Database: Concord

This was the Regulars' destination when they set out from Boston on the day of the battles of Lexington and Concord. Inside the town, the British found cannon, flour, salt food, and musket balls. They broke the cannon and threw the rest into the local mill pond - a bad idea since the local residents retrieved most of it later, undamaged.

In their zeal the regulars also accidentally set fire to the local meeting house - (it happens) - and then joined the bucket brigade to help put it out. However, the local militia saw the smoke and thought the Regulars had set fire to the whole town. The militia marched in, causing a battle with the Regulars at the North Bridge, just outside of town. It was a comedy of errors with very little comedy.

The battle at the North Bridge was immortalized in the "Concord Hymn" - a popular poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson lived in Concord in the 1830s, which probably made him a bit biased. He refers to the firing at the bridge as "the shot heard 'round the world" - bit of an overstatement, since the first shots of the war had been fired at Lexington, hours before. Maybe he'd been napping. You know what poets are like.