A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans Read Online Free PDF

underway to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were known to be in the town of Lexington, and then to destroy the weapons and ammunition stored at Concord. Armed with this information, Dr. Warren sent Revere and William Dawes, both established and reliable couriers, on an urgent mission to warn Hancock and Adams.
    Each man took a different route to Lexington to ensure that if one was intercepted by British regulars patrolling the region, the other could still relay the vital message. Dawes left town through the gate at Boston Neck, a narrow isthmus that provided the only land access to and from the mainland. He was “mounted on a slow-jogging horse,” according to his biographer Henry W. Holland, “with saddle-bags behind him, and a large flapped hat upon his head to resemble a countryman on a journey.” Accounts vary as to how Dawes actually got through the closely guarded gate. Some say he joined a group of farmers returning to the mainland from Boston; others that he knew the British sentries on duty because of his frequent travels as a tanner by trade. Whatever the case, it is said that no sooner had he passed through the gate than orders arrived to stop all movement out of town.
    Dawes made his way on his slow horse south across Boston Neck to Roxbury, and then west and north through Brookline, Brighton, Cambridge, and Menotomy (now Arlington) to Lexington—a nearly seventeen-mile journey that took about three hours. While his ride had none of the dazzle and flash of steeple lights that Revere’s did (at least none that’s known because, unlike his fellow messenger, Dawes didn’t leave a record), it was every bit as heroic. The countryside was crawling with redcoats determined to stop any alarms from reaching Lexington, and Dawes deftly avoided them to deliver his message. Although no record exists of his alerting people along the way, he almost certainly did. “I can’t imagine him riding mute,” says Bill Fowler, professor of history at Northeastern University and former director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Still, Revere gets all the credit and, says Fowler, “poor Dawes sort of limps along.” Historian David Hackett Fischer and others say that’s because Revere was much better connected with the leaders of the towns along his route and thus better equipped to rally them. But the fact remains that both Revere and Dawes accomplished their mission, against great odds, by reaching Lexington and warning Hancock and Adams.
    After a brief rest in Lexington, Dawes and Revere set out together to warn the town of Concord about the British approach. They were joined by a third man, unheralded like Dawes, named Dr. Samuel Prescott. About halfway through their journey, during which they alerted a number of homesteads along the way, the riders were intercepted by four well-armed British Regulars. “God damn you! Stop!” one shouted. “If you go one inch further you are a dead man!” The three tried to push through the officers, but were overpowered. They were ordered off the road and directed at gunpoint to an enclosed pasture. The officers “swore if we did not turn into that pasture they would blow our brains out,” Revere later recalled. Prescott saw an opportunity for escape, however. “Put on!” he whispered to Revere, and both men spurred their horses to a gallop. Prescott turned left, jumped a low stone wall, and disappeared into the woods. He was the only rider to reach Concord that night. Revere was quickly surrounded and captured.
    Dawes escaped during the confusion and raced to a nearby farm with two officers in pursuit. Upon reaching the abandoned farmhouse, his horse was spooked and stopped abruptly. Dawes was pitched to the ground, and the horse ran off. Helpless now, he devised a clever feint. “Halloo, my boys,” he shouted into the empty house. “I’ve got two of them.” Unsure how many