by Ron Carter
“Until nearly four—more than three hours.”
“What happened after they left?”
“They scattered and I think they all went home but Revere. He crossed the river in his boat.”
Gage eased back in his chair and ran his hand through his unkempt hair. “North?”
“North.”
His head settled forward and his jowls rested on his chest as he stared at his clasped hands before him on the table and worked with his thoughts in the silence of the austere, orderly New En-gland kitchen.
General Thomas Gage, personally selected by King George to be governor of the rebellious colony of Massachusetts, had arrived under direct orders of Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state for the American colonies, in May 1774, with four regiments of British regulars. He audaciously declared to King George in writing that “if we will but assert ourselves firmly, the Americans will submit meekly.”
His declaration was a spectacular catastrophe.
In the years before Gage’s arrival, the British Parliament had passed various measures to collect taxes from the colonies. In 1765 came the Stamp Act, which required the colonists to pay a tax on most paper goods, from newspapers down to the cards used by the sailors to play whist. When the colonials ripped up the tax stamps and hung tax collectors in effigy, the Stamp Act was repealed. In hot retaliation, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act in 1766, declaring the right of Parliament to enact laws for the colonies “in all cases whatsoever.” This was followed in 1767 by the Townsend Acts, requiring colonists to pay taxes on a host of goods, including paper, glass, paint, and tea. “Tyranny!” screamed the colonies, and the British eventually repealed the Townsend Acts—with the exception of the tariff on tea. Then in 1773, when Parliament gave to the East India Company a tea-trade monopoly in the colonies, incensed Bostonians disguised as In-dians raided three British ships and dumped over three hundred boxes of the company’s tea into Boston Harbor. With tensions building, the British struck back with the Intolerable Acts, asserting their power to close Boston Harbor with a Port Act, quarter British troops in colonial homes, appoint members of the Massachusetts legislature, appoint judges, and stop all town meetings.
A firm disciple of following the letter of the law, Gage enforced the Port Act, essentially shutting down Boston Harbor. Shipping stopped, and with it commerce, and Boston City ground to a halt. Gage was startled when the colonials refused his beneficent offer to reopen trade if they would swear allegiance to the Crown and submit to his rule, and he was shocked when the stores of gunpower in Boston began to disappear into the countryside to be used against the British if war came.
Gage seized the Boston powder magazine northwest of town, midway between Mystic and Cambridge. Within twenty-four hours, three thousand men flooded from the countryside into Boston in raucous, angry protest. Instantly Gage wrote a shaky letter to General Haldimand of New York. “Bring all your gunpowder and troops to Boston at once.”
None came. Haldimand desperately needed all he could get to hold off a threatened rebellion in New York.
Gage, detesting the thought of war, sought counsel from Brigadier General Percy and from a trusted officer, Major John Pitcairn, then sent a special, urgent message to Lord Dartmouth in London. “If I am to execute my orders to contain and control the citizenry in the colony of Massachusetts, I must have an additional twenty thousand troops, armed and battle ready, instanter.”
Troops arrived five months later on April 3, 1775. Eleven regiments of light infantry and five hundred marines, with little artillery. The addition brought Gage’s total army to just under four thousand soldiers under arms. Parliament could not believe that his request for twenty thousand men was justified.
His own men began calling him “Old Woman” and “Tommy.” He felt a growing apprehension that he had already proven himself a failure as a politician, and that he was about to prove himself incapable as a military commander. He cast about for something that would save his wounded career. It came to him in the early hours of April 14, after he had paced the floor through the night.
Take their munitions at Concord, and the rebellion would be over, and if Adams and Hancock were at Lexington, might as well pick them up too. Samuel Adams! He had been offered the governorship of the colonies for life, and a fortune in gold if he would but denounce the colonials and swear his allegiance to the Crown. He had shouted his refusal and defiance in every newspaper. He could not be bought. Hancock was another matter. He well understood the wealth and power game, but in the end, he too defied the king.
Gage speculated. Now they’ll learn of their own folly! Their ragtag colonial militia might show token resistance, but let’s see what they do with an advance regiment of marines followed by half a dozen regiments of grenadiers. The whole affair should be over in one day, and Boston and the entire colony of Massachusetts will be on their knees. Then let’s hear what Sam Adams and John Hancock have to say.
With growing confidence in his plan, Gage worked tirelessly on the details until midafternoon; then he called in only the officers who had need to know.
Saturday, April 15, you will select thirty trusted men for a sensitive maneuver. Secrecy is critical. Do not tell any of them until six o’clock p.m. They are to be on the Back Bay south of Cambridge Street at ten o’clock p.m. Have them leave in small groups so they will pass unnoticed. A messenger will deliver written orders to you at ten o’clock. You will memorize the orders and then destroy the paper. That is all.
Then he called in his messenger to deliver the ten o’clock p.m. message, and it was delivered at precisely ten o’clock. Now, at five-fifteen a.m. on Sunday morning, a scant seven hours and fifteen minutes after his officers and troops put the boats in the water, his secret messenger was sitting across the kitchen table telling him not only that the moving of the longboats out to the men-of-war in preparation for the daring raid on Concord and Lexington was seen by the colonials, but that their leaders had already met for three hours after watching the entire process. Worse, Revere was headed north, which could only mean one thing. Adams and Hancock would know by breakfast, and the militia at Concord before noon.
Gage scowled and cursed and his fist pounded the table. He rose and paced, then returned and dropped heavily onto his chair and brought his eyes to those of his messenger. His words were angry in the dead silence. “Did you get the list of details about Concord from the informer?”
Angry or not, as a matter of meticulous discipline, Gage never spoke the name of his paid informer on the Committee of Safety, nor the name of his messenger. Those names uttered by accident in the wrong place could cut off a pipeline to information without which his entire governorship would collapse. At all cost, he had to protect his sources. He had never mentioned those names to a single member of his staff, or even to his wife. Despite the fact she was American born, he trusted her implicitly, but knew that without those names, she could not reveal them in an idle moment of forgetfulness as she chatted with the wives of other officers, or even with her American friends.
The messenger’s eyes brightened and a tight smile spread. He drew an envelope from his inside coat pocket and handed it to Gage, who slipped out the paper and flattened it on the table.
It was written in French. For more than a minute he studied the stiff, unnatural pen strokes, the only sounds the rhythmic ticking of the clock and their breathing. He knew enough rudimentary French to make out the general text.
“When did you get this?”
“Forty minutes ago. I took three detours coming here to be certain I was not followed.”
A smile spread and he leaned back in his chair. “All right. I can translate most of this, but I want it exact. Take it to the translator and bring it back as soon as possible.”
The messenger left, and fifteen minutes later Gage, in full uniform, strode rapidly up the brick walkway to the officer’s quarters and entered. Three minutes later he faced two officers behind closed doors.
“Major Strumman,
you are to find Paul Revere and arrest him. Select four of your best horsemen immediately and move north to Lexington, then on to Concord if necessary. Revere will be riding his gray mount. Don’t spare your horses. I want that man back here before noon. Arrest him on sight. Here is my arrest warrant, charging him with acts of treason against the Crown. Leave immediately.”
“Captain Cutler, pick one lieutenant and twenty armed and uniformed regulars and march to the South Church where citizens Warren and Thorpe and Dunson regularly attend services. When you get there, this is what you will do.”
For three minutes he methodically repeated his orders, then handed the captain a letter with the same orders in writing.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Proceed at once.”
Gage stood at the front door of his headquarters when the major led his four horsemen north across the compound at a gallop, saluting smartly as they swept past the general. Twenty minutes later he watched the captain muster his troops into a double column and march them south out of the compound, and they disappeared into the streets.
He took his breakfast at his quarters with his wife, and returned to his office to wait while she attended church services at the chapel on the compound. At noon his orderly answered the rap at his headquarters, accepted the sealed envelope, and delivered it to Gage. By twelve-fifteen p.m. Gage was elated, nearly gleeful.
He allowed himself a moment of pure exultation as he strode about his large, square, sparsely furnished office waving the translated document in the air.
It’s all here—cannon, powder, shot—all of it. I can pull their fangs! Without their munitions they can bark but they cannot bite! I have them, and it can be done in one day just as I planned it! A small force—six, eight hundred crack troops—a lightning march in the night—total surprise—they’ll wake up in Concord to the sound of musket butts on their doors, and we’ll have their stores by noon and be back by nightfall!
He drew a great breath and exhaled sharply.
We can also pick up Adams and Hancock, but that is now of little consequence. Without munitions, they’re hamstrung! Oh, the buzzing we will hear then from these hot-blooded little bees who have lost their stingers!
And the king! Ah, the letter to the king! “Your Royal Majesty King George. It is my great honor to inform His Royal Majesty of the events of the day. This date the Royal Marines and light infantry have seized the entire supply of munitions, medicines, supplies, and food upon which the citizenry of the city of Boston and the surrounding countryside have wholly depended to begin and maintain hostilities. Consistent with the advice of Lord Dartmouth, secretary of state for the American colonies, this extremely successful military maneuver was conducted in one day with a minimum of casualties on both sides. Further details will follow timely. Your obdt. svnt. General Thomas Gage.”
Perhaps it should be longer. No, humility is the key. Short and humble.
He looked at the paper clutched in his hand and sobered. He folded the original document in French back in the envelope and placed it in the right drawer of his massive, polished oak desk, closed it, locked it, and hung the desk key back on its peg on the underside of the desk, next to the position his right knee assumed when he was sitting at the desk. The second document, the translation, he folded and placed in the inside pocket of his officer’s coat, over his breast.
He settled into his large, carved, leather-covered chair and for many minutes sat with his hands clasped across his paunch while he worked with his thoughts. He scratched notes with a quill, crossed some of them out, added others, and continued refining his plan. Finished, he folded the written notes and put them in his inside coat pocket.
He rose and called his orderly. “I will be taking my midday meal at my quarters. Remain here. Allow no one in except those authorized. I will return later. If anyone needs me, come inform me immediately.”
He walked towards his quarters in bright, warm sunlight, lost in his thoughts. He was thirty yards from his front door when the sound of marching men turned him about and he stared southward, across the compound. The captain was returning with his twenty-man detail from the assignment at the South Church, and even at seventy yards Gage could see that two of the regulars were bloodied and one was being carried by the others. Gage crossed the compound at a trot, and the captain barked orders that stopped his column at Gage’s approach. The captain snapped to attention, boot heels clicking, toes spread, chest out, shoulders back, his chin jammed down tight. His arm whipped up in a salute as Gage slowed.
“Report!” Gage demanded.
“Sir, we executed our orders. A colonial attacked two of the soldiers with a musket. As ordered, we refused to be drawn into an open conflict. We repulsed the attack and left the scene with our wounded. There were no shots fired. The soldiers sustained wounds, one serious. That is all. Sir.”
“What wounds?”
“Sergeant Cope is believed to have a broken collarbone, and something’s wrong with his neck, and his right ear is badly torn. Corporal Betters has four teeth missing, four more smashed, and needs stitching about his mouth.”
“Whose musket? Colonials don’t carry muskets to church.”
The captain licked dry lips and hesitated. “Sergeant Cope’s musket.”
“To be sure! Who was this colonial and how did he get Cope’s musket?”
“William Dawes, sir, and he took it away from Cope.”
“For what reason?”
The captain exhaled and his shoulders sagged. “Sir, Sergeant Cope made a . . . questionable maneuver with his bayonet and Dawes took exception.”
“What maneuver?”
“I’d rather not say, sir.”
“You will tell me now, or later before a board of inquiry.”
“He attempted to lift the skirt of Mrs. Dawes.”
Gage’s head jerked forward. “He what?”
“I would rather not repeat it, sir.”
“Do I understand that one of our regulars attempted to lift the skirts of a colonial gentlewoman in the streets with a bayonet, and her husband took the musket from him and disabled two of our troops?”
“That’s not all, sir.”
“Go on.”
“Dawes broke the bayonet, smashed the musket, and bent the barrel.”
Gage’s mouth sagged open for a moment before he clamped it shut.
“And there’s more, sir.”
“What more could there be?”
“Mr. Dawes advised me to tell the general that the next time one of our soldiers so much as looks at his wife, that man is dead.”
“He threatened us?”
“Yes, sir, he did, and I think he meant it.”
“Be assured he did!”
“And one thing more. Citizen John Dunson swore on his oath that if any charges are brought against William Dawes, Mr. Dunson will see Sergeant Cope tried in a Massachusetts court and hanged for his armed assault on a gentlewoman.”
Gage shook his head in stark disbelief. “This little adventure will cost Sergeant Cope the price of a new musket and bayonet, Boston prices, and a reprimand in his record. Perhaps his sergeant’s chevrons. Take your wounded to the infirmary. Carry on.”
Gage watched the rigid red backs of the soldiers as they marched on towards the infirmary, then trudged back to his living quarters, shaking his head in disgust at the wild story. He paused at his front door and for a moment pondered. Has the patrol caught Revere? Did Revere get to Adams and Hancock first? What about Concord? For a moment his eyes involuntarily darted north, and then he reached for the doorknob.
Eleven miles northwest, Revere jumped his mare splashing through green cattails and reeds growing in a low marsh and spurred her up a gentle rise into a cluster of oak saplings and pulled her to a stop. She threw her head and munched at the bit, mud-splattered, wanting to run. Straight ahead four hundred yards, across the Bedford Road, stood the two-storied white frame house of the Reverend Jonas C
larke. To the left six hundred yards was the junction of the Bedford Road and the Concord Road.
Revere dismounted and spoke low to his mare, “Good girl, good girl,” while he stood stock-still and studied every thing, every movement in the village from the cover of the sprouting oaks. Nothing red was moving. There were no soldiers.
Eight times since daybreak he had ridden away from the road onto hills and taken cover behind stone fences or trees or hedgerows to wait and watch his back trail. Twice he had seen mounted British patrols ahead, before they saw him, and had hidden—once in a corncrib, with his hand clamped over the mare’s nose to prevent a whicker, and once in a tributary to the Mystic River, he and the horse both belly deep in water, shielded by willows, while the patrol rode past twenty yards away.
The mare blew and tossed her head, fighting the tight reins. “Huuu,” Revere crooned to settle the mare, and reached for the onside stirrup. Mounted, he let her run on the gentle decline to Bedford Road, across it, and into the yard of Jonas Clarke.
“Hello the house!” he called, and trotted the mare to the rear, where the barn and horse stalls stood square with the house and the road. He led her into the barn and closed the door, then threw the stirrup over the saddle seat while he loosened the girth and jerked the saddle and blanket off and racked them.
He turned and stopped when the barn door opened and Jonas Clarke entered.
“Paul Revere! Have you come with news?”
“Yes. Have British soldiers been here today?”
“No.”
“Let me tend the horse and we’ll go in.”
He rubbed her down with a burlap bean sack, then brushed her damp hide and led her to a stall where he unbuckled the bridle and hung a nose bag with cracked corn and oats. Three minutes later he walked shoulder to shoulder with Clarke back into the house.
Adams and Hancock met them at the door.
“Is it good or bad news?” Adams asked without greeting.
“You judge.” They sat down at the kitchen table, and for fifteen minutes Revere spoke. They were interrupted by an elderly woman and a younger woman, who suddenly appeared in the kitchen archway.