Pillsbury Travels: Massachusetts: Minute Man National Park

We continued our tour of Lexington and Concord, in a geographic order, but not in the correct timeline. Minute Man National Park is where the final battle took place on April 19, 1775. We already visited the Lexington Green (where the day started), but had not yet been to the North Bridge (where the biggest battle took place in-between).

The highlight of this stop is a movie describing what happened that day. Rather than simply showing a movie, the space is set up to look like a home. There is a doorway where a soldier stands talking to an invisible person at the table. There are two more screens, one at the top showing an evolving timeline, and another screen showing more scenes to the right.

Also in the museum are musket balls and other archaeological finds.

I did not bring my notebook, and even worse I nodded off in the comfort of the voices on the hard wooden bench. A shame since this is the part of the story that most likely contains my relative Noah Wiswall who walked 28 miles from Newton, MA at the age of 76 to see what his boys were up to. He was shot in the hand, wrapped it up with his handkerchief and went home where he lived for another decade.

We walked the long way back to the car following the path where the soldiers, possibly including Noah, hid in ambush while waiting for the British soldiers. The British soldiers were exhausted, and the Patriot reinforcements were ready to exact revenge. By the end of the night (more than twelve hours after the morning's first battle, and about 20 hours after their day began in Boston) the British have 73 dead, and 174 wounded soldiers. The Colonials have 49 dead, and 41 wounded.

War has begun and will continue for EIGHT years.