Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candis Gibson, joined as always by my favorite
Speaker 1: staff writer, Josh Clark. Favorite huh favorite, and that's because
Speaker 1: you gave me this adorable, jaunty, little try cornered hat
Speaker 1: that I've been wearing like it's my job for the
Speaker 1: past three days. Thank you very much, Thank you. Once
Speaker 1: I get the white powdered wig, I'll really be making
Speaker 1: a statement. You might want to shy away from the
Speaker 1: white powdered wig. It's really tough to pull one of
Speaker 1: those off well, and it would be a shame to
Speaker 1: cover my natural red hair. Exactly. Yeah. And I'll tell
Speaker 1: you who could pull off a white powdered wig like
Speaker 1: nobody else in history. Paul Revere, Ah the silver Smith.
Speaker 1: I have one of his teapots at home. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: do you really? I mean, I don't really think he
Speaker 1: made it. He should look into selling that on exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you do you know much about Paul Revere. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's a pretty awesome dude, I do, But I know
Speaker 1: how much you adore him, So why don't you introduce him?
Speaker 1: To everyone. Well, but basically Paul Revere, like you said,
Speaker 1: he was a silver smith. He he was also a
Speaker 1: known to be a pretty reliable courier in colonial America.
Speaker 1: He lived in Boston, and uh, he was also a
Speaker 1: patriot in the eyes of the British. He was a
Speaker 1: rebel patriot, right um. So they actually had people follow
Speaker 1: him around wherever he went because they figured wherever Revere
Speaker 1: was going he probably had some sort of secret information
Speaker 1: or whatever. And that's actually a pretty good move on
Speaker 1: the on the part of the British because he was
Speaker 1: basically running secrets throughout the colony. He could ride a
Speaker 1: horse like he would not believe, he could get from
Speaker 1: here to there in no time flat um. And he
Speaker 1: became kind of famous for that, right he did. He
Speaker 1: he was immortalized actually by Henry Wardsworth long fellow am
Speaker 1: I pronouncing Wordsworth Wadsworth. So he wrote a poem called
Speaker 1: the Midnight Right of Paul Revere. And this is where
Speaker 1: we get like all of our facts about Paul Revere. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, the British are coming, The British are coming, Uh,
Speaker 1: the whole one. If by land too, if I see,
Speaker 1: you know, all this stuff actually does have basis in fact,
Speaker 1: like Longfellow didn't make this up. So um. Basically what
Speaker 1: happened was the in the colonies in seventeen seventy five.
Speaker 1: This is April seventeen seventy five. Um. There tensions were
Speaker 1: a little high. You know, British troops were being quartered
Speaker 1: in people's houses against their will, which you realize it
Speaker 1: would be like if the U. S. Army said, hey,
Speaker 1: this this platoon is going to stay in your house
Speaker 1: and you need to feed them and put them up
Speaker 1: and it really doesn't matter whether you like it or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's worse as you know, the cry of no
Speaker 1: taxation without representation. The colonists didn't really have a voice,
Speaker 1: and while they still were identified as British, you know,
Speaker 1: the British didn't even like column British. They called them
Speaker 1: provincials and peasants and Hicks and Yankees, and so they
Speaker 1: were pretty irritated. They definitely were. And it wasn't just
Speaker 1: the name calling. There was a lot of abuse that
Speaker 1: was going on. At the very least the colonists felt abused, right,
Speaker 1: So tensions are really really the America, the colonies were
Speaker 1: like a powder keg. By April seventeen seventy five, and
Speaker 1: speaking of powder kegs, they'd been getting their supplies together
Speaker 1: just in case. They weren't exactly on the brink of war,
Speaker 1: but they knew that it might be coming. They were prepared.
Speaker 1: They were prepared. So they had a few stores here
Speaker 1: there they did, and they did, they had they had
Speaker 1: stores located here. There are arsenals. I guess you could
Speaker 1: say in what was it Concord Basically, like you said,
Speaker 1: they were preparing for the worst, didn't know what was
Speaker 1: going on. Finally they get some information and this was
Speaker 1: kind of scandalous because it was given anonymously. Supposedly Joseph
Speaker 1: Warren was the guy who got the tidbit, and it
Speaker 1: may have come from a British general's wife, which you
Speaker 1: have to wonder. I mean, what exactly was her husband
Speaker 1: doing to tick her off that bage? You know, I
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe he didn't get her the latest
Speaker 1: power your teapot that she wanted. These are hot items,
Speaker 1: as you will find out on Antiques Road Show. Um. So,
Speaker 1: so yeah, they get a tip that the British are
Speaker 1: actually going to come. They're going to arrest um Brewer
Speaker 1: slash Patriot Sam Adams. They were also going to arrest
Speaker 1: insurance salesman's slash large signatory John Hancock, and they were
Speaker 1: going to raid these stores. Um. And like you said,
Speaker 1: we don't know where the information came from, but it
Speaker 1: was timely. The problem is is this was a time
Speaker 1: when a newspaper, when you got your hands on it,
Speaker 1: it could be several weeks old, and then when it
Speaker 1: was printed just you know, several miles up the road
Speaker 1: and here at the house stuff works office. If we
Speaker 1: want to get news out, someone tells me, because I
Speaker 1: just blow it everywhere. But in the case of the Patriots,
Speaker 1: they were like, who's our man, because they to communicate,
Speaker 1: you had to go see somebody and speak face to
Speaker 1: face basically if you wanted to do it quickly. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, of course they look at Revere and they
Speaker 1: put him on a horse and he is to ride
Speaker 1: from Boston to Lexington and it's like a thirteen mile ride.
Speaker 1: Paul Revere did it in two hours flat. Uh. And
Speaker 1: this includes stopping to warn people in towns along the way.
Speaker 1: He stopped in Charlestown and had the local sexton put
Speaker 1: up two lamps because the British were coming by sea. Um.
Speaker 1: And he also did rail um or he did alert
Speaker 1: everybody that the British are coming. The British are coming,
Speaker 1: although there's a discrepancy with that. He didn't actually say
Speaker 1: the British are coming, because, like you said, the colonists
Speaker 1: were identified as British, so he said probably something like
Speaker 1: the regulars are coming. The regulars are coming. Uh. And
Speaker 1: he also crossed Massachusetts Bay in a robot. So within
Speaker 1: two hours he did all this stuff, and he got
Speaker 1: word to Sam Adams and John Hancock UM, and they
Speaker 1: were allowed to Basically, he's the militias who had just
Speaker 1: been sitting silently, quietly opposing basically is as these uh,
Speaker 1: the peasantry, the Yankees uh to prepare for the British
Speaker 1: invasion that that eventually came. So basically, um. The whole
Speaker 1: thing led to the shot heard around the world, which
Speaker 1: took place on Lexington Green, where it turns out the
Speaker 1: British fired on this militia but I guess they missed
Speaker 1: or something like that. That was a shot heard around
Speaker 1: the world. The actual first fatal shots took place about
Speaker 1: an hour later as the militia was dispersing. Apparently the
Speaker 1: British started shooting them in the backs, which is one
Speaker 1: really good way to start, award. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: So I guess the my my my question is is
Speaker 1: I need you to reinforce my confidence in the fact
Speaker 1: that Paul Revere totally and completely saved the day. Had
Speaker 1: it not been for his ride and his alone, he
Speaker 1: we we we would have lost to the British before
Speaker 1: the war even started. Fact fiction, give it to me.
Speaker 1: I hate disappoint to it's fiction. I mean, he really
Speaker 1: did ride, that part is true. But Henry Ward's gosh,
Speaker 1: it's it's like catching Wadsworth. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His poem
Speaker 1: really immortalized Paul Revere. And like you said, but he
Speaker 1: was using an artistic license. He essentially well, he wasn't lying,
Speaker 1: per se, But there were actually two other men on
Speaker 1: the midnight ride, and he painted Paul Revere to be
Speaker 1: the real hero of the evening. And there are a
Speaker 1: couple of theories behind us, one of which is that
Speaker 1: the other two men, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, he
Speaker 1: couldn't run as easily with their name. So some people
Speaker 1: said that he took the easy way out as a poet,
Speaker 1: and he chose Revere, you know, fear near steer, cheer,
Speaker 1: clear cheer. That's a good one. And I'm glad you
Speaker 1: said cheer, because the whole point of Longfellow's poem was
Speaker 1: to raise patriotism. He never said it was curate. He said,
Speaker 1: I was supposed to inspire people to do the right
Speaker 1: American thing. Indeed, well, the other theory behind it is
Speaker 1: that Paul Revere was so well known for his politics
Speaker 1: and his afrorementioned courier skills that he was the natural
Speaker 1: one to popularize within this work of fiction. But so
Speaker 1: these other two men on the ride, he may be
Speaker 1: interested to know that one of them didn't finish the ride,
Speaker 1: but one of them was actually the only one of
Speaker 1: the three who did. Even Paul Revere got cornered in
Speaker 1: the end, Samuel Prescott was the only one to finish
Speaker 1: the famed Midnight Ride, I know. So here is the
Speaker 1: lowdown on these guys. Okay, So, William Dawes he was
Speaker 1: a bit of a courier. Two. He wasn't, as you know,
Speaker 1: he wasn't like the pears hilt enough couriers like Paul
Speaker 1: Revere was. But he was pretty good at what he
Speaker 1: could do. And what's more, he wasn't as well known,
Speaker 1: so he was less likely to be recognized by the
Speaker 1: British guards that were posted around the roads. And he
Speaker 1: was a heck of an actor, so if he were
Speaker 1: pulled over, pulled over, I guess he could pull over
Speaker 1: a horse. If he were stopped by one of the guards.
Speaker 1: He was known to h fain drunkenness or ignorance or
Speaker 1: belligerents or something to get off and show that he
Speaker 1: was now just one of the provincials out. Honestly, night
Speaker 1: kind of method still works to this day. Just act
Speaker 1: drunk when you're pulled over works like a charm anyway.
Speaker 1: So he started out from Roxbury and Cambridge and he
Speaker 1: was going to meet Paul Revere in Lexington, and he
Speaker 1: went by land. Paul Revere went by sea, which essentially meant,
Speaker 1: like you've already explained, he crossed the bay and then
Speaker 1: he got a horse and he went on land en
Speaker 1: route to Lexington too, and that's where he met up
Speaker 1: with Dawes. Well after they were able to alert John
Speaker 1: Hancock and Samuel Adams, they still had the business of
Speaker 1: dealing with all the weapons and Concorde, which is what
Speaker 1: they think the British were ultimately after anyway, right right, right.
Speaker 1: They were less interested in the two figureheads. They wanted
Speaker 1: the weapons. So they started on their way to Concorde.
Speaker 1: And that's when they out it with Samuel Prescott, who
Speaker 1: was a local doctor and he was coming back from
Speaker 1: visiting his fiance and he said, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: a local, I know the lay of the land. Let
Speaker 1: me help you. So they all went together. But then
Speaker 1: they ran into the British guards and there was, you know,
Speaker 1: a bit of a scuffle, and in the midst of
Speaker 1: the fisticuffs, Revere got cornered and then DAWs got thrown
Speaker 1: from his horse, but Prescott made off and he was
Speaker 1: able to make it to Concorde and let everyone know,
Speaker 1: say this supplies. And what's really funny is that in
Speaker 1: the midst of that scuffle, Revere was telling the troops,
Speaker 1: you know, go ahead, just try to capture me. Everyone's
Speaker 1: on their way to fight you. And the militia men
Speaker 1: were practicing their shots in the distance, and so his
Speaker 1: bluff really worked. They essentially let him go, but by
Speaker 1: then it was too late for him really, you know,
Speaker 1: to make a difference. Okay, So Paul Revere Chuck Liver
Speaker 1: or no. In my book, still he roams my worldview.
Speaker 1: You can hold on to it, but you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to make a little bit more room for William DAWs,
Speaker 1: some cereal profect will I will I'll work on that. Yeah. Yeah, Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: if they want to learn even more about the Revolutionary
Speaker 1: war heroes, you can read who Are the Other Two Men?
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