When Did the Revolutionary War Start?

When did the Revolutionary War start? It was a moment that came to be called the shot heard round the world. The first battle of the Revolutionary War happened at Lexington and Concord, two small Massachusetts towns. In Lexington were hidden Sam Adams and John Hancock, two colonial leaders. In Concord, the British planned to capture a stash of the colonists’ gunpowder. The Regulars, as the British soldiers were called, planned to secretly raid both towns, under the direction of General Gage.

Though the Revolution officially started on April 19, 1775, the build-up to the war started years earlier. The colonists were subjected to several unfair laws passed by the English Parliament. For example, the Currency Act of 1764 deprived colonists of their own paper scrip when the English hard currency was unavailable.  England insisted that the colonies use only British currency based on pounds sterling; however, the colonies suffered a great trade deficit with the English.  They printed their own paper money, to be used in good faith within the colonies, because there simply was not enough British money available. Parliament abolished the colonial currency, and also legislated that any smuggling would always be decided in favor of the British and not the colonists.

By 1765, a group of colonists formed a clandestine organization named the Sons of Liberty. The group came about in response to Britain’s Stamp Act, which was designed to collect revenue from the colonies. The colonists were taxed to pay for England’s debts, but they were not represented in Congress. (This idea was later called taxation without representation, which was a contributing factor in the Revolution.) Shopkeepers and tradesmen keenly felt the effects of the Stamp Act, so they were eager to join the Sons of Liberty. What started as a group of nine swelled to an organization of 2,000.

The English and the colonists continued working against one another as tensions increased. One of the most well-known incidents was the Boston Tea Party, when Bostonians objected to being exorbitantly taxed for the purchase of tea. As most of us know, the people of Boston responded to the Tea Act with a Tea Party of their own.

Parliament then passed a series of regulations in 1774 that came to be known through the thirteen colonies as the Intolerable Acts. The laws were designed to bring the colonies back “in line” under British rule, but they succeeded only in forcing the colonists closer to the rebellion. England closed the Port of Boston until the East India Company was repaid for the tea dumped into the harbor; they replaced the existing government of Massachusetts with British rule; they took over trials of British officials and moved them to a place of their choosing; and they forced colonists to house British troops.

The colonists responded to the Intolerable Acts by convening the first Continental Congress. The group met in Philadelphia in September of 1774. They succeeded in generating a boycott of British goods until the Intolerable Acts were repealed. Throughout the colonies, people enforced the boycott, cutting British imports by 97% over the previous year. The first Continental Congress also agreed to hold a second Continental Congress in May of 1775.

It is important to know that the colonists had formed militias decades earlier.  They needed an armed presence in the face of the French or Indian attacks, and also to protect themselves from any potential civil unrest. Certain members of the militia were known as Minutemen because they could be ready for battle at a moment’s notice.

When did the Revolutionary War start? By April of 1775, the revolution was firmly underway with the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord. In all, 240 Regulars arrived at Lexington and found 70 Minutemen awaiting them on the town’s green.  Suddenly, a shot was fired an the battle was underway, though it has never been known who fired the first shot. Before the day was out, the British lost 73 soldiers, tended 174 wounded, and could not account for the whereabouts of 26 others.   The colonists lost seven souls. A simple stand-off turned into a world-shaking event.