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Once again, Revere and Dawes mounted their horses and took off for Concord, planning to wake up the surrounding towns. They immediately ran into a young, wealthy doctor from Concord, Samuel Prescott. A “high son of liberty,” Prescott offered to ride with them, since he knew the terrain and he knew the people.17

Halfway to Concord, they ran into some Redcoats. Outnumbered, they insanely tried to bolt past the Regulars. The British didn’t shoot, but didn’t let Revere’s group pass either, shouting, “God damn you! Stop! If you go an inch further, you are a dead man!”18

They were taken prisoner and brought to join other American prisoners captured that night. While being led off the path, Prescott and Revere spurred their horses, taking off in different directions. Revere’s route took him straight into a group of Redcoats, but by distracting their captors, he allowed Prescott to escape—across a wall and into the backwoods he knew so well. As Revere had done before him, Prescott would set off a chain of warnings to the militias in the towns all around Concord.

As the Redcoats surrounded Revere, Dawes escaped, pretending to be one of the Regulars in pursuit of a fleeing rebel—“Halloo, my boys I’ve got two of ’em!”19 He got away, but his horse soon threw him and his journey was over.

Both the Redcoats and their famous prisoner were remarkably polite to each other, with Revere later recalling that the British officer in command was “much of a gentleman.” Surprised to have captured the well-known rebel leader Paul Revere, the British began interrogating him and were stunned by his candor.

Revere openly told them about British plans that night—of which they were unaware. Hoping to keep them away from Hancock and Adams, he warned the British soldiers that they would be killed if they went anywhere near Lexington Green, where up to five hundred militiamen were mobilizing. The other prisoners listening to Revere were astonished at how boldly he spoke to his captors. When one captain put a gun to Revere’s head and demanded that he tell the truth, an indignant Revere said he didn’t need to be threatened. “I call myself a man of truth,” he said, “and you have stopped me on the highway, and made me a prisoner I knew not by what right. I will tell the truth for I am not afraid.”20

The rattled Redcoats began to ride their prisoners toward Lexington, but when they heard gunfire on the outskirts of town, seeming to confirm Revere’s warnings of an armed militia, they released their prisoners and hurried back to Boston.21 They weren’t going to start a war without clearer orders.

Hancock and Adams were safe, the rebels’ military supplies hidden, and the British about to be amazed.22

The face-off in Lexington would not have given Americans much hope that day. British troops blew past the disorganized and outnumbered militia without much difficulty.

But Concord was a different story. By the time the British reached Concord, militias from dozens of towns had received the call and were ready for battle. The Americans punched back so hard that the British retreated all the way back to Boston. The British fought bravely, but the Americans overwhelmed them.

Shell-shocked and bleeding, Redcoats began surrendering on the trek back to Boston. An old American woman picking weeds accepted the surrender of six British soldiers that day, telling them, “If you ever live to get back, you tell King George that an old woman took six of his grenadiers prisoner.”23 (That woman, of course, was TV’s Betty White.) About a hundred British were killed in the Battle of Concord, many of them officers, and another hundred were wounded. Only fifty Americans were killed and thirty-nine wounded.

Having seen the Minutemen fight, even Lord Percy, who had been disgusted by the Boston mobs, had a new view of the rebels. He said they had attacked “with perseverance and resolution,” adding “Whoever looks upon them as an irregular mob, will find himself very much mistaken.”24

If the American rebels had not planned every detail in advance—practicing,