Of course, Paul Revere was a hero as he rowed and rode to alarm the countryside around Boston: “The British are coming! The British are coming!” (“The Regulars are coming out,” the staid historians tell us were his actual words.) So too were the much neglected William Dawes and Samuel Prescott. We owe our independence and our liberty to their pluck and bravery.
But the Midnight Ride was also the last night of something like peace—the last night before we slipped into the bloody horrors of war, of civil war within the far-flung nations that comprised the British Empire. And no matter how good the cause, war is a horror—hell itself, as William Tecumseh Sherman would observe a century later. America soon, in mere hours, would witness the beginning of the mass bloodletting.
But not quite yet.
Read Revere’s own account, written not long after. Out he went to raise the country, and raise it he did. And then, halfway between Lexington and Concord, in the dead of night, a British patrol caught them. Revere braved the rather upset British soldiery. The British soldiers asked Revere what he had been doing and he said forthrightly, “He said they should not, they were only awaiting for some Deserters they expected down the Road: I told him I knew better, I knew what they were after; that I had alarmed the country all the way up.”
With war about to start, the British were understandably on edge.
In an instant I saw four of them, who rode up to me, with thier pistols in their hands, said G-d d-n you stop. If you go an Inch further, you are a dead Man, immeaditly Mr. Prescot came up we attempted to git thro them, but they kept before us, and swore if we did not turn in to that pasture, they would blow our brains out.
They would blow our brains out. The British soldiers said that to Revere several times.
One of them (whom I since learned was Major Mitchel of the 5th Regiment Clap’d his Pistol to my head, and said he was going to ask me some questions, if I did not tell the truth, he would blow my brains out.
He said to me ‘We are now going to wards your friends, and if you attempt to run, or we are insulted, we will blow your Brains out.’
They very often insulted me calling me Rebel &c. &c. after we had got about a mile, I was given to the Serjant to lead, he was Ordered to take out his pistol, (he rode with a hanger,) and if I run, to excecute the Majors Sentence.
But in the end, the British didn’t blow Revere’s brains out.
When we got within sight of the Meeting-House, we heard a Volly of guns fired, as I supposed at the tavern, as an Alarm: the Major orderd us to halt, he asked me how far it was to Cambridge, and many more questiones, which I answered; he then asked the Serjant, if his horse was tired, he said yes; he Ordered him to take my horse; I dismounted, the Serjant mounted my horse; they cutt the Bridle and saddle of the Serjants horse, & rode off, down the road.
The British soldiers knew Revere had committed an act of rebellion—an act of treason—but that night, right before the fighting would begin at Lexington and Concord, they just let him go.
It isn’t so easy as all that to blow a man’s brains out. You have to work yourself up to it—say loudly that you’re going to do it, and work to convince yourself that you’ll do it. The British soldiers hadn’t quite done it yet. They would fire at rebel colonists the next day, but that night they rode away and let Revere live with his brains intact.
The British are a decent lot. And for the better portion of mankind, the horrors of war are hard to start, although all too easy to continue.
America’s cold civil war has remained cold because of the reluctance of decent Americans to resort to violence. Our barbarians who assault our liberty have committed election tampering, perjury, arson, theft, destruction of property, assault, riot, attempted murder, and the occasional murder—and decent Americans have done extraordinarily little in response. Perhaps decent Americans suffer from a touch of foolish complacence. But they also shrink from the horrors of war, with the spirit of those British soldiers who rode away from Revere in the night. God bless a people who are as reluctant as humanly possible to let slip the dogs of war.
And God bless the memory of the British soldiers who were kinder to Paul Revere than they needed to be, in the last hours before the shooting started.
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I think it is more who Revere was in what was very much a class-based society, Revere was a fellow gentleman in a war where most of the gentlemen were on the Royal side — and both sides considered themselves British.
The Boston Patriots initially evolved out of the North End gang and the South End gang who would have weekly Sunday afternoon brawls on Boston Common. They were the deplorables, and with a few exceptions (e,g. Revere, Adams), “gentlemen” supported the Crown.
It was Prescott who made it to Concord — he was from there, and had been in Lexington visiting his girlfriend, and knew a trail through the woods (and a swamp) that the troops didn’t know about. But they would later fire on him, he was wounded in the side.
So they’d fire at someone who was unknown, would Revere have suffered a different fate had he been a mere longshoreman? And remember too that we have the version that Revere later gave to a very friendly audience, with no way of knowing how much he embellished it.
And remember that Revere had to walk home — they’d taken his horse and cut the bridal and saddle of the other horse, so Revere couldn’t ride it. Rebel or not, he wasn’t likely to get anywhere in time to do any harm.
What I wonder is why Gage didn’t call the thing off after learning that his cover had been blown. These soldiers knew that Lexington had been alerted (Revere told them) and others would have heard the church bells sounding (in the middle of the night) in Acton and Concord — while they didn’t have radios, riders could have gotten back to Boston before dawn and alerted Gage
And then there is this — and I don’t know who else could have told them…
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/was-a-woman-the-informant-who-helped-launch-the-american-revolution/ar-AA1Dauuh