Today we went over to Concord to visit the roots of the American Revolution. It was actually quite moving to visit the spot where it all began, to see the (reconstructed) bridge where the colonists (fewer than 70) on one side faced off against the British regulars (said to be 700) on the other.
Here's a picture of the statue of one of the "Minutemen" with the inscription at the bottom, said to be from Ralph Waldo Emerson.
We began the visit by stopping at the Visitor Center and seeing a 25 minute Multi-Media presentation on the events of April 19, 1775 – very well done and very informative. We also visited Hartwell's Tavern near the site and spent time with a Park service historian who taught us quite a bit of history, correcting some of our prior misconceptions.
While returning from lunch in Concord, we passed the Unitarian Church in Concord, said to have been "gathered" in 1635, and discovered a plaque indicating that a significant meeting in Massachusetts history organizing the provincial government of Massachusetts took place there in October, 1774.
After lunch we visited the Old North Bridge, site of the April 19, 1775 confrontation between the colonists (about seventy at first) and the British Regulars (said to be seven hundred in number until reinforced by a force of a thousand late in the day.)
Clara also toured the Wayside House, home for a time of the Alcott family, later the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and still later the home of the Lothrop family (including the author of the Five Little Peppers series.)
High points of the day:
1) "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" was not really what it was all about – he had spent considerable time prior to that organizing both an espionage network and an activist network. When the lantern with the fabled "One if by land, two if by sea" was hung, some fifty riders of that activist group set off on horseback all over the colony to sound
the alarm;
what Revere was actually riding for was to personally warn John Hancock of the British plans and to provide for the safeguarding of the papers Hancock had (which would have been proof of their joint criminal activities.)
2) When the confrontation began, the colonists were badly outnumbered but as the day progressed, more "Minutemen" arrived until, late in the day, there were more than four thousand -- so that they outnumbered even the reinforced British regulars. They set up all along the road that the British were moving on back to Boston and sniped at them all evening. It was only a large group maneuver by the British commander of the reinforcing troupe that saved them from a complete massacre.
3) The Concord area was a literary hotbed, and although there was no word spoken of an organized literary society, the atmosphere of the locale must have been very powerful.
Rant #1: The history that we were taught in school was so simple-minded – what we learned today should have been taught in the first place. The "true" story of Paul Revere (see excerpt from Wikipedia below) is much more interesting and exciting than the "school" story, and would enchant children of the appropriate age. Why must we teach using "sound bytes" rather than accurate stories?
Rant #2: The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case this term asking them to determine the "true intention" of the Second Amendment. After hearing the story of the 70 colonists confronting 700 British regulars, and the 4,000 other colonists rushing, within the space of hours, to join in, can there be any doubt as to the thoughts in the minds of the writers of the Second Amendment when they used the phrases "well-regulated militia" and "necessary to the security of a free state." The 4,000 colonists who rushed to the scene were ordinary citizens who came because there was neither an Army nor a National Guard, and they were needed there to fight. But I'm willing to bet that the highly lauded "strict constructionists" and "originalists" of our current Supreme Court will conjure up something to twist it around . . . they'll probably even ignore the obvious facts of the punctuation and its significance to the meaning . . .
"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Rant #1A: Today, Wednesday the 17th, we visited Provincetown on Cape Cod and learned that the Pilgrim Memorial (all 252 feet tall of it) commemorates the fact that the Pilgrims first landed on Cape Cod, and stayed here for five weeks while a scouting party searched for another place with a better fresh water supply. So much for "The Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock . . . "
The following is from Wikipedia, although it could just as well have been written by the fellow we spoke with at Heartwell's Tavern.
Paul Revere and the Mechanics
The first Patriot intelligence network on record was a secret group in Boston known as the Mechanics, which meant skilled workers. The group, also known as the Liberty Boys, apparently grew out of the old Sons of Liberty organization that had successfully opposed the Stamp Act. The Mechanics organized resistance to British authority and gathered intelligence. In the words of one of its members, Paul Revere, "in the Fall of 1774 and winter of 1775, I was one of upwards of thirty, chiefly mechanics, who formed ourselves into a Committee for the purpose of watching British soldiers and gaining every intelligence on the movements of the Tories." According to Revere, "We frequently took turns, two and two, to watch the (British) soldiers by patrolling the streets all night."
In addition, the Mechanics sabotaged and stole British military equipment in Boston. Their security practices, however, were amateurish. They met in the same place regularly (the Green Dragon Tavern), and one of their leaders (Dr. Benjamin Church) was a British agent.
Through their intelligence sources, the Mechanics were able to see through the cover story the British had devised to mask their march on Lexington and Concord. Dr. Joseph Warren, chairman of the Committee of Safety, charged Revere with the task of warning Samuel Adams and John Hancock at Lexington, Massachusetts, that they were the probable targets of the enemy operation. Revere arranged for the warning lanterns to be hung in Old North Church to alert patriot forces at Charleston, and then set off on his famous ride. He completed his primary mission of notifying Adams and Hancock. Then Revere, along with Dr. Samuel Prescott and William Dawes, rode on to alert Concord, only to be apprehended by the British en route. Dawes got away, and Dr. Prescott managed to escape soon afterward and to alert the Patriots at Concord. Revere was interrogated and subsequently released, after which he returned to Lexington to warn Hancock and Adams of the proximity of British forces.
Revere then turned to another mission, retrieving from the local tavern a trunk belonging to Hancock and filled with incriminating papers. With John Lowell, Revere went to the tavern and, as he put it, during "a continual roar of Musquetry... we made off with the Trunk."
Paul Revere had served as a courier prior to his "midnight ride" and continued to do so during the early years of the war. One of his earlier missions was perhaps as important as the Lexington ride. In December 1774, Revere rode to the Oyster River in New Hampshire with a report that the British, under General Thomas Gage, intended to seize Fort William and Mary. Armed with this intelligence, Major John Sullivan of the colonial militia led a force of four hundred men in an attack on the fort. The one hundred barrels of gunpowder taken in the raid were ultimately used by the Patriots to cover their retreat from Bunker Hill.
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