The Battle of Lexington

On the night of April 18, 1775, British troops marched out of Boston with orders to seize the guns and ammunition stored by local militia companies in Concord, Massachusetts. Paul Revere and other riders set out to warn the communities outside Boston. When the British soldiers reached the towns of Lexington and Concord, the militia was waiting for them. On their long march back to Boston, farmers and workmen from the surrounding towns attacked the soldiers from the fields and woods along the route, injuring many. Once the British had reached Boston, militia units—citizen-soldiers, poorly trained, and mostly without uniforms or good weapons—surrounded the city and kept the army trapped there. It was the first military battle of what would become the American Revolution.

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