill that blows out of the water. Anything that had happened before at this point, you know, all the arguments, all the massacre or whatever you want to call these events that had happened in Boston to that point, forget about it. Lexington, Concord really starts the whole thing off.
- [41:10]
Matt Lewis
It's incredible. I think, when you look at some of these moments, and this felt like you've said a couple of times, you know, this wasn't particularly anything unusual the British were doing. They were regularly performing these patrols. The militia had been around for ages. Paul Revere didn't do anything particularly novel. Incredible that all of this was able to turn into a moment that would spark a revolution. And I guess as you mentioned earlier, that leans into this idea that we've had a century or more of tension that has been looking for the cork to pop. And that's what really happens at Lexington and Concord.
- [41:44]
Don Wildman
It's a dam breaking, to mix our metaphors. And what's behind that dam is not just the, the animosities that have been growing and the resentments and the hurt that has happened with these so called, these formerly British colonists are feeling betrayed by their mother country and frankly vice versa, but it's also the emergence of new ideas, politically, socially, philosophically. We're in the Age of Enlightenment. All of this is behind that dam, as I say. And once those shots are fired, that shot fired, you end up with all of that pouring forth, you know, and that becomes Thomas Paine writing Common Sense, the pamphlet that really talks about freedom and liberty. And it becomes all these different ideas being talked about which find their way into the Declaration of Independence. It's really an extraordinary tip of an iceberg of what much, much of which has been happening in Europe in those days and has found its way over to an American. And that certain thinkers and philosophers have really put into words and published words about them.
- [42:54]
Matt Lewis
Feels very much like no one who was on the ground in Lexington and Concord would have particularly felt like they had just started a revolution that was going to lead to the birth of a new nation. There'd been a bit of trouble, but it seems like you would never have guessed that that would be seen as the moment that began it all.
- [43:11]
Don Wildman
I would agree with you, except for the fact that it's very surprising when you look into how much organization had been done to this point. You know, the Continental Congress had met the previous summer. It would meet again very soon. And there was a lot of thinking being done already about this becoming a revolution. And so those militiamen in Boston, remember all of this is happening up in New England at this point. It has. The revolution is going to spread south from this, you know, after Boston. And so these guys have been in the heat of, of not only battle, but also of thinking about this for a long time. Some of those guys are not, you know, older than 20s and 30s. So imagine their entire lifetimes, their, their adulthoods have been, you know, amidst this thinking. And these are revolutionaries, you Know, you can think about Cuba and all kinds of places around the world where there have been revolutions, and these young people who are part of that, that's the Sam Adams, that's the John Hancocks. Those guys are in the midst of it all.
- [44:13]
Matt Lewis
Assassin's Creed allows players to step into the animus and to travel back through history and to live through some of these incredible moments. And I wondered if you could step into your own animus and you could revisit any moment from Lexington and Concord, around that 18th, 19th of April, where would you like to stand and what would you like to see?
- [44:33]
Don Wildman
Every American boy, I mean, just speaking for myself, thinks of being Paul Revere at that moment, you know, that magical moment when the. When that real thing happened, which is what's so cool about it. You know, I've stood in that tower in the. In the north, Boston, and. And imagined what that looked like and what a dramatic moment that would be like. We know they're coming. The intelligence has told us. But how are they coming and what's going to happen? And that guy, you know, this silversmith from Boston, gets on his horse and starts charging in the night, knowing that he has the secret information that's going to tip the balance, and he begins to get these guys organized. I mean, it's so dramatic and largely true. I mean, of course, all of this has been mythologized over time, but that's the moment, the tipping point. That's why the great poem is written, you know, that's why it's such a famous moment, because everybody can imagine how dramatic that would have felt.
- [45:29]
Matt Lewis
So every American boy wants to be Paul Revere on that night?
- [45:32]
Don Wildman
I think so. I think it's really important, if I may say a personal note about this. You know, when you're my age and I was raised in the 60s and 70s, we were taught a very, very distilled version of this, of these events. And so we carry forth that kind of simplistic idea of what happened. One of the great gratifications of my life, and largely because of doing American history hit, is immersing myself in the more subtle fact of what created this revolution. And when you do, when you understand it on a deeper level, you end up with a greater appreciation of what created this country. It really was a bunch of ideas that really were new and interesting and, you know, weren't original. They were happening all over the world at the time, but they really found an incredible platform here in this. In this conflict and really the modern world as we know it is a direct result of so much that got fought over in those days.
- [46:33]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I always find the detail and the complexity and the nuances, the really, really interesting bit trying to understand the why did it all happen? And I guess for anyone who wants to understand all of this American stuff better, there's no better place than American History Hit with you.
- [46:48]
Don Wildman
There you go. Thank you for the plug. I will say I can't wait to play this Assassin's Creed game. It might be the first time I ever play a video game, but I'm gonna do it because now I've talked about it. Who needs a reenactment when you can do it in your own living room?
- [47:01]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. Well, I hope you enjoy it if you give it a go. It's a really, really good game. Really good. Interesting experience, I guess to be able to live through all of those moments that, as you say, have been mythologized so much. But thank you so much for for joining us, Don. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and to try and get under the skin of these complicated events. Thank you.
- [47:20]
Don Wildman
Likewise. I hope your listeners will go looking for their own information. Hello folks. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. Each week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content like mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements, to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. Don't miss an episode by hitting like and follow. You help us out, which is great, but you'll also be reminded when our shows are on. And while you're at it, share with a friend. American History Hit with me. Don Wildman. So grateful for your support. Bye for now.
- [48:15]
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Matt Lewis
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