nown because of Longfellow's poem, _Paul Revere's Ride._
Read it. ]

The road taken by the British lay through the little village of
Lexington, and there (so well had the messengers done their work), about
sunrise, on the morning of the 19th, the British came suddenly on a
little band of minute men drawn up on the green before the meeting
house. A call to disperse was not obeyed; whereupon the British fired a
volley, killing or wounding sixteen minute men, and passed on to
Concord. There they spiked three cannon, threw some cannon balls and
powder into the river, destroyed some flour, set fire to the courthouse,
and started back toward Boston. But "the shot heard round the world" had
indeed been fired.[2] The news had spread far and wide. The minute men
came hurrying in, and from farmhouses and hedges, from haystacks, and
from behind trees and stone fences, they poured a deadly fire on the
retreating British. The retreat soon became a flight, and the flight
would have ended in capture had they not been reenforced by 900 men at
Lexington. With the help of these they reached Charlestown Neck by
sundown and entered Boston.[3] All night long minute men came in from
every quarter, so that by the morning of April 20th great crowds were
gathered outside of Charlestown and at Roxbury, and shut the British
in Boston.

[Footnote 2: Read R. W. Emerson's fine poem, _Concord Hymn._ ]

[Footnote 3: Force's _American Archives,_ Vol. II.; Hudson's _History of
Lexington,_ Chaps. 6, 7; Phinney's _Battle of Lexington;_ Shattuck's
_History of Concord,_ Chap. 7. ]

When the news of Concord and Lexington reached the Green Mountain Boys
of Vermont, they too took up arms, and, under Ethan Allen, captured Fort
Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775.

%131. Congress becomes a Governing Body.%--The first Continental
Congress had been chosen by the colonies in 1774, to set forth the views
of the people, and remonstrate against the conduct of the King and
Parliament. This Congress, it will be remembered, having done so, fixed
May 10, 1775, as the day whereon a second Congress should meet to
consider the results of their remonstrance. But when the day came,
Lexington and Concord had been fought, all New England was in arms, and
Congress was asked to adopt the army gathered around Boston, and assume
the conduct of the war. Congress thus unexpectedly became a governing
body, and began to do such things as each colony could not do by itself.

%132. Origin