This Day in History,April 18,1775;REVERE AND DAWES RIDE: "One if by land,and two if by sea;"

In Massachusetts, British troops march out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Patriot minutemen.

A system of signals and word-of-mouth communication set up by the colonists was effective in forewarning American volunteer militia men of the approach of the British troops.

Around 5 a.m., 700 British troops under Major John Pitcairn arrived at the town to find a 77-man-strong colonial militia under Captain John Parker waiting for them on Lexington's common green. Pitcairn ordered the outnumbered Patriots to disperse, and after a moment's hesitation the Americans began to drift off the green. Suddenly, the "shot heard around the world" was fired from an undetermined gun, and a cloud of musket smoke soon covered the green. When the brief Battle of Lexington ended, eight Americans lay dead and 10 others were wounded.

At the North Bridge in Concord, the British were confronted again, this time by 300 to 400 armed colonists, and were forced to march back to Boston with the Americans firing on them all the way. By the end of the day, the colonists were singing "Yankee Doodle" and the American Revolution had begun.

Paul Revere's Ride

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.

He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer's dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1860

The Midnight Ride in Revere's Own Words

Paul Revere provided three accounts of his ride on April 18th 1775. His first two accounts, a draft and a corrected copy of a deposition, both dated 1775, were made at the request of the Massachusetts Provisional Congress. These depositions, taken from all eyewitnesses to the skirmish on Lexington Green, were compiled in the hopes of obtaining proof that the British had fired the first shot.

Though written 23 years after the fact, the most complete account of the ride is Paul Revere's letter to Jeremy Belknap, Corresponding Secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, dated 1798.

To view the actual letter and a transcription click on the link below.

A LETTER FROM COL. PAUL REVERE TO THE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY [Jeremy Belknap].

By the end of the day, the colonists were singing "Yankee Doodle" and the American Revolution had begun.

Just a side note,

The original "Yankee Doodle"

The name Yankee has been traced back to colonial times. Early Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam (renamed New York by the British in 1664) used the term in a rather impolite way to refer to the English-speaking colonists, who the Dutch though were boorish and uncultured. They called such a person "Jahnke," as we might call someone we don't know "Jack" or "Buddy". John (pronounced YAHN) is the Dutch was of saying John, and the "ke" on the end is their way of changing John to Johnny.

Later on, in the 1700s, the British, who by that time had taken over New York from the Dutch, used the word "doodle" to refer to uneducated farmers and backwoodsmen who came into the big city. Today some might call them hicks or hillbillies. So to call someone "Jahnke Doodle" was to call him an illiterate, ill-mannered country bumpkin. The word "macaroni" referred to a group of young Britishers given to dressing in an affected manner (colonists might infer the British uniform); it also meant a kind of burlesque poetry.

On April 19, 1775, troops under the command of Brigadier General Hugh Percy, played "Yankee Doodle" as they marched from Boston to reinforce British soldiers already fighting the Americans at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. Whether sung or played on that occasion, the tune was martial and intended to deride the colonials:

Yankee Doodle came to town,
For to buy a firelock;
We will tar and feather him
And so we will John Hancock.

(CHORUS) Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle Dandy,
Mind the Music and the step,
And with the girls be handy.

There are numerous conflicting accounts of the origin of "Yankee Doodle." Some credit its melody to an English air, others to Irish, Dutch, Hessian, Hungarian and Pyrenean tunes or a New England jig. Its first American verses are attributed to British military surgeon, Dr. Richard Schackburg. Tradition holds that Schackburg invented his lyrics in 1755 while at the home of the Van Rensselaer family attending a wounded prisoner of the French and Indian War.

"Yankee Doodle's" catchy tune has allowed for seemingly endless adaptation and expansion. This early verse, probably Schackburg's, comments on the difference between the commissioned officers of the British military and those of the motley dressed Americans who then fought with them against the French:

There is a man in our town,
I pity his condition,
He sold his oxen and his sheep
To buy him a commission.

"Yankee Doodle" was well known in the New England colonies before Lexington and Concord but only after the skirmishes there, did the American militia appropriate it. Tradition holds that the colonials began to sing it as they forced the British back to Boston on April 19, 1775, after the battles of Lexington and Concord. It is documented that the American's sang the following verse at Bunker Hill:

Father and I went down to camp,
along with Captain Good'in,
And there we see the men and boys
as thick as hasty puddin'.

As George Washington received his commission and took command of the nascent Continental Army on Cambridge Common, additional verses evolved and were incorporated:

And there was Captain Washington,
And gentlefolks about him,
They say he's grown so tarnal proud,
He will not ride without them.

And there was Captain Washington
upon a slapping stallion,
A giving orders to his men;
I guess there was a million.

There came Gen'ral Washington
Upon a snow-white charger
He looked as big as all outdoors
And thought that he was larger.

By the end of the summer of 1775, the colonists had confined the British army to Boston and destroyed the royal governor's power. An 18th century copy of "Yankee Doodle," published in London, reflected this triumph. The following verse was included under the published title "Yankee Doodle; or, (as now christened by the Saints of New England) “The Lexington March”.

Sheep's Head and Vinegar,
ButterMilk and Tansy,
Boston is a Yankee town,
Sing Hey Doodle Dandy.

By 1777, "Yankee Doodle" had certainly become an unofficial American anthem. Following General Burgoyne's surrender of British troops to the Continental Army on October 17, 1777, British officer Thomas Anburey wrote:

…the name [of Yankee] has been more prevalent since the commencement of hostilities…The soldiers at Boston used it as a term of reproach, but after the affair at Bunker's Hill, the Americans gloried in it. Yankee Doodle is now their paean, a favorite of favorites, played in their army, esteemed as warlike as the Genadier's March — it is the lover's spell, the nurse's lullaby…it was not a little mortifying to hear them play this tune, when their army marched down to our surrender.

Fittingly and proudly, "Yankee Doodle" was played by the Continental army at Yorktown, when Lord Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington at the end of the war. Legend has it (although it's probably not true) that the British army played "The World Turned Upside Down".

Early American Psyops;)

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