It was on Battle Road that thousands of colonial militia and British regulars fought during the redcoats' retreat from Concord to Boston on the morning and afternoon of April 19, 1775.

[1] Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, concerned about the safety of his men, sent flankers to follow a ridge and protect his forces from the roughly one thousand colonials now in the field as the British marched east out of Concord.

This ridge ended near Meriam's Corner, a crossroads about a mile (2 km) outside the village of Concord, where the main road came to a bridge across a small stream.

To cross the narrow bridge, the British had to pull the flankers back into the main column and close ranks to a mere three soldiers abreast.

Some 500 yards (460 m) further along, the road took another sharp curve, this time to the right, and again the British column was caught by another large force of militiamen firing from both sides.

Major John Pitcairn assumed effective command of the column and sent light infantry companies up the hill to clear the militia forces.

He understood the column's perilous situation: "There were very few men had any ammunition left, and so fatigued that we could not keep flanking parties out, so that we must soon have laid down our arms, or been picked off by the Rebels at their pleasure—nearer to—and we were not able to keep them off.

[15] In their accounts afterward, British officers and soldiers alike noted their frustration that the colonial militiamen fired at them from behind trees and stone walls, rather than confronting them in large, linear formations in the style of European warfare.

[16] This image of the individual colonial farmer, musket in hand and fighting under his own command, has also been fostered in American myth: "Chasing the red-coats down the lane / Then crossing the fields to emerge again / Under the trees at the turn of the road, / And only pausing to fire and load.

"[17] To the contrary, beginning at the North Bridge and throughout the British retreat, the colonial militias repeatedly operated as coordinated companies, even when dispersed to take advantage of cover.

Reflecting on the British experience that day, Earl Percy understood the significance of the American tactics: During the whole affair the Rebels attacked us in a very scattered, irregular manner, but with perseverance & resolution, nor did they ever dare to form into any regular body.

It includes a restored colonial landscape approximating the path of the running skirmishes between British troops and Colonial militia, a monument at the site where Paul Revere was captured during his midnight ride, the Captain William Smith House, and the Hartwell Tavern, a restored 18th-century inn and house at which living history programs are presented from May through October.

[19] In some parts, the trail leaves the historic road in order to more closely follow the route of the minutemen, crossing fields, wetlands and passing through forests.