Trail of History - Torance Family

The Torance family (there are various spellings of this name) were a prominent, colonial family in North Carolina's Piedmont region.  They were patriots in the American Revolution.  Their property became a gathering place for militia during General Cornwallis pursuit of General Greene's Continental Army.  Tarleton's cavalry sent them running before they could form a line of battle.


Some of the oldest cemeteries in the Piedmont have a Torance buried in them.  James Galbraith Torrance, son of the original proprietor, is laid to rest in Hopewell Church Cemetery off of Beatties Ford Rd.  For a brief history click the links below.

Source:

http://www.visitnc.com/listing/historic-hugh-torance-house-and-store

http://www.cmhpf.org/S&Rs%20Alphabetical%20Order/surveys&rcedargrove.htm

http://library.uncc.edu/manuscript/ms0087

Time to Regulate the Regulators

Armed government thugs confiscating and destroying private property; corrupt judges and officers of the court jackbooting the citizenry under the pretence of law; eastern elites thumbing their noses at the downtrodden all the while enjoying their ill-gotten gains.  Sounds a lot like what’s happening in America today, doesn’t it?  What I described happened in the 1760’s in North Carolina’s Piedmont region.

Pioneers began to settle this area in the 1740’s & 50’s.  These hearty, industrious, and religious settlers scratched out a living as farmers in what then was a frontier.  Soon thereafter, the predators showed up.  Land agents for the Crown and a lord proprietor, who refused to sell back his interest to the king, were sent to survey and force these squatters to pay for their farms and subsequent taxes, which included the improvements they made on the land.

Hard currency was in short supply.  The only people who had money were government officials, or those who had already established their wealth in other colonies.  Many of these officials were paid by fees they collected. Eventually, these functionaries discovered it was more profitable to confiscate farms and sell it to their friends and/or, force these debtors to work their lands.

Eventually, these farmers had enough.  They named themselves Regulators and began a rebellion.  They beat judges, sheriffs, and their lawyer hirelings.  The most offensive ones had their houses burned to the ground.

East coast North Carolinians were frightened that these angry farmers would eventually march on the capitol, which at that time was New Bern.  They hurriedly passed laws that addressed the grievances of these pissed off, backwoods ruffians.  It was too late.  These folks had lost all confidence in the rule of law, especially when the Regulators sent one of their own to represent them in the General Assembly, only to have him drummed out and arrested on trumped up charges of libel.  Armed conflict was inevitable.

Governor Tryon, along with North Carolina elites, assembled the militia and marched to Hillsborough.  They suppressed the rebellion; hung the leaders they captured; confiscated weapons; burned down known Regulator farms, and forced thousands to swear loyalty oaths.

Here is the irony:  those same elites who brutally suppressed the Regulators later became revolutionaries in the War for Independence.  Apparently, it was alright for agents of government to violate the inalienable rights of the great unwashed, but when the Crown abused them, it was time to throw off the shackles.

We are basically witnessing the same kind of abuses in today’s America.  Even though we haven’t seen mass armed rebellion against the political elites and their army of bureaucrats, we, however, are witnessing a suppression of Tea Party dissent. 

We can expect change in Washington D.C. when the federal bureaucracy turns on the elites.  We are already witnessing federal bureaucrats disrespect our elected representatives.  Someday they will have had enough and they too will rebel.  

Federal Bureaucracies Have Become Monsters

What can Americans do when their elected representatives abdicate their constitutional responsibilities to unelected and unaccountable federal government bureaucrats?  The whole premise of the American Revolution was based on no taxation without representation.  Now, we have punitive rules and regulations that cost Americans $1.86 trillion a year.  These costs are bigger than all of the economies in the world except nine.  And they do it without our consent.

Congress created this monster with the passage of the 1946 Administrative Procedures Act.  And with all monsters, the more powerful they become the more contempt they have for their creators.  We are witnessing this horror story play out before our very eyes. 

House republicans have been trying to get information from these little Frankensteins with little success.  It doesn’t help when these “public servants” invoke the Fifth Amendment, or promise to hand over documents with the intention of never following through.  And what does Congress do?  They stamp their feet and threaten to hold these monsters in contempt.  The only ones who are being held in contempt are the American people and our elected representatives.

Source: http://news.investors.com/042914-698787-regulatory-economy-booms-under-president-obama.htm

Samuel Adams was Here

Progressives have longed to deny the citizens of these United States their history and heritage.  If you talk about our founding, liberals will demean them as slave owners, when in fact a small percentage of the population actually owned them, even in the South.  When you mention the Constitution, they’ll belittle it as a governmental system designed for a coastal, agrarian economy.  They’ll say its precepts are antiquated in today’s global economy.

Progressives will find their target, isolate it, demean it, and finally abolish it from public discourse.  This happened to one of the most important founding fathers in American history.  I will go even further and state, that hadn’t it been for Samuel Adams, there probably wouldn’t have been an American Revolution.  So why is he largely forgotten, relegated as a figurehead for a beer manufacturer?

For one, Samuel Adams doesn’t fit the progressives’ archetype of a founding father.  We’ve all heard their snide comments that they were all rich, white, deist slave owners.  Samuel Adams, though white, was not rich and did not own slaves.  As a matter of fact, he refused to accept one as a present.  His poverty was legendary, second only to his Christian faith.  And therein lays the rub:  his Christian faith.

It is essential for Progressives to mitigate and at times demonize the role religion played in our founding, and especially those who professed God’s guiding hand.  They were successful in relegating Samuel Adams to the dustbin of history.  Now they are doing the same to the Protestant work ethic.  Here is a quote from Samuel Adams – A Life – by Ira Stoll:

Yet it was firm enough to inspire Adams to engage and endure in the revolutionary cause, confident in his belief that God would protect Americans so long as they were virtuous, just as God had stood by the Israelites in their exodus from slavery so long as they were virtuous.  To dismiss Adams as the “last of the Puritans” would be to suggest that after him Americans ceased believing they were a God-given mission to advance freedom.  It would be a misinterpretation.

Yet, that is what Progressives would have us believe.  Their god is the federal government.  Freedom is the privilege to suck on the taxpayer teat.  The Protestant work ethic is to be mocked.  And so, the Progressives’ long march continues on; on to victory and on to a modern day bureaucratic slavery. 

But there is a resistance.  The Tea Party is the movement.  And we’ll remind our subjugators that no matter what they say or do, Samuel Adams was here.

Source:  http://www.amazon.com/Samuel-Adams-Life-Ira-Stoll/dp/0743299124

Celebrate Evacuation Day!

Tomorrow is Evacuation Day.  November 25, 1783 was the day American patriots reclaimed New York City from the British troops and their loyalist occupiers.  General George Washington marched his troops through the streets of Manhattan.  He was astonished at what he saw. 

The Americans stopped at the Blue Bell Tavern, at what is now 181st St. and Broadway, once a hotbed of patriotic sentiment, where the head of King George III’s statue was stuck on a post in the first days of liberty. They marched through McGowan’s Pass, along what is now Central Park’s East Drive at about 102nd St., then made their way down the Bowery to Pearl St., and turning west on Wall St. — following much of the same route along which they fled in a desperate retreat from British troops seven years before.

The landscape about them was unrecognizable, “the island . . . totally stripped of trees,” an astonished Washington reported. Most of the villages of upper Manhattan had been burned and looted. It was, one observer said, “one general scene of ravage and desolation.”

Those who remained loyal to the crown sailed back to England or moved to Canada.  Here is a picture of a statue in Hamilton, Ontario lamenting the fate of British refugees.

This Monument is Dedicated to the Lasting Memory of The United Empire Loyalists who, after the Declaration of Independence, came into British America from the seceded American Colonies and who, with faith and fortitude, and under great pioneering difficulties, largely laid the foundations of this Canadian nation as an integral part of the British Empire.

Neither confiscation of their property, the pitiless persecution of their kinsmen in revolt, nor the galling chains of imprisonment could break their spirits, or divorce them from a loyalty almost without parallel.

“No country ever had such founders — no country in the world — no, not since the days of Abraham.” — Lady Tennyson

I can’t wait for the day when patriotic Americans once again liberate this country from the current occupiers that infest this country.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/evacuation-day-celebration-new-york-american-independence-article-1.982066#ixzz2lbbgkoSi

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2013/08/is-america-facing-another-civil-war.html

Is America Facing Another Civil War?

If I could measure the political temperament of the country, I would liken today’s to America’s civil war, the first civil war: The America Revolution.  The parallels are uncanny.  We have a president who’s not held accountable for his policies.   King George III was treated the same way.  Much of the turmoil that preceded the Declaration of Independence was considered a political quarrel that got out of hand.  The colonist blamed the king’s ministers, members of parliament and those who profited from government.  

    

Political disagreement turned bloody.  George Washington wrote about his fellow countrymen who were called Tories.  Here is an excerpt from Thomas B. Allen’s Tories, Fighting for the King in America’s First Civil War:

 

In 1776 Washington had seen Tories merely as disillusioned people, calling them “Unhappy wretches!  Deluded mortals!”  But his attitude toward them gradually hardened.  Writing to his brother, John Augustine, Washington was uncharacteristically nasty about the Loyalist departure: “All those who took upon themselves the style of government-men in Boston, in short, all those who have acted an unfriendly part in the great contest, have shipped themselves off in the same hurry….One or two have done, what a great number out to have done long ago, committed suicide.

The acts of a monarch that brought about America’s first civil war are being reenacted today.  The States and their citizens are being marginalized and disenfranchised by federal bureaucrats and an overzealous attorney general.   King George III acted much the same by taking away the colonies charters, abolishing their laws, and altering their forms of government.  Their next step was to confiscate firearms and ammunition.  Sound familiar?

How can we avoid the pitfalls of another civil war?  Mark Levin has pointed out the solution in his book The Liberty Amendments, outlined in article V of our Constitution.  But are the States too dependent upon government largess to shake off the shackles.  We’ll find out.  But what I do know is this can’t last.

If another civil war breaks out, we know our fate if we lose: death, imprisonment, and slavery.  But what about the legions of government men that infest today’s America.  What will we do with today’s Tories?  Well, I expect they’ll be treated the same as their ideological brothers in the 18^th century.  Many left voluntarily to Canada and other territories of Great Britain.  Others were forced to leave.  States enacted expulsion and confiscation laws to ensure that their “neighbors” never returned, or made them take loyalty oaths.  Here is a statue depicting the fate of the “Loyalist.”

United Empire Loyalist monument in Hamilton, Ontario. The accompanying plaque reads:

This Monument is Dedicated to the Lasting Memory of The United Empire Loyalists who, after the Declaration of Independence, came into British America from the seceded American Colonies and who, with faith and fortitude, and under great pioneering difficulties, largely laid the foundations of this Canadian nation as an integral part of the British Empire.

Neither confiscation of their property, the pitiless persecution of their kinsmen in revolt, nor the galling chains of imprisonment could break their spirits, or divorce them from a loyalty almost without parallel.

“No country ever had such founders — no country in the world — no, not since the days of Abraham.” — Lady Tennyson

  

There are plenty of totalitarian countries out there for the progressives to choose from.  However, there is only one America for us patriots.

Source:

http://www.toriesfightingfortheking.com/Punishing.htm

http://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/ir/bitstream/1840.16/2724/1/etd.pdf

http://b.treelines.com/not-happy-thanksgiving-but-happy-evacuation-day/

A Must Read: Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill

I guess I can give thanks for the sad state of talk radio in the Charlotte, North Carolina area.  Had it not been for the insipid and banal commentary that permeates WBT 1110 AM I wouldn’t have changed the channel to – of all places – NPR. 

The only time I can get NPR is when I’m driving.  My pocket transistor doesn’t pick it up.  That’s right a transistor radio!  Got a problem with that?  It just so happened that Dianne Rehm was interviewing Nathaniel Philbrick on his latest book, Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution.  I knew right then that I had to put it on my reading list.

If you are an American history buff, you’ll love this book.  The author reintroduces a cast of characters that time has forgotten, from the Boston Massacre to the British evacuation.   You’ll be in awe of the resolve of New Englanders, who are “religious, ornery, and clannish.”

 

 

Courage, New Hampshire

Last week, I happened upon a television series on the INSP channel.  The name of the show is Courage, New Hampshire.  Granted it lasted only four days.  Hopefully, they’ll continue to produce more episodes.  Here is a brief description. 

 

In 1770 America, family-man, tavern-keeper and local Justice of the Peace, Silas Rhodes strives to balance home, business and politics. Together with British deserter Bob Wheedle, they do their best to fight back against the growing tyranny of the British King.  The two men lead a band of ordinary men who are secretive soldiers known as the “Sons of Liberty.” With brave acts of midnight justice against local British officials, they battle the bondage of the King’s oppressive laws in the pre-revolutionary township of Courage, New Hampshire.

This powerful drama depicts daily life for families, tradesmen and British officials living in this early American township during the turmoil just before the Revolutionary War. The people, politics and intrigue of the time are presented with historical detail, bringing this significant period in America to vibrant life once more.




 

 Without a doubt, many viewers can relate to the arbitrary injustices inflicted on the populace by government agents.  If it were not for the period costumes and rustic scenery, you’d think it a modern day tale, especially in the Age of Obama.

 During the beginning of the second episode, I thought I spotted Andrew Breitbart.  And to confirm my suspicions I found the following YouTube video:

 

 
Maybe we can expect more Courage, New Hampshire episodes.  That is if the IRS didn’t order them to stop producing subversive material.

Source:  http://www.insp.com/shows/courage-new-hampshire/
 

It's Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence Day

May 20^th is Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence Day, or locally known as Meck Dec Day.  This day of celebration is emblazoned on North Carolina’s state flag.  The following is an introduction, along with the resolves:

 Introduction

On April 30, 1819, the Raleigh (N.C.) Register published the following document, said to have been adopted by the Committee of Mecklenburg county, North Carolina, on May 20, 1775, the day after the receipt of the news of the battle of Lexington. The similarity of some of its phrases (here italicized) to phrases in the Declaration of Independence raised questions as to plagiarism on Jefferson's part, or, on the other hand, as to the authenticity of the Mecklenburg document. It is clear that Jefferson never heard of it before 1819; and the explanation most commonly adopted is, that it is a compilation, based in part on general recollections of certain resolutions, still extant, which were drawn up by the committee-men of Mecklenburg on May 31, 1775.

The Document

"1. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this County, to America, and to the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

2. Resolved, That we the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the Mother Country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, or association, with that Nation, who have wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties¬and inhumanly shed the innocent blood of American patriots at Lexington.

3. Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people, are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self¬governing Association, under the control of no power other than that of our God and the General Government of the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other, our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

4. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this County, we do hereby ordain and adopt, as a rule of life, all, each and every of our former laws -where, nevertheless, the Crown of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority therein.

5. Resolved, That it is also further decreed, that all, each and every military officer in this County, is hereby reinstated to his former command and authority, he acting conformably to these regulations, and that every member present of this delegation shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz. a Justice of the Peace, in the character of a 'Committee¬man,' to issue process, hear and determine all matters of controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace, and union, and harmony, in said County, and to use every exertion to spread the love of country and fire of freedom throughout America, until a more general and organized government be established in this province."

 

  

Source:  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1775mecklenberg.asp

http://charmeck.org/mecklenburg/county/ParkandRec/TrailOfHistory/Pages/default.aspx

http://charlottein2012.com/blog/meck_dec_day/

Peter Francisco: Hercules of the American Revolution

Charlotte's Liberty Walk

The Dark Side of the Age of Enlightenment

 

 

Last Thursday was National Prayer Day, and subsequently, the malcontents had to throw a hissy fit.  In response, the atheist at the American Humanist Association issued a proclamation designating the same as National Day of Reason.  Here are their instructions for activism:

Work to have a Day of Reason proclaimed by your state or local government;

Hold a press conference for your local media to promote respect for the separation of religion and government, and to draw attention to the many breaches of that principle during recent months;

Organize a letter-writing campaign urging your elected officials to support the separation of religion and government;

Visit the National Day of Reason web site to sign-up as an endorser, to view planned events, or to read some of the media coverage from previous years

 

Mayor Anthony Foxx of Charlotte decided to accommodate the heathens.  After all, the Democratic Party is infested with Christian haters.  And believe me, that’s what these people are. 

 The Humanist has bastardized history and our Constitution in an effort to silence and shame Christians.  They state the First Amendment dictates a separation of church and state, when in fact it does not.  The establishment clause was designed to ensure that the federal government could not establish a state sponsored religion by means of taxation; religion being Anglican, Baptist, Methodist, Congregational…, it did not mean the absence of Christian prayer at government meetings.  Anyone with a modicum knowledge of history would know this.

The Humanist has adopted the Age of Reason as their platform.  This epoch in history was said to have ended with the French Revolution.  We all know what a bloody affair that turned out to be.  Here is an excerpt from the book Citizens by Simon Schama:

But the most unruly demonstrations of dechristianizing zeal probably happened more or less spontaneously. When a regiment of the army, two thousand strong, arrived at Aurexxe en route to Lyon, for example, the cannoneers smashed in the church doors and mutilated images and statues of saints. A crucifix was taken from the chapel of Mary and paraded about upside down for citizens to spit on. When a local quarryman refused to do this, one of the soldiers cut off a part of his nose with his saber.

And given the opportunity, the Humanist would probably act like this malcontent:

More orderly forms of dechristianization were provided by such representanats-en-mission as the ex-Oratorian priest Fouche, who undertook a particularly enthusiastic campaign in the Nievre, where he stripped cemeteries of all religious symbols and posted on the gates his famous dictum “Death is but an eternal sleep.”

Contrast that with the American Revolution.  Despite what the Humanist say, the population was devoutly Christian.

One of the prominent philosophers of that age was David Hume.  Many believe his writings influenced Charles Darwin.  The Progressives have adopted Darwin’s evolutionary theory as a means to co-opt our Constitution rendering it a “living and breathing document,” and in doing so, they have abrogated our founding principles.  Even more sinister, is the programs that the Progressives have advocated such as eugenics and infanticide.  Some would say the Holocaust sprung from the Age of Reason: 

Here is a video on the Age of Reason:
 

Here is one on David Hume:

 

Source: http://nationaldayofreason.org/2012/why-national-day-of-reason/

 http://www.historyandtheheadlines.abc-clio.com/ContentPages/ContentPage.aspx?entryId=1149642&currentSection=1129168&productid=2

http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2011/04/american-progressives-roll-out.html

http://www.zimbio.com/David+Hume/articles/ECAjSgjf8sb/David+Hume+influence+Charles+Darwin

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2709046?uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102157097571

Today's Democrats Are Yesteryear's Tories

Thomas Jefferson once stated, the tree of liberty must be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots, and for all intensive purposes the federal government is preparing for a rebellion.  The Department of Homeland Security has purchased an additional 21.6 million rounds of ammunition to add to their stockpile of 1.6 billion.  This is the same agency that designated liberty loving Americans as “extreme right-wing terrorist.”

Even though a civil war is unthinkable, it’s amazing to witness everyone arming up.  Gun manufacturers can’t keep up with orders and ammunition is hard to come by; in the meantime, Vice President Joe Biden is meddling in the affairs of state governments by pushing Democrats to ban certain weapons and high capacity clips.  Democrats in Wisconsin introduced a bill to ban certain types of ammunition; in the state of Washington they prohibited “assault weapons,” and called for a yearly, warrantless inspection by a sheriff.  Noncompliance is punishable by one year in jail.

Geez, today’s Democrats remind me of yesteryears Tories.  The level of taxation is unbearable.  They’re confiscating property and are trying to disarm the populace.  And by not passing a budget in the Senate, the Democrats have effectively rendered Congress on par with the House of Burgesses in 1769 when King George III disbanded it.  We’re basically in conflict with tyranny once again.

Mark Levin stated that the federal government is preparing for a complete financial meltdown.  The evidence substantiates his claims:

 

The Revolutionary War was also a civil war, neighbor vs. neighbor, Patriots vs. Tories.  This next one will be Patriots vs. Progressives. 

Source:  http://www.infowars.com/dhs-purchases-21-6-million-more-rounds-of-ammunition/

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020373291_westneat17xml.html#.USEXugbndv1.facebook

http://www.history.org/history/teaching/tchcrtme.cfm

http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/16/levin-u-s-govt-preparing-for-civil-societys-collapse-by-buying-up-billions-of-rounds-of-ammo/

http://mediatrackers.org/2013/02/15/democrats-seek-to-ban-hunting-ammunition-in-wisconsin/

Anniversary of The Shot Heard Around the World

The Concord Hymn

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April's breeze unfurled, Here once the embattled farmers stood, And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;Alike the conqueror silent sleeps ;And Time the ruined bridge has swept Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,We set to-day a votive stone; That memory may their deed redeem,When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

Spirit, that made those heroes dare To die, and leave their children free, Bid Time and Nature gently spare The shaft we raise to them and thee

It’s the anniversary of the shot heard around the world. The battles of Lexington and Concord changed the political landscape between colony and protectorate. It was the catalyst when man became a citizen, instead of a subject. April 19, 1775 will forever be remembered as the day we became Americans.

Here is an excerpt from Rebels and Redcoats describing the retreat of the British regulars:

Our men had very few opportunities of getting shots at the rebels, as they hardly ever fired but under cover of a stone wall, from behind a tree, or out of a house, and the moment they had fired they lay down out of sight until they had loaded again or the column had passed, In the road indeed in our rear, they were most numerous and came on pretty close, frequently calling out “King Hancock forever!” Many of them were killed in the houses on the roadside from whence they fired; in some of them seven or eight men were destroyed. Some houses were forced open in which no person could be discovered, but when the column had passed, numbers sallied out from some place in which they had lain concealed, fired at our rear guard and augmented the numbers which followed us. If we had had time to set fire to those houses, many rebels must have perished in them, but as night drew on Lord Percy thought it best to continue to march. Many houses were plundered by the soldiers, notwithstanding the efforts of the officers to prevent it. I have no doubt this inflamed the rebels and made many of them follow us farther than they would otherwise have done. By all accounts some soldiers stayed too long in the houses were killed in the very act of plundering by those who lay concealed in them. We brought in about ten prisoners, some of whom were taken in arms. One or two more were killed on the march while prisoners by the fire of their own people.

Even some women got into the fight:

….even women had firelocks. One was seen to fire a blunderbuss between her father and husband from their windows. There they three, with an infant child, soon suffered the fury of the day. In another house which was long defended by eight resolute fellows, the grenadiers at last got possession, when after having run their bayonets into seven, the eighth continued to abuse them with all the [beastlike] rage of a true Cromwellian, and but a moment before he quitted this world applied such epithets as I must leave unmentioned….

And for the progressives, here is a little primer to help you along on American history:

Source: http://www.nationalcenter.org/ConcordHymn.html

April 19th: The Shot Heard Around the World

April 19th is the 236th anniversary of the Shot Heard Around the World at Lexington, Massachusetts. It was a fierce running battle that put the red coats to flight back to Boston. The rebel force included both men and women. Here is an account of a British soldier who survived the long retreat from Concord:

Although MacKenzie had seen few women or children, many were involved in the actions of the day. A man from the British ships in Boston Harbor wrote to England about the fury of the rebel attacks:


… even women had firelocks. One was seen to fire a blunderbuss between her father and husband from their windows. There they three, with an infant child, soon suffered the fury of the day. In another house which was long defended by eight resolute fellows, the grenadiers at last got possession, when after having run their bayonets into seven, the eighth continued to abuse them with all the [beastlike rage] of a true Cromwellian, and but a moment before he quitted this world applied such epithets as I must leave unmentioned…

And here is the tally of British regulars and rebels who fought on that historic day:

Thus ended an unbelievable April day. About eighteen hundred British regulars had marched to destroy some secreted rebel stores: seventy-three of them had been killed, two hundred were wounded or missing. Probably an equal number of Americans had been engaged during the day, but no one could count accurately the men who came, shot at the red column, and then either came to Cambridge or hiked home. Forty-nine of them had died and forty-six were wounded or missing.

The aftermath of lost ones and thoughts of a rebel who made it to the action late:

Grief-torn homes in Lexington, Acton, Woburn, and a dozen more towns, and redcoats hastily buried across the road from Josiah Nelson’s boulder strewn yard in Lincoln and other spots along the roadside – these were more than statistics. They were the evidence that an intellectual rebellion had become a rebellion in arms.


A man named James Jones arrived at Concord too late for the fighting, but soon his company was in Cambridge, billeted in Harvard College, and he was writing his “Loving Wife” the only universal truth of the day: “Tis uncertain when we shall return … Let us be patient & remember that it is ye hand of God.”




Source:  Rebels & Redcoats