The road taken by the British lay through the little village of Lexington, and there (so well had the messengers done their work), about sunrise, on the morning of the 19th, the British came suddenly on a little band of minute men drawn up on the green before the meeting house. A call to disperse was not obeyed; whereupon the British fired a volley, killing or wounding sixteen minute men, and passed on to Concord. There they spiked three cannon, threw some cannon balls and powder into the river, destroyed some flour, set fire to the courthouse, and started back toward Boston. But "the shot heard round the world" had indeed been fired.[2] The news had spread far and wide. The minute men came hurrying in, and from farmhouses and hedges, from haystacks, and from behind trees and stone fences, they poured a deadly fire on the retreating British. The retreat soon became a flight, and the flight would have ended in capture had they not been reënforced by 900 men at Lexington. With the help of these they reached Charlestown Neck by sundown and entered Boston.[3] All night long minute men came in from every quarter, so that by the morning of April 20th great crowds were gathered outside of Charlestown and at Roxbury, and shut the British in Boston. [Footnote 2: Read R. W. Emerson's fine poem, _Concord Hymn._ ] [Footnote 3: Force's _American Archives,_ Vol. II.; Hudson's _History of Lexington,_ Chaps. 6, 7; Phinney's _Battle of Lexington;_ Shattuck's _History of Concord,_ Chap. 7. ] When the news of Concord and Lexington reached the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont, they too took up arms, and, under Ethan Allen, captured Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775. %131. Congress becomes a Governing Body.%--The first Continental Congress had been chosen by the colonies in 1774, to set forth the views of the people, and remonstrate against the conduct of the King and Parliament. This Congress, it will be remembered, having done so, fixed May 10, 1775, as the day whereon a second Congress should meet to consider the results of their remonstrance. But when the day came, Lexington and Concord had been fought, all New England was in arms, and Congress was asked to adopt the army gathered around Boston, and assume the conduct of the war. Congress thus unexpectedly became a governing body, and began to do such things as each colony could not do by itself. %132. Origin of the Continental Army.%--After a month's delay it did adopt the little band of patriots gathered about Boston, made it the Continental Army, and elected George Washington, then a delegate in Congress, commander in chief. He was chosen because of the military skill he had displayed in the French and Indian War, and because it was thought necessary to have a Virginian for general, Virginia being then the most populous of the colonies.