Shots Not Heard 'Round the World
The First Battle of the American Revolution at Fort William and Mary
There are just too many conflicting reports to be able to be sure just who was first to fire that “shot heard round the world”. Even that great poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, who first coined that memorable phrase didn’t get it right. Surely his grandfather who was there must have told him that the shots fired “By the rude bridge” were not even the first lead to pour out of “embattled farmers” muskets that day.
The First Battle
Just as many other legends that are handed down through time, the truth about where the first shots were fired on the King’s troops in the American Revolution has almost been erased from the public consciousness. There is one thing of which we can be certain. The first black powder burns on Revolutionary Patriot hands in did not appear on the morning of April 19, 1775. The first battle for American freedom actually occurred just over four months earlier and northeast of Lexington and Concord in the little shipping town of Portsmouth, NH. There is really only one thing that remained somewhat constant about this story when compared to what Massachusetts Citizens celebrate as Patriot’s Day each April. One of the same gentlemen who brought the early warning to those brave minutemen and was the semi official messenger for the continental congress, rode 60 rough miles in wintry weather to warn those New Hampshire citizens as well. His name was Paul Revere.
The First Rider
It was a chilly December 13th when Revere rode into Portsmouth that afternoon. As part of the crackdown on recalcitrant New Englanders after the Boston Harbor became the world’s biggest teapot a year earlier, King George had issued an order that all gunpowder and artillery stores were to be secured. Revere was coming to warn the Committee of Safety that the Royal Navy was on its way to appropriate the town’s stock that it kept at Fort William and Mary. A skeleton crew of redcoats was in charge of security at the fort but it was the town and the colony that had supplied the powder they were guarding under the King’s flag. The town militia attempted a peaceful coup at first, relying on guile to relieve Captain John Cochran of his “charges”, but Cochrane would have none of it.
The First Shots
John Langdon, a future US Senator who led the mission, quickly notified his “Plan B” team by a prearranged signal that it was up to them. Captain Cochrane, stubborn in the face of sure defeat, followed through with his threat to fire on the attacking militia. Amazingly, even as the assault crew fired back, no one was hit. It finally came down to a hand to hand struggle that was easily won over the greatly outnumbered garrison. The patriots took all of the powder and then the next day, led by the future General John Sullivan, another group took away the cannon and muskets that remained. Then they made the victory complete by actually hauling down the King’s Colors. For the first time a British Fort was surrendered to rebels!
No One Hurt and No One Heard
If blood had been shed (and if there wasn’t that European tradition of not fighting in winter) that day may have been remembered as the start of the war. As it is, whether by weight of tradition or by the severity with which loss of life is imbued, April 19th seems to have won the day in the popular history. What is known, even if not remembered, is that the first shots fired in the American Revolution were in tiny Portsmouth, New Hampshire and that they are still, indeed, being felt, whether or not they were “heard ‘round the world”.
Sources
History of New Hampshire Volume II, by Jeremy Belknap, 1812, Public Domain
Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer, 1994, Oxford University Press
John Wentworth's Narrative of the Raids on Fort William and Mary by John Wentworth, Public Domain
