In the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, Paul Revere was making a mad dash through Middlesex County just west of Boston. He was trying to avoid British patrols but was stopped by one briefly before making his getaway, the roads were soft and muddy from the heavy rains of the previous day and he was able to elude his captors. It was not last time the weather would play a part in that fateful day. Revere galloped from town to town, from farm to farm to warn that the British regulars were coming to seize the stores of powder and shot local militias had been hiding to defend themselves from British tyranny. Rouse them he did. As the author Rick Atkinson states in his book “The British Are Coming”, and I quote. “Across the colony, in an image that would endure for centuries, solemn men grabbed their firelocks and stalked off in search of danger” The British left Boston and rowed across the Harbor to Charlestown and started the march to Lexington. There in Lexington, they encountered a band of local militia, and when the patriots assembled refused orders to disperse the British fired. The colonials were routed. The British then marched on to Concord, where thousands of militia from all over New England had gathered, warned by Revere and other riders. The British found themselves out gunned and outflanked. The first pitched battle of the revolution turned into the colonial victory. The British had planned to bring about their small cannon with them to teach the rebels a lesson. That ordnance would have come in handy that day. But the roads were still soft and muddy on April 19, 1775. Even though the sun was out, it was a chilly Spring day because the cold front that had brought that rain the day before. The canons got stuck in the mud on the road from Boston and had to be left behind. The battle perhaps turned on the muddy road and the rainy weather from the day before.
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