Francis Smith

Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith commanded the British expedition to Concord on 19 April 1775, the day the American War of Independence began. He was an officer of the 10th Regiment of Foot with thirty years' service and a reputation for being slow and heavy, both physically and in decision. General Gage gave him about seven hundred men and orders to march overnight from Boston to seize the colonial militia's powder and cannon at Concord. The secrecy failed almost immediately; riders including Paul Revere were out ahead of the column. Smith's advance party under Pitcairn met militia on Lexington green at dawn, someone fired a shot nobody has ever identified, and eight colonists were killed. He reached Concord, found little, and by then the countryside was up. The march back to Boston was a running ambush over sixteen miles, and his force would probably have been destroyed had he not sent for reinforcements early - a decision that was his best of the day. He was wounded in the thigh. British casualties were around 273 to the colonists' 95. He served on through the war, was promoted major-general, and is remembered almost entirely for one day's march. Gage's orders had told him to avoid plunder and to seize only military stores, and he does appear to have tried. The colonists had moved most of the supplies days earlier on warning from their own sources inside Boston. The single most consequential thing about the expedition is that nobody has ever established who fired first at Lexington, and both sides immediately produced sworn depositions blaming the other.

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