Celebratin'... The Midnight Ride

The blog servers are acting funky today, not letting us post pictures or video, so we'll have to celebrate something besides music or comedy. How about an American Patriot? January 7th is Paul Revere's birthday. Does anybody know the real story behind his famous "Midnight Ride" in 1775? What Malcolm Gladwell called the "most famous historical example of a word-of-mouth epidemic."

Revere and William Dawes were instructed by Dr. Joseph Warren to ride from Boston to Lexington. They men were to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams of the movements of the British Army, which had been stationed in Boston since Boston Tea Party. At about 11 pm, Revere crossed the river to Charlestown, on where he could begin a ride to Lexington and warn the leaders of the revolution.

Riding through present-day Somerville, Medford, and Arlington, Revere certainly did not shout "The British are coming!" because the mission depended on secrecy and the countryside was filled with British patrols. He did warn patriots along his route, though. Many set out on horseback to deliver warnings of their own. By the end of the night, as many as 40 other riders were carrying news of British advance.

Revere arrived in Lexington around midnight, with Dawes arriving a half hour later. After warning Adams and Hancock, Revere rode on toward Concord, where the militia's arsenal was hidden. He was joined by Samuel Prescott, a doctor in Lexington "returning from a lady friend's house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m."

On the way, Concord. Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were captured by British troops. Prescott and Dawes escaped, but Revere was taken at gunpoint back toward Lexington by three British officers. As morning broke, they neared Lexington Meetinghouse and heard shots fired. The British officers, eager to fight, confiscated Revere's horse and rode off, letting himto simply walk back the house where Hancock and Adams were staying.

Revere's ride was not particularly noted during his life. It was over 40 years after his death, when the ride became the subject of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," that Paul Revere, our birthday boy, became revered.