Some of these preparations could be made without raising suspicions. Others proved impossible to hide. On Wednesday, April 5, Gage asked the navy to prepare for a movement of troops by boat from Boston across the Back Bay to Cambridge. Admiral Graves, the senior naval officer present, was a difficult man: irascible, corrupt and stupid beyond belief. He did not like to do any soldier’s bidding, and he particularly detested Thomas Gage. Unable to refuse the general’s request, Admiral Graves acted with precipitate speed and no subtlety whatever. On the very next day, Thursday, April 6, he ordered his ships in the harbor to launch their longboats, and moor them under their sterns, ready for use. On Friday, April 7, that work was done in full view of the town.
The Whigs of Boston were quick to observe this flurry of activity in the harbor. They were also instantly informed that a party of British officers had been sent to examine the roads to Concord. Those two pieces of intelligence were put together, and it was concluded that General Gage was about to move against Concord. So active were the preparations in the harbor that on Saturday morning Whig leaders decided that the Regulars were ready to march, and guessed that these “godless myrmidons” would move on Sunday, April 9, striking on the Sabbath as they had done at Salem.
It was decided to send an urgent warning to Concord, and the job was given to Paul Revere. On Saturday, April 8, the day after Graves lowered his boats into the water, Revere mounted his horse and rode out of town. He reached Concord in the evening with a letter from Doctor Warren, addressed to the leaders of the town. The contents of the message were recorded by Concord’s Jonathan Hosmer. “We daily expect a Tumult,” he wrote to a friend, “There came up a post to Concord [on] Saturday night which informs them that the regulars are coming up to Concord the next day, and if they come I believe there will be bloody work.” 20
This first warning proved to be a false alarm. In their zeal Joseph Warren and Paul Revere had acted too quickly. General Gage was not yet ready to march. But Whig leaders were convinced that nothing was wrong in the warning except the date. The people of Concord began to move military supplies out of town, scattering them through the surrounding communities. The Provincial Congress, which had been meeting in Concord, suddenly agreed to adjourn on April 15 for a period of three weeks. Its members packed their bags, and hurried out of town. 21
If the British garrison in Boston could keep nothing secretfrom the town, the same was true in reverse. Paul Revere’s trip was quickly reported to General Gage. A secret agent in Concord senta personal message to Province House: “last Saturday the 7th [actually the 8th] of April P: R: toward evening arrived at Concord, carrying a letter that was said to be from Mr. W[arre]n.” Each side kept a wary eye upon the other. 22
Through the week that followed, preparations continued in the British garrison. On the evening of Saturday, April 15, Gage took another step that was impossible to hide. He ordered his regimental commanders to relieve their elite companies of grenadier and light infantry from “all duties till further orders.” The official explanation, that the men were to learn “new evolutions,” deceived nobody. “This I suppose is by way of a blind,” Lieutenant Barker noted in his diary, “I dare say they have something for them to do.” The orders were sent to eleven regiments, and instantly became common knowledge throughout the town. Bostonian John Andrews not only learned their content in a general way, but was able to repeat them verbatim in a letter to a friend. 23
The next day was Sunday, April 16. Even though it was the New England Sabbath, Paul Revere made yet another ride. This time he went to Lexington, carrying news of the grenadiers and light infantry to John Hancock and Samuel Adams and other Whig leaders. He also met with Whigs in Cambridge and Charlestown and discussed with them the general problem of an early warning system. The Committee of Safety had already voted to establish a night watch in Roxbury, Cambridge and Charlestown to guard the exits from Boston. The Provincial Congress and its committees also organized an alarm system through New England, but this was a slow and cumbersome network of town committees. 24
On April 16, Revere and his friends in Boston, Cambridge, Charlestown, and Lexington considered a more pressing problem: how to send an early warning of movements by the Regulars from Boston on short notice, in the middle of the night, and when exits from the town were closed by General Gage. They worked out what a later generation would call a fail-safe solution that was typical of Revere’s planning: “expresses” of the usual sort if possible, special messengers by clandestine routes, and if all else failed a back-up system of lantern signals from Boston to Charlestown. 25
This second trip by Paul Revere was also reported to General Gage. An alert British officer wrote that “the inhabitants conjectured that some secret expedition was on foot,” and were “on the look-out.” Once again it was abundantly clear to the British commander that he could scarcely make a move in Boston without Paul Revere’s spreading the news through the countryside faster than his infantry could march. The Concord expedition was now seriously compromised. On Tuesday, April 18, one of Gage’s Tory agents in Concord sent a report that most of the military stores had been removed from the town. But the spy added that large stocks of provisions were still there, along with several large 24-pounder cannon and a supply of powder.
Gage realized that unless the Whig express riders could be stopped, the Concord mission had no hope of success. He decided that special measures were necessary to maintain what remained of its secrecy, and specifically to keep Paul Revere from spreading the word. To that end, the British general and his aides planned an elaborate effort of what we would call counter-intelligence.
In the morning of April 18, General Gage sent out a mounted patrol of twenty men: ten officers and ten sergeants, commanded by Major Edward Mitchell of the 5th Foot. Their orders were to intercept American messengers and keep them from giving the alarm. Gage summarized their mission in a sentence to Colonel Smith, “A small party on horseback is ordered out to stop all advice of your march getting to Concord.” 26
The twenty British officers and sergeants left town across Boston Neck, and then fanned out, distributing themselves at choke-points on the roads between Boston and Concord. Some covered the roads south and west of Roxbury and Brookline. At least two were sent north to Charlestown Neck. Others were posted near Watertown and the Great Bridge across the Charles River. Several patrolled the roads between Cambridge and Lexington. At least nine rode beyond Lexington to guard the approaches to Concord itself. 27
Many people noticed them, and remarked upon their strange behavior. Often before, British officers had ridden into the countryside on various missions, or merely for exercise, but usually they returned to Boston before dark. This time they acted differently. The officers walked their horses slowly along the country roads, stopped for dinner in country taverns, and stayed out after sundown. Instead of the casual dishabille that British officers (then as now) often preferred to wear in the field, they were dressed in full uniform, with military cockades in their hats. The thick bulge of pistol-holsters and sword-pommels were clearly visible beneath their long dark blue riding coats. They conversed with travelers on the road, and asked many questions. In particular they inquired about the whereabouts of John Hancock and Samuel Adams. 28
These roving British officers, whose assignment was to stop the New England alarm-riders, had the effect of alarming the countryside themselves. On the road that afternoon was Elijah Sanderson, a cabinetmaker. At about six o’clock in the evening, he “saw a party of officers pass up from Boston, all dressed in blue wrappers. The unusually late hour of their passing excited the attention of the citizens. I took my gun and cartridge box, and thinking that something must be going on more than common, walked up to John Buckman’s tavern near the meeting house.”
Solomon Brown, a Lexington lad of eighteen, was coming home from Boston market in late afternoon when he saw the British officers ambling slowly along the road. They seemed in no hurry to get where they were going, and ap
peared to be killing time. The evening was not very cold by New England standards, and yet Brown noticed that the officers were wearing heavy blue overcoats. Underneath he could make out the shape of their great horse pistols. Solomon Brown and the officers passed each other several times on the road. Then Brown rode away from them. When out of sight, he galloped to Lexington and told Sergeant William Munroe of the town militia what he had seen. 29
In Menotomy the Provincial Committees of Safety and Supplies had been meeting through the day at Newell’s Tavern. Late in the afternoon the members adjourned, and agreed to meet again the next day. Two of them, Richard Devens and Abraham Watson rode off in a chaise at sunset, heading east toward Charlestown. On the road they met a “great number of British officers and their servants on horseback, who had dined that day at Cambridge.” The officers did not stop them but kept traveling slowly westward. Devens and Watson turned their chaise and rode back through the British officers to warn their fellow committeemen who were still in Menotomy—Elbridge Gerry, Charles Lee and Azor Orne—that British officers were abroad in the night. The warning was delivered, and Gerry instantly scribbled a note and sent it on to Adams and Hancock in Lexington. 30
Gerry’s report reached Lexington early in the evening, probably about 8 o’clock. Jonas Clarke, the town’s minister, remembered that “on the evening of the 18th of April, 1775, we received two messages; the first verbal, the other by express in writing, from the Committee of Safety, who were then sitting in the westerly part of Cambridge, directed to the Honourable John Hancock, Esq; (who with the Honorable Samuel Adams, Esq; was then providentially with us) informing, ’that eight or nine officers of the King’s troops were seen, just before night, passing the road towards Lexington, in a musing, contemplative posture; and it was suspected they were out upon some evil design. …’ Mr. Hancock in particular, had been, more than once, personally insulted by some officers … it was not without some just grounds supposed, that under cover of darkness, sudden arrest, if not assassination, might be attempted.” 31
A squad of Lexington militia was asked to muster with their arms at the parsonage, and protect Adams and Hancock through the night against the British riders. Sergeant Munroe, on hearing that nine British officers were on the road, “selected eight men, armed, and placed them as a guard around the house of Mr. Clarke for the night and remained with them …” Another thirty Lexington militia gathered at the Buckman Tavern nearby. They were there by nine o’clock. 32
Among the militia at the tavern were Sanderson, Brown, and Loring, who began to talk about the British officers whom they had seen on the road that day. In the manner of New England towns, these young men consulted their elders in the tavern as to what should be done. One venerable “old gentleman” advised the young men to “follow the officers and endeavor to ascertain their object,” Elijah Sanderson announced, “If anyone would let me have a horse I would go in pursuit.” Thaddeus Harrington said, “Take mine,” Solomon Brown and Jonathan Loring also found horses. With Sergeant Munroe’s consent, the three men volunteered to go out and watch the officers and report their movements. 33
The three scouts started west from Lexington at about nine o’clock, Sanderson and Loring to observe the movements of the British patrol, and Brown to carry a warning to Concord. Half an hour later, they rode straight into a trap that the Regulars had laid across the highway. One of the Lexington men later wrote that they were “stopped by nine British officers just before we got to Brooks’s in Lincoln. They detained us in that vicinity till a quarter past two o’clock at night. Sanderson recalled, “they put many questions which I evaded. They kept us separately and treated us very civilly.” The officers particularly inquired after Hancock and Adams. 34
Major Mitchell and his men continued to patrol the road to Concord. They passed the farmhouse of Josiah Nelson, who heard hoofbeats in the night and came half-dressed out of his house, to find out what was happening. Mistaking the British officers for countrymen in the dark, Nelson came up to them and said, “Have you heard anything about when the Regulars are coming out?”
Nelson startled the British officers. One of them, perhaps Major Mitchell himself, swung his sword, and slashed the American across the head, and took him prisoner. Bleeding profusely from his scalp, Nelson was released and warned that his house would be burned if he told anyone what had happened. He went back to his home, and his wife bandaged his bloody head. Then Josiah Nelson collected his weapons, saddled his horse, and rode off to warn his neighbors. The news began to spread across the countryside. 35
THE WARNING
The Midnight Ride as a Collective Effort
I told them what was acting, and went to git me a horse.
—Paul Revere’s account of the midnight ride, 1798
LATE IN THE AFTERNOON of April 18, 1775, a stable boy sprinted through the busy streets of Boston. He ran from -J Province House off Marlborough Street to the close-built neighborhood of the North End. When he reached Paul Revere’s place he dashed through the door and announced his news—the Regulars were ready to march!
Catching his breath, the boy told Paul Revere what he knew. A friend was a hostler at a livery stable where the Regulars kept their horses. Earlier that day, several officers had gone there to work on their riding tack. As they tugged at their bridles and saddlery, they talked in low tones among themselves. From time to time, a voice rose high enough for the eavesdropping groom to hear a snatch of conversation—something about “hell to pay tomorrow!” 1
Paul Revere listened as the boy told his story, and thanked him for coming. “You are the third person who has brought me the same information,” he confided. All that day, Bostonians had noticed signs of activity in the British garrison. An “uncommon number of officers” were seen striding up and down Boston’s Long Wharf, and talking earnestly among themselves on the far end of the pier that extended far into the waters of Massachusetts Bay. It was the only place in town that was safe from Yankee ears. 2
At noon, people on the waterfront heard the high-pitched squeal of boatswains’ pipes aboard British warships in the harbor, and the screech of heavy tackle. The townfolk could see crewmen bustling about the ships’ longboats that were moored beneath the towering sterns of HMS Somerset and HMS Boyne.
In the early afternoon, several British seamen were sent ashore on various errands. In the immemorial way of sailors everywhere, some of them stopped for a quick pint at a waterfront tavern. Others may have found a moment to run upstairs with enterprising Yankee whores, who were renowned across the Seven Seas for the energy and speed of their transactions (the impact of the Puritan Ethic on the oldest profession was not precisely as the Founders had intended). 3
Instantly, the navy’s orders were known throughout the town. Boston was still a small community in 1775. In the manner of small towns, it soon learned every step that the Regulars were taking. Alert officers in the British garrison were equally quick to know that Boston knew. Frederick Mackenzie, the sharp-eyed adjutant of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, noted in his diary, “The town was a good deal agitated and alarmed at this movement, as it was pretty generally known by means of seamen who came on shore from their ships, about 2 o’clock, that the boats were ordered to be in readiness.” 4
Other signs of impending movement were also noticed by the people of Boston. Late in the afternoon, a British light infantryman was seen in a shop “with his accoutrements on.” 5 As evening fell, people watched from the waterfront as the navy’s longboats began to move about the harbor, looking from a distance like small black beetles crawling across the surface of the water. The boats rowed toward HMS Boyne, and tied up together alongside her dirty, salt-stained hull. 6
These movements were reported to Paul Revere and Joseph Warren. Only a few Whig leaders remained in Boston. Some were sitting with the Committees of Safety and Supplies in Cambridge. Others had fled in fear of arrest. John Hancock and Samuel Adams had left town several weeks earlier to attend the Provincial Congress in
Concord, and had thought it prudent to remain in the country.
In their absence, Doctor Joseph Warren’s office became a clearing house for information. In the highly charged atmosphere of Boston, scarcely an hour passed without some new rumor or alarm. Doctor Warren had become highly skilled at diagnosing these political symptoms. On the afternoon of April 18, as these reports suddenly multiplied, he began to suspect that the Regulars were at last about to make the major move that had long been expected. 7
Doctor Warren was a careful man, and he decided to be sure. For emergencies he had special access to a confidential informer, someone well connected at the uppermost levels of the British command. The identity of this person was a secret so closely guarded that it was known to Warren alone, and he carried it faithfully to his grave.
Doctor Warren’s confidential source was someone very near the heart of the British command, and so much at risk that he—or she—could be approached only in a moment of dire necessity. As evidence of British preparations began to mount, Warren decided that such a time had come. One who knew him wrote later that he “applied to the person who had been retained, and got intelligence of their whole design,” The informer reported that the plan was “to seize Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were known to be at Lexington, and burn the stores at Concord. 8
Dr. Joseph Warren (1741-75), was a gentleman-revolutionary. Admired by his friends and respected even by his enemies, he contributed a quality of character to the Whig cause. This animated oil sketch by John Singleton Copley occupied the place of honor over the parlor fireplace in the Adams family home. Courtesy of the National Park Service, Adams National Historic Site, Quincy, Massachusetts.
We shall never know with certainty the name of Doctor Warren’s informer, but circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that it was none other than Margaret Kemble Gage, the American wife of General Gage. This lady had long felt cruelly divided by the growing rift between Britain and America. Later she confided to a close friend that her feelings were those spoken by the lady Blanche in Shakespeare’s King John:
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