First released in 2004, this book has grown to reflect new discoveries in archives, archeology, and interpretation. It traces Lexington’s transition from a quiet rural town to a center of Patriot militancy in the decade before 1775, looking at the religious, economic, and geographical forces at work.
In this edition Cain discusses not only the militiamen who gathered on and around the town common as British soldiers arrived but also the families who rushed to evacuate and the remaining Loyalists.
Recent archeological findings lend new weight to the description of “Parker’s Revenge,” as Lexington’s militia companies fired at the British column when it returned to town from the west. And the book follows the citizens of Lexington through the siege of Boston.
We Stood Our Ground is available from Amazon in paperback and as a very well priced Kindle ebook.
Alex Cain is an active historical researcher and reenactor. He teaches, speaks on constitutional and criminal issues, and leads tours of historic Newburyport through Untapped History. His writing can be found at Historical Nerdery and the Journal of the American Revolution. His other book, “I See Nothing but the Horrors of a Civil War”, follows the Loyalist families from New York and the Hampshire Grants (Vermont) who fought for the Crown as McAlpin’s Corps of American Volunteers.
Remarks on the Alarm of 19 April 1775...the little incidents that make history so interesting-for example Harvard College Graduates and students did take part in the Alarm:
ReplyDeleteRev Caleb Prentice of Reading Mass' According to family/and a county History he involved in the fight of the day between Lexington and Charlestown-one antedote me across a dead British solders and armed himself with the mans musket and sword..which had saw teeth-these were keep by the family for years afterward..at least his son John remembered seeing these "trophies"
Edward Bangs Class of 1777 who saved the life of a British solder "severly wounded, who had been overtaken in flight, and was about to be sacrified to the vengeance of his captors.”
Of course non Harv ard graduates took part in the fight..such as reading Sylvanius Woods pension declaration that he took a Grenadier prisioner reveling him of his gun/bayonet, cutleaas and two boxes of cartridges [40 rounds]
my own personel story...an ancestor George Wyatt was of the Alarm Company of Danvers Mass his service was "2 dayes"! {Of course he was in his fiftes..and had four sons who went into the service-two died, one was severaly wounded in the leg at Bunker Hill and one rose to officers rank
So does the youth of take take an Interest of 19 April 1775? I know my chief interest in growing up was that beautiful propaganda anoval 'The life of Johhny Tremain" [i.e young Johnny cuts himself off from his noble root to become part of a new nation...} Yet I wonder..what student of History still reads Harold Murdocks 'The Nineteen of April 1775"?
Sincerely
TF
I discuss Harold Murdock's historical ideas starting here.
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