But Revere was not the only prisoner captured by the British officers in Lincoln. Solomon Brown, Jonathan Loring, and Elijah Sanderson, all of Lexington, had been passing along at that place about ten o'clock, the previous evening (for it is now after midnight, April 19th), and were detained and being held as prisoners when Revere was added. A one-handed peddler, Allen by name, was also a prisoner, having been captured after Brown and his two companions. For some reason he was not long delayed, but released, and went his way.
Revere was ordered to dismount and one of the six proceeded to examine him, asking his name; if he was an express; and what time he left Boston. He answered each question truthfully, and added that the troops in passing the river had got aground; that he had alarmed the country on the way up; and that 500 Americans would soon be present. This was rather disturbing news for his captors, and the one who had acted as spokesman rode to the four who had first halted the messengers. After a short conference the five returned on a gallop, and one of them, whom Revere afterwards found to be Major Mitchell of the Fifth Regiment, clapped a pistol to his head, and, calling him by name, said he should ask him some questions, and if they were not answered truthfully, he should blow his brains out. Revere answered the many questions, some of them new ones and some the same as he had already answered. He was then directed to mount, and the whole party proceeded towards Lexington. After riding about a mile Major Mitchell instructed the officer leading Revere's horse to turn him over to the Sergeant who was instructed to blow the prisoner's brains out, if he attempted to escape, or if any insults were offered to his captors on the way.
When within half a mile of Lexington meeting-house, on the Common, they heard a gun fired, and Major Mitchell, beginning to feel alarmed, asked Revere its cause, who told him it was an alarm. The other prisoners were then ordered to dismount, one of the officers cut the bridles of their horses and drove them away. Revere asked to be discharged, also, but his request was not heeded.
Coming a little nearer to the meeting-house, within sight of it, in fact, they heard a volley of gun shots, whereupon Major Mitchell called a halt, and questioned Revere again, as to the distance to Cambridge, and if there were two roads going there, etc. He then ordered him to dismount and exchange horses with the Sergeant, who cut away bridle and saddle from his own, which was a small one and well nigh exhausted, before completing the exchange.[56]
The officers then hastily disappeared down the road towards Lexington meeting-house, and Revere made his way, probably afoot, across the old cemetery and the adjacent pasture near Lexington Common, to the parsonage on Bedford Road, where he had left Hancock and Adams a few hours earlier.
The entire distance that Revere rode, from the Charlestown shore to the spot in Lincoln where he was captured, and back to Lexington Common, was between 18 and 19 miles, and the elapsed time nearly four hours.
[FLIGHT OF HANCOCK AND ADAMS.]
The narration of Revere's adventures was eagerly listened to by the patriots assembled at the parsonage. Hancock and Adams were urged to flee by their friends. Hancock was loth to do so, but Adams persuaded him that their duties were executive rather than military, so they prepared for a hasty retreat. Their flight commenced in a chaise driven by Jonas Clarke, son of the minister.[57] Mr. Lowell, Hancock's secretary, and Paul Revere, accompanied them for two miles into Burlington, where they stopped, first at the house of Mr. Reed for a little time, and then continued farther on to the home of Madame Jones, widow of Rev. Thomas Jones and of Rev. Mr. Marrett. Then they sent back to the parsonage for Hancock's betrothed, Dorothy Quincy, his aunt, Mrs. Hancock, and lastly, a "fine salmon," which had been presented to them for dinner, and naturally forgotten as they started on their flight. All of these arrived in due time, and then Revere and Lowell returned to Lexington Common, with the intention of rescuing a trunk and its contents which belonged to Hancock, and which he had left at the Buckman Tavern.
The fugitives were about to sit down to the salmon dinner when a Lexington farmer, in great excitement, rushed in exclaiming, that the British were coming, and that his wife was even then in "eternity." The salmon dinner was abandoned, and the flight continued under the guidance of Mr. Marrett, to Amos Wyman's, where they finally sat down to a dinner, not of salmon, but of cold salt pork and potatoes served on a wooden tray. The last stopping place was just over the boundary line of Woburn into Billerica, easterly from the present Lowell Turnpike, and northerly from the Lexington parsonage about four miles.
Samuel Adams had left behind him somewhere on the road his immortal saying:—