The Forgotten Holiday!

Although it is celebrated on July 4^th   (1776) as the birthday of our nation, the truth is the date is not correct.  The Declaration of Independence was approved by vote of the Continental Congress on July 2^nd, and the document was actually signed on July 6^th.  Furthermore, it did not establish the United States of America, rather it was a letter enumerating grievances and severing colonial ties penned to King George III (of England).

Last Sunday was April 19^th.  There are a few of you (greetings, fellow patriots) who immediately recognize that date as truly important.  If you watched, read or listened to the news, no one can blame you if Oklahoma City or Waco, Texas sprung to mind.  But those are really afterthoughts that tragically taint the day.  Arguably the most important event in our nation’s history occurred on April 19^th, 1775.

This year marks the 240^th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord (Middlesex County, Massachusetts).  The serious events that occurred on that day were truly the furnace in which our national culture was forged. 

In response to the Boston Tea Party, the British took over governance of the Colony of Massachusetts.  To counter, the Colonials formed an illegal, shadow government.  Among their actions, create militias, drill and remove weapons to secret cache areas.  Of course, the first overt act of the British was to initiate confiscation of weapons from the Colonials at Concord.

The Colonials’ intelligence network uncovered British plans to march on Concord, Mass.  During the night of April 18^th, deployment of the British troops was observed which precipitated the midnight rides of Paul Revere (very famous) and William Dawes (much lost to history) to effectively warn the residents of Lexington and other towns of the imminent Redcoat incursion.

William Dawes

  

  

A citizen militia met the advancing troops at Lexington where the first shots of the revolution were fired, and ground blooded, at about dawn on April 19^th 1775.  Casualties were suffered by both sides but the superior British force continued on its mission to search for contraband (weapons) at Concord.

Although the militia at Concord challenged the Redcoats, the British were able to conclude to their satisfaction that no cache of weapons was present (which had been distributed to other towns) and effected a retreat under fire back to the safety of Boston Harbor and the naval fleet therein. 

North Bridge, Concord, Mass. April 19, 1775

Spiritually, our nation was born in blood and gunsmoke on that day. So the next time you see a news story commemorating either the Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma or the debacle at the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco, Texas: Ask, “Where is the coverage of the commemoration of the ‘shot heard round the world’ fired at North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts on April 19^th , 1775?”