Can you please help me understand what exactly went on at the battles of lexington and concord?

Question

Please dont send me a link to wikipedia or somthing because i have already read about it but i dont understand it. Just give me a summary that is easy to inderstand.
Thanks :D

Answer 1

British General Gage learned that the colonists had stored supplies and ammunition at Concord, MA, some 20 miles from Boston. On 19 April 1775, he sent 700 of his troops to seize the munitions and, if possible, capture and arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Gage had received information that those two “rebels” were hiding out in Concord. Warning the Americans that the British were marching to Concord were the trio Revere, Dawes, and Prescott, of the famous “Midnight Ride.” When British Major John Pitcairn arrived at Lexington, which was on the way to Concord, he found 70 American minutemen (actually, they were almost all farmers) in battle formation at the town square. Pitcairn ordered the Americans to disperse but when they didn’t move after the second order to do so, someone fired a shot. It is not known if the shot was fired by Americans or British. The British easily cleared Lexington and marched on to Concord. He found more Americans arming the bridge into the town so Pitcairn order the British to return to Boston. All the way back to Boston, the Americans sniped at the British from behind trees and rocks, inflicting serious injury to the British troops. When the Redcoats reached Boston, 250 had been killed or wounded.

Answer 2

The British advanced in the night towards Concord, trying sneak into the country to capture miltary stores at Concord. Revere and others got into the country to spread the alarm that the regulars were out. At Lexington, a company of 80 or so men formed on the town square to show resistance. As the British marched to the square, the officers went to one side of the church in the front while the British troops went to the other. While the officers ordered the militia to disperse, and they actually started to break up, firing broke out and several militia were killed and others wounded.
The British moved on to Concord, and sent two parties across the North Bridge looking for military material while others searched the town. The militia regiments formed on a hill across the river. When the British burned some supplies, the militia thought the town was being fired and moved to cross the Bridge.
The British company at the Bridge fired on them, and they fired back- "the shot heard round the world".
The militia moved into Concord, the British unit across the river returned unmolested, all the Brits headed back towards Boston.
The militia then attacked the British at Mirriams Corner, a place where the road narrowed to cross a creek, allowing the militia to get close without crossing fields. There after the militia continued to attack along the sides of the marching Brit column- they had to go down the road, leaving the Americans many chances to lay ambushes and attack as they marched.
Gen. Percy brought more Brits out of Boston to relieve the marching column. His addition men and two cannon stopped most of the attacks at the end of a LONG exhausting night and day for the British.

Answer 3

the British Army at the time was one of the most professional and feared operations in the world......they had just a few years earlier ( with their New England cousins) beat the French outside of Quebec and won all of Canada.

At Lexington, a hastily assembled group of civilians had to stand without cover across an open field against hundreds of British bayonets......a few shots were fired and the Minutemen dispersed.

At Concord a few hours later, the farmers and tradesmen of Massachusetts had a more time to assemble behind , as Emerson wrote, a "crude bridge spanning the April's flood"; with protection from a direct charge, the Minutemen and the British Regulars exchanged shots......and for the first time in a long long time the British pulled back and left the field.
Never mind that the Brit's orders were not to get engaged with the locals, just capture Hancock and Adams and the guns stored in Concord; the people of Massachusetts saw the Redcoats retreat,,,,,,,(and then harassed them all day long back to their lines at Boston)...... and suddenly thought, " Gee, we CAN beat these guys........"

and the rest is History......

Answer 4

Lexington went to the British, yet Lexington grew to become into only the 1st quarter of the day. The conflict grew to become into finally desperate at cohesion which observed the patriots rigidity the British to retreat lower back to Boston with no need carried out any of their targets. And the retreat grew to become into extremely bloody for the British because of the fact the patriots hounded them each and all of the some time past to Boston, stoning up out of woods and at the back of stone partitions to open up lower back on the withdrawing British. The Bloody perspective is on the line between cohesion and Lexington, over 2 hundred patriots ambushed the withdrawing British on the Bloody perspective in a crossfire from the two facets of the line that could desire to bring about the deaths of 30 British squaddies on the fee of four patriots in what grew to become into in all probability between the bloodiest skirmishes of the retreat.