Posted on 04/18/2016 9:15:34 AM PDT by harpygoddess
Paul Revere gets all of the credit, but he never actually finished that famous ride, and in fact warned the British that the Americans were coming. William Dawes and Samuel Prescott were left out of the poem and subsequently most elementary history books: it was actually Samuel Prescott who completed the midnight ride.
(Excerpt) Read more at vaviper.blogspot.com ...
During Paul Revere’s ride he was stopped by British soldiers, which Revere recounts in a 1789 letter maintained by the Massachusetts Historical Society, in his original language:
I observed a Wood at a Small distance, & made for that. When I got there, out Started Six officers, on Horse back, and orderd me to dismount;-one of them, who appeared to have the command, examined me, where I came from, & what my Name Was? I told him. it was Revere, he asked if it was Paul? I told him yes He asked me if I was an express? I answered in the afirmative. He demanded what time I left Boston? I told him; and aded, that their troops had catched aground in passing the River, and that There would be five hundred Americans there in a short time, for I had alarmed the Country all the way up.
I heard Longfellow was Revere’s grandson, hence Paul was featured in the poem.
Yes Samuel Prescott a young doctor who had been “courting” in Lexington. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty and was recruited by Dawes and Revere. They were spotted near Hartwell Tavern and split up. Revere was captured but Prescott escaped on horseback in the woods and doubled back and continued to warn people all the way to Concord that the British were coming. Lord send is more people like these patriots of olde we sorely need them.
Freegards
LEX
I thought it was Dawes, not Prescott.
The Redcoats were coming to seize a cache of military style assault weapons from the colonists.
Check out the story of sixteen year old Sybil Luddington. What a brave young lady she was. She out rode them all.
Thanks teach. I’ll write it fifty times on the blackbored :-) Quite a young lass though, wasn’t she? She sure as heck didn’t need a ‘’safe space’’.
Charles Dawes accomplished the unlikely "trifecta" of:
Serving as VPOTUS under Coolidge, plus;
winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1925 for his work in the Locarno Pact treaty negotiations ensuring the peace following the end of WW1; PLUS;
he wrote a song in 1912 (Melody in A Major) that later made #1 on the Billboard 100 (and also topped the charts in the UK) as a hit sung by Tommy Edwards in 1958 (It's All in the Game).
Plus, she was riding to help her father, surely a motivator. What a gift to us, that such people ever lived!
Wow!
Just imagine. Riding on horseback, at night in pitch dark forty miles. What an amazing young lady.
Quite a feat, I wonder though if she wasn’t like that all the time. :’)
She was the oldest of twelve children. (can you imagine that in the 1700s,twelve children serving child birth?) and a bright and assertive young woman. Her father who was a colonel in the militia had a man who was supposed to ride but he was ill with a fever and Sybil said “I’ll do it father’’. He protested but she insisted. “I know the road and who would stop a young girl?’’ She was right. Certainly if she had encountered any British troops they would have seen only a young girl on a horse. She could have made up any excuse and how would they know any different? Just an amazing young woman. She was one of so many who risked everything to give us the country we live in.
[to the author] Are you kidding me??? Revere’s “warning” to the British was arguably the first PsyOp of the war, taking advantage of the Minutemen clearing their flintlocks prior to entering Buckman’s tavern to lift a pint or two. “sorry, major, your element of surprise is lost and it is time to beat feet to Boston before you repeat Leslie’s Retreat.” Revere earned every word of that poem.
I apologize. I’m “on the road” (currently in Georgetown, KY) on the way back to Wisconsin from our grandson’s Eagle court of Honnor, and I’ve just now seen this fine article which should interest members of the Founding Father/Revolutionary War ping list.
So, a belated ping, ping, ping.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this ping list.
Let’s put HER picture on our paper currency! Attn: Jack Lew.
Sarah Luddington for the $50.
I’m for that!
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