"Professional historians have shown so little interest in the subject that in two centuries no scholar has published a full-scale history of Paul Revere's Ride. During the 1970's, the event disappeared so completely from academic scholarship that several leading college textbooks in American history made no reference to it at all. One of them could barely bring itself to mention the battles of Lexington and Concord.
"The historical Paul Revere was much more than merely a midnight messenger. He was also and organizer of collective effort in the American Revolution. During the pivotal period from the Fall of 1774 to the Spring of 1775, he had an uncanny genius for being at the center of events. His genius was to promote collective action in the cause of freedom--a paradox that lies closer to the heart of the American experience than the legendary historical loners we love to celebrate.
"In 1775, Paul Revere's New England notions of ordered freedom were challenged by another libertarian tradition that had recently developed in the English-speaking world--one that was personified in [British] General Thomas Gage. Its conception of liberty was more elitist and hierarchical than those of Paul Revere, but also more open and tolerant, and no less deeply believed. The American Revolution arose from a collision of libertarian systems.
"Paul Revere was half French [father's name Apollos Rivoire] and half English [mother's name Deborah Hitchborn], and always entirely American. He was the product of a Puritan City on a Hill and a lusty, brawling Atlantic seaport, both in the same American town. His ideas were a classic example of what Gunnar Myrdal has called the American creed: "conservative in fundamental principles...but the principles conserved are liberal, and some, indeed, are radical." Like many of his countrymen he was a moralist and also something of a hedonist--a man who sought the path of virtue but enjoyed the pleasures of the world. He was a gregarious man, always a joiner. In 1755 he joined the militia as a lieutenant of artillery.
"On September 30, 1768, a British fleet sailed into Boston harbor. The coming of the Regulars increased the violence in Boston. The soldiers were sometimes the aggressors, but more often they were the victims of assaults by angry townsmen. Finally on the cold winter night of March 5, 1770, the soldiers fired back at their tormentors. Six people were killed [in what was called the Boston Massacre]. [Later in 1770] a customs officer fired into a mob and killed a boy. The town made the child into a martyr. On the anniversary of his death a huge crowd gathered in silent demonstration. The chosen place was the home of Paul Revere.
"The Regulars were withdrawn from Boston, and the Townshend duties were repealed, except for a symbolic tax on tea so small that British ministers believed even Boston might be willing to swallow it. It was a fatal miscalculation. When the tea ships reached America in 1773, the response was an explosion of anger throughout the colonies. Paul Revere and his mechanics staged a brilliant piece of political theater...and emptied the East Indian tea chests into Boston Harbor. The Tea Party was organized in a highly sophisticated way. The men were divided into different groups, and told the names of only their own section commanders--a classic example of cellular organization.
"Early in the morning of September 1, 1774, General Gage set his plan in motion. His first step was to seize the largest stock of gunpowder in New England [the Powder House, six miles from Boston]. The people were caught by surprise. All that day church bells tolled in the towns. Early in December, 1774, the British command decided to strike again. An Order in Council prohibited the export of arms and ammunition to America, and ordered Imperial officials to secure munitions that were already in the colonies.
"Gage had found the target for his next mission, and a satisfactory way of getting there. It would be Concord, by the Lexington Road. Among the reports was a detailed inventory, house by house and barn by barn, of munitions stored throughout the entire community. On April 18, General Gage sent out a patrol of twenty men to intercept American messengers. 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 time for 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). Instantly, the navy's orders were known throughout the town.
"Dawes and Revere carried written messages. The messengers took different routes. William Dawes left town across Boston Neck. [Revere] sought the aid of two experienced Boston watermen to help him cross the Charles River. Paul Revere headed north across Charleston Neck, past the grim place where the rotting remains of the slave Mark still hung in rusty chains.
"It was midnight when Paul Revere arrived, his horse probably flecked with foam and streaked with blood from the sharp rowels of his old-fashioned silver spurs. He met Sergeant William Munroe, and called out to him in a loud voice. Sergeant Munroe did not know Paul Revere, and was not impressed by the appearance of this midnight messenger. In the eternal manner of sergeants in every army, he ordered Revere not to make so much noise--people were trying to sleep! "Noise!" Paul Revere answered, "You'll have noise enough before long! The Regulars are coming out!"
"The alert reader will note what Paul Revere did not say. He did not cry, "The British are coming." In 1775, the people of Massachusetts still thought that they were British.
"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. Regulars were now very near to Lexington center.
"Revere heard a shot ring out behind him. Several British officers were convinced that they saw a "provincial" fire at them from behind a hedge. The Lexington men saw things differently. Most believed that the first shots were "a few guns which we took to be pistols, from some of the Regulars who were mounted on horses." The Common was shrouded in dense clouds of dirty white smoke. The British infantry suffered only one man wounded. On the other side the toll was heavy.
"At Concord, the town fathers had been awakened by Dr. Samuel Prescott early in the morning of April 19. According to the custom they went to talk with their minister, William Emerson [grandfather of Ralph Waldo]. In the cautious manner of these communities they decided to muster the militia immediately.
"The militia, heavily outnumbered, retreated. The [British] grenadiers remained in Concord center. Their assignment was to search the village, and to destroy any materials of war they found there. They worked systematically through the village, entering without warrant the houses that had been reported.
"The Regulars looked up the hill in amazement at the men coming toward them. They never imagined that these "country people" would dare to march against the King's troops in formation. One British soldier wrote that the Yankee militia "advanced with greatest regularity". Suddenly a shot rang out. The inexperienced British infantry fired high, as green troops tend to do. But several shots hit home. Still the Americans came on steadily, with a discipline that astonished their enemies. They were now very close, fifty yards from the bridge, well within the range of 18th-century muskets. The New England muskets rang out with deadly accuracy. Recent hours of practice on the training field had made a difference. Many appear to have drawn a bead on the British officers, whose brilliant scarlet uniforms stood out among the faded coats of their men. The New England men peered through the fog of battle, and saw a strange shudder pass through the smoke-shrouded ranks of the British soldiers. Then, to the amazement of the American militia, the Regulars suddenly turned and ran for their lives. It was a rare spectacle in military history.
[The British fought their way back to Boston.]
"Americans: 50 killed, 39 wounded, 5 missing.
"British: 65 killed, 180 wounded, 27 missing.
"[Gage] wrote, 'The Rebels are not the despicable rabble too many have supposed them to be, and I find it owing to a military spirit encouraged amongst them.'"
"In Virginia, April was the planting time in the Potomac valley. George Washington was working happily on his farm at Mount Vernon when the first report of Lexington arrived. To a close friend he wrote, 'Unhappy it is, though, to reflect that a brother's sword has been sheathed in a brother's breast and that the once-happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by a race of slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?'"