After years of coercive laws and acts that were enforced against the American colonists of England, the British sent military troops to better enforce their laws. On 18 and 19 April 1775, the British General Thomas Gage led a force of British soldiers from Boston to Lexington, where he planned to capture colonial radical leaders Sam Adams and John Hancock, and then head to Concord and seize their gunpowder. But American spies got wind of the plan, and with the help of riders such as Paul Rever
