Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in seventy-five;

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

 

Certainly, in January, 1861, when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sat down to write the first of 14 stanzas of a poem he would call “Paul Revere's Ride,” he was one of the men alive who failed to remember that famous day and year. Ignoring the facts or unaware of them, Longfellow created a poem filled, as one historian noted, with “bemused inaccuracies,” and in so doing invented a hero who was given all credit for a daring deed, to the complete neglect another hero, who was ever after ignored by American history.

 

In Longfellow's fanciful poem, complete credit was given to young, Boston-born Paul Revere for alerting the American Colonists to the coming of the British troops and thereby sparking the Revolutionary War at Lexington. This was an utter corruption of truth, and Longfellow's myth has persisted to the very present.

 

Actually, on that fateful day in April of 1775, two young men were sent out on steeds to alert the American rebels between Boston and Lexington; one was, indeed, Revere, and the other was a callow cordwainer and carpenter named William Dawes, a daring hothead. In truth, it was Dawes who rode first, rode longest, and who did the whole job right. Revere, on the other hand, got sidetracked and was finally captured by the British near the end of his ride. To begin at the beginning of the real event . . .

 

It was the spring of 1775 and British imperial troops were pouring into Boston. Revolutionary violence was mounting daily, and the militant American Sons of Liberty made steady preparations for a civil war. The Colonials stored arms at Concord, drilled, and readied themselves for the inevitable.

 

The imperial army would certainly not watch passively while the insurrection grew and men were armed: The radicals thought that it would move to seize the weapons cache. Thirty Sons of Liberty were detailed to keep a constant watch on British troop activities. The commander of the Colonial forces, Dr. Joseph Warren, tagged two experienced couriers, Paul Revere and William Dawes, as his special messengers. Revere, a silversmith, and Dawes, a shoemaker, were a good team.

 

On April 15, the Saturday before Easter, Warren received a midnight report of British troop movements: A regiment of light infantry and one of grenadiers had been relieved of drill and guard duties. Furthermore, the Royal Fleet had launched all its small boats and floated them astern in long lines. An amphibious operation was forming and that meant a movement against Concord.

 

Warren sent Paul Revere to Lexington to warn Sam Adams, the old firebrand whose inflammatory pamphlets, speeches, and demonstrations had placed him atop His Majesty's wanted list, and his wealthy friend, John Hancock. The two leaders, upon hearing of the movement, summoned the Committees of Safety and Supply to discuss countermeasures. The committees decided to raise a “home guard” artillery battery, to hide their reserve weapons, and to distribute some of their ammunition and provisions among the insurrectionary forces. The American Army was called upon to gather at Concord on the 19th of April to receive the provisions, including 10 hogsheads of rum.

 

On the way back from Lexington, Revere stopped and told Colonel Conant of the Charlestown minutemen that the Redcoats would be coming his way. Conant wanted to know how he would be alerted when the troops were coming. Revere pointed across the Charles River toward the steeple of Christ's Church. “Two lanterns if they really come across the river,” he said. "But they may be faking an amphibious movement. One lantern means they're marching overland through Cambridge." Conant agreed.

 

On Tuesday, April 18, a Redcoat sergeant-major became unaccountably impatient over a Colonial gunsmith's slowness in fixing his firelock. Also, a stable boy overheard two British grenadiers griping about an upcoming night march. Warren listened keenly to these and other bits of scuttlebutt, and he knew that the crisis was very near. In the evening, the government barracks were unusually active, and Warren's most valuable spy now confirmed his suspicion: The order to move on Concord had been given. The man-of-war Somerset was moving down the river as if to protect the ferry, and Warren surmised that the army would cross the water.

 

Warren summoned Billy Dawes and sent him along the land route to spread the word. The young shoemaker moped by the assembling imperial troops, his horse ambling slowly, and then he spurred his mount furiously toward Roxbury. When he approached the picket line, Dawes again slowed and mixed with a group of farmers as they passed through the checkpoint.

 

A guard eyed the courier suspiciously and began to ask piercing questions about his identification papers. Just as things were looking bad for Dawes, a sentry with whom he had drunk many ales and beers walked up and advised the hostile guard to forget his interrogation. This man, he explained, was just a typical, good-natured Colonial bumpkin, quite harmless. The bumpkin was allowed to pass, and soon he was galloping through Cambridge yelling, “The British are coming!”

 

It was late in the evening when Warren got hold of Paul Revere. Warren dispatched him by the water route, which he would be traveling barely ahead of the government troops. Revere, in turn, recruited an old coconspirator, John Pulling, to give the signal at the steeple. Pulling then enlisted the Christ's Church sexton, Robert Newman, to do the actual signaling, while he watched for Redcoats in the street below.

 

Two lights beamed briefly from the church tower, and across the river Conant spotted them. The Royal army saw them too, and troops ran to the church to deal harshly with the culprit. Finding the church empty, they marched off to the sexton's house and arrested him. Interrogating Newman, they obtained Pulling’s name and troops were sent to seize him. Fortunately, he had hidden for the night. In the morning, he and his family slipped aboard a boat which was delivering beer to the Royal fleet, and they escaped into the rebel countryside.

 

When Revere arrived at the docks, he found that his boatmen friends, Josh Bentley and Tom Richardson, had forgotten to bring cloth to muffle the rowboat’s oars. One of the conspirators remembered that a girl friend lived nearby: He called at her window and asked for some material. She obligingly removed her petticoat and threw it to him.

 

The boat, now equipped with the petticoat, delivered Revere safely to the Charlestown shore, where Conant and Richard Devens waited for a full report. After receiving his information, Devens warned Revere that there were already Royal detachments between him and Lexington. Conant added that he had sent his own riders toward Lexington, but none were as respected and resourceful as Revere and Dawes. Revere decided to continue on his own mission and asked for a horse. Devens soon fetched Deacon Larkin’s horse, Brown Beauty. Devens assumed that the Deacon would be glad to sacrifice his property for the Cause. Revere was off, galloping in bright moonlight.

 

When the silversmith reached Lexington, he found Adams and Hancock in the company of Hancock's fiancée, Dolly Quincy, and her chaperone, Aunt Lydia. Hancock was in a combative and flamboyant mood. Hearing of the approach of the Royal army, he picked up a musket and prepared to stand his ground against the might of the empire. Sam Adams patiently told him to put down the gun and take a more prudent course.

 

Lexington was awakening to the electrifying news Revere had yelled as he thundered into town. Lights were going on and the church bell began to peal frantically. Then the drum was pounded in the town common. Armed men gathered, rubbing their eyes. It was midnight, and in the midst of the turmoil, the excitement, and the terrible fear, Billy Dawes rode in on his horse, bone tired. He had come by land.

 

Revere suggested that they continue on to Concord to warn the patriots there, and Dawes nodded and climbed wearily back into the saddle. Dr. Sam Prescott, who had been visiting a woman in Lexington, joined them, and the three riders pounded away toward Concord. They took turns riding off the road to warn farmhouses along the way. As Revere rode on one of these side missions, he was apprehended by two government officers. “Lobsterbacks!” Revere yelled to his friends. “Help! Only two of them! Hurry!”

 

But when Prescott reached the spot, two more officers were there. Dawes was still far away, and Revere frantically warned him away. “Back to Lexington, Billy!” Dawes fell off his horse but managed to remount and escape. Revere and Prescott rode toward a wooded area but six more troopers cut them off. Prescott swerved and jumped the fence and was soon back on the road toward Concord, but Revere was captured.

 

Dawes returned to Lexington, where the action was, having made the longest ride of the long night. When the British major heard shots, Revere haughtily warned him that the Revolutionary forces in Lexington were cutting His Majesty’s army to pieces. The Major quickly released his prisoner and led his detachment to the rear.

 

Two months later, Dawes fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He died in 1799 at the age of 53.

 

Decades later, Henry Longfellow would wander around the scenes of all this Revolutionary excitement and thrill to the memory of “the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” After all, Revere became famous for his silverware, and Longfellow had certainly seen the glittering stuff in the best houses in Boston. But nobody ever bragged because they had a pair of shoes made by Billy Dawes, no matter how good a cobbler he was.

-Charlie Jones

 

The Ride (Descendants of William Dawes Who Rode Association)