Paul Revere's Midnight Ride (1775): The Alarm Before Lexington

Paul Revere’s midnight ride took place on the night of 18–19 April 1775, when the Boston silversmith carried warning that British troops were marching from Boston towards Lexington and Concord. Together with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, and dozens of other riders, he roused the Massachusetts countryside in time for militia to meet the British at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The ride became one of the best-known stories of the American Revolution, largely through a poem written 86 years later.

Background

By 1775 Boston was occupied by British troops under General Thomas Gage, while the rest of Massachusetts was controlled by a patriot Provincial Congress. That Congress stored weapons and supplies at Concord, and two of its leaders, John Hancock and Samuel Adams, were staying in Lexington at the house of the Reverend Jonas Clarke.

Patriots in Boston had built an intelligence network to watch British movements. Paul Revere, a silversmith and engraver known for his print of the Boston Massacre, was one of its most active members and a trusted express rider. In September 1774 he had carried the Suffolk Resolves to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and he had made several other long rides for the cause.

On 16 April 1775, with signs that the British were preparing an expedition, Revere rode to Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams. On his way back he arranged a signal with patriots in Charlestown: lanterns would be shown in the steeple of Christ Church, now known as the Old North Church, the tallest building in Boston. One lantern would mean the troops were leaving by land over Boston Neck; two, that they were crossing the Charles River by boat.

The ride

On the evening of 18 April, Dr Joseph Warren, the leading patriot still in Boston, learned that the troops were moving. At about 10 p.m. he sent for Revere and for William Dawes, a tanner, and dispatched them by separate routes to warn Lexington, in case one was captured.

Revere arranged for two lanterns to be hung briefly in the Old North steeple. The church’s sexton, Robert Newman, and vestryman John Pulling are usually credited with this task. Revere was then rowed across the Charles River by two friends, passing close to the British warship HMS Somerset. In Charlestown, patriots who had seen the signal had a horse ready for him, borrowed from a local merchant, John Larkin.

Revere set out shortly after 11 p.m. Near Charlestown Neck he was nearly caught by two British officers on patrol, but escaped and changed route through Medford, waking households and local militia leaders as he went. Other riders set out from the towns he alerted, spreading the alarm in every direction.

He reached the Clarke house in Lexington around midnight, after a ride of about 12–13 miles (roughly 20 km), and warned Hancock and Adams. Dawes, who had taken the longer land route over Boston Neck, arrived about half an hour later.

Capture on the road to Concord

After resting briefly, Revere and Dawes rode on towards Concord at about 1 a.m. They were soon joined by Dr Samuel Prescott, a young Concord physician returning home from a visit in Lexington, who offered to help.

In Lincoln, about halfway to Concord, the three ran into a British mounted patrol. Prescott jumped his horse over a wall and escaped, reaching Concord to give the warning there. Dawes also got away, though he reportedly fell from his horse in the dark. Revere was captured and questioned at gunpoint.

As they led him back towards Lexington, the officers heard gunfire and church bells from the awakened countryside. Alarmed, they took Revere’s horse and released him. Revere walked back to the Clarke house, helped Hancock and Adams to escape, and then went to a tavern to rescue a trunk of Hancock’s papers. He was close to Lexington Green when the first shots were fired at dawn on 19 April.

Key people

Paul Revere (1734–1818) was a Boston silversmith, engraver and later industrialist, active in the Sons of Liberty. He later served as an officer in the Massachusetts militia during the war.

William Dawes (1745–1799) carried the same message by a different route and shared the ride to Lincoln. Samuel Prescott (1751–c. 1777) was the only one of the three to reach Concord. Joseph Warren, who sent the riders, was killed two months later at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Revere after the ride

Revere’s war was less glorious than his famous night. He served in the Massachusetts militia artillery and in 1779 commanded the artillery of the Penobscot Expedition, a failed attempt to drive the British from a new post in what is now Maine. Accused of disobedience and cowardice afterwards, he demanded a court-martial and was acquitted in 1782.

After the war he expanded from silversmithing into industry. He cast church bells and cannon, and in 1801 opened one of the first copper-rolling mills in the United States, at Canton, Massachusetts, which supplied copper sheeting for ships and for the dome of the Massachusetts State House. He also provided copper fittings for the frigate USS Constitution.

Revere described his ride himself, in a sworn deposition written soon after the event and in a longer letter to the historian Jeremy Belknap around 1798. These accounts are the main sources for the night and differ in several details from the later legend. He died in Boston in 1818.

Longfellow’s poem and the making of a legend

Revere’s ride was known in New England but not especially famous until 1860, when the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote “Paul Revere’s Ride”, published in January 1861 in The Atlantic Monthly. Its opening line, “Listen, my children, and you shall hear”, became one of the most recited lines in American verse.

Longfellow wrote on the eve of the Civil War and used the story as a call to national alertness, not as history. His poem presents Revere as a lone rider waiting across the river for the lantern signal, then galloping all the way to Concord. In reality the signal was sent on Revere’s orders, others shared the ride, and Revere never reached Concord.

Myths and facts

Myth: Revere shouted “The British are coming!” No reliable account records this. The warning was spread quietly to key people, and colonists usually spoke of the “Regulars” or the “ministerial troops”.

Myth: Revere rode alone. Dawes and Prescott shared the mission, and a network of perhaps dozens of riders, bell-ringers and drummers spread the alarm across many towns.

Myth: the lanterns told Revere what to do. Revere already knew the route; the signal was a back-up for patriots in Charlestown in case he was stopped.

Timeline

• 1775, 16 April: Revere rides to Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams and arranges the lantern signal.
• 1775, 18 April, about 10 p.m.: Joseph Warren sends Revere and Dawes to Lexington.
• 1775, 18 April, about 11 p.m.: Revere sets out from Charlestown after crossing the Charles River.
• 1775, 19 April, about midnight: Revere reaches the Clarke house in Lexington; Dawes follows about half an hour later.
• 1775, 19 April, about 1 a.m.: Revere, Dawes and Prescott ride towards Concord and are stopped in Lincoln.
• 1775, 19 April, dawn: Shots are fired on Lexington Green.
• 1861, January: Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” is published.

Why it matters

The midnight ride showed how a well-organised communications network allowed Massachusetts militia to respond within hours to a British march. Through Longfellow’s poem, it also became a lasting American legend, a reminder of how later storytelling can reshape the memory of real events.