12:02am: The Shot Heard 'Round The World
A great pestilence is on the land, a plague of hatred and war. Tuesday was the anniversary of Lenin's return to Petrograd (now Leningrad, go figure) in 1917 to lead the Bolshevik party in overthrowing the Czarist regime (Nicholas, Alexandria & Anastasia et. al.) - the Russian Revolution - but I chose to go with a birthday tribute to Charlie Chaplin, knowing that today would mark the birth of another revolution, our own nation's. It is an editorial judgment call, not a judgment about ideologies, as we are well aware a wise pilgrim never discusses politics or religion. Nevertheless, it is perhaps meaningful, given the state of world affairs, to remember our own nation's turbulent struggle for independence.
On April 18, 1775, British troops marched out of Boston on a mission to confiscate the Patriot arsenal at Concord and to capture Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock, known to be hiding at Lexington. As the British departed, Boston Patriots Paul Revere and William Dawes set out on horseback from the city to warn Adams and Hancock and rouse the Patriot minutemen...
Midnight Ride of Paul Revere by Grant Wood
Paul Revere's Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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.
A Behind-the-Scenes Look At
Paul Revere's Most Famous Engraving
When Paul Revere first began selling his color prints of "The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street" in Boston, he was doing what any like-minded patriot with his talents in 1770 would have done. Only, Paul Revere did it faster and more expeditiously than anyone else, including two other artist-engravers who also issued prints of the Massacre that year.
Twenty-one days before-- on the night of March 5, 1770-- five men had been shot to death in Boston town by British soldiers. Precipitating the event known as the Boston Massacre was a mob of men and boys taunting a sentry standing guard at the city's customs house. When other British soldiers came to the sentry's support, a free-for-all ensued and shots were fired into the crowd.
Four died on the spot and a fifth died after four days. Six others were wounded.
Paul Revere's Account of His Midnight Ride to Lexington
I, PAUL REVERE, of Boston, in the colony of the Massachusetts Bay in New England; of lawful age, do testify and say; that I was sent for by Dr. Joseph Warren, of said Boston, on the evening of the 18th of April, about 10 o'clock; when he desired me, ''to go to Lexington, and inform Mr. Samuel Adams, and the Hon. John Hancock Esq. that there was a number of soldiers, composed of light troops, and grenadiers, marching to the bottom of the common, where there was a number of boats to receive them; it was supposed that they were going to Lexington, by the way of Cambridge River, to take them, or go to Concord, to destroy the colony stores.''
I proceeded immediately, and was put across Charles River and landed near Charlestown Battery; went in town, and there got a horse. While in Charlestown, I was informed by Richard Devens Esq. that he met that evening, after sunset, nine officers of the ministerial army, mounted on good horses, and armed, going towards Concord...
Posted by cronish at April 18, 2002 12:19 AM