Who were the Patriots?
Colonists who opposed British rule. Many spoke out against the British government.
In 1775, what were the British doing in the Boston Harbor?
They blocked the Boston Harbor in order to keep ships form entering or leaving Boston.
Who was Mercy Otis Warren?
A Patriot writer. She wrote plays criticizing Bristish officials in Boston.
What did Patrick Henry say that led many colonists to share his views?
He said that he was eager for a war with Britain.
What is a militia?
A group of ordinary people who train for battle.
In the colonies, what were the militias doing, and who made up most of the men in the militias?
- They were training for battle.
- Most of the men were farmers.
What did General Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts learn?
What did he order after learning this information?
- He learned that the Patriots wee storiing gun powerder and cannons in Concord, which is about 20 miles from Boston.
- He ordered soldiers to go destroy the supplies.
Was General Gage able to keep it a secret that he had sent soldiers to Concord to destroy the Patriots’ gunpowder and cannons?
No, Patriots in Boston learned what he had planned.
How did the Boston Patriots warn the Concord Patriots/milita that British soldiers were coming at night?
- They used laterns in the tower of Boston’s North Church to warn Concord.
- Patriots rode ahead to warn the Concord Patriots/militia. Some of those riders were Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott.
What were Minutemen?
Militia with special training. They had to be ready for battle at a minute’s notice.
As Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott galloped ahead to Concord, who did they alert?
- The Minutemen
- Revere told them “The Regulars are coming out!” Regulars are what they called the British soldiers.
Did Revere, Dawes, and Prescott all make it it Concord?
No, Revere got caught in Lexington. Prescott made it to Concord.
Where did the first battle take place in the Revolutionary War?
Lexington Massachutets.
How did the first battle in Lexington start?
- A group of minutemen were waiting in Lexington for the British.
- The British officer told the minutemen to leave.
- As the minutemen turned to go, someone fired. Nobody knows which side did it.
- Both sides started shooting at each other.
- When it was done, eight colonists were dead, and nine were wounded. Only one British soldier had been hurt.
After the battle in Lexington, what happened in Concord?
- As the British searched Concord for hidden weapons, more minutemen gathered nearby.
- Fighting broke out, and the minutemen were able to force the British to turn bakc toward Boston.
What did the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson call this event?
“The shot heard round the world.”
It was the beginning of the fight for freedom which eventually led to the United States becoming an important country in the world.
What happened to the British soldiers as they marched back to Boston from Concord?
- Colonists from the nearby towns and townds farther away tracked the soldiers, hid behind treees and walls, and shot at the British soldiers.
- More than 250 British soldiers were wounded or killed.
What happened as the news about the Battles of Lexington and Concord spread?
Thousands of armed colonists surrounded Boston. The British in the city were trapped.
Where did the Patriots militia build a fort after the battles of Lexington and Concord?
They built it on Breed’s Hill which his just outside of Boston. They planned to fire cannons at the British in Boston.
After the Patriots built the fort on Breed’s Hill, what did the British do?
- They attacked the fort the next day with 2,000 men.
- It took them three tries to take over the fort.
- The British lost a lot of men.
- They were able to take it when the Patriots ran out of gunpowder.
- The Patriots proved they could fight in a big battle.
What did William Prescott, a Patriot leader tell his milia as the British attacked the fort on Breed’s Hill?
- “Don’t fire until you see the whites o their eyes.”
- He did not want his men to waste gunpowder on shots that were too far away.
What was the battle on Breed’s Hill called?
It was called Bunker Hill even though it was actually fought on Breed’s Hill.
Why did the Second Continental Congress meet in 1775?
- The British had not agreed to meet the First Continental Congress’s demands.
- They decided that they needed to create a new army called the Continental Army who would train full time as the British did. The members of the militias were only part-time soldiers.
Who did the Second Continental Congress pick to organize and be the commander of the Continental Army?
George Washington, because he had experience fighting in the French and Indian War.
