Old North Bridge, Concord, Massachusetts
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The Old North Bridge across the Concord River in Concord, Massachusetts is a historical site in the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the first battle day in the Revolutionary War. Here five full companies of Minutemen and five of non-Minuteman militia occupied this hill with groups of other men streaming in, totaling about 500 against the British light infantry companies from the 4th, 10th, and 43rd Regiments of Foot under Captain Laurie, a force totaling about 115 men. The bridge—as well as the revolutionary events that took place around it—are commemorated poetically in Ralph Waldo Emerson's well-known Concord Hymn (1837), the first stanza of which follows:
- "By the rude bridge that arch'd the flood,
- Their flag to the April breeze unfurled,
- Here the embattled farmers stood
- And fired the shot heard 'round the world."
The site is now part of the National Park Service. It contains a memorial obelisk, a famous statue by Daniel Chester French of a minuteman (on the base of which the above verse is engraved), and the by-now often reconstructed bridge, and is an extremely popular tourist destination. The Old Manse, Ralph Waldo Emerson's ancestral home and later residence of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, is immediately adjacent to the Old North Bridge.
