Judy Anderson — Facing Colonel Leslie: How & Where the Revolution’s “First Shots” were nearly fired in February 1775

Judy Anderson

Find out how and where the “first” shots of the American Revolutionary War could have taken place in Marblehead and/or at Salem’s North Bridge on February 26th in 1775, less than two months before Lexington and Concord, in the exact same scenario. Who was “Leslie”? — Where did all that take place? — Who were the key figures? — Who WASN’T there? — And, to get to Salem, why did the British Lt. Colonel choose to march his Regular Army troops straight through the sixth most populous metropolis in British North America (and second largest in Massachusetts at that time), with its gritty and notoriously volatile residents? This illustrated program will show and discuss the broader geographical and human aspects of the near-miss episode that much later became known as “Leslie’s Retreat.”