Matthew Skic, director of collections and exhibitions for the Museum of the American Revolution, gave a presentation at the Moorestown Library on April 21 titled, “A Shot Heard Round the World: Spreading the news of April 19, 1775.”
The event – part of the Historical Society of Moorestown’s New Jersey History Speaks Lecture Series – fell around the 250th anniversary of the start of the American Revolution.
“That’s a phrase (‘the shot heard ’round the world’) that was not coined in 1775,” Skic noted. It was created by American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson in his poem, “Concord Hymn,” which he penned for the dedication of a battle monument at the site of the North Bridge over the Concord River in Massachusetts.
On July 4, 1837, a group of townspeople sang “Concord Hymn” to the tune of a traditional hymn called “Old Hundredth.”
“Some of you might be thinking about what that (‘the shot heard round the world’) means, and some of you might know that the first shots of the Revolutionary War were actually fired at Lexington, Massachusetts, on the town green (of Lexington),” Skic explained to his library audience.
“That’s where a group of British soldiers advanced upon the Minute Men of Lexington, the men that were part of the Massachusetts militia but trained to be ready at a minute’s notice.”
On April 19, 1775, British troops marched into Lexington to find themselves faced by a militia company of more than 70 soldiers led by Capt. John Parker. At some point, a shot rang out, and the British soldiers fired a volley that killed seven and wounded one of the retreating militiamen. The British moved on toward Concord, leaving the dead and the wounded, according to the American Battlefield Trust.
“In different towns in Massachusetts, there are storages of weapons going on (muskets, gun powder and cannons) and the British are aware of this because the Massachusetts government is operating illegally and the British are trying to crack down on that,” Skic recounted. “British Commander Thomas Gage, who’s commanding in Boston, is forced to act, and he sets his sights on a small town outside of Boston called Concord because that’s where a number of military stores were being stockpiled by Massachusetts.
“He also knew that some of the leaders (including John Hancock and Samuel Adams) of this illegal shadow government were staying in Lexington nearby.”
Though it is uncertain who fired the famous shot, it reverberated throughout history. The American Revolution lasted for eight years, and those who stood their ground against Gage’s troops eventually earned independence from Britain and became citizens of the U.S.
“The Second Continental Congress would respond to the news of these battles – at Lexington and Concord – with the creation of a new army,” Skic pointed out. “By June 14, 1775, the Continental Army was established. One of those representatives to that Continental Congress? A Virginian named George Washington was elected as commander in chief of that new army.
” … Two-hundred-and-fifty-years-ago – this summer – we will be commemorating those days and the creation of the Continental Army and George Washington taking command,” Skic added. “This is all in response to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, a war that would last eight years, the longest American military conflict until Vietnam.”
