Patriots Day 2015: What you think was the beginning of the Revolutionary War is not true

 Today is the day which is considered by most to be the official beginning of the Revolutionary War with the shot heard around the world at the Battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775, while tomorrow the day will be officially observed. However, contrary to popular belief, the first shots in the war were not fired on April 19th of 1775 in Massachusetts as we have been taught, but rather they came a few months earlier, in December of 1774 in my state of New Hampshire.

  Here is part of what I wrote about this in an article I posted in 2011:

As we New Hampshirites know, contrary to popular belief, the Revolutionary War actually started months before the “shot heard around the world” when in New Hampshire in December of 1774 Paul Revere made a much less known ride to warn the patriots that the British were coming to reenforce Fort William and Mary.

   Equipped with this information 400 patriots raided Fort William and Mary and captured cannon and almost 100 barrels of gunpowder before the British could reenforce their fort. This was an act of war and was the beginning of the Revolution, while most of the country did not yet realize it a “silent” revolution had already begun in the state of New Hampshire before the first shots were fired; and it is believed that some of this captured gunpowder was used in the misnamed Battle of Bunker Hill.

  The first shots in the Revolutionary War came in December of 1774 and it was in New Hampshire, and not in Massachusetts, where the first shots were fired. Here is more background:

On December 14, 1774, local Patriots from the Portsmouth area, led by John Langdon, stormed the post and seized the garrison’s powder, which was distributed through several New Hampshire towns for potential use in the looming struggle against Great Britain. On December 15, 1774, patriots led by John Sullivan again raided the fort, this time seizing numerous cannons.

As tensions increased before the American Revolutionary War, Lord North’s ministry became concerned that the profusion of arms inNew England would lead to bloodshed. On October 19, 1774, King George III issued a confidential Order in Council forbidding the export of arms and powder to America. Word of the order reached operatives in New England’s patriot movement.

The port at Boston had been closed in punishment for the Boston Tea Party, and the Portsmouth Committee of Correspondence kept in close contact with friends of liberty in Boston. Tensions in Massachusetts nearly erupted into violence in the fall of 1774 whenredcoats seized provincial gunpowder during the so-called Powder Alarm. Upon learning of the Order in Council, patriots feared that the British military would make another attempt to seize colonial stores. Patriots in Rhode Island moved munitions from the fort at Newport inland for safe keeping without incident. In Massachusetts, rumors flew that troops from Boston were headed to reinforce Fort William and Mary and seize its powder and arms. On December 13, 1774, four months before his more famous ride in Massachusetts, Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth to sound the alarm.

On the morning of December 14, Patriots from the town of New Castle unsuccessfully attempted to take the gunpowder at Fort William and Mary by trickery. Meanwhile, John Langdon made his way through Portsmouth with a drummer, collecting a crowd to descend on the fort. Several hundred men responded to his call, setting out for the Castle by way of the Piscataqua River. Only one provincial officer, Captain John Cochran, and five provincial soldiers were stationed at Fort William and Mary. Despite the odds against them, they refused to capitulate to Patriot demands. When Langdon’s men rushed the fort, the defenders opened fire with three cannon and a volley of musket shot. [emphasis mine] Patriots stormed the walls and Cochran’s men engaged in hand-to-hand fighting before being subdued by an overwhelming number of raiders. Langdon’s volunteers not only broke open the powder house and absconded with about 100 barrels of gunpowder but, to three cheers, hauled down the fort’s huge British flag. Several injuries but no deaths occurred in the engagement, and Cochran and his men were released after about an hour and a half of confinement.

The next day, additional rebel forces arrived in Portsmouth from across the colony, as well as from Maine. Led by John Sullivan, the rebels returned to the fort late on the night of December 15, overran the post without gunfire and removed muskets, military supplies and 16 cannon marked as the property of the King. British authorities declared the raids – for which Sullivan later received a stipend from the Continental Congress – high treason.

In response to a call for aid from Boston by Governor John Wentworth, the armed hydrographic survey sloop Canceaux arrived to keep the peace in New Hampshire on December 17, followed by the twenty-gun frigate Scarborough on December 19, with numerous marines aboard. The Governor and his family were driven from their home in Portsmouth in the summer of 1775 and forced to take refuge in the fort, guarded by the guns of British warships. Britain finally gave up on the colony of New Hampshire in order to focus attention on the military situation in Massachusetts [emphasis mine] and abandoned the fort, removing its remaining equipment to Boston along with Governor Wentworth.

The supplies captured by Patriots in December of 1774 were later used by New Hampshire’s forces against the British military, including in the Siege of Boston. Conversely, supplies (including numerous cannon) left in the fort by Patriots following the raids were subsequently put to use by the British forces.

  As you have now read, the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War came at Fort William and Mary in New Hampshire and not at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and in reality Britain decided to give up New Hampshire in order to focus on defending their position in Massachusetts.

  I decided to share this with my readers because I find this to be an interesting little tidbit of American history which has been  lost over time. Fort William and Mary has been renamed Fort Constitution and it still stands today as a tourist destination to this day. I am ashamed to admit that while I live so close to this historical landmark I have not visited it, but I intend to in the near future.

Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium