Who the hell writes these headlines? Paul Revere was eluding a ship? I thought he was riding around telling people the British Army was coming.
And really, how hard would it have been for a rider to elude a ship some 15 miles inland?
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
well, first he had to elude the ship... the Somerset... the British man-of-war... a phantom ship, with each mast and spar across the moon like a prison bar...
i love that!
Read Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer for all the details. It is a wonderful book and a very exciting tale.
Revere had to go by boat to start on the mainland. I think from Boston to the surrounding shores. Boston is basically a weird-shaped isthmus.
I was wondering why the British would name their ship "Paul Revere."
Maybe they had night-vision opera glasses.