Daily Prayer, 19 April

I’m never ashamed to be patriotic, and I don’t know if this current crop of Sailors—or even my own kids—are told these stories in school at all. If they are, they don’t seem to be told with the same patriotic fervor that they were when I was growing up. It isn’t cool, I guess. But the Patriots that took on the British Empire were heroes whose stories deserve to be told with awe and respect. I have no delusions that I can make such things “cool,” but I can at least offer a viewpoint counter to what the current zeitgeist seems to be when it comes to our nation’s founding. It is, after all, a viewpoint I believe in. Because I spent so much time writing this story, I used a psalm as the prayer so there really isn’t a tie-in. I just wanted everyone to know that it was Patriots’ Day. Happy Patriots’ Day, everybody!

The sun had already set and it was dark when 700 soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith began to board their barges. The boats were small and there wasn’t room for them all to sit, so they stood, crowded together for the duration of their trip across the harbor. Once they landed, they were to begin a 17-mile long hike inland to seize a rebel ammunition depot. It would have been a tough march dry and in daylight, but as it was they were stuck moving through the night soaked from their crossing.

What was worse, the rebels had been alerted of their approach, and thus the soldiers were harassed along the entire route to their objective. When they finally arrived on the morning of April 19^th, the weary, wet, and harassed troops were in no mood to be trifled with. They promptly secured the bridge spanning the small river that ran through the town and began searching nearby buildings for arms and ammunition.

The rebel commander, observing the foraging troops from a hilltop outside of town, opted to take advantage of the dispersal of the searching army to attack the remainder of their force holding the bridge. Colonel James Barrett led his men down the hill into the town and towards the bridge. The occupying red-coated soldiers formed on their side of the bridge and prepared to repulse the rebel attack. When Barrett’s men fired at them across the Concord River, they became the first shots fired by Americans acting under orders in the first organized volley, and it resulted in the first British fatalities and forced the first British retreat of the American Revolution. Moreover, the exchange proved that armed Americans could be marshalled into an effective defensive unit quickly, and the legend of the Minuteman was born.

At the site of the battle fought on this date in 1775, there now stands a statue of a minuteman cast from the bronze of Civil War canons and standing on a pedestal which is inscribed with the first stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s poem “Concord Hymn,” from which comes the phrase “the shot heard round the world.” This is what Emerson wrote:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood,
And fired the shot heard round the world.

None of the men who chased the British back to Boston were professional soldiers, yet they stood toe-to-toe with the most powerful military in the world. The shot they fired was heard around the world because for the first time, British colonial subjects would throw off imperial control and form their own constitutional republic, and that republic would become a bastion of freedom and a beacon of hope to people all over the world. That is what we represent wherever this ship carries our flag. This is our inheritance as Americans, and may we ever be grateful.

LET US PRAY

May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble;
     may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
May He send you help from the sanctuary
     and sustain you from Zion.
May He remember all your gifts
     and look favorably on your burnt offerings. Selah
May He give you the desires of your heart
     and make all your plans succeed.
May we shout for joy at your victory
     and raise a banner in the name of our God.
     May the LORD grant all your petitions.
Now I know that the LORD saves His anointed;
     He answers him from His holy heaven
     with the saving power of His right hand.
Some trust in chariots and others in horses,
     but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
They collapse and fall,
     but we rise up and stand firm. (Psalm 20)

AMEN