The Day the American Revolution Began: 19 April 1775 by William H. Hallahan

American History Book Club meet monthly on the fourth Tuesday of the month in the Marcus Reading Room to read that four in the morning on April 19, 1775, a line of British soldiers stared across the village green of Lexington, Massachusetts, at a crowd of seventy-seven American militiamen. A shot rang out, and the Redcoats replied with a devastating volley. But the day that started so well for the king’s troops would end in catastrophe: seventy-three British soldiers dead, two hundred wounded, and the survivors chased back into Boston by the angry colonists. Thus began the Revolution. Drawing on diaries, letters, official documents, and memoirs, William H. Hallahan vividly captures the drama of those tense twenty-four hours and shows how they decided the fate of two nations.