Revere Shoulda Stayed Home that Night



The American Revolutionary War holds out for us any number of symbolic events that we now claim as parts of our story of separation from the British Empire.  If the end of the revolution might be symbolized by George Washington's inauguration

as our first president in 1789 at Federal Hall New York City (lower Manhattan, not far from Wall St.), the beginning is often symbolized as Paul Revere's ride

in 1775 from the city of Boston and into the roads to Lexington and Concord warning the country people that "the Regulars are coming."  Reading Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathanial Philbreck, though, it's surprising to find out at least two things about the very initial hours of our Revolution.  The first is that Paul Revere

never should have been called upon to alarm the countryside, and the second is that the very first shots at Lexington – the very shots necessary to turn a cold war hot – were essentially aimless and accidental.  The Revolutionaries, led most prominently by the trio of John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, had in April resolved a policy order which said that no military alarm should be called in these state of affairs unless a particular column of British Army is "equipped with baggage and artillery before it constituted a threat to the province.  Congress had also determined that a vote of five members of the Committee of Safety was required before the alarm could be sounded."  The British army

that headed that day inland (eventually Concord) wasn't large enough and wasn't carrying

artillery; Joseph Warrren, upon hearing of the gathering army, chose not to meet with his fellow committeemen, but instead without consent "called for Revere and directed him to row across the harbor for Charlestown." Ironically, "Even before the regulars had arrived in the marshes of Cambridge and set out for Concord, the alarm was being sounded in towns to the west and north of Boston."   American militia had used similar networks to alarm the countryside in the past, and a British army had gathered and were traveling to what might be guessed at as gunpowder stockpiles in Concord, but Revere officially should have stayed home that night and the first shots at Lexington Green would not have happened.  The subtle point the author tries to make is that certain revolutionaries were simply hotter on war than others and that they would need an instigating act at some point or the British Army could continue on literally planning and devising directly under the noses of the Patriots.  Some have speculated that Warrren that day had some secret messenger that told him of the marching soldiers' true intentions; others that he was extremely personally ambitious and frankly craved a war to lead (before the famous Battle of Bunker Hill he would become a civilian Major General, only to die days later at the famous Boston Battle).