Another War

[James N.]

From all the illustrations I've seen, the British formed ranks on one side of the Bridge but the Rebels were somewhat bunched up and also some skirmishers. I thought I recalled a diorama of this battle.
This is a diorama at the Concord Museum.

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The diorama was based on an illustration in Allen French's book, "Day of Lexington and Concord".

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The three companies of Regulars right at the bridge were led by the senior captain among them who supposedly adopted a rather unusual formation used mainly for street fighting, the purpose of which was to allow one concentrated company to fire, then fall back behind the others to reload. The next company would then repeat the process as the entire formation slowly fell back firing all the time. Unfortunately for them, this idea didn't work in practice! It failed to make use of more than a very few who could fire at one time, so was little deterrent to the colonists who also failed to play along, instead rushing the bridge rather than waiting to be shot. Once they did so, the Regulars panicked, turned, and fled back to the temporary safety of Concord while the victorious colonists democratically debated among themselves what to do next.