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Patriot's Day April 19, 2025 - remembering it

jimmoyer1
Feb 28
2 min read

Updated: Apr 20

Yesterday was Patriot's Day. April 19, 1775. That's the day of remembering the battles of Lexington and Concord. The locals, variously known as rebels or as "the disaffected" in England, but who called themselves Patriots or the Minute Men, ready for fight at a moment of notice tell us a story, a passion eternal in our fight with each other on this planet.

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That "shot fired heard around the world" was the first shot in that battle.

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In May Winchester heard of it. In June 1775, the Continental Congress in Philly ordered 10 companies from PA, 2 from MD, and 2 from VA.

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Btw in that same June the battle known as the Battle of Bunker Hill occurs. Dr Warren was killed. Warren County takes its name from him in 1836 popularized by a masterpiece picture by Trumble.

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Those 2 from Virgina was Daniel Morgan's out of Winchester, and Hugh Stephenson's out of Mecklenburg (Shepherdstown).

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Those 2 companies agreed to meet up in Frederick MD and march together.

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Daniel Morgan decided to break that agreement. Instead he led his men a day earlier and got a head start alone. They go 600 miles in 21 days. The Beeline March is it's name. They allegedly started from the Red Lion Tavern, on the corner of Cork and Loudoun. The 2nd company of Hugh Stevenson's arrives 5 days later in the Boston area.

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Dale Corey of the SAR (James Wood Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution) told a wonderful story of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, a story that inspired Winchester, and inspired all the colonies.

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It's a story that gets sweeter the older you get in life.

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Later at lunch we talked of the bad and good of history. Both are impostors, neither blot out the other, and both have a message.

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I have no pictures for that day we remembered yesterday at the corner of Cork and Braddock, the George Washington Office Museum.

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Instead, I have a picture of the Mercer Company of the Virginia Regiment posing (we're all posers lol) for the cause of history -- a company that portrays the Virginia Regiment in the French and Indian War, 20 years before the break with England.

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And a picture of Dr Warren's last day.

Compiled by Jim Moyer Sunday 4/20/2025, researched in February 2025