T.H. Breen: America's Other Independence Day
[T.H. Breen is William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University.]
We ought to celebrate April 19 as the anniversary of the founding of our country. To be sure, a formal declaration of independence would come a year after the battles of Lexington and Concord. For ordinary men and women, however, those battles severed the ties that had bound the colonists to Great Britain for almost two centuries. The killing of militiamen at Lexington transformed the character of the brewing conflict. After that moment there could be no turning back.
We still recall Paul Revere's famous ride the night before. He set out to warn John Hancock and Sam Adams that the British Army, stationed in Boston following the Boston Tea Party, was on the move to Lexington to seize military supplies believed to be in Concord. But Revere's heroics have deflected attention from the thousands of farmers who rushed to the scene of action. One was Isaac Davis of Acton, a few miles from Concord.
Many decades later, Isaac's wife Hannah recounted the events of that day for curious neighbors. Isaac had been selected captain of the Acton Minutemen and, as Hannah explained in 1835, "Between him [and] his Company there was strong attachment [and] unlimited confidence." She added, "He well knew his danger, but was a stranger to fear."
At dawn, having been warned by a messenger from Concord, the local soldiers gathered at Isaac's house. They made cartridges and when the time came to move out Isaac paused. "As he led the company toward Concord," Hannah explained, "he turned round, and seemed to have something to communicate. He only said 'take good care of the children,' and was soon out of sight." British troops shot Isaac a few hours later. He died near the bridge at Concord. "In the afternoon," Hannah said, her husband "was brought home a corpse. He was placed in my bedroom till the funeral."...
The Continental Congress voted for independence on July 4, 1776. But ordinary people were ahead of their leaders. As a revolutionary committee in Charleston, S.C., declared on June 30, 1775, "Let it be delivered down to posterity, that the American civil war broke out on the 19th day of April, 1775.—An epoch that, in all probability, will mark the declension of the British empire!"
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We ought to celebrate April 19 as the anniversary of the founding of our country. To be sure, a formal declaration of independence would come a year after the battles of Lexington and Concord. For ordinary men and women, however, those battles severed the ties that had bound the colonists to Great Britain for almost two centuries. The killing of militiamen at Lexington transformed the character of the brewing conflict. After that moment there could be no turning back.
We still recall Paul Revere's famous ride the night before. He set out to warn John Hancock and Sam Adams that the British Army, stationed in Boston following the Boston Tea Party, was on the move to Lexington to seize military supplies believed to be in Concord. But Revere's heroics have deflected attention from the thousands of farmers who rushed to the scene of action. One was Isaac Davis of Acton, a few miles from Concord.
Many decades later, Isaac's wife Hannah recounted the events of that day for curious neighbors. Isaac had been selected captain of the Acton Minutemen and, as Hannah explained in 1835, "Between him [and] his Company there was strong attachment [and] unlimited confidence." She added, "He well knew his danger, but was a stranger to fear."
At dawn, having been warned by a messenger from Concord, the local soldiers gathered at Isaac's house. They made cartridges and when the time came to move out Isaac paused. "As he led the company toward Concord," Hannah explained, "he turned round, and seemed to have something to communicate. He only said 'take good care of the children,' and was soon out of sight." British troops shot Isaac a few hours later. He died near the bridge at Concord. "In the afternoon," Hannah said, her husband "was brought home a corpse. He was placed in my bedroom till the funeral."...
The Continental Congress voted for independence on July 4, 1776. But ordinary people were ahead of their leaders. As a revolutionary committee in Charleston, S.C., declared on June 30, 1775, "Let it be delivered down to posterity, that the American civil war broke out on the 19th day of April, 1775.—An epoch that, in all probability, will mark the declension of the British empire!"