The guy who volunteered to hang the lanterns was a young sexton at Old North Church, Robert Newman. A sexton cleans up the place, rings the church bells, stuff like that. Newman didn’t like the job, but he kept it, he said, “because times are so hard.”
Now it was just before ten o’clock, and Newman was ready for action. The first thing he did was say good night to his mom. And not just because he was a good son. British officers were renting rooms in the family house, and at this moment they were sitting around playing cards in the living room. Newman wanted the officers to think he was going to bed for the evening. In fact, he went up to his room, climbed out the window, climbed over the roof, and jumped down into the dark shadows in front of the church.
Revere found Newman there at a little after ten o’clock. Maybe Revere held up two fingers to silently show Newman that the British were moving out by water—this was clear by now, since the British soldiers were already gathering by the river. Newman knew what to do. He used his keys to unlock the church doors. He took two lanterns from the closet, climbed the stairs to the top of the bell tower, and lit the lanterns—but only for a moment. He didn’t want the signal to be spotted by anyone on the warship Somerset, which was clearly visible in the water below.
Then Newman went down the stairs, put the lanterns back, leapt out a window in the back of the church, climbed up and over the roof of his mother’s house, dropped in through the window of his bedroom, and lay down in bed.
You think he slept that night?
Across the River
As soon as Paul Revere left Robert Newman at the church door, he ran home to get his riding boots. Revere’s mission was to row across the Charles River, if possible, and then ride out to Lexington with the warning. By now the streets were filled with British soldiers, armed for battle, marching toward their meeting point at the river. Avoiding the soldiers, Revere hustled from his house down to a spot on the water where he had a small rowboat hidden.
Two friends were waiting for Revere by the boat. They had agreed to row him across the river. But now that Revere and his friends looked out at the Charles, they realized that they had a problem. The Somerset, with its sixty-four guns, was sitting out there, keeping watch on the water. And just Revere’s luck, it was a clear night with a big, bright moon. To have a chance, they would have to be absolutely silent.
Have you ever been in a rowboat? They,make a lot of noise. The oars are held in place by metal oarlocks, which clank and squeak as the oars are pulled. To muffle this sound, Revere would need some cloth to wrap around the oarlocks. No one had thought of this ahead of time.
Luckily, one of Revere’s friends had a girlfriend who lived on a nearby street. They rushed to her house. The guy gave a whistle outside his girl’s window. She came to the window. He whispered for her to throw down some cloth. She quickly slipped off her flannel petticoat (a kind of slip worn under a dress) and tossed it down. Revere and his friends ripped up the petticoat, wrapped it around the oarlocks, and rowed right across the river without being heard or seen by sailors on the Somerset.
Revere and That Other Guy
A few pals were waiting for Revere on the Charlestown shore. They told him they had seen the lanterns just fine and had already started spreading the news. They warned him that British officers were out patrolling the roads. Then they gave him a fast horse and watched him set off on the most famous horseback ride in American history. “It was then about eleven o’clock,” Revere remembered.
We know that Revere’s first goal was to get to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock. On the way there he warned people in houses along the road. Most people think that Revere shouted: “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
But what he probably said was:
“The regulars are out! The regulars are out!”
By “regulars” he meant British soldiers. He really should have said “The British are coming!” It sounds better. Oh, well—too late now.
Paul Revere gets all the press, but meanwhile a second express rider was also out that night. He was a twenty-three-year-old shoemaker named Billy Dawes. (This was another part of Revere’s backup plan—if he got caught, maybe Dawes would get through with the warning.)
Paul Revere
To get out of Boston, Dawes first had to find a way past the British soldiers guarding Boston Neck. He was the perfect man for this risky job. He was the kind of guy who liked to sneak in and out of Boston pretending to be a drunken farmer, just for laughs. So he made it out on the night of April 18. Like Revere, he set out for Lexington. We’ll catch up with him in a minute.
The Midnight Intruder
Now let’s check in on Samuel Adams and John Hancock, two guys who have done so much to cause all this trouble. Adams and Hancock were staying at the home of Reverend Jonas Clarke in Lexington. It was a full house at the Clarkes’ place. In addition to Adams, Hancock, and the Clarke family (fourteen of them!), you also had Hancock’s Aunt Lydia, his fiancée, Dorothy Quincy, and-his clerk, John Lowell.
It was just after midnight, and everyone had gone to bed. The big house was dark and quiet. A Lexington minuteman named William Munroe stood guard outside the house, just in case.
Suddenly, a horse charged up and a man jumped off. He demanded to be let into the Clarkes’ home. But Munroe didn’t know this excited rider, and he asked him to keep his voice down. “I told him the family had just retired, and had requested that they might not be disturbed by any noise about the house,” Munroe later said.
“Noise!” shouted the stranger. “You’ll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out!”
The man pushed past Munroe and started pounding on the front door. Several windows opened upstairs, and several heads stuck out to investigate the disturbance. One of the heads (in a silk nightcap) belonged to John Hancock. He looked down at the door, recognized the intruder, and said:
“Come in, Revere, we are not afraid of you.”
Paul Revere was let in, and everyone came downstairs to hear the news.
Hancock immediately began pacing in his nightshirt, demanding his sword and gun, insisting that he was going out into Lexington Common to fight the British. He was probably trying to impress Dorothy. Samuel Adams, however, preferred to get out of town. He reminded Hancock that the two of them were members of the Continental Congress—politicians, in others words, not soldiers. That was his polite way of telling Hancock that he was acting like a fool. But Hancock continued to insist that he would stand and fight.
While Adams and Hancock are arguing this point, we’ll check the progress of the British soldiers. Where were they, anyway? According to Gage’s plan, they should have been here by now.
John Hancock
Where Are the British?
Gage’s whole plan was based on timing. He wanted his soldiers to hit Concord before dawn, before the minutemen had a chance to gather in large numbers. Gage’s first mistake was putting Colonel Francis Smith in command of the expedition. Smith was a slowmoving man, one of those people who’s always late. You’ll remember that Gage ordered Smith to have his soldiers assembled by the boats at exactly ten o’clock. Well, the men were there, but Smith wasn’t. When he finally showed up, about seven hundred soldiers were standing around, wondering what they were supposed to be doing.
From this point on, everything moved much too slowly. It took two trips to get all the soldiers across the Charles River. Once they were on the other side, the men stood around waiting some more. Lieutenant John Barker remembered: “We were halted in a dirty road and stood there till two o’clock in the morning, waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats and to be divided.”
This was a total waste of time, since most of the men had brought their own food. As soon as they got their share of army food, they threw it on the ground.
So four hours were gone already, and the British had traveled about a quarter of a mile. Not a good start. At least they were on their way now, marching toward Lexington i
n the bright moonlight.
On to Concord
And speaking of Lexington, Billy Dawes arrived at the Clarkes’ house while we were checking on the British. Don’t blame him for getting there half an hour after Revere—his route was longer.
While Dawes and Revere had a quick snack (you have to eat, even in the middle of famous historical events), Captain John Parker got the Lexington minutemen together on the town common. They had their guns. They were ready to defend their town. The only problem was, there was nothing to do. The British were nowhere in sight.
It was a cold night. Parker couldn’t keep his men standing out there forever. So he let the men go, but told them to listen for William Diamond beating his drum. This was the signal for the minutemen to come running back to Lexington Common. Some of the men went home. Others walked across the common to Buckman’s Tavern, where they waited with a drink by the warm fire.
At about one a.m., Revere and Dawes left the Clarkes’ house. Riding on very tired horses, they started down the road toward Concord. They still had to warn the people there that … well, you know what. On their way out of Lexington, they met up with Samuel Prescott, a young doctor from Concord. Prescott was heading home from his fiancée Lydia’s house. He offered to help spread the alarm with Revere and Dawes. The three of them set off together.
Now, remember those armed British officers that General Gage sent out to patrol the roads? They’re about to make a sudden appearance.
Captured!
On the way to Concord, Prescott and Dawes stopped to warn people in a house beside the road. Revere rode up ahead a bit, just to check out the path. He spotted two British officers hiding in the shadows of a tree. They spotted him too. Then a lot of things happened very quickly.
Revere shouted a warning to Prescott and Dawes. A few more British officers charged out from the shadows, pointing their pistols and shouting: “If you go an inch further, you are a dead man!” This didn’t stop anyone. Revere, Prescott, and Dawes all dashed off in different directions.
Prescott jumped his horse over a stone wall and raced down the road. Dawes tried to trick the British by pretending to be one of them. “Haloo, boys, I’ve got two of ’em!” he yelled, galloping his horse toward the woods. But then, for some reason, he fell off. He scrambled to his feet and darted into the dark woods on foot. (Dawes’s watch flew out of his pocket when he fell from his horse. A few days later, when the coast was clear, he came back and found it.)
Revere also raced his horse toward the woods. But he rode right to a spot where six more British officers were hiding. They stepped out of the shadows, held their guns on Revere, and started questioning him:
British Officer: Sir, may I crave your name?
Revere: My name is Revere.
British Officer: What, Paul Revere?
Revere: Yes.
These guys knew who Paul Revere was, and they had a good idea of what he had been doing. Revere never forgot what happened next: “One of them … clapped his pistol to my head, called me by name and told me he was going to ask me some questions, and if I did not give him true answers, he would blow my brains out.”
Revere admitted that he had been out warning people that the British army was on its way. The British cursed at him and kept threatening to shoot him. But they had to patrol the road, and they didn’t want to worry about keeping an eye on him. So they took his horse and let him go.
Revere stumbled through pastures and a graveyard on his way back to Lexington. Meanwhile, Dawes was somewhere in the woods, without a horse. If anyone was going to get to Concord in time to warn the town, it would have to be Prescott. Good thing he had stayed so late at Lydia’s.
They Haven’t Left Yet?
Revere made it back to the Reverend Clarke’s house in Lexington at about 3:30 in the morning. And guess what? Adams and Hancock were still there! With the British soldiers marching closer and closer, Hancock would not stop insisting that he was going to stay and fight. Dorothy Quincy recalled:
“Mr. Hancock was all night cleaning his gun and sword, and was determined to go out to the plain by the meeting-holise where the battle was, to fight with the men who had collected.”
Dorothy Quincy
Finally, somehow, Adams convinced Hancock that they’d better get going. A carriage was prepared for their escape. Before Hancock climbed in, he had time for one last argument, this time with his fiancée. Dorothy mentioned that she was going to go back to her father’s house in Boston. Hancock objected:
Mr. Hancock: No, madam, you shall not return as long as there is a British bayonet left in Boston!
Ms. Quincy: Recollect, Mr. Hancock, I am not under your authority yet. I shall go to my father’s house tomorrow!
Poor Adams must have been rolling his eyes in the back of the carriage. At least the argument was short. In a minute, Adams and Hancock made their escape.
Dorothy wasn’t sorry to see John’s carriage drive away. “At that time, I should have been very glad to have got rid of him,” she said.
She and Aunt Lydia stayed behind at the Clarkes’ house. Later that morning, from the second-story window, they watched the American Revolution begin.
Beat That Drum, Billy
Now it was a few minutes after four a.m. You know that cold, gray light that comes just before sunrise? That’s how it was in Lexington when the British army was finally spotted on the road outside town. They were a mile away, and coming on fast. Captain Parker told sixteen-year-old William Diamond to start beating his drum.
The Lexington minutemen grabbed their guns and ran into town.
Who Fired the Shot Heard ’Round the World?
As their wagon rattled out of Lexington on the morning of April 19, Samuel Adams and John Hancock could only guess at what was going on back in town. They heard William Diamond’s drum beating, and they knew what that meant. A few minutes later they heard a gunshot. Then a huge burst of gunfire.
A Glorious Morning?
When Samuel Adams heard the explosion of gunfire from Lexington, he had a pretty good idea of what had just happened.
“Oh, what a glorious morning is this,” he said.
John Hancock thought Adams was talking about the weather, which was not bad, but not glorious. Adams clarified: “I mean, what a glorious morning for America.”
What was so glorious about it? Adams must have been thinking that those early-morning shots would be the start of a long, hard fight for American independence.
Hancock must have been thinking about lunch. He sent a messenger back to Lexington, instructing Dorothy and Aunt Lydia to meet him in Woburn (where Adams and Hancock were now headed). He told them to “bring the fine salmon” that they had planned to eat that day.
Wait a minute. The American Revolution just started, and we’re talking about salmon. What just happened back there on Lexington Common?
Gathering Evidence
We’re not exactly sure. British and American witnesses tell different versions of the story. You’ll have to listen to some of the evidence and come to your own conclusions.
Just after sunrise on April 19, 1775, Major John Pitcairn led the first group of British troops into Lexington. This guy was itching for a fight, as he had recently written:
“I am satisfied that one active campaign, a smart action, and burning two or three of their towns, will set everything to rights. Nothing now, I’m afraid, but this will ever convince those foolish bad people that England is in earnest.”
John Pitcairn
Nice guy, huh? But Pitcairn wasn’t supposed to stop in Lexington on April 19. He and his men were out in front of the other British soldiers because they were rushing on to Concord. Their mission: get to Concord as quickly as possible and take control of the bridges in town. Remember, the British were already hours behind schedule. So Pitcairn was hoping to march right through Lexington.
Then he saw the Lexington minutemen lined up on the town common. There were about seventy of them, ranging in age from six
teen to sixty-five. There were eight father-and-son combinations. There was at least one African American, a thirty-four-year-old man named Prince Estabrook.
John Parker
When Captain John Parker saw the British approaching, he told his nervous minutemen:
“Let the troops pass by and don’t molest them without they begin first.”
The minutemen really weren’t there to fight, anyway. They mostly wanted to send the British a message: We’re here, we have guns, we don’t appreciate your visit.
Pitcairn and his soldiers marched right up to the minutemen. No one knew what was about to happen.
The First Shot
One interesting thing about this moment is that both commanders told their men not to fire. Pitcairn gave very clear orders to the British soldiers: “I instantly called to the soldiers not to fire but to surround and disarm them.”
John Parker gave similar orders to the minutemen: “I immediately ordered our troops to disperse and not to fire.”
So while the British tried to surround the minutemen, the minutemen started slowly walking off in different directions. It was a confusing scene. The key point was this: the minutemen did not drop their guns. This angered the excitable Major Pitcairn, who started shouting, “You villains, you rebels! Lay down your arms! Why don’t you lay down your arms?”
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