Two If By Sea
Those of us old enough to have been taught in school about Paul Revere's ride will remember that on April 18, 1775, Revere rode to warn the citizens that the British were coming.
Question: But coming for what? And where were they coming from?
They weren't coming to attack the colonists. But they certainly weren't coming for tea.
Answer: They were coming to take away the Americans' guns.
Most of the soldiers were living among the colonists in Boston. In fact, General Thomas Gage, the commander in charge of the British troops of which Revere shouted his warnings, was a parishioner of the church pictured here; the very tower from which the two lanterns were hung to signal that the troops would be coming across the water on their way to Lexington and Concord. General Gage prayed and worshipped with the citizens of Boston!
With tensions being high between the colonists and the King, General Gage had orders to confiscate the guns and other weaponry that the citizens had accumulated in the rural communities. Once that was accomplished, the colonists would be in no position to resist when the crackdown came.
Because the British had been embarrassed in a recent attempt to raid the armories of citizens in Salem, the colonists having effectively hidden their arms before the soldiers arrived (Guns? What guns?), the General was determined to conduct this operation in secrecy. He intended to quietly cross Charles River Basin at night and march his troops to Lexington and Concord under cover of darkness where he would take the colonists by surprise and thus easily relieve them of their weapons.
Unfortunately for him, someone had snitched on him to the Sons of Liberty—probably either his maid or his American-born wife—and Revere and the other resistance members were prepared.
- Wikipedia Diagram: Routes taken April 18-19
