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Celebrating the Battles of Lexington and Concord: Kitson
Henry Hudson Kitson, Minute Man, 1900. Photo: Aldaron / Wikipedia

Celebrating the Battles of Lexington and Concord: Kitson

The Lexington Minute Man

Daniel Chester French’s Minute Man in Concord, Massachusetts, is the famous one. I love all French’s works (especially the Continents), but I like Kitson’s Minute Man better than French’s. What do you think?

RLeft: Henry Hudson Kitson, Minute Man, 1900. Lexington, Massachusetts. Photo: Daderot / Wikipedia. Right: Daniel Chester French, The Minute Man, 1875. Concord, Massachusetts. Photo: Dave Page / Wikipedia.

Kitson (ca. 1863-1947) made a number of notable sculptures of American heroes: see the images on his Wikipedia page.

Point of impact (A refresher on Lexington & Concord)

By 1775, American colonists and the British were on a collision course. The Stamp Act, imposed in 1765 to defray the cost of defending the colonies from the French and the Indians, was followed by the Townshend Acts in 1767, the Boston Massacre in 1770, and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. In 1774 the first Continental Congress resolved to boycott of British goods, provoking (among other responses) Samuel Seabury’s Free Thoughts on the Proceedings of the Continental Congress and Alexander Hamilton’s Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress (December 1774):

And first, let me ask these restless spirits, whence arises that violent antipathy they seem to entertain, not only to the natural rights of mankind; but to common sense and common modesty. That they are enemies to the natural rights of mankind is manifest, because they wish to see one part of their species enslaved by another. That they have an invincible aversion to common sense is apparent in many respects: They endeavour to persuade us, that the absolute sovereignty of parliament does not imply our absolute slavery; that it is a Christian duty to submit to be plundered of all we have, merely because some of our fellow-subjects are wicked enough to require it of us, that slavery, so far from being a great evil, is a great blessing; and even, that our contest with Britain is founded entirely upon the petty duty of 3 pence per pound on East India tea; whereas the whole world knows, it is built upon this interesting question, whether the inhabitants of Great-Britain have a right to dispose of the lives and properties of the inhabitants of America, or not? (More in this post from my Hamilton series)

Civil disobedience turned to outright rebellion a few months later. In April 1775, British soldiers stationed in Boston were ordered to march on Concord, some thirty miles away, in order to confiscate weapons and ammunition that the colonials had stockpiled there. Warned of the British army’s plans, the American militia rushed to cut them off, facing the British in a skirmish at Lexington, and then at the Old North Bridge across the Concord River. The British, routed, retreated to Boston. In all, 49 Americans and 83 British died.

Amos Doolittle, Battle of Concord, 1775. Print. Image: Wikipedia

For contemporary sources on on these events, see “A Revue of Royal and Revolutionary Rhetoric, 1756-1776,” in my series of Hamilton posts. (Also available in book form.)

Henry Hudson Kitson, Minute Man, 1900. Photo: Aldaron / Wikipedia

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