Paul Revere's Ride Read Online Free

its hundreds of white legs. Above the heads of the marching men, a steel fringe of bayonets was visible in the early morning light.
    Paul Revere watched the Regulars for a moment. He thought they were “very near,” Then, with renewed urgency, he returned to his task. On the floor was a stout wooden trunk, covered in leather and studded with nails, with a curved top and strong brass fastenings. It was indeed very large—four feet long, two feet wide, and about two and a half feet high. The trunk was full of papers, and immensely heavy. 11
    Revere and Lowell decided to carry it away from the tavernand hide it in the woods. They lifted the massive trunk, struggled down the narrow stairs with it, and staggered through the front door of the tavern. Outside, Captain John Parker was forming his militia on the Green. Revere and Lowell carried the trunk directly through the ranks of Parker’s men, heading for a place of safety where the trunk and its contents could be hidden.

    John Hancock’s trunk, filled with secret papers, was left behind in the Buckman Tavern. It survives today in the Worcester Historical Museum.
     
    Meanwhile, in a Woburn parsonage, John Hancock was preparing at last to enjoy his salmon. Dorothy Quincy remembered later that he was just sitting down to a “tempting feast,” when a man from Lexington came rushing in, shouting wildly, “The Regulars are coming! The Regulars are coming!” At the first appearance of the soldiers this messenger had left his family and hurried to warn the Patriot leaders. “My wife’s in
etarnity
now!” he cried hysterically in his Yankee twang, as everyone looked on in astonishment.
    Once again, Hancock and Adams were warned that they were in danger. Their presence in Woburn was not easy to disguise if the Regulars should come that way. Hancock’s large coach was parked prominently in front of the house, where all could see it. The household flew into action. The coach was driven into the trees, and hidden beneath a large pile of brush. Hancock and Adams abandoned their salmon once again, and ran into the woods of Woburn.
    In fact, nobody was coming after them. When Tory Peter Oliver later heard the story of their hasty departure, he sneered that “their flight confirmed the observation made by Solomon, vizt the wicked fleeth when no man pursueth.” 12
    A little later, when it was clear that the Regulars were notheading toward Woburn, Adams and Hancock were led out of the woods and taken deeper into the Middlesex countryside, to the modest house of Amos Wyman, “in an obscure corner of Bedford, Burlington and Billerica.” Here they settled in and Hancock suddenly felt hungry again. One person recalled that he was “forced by the cravings of nature to call for food.” Their new hosts had nothing in the house but a bit of cold boiled salt pork, brown bread, and potatoes. This was the ordinary fare of Middlesex farmers, but Dorothy Quincy observed that it was a “strange diet for these patriots, who were in the habit of having the best.” 13
    While on their way to this new sanctuary, they began to hear the rattle of musketry in the distance. Sam Adams turned to his companion and said, “It is a fine day!”
    “Very pleasant,” John Hancock replied serenely, thinking that Adams was talking about the weather.
    “I mean,” Sam Adams explained, as if to a child, “this is a glorious day for America.” 14

EPILOGUE
     
    The Fate of the Participants
    It seemed as if the war not only required but created talents.”
     
    —David Ramsay, 1793
     
    THE COST turned out to be very high—higher perhaps than our generation would be willing to pay. On both sides, many of the men who fought at Lexington and Concord died in the long and bitter war that followed. In the British infantry, few of the anonymous “other ranks” who marched to Concord survived the conflict unscathed. Many would be dead within two months.
    At the battle of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, General