(Location suggested by my beautiful wife Mary Ann, the love of my life.)

On April 19, 1775, British soldiers marched from Boston to Concord to destroy American munitions there. Warned by Paul Revere and others, local militia and Minutemen watched silently from a ridge as the British marched into town, but seeing the fire from the burning munitions and mistakenly believing the British were razing the town, they confronted the Redcoats at the North Bridge. The Redcoats fired, killing the drummer boy and another man before the Americans returned fire, ultimately driving the British back to Boston.

With this famous shot heard ‘round the world the American Revolution had begun.

Outraged at the Minutemen’s relentless sniper fire and guerilla tactics, during their panicked retreat to Boston the Redcoats shot civilians and burned homes, and the angry reaction to the battle in the colonies and in Britain led to six years of war.

At the far end of the bridge is Daniel Chester French's (designer of the Lincoln Memorial) first work, the Minute Man Statue, inscribed with a stanza from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s "Concord Hymn", which was written for the dedication of the white memorial obelisk seen at the near end of the bridge.

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.