{"id":6722,"date":"2025-04-02T21:17:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T01:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/?p=6722"},"modified":"2025-04-22T09:39:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T13:39:53","slug":"next-in-the-lovettsville-historical-societys-2025-lecture-series-april","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/next-in-the-lovettsville-historical-societys-2025-lecture-series-april\/","title":{"rendered":"Next in the Lovettsville Historical Society’s 2025 Lecture Series (April)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“An Insider’s View of the Lexington Alarm”<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Presented by Richard Gillespie<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Public Historian and Educator<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Sunday, April 13, 2025 at 2:00pm<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

St. James United Church of Christ<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville, VA<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In the history of every nation, there is a moment that becomes the turning point toward nationhood.\u00a0 For the United States, that is at five in the morning of the 19th<\/sup>\u00a0of April 1775\u2014on the simple town common at Lexington, Massachusetts.\u00a0\u00a0 There, one of the dozens and dozens of companies of Minutemen formed by the Massachusetts extralegal Provincial Congress faced the troops of the Crown.\u00a0 Over seven hundred British \u201cregulars\u201d were marching through at dawn to seize \u201cillegal\u201d military supplies gathered at nearby Concord, raised for defense of liberties against the threat of the Royal government\u2019s oversteps.
\u00a0
It was but half of Lexington\u2019s large company, some 70 small town farmers drilled for months for whatever might come.\u00a0 In this size force, they could do little but act as an \u201carmy of observation\u201d and let the regulars pass on, sharing intelligence of what they saw to higher officers in Concord and other nearby towns.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In their confusion, the British troops were led toward the defiant locals, muskets loaded, bayonets attached, and eager for the confrontation.\u00a0 Then a shot, then volleys, and a bayonet charge by the regulars.\u00a0 Minutemen ran for cover nearby as did civilians watching.\u00a0 The British relentlessly pursued.\u00a0 A British soldier was nicked in the thumb, but eight Minutemen were mowed down, nine others wounded.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 They then marched on to their mission at Concord, seven miles further on from Boston.\u00a0 The news of what they\u2019d done raced ahead to Concord and soon all over the province of Massachusetts Bay.
\u00a0
It was the \u201cLexington Alarm\u201d\u2014a massacre of their fellow Americans too much to swallow\u2014\u201cBloody Butchery of British Troops\u201d as it was put at the time.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 By the end of the day, 73 regulars had been killed and a further 174 wounded; 26 were missing altogether.\u00a0 Forty-one more Minutemen had been killed, an additional 32 wounded.\u00a0 And the day could not be forgotten.\u00a0 Boston was under siege by thousands of New England Minutemen.\u00a0 There was no turning back.\u00a0
\u00a0
As the Lexington Alarm spread by express rider\u2014the news arrived at Loudoun\u2019s county seat on April 28th<\/sup>\u2014all had to confront the new train of events.\u00a0 \u00a0As Patrick Henry had said just a month before in Convention at Richmond, \u201cthe next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms.\u201d
\u00a0
And so it had\u2014the New Englanders had \u201cnobly dar\u2019d to be FREE.\u201d\u00a0 The war for American liberty had come.
\u00a0
The Lovettsville Historical Society\u2019s Second Sunday Lecture, appropriately for April and its important 250th<\/sup>\u00a0anniversary, will be on the topic \u201cAn Insider\u2019s View of the Lexington Alarm.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>\u00a0
\u00a0
The speaker will be the Lovettsville Historical Society\u2019s own Rich Gillespie, born and raised at Lexington, a mile-and-a-half from Lexington Green.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 A long-time Loudoun history teacher and ultimately the Historian Emeritus for the Virginia Piedmont Historical Society, Rich\u2019s first job was guiding visitors around Lexington Green as an Official Lexington Town Guide and later working at the old town\u2019s historic buildings that tell the story of this \u201cglorious morning for America.\u201d \u00a0He will share the story, its evolution in the public mind, and his insights.\u00a0
\u00a0
The program will not be live-streamed, but a video recording of the event will be posted on the Lovettsville Historical Society website.
\u00a0
Admission is free, but donations are welcome to defray expenses of the program and to support the activities of the Lovettsville Historical Society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,138,89],"tags":[255],"class_list":["post-6722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lecture","category-loudoun-history-revolutionary-war","category-revolutionary-war","tag-lexington-alarm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6723,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6722\/revisions\/6723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}