Paul Revere's Ride

by David Hackett Fischer

  The two Lexington scouts traveled different roads and were away for several hours. One of them returned between 3 and 4 o’clock, and reported that Paul Revere’s message was mistaken. He announced that “there was no appearance of the troops, on the roads for Cambridge or Charlestown, and that the movements of the army were but a feint to alarm the people.”

  On the strength of this report, Captain Parker dismissed his men, but ordered them to remain nearby, “within call of the drum” until the other scout came back. Many of the militia decided to stay at Buckman’s tavern. Some had loaded their muskets. Before entering the taproom, they observed the time-honored American rule of no loaded weapons at the bar, and emptied their guns by firing them into the air. This was the “volley” that had so alarmed the British patrol. The militiamen were in the taproom, talking among themselves, when Paul Revere arrived.

  Just then, the second Lexington express came racing up the Boston road at full gallop. He shouted that the Regulars were very near, and already past “the Rocks,” a landmark barely half an hour east of Lexington Green. This other scout had found the marching column, but was trapped on the road behind them, unable to get past the troops and warn the town. Jonas Clarke remembered that “he was prevented [from returning sooner] by their silent and sudden arrival at the place where he was waiting for intelligence— so that, after all this precaution we had no notice of their approach till the brigade [sic] was actually in the town, and upon a quick march within about a mile and a quarter of the meetinghouse.” 9

  Thus, despite its earlier warnings, the town of Lexington was taken by surprise. Captain Parker instantly mustered his company again. Alarm guns were fired, and the bell was rung once more. Parker summoned nineteen-year-old drummer William Diamond, a youngster who had just moved to Lexington from Boston, where he had been trained in the art of military drumming by a kindly British soldier. Diamond was ordered to beat the call to arms. The Lexington militia came running out of the tavern onto the Common. 10

  Lowell and Revere sprinted in the opposite direction, through the taproom, and climbed the stairs as fast as their weary legs could carry them. In a chamber on the second floor they found the trunk where John Hancock had left it. As they entered the room, Paul Revere turned and looked anxiously out of the tavern window toward the first streaks of light in the eastern sky.

  In the soft gray dawn, he suddenly saw the British troops approaching—a long column winding inexorably up the Lexington Road, like a giant red centipede on its hundreds of white legs. Above the heads of the marching men, a steel fringe of bayonets was visible in the early morning light.

  Paul Revere watched the Regulars for a moment. He thought they were “very near,” Then, with renewed urgency, he returned to his task. On the floor was a stout wooden trunk, covered in leather and studded with nails, with a curved top and strong brass fastenings. It was indeed very large—four feet long, two feet wide, and about two and a half feet high. The trunk was full of papers, and immensely heavy. 11

  Revere and Lowell decided to carry it away from the tavern and hide it in the woods. They lifted the massive trunk, struggled down the narrow stairs with it, and staggered through the front door of the tavern. Outside, Captain John Parker was forming his militia on the Green. Revere and Lowell carried the trunk directly through the ranks of Parker’s men, heading for a place of safety where the trunk and its contents could be hidden.

  John Hancock’s trunk, filled with secret papers, was left behind in the Buckman Tavern. It survives today in the Worcester Historical Museum.

  Meanwhile, in a Woburn parsonage, John Hancock was preparing at last to enjoy his salmon. Dorothy Quincy remembered later that he was just sitting down to a “tempting feast,” when a man from Lexington came rushing in, shouting wildly, “The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!” At the first appearance of the soldiers this messenger had left his family and hurried to warn the Patriot leaders. “My wife’s in etarnity now!” he cried hysterically in his Yankee twang, as everyone looked on in astonishment.

  Once again, Hancock and Adams were warned that they were in danger. Their presence in Woburn was not easy to disguise if the Regulars should come that way. Hancock’s large coach was parked prominently in front of the house, where all could see it. The household flew into action. The coach was driven into the trees, and hidden beneath a large pile of brush. Hancock and Adams abandoned their salmon once again, and ran into the woods of Woburn.

  In fact, nobody was coming after them. When Tory Peter Oliver later heard the story of their hasty departure, he sneered that “their flight confirmed the observation made by Solomon, vizt the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth.” 12

  A little later, when it was clear that the Regulars were not heading toward Woburn, Adams and Hancock were led out of the woods and taken deeper into the Middlesex countryside, to the modest house of Amos Wyman, “in an obscure corner of Bedford, Burlington and Billerica.” Here they settled in and Hancock suddenly felt hungry again. One person recalled that he was “forced by the cravings of nature to call for food.” Their new hosts had nothing in the house but a bit of cold boiled salt pork, brown bread, and potatoes. This was the ordinary fare of Middlesex farmers, but Dorothy Quincy observed that it was a “strange diet for these patriots, who were in the habit of having the best.” 13

  While on their way to this new sanctuary, they began to hear the rattle of musketry in the distance. Sam Adams turned to his companion and said, “It is a fine day!”

  “Very pleasant,” John Hancock replied serenely, thinking that Adams was talking about the weather.

  “I mean,” Sam Adams explained, as if to a child, “this is a glorious day for America.” 14

  THE FIRST SHOT

  The Fight on Lexington Green

  I saw, and heard, a gun fired, which appeared to be a pistol. Then I could distinguish two guns, and then a continual roar of musketry.”

  —Paul Revere, Deposition, 1775

  WHILE Paul Revere escorted the Whig leaders to safety, General Gage’s Regulars marched steadily toward Lexington. Five hours had passed since the British troops had left Boston, and still they did not know where they were going or what they were expected to do. Even the company commanders had not been told the purpose of the mission. But the men could feel the tension in the air, and they could see in the demeanor of Colonel Smith that things were not going according to plan. As they advanced rapidly through Cambridge, they began to hear gunshots in the distance. One officer looked at his pocket watch and noted that the time was about three o’clock. Another thought to himself, “a very unusual hour for firing.” 1

  Suddenly they heard the hoofbeats of many horsemen galloping toward the column from the west. In the van, Marine Lieutenant Jesse Adair and Tory guide Daniel Murray anxiously searched the moonlit road ahead. In a moment, the riders were upon them, shouting General Gage’s password, “Patrole! Patrole!”

  It was the party of British officers who had been scouting the road to Concord—Major Edward Mitchell, Captain Charles Lumm, Captain Charles Cochrane, and seven others, fresh from their encounter with Paul Revere. The column halted to hear their news. In high excitement, Major Mitchell announced that “the whole country was alarmed” and that they had “galloped for their lives.” He explained in a few breathless sentences what had happened on the Concord Road. “We have taken Paul Revierre,” the major said, “but was obliged to let him go, after having cut his girths and stirrups.” 2

  Mitchell repeated Paul Revere’s warning that 500 New England men were mustering in Lexington. He told of the alarm bells and the signal guns, and the volley of musket-fire near the Green. The news raced back along the column. Lieutenant John Barker of the King’s Own never forgot that moment, “about five miles on this side of a town called Lexington which lay in our road,” when “we heard there were some hundreds of people collected together intending to oppose us and stop our going in.” 3

  Others also remembered with vivid clarity
this electrifying instant when they halted on the road, and Paul Revere’s warning reached them through the mouth of his highly excited captor, Major Mitchell. The message struck the column with shattering force. For five hours they had been kept in the dark, in more senses than one. Most had left Boston with no idea of the mission’s purpose, or whether it was a mission at all, or merely another training march.

  They recognized the name of Paul Revere. Lieutenant William Sutherland of the 38th Foot made special mention in his report that it was Revere whom Major Mitchell intercepted on the road that night. Another wrote that the information had come from “the noted Paul Revere.” The British soldiers knew this man. Some had heard that he was an “ambassador” from the Whig Committees of Massachusetts to the Continental Congress. Others were aware that he had frustrated their Portsmouth plans by galloping from Boston to New Hampshire. A few knew that he tried to do the same thing again to the Salem expedition, and that the 64th had caught his men and kept them prisoner at Castle William in Boston harbor. 4

  Now as they were marching deep into a dangerous country on a supposedly secret expedition, Paul Revere was ahead of them again—captured on a fast horse near Concord twenty miles west of Boston, while they were still slogging through Cambridge. They knew that this meddlesome Yankee meant trouble, and were horrified to learn from Major Mitchell that he knew more about their mission than they did. His presence was a sign that the people of New England were organizing against them. They would not be opposed merely by a milling mob of angry “peasants” with pitchforks in their hands. 5

  Suddenly they also knew what many had suspected from the start. This night march was no drill. They had not been sent on one of “Old Woman” Gage’s hated training exercises, or another of his futile demonstrations to impress the country people of New England. They began to realize that they were marching deep into a hostile country, and might have to fight before the day was done. Few of these men had been in combat before. The thoughts of young soldiers on the eve of their first battle raced through their minds.

  As if to punctuate the news that Major Mitchell brought them, the column heard more alarm guns, repeating in the distance. They listened as meeting bells begin to toll. The bells were not very loud—nothing like the carillons of ancient English churches they had known at home. These were small, solitary country bells, clanging faintly in the night, but the sounds came from every side—west, north, and even east behind the column. 6

  Ensign Jeremy Lister of the 10th Foot listened to the bells in the night. He searched the skyline, which now was faintly visible against the brightening sky. On distant hilltops he began to make out beacon fires burning brilliantly across the rolling landscape. 7

  The march resumed. Suddenly a Yankee rider came galloping out of a crossroad in front of the column, and was taken prisoner. Another horseman appeared, and vanished into the countryside. A small chaise of the sort that Yankees called a sulky came down the road toward them, driven by a “very genteel man” who warned the officers in the van that 600 men were waiting for them in Lexington. Lieutenant Adair responded by confiscating the sulky and riding in it himself for a time. The soldiers met a wagon coming toward them, full of cordwood for the Boston market. The teamsters solemnly assured them that 1000 men were in arms. 8

  It was now four o’clock in the morning, the hour when everything in New England appears cold and bleak and colorless. The countryside was beginning to grow visible in the first gray light of dawn. The men in the marching column looked about them. As their eyes adjusted slowly to the coming of the light, they noticed a figure in the distance moving parallel to their column. Then other figures came into sight. As the light improved they were shocked to discover that the distant fields were alive with armed men, half-walking, half-running to the west, faster than the column itself. In the vanguard, Lieutenant Sutherland could make out “a vast number of country militia going over the hill with their arms for Lexington.” Further back in the column, a private soldier remembered that “about four o’clock in the morning… we could perceive inhabitants assembling in many parts.” 9

  Lieutenant Sutherland suddenly collided with one of these inhabitants, a thirty-one-year-old Lexington militiaman named Benjamin Wellington, with his musket and bayonet in hand. Sutherland ordered the militiaman to give up his weapons, “which I believe he would not have done so easily,” Sutherland wrote, “but for Mr. Adair’s coming up.” Outnumbered, Wellington surrendered. The British officers took his weapons and told him to go home, as if they were talking to an errant child. Wellington walked away in the direction whence he came. When out of sight he turned and ran toward Lexington center to warn his neighbors. Later he found another weapon and joined his company. 10

  A little after this encounter, a party of Yankee horsemen appeared in front of the column. They stopped at a distance from the British van and shouted a warning: “You had better turn back, for you shall not enter the town!” The riders wheeled and began to ride away. Then one of them turned back toward the Regulars. At the point of the column, Private James Marr of the 4th Foot watched the horseman raise his weapon and “offer to fire.” In the half light, Marr swore he saw a flash of flame and puff of smoke. Others saw it too. It might have been an alarm gun, but the green British soldiers at the head of the column were sure that it was aimed at them. 11

  The officers in the van called Major Pitcairn to the front, and reported that a “provincial” had fired on them. Instantly Pitcairn halted the column, and ordered the companies to load. The men reached into their cartridge boxes, withdrew a paper-covered round, ripped it open with their teeth, and poured powder and ball into the long barrels of their muskets, leaving a litter of torn cartridge papers in the road. 12

  The order to load was another moment of truth for the Regulars. Marine Captain William Soutar remembered, “We were surprised, not imagining in the least that we should be attacked or even molested on the march, for we had but that instant loaded and had marched all night without being loaded.” 13

  The time was nearly 4:30 in the morning. It was almost light. Major Pitcairn studied with concern the rocky hills and granite outcroppings that were coming into view. He observed the strong stone “fences” as the Yankees called them: rude piles of granite boulders, topped with heavy logs. He ordered out flanking parties, and resumed the march. The Regulars were now very near to Lexington center. In the distance they began to hear a military drum, beating a call to arms. 14

  A few minutes later the Regulars rounded a gentle turn in the road, and the village of Lexington came into view. The light was behind them, and the little hamlet lay half-shrouded in darkness. They could dimly make out a scattering of houses around a triangular village common. Directly ahead of them at the near corner of the triangle stood the large dark bulk of Lexington meetinghouse, three storeys high, with a large oak tree just beyond. To the left was the town’s wooden bell tower, low and squat, still sounding the alarm. To the right was the Buckman Tavern, with its old fashioned gambrel roof and heavy chimney stacks. 15

  As the Regulars came closer they saw Captain Parker’s militia near the northeast corner of the Common, hurrying into line to the long roll of William Diamond’s drum. The Lexington men were forming up in two long ranks, partly hidden by the meetinghouse. To the left and right of the Common the British soldiers observed two other groups, mostly male, some of them armed.

  Perhaps an observant Regular at the head of the column might have noticed two figures staggering across the Common with a heavy burden between them. One of these men was Paul Revere. With his gift for being at the center of events, he happened to be crossing Lexington Common just at the moment when the British troops arrived. Revere and John Lowell had emerged from the Buckman Tavern with John Hancock’s trunk just as the Lexington militia were falling into formation. Their route took them directly through the long ranks of the soldiers. Paul Revere heard Captain John Parker speak to his company. “Let the troops pass by,” Parker told his men. He ad
ded in the archaic dialect of old New England, “Don’t molest them, without they being first.” 16

  At the same moment the British officers were studying the militia on the Common in front of them. Paul Revere’s warning of 500 men in arms echoed in their ears. As the officers peered through the dim gray light, the spectators to the right and left appeared to be militia too. Captain Parker’s small handful of men multiplied in British eyes to hundreds of provincial soldiers. 17 Pitcairn thought that he faced “near 200 of the rebels;” Barker reckoned the number at “between two and three hundred.” 18

  On the other side, the New England men also inflated the size of the Regular force, which was magnified by the length of its marching formation on the narrow road. As the militia studied the long files of red-coated soldiers, some reckoned the force at between 1200 and 1500 men. In fact there were only about 238 of all ranks in Pitcairn’s six companies, plus the mounted men of Mitchell’s patrol, and a few supernumeraries. 19

  The Lexington militia began to consult earnestly among themselves. Sylvanus Wood, a Woburn man who joined them, had made a quick count a few minutes earlier and found to his surprise that there were only thirty-eight militia in all. Others were falling into line, but altogether no more than sixty or seventy militia mustered on the Common, perhaps less. One turned to his captain and said, “There are so few of us it is folly to stand here.” 20 But Parker had decided that the time for debate had ended. He turned to his men and told them, “The first man who offers to run shall be shot down.” Some heard him say, “Stand your ground! Don’t fire unless fired upon! But if they want to have a war let it begin here!” 21