Two hundred and forty-nine years ago today, on April 18, 1775, Paul Revere embarked on his Midnight Ride, alerting the American colonial militia that the British were coming. We all know the story, about the lanterns in the Old North Church, one if by land, two if by sea, Revere’s capture by the British on the way to Concord, and so on. But there was a great deal of planning and preparation that happened days, weeks, months, and even years before that, which made possible the success of Paul Revere’s ride in warning the colonists for the start of the American Revolution.
Days before April 18, Revere and Robert Newman came up with the lantern warning system, so that Revere could give the militias accurate information about the approaching British troops. Months earlier, a communication system had been carefully developed by the colonists, after they had failed to adequately prepare and react to the Powder Alarm incident, less than a year earlier. The “alarm and muster” system was a network that used bells, drums, alarm guns, bonfires, and trumpets as a means of spreading an alert to neighboring towns, without the need for a rider to directly enter every nearby town. And of course, the militias themselves were developed and built up for years, all the way from the Plymouth Colony up through the French and Indian War, in the recognition that the colonists needed a means of defending themselves.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem Paul Revere’s Ride begins,
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
Longfellow goes on to tell, with some embellishments, the thrilling and glorious tale of Revere’s great ride. But my question for us today is this: What if nobody had done the long, steady, and often boring work of real preparation? What if there was no lantern code, no alarm and muster system, no organized militias? And, for us today, what do I need to prepare for so that when my moment comes, I’m actually ready?
Have a wonderful day.
