Why Concord?

"Concord, Massachusetts, 18 miles northwest of Boston, was the starting point for the War of Independence. On April 19, 1775, militia and minutemen from Concord and neighboring towns clashed with British regulars at the Old North Bridge and forced a bloody retreat by the King's men back to safety in Boston. Some 4,000 provincials from 30 towns answered the call to arms."

"Concord claimed precedence as the site of THE FIRST FORCIBLE RESISTANCE TO BRITISH AGGRESSION, the words inscribed on the town's 1836 monument to the battle (to the enduring resentment of nearby Lexington, which actually suffered the first American deaths that day). Concord's boast took hold thanks to Ralph Waldo Emerson, who in 1837 portrayed the brief skirmish at the bridge as "the shot heard round the world." That moment has been a key to local identity ever since."

"Concord is widely known for another aspect of its history: It is intimately associated with the Transcendentalist movement in the quarter century before the Civil War. That distinction, too, it owes to Emerson. Born and raised in Boston, the most prominent public intellectual of Civil War America was the scion of six generations of New England divines, going back to Concord's founding minister."

Concord, Massachusetts, served as the opening scene of the American Revolution when local militia and minutemen confronted British regulars at the Old North Bridge on April 19, 1775, precipitating a bloody British retreat to Boston. About 4,000 provincials from 30 towns mustered in response. Concord's 1836 monument proclaims the town as THE FIRST FORCIBLE RESISTANCE TO BRITISH AGGRESSION, though Lexington endured the first American deaths that day. Ralph Waldo Emerson popularized Concord's role by calling the skirmish "the shot heard round the world" in 1837. Concord also became identified with the Transcendentalist movement, centered on Emerson's advocacy of nature, individualism, and democratic culture.

Read at The Atlantic