A Midnight Ride in Lexington, MS
The events during the Spring of 1775 (two hundred and fifty years ago), especially of April 18-19, are some of the most famous in the story of America’s fight for the very liberties we enjoy today.
On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere and William Dawes set out to warn militias across Massachusetts of the approaching British troops. These troops were heading to Concord to confiscate and/or destroy the weapons in the armory there, as well as to bring back the bodies of John Hancock and Samuel Adams.
Revere and Dawes arrived in Lexington around midnight. The alert was given at the home of Rev. Jonas Clarke (an eventual member of The Black Robed Regiment) where John Hancock and Samuel Adams were lodging for the night. Then, joined by Samuel Prescott, they continued on towards Concord, about 7-8 miles to the NW. Paul Revere and William Dawes were captured by the British on the way, but Samuel Prescott was able to escape and alerted those in Concord.
In Lexington, a band of Patriots (77 Americans) faced off with the British troops on the morning of April 19, 1775. Gunshots were fired in this small skirmish in front of the parsonage of Rev. Jonas Clarke, and the American War for Independence began. As the smoke cleared, 18 Americans lay wounded or dead, after which the British force continued their march towards Concord, where they would be met by the Rev. William Emerson and 400 American patriots. Also involved in that Concord group was black patriot Peter Salem, who a few weeks later went on to become the hero of the Battle of Bunker Hill (in the Boston vicinity).
As we remember those events that occurred 250 years ago, and the liberties that they eventually produced, let’s also remember the responsibility that those events place upon us. As John Adams reminded us: “Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.”
Devotedly your pastor,
Bill Blanchard