Ann Arbor Times

The orders that initiated the Revolutionary War 250 years ago are preserved in a manuscript detailing the Concord Expedition on April 18, 1775. The document, penned into existence by British Army officer Thomas Gage, is housed at the University of Michigan's Clements Library. The draft contains Gage's immediate handwritten thoughts based on intelligence from his operatives. The final copy, prepared by his secretary, and an additional secretarial copy, are also held in the Clements' collection.

Thomas Gage, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America and governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1774 to 1775, sent orders to Lt. Col. Francis Smith. “Sir, You will march with the Corps of Grenadiers and Light Infantry put under your Command with the utmost Expedition and secrecy to Concord, and where you will seize and destroy all the Artillery and Ammunition Provisions Tents & all other military stores you can find, you will knock off one Trunion at least of each of the Iron Guns, and destroy the Carriages and beat in the Muzzles of the Brass ones so as to render them useless.”

Smith led British soldiers across the Charles River under these orders, activating the American rebels' communication network. This included alarm riders Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott, who alerted the countryside. During this trajectory on April 19, they encountered resistance from American Minutemen at Lexington, sparking the first gunfire of the Revolution.

Cheney Schopieray, curator of manuscripts at the Clements and project director, remarked, “You can see in the draft document where Gage has added insertions, where he’s stricken out portions of his initial thoughts.” He pointed out a noteworthy addition from the draft to the final copy, “the draft does not contain the line, ‘but you will take care that the soldiers do not plunder the inhabitants or hurt private property.’ That sentence is added sometime between the draft and the final copy going out.”

The Gage letter belongs to the Thomas Gage Papers collection, an assembly of over 23,000 items crucial for historical research at the Clements Library. The collection's digitization was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Schopieray noted, “The Gage papers, which are one of the crown jewels of the Clements Library, have been studied by generation after generation of historians.” These documents illuminate colonial America through British administrative records during the turbulent era leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Acquired in 1930 by William L. Clements, the collection originally arrived in a dozen secretarial trunks for each of Gage’s command years over the British forces in North America. Schopieray explained that documents were sorted into labeled pigeonholes by location or military post for efficiency.

An exhibition titled "Bloody Work: Lexington and Concord 1775" will feature pieces from the collection. Schopieray explained his focus in the exhibit as the period immediately before Francis Smith received orders on April 18, 1775, and the immediate aftermath of their execution on April 19.

The Clements Library has also involved students from U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance to narrate the historical manuscripts, which can be challenging to read due to abbreviations. Among the displayed items is a letter from Rachel Revere to Paul Revere, intercepted and kept by British spies, which is now part of the collection.

“Handwritten letters and documents are vital to understanding not only what happened in the past, but also to connecting these sources to the individuals who created them,” Schopieray remarked. The physical characteristics of these manuscripts offer a profound connection to historical figures and events.

The "Bloody Work" exhibition is open to the public and will run until September 19, 2025.