Chapter 3 “Listen, My Children . . .”

THERE WAS NO mistaking the intent of the maneuvers of His Majesty’s troops in the early spring of 1775. Late on the night of Saturday, April 15, members of a clandestine committee of thirty Patriots, formed to monitor British movements in the Town of Boston, had word of the launch of transport boats and the stealthy dispatch of grenadiers and light infantry. General Thomas Gage, the installed royal governor of Massachusetts, had received orders from London to confiscate the military stores at Concord and to arrest those who “have committed themselves in acts of treason and rebellion.”1 In recent days the Patriots had received corroborative intelligence of a secret British operation through their network of spies, and they recognized the danger to their munitions and even to members of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, John Hancock and Samuel Adams. “Nothing was wanting,” wrote one contemporary historian, “but a spark to set the whole continent in a flame.”²

The Provincial Congress had adjourned earlier that day, and Hancock and Adams were safely lodged at the home of Reverend Jonas Clark in Lexington. Of the menacing peril to his boarders, Reverend Clark later observed, “As both these gentlemen had been frequently and even publicly threatened, by the enemies of this people, both in England and America, with the vengeance of the British Administration:—And as Mr. Hancock in particular had been, more than once, personally insulted, by some officers of the troops, in Boston, it was not without some just grounds supposed, that under cover of darkness, sudden arrest, if not assassination might be attempted by these instruments of tyranny!”³ Circumstances thus prevented the men from returning to Boston, and soon they would leave for Philadelphia as the representatives of Massachusetts at the Second Continental Congress. At the time, Hancock was in possession of a large trunk that contained “papers so treasonable they must not fall into the British hands.”4

Tensions remained high in the Town of Boston, and by April of 1775 many of the Whig leaders were marked men and had elected to leave the area to avoid British reprisals. The Crown essentially had placed a bounty on the heads of both Hancock and Adams; yet Dr. Joseph Warren, “Chief” as he was known among his fellow agitators,⁵ bravely remained in Boston as the leader of the town’s Committee of Correspondence, recognizing the critical need to deliver news of British maneuvers to the men and also the gathering danger that loomed before them.

The thirty-­four-­year-­old Warren was born in Roxbury, just south of Boston Neck, and at the age of fourteen, he began study at Harvard. He was recognized as a rambunctious yet gifted student who, while at college, developed an interest in the field of medicine. As a young doctor and with limited medical experience, Warren served with a group of other physicians during the smallpox outbreak in 1764, administering inoculations and providing care to many citizens of Boston including John Adams. As a close ally of Samuel Adams, Warren developed an interest in the political affairs of the town and by 1772 had distinguished himself as a trusted leader of the North Caucus, a clandestine political society formed to steer policy and choose candidates for office. It was here and through the meetings of St. Andrews Lodge, of which he would become grand master, that Warren developed his close political affiliations—as well as a deep confidence in and friendship with the artisan and Patriot Paul Revere.⁶

On the evening of April 15, Warren sent for Revere, known to Boston as a reliable foot soldier for the American cause, and dispatched him to warn and advise Hancock and Adams in advance of the provocative British march.

Early the next day, Revere crossed the Charles River most probably in a small boat that had been hidden beneath a Boston wharf,⁷ and then he traveled to Lexington without fanfare or molestation to warn Hancock and Adams that General Gage’s troops may soon move. Word traveled to Concord, and soon cannon and stores of munitions were stowed about the countryside—and old men and farm boys stood at the ready to defend their homes and their liberties.

After delivering the news to Hancock and Adams and meeting with other Whigs in the surrounding towns, Revere made for Boston through Charlestown, aware that the tightening grip of British aggression would make travel and the dissemination of alarm in the coming days difficult if not impossible. Revere knew that the Regulars would begin their march at any time, and he worried that he or some other courier would be captured and prevented from alerting the region when they were. A contingency plan would be needed.

In Charlestown, Revere met with Colonel William Conant, a trusted member of the Sons of Liberty and a respected military officer. He informed Conant of his concerns about getting word out of Boston of the coming British excursion. Across the river in the distance, Revere eyed the familiar North Church spire rising above the clamoring streets and wharves of Boston, and he knew that the sight was visible at a good distance. In 1775 it was the tallest structure in Boston. Then and there the men agreed “that if the British went out by Water, we would shew two Lanthorns in the North Church Steeple; and if by Land, one, as a Signal; for we were apprehensive it would be difficult to Cross the Charles River, or git over Boston Neck.”8 In years hence, Revere’s scheme would be etched in history.

The fact of the coming British expedition was obvious to all as a result of the clandestine efforts of the Boston mechanics, yet the actual target and timing remained a mystery. General Gage was jealously circumspect with the details of the operation and observed complete secrecy in its planning. Though he believed his aims were safely guarded, word began to circulate quietly through the town.

On the afternoon of April 18, a young stable hand at Province House, where General Gage now maintained his headquarters, was, according to most histories, informed of a muffled conversation among Regulars preparing their horses for travel, in which one was overheard to boast of, “hell to pay tomorrow.”⁹ The boy dashed through the dusty streets of Boston to the North Square dwelling of Paul Revere, where he informed the goldsmith of what he had heard. Revere already had been told similar news on two separate occasions that morning; indeed, the unmistakable readiness in the British garrisons and throughout the harbor informed the buzzing community as a whole that the Regulars would soon march.

At Province House, Gage began to implement his plan in what he still believed was a shroud of absolute secrecy. Through a network of spies, Gage earlier had learned of munitions stores and powder magazines kept by the Rebels in Concord. That March he had been advised by two British scouts of an acceptable northerly route from Boston through Lexington and Menotomy (present-­day Arlington) that afforded his troops open spaces in which to maneuver with relative safety from ambush. Gage had appointed Colonel Francis Smith as commander of the expedition with orders to “seize and destroy all Artillery, Ammunition, Provisions, Tents, Small Arms, and all Military stores whatever” in Concord.10

Though he did expect some light resistance from local Rebels along the route, Gage believed that the raid could be swiftly accomplished with minimal risk. He informed London that “if a respectable force is seen in the field, the most obnoxious of the leaders seized, and a pardon proclaimed for all others, Government will come off victorious.”¹¹ The actual details, location, and timing of the final plan, however, were revealed only to his most trusted subordinate, Lord Hugh Percy, who was to command a British relief column for the mission—and to Gage’s American-­born wife, Margaret Kemble Gage.

On the morning of April 18, after learning for the first time that the artillery stores of Concord would be the target of the British campaign and being warned by the general of the need to observe absolute silence on the topic, Lord Percy, on his way back to his quarters, overheard a group of Bostonians on the Common clamoring among themselves. Upon inquiry, the men informed him that the Regulars had begun their march—“but will miss their aim.” Percy probed the men as to what “aim” they spoke of. “Why, the cannon at Concord,” they responded.¹²

Dumbstruck, Percy hurried back to General Gage and informed him that the secrecy of his plan had been violated. Gage immediately feared that his wife—the only other person who was aware of the details—had, perhaps, betrayed him.

Joseph Warren was acutely aware of the British movements in and around Boston, and he knew that the awaited excursion was afoot. He had maintained contact with an informant—someone very close to top British command—who now provided him with confirmation that, indeed, the Regulars would march that evening, and their design was, in fact, to “seize Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were known to be at Lexington, and burn the stores at Concord.”13 Warren never divulged the true identity of his informant, but shortly after the British expedition to Concord, Margaret Kemble Gage was unceremoniously returned to Britain by her husband aboard the ship Charming Nancy.¹⁴

With news of the British objective now whirling about Boston, Gage realized that he must take immediate measures to prevent the further dissemination of his plan. On that morning of April 18, he sent a handpicked patrol of officers and sergeants, laughably masquerading as a casual social jaunt, to points of access throughout the town and on the roads leading to Concord and Lexington. The stated purpose of this mounted company was to intercept all messengers and envoys, thus thwarting the transmission of news to Concord. In realty, the odd presence of the soldiers in full military attire (as opposed to the usual informal garb worn by British troops during periods of nonengagement), with weapons clumsily concealed beneath their cloaks, and in the late hours of the day, set off an alarm throughout the nervously vigilant countryside. And in an even more provocative display, the British warship Somerset ominously sailed into the ferry way between Boston and Charlestown to prevent the crossing of any vessel carrying intelligence to the countryside.

Sometime after nine o’clock on the evening of April 18, Doctor Warren sent an urgent communiqué to Paul Revere directing him to Warren’s house. The British were, this night, congregating on the lower Common, boarding their river transports, and launching their mission to Concord. Warren charged Revere to “immediately Set off for Lexington, where Messrs. Hancock & Adams were and acquaint them of the Movement” and to warn them of their imminent danger.¹⁵

Warren, aware of the risk and difficulty of Revere’s mission, had already dispatched another rider, William Dawes, to Lexington via a different route over Boston Neck. Dawes, a cobbler and ardent Whig, was relatively unfamiliar to British sentries, and it was hoped that his innocent almost “half-­witted” looks would allay any suspicions of his ­journey.16

Revere bade farewell to Doctor Warren, aware that it might be for the last time. Though the two men came from separate social and cultural spheres, they were Masonic brothers and intimate friends, united in spirit and purpose. Two months hence Warren would die at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and his friend would solemnly name his fourth son, Joseph Warren Revere, after the fallen hero. On this evening, however, Revere’s thoughts were soberly focused on the task ahead of him and the dangers facing his countrymen. He left Warren’s house and quietly disappeared into the night.

Earlier in the day, Revere had called upon a friend, twenty-­three-­year-­old Robert Newman, to assist him with his plan of signals at the North Church. Newman was the sexton at the church, and though he had no liking for the job, he held the keys to the building and was known to be steadfast and reliable in character. Newman was willing to assist Revere with his “lanthorns,” yet danger lurked; his mother’s house, which sat across the street from the church, was used as a boardinghouse that at the time quartered several British officers.

As William Dawes made his way through Boston Neck toward Roxbury, Revere rushed to the Newman house on Salem Street. It was after ten o’clock, and Robert Newman nimbly slipped out of an upper-­story window to the ground below, wishing to avoid the scrutiny of the officers who were congregated on the lower floor. He joined an acquaintance, Captain John Pulling, a vestryman of the North Church and friend of Paul Revere, who earlier had agreed to assist Newman in the task. Shortly after, Revere emerged from the darkness, greeted the men, and hurriedly instructed them to hang two lanterns in the north-­facing window of the church steeple. The Regulars would begin their journey by water.

As Paul Revere dashed home to prepare for his trek, Robert Newman ascended the dark wooden steps of the North Church. He passed the chamber that housed the oldest chime of bells in America—the great bells that Paul Revere himself once tolled as a child—and, guided only by the faint glow of the rising moon, he scaled his way to the uppermost window of the tower. Braced against the timbers of the bell tower, he looked north toward Charlestown aware that, in the distance, Colonal Conant and his fellow Whigs were peering back, searching through the night sky for Paul Revere’s signal. Newman sparked each of the candles within the two square lamps and watched as the flames leaped to attention. For no more than a moment he draped the glowing vessels from the window opening, and in that moment, the men across the river understood its mean and sprang into action.17

Dodging congregations of British soldiers and officers making their way to the Common, Paul Revere arrived home and prepared for his night’s journey. He was forty years old. His eyes were dark and bold, and on this night, his rather casual expressions were sternly focused. He was of “indifferent height,”¹⁸ stocky in build, and his clothes were small and outdated. His face was round and his hands were rough; they were the hands of an artisan who toiled daily in the tasks of his trade.

His wife, Rachel, perhaps was apprehensive of her husband’s designated mission, but she assisted him, as did the oldest of his seven children, in retrieving his heavy riding boots and frock coat for the trip. In his haste, Revere forgot to secure his boot spurs and left without them. For generations hence, Revere’s descendants would insist that later, upon realizing that he had left his spurs behind, he affixed a note to his dog’s collar and sent him home. Within a short while, the dog returned—spurs in tow.¹⁹

Beneath a wharf on the shores of north Boston was hidden Paul Revere’s small rowboat, which now served as a rendezvous point for Revere and two friends. Joshua Bentley and Thomas Richardson were both familiar with the tides and currents of the Charles River and had agreed to ferry Revere across the open water to the shores of Charlestown for his journey beyond.

As the men pushed off from the rocky beach, they suddenly realized that they had no cloth or glove with which to muffle the sound of the oars from the crew of the lurking man-­of-­war Somerset. One of Revere’s helpers had a young female acquaintance who lived nearby. Legend recalls, “One of the two stopped before a certain house at the North End of the town, and made a peculiar signal. An upper window was softly raised, and a hurried colloquy took place in whispers, at the end of which something white fell noiselessly to the ground. It proved to be the woolen undergarment, still warm from contact with the person of the little rebel.”20

The ferryboats of Boston were required to moor alongside the port of the Somerset after nine o’clock, and the British permitted no further water passage after that hour. Watchmen aboard the ship peered intently over the harbor and river mouth searching for movement and clandestine messengers. Quietly, Revere and his escorts rowed through the still water, wide and east of the hulking ship and finally beyond. “It was then young flood . . . ,” Revere later wrote. “[T]he ship was winding, & the moon was Rising.”²¹

The wharf at Charlestown Battery seemed to emerge from the darkness suddenly, yet it was a welcome sight for Revere and his boatmen. Revere bounded to the shore and headed for town, where Colonel Conant and several other militiamen were waiting. On meeting, the men informed Revere that they had seen his signal from the North Church spire but knew little else of the British movements. “I told them what was Acting, and went to git me a Horse,” Revere would record.²²

The men of Charlestown knew in advance that Revere would require an able horse to complete his mission. They earlier had arranged with John Larkin, a wealthy merchant and church deacon, for the use of his father’s best animal—a mare, according to family histories, named “Brown Beauty.”²³ Of the animal, Esther Forbes poetically mused: “It would be slender and nervous in the Yankee manner, small by modern standards, surefooted, tireless. Now for the remainder of the night Revere’s success, perhaps his life and the lives of others, would depend upon this horse.”²⁴

Revere himself later wrote simply, “I set off upon a very good horse.”²⁵

As the men bade him farewell, Richard Devens, a fellow member of the Committee of Safety, cautioned Revere to watch out for General Gage’s advance guard, who had been sent along the access roads to prevent the passage of couriers carrying news of the coming British army. Devens himself had traveled the road earlier that evening and had encountered “ten British officers, all well mounted, & armed, going up the Road.”26

By about eleven o’clock the air was “pleasant,” according to Revere, and the moon was shining brightly.²⁷ He galloped north past Charlestown Neck toward the thinly inhabited moors and salt marshes of the Common. He noted with morbid interest the ghastly remains of the runaway slave “Mark,” who had been executed twenty years earlier for the murder of his master and hung in chains as a hideous forewarning to any other slave contemplating similar acts of disloyalty.²⁸ He wondered, perhaps, of his own punishment should he be captured by the king’s soldiers.

Just beyond Charlestown Common on a narrow in the road to Cambridge, Revere approached two soldiers on horseback beneath the moonlit shade of a tree. He was close enough to discern that they were British officers, and he nervously eyed their holsters and ornamental cockades. Instantly, the men divided; one broke toward Revere and the other galloped up the road to head off an escape. “One tried to git a head of Me,” wrote Revere years later, “& the other to take me.”²⁹

With a heave of the reins Revere pulled his animal about and darted “upon a full gallop for Mistick Road.”³⁰ For about three hundred yards a dramatic chase ensued; then in a desperate attempt to overtake Deacon Larkin’s bold mare, the officer galloped beyond the road but quickly fell upon a clay pit. The remaining soldier quickly gave up the chase, and Revere continued back toward Charlestown Neck to the east and pushed for the Medford Road. Abandoning his earlier intended route toward Cambridge, he followed the Mystic River north and crossed into Medford at a flat timber bridge. There he awakened the captain of the local Minutemen, Isaac Hall, a distiller by trade, and then rode north to Cambridge and Menotomy, proclaiming the clarion call to arms that would one day propel him to enduring fame. “I alarmed almost every House, till I got to Lexington,” Revere later recalled.³¹

At midnight the Jonas Clark house in Lexington was quiet. Inside, asleep, were the Clark family and their guests, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, as well as Hancock’s fiancée, Dorothy Quincy, and his Aunt Lydia. The Clarks and Hancocks were cousins, and when the party had first arrived eleven days earlier, they thought the parsonage was appropriately removed from the dangers that lurked in Boston. Now, on hearing the news that a small patrol of the king’s troops was “out upon some evil design,” a guard of ten to twelve local militiamen was assembled to protect the house from harassment or attack.32

Suddenly the quiet of the night was broken as Paul Revere burst from the darkness and galloped upon the Clark house. The guardsmen tensed and hailed Revere as he loudly demanded admittance. Sergeant William Munroe, head of the protective company, did not recognize the visitor or his business and refused to let him pass. Sternly, Munroe insisted that the family had retired for the night and had requested “that they might not be disturbed by any noise about the house.”³³

“Noise!” shouted Revere. “You’ll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out.”³⁴ With that, Revere brushed past the sergeant and rapped solidly upon the door. Awakened by the commotion, Jonas Clark opened the bedroom window above and demanded the identity and business of the boisterous visitor.

“I wish to see Mr. Hancock!” shouted Revere.

Observing the lateness of the hour, Clark, “with his usual deliberation,” resisted and inquired further of the man’s errand, when John Hancock, who had peered through a first-­story window, cried out with relief, “Come in, Revere; we are not afraid of you.”³⁵

The men hastened their greetings in the downstairs parlor, and Revere breathlessly reported that their problem went well beyond a small patrol of Redcoats harassing travelers on the road to Concord. He informed the gathering that, indeed, a full brigade of about twelve hundred to fifteen hundred Regulars had embarked in water transports from Boston and was now marching north from Cambridge.³⁶ “It was shrewdly suspected,” continued Revere, “that [the troops] were ordered to seize and destroy the stores, belonging to the colony, then deposited at Concord.”³⁷

Hancock, dressed, no doubt, in a fine silk nightdress and slippers,38 demanded to join his brethren and to take up arms against the British, but instead was quickly persuaded to move the families north to the town of Woburn for better security. “If I had my musket, I would never turn my back upon these troops,” Hancock lamented.³⁹

“That is not our business,” Samuel Adams responded. “[W]e belong to the cabinet.”⁴⁰

As the Clark and Hancock families rushed about in preparation to leave the house, Revere inquired about William Dawes, the second courier sent by Joseph Warren, but was informed that he had not been heard from. Since Dawes had departed before Revere, it was immediately feared that he had been captured by the British patrols; however, half an hour later, Dawes arrived at the Clark house unharmed and corroborated the news that the Regulars were on the march.

The men refreshed themselves and then once again mounted their saddles. The village of Concord had received word several days earlier that it might be the target of the British march, and thus much of its munitions already had been hidden away. Revere and Dawes nonetheless decided to make their way to Concord with the news that the hour was at hand.

On April 18, a young and promising physician, Doctor Samuel Prescott, was keeping late hours courting his fiancée, Lydia Mulliken, in Lexington. As the British troops silently amassed at Phipps Farm on the Cambridge shore, Prescott was traveling back to his Concord dwelling, when he came upon Revere and Dawes charging through the night. Revere informed the doctor of their mission and alerted him to the British advance scouts that were patrolling the roads. Noting the high probability of capture, Revere declared that “we had better alarm all the Inhabitants till we [get] to Concord.”⁴¹

Prescott enthusiastically volunteered to assist the men in their call of alarm, adding that he was well known in the area and that his participation would surely add credibility to their mission. Years later, Revere recalled young Prescott as a “high Son of Liberty.”⁴²

The men briskly made their way up the Great Road between Lexington and Concord pausing at each farm and homestead to arouse the inhabitants and urge that they likewise spread the alarm. About halfway between the two towns, as Dawes and Prescott approached a farmhouse in the village of Lincoln, Revere, who was riding about two hundred yards ahead, suddenly saw two figures in the moonlight. Assuming that he had stumbled upon an unfriendly patrol, he immediately gestured to his companions, thinking, perhaps, that they could overcome the two. Instantly, however, he found himself surrounded by four mounted British soldiers, angry and armed with pistols and swords.

“God Damn you! Stop!” shouted one of the men to Revere. “If you go an Inch farther you are a dead man.”43

Prescott, seeing the commotion, galloped toward the men with the butt end of his horsewhip turned forward ready for attack, but he was unable to break through the line of mounted soldiers. The soldiers stopped him, and at pistol point, he and Revere were corralled into a nearby pasture and informed that if they didn’t comply as ordered, “[the Regulars] would blow our brains out.”⁴⁴

With the British soldiers both in front of and behind them on horseback, Prescott spied an opening as they left the road and signaled to Revere to “put on!” Instantly, each rider spurred his horse and broke in opposite directions. The doctor, knowing the terrain well, jumped his nimble animal over a stone wall and sprinted hard through the darkness for Concord. Revere headed to the right, toward a forest at the bottom of the pasture, with the idea of leaving his horse and disappearing into the woods by foot. As he reached the tree line, however, six more British officers appeared on horseback and, with pistols pressed firmly against his chest, ordered Revere to surrender. The men seized his reins and, with little alternative, Revere somberly dismounted and conceded his capture.

As Revere and Prescott struggled with the British patrol, William Dawes made his own bid for escape. He shouted, “Haloo boys, I’ve got two of ’em,” in a fruitless effort to divert the soldiers and then bolted down the road to a nearby farmhouse.⁴⁵ In the chaos of the moment, Dawes fell from his horse and watched helplessly as the animal disappeared into the night. He stumbled back to Lexington on foot, frightened and exhausted.46

It was past one o’clock in the morning before General Gage’s force finally was amassed on Lechmere Point, a quiet shore to the south of Cambridge occupied by a single farmhouse. The logistics of the transport across the river had been poorly managed, and the men were forced to mire in the cold swamps and tidal marshes surrounding their landing point. Many of the transports had run aground in the shallows of the river, and the men were forced to walk through the icy water to the shores. Soaked and chilled to the bone, about eight hundred British grenadiers, light infantry, and marines finally began their trek to the Charlestown and West Cambridge Road toward Menotomy and beyond. “No martial sounds enlived their . . . march; it was silent, stealthy, inglorious,” said one historian.⁴⁷

Meanwhile, in a pasture adjacent to the Great Road in the town of Lincoln, several of the British patrol circled around Paul Revere in a menacing formation, taunting and abusing him with their horses and swords. One of the officers—“much of a Gentleman,” according to Revere—told him not to be afraid, that his soldiers would not harm him. Revere indignantly replied that the men would “miss their aim” if they made any such attempt.⁴⁸

The officer then began questioning his prisoner. Was he an express? From where had he come? What time had he left?—and Revere answered every question honestly and unafraid.

“Sir, may I crave your name?” the officer asked.

“Revere.”

“Paul Revere?”

“Yes.” Revere was a well-­known messenger of Rebel news and proclamations among the various colonies, and his name, familiar to the soldiers, evoked further anger among them. The “gentleman” officer again reassured his prisoner that he would not be harmed and insisted that the men were only on a mission to apprehend deserters in the area. Revere scoffed at the notion and stated that he had, in fact, alarmed the entire countryside of the coming British excursion. “I should have 500 men [here] soon,” he warned.

The officer peered suspiciously at his captive and, apparently alarmed by the claim of coming reinforcements, galloped down the road to alert the remaining patrol. Moments later, the entire band rushed back led by their commander, Major Edward Mitchell. Greatly agitated, Mitchell placed his pistol to Revere’s head and informed him that he intended to ask some questions and that if he did not receive truthful answers “he would blow [Revere’s] brains out.” “I esteemed myself a Man of truth,” Revere later recorded. “[H]e had stopped me on the high way, & made me a prisoner, I knew not by what right; I would tell him the truth; I was not afraid.”

The questions were similar to what had already been asked, and Revere answered them plainly, but the officers were now clearly worried about the prospect of Rebel patrols. They searched Revere for arms and ordered him, and several other prisoners that had been taken through the night, to mount their horses. “We are now going toward your friends,” Major Mitchell hissed. “[I]f you attempt to run, or we are insulted, we will blow your Brains out.” Revere impassively told him to do as he pleased.

The soldiers formed a menacing circle around their prisoners and positioned Revere in front, without reins, to prevent any thought of escape. They rode briskly toward Lexington and abusively harassed Revere as they traveled. One officer informed Revere that he was “in a damned critical situation.”

About half a mile from Lexington Green, the grassy triangular center of town, the men were startled by the sound of a musket shot in the distance. Major Mitchell turned to Revere and angrily demanded an explanation. Revere inflamed the major’s already heightened sensibilities by insisting that it was a signal to “alarm the country”—and, in fact, it may have been.

Sensing a volatile situation, the officers hastily convened and determined that they must quicken their pace. They ordered their several prisoners—except Revere—to dismount. The prisoners’ horses were driven away into the darkness, and the men were freed on foot. Revere requested that he likewise be set free, but the major refused.

Several moments later, the men heard a full barrage of musket fire coming from the direction of the Lexington Meetinghouse at the southeastern corner of the Green, and the officers became greatly alarmed. Soon the Lexington town bells began to toll, and it was clear to all that General Gage’s plan of secrecy had failed. The widespread British belief that the Rebels “are but a mere mob, without order or discipline,”49 had been shattered as the men of Lexington gathered themselves for battle.

Major Mitchell was now determined to warn the approaching British army of the lurking danger of Rebel resistance. He asked Revere the distance to Cambridge and what the appropriate route would be. He then turned to one of his men and inquired if his horse, smaller than the rest, was fatigued. Hearing that it was, Mitchell ordered Revere to dismount and turn his horse over to the soldier. The men then quickly rushed back toward Cambridge, leaving Revere and the other prisoners alone and disoriented on the muddy road.

The alarm that Paul Revere had set into motion now spread throughout the countryside. His journey had covered nearly thirteen miles, and by the early morning hours of April 19, as he toiled in British captivity, many other riders picked up the mantle and warned the colony of the Redcoat march.⁵⁰

By two o’clock in the morning, the local militia, under the command of Captain John Parker, began to assemble on Lexington Green. “Capt. Parker ordered the roll to be called, and every man to charge his gun with powder and ball.”⁵¹ A series of inconsistent reports flowed into the town, and upon one rider’s insistence that the British were, in fact, not marching, Parker dismissed the gathered militia but ordered them to be “within call of the drum.”⁵²

With spurs and bulky riding boots making travel by foot difficult at best, Paul Revere hobbled through the darkness back toward the Clark house just to the north of the Lexington Green. He crossed several pastures and a Lexington burial ground, and sometime after three o’clock in the morning, he arrived at the parsonage, dismayed to find the house in a state of confusion with Hancock and Adams still arguing among themselves about what action to take. Elizabeth Clark, Reverend Clark’s twelve-­year-­old daughter, later recalled the sight of, “Aunt Hancock and Dolly Quincy, with their cloaks and bonnets on, Aunt crying and wringing her hands and helping mother dress the children, Dolly going round with Father to hide money, watches and anything down to the potatoes and up in the garrett.”53 And Dorothy Quincy, Hancock’s fiancée, later recorded, “Mr. H. was all night cleaning his gun and sword, and putting his accoutrements in order.”⁵⁴

Amid this chaotic scene, Revere informed the group of his detainment by the British patrol and warned them not to further delay their departure. After much haranguing, Hancock was persuaded that his service to the country as a statesman was of greater value than that of soldier, and as the first faint light of dawn appeared, Revere and John Lowell, Hancock’s clerk, escorted Adams and Hancock north toward Woburn.

Meanwhile, the British expedition moved briskly and silently toward Lexington. As Revere dealt with the turmoil at the Clark house, Major Edward Mitchell, who earlier held his pistol to Paul Revere’s head, now galloped with his men toward the body of advancing British troops. On arrival he breathlessly revealed that the entire countryside had already received warning of their mission and that his men earlier had captured the well-­known emissary Paul Revere, who informed them of some five hundred Rebel soldiers waiting at Lexington. Colonel Smith immediately sent a request for reinforcements to General Gage, and he dispatched six companies of light infantry—about 250 men—under the command of Major John Pitcairn as an advance force to capture the bridges of Concord.

After journeying with his wards for about two miles, Revere was confident that they were safely on their way, and he and John Lowell stepped off the coach and bid Hancock and Adams farewell. Resting for a short while, the men made haste back to Lexington “to enquire the news.”⁵⁵

As Major Pitcairn rushed forward in advance of the main army, he successfully apprehended nearly every Rebel scout on the road. The Lexington militia was, accordingly, unaware that Pitcairn’s six companies were closing fast upon them. Finally, with the advancing British troops less than two miles from the Green, definitive word came of their approach; and at about five o’clock in the morning, Captain Parker ordered “the drum to beat, alarm to be fired, and Sergeant William Munroe [the same Munroe who had earlier protected Hancock and Adams] to form his company in two ranks a few rods north of the meeting-­house.”56 No more than seventy militiamen were arrayed on the Green.

As they approached Lexington, John Lowell informed Revere that Hancock had left a trunk filled with extremely important—and incriminating—documents pertaining to the provincial government and the Rebel cause in the attic of Buckman’s Tavern, adjacent to the meetinghouse on Lexington Green. The men agreed that the trunk was of sufficient importance to keep it from British eyes. “Mr. Lowell & myself went towards the Tavern, when we met a Man on a full gallop, who told us the Troops were coming up the Rocks,” Revere later wrote.⁵⁷

The two men dashed across Lexington Green to Buckman’s Tavern and climbed to an upper floor where the trunk rested. As they contemplated how best to remove the heavy chest, Revere glanced out the chamber window into the pale flush of dawn and saw “the orderly scarlet ranks of marching grenadiers . . .”⁵⁸ approaching in the distance.

As he approached the Green with his men, Major Pitcairn heard the rallying cadence of the Lexington drums and correctly regarded it as a provocative call to arms. He ordered his Regulars to halt their march, prime and load their muskets, and then charge at the “double-­quick” toward the Green.⁵⁹

Meanwhile, Revere and Lowell painstakingly lowered the heavy trunk down the stairs of Buckman’s Tavern and awkwardly made their way across Lexington Green, where Captain Parker’s anxious militiamen stood at the ready. As the two men passed seemingly without notice through the lines of grim-­faced brothers, cousins, fathers, and sons, Revere heard Captain Parker sternly instruct his heavily outnumbered men, “Let the troops pass by, and don’t molest them, with out [they] being first.”⁶⁰

As the Regulars approached, a British officer, most probably Pitcairn, galloped forward with pistol in hand, and reportedly demanded, “Ye villains, ye Rebels, disperse; Damn you, disperse!”61 Captain Parker ordered his men to withdraw, and in doing so a rush of confusion ensued.

Paul Revere made his way across Lexington Green, laboring hard with Hancock’s trunk, when he heard the report of a gun firing. He turned back and saw a pall of gray smoke in front of the Regulars. “[T]hey immediately gave a great shout, ran a few paces, and then the whole fired,” he would record.⁶² A Bostonian later wrote to a friend, “The shots at Lexington alarmed the country so, that it seemed as if men came down from the clouds.”⁶³

Paul Revere hurried away, doggedly lugging Hancock’s trunk into the nearby woods. He continued this task “with that simple absorption in what was to be done at the moment which characterizes the whole man. Embattled farmers might stand and shots fired that would be heard round the world,” wrote Ester Forbes.

“He gave them one glance and went on with his job.”⁶⁴