The Road to Lexington and Concord

1. The Road to Lexington and Concord

2. I. The Intolerable Acts • Boston tea party aroused fury in Britain • British pass Coercive Acts (Intolerable Acts) to punish Massachusetts • Closed port of Boston • Banned committees of correspondence • Allowed Britain to house troops • British officials stand trial in Britain • General Thomas Gage was appointed governor of Mass. To enforce laws

3. II. First Continental Congress • September 1774 delegates from all colonies except Georgia met in Philadelphia • Voted to ban all trade with Britain • Called each colony to start training troops • They were not ready to call for independence but they were willing to uphold colonial rights

4. III. Spies • Sam Adams built a spy network to watch over British activities • British had spies as well (loyalists) • General Gage learned that Colonists were storing arms in Concord • He also heard that Sam Adams and John Hancock were in Lexington • Gage ordered Adams and Hancock arrested and supplies destroyed

5. IV. The Midnight Ride • Paul Revere and William Dawes were charged with spreading news of British movements • If one lantern burned in the old north church, Brits were coming by land, two meant water • Dawes and Revere moved when the Brits did • In Lexington, Sam Prescott joined them • Prescott made it to Concord, Dawes and Revere were captured

6. V. Lexington and Concord • April 19th 700 British troops reached Lexington, 70 Militia men were waiting • 8 Militia men were killed, Brits moved for Concord • 4,000 Minutemen and Militia men lined the road from Concord to Lexington. • Peppered the retreating Brits with musket fire – 1000 more Brits reinforced • Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “colonial troops fired the shot heard round the world” • Rebels (Patriots) and Loyalists