British troops enter Concord, 19 April 1775.
Concord is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. It was the site of one of the clashes between colonial militia and British troops that set off the North American Rebellion.
Concord was founded by English settlers from Boston in 1635 who purchased the land from the local Indians. The name Concord was to commemorate the peaceful acquisition of the land.
By 1775, the population of the town had grown to 1,400 people. As unrest grew in Massachusetts after passage of the Coercive Acts in 1774, the revolutionary government known as the Massachusetts Provincial Congress called on communities across the province to establish their own militias, and Concord did so. In February 1775 the British government declared the province to be in a state of rebellion, and General Thomas Gage, the Royal Governor, received orders on 14 April to disarm the colonists and seize the leaders of the rebellion. On the night of 18 April 1775 Gage ordered 700 men under Lt. Col. Francis Smith to march to the town of Lexington to seize Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and then continue to Concord to seize military supplies that were said to be there.
Rebel spies within Gage's headquarters had known for weeks that the British knew of the military supplies in Concord, and most of them had secretly been removed by 18 April. When Lt. Col. Smith and his men set out from Boston early on the morning of 19 April, word went out to Adams and Hancock, who fled Lexington, and the local militia in Concord assembled.
Smith's men fired on militia in Lexington, and by the time they reached Concord, about 400 militia had assembled there. As Smith's men dispersed to search for military supplies in the town, more rebel militia arrived from the surrounding towns. Another clash between British troops and rebel militia occurred north of the town, causing the British to flee to the center of town. After searching Concord for munitions, but finding almost none, Smith re-assembled his men after noon and began the march back to Boston. By then, some 1,000 rebel militia had arrived around Concord, and they began firing on the British as they returned to Boston. By the end of the day, the British had lost some 73 men killed, 174 wounded, and 53 missing, over 2/5ths of the force that set out from Boston. By the morning of 20 April, some 15,000 rebel militia surrounded Boston.