***Corrected Version***

It's April 19th 1775. American Independence is 441 days away.

On a clear Spring morning in the town of Lincoln, Massachusetts, which sat just to the west of the nearby town of Lexington, a local woman by the name of Mary Hartwell awoke to her small rural community facing something she never would have imagined only a few months earlier - the full-on invasion of her town by 700 British regulars.

Although she would live all the way to the age of 99, the long years would not diminish what Mary Hartwell witnessed over the next few hours, as the events of April 19th stuck with her the remainder of her life.

Eight Patriot minutemen already lay dying on the road, men who were leaving behind wives and children just Mary Hartwell. For the first time since the Boston massacre, colonial blood had been shed by British troops. It would soon be paid back to the British and more.

This episode we conclude the second half of the dramatic story of the battles of Lexington and Concord, which officially launched the start of the American Revolution. In the episode we also ask the question that will set the stage for the second half of our story and the march to independence.

Sources:

Liberty Is Sweet: The Hidden History of the American Revolution by Woody Holton

American Insurgents, American Patriots by T.H. Breen

The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III by Andrew Roberts

The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire by Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy

Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer

Lexington and Concord: The Battle Heard Round the World By George C. Daughan

Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution's Lost Hero by Christian Di Spigna

Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick