Grave of British Soldiers

Located at the North Bridge, the Grave of the British Soldiers marks the final resting place of the first British soldiers killed on April 19, 1775, during the Battle of Concord.

The remains of the original small grave markers rest on the northern side of a stonewall, accompanied by a small stone slab inscribed “Grave of the British Soldiers.” The stone was added by Concord’s superintendent of public grounds in 1870 in preparation for the centennial anniversary of the battle at a cost of $25.00.

Author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived for a time in the nearby Old Manse, wrote about the site in his 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse describing the memorial as, “a humbler token of the fight, more interesting than the nearby granite obelisk,” with a grave, “marked by a small, moss-grown fragment of stone at the head, and another at the foot.” As records of the battle are scarce, it is difficult to know for certain the identity of the two British soldiers buried here.

A granite post and chain were installed by the Town in 1877 and in 1910, a marker inscribed with a section of James Russell Lowell’s poem “Lines,” written after an 1849 visit to the site with Hawthorne, was added.

The grave is cared for by Minute Man National Historical Park in partnership with the Town of Concord. Each April, on the annual commemoration of the battle, it is decorated in a ceremony conducted by British reenactors.

The inscription reads:

GRAVE OF BRITISH SOLDIERS
"THEY CAME THREE THOUSAND MILES, AND DIED
TO KEEP THE PAST UPON ITS THRONE;
UNHEARD, BEYOND THE OCEAN TIDE,
THEIR ENGLISH MOTHER MADE HER MOAN."
APRIL 19, 1775.