What happened to the two other men on Paul Revere's ride?

Although Paul Revere's ride has evolved into an American legend, he was not alone on his famous midnight ride. Check out our HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about the fact and fiction surrounding Paul Revere.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candis Gibson, joined as always by my favorite
staff writer, Josh Clark. Favorite huh favorite, and that's because

(00:22):
you gave me this adorable, jaunty, little try cornered hat
that I've been wearing like it's my job for the
past three days. Thank you very much, Thank you. Once
I get the white powdered wig, I'll really be making
a statement. You might want to shy away from the
white powdered wig. It's really tough to pull one of
those off well, and it would be a shame to
cover my natural red hair. Exactly. Yeah. And I'll tell

(00:46):
you who could pull off a white powdered wig like
nobody else in history. Paul Revere, Ah the silver Smith.
I have one of his teapots at home. Yeah, um,
do you really? I mean, I don't really think he
made it. He should look into selling that on exactly. Yeah.
So you do you know much about Paul Revere. I mean,

(01:06):
he's a pretty awesome dude, I do, But I know
how much you adore him, So why don't you introduce him?
To everyone. Well, but basically Paul Revere, like you said,
he was a silver smith. He he was also a
known to be a pretty reliable courier in colonial America.
He lived in Boston, and uh, he was also a
patriot in the eyes of the British. He was a

(01:27):
rebel patriot, right um. So they actually had people follow
him around wherever he went because they figured wherever Revere
was going he probably had some sort of secret information
or whatever. And that's actually a pretty good move on
the on the part of the British because he was
basically running secrets throughout the colony. He could ride a
horse like he would not believe, he could get from

(01:49):
here to there in no time flat um. And he
became kind of famous for that, right he did. He
he was immortalized actually by Henry Wardsworth long fellow am
I pronouncing Wordsworth Wadsworth. So he wrote a poem called
the Midnight Right of Paul Revere. And this is where
we get like all of our facts about Paul Revere. Right,

(02:12):
you know, the British are coming, The British are coming, Uh,
the whole one. If by land too, if I see,
you know, all this stuff actually does have basis in fact,
like Longfellow didn't make this up. So um. Basically what
happened was the in the colonies in seventeen seventy five.
This is April seventeen seventy five. Um. There tensions were

(02:34):
a little high. You know, British troops were being quartered
in people's houses against their will, which you realize it
would be like if the U. S. Army said, hey,
this this platoon is going to stay in your house
and you need to feed them and put them up
and it really doesn't matter whether you like it or not. Yeah,
and it's worse as you know, the cry of no
taxation without representation. The colonists didn't really have a voice,

(02:55):
and while they still were identified as British, you know,
the British didn't even like column British. They called them
provincials and peasants and Hicks and Yankees, and so they
were pretty irritated. They definitely were. And it wasn't just
the name calling. There was a lot of abuse that
was going on. At the very least the colonists felt abused, right,

(03:17):
So tensions are really really the America, the colonies were
like a powder keg. By April seventeen seventy five, and
speaking of powder kegs, they'd been getting their supplies together
just in case. They weren't exactly on the brink of war,
but they knew that it might be coming. They were prepared.
They were prepared. So they had a few stores here
there they did, and they did, they had they had

(03:38):
stores located here. There are arsenals. I guess you could
say in what was it Concord Basically, like you said,
they were preparing for the worst, didn't know what was
going on. Finally they get some information and this was
kind of scandalous because it was given anonymously. Supposedly Joseph
Warren was the guy who got the tidbit, and it
may have come from a British general's wife, which you

(04:00):
have to wonder. I mean, what exactly was her husband
doing to tick her off that bage? You know, I
I don't know. Maybe he didn't get her the latest
power your teapot that she wanted. These are hot items,
as you will find out on Antiques Road Show. Um. So,
so yeah, they get a tip that the British are
actually going to come. They're going to arrest um Brewer

(04:21):
slash Patriot Sam Adams. They were also going to arrest
insurance salesman's slash large signatory John Hancock, and they were
going to raid these stores. Um. And like you said,
we don't know where the information came from, but it
was timely. The problem is is this was a time

(04:41):
when a newspaper, when you got your hands on it,
it could be several weeks old, and then when it
was printed just you know, several miles up the road
and here at the house stuff works office. If we
want to get news out, someone tells me, because I
just blow it everywhere. But in the case of the Patriots,
they were like, who's our man, because they to communicate,

(05:02):
you had to go see somebody and speak face to
face basically if you wanted to do it quickly. Um.
So yeah, of course they look at Revere and they
put him on a horse and he is to ride
from Boston to Lexington and it's like a thirteen mile ride.
Paul Revere did it in two hours flat. Uh. And
this includes stopping to warn people in towns along the way.

(05:24):
He stopped in Charlestown and had the local sexton put
up two lamps because the British were coming by sea. Um.
And he also did rail um or he did alert
everybody that the British are coming. The British are coming,
although there's a discrepancy with that. He didn't actually say
the British are coming, because, like you said, the colonists
were identified as British, so he said probably something like

(05:46):
the regulars are coming. The regulars are coming. Uh. And
he also crossed Massachusetts Bay in a robot. So within
two hours he did all this stuff, and he got
word to Sam Adams and John Hancock UM, and they
were allowed to Basically, he's the militias who had just
been sitting silently, quietly opposing basically is as these uh,

(06:06):
the peasantry, the Yankees uh to prepare for the British
invasion that that eventually came. So basically, um. The whole
thing led to the shot heard around the world, which
took place on Lexington Green, where it turns out the
British fired on this militia but I guess they missed
or something like that. That was a shot heard around

(06:28):
the world. The actual first fatal shots took place about
an hour later as the militia was dispersing. Apparently the
British started shooting them in the backs, which is one
really good way to start, award. Did you know that?
So I guess the my my my question is is
I need you to reinforce my confidence in the fact
that Paul Revere totally and completely saved the day. Had

(06:51):
it not been for his ride and his alone, he
we we we would have lost to the British before
the war even started. Fact fiction, give it to me.
I hate disappoint to it's fiction. I mean, he really
did ride, that part is true. But Henry Ward's gosh,
it's it's like catching Wadsworth. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His poem

(07:17):
really immortalized Paul Revere. And like you said, but he
was using an artistic license. He essentially well, he wasn't lying,
per se, But there were actually two other men on
the midnight ride, and he painted Paul Revere to be
the real hero of the evening. And there are a
couple of theories behind us, one of which is that

(07:37):
the other two men, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, he
couldn't run as easily with their name. So some people
said that he took the easy way out as a poet,
and he chose Revere, you know, fear near steer, cheer,
clear cheer. That's a good one. And I'm glad you
said cheer, because the whole point of Longfellow's poem was
to raise patriotism. He never said it was curate. He said,

(08:00):
I was supposed to inspire people to do the right
American thing. Indeed, well, the other theory behind it is
that Paul Revere was so well known for his politics
and his afrorementioned courier skills that he was the natural
one to popularize within this work of fiction. But so
these other two men on the ride, he may be
interested to know that one of them didn't finish the ride,

(08:24):
but one of them was actually the only one of
the three who did. Even Paul Revere got cornered in
the end, Samuel Prescott was the only one to finish
the famed Midnight Ride, I know. So here is the
lowdown on these guys. Okay, So, William Dawes he was
a bit of a courier. Two. He wasn't, as you know,
he wasn't like the pears hilt enough couriers like Paul

(08:46):
Revere was. But he was pretty good at what he
could do. And what's more, he wasn't as well known,
so he was less likely to be recognized by the
British guards that were posted around the roads. And he
was a heck of an actor, so if he were
pulled over, pulled over, I guess he could pull over
a horse. If he were stopped by one of the guards.
He was known to h fain drunkenness or ignorance or

(09:09):
belligerents or something to get off and show that he
was now just one of the provincials out. Honestly, night
kind of method still works to this day. Just act
drunk when you're pulled over works like a charm anyway.
So he started out from Roxbury and Cambridge and he
was going to meet Paul Revere in Lexington, and he

(09:30):
went by land. Paul Revere went by sea, which essentially meant,
like you've already explained, he crossed the bay and then
he got a horse and he went on land en
route to Lexington too, and that's where he met up
with Dawes. Well after they were able to alert John
Hancock and Samuel Adams, they still had the business of
dealing with all the weapons and Concorde, which is what

(09:51):
they think the British were ultimately after anyway, right right, right.
They were less interested in the two figureheads. They wanted
the weapons. So they started on their way to Concorde.
And that's when they out it with Samuel Prescott, who
was a local doctor and he was coming back from
visiting his fiance and he said, you know what, I'm
a local, I know the lay of the land. Let
me help you. So they all went together. But then
they ran into the British guards and there was, you know,

(10:14):
a bit of a scuffle, and in the midst of
the fisticuffs, Revere got cornered and then DAWs got thrown
from his horse, but Prescott made off and he was
able to make it to Concorde and let everyone know,
say this supplies. And what's really funny is that in
the midst of that scuffle, Revere was telling the troops,
you know, go ahead, just try to capture me. Everyone's

(10:36):
on their way to fight you. And the militia men
were practicing their shots in the distance, and so his
bluff really worked. They essentially let him go, but by
then it was too late for him really, you know,
to make a difference. Okay, So Paul Revere Chuck Liver
or no. In my book, still he roams my worldview.
You can hold on to it, but you're gonna have

(10:58):
to make a little bit more room for William DAWs,
some cereal profect will I will I'll work on that. Yeah. Yeah, Well, anyway,
if they want to learn even more about the Revolutionary
war heroes, you can read who Are the Other Two Men?
On Polar Bears Midnight right on how stuff Works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Because at how stuff works dot com, let us know

(11:18):
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