Lexington and Concord

<p>Previously unknown, a map drawn by Lord Percy, the British commander at Lexington, sheds new light on the perilous retreat to Boston 250 years ago this month.</p>

<p>What began as a civil war within the British Empire continued until it became a wider conflict affecting peoples and countries across Europe and North America.</p>

<p>Overshadowed in memory by Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts town of Menotomy saw the most violent and deadly fighting on April 19, 1775.</p>

<p>This special issue looks at the dramatic and momentous events that occurred 250 years ago this month.</p>

<p>“Now the war has begun and no one knows when it will end,” said one minuteman after the fight.</p>

The Provincial Congress of Massachusetts printed about 100 copies of depositions from witnesses at the Battle of Lexington and Concord to influence public and official opinion. The colonists wanted to produce their own account of the events before General Gage was able to produce his own report…

The entry for April 19th, 1775, is from the diary of Lieutenant John Barker, an officer in the British army. Selections from this diary were first published under the title of ‘A British officer in Boston in 1775’, in the Atlantic Monthly for April 1877.

Outbound routes taken by Patriot riders and British troops in the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.

Royal Governor Thomas Gage of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered British Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to conduct an undercover operation to destroy ammunition stockpiled by the colonists in Concord, Massachusetts. The British government believed that the colonists were about to attempt to…

<p>Participants describe the opening of the American Revolution</p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Behind the ancient towers of the Duke of Northumberland's home are the unique Revolutionary War battle maps of the general who saved the British from disaster at Lexington</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> What was it like to actually be there in April, 1775?<br />
This is how the participants, American and British, remembered it </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> On a new bridge that arched the flood Their toes by April freezes curled, There the embattled committee stood, Beset, it seemed, by half the world.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Sixth in a series of paintings for</span> AMERICAN HERITAGE </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">The Battle of Bunker Hill</span></p>

<p>America’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra-violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between "patriots" and loyalists.</p>

<p>A team from <em>American Heritage</em> helped document some of the most important maps of the Revolution — still stored in the medieval English castle where scenes from <em>Harry Potter</em> were later filmed.</p>