Reading in a single sitting 一口气读完这段历史

The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay, within the towns of Lexington（莱克星顿）, Concord（康科德）, Lincoln, Menotomy (present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British North America.

About 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord. Through effective intelligence gathering, Patriot colonials had received word weeks before the expedition that their supplies might be at risk and had moved most of them to other locations. They also received details about British plans on the night before the battle and were able to rapidly notify the area militias of the enemy movement.

The first shots were fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. The militia were outnumbered and fell back, and the regulars proceeded on to Concord, where they searched for the supplies. At the North Bridge in Concord, approximately 500 militiamen fought and defeated three companies of the King' s troops. The outnumbered regulars fell back from the minutemen after a pitched battle in open territory.

More militiamen arrived soon thereafter and inflicted heavy damage on the regulars as they marched back towards Boston. Upon returning to Lexington, Smith' s expedition was rescued by reinforcements under Lieutenant-General Hugh Percy. The combined force, now of about 1, 700 men, marched back to Boston under heavy fire in a tactical withdrawal and eventually reached the safety of Charlestown. The accumulated militias blockaded the narrow land accesses to Charlestown and Boston, starting the Siege of Boston.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his "Concord Hymn", described the first shot fired by the Patriots at the North Bridge as the "shot heard round the world."

In the morning, Boston was surrounded by a huge militia army, numbering over 15, 000, which had marched from throughout New England. Unlike the Powder Alarm, the rumors of spilled blood were true, and the Revolutionary War had begun. The militia army continued to grow as surrounding colonies sent men and supplies. The Second Continental Congress adopted these men into the beginnings of the Continental Army. Even now, after open warfare had started, Gage still refused to impose martial law in Boston. He persuaded the town' s selectmen to surrender all private weapons in return for promising that any inhabitant could leave town.

The battle was not a major one in terms of tactics or casualties. However, in terms of supporting the British political strategy behind the Intolerable Acts and the military strategy behind the Powder Alarms, the battle was a significant failure because the expedition contributed to the fighting it was intended to prevent, and because few weapons were actually seized.

The battle was followed by a war for British political opinion. Within four days of the battle, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress had collected scores of sworn testimonies from militiamen and from British prisoners. When word leaked out a week after the battle that Gage was sending his official description of events to London, the Provincial Congress sent over 100 of these detailed depositions on a faster ship. They were presented to a sympathetic official and printed by the London newspapers two weeks before Gage' s report arrived. Gage' s official report was too vague on particulars to influence anyone' s opinion. George Germain, no friend of the colonists, wrote, "the Bostonians are in the right to make the King' s troops the aggressors and claim a victory." Politicians in London tended to blame Gage for the conflict instead of their own policies and instructions. The British troops in Boston variously blamed General Gage and Colonel Smith for the failures at Lexington and Concord.

1775年4月18日，英国总督得知离波士顿不远的康科德藏有民兵军火武器，于是派出士兵前往查缴没收。工兵保尔·瑞维尔得知消息后，星夜疾驰，通知各个村庄的民兵组织起来，迎击英军。英军和民兵在莱克星顿发生激战，英军尽管赶到康科德，夺取了部分武器，但损失惨重，被迫退回波士顿。莱克星顿的枪声，揭开了美国独立战争的序幕。因此，在美国建国的历史进程中，波士顿具有不可磨灭的作用。

1775年4月19日，在莱克星敦打响第一枪的美国独立战争，是殖民地人民为反抗英国殖民统治，争取民族独立而进行的民族解放战争。这场战争从1775年至1783年，持续8年之久，最终以英国在北美殖民统治的破产和北美殖民地的独立而告终。

Key Words in History 历史关键词

1. Battle of Bunker Hill 邦克山战役

The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775, mostly on and around Breed' s Hill, during the Siege of Boston early in the American Revolutionary War. The battle is named after the adjacent Bunker Hill, which was peripherally involved in the battle and was the original objective of both colonial and British troops, and is occasionally referred to as the "Battle of Breed' s Hill."

On June 13, 1775, the leaders of the colonial forces besieging Boston learned that the British generals were planning to send troops out from the city to occupy the unoccupied hills surrounding the city. In response to this intelligence, 1, 200 colonial troops under the command of William Prescott stealthily occupied Bunker Hill and Breed' s Hill, constructed an earthen redoubt on Breed' s Hill, and built lightly fortified lines across most of the Charlestown Peninsula.

When the British were alerted to the presence of the new position the next day, they mounted an attack against them. After two assaults on the colonial lines were repulsed with significant British casualties, the British finally captured the positions on the third assault, after the defenders in the redoubt ran out of ammunition. The colonial forces retreated to Cambridge over Bunker Hill, suffering their most significant losses on Bunker Hill.

2. Thomas Gage托马斯·盖奇

The Honorable Thomas Gage (1719 or 1720-2 April 1787) was a British general, best known for his many years of service in North America, including his role as military commander in the early days of the American War of Independence.

From 1763 to 1775 he served as commander-in-chief of the British forces in North America, overseeing the British response to the 1763 Pontiac' s Rebellion. In 1774 he was also appointed the military governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, with instructions to implement the Intolerable Acts, punishing Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party. His attempts to seize military stores of Patriot militias in April 1775 sparked the Battles of Lexington and Concord, beginning the American War of Independence. After the Pyrrhic victory in the June Battle of Bunker Hill he was replaced by General William Howe in October 1775, and returned to Britain.

3. Intolerable Acts 《不可容忍法》

The Intolerable Acts or the Coercive Acts are names used to describe a series of laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 relating to Britain' s colonies in North America. The acts triggered outrage and resistance in the Thirteen Colonies that later became the United States, and were important developments in the growth of the American Revolution.

Four of the acts were issued in direct response to the Boston Tea Party of December 1773; the British Parliament hoped these punitive measures would, by making an example of Massachusetts, reverse the trend of colonial resistance to parliamentary authority that had begun with the 1765 Stamp Act. A fifth act, the Quebec Act, enlarged the boundaries of what was then the Province of Quebec and instituted reforms generally favorable to the French Catholic inhabitants of the region.

Background Knowledge 背景知识补充

1775年4月18日晚，天空漆黑一片，两匹快马从波士顿向康科德方向急驰而去。马背上的两个人，一个叫保尔·瑞维尔，另一个叫威廉·戴维斯。他俩都是北美争取民族解放的秘密组织“自由之子社”的民兵战士。他们在波士顿打探到总督兼英国驻军总司令盖奇即将派军队到康科德搜查反英秘密组织的军火仓库，并要逮捕爱国者领导人，于是连夜骑马向各地的民兵报警。他们很快来到近郊的莱克星顿村，把英国军队就要来搜查的消息告诉当地的民兵们，然后又飞身上马直奔康科德。民兵们得到消息后，很快集合起来，埋伏在树林里、公路旁，等候英军的到来。

19日清晨，天刚蒙蒙亮，800名穿着赭红色军装的英国轻步兵，在少校指挥官史密斯的带领下，乘着薄雾，偷偷地来到莱克星顿村边。他们正要摸进村子，忽然发现村前的草坪上列队站着几十个村民。这些人个个手握着枪，怒视着英国人。史密斯发现情况不妙，举起军刀指挥英军向前冲杀。“砰！”英军向民兵开了第一枪，民兵立即向英军开枪还击。中弹的英军一个又一个倒在地上，在激战中有8位民兵战士献出了自己的生命。

由于敌众我寡，英军很快冲进村庄，并向康科德镇猛扑过去。可当他们赶到时，民兵们早已把弹药库转移了，爱国者领导人也隐蔽起来。英军除了糟蹋粮食外，什么也没有找到。史密斯命令士兵赶紧撤退，可这时已经晚了，四面八方响起一阵阵枪声，一排排子弹从房顶、树林、草丛中射来，穿着红色军装的英国士兵成了活靶子，一批接一批倒下。史密斯被打得抱头鼠窜，狼狈不堪地逃回波士顿。这一仗，北美民兵共打死打伤英国士兵247人，取得了辉煌的战绩。莱克星顿的枪声，揭开了北美独立战争的序幕。这枪声像信号一样，很快传遍英属北美13个殖民地。从此，反对英国殖民统治的战火燃遍了北美大地。 FwTyKcC9pq3HO3OKQp74VuSzqCGpHdsptb2EaJDLg4TH+aFfGqx07DiTkidxfFpQ