The principles for which the North Carolina farmers fought at Alamance were identified with those for which Massachusetts farmers fought at Lexington. Of the Massachusetts patriots nineteen were killed and wounded, while of the Carolina patriots over 200 lay killed or crippled upon the field and six, later on, died upon the scaffold, yet, while all the world has heard of Lexington, not one person in a thousand knows anything to speak of about Alamance. William Tryon, the royal Governor of North Carolina, was so mean that they called him the "Wolf." In the name of his royal master and for the furtherance of his own greedy instincts Tryon oppressed the people of his province to the point where they were obliged to do one or two things--resist him or become slaves. They resolved to resist and formed themselves into an organization known as "Regulators," a body of as pure patriots as ever shouldered a gun. Having protested time and again against the unlawful taxation under which they groaned, they finally quit groaning, raised the cry of freedom and rose in arms against Tryon and King George. To the number of 2,000 or 3,000 the Regulators, only partly armed and without organization, met the forces of the royal Governor at Alamance. "Lay down your guns or I will fire!" shouted the British commander. "Fire and be damned!" shouted back the leader of the Regulators. At once the battle opened, and, of course, the Regulators were defeated and dispersed. But old Tryon received the lesson he had so long needed--that, while Americans could be shot down on the battlefield, they could not be made tamely to submit to the high-handed oppression of King George and his creatures. THE BATTLE OF LEXINGTON APRIL 19, 1775. On the afternoon of the day on which the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts adjourned, General Gage took the light infantry and grenadiers off duty and secretly prepared an expedition to destroy the colony's stores at Concord. The attempt had for several weeks been expected, and signals were concerted to announce the first movement of troops for the country. Samuel Adams and Hancock, who had not yet left Lexington for Philadelphia, received a timely message from Warren, and in consequence the Committee of Safety moved a part of the public stores and secreted the cannon. On Tuesday, the eighteenth of April, ten or more British sergeants in disguise dispersed themselves through Cambridge and farther west to intercept all communication. In the following night the grenadiers and light infantry, not less than eight hundred in number, the flower of the army at Boston, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Smith, crossed in the boats of the transport ships from the foot of the Common at East Cambridge. Gage directed that no one else should leave the town, but Warren had, at ten o'clock, dispatched William Dawes through Roxbury and Paul Revere by way of Charlestown to Lexington.