“Alerted by signal lanterns, express riders Paul Revere and William Dawes eluded British patrols and spurred their horses toward Lexington along separate routes to warn Hancock and Adams.”1
“When Revere and fellow patriot William Dawes saw two lights shine, they set off on horseback. Using two different routes out of Boston, they sounded the alert.”2
Busted:
Neither Paul Revere nor William Dawes received news of the Regulars’ advance by signal lanterns. In his classic “Paul Revere’s Ride,” published in 1861, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow exercised considerable poetic license with his legendary “One if by land, two if by sea” drama.
In late winter and early spring of 1775, General Gage, the British military governor of Massachusetts, received orders from London to arrest colonial leaders and seize rebel arms and ammunition stockpiles. Contemplating his options, Gage prioritized the recovery of four brass cannons, which had been stolen from Boston and reportedly hidden in Concord, along with stockpiles of muskets, ammunition, and gunpowder. His plan called for seven hundred elite troops under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith to march to Concord on the evening of April 18, with orders to destroy all military supplies while minimizing harm to civilian property. A small party of officers was also dispatched ahead to intercept any messengers, ensuring no warnings reached Concord ahead of the troops.
The Acton Minutemen were formed at the end of 1774 at a town meeting. Tensions with England had grown to a boil, and towns everywhere were responding by training their men to fight. The town of Acton, which had previously been part of Concord, chose their best men from their existing militia units to form the new Minute Company, and those men voted 30-year-old Isaac Davis as their Captain.
