Part 3, Warnings and Preparations by Three'oEight:

[308LIBERTY]

As Dawes begins the longer route from Boston, through Roxbury, Brookline then back up to Cambridge, Revere heads north through Charlestown Neck. He barely makes it out of town when suddenly he sees two sentries under a tree on horses. He spins Brown Beauty around, doubles back and instead takes the road north to Medford where he alerts their own Minute Men along with every house along his way. He continues on through Menotomy and finally arrives at the house of Jonas Clarke where Hancock and Adams are still hiding out. When he gets to the doorstep, a Minute Man standing guard tells him to be quiet as not to disturb the family inside. Revere, impatient as always yells, "Noise! You'll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out!"

Before long the town bell is ringing. Captain John Parker and about 130 men begin to assemble on the green as they have in practice many times before. William Dawes joins back up with Revere and the two of them head out on the road to Concord. Along the way they come upon a lone rider by the name of Samuel Prescott who had been out courting his fiancé Miss Mulliken. They quickly realize that Prescott is also a High Son of Liberty, often a courier between Lexington and Concord.

They stop at another house on the way and wake up a man named Nathaniel Baker who immediately sets off to warn the town of Lincoln. Further back on the road to Lexington, yet another alarm rider by name of Josiah Nelson is awoken to the sound of hoofbeats and foot soldiers. He quickly dresses and sets off to warn Bedford.

(You see, the midnight ride of Paul Revere is carried out by many sons and daughters of Liberty who, without hesitation, drop everything, join the fight, ride off to warn their neighbors or otherwise start making preparations for whatever might come. The few men who's names are remembered only play their small parts. It will be the common people like you and me who's actions make a difference.)

But before long, Revere, Dawes and Prescott find themselves in a bit of trouble. Revere sees 2 regulars on the road ahead and quickly warn Dawes and Prescott who break off in different directions. However there are more soldiers hiding in the trees. Prescott jumps his horse over a stone wall and heads out into a swamp, 2 men hot on his heels. Fortunately for Prescott, he knows the swamp better than they and he makes well his escape while the 2 men wind up getting lost. Dawes rides towards a farmhouse also being chased. As he nears the house he calls out ahead as if summoning men to his aid. The ruse pays off and those giving chase turn back to the road. Unfortunately, Dawes horse stumbles and throws him head over heels so he comes crashing down, knocking the wind out of him. He ends up having to walk back to Lexington on foot.

Revere tries to escape himself but is soon captured by other men waiting in the shadows. They quickly grab him from his horse, hold a musket to his head and march him into a pasture where they are holding 3 other prisoner's taken earlier. During interrogation, Revere tells them honestly that he is out to warn the countryside of the troops moving towards Concord to seize the powder. This is actually news to them because the plan was supposed to be kept secret. Revere goes on to explain that men for 50 miles are being warned of the march this very minute and there should be at least 500 men waiting for them on Lexington Green (bending the truth just a bit). At first they don't take him seriously but then they hear a volley of musket fire coming from that direction.

You see, back in Lexington, the men were getting tired of waiting for something that might not even happen, so Parker told them not to go far just in case. Many of them simply went across the street to the Tavern and being bad etiquette to take a loaded musket inside, they simply unloaded in the only manner possible with a musket by firing into the ground. Shortly after hearing the volley of fire, the soldiers let Revere go, thinking tonight they would have much bigger fish to fry than he. And soon they would have more than they bargained for.

Earlier, back in Boston, General Thomas Gage had summoned a few of his most trusted officers. He had nowhere near the number of men he had requested, but could no longer afford delay in taking the powder and supplies at Concord. In command of this mission, he placed Lt. Col. Francis Smith, a senior officer among his commanders. Under him, Maj. John Pitcairn would keep his marines in line and was popular and well liked among the men. The two of them were to quietly wake up the troops and have them ferried across the river to a place called Lechemere Point, near Phipps Farm, where they would wait for supplies and advance on through Menotomy and Lexington to Concord.

They didn't have enough boats for all the troops so it took them 2 trips to get everyone across the bay. By the time they arrived, it was cold and the tide was low, causing them to forge through muck up to their knees just to get to solid ground. Then they had to wait 2-3 hours for the supplies to be brought up and divided. They were given a days rations and 36 rounds of ammunition each. However, the rations ended up being rancid and had to be thrown out. So, you can imagine they were not in the best of spirits after being cold, muddy and hungry when they finally began marching down the road to Lexington.

Now Gage was starting to worry about the mission so he summoned Lord Percy to take reinforcements down the land route that Dawe's had traveled previously. Unfortunately for Smith and Pitcairn, the reinforcements were delayed 5 hours before they would even begin the march. Whatever happened along the way, Smith and Pitcairn would have to handle it themselves.

Back in Lexington, Revere finally makes it on foot to the Hancock-Clarke house where he finds Samuel Adams and John Hancock upstairs. Speaking of "bigger fish to fry" he finds them arguing about whether to eat a "fine salmon" that had been brought in or take it with them to eat later. Revere warns them that time is of the essence. The redcoats are almost here and it's time for action, not triviality. Hancock, who's a bit of a hot-head, grabs his musket and prepares to go down and face them single-handedly if he must. Adams has to calm him down and remind him that their duty was to the cabinet and it was time to go before they risked getting captured.

As for Revere, he simply shakes his head realizing they are overlooking one important detail. There is a trunk full of incriminating papers which surely stands to get a lot of good men hanged if they fall into the hands of the redcoats. Revere takes it upon himself to carry the trunk off to safety, drags it downstairs and is just starting to get off into the woods as the redcoats come around the bend. (History remembers men like the signers of the Declaration of Independence as heroes and many of them were, but even then, they often spent more time bickering about how to fix a problem while common men of action like Revere were needed to make things happen.)