This painting symbolizes the famed battles, which touched off the Revolutionary War. On April 19, 1775, Lt. Col. Francis Smith's British unit scattered a company of local Minute Men at Lexington, killing several when authorized gun fire occurred. His mission was to seize the gunpowder of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress at Concord. Following the Lexington skirmish, Smith managed to find only part of the gunpowder because news of his mission had been carried to the countryside by Paul Revere and his associates. As they returned to Boston, the British were under assault from Massachusetts militiamen.