“An Insider’s View of the Lexington Alarm”
Presented by Richard Gillespie
Public Historian and Educator
Sunday, April 13, 2025 at 2:00pm
St. James United Church of Christ
10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville, VA
In the history of every nation, there is a moment that becomes the turning point toward nationhood. For the United States, that is at five in the morning of the 19th of April 1775—on the simple town common at Lexington, Massachusetts. There, one of the dozens and dozens of companies of Minutemen formed by the Massachusetts extralegal Provincial Congress faced the troops of the Crown. Over seven hundred British “regulars” were marching through at dawn to seize “illegal” military supplies gathered at nearby Concord, raised for defense of liberties against the threat of the Royal government’s oversteps.
It was but half of Lexington’s large company, some 70 small town farmers drilled for months for whatever might come. In this size force, they could do little but act as an “army of observation” and let the regulars pass on, sharing intelligence of what they saw to higher officers in Concord and other nearby towns. But the lead British grenadiers and light infantry did not pass by, they confronted these minutemen, ordered them to disarm and disperse, a virtually impossible order for the Minutemen to comply with. In their confusion, the British troops were led toward the defiant locals, muskets loaded, bayonets attached, and eager for the confrontation. Then a shot, then volleys, and a bayonet charge by the regulars. Minutemen ran for cover nearby as did civilians watching. The British relentlessly pursued. A British soldier was nicked in the thumb, but eight Minutemen were mowed down, nine others wounded. When the British were finally called to order by Lt. Col. Francis Smith, the men were allowed to fire several further volleys in the air followed by a round of loud shouted huzzahs. They then marched on to their mission at Concord, seven miles further on from Boston. The news of what they’d done raced ahead to Concord and soon all over the province of Massachusetts Bay.
It was the “Lexington Alarm”—a massacre of their fellow Americans too much to swallow—“Bloody Butchery of British Troops” as it was put at the time. The British met their match at Concord, and then on the long march back to Concord as infuriated Minutemen from dozens of towns attacked from the sides of the road. By the end of the day, 73 regulars had been killed and a further 174 wounded; 26 were missing altogether. Forty-one more Minutemen had been killed, an additional 32 wounded. And the day could not be forgotten. Boston was under siege by thousands of New England Minutemen. There was no turning back.
As the Lexington Alarm spread by express rider—the news arrived at Loudoun’s county seat on April 28th—all had to confront the new train of events. As Patrick Henry had said just a month before in Convention at Richmond, “the next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms.”
And so it had—the New Englanders had “nobly dar’d to be FREE.” The war for American liberty had come.
The Lovettsville Historical Society’s Second Sunday Lecture, appropriately for April and its important 250th anniversary, will be on the topic “An Insider’s View of the Lexington Alarm.”
The speaker will be the Lovettsville Historical Society’s own Rich Gillespie, born and raised at Lexington, a mile-and-a-half from Lexington Green. His first ever field trip was to Lexington & Concord as a fourth-grader; his elementary school was but 200 yards from the British route of march that became the battle road. A long-time Loudoun history teacher and ultimately the Historian Emeritus for the Virginia Piedmont Historical Society, Rich’s first job was guiding visitors around Lexington Green as an Official Lexington Town Guide and later working at the old town’s historic buildings that tell the story of this “glorious morning for America.” He will share the story, its evolution in the public mind, and his insights.
The program will not be live-streamed, but a video recording of the event will be posted on the Lovettsville Historical Society website.
Admission is free, but donations are welcome to defray expenses of the program and to support the activities of the Lovettsville Historical Society.