The British are coming!
Patriots’ Day
By the rude bridge that arched the flood, Their flag to April’s breeze
unfurled. Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot
heard round the world.
from Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson
A patriot is a person who loves his or her country. The patriots of the
American colonies felt this way. But they were being treated unfairly by
the British. The chance of war grew greater each day.
The patriots of Massachusetts began to build up war supplies in Concord,
a town near Boston.
British troops in Boston were alerted. The soldiers—known as redcoats
because of their red jackets—got their orders. Destroy the supplies in
Concord!
On the night of April 18, 1775, two things happened. The redcoats left
Boston for Concord. And Paul Revere, a Boston patriot, rode through the
countryside, shouting the warning, \”The British are coming!”
Early next morning, the redcoats marched into Lexington, where they were
surprised by minutemen—trained men ready to fight in a minute’s
notice. The first shots in the American Revolutionary War were fired.
Nobody knows who fired the first shot. The first brave patriots died.
British redcoats and Am erican patriots fought the second battle of
the American Revolution at North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts.
Again the redcoats were met by fighting patriots at Concord. The
patriots stormed
North Bridge outside of town. More shots rang out and more blood was
shed.
The redcoats were forced to withdraw. And
all the way back to Boston, there was a running battle with more
patriots. Paul Revere’s warning the night before had stirred up a lot of
people.
The midnight ride of Paul Revere is staged every year in Massachusetts
on the third Monday in April. It’s Patriots’ Day, the anniversary of the
start of the Revolutionary War in America.
Patriots’ Day is also a holiday in Maine, another state that gave many
patriots in America’s fight for freedom.
