Calendar of Events

The SAR America 250 Speaker Series will kick off its third season on March 19, with a return engagement by military historian Glenn F. Williams.

Williams will speak on “Let It Begin Here!” on the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which took place almost 250 years ago, on April 19, 1775.

Williams’s presentation will address the events that led to, and the outbreak of, the armed conflict known as the Revolutionary War. Starting with resistance to British colonial policies that Americans perceived as arbitrary and violations of their liberty, and efforts to seek a redress of grievances, the Colony of Massachusetts Bay was declared to be in a state of rebellion by the British government.

As a provisional shadow government prepared for a potential war against the British military occupation, Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, Commander in Chief of his Majesty's forces in North America and Royal Governor of Massachusetts, sent an expedition to destroy or confiscate arms, ammunition and military stores, and possibly capture Patriot leaders, at Concord.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, an encounter between American militia and British regulars on the village green in Lexington ignited what became the War for American Independence, and led to the creation of the U.S. Army.

Glenn Williams is a retired U.S. Army officer, with a "second career" as an active military historian. He retired as a Senior Historian after 18 years at the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort McNair, and 3 1/2 years as the historian of the American Battlefield Protection Program of the U.S. National Park Service. He spoke at our Speaker Series last year.

For more information, contact Joe Engel at 301-801-1129, or Ed Spannaus at 301-969-8001.