And from what I read and have heard at the Appleseed event..... Appleseeders chime in here if incorrect please:

News Flash:

-Gen'l Gage was not out to register and then confiscate anybody's muskets.

He was only after cannon, munitions, and supplies on April 19, 1775. He didn't have the manpower to go around rounding up everybody's guns, since there were so damned many of them in MA it would have been suicide to do so, since the local militias were all against him.

-The British troops weren't out to start a war, indeed, they were ordered to prevent a war from happening by seizing and destroying the above-named items so that the colonists could not use them against their own govt's troops, namely, the Redcoats.

-British soldiers were ordered not to fire on anybody nor to destroy private property, only military property.

-At Lexington, Capt. John Parker did NOT say, "Stand your ground; if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." That would have been utterly irresponsible- he had 77 men, the British advance force (detached from thge rest of the 700 man expedition) had 250. He really said, "Let the soldiers pass, don't molest them. Prepare to disperse. " We do not know who fired the first shot at Lexington. British soldiers however, thought they were being fired upon, and disobeyed orders by firing and bayonetting.

-At the North Bridge in Concord, several hours later, panicking, exhausted, outnumbered British troops, 94 from the 700, detached to guard the bridge, fired unallowed warning shots at the colonists advancing towards them. Other soldiers in the confusion thought the order to fire had been given and fired, killing two colonists and wounding a dozen others. At this point, Major John Buttrick, given command of the combined town militias present, ordered his men to fire back.

-This marks the beginning of the Battle Road, in which colonists fired at and attacked government troops all the way back to Boston (which the British were heading to anyway, but they wouldn't leave Concord for another three hours until they destroyed what they could find, and get lunch!)

This decision to fire back at British troops was the first deliberate resistance to British rule, and was known later in a song and poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson as the "Shot Heard Round the World".

General Gage was not, repeat, not, out to destroy or confiscate anybody's small arms that day.
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