during the winter of 1774-75 an armed truce had existed between the British officials and army in the colony of Massachusetts and the people. No citizen could be found who would serve as councillor, judge, sheriff, or juryman under the King's commission, and the official business of the colony was at a standstill. Every evening the men of each village drilled on the green, and arms and ammunition were collected secretly and stored in town-halls ready for instant use in the conflict which every one expected. The colonials intended that England should be forced to fire the opening shot, so that they would be in the position of defending their homes rather than of attacking the King's government. Gradually a large supply of powder and ball was stored at Concord, about eighteen miles away from Boston, and word of this at length came to General Gage, who commanded the British troops in the latter city.

At about the same time General Gage received orders to arrest two men who had shown themselves leaders among the colonials, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. They were to be sent to England to stand trial for treason. He learned that the two men would be in Lexington at a friend's house during the middle of April, and gave commands that a detachment of eight hundred troops should march from Boston to Lexington, take Adams and Hancock prisoners, and then march on to Concord, which lay beyond Lexington, and seize the stores of powder and shot there.

The British soldiers started on their march on the night of April 18, 1775, keeping their plans as secret as possible, and crossing from Boston to Cambridge, on their way to Concord. In spite of their care, however, word of the plans had leaked out, and the colonial leaders in Boston selected Paul Revere and William Dawes to ride with the news.

It had been arranged that Paul Revere should wait in Charlestown, opposite Boston, until he should see a lantern shining in the tower of the old North Church. When he caught the signal he mounted a swift horse and galloped out of Charlestown on the road to Lexington. As he rode he waked the country people, and they knew that the British troops were on the march. He reached Lexington in time to give the warning to Adams and Hancock, so that they escaped. William Dawes, who had ridden with the same news by way of Roxbury, and Dr. Samuel Prescott, rode on with Paul Revere. They met some British soldiers at Lincoln, but Prescott leaped his horse over a roadside wall and escaped, to take the alarm to Concord. Revere and Dawes were made prisoners, but were soon released.

The British soldiers reached Concord and destroyed a large part of the supplies there, but by the time they began their return to Boston the minutemen were roused. The indignant farmers fired, to the of the red-coated soldiers, and soon the British march became a retreat, and almost a rout. Reinforcements were sent to their aid before they reached Boston, and but for that very few would have escaped their pursuers. As it was, this first fight of the War for American Independence was a victory for the colonials.

This poem is the "Landlord's Tale," the first of the "Tales of a Wayside Inn."

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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