Neck to let no one leave the town. But he was too late: Dawes was
gone, Revere was on the water, and the news was out.

The expedition was bungled at the very start. "After getting over the
Marsh, where we were wet up to the knees," says Lieutenant Barker, "we
were halted in a dirty road and stood there till two o'clock in the
morning, waiting for provisions to be brought from the boats and to be
divided, and which most of the men threw away, having carried some with
'em." As they waited there they might have heard signal guns, and
learned that in a constantly widening circle of villages, "the bells
were rung backward, the drums they were beat." The news had three hours'
start of them. At last, at two on the 19th, having "waded through a very
long ford up to our middles," wet, dirty, and loaded with the heavy
equipment of the period, they started on their march.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Tolman, "The Concord Minute Man," 12.

[57] I take many facts in the following pages from the three pamphlets
by George Tolman, "The Concord Minute Man," "Preliminaries of Concord
Fight," and "Events of April Nineteenth." These, published by the
Concord Antiquarian Society, are invaluable to the student of this
period.

[58] "Preliminaries," 23-24.

[59] After the Revolution, Revere wrote a narrative of the events in
which he was concerned. It is to be found in several books, notably
Goff's "Life of Revere."

[60] Most of these facts are from Frothingham's "Siege," 57-59, and from
Revere's letter.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NINETEENTH OF APRIL

John Hancock never showed better in his life than on the morning of the
19th of April. Many times the Tories had tried to win him over.
Hutchinson himself had written: "At present, Hancock and Adams are at
variance. Some of my friends blow the coals, and I hope to see a good
effect." Yet Adams and Hancock were still enlisted in the same cause on
this morning when blood was to be shed. And Hancock, when roused from
his sleep at midnight, was hot with the desire to take his musket and
fight on Lexington Green.

Adams and his friends--among them his sweetheart--dissuaded him. The two
Whig leaders finally took the road to Woburn, and in the succeeding days
passed on to Worcester and Hartford, planned the taking of Ticonderoga,
and, joining the other delegates from Boston, in May met with the second
Continental Congress. If Gage had meant to seize Hancock and Adams, he
had lost his chance. The