The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War

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J.L. Bell discussed his research on the British march on Concord at the American Revolution Institute.
The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War
J. L. Bell
August 31, 2016
01:02:32

The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War unfolds a vignette from the beginning of the American Revolution. In the early spring of 1775, British army spies located four brass cannon belonging to Boston’s colonial militia that had gone missing months before. British general Thomas Gage devised plans to regain the cannon, while the Massachusetts patriots prepared to thwart the general’s mission—each side desirous of the weapons, but requiring their existence to remain a secret. J. L. Bell connects the cannon to the start of the war, tracing the theft to the “shot heard ’round the world” at Concord.

Video courtesy of C-SPAN’s American History TV

 

About the Speaker

L. Bell is a Massachusetts-based historian who specializes in the start of the American Revolution. He is the author of The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War (2016).

 

Representing the patriots who fought at Concord, Massachusetts, The Concord Minute Man of 1775 in our museum collection is a smaller cast of the original statue by artist Daniel Chester French that stands near the battlefield today.