Posted on 04/17/2005 9:58:27 PM PDT by mdittmar
In Massachusetts, British troops march out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Patriot minutemen.
A system of signals and word-of-mouth communication set up by the colonists was effective in forewarning American volunteer militia men of the approach of the British troops.
Around 5 a.m., 700 British troops under Major John Pitcairn arrived at the town to find a 77-man-strong colonial militia under Captain John Parker waiting for them on Lexington's common green. Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead and 10 others were wounded.
At the North Bridge in Concord, the British were confronted again, this time by 300 to 400 armed colonists, and were forced to march back to Boston with the Americans firing on them all the way. By the end of the day, the colonists were singing "Yankee Doodle" and the American Revolution had begun.
The Midnight Ride in Revere's Own Words
Paul Revere provided three accounts of his ride on April 18th 1775. His first two accounts, a draft and a corrected copy of a deposition, both dated 1775, were made at the request of the Massachusetts Provisional Congress. These depositions, taken from all eyewitnesses to the skirmish on Lexington Green, were compiled in the hopes of obtaining proof that the British had fired the first shot.
Though written 23 years after the fact, the most complete account of the ride is Paul Revere's letter to Jeremy Belknap, Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, dated 1798.
To view the actual letter and a transcription click on the link below.
A LETTER FROM COL. PAUL REVERE TO THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY [Jeremy Belknap].
Anniversary ping.
My great-great-great grandfather answered the call that night.
William Whipple - Signer DOI - NH
Commodore Abraham Whipple - survived British capture
"Prince" Whipple - freed slave and US soldier
Some others
Do you know Blaine Whipple?
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Indeed, the colonists did gather in a weak show of force on the Lexington Green on the early morning og April 19th, but to this day, who fired the first shot is unclear.
The 'Shot heard 'round the world', on the other hand, was fired by colonists later on that morning at the Old North Bridge in Concord. The Americans fired first at Concord - no question.
Too often I have seen the Battle of Lexington & Concord described as a single event, as though there is a single geographic place called Lexington & Concord.
Two seperate towns, two seperate events, two very different outcomes.
Of course, the British had to retreat from Concord and return through Lexington, where the towns people gave them a reception very different from the one they had experienced earlier that morning.
I lived 40 years in Massachusetts (I just moved to South Carolina), where the Old North Bridge in Concord was, and still is, for me, one of the holiest of American shrines.
If I recall, Revere gave his Brit captors a phony report of an "aroused countryside" in order to get his release although without his horse.
i checked out paul revere's letter... and it looks as though paul was using microsoft's word to write it... but he neglected to use spellcheck...
teeman
Thanks for the ping!
Just a side note,
The name Yankee has been traced back to colonial times. Early Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (renamed New York by the British in 1664) used the term in a rather impolite way to refer to the English-speaking colonists, who the Dutch though were boorish and uncultured. They called such a person "Jahnke," as we might call someone we don't know "Jack" or "Buddy". John (pronounced YAHN) is the Dutch was of saying John, and the "ke" on the end is their way of changing John to Johnny.
Later on, in the 1700s, the British, who by that time had taken over New York from the Dutch, used the word "doodle" to refer to uneducated farmers and backwoodsmen who came into the big city. Today some might call them hicks or hillbillies. So to call someone "Jahnke Doodle" was to call him an illiterate, ill-mannered country bumpkin. The word "macaroni" referred to a group of young Britishers given to dressing in an affected manner (colonists might infer the British uniform); it also meant a kind of burlesque poetry.
On April 19, 1775, troops under the command of Brigadier General Hugh Percy, played "Yankee Doodle" as they marched from Boston to reinforce British soldiers already fighting the Americans at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Whether sung or played on that occasion, the tune was martial and intended to deride the colonials:
Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him
And so we will John Hancock.
(CHORUS) Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Mind the Music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.
There are numerous conflicting accounts of the origin of "Yankee Doodle." Some credit its melody to an English air, others to Irish, Dutch, Hessian, Hungarian and Pyrenean tunes or a New England jig. Its first American verses are attributed to British military surgeon, Dr. Richard Schackburg. Tradition holds that Schackburg invented his lyrics in 1755 while at the home of the Van Rensselaer family attending a wounded prisoner of the French and Indian War.
"Yankee Doodle's" catchy tune has allowed for seemingly endless adaptation and expansion. This early verse, probably Schackburg's, comments on the difference between the commissioned officers of the British military and those of the motley dressed Americans who then fought with them against the French:
There is a man in our town,
I pity his condition,
He sold his oxen and his sheep
To buy him a commission.
"Yankee Doodle" was well known in the New England colonies before Lexington and Concord but only after the skirmishes there, did the American militia appropriate it. Tradition holds that the colonials began to sing it as they forced the British back to Boston on April 19, 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord. It is documented that the American's sang the following verse at Bunker Hill:
Father and I went down to camp,
along with Captain Good'in,
And there we see the men and boys
as thick as hasty puddin'.
As George Washington received his commission and took command of the nascent Continental Army on Cambridge Common, additional verses evolved and were incorporated:
And there was Captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about him,
They say he's grown so tarnal proud,
He will not ride without them.
And there was Captain Washington
upon a slapping stallion,
A giving orders to his men;
I guess there was a million.
There came Gen'ral Washington
Upon a snow-white charger
He looked as big as all outdoors
And thought that he was larger.
By the end of the summer of 1775, the colonists had confined the British army to Boston and destroyed the royal governor's power. An 18th century copy of "Yankee Doodle," published in London, reflected this triumph. The following verse was included under the published title "Yankee Doodle; or, (as now christened by the Saints of New England) The Lexington March.
Sheep's Head and Vinegar,
ButterMilk and Tansy,
Boston is a Yankee town,
Sing Hey Doodle Dandy.
By 1777, "Yankee Doodle" had certainly become an unofficial American anthem. Following General Burgoyne's surrender of British troops to the Continental Army on October 17, 1777, British officer Thomas Anburey wrote:
the name [of Yankee] has been more prevalent since the commencement of hostilities The soldiers at Boston used it as a term of reproach, but after the affair at Bunker's Hill, the Americans gloried in it. Yankee Doodle is now their paean, a favorite of favorites, played in their army, esteemed as warlike as the Genadier's March it is the lover's spell, the nurse's lullaby it was not a little mortifying to hear them play this tune, when their army marched down to our surrender.
Fittingly and proudly, "Yankee Doodle" was played by the Continental army at Yorktown, when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at the end of the war. Legend has it (although it's probably not true) that the British army played "The World Turned Upside Down".
Early American Psyops;)
I always call him Mr. Whipple. :o)
I seem to remember learning that "the shot heard 'round the world" was fired by 18 year-old Solomon Brown but now I can't seem to verify that.
That's right...Mr. Whipple...too funny. But, not Blaine...
Bump!
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