Joseph

PREAMBLE

Many Americans know the following names and their exploits in forging a new nation.

Samuel Adams

John Hancock

Paul Revere

George Washington

John Adams

Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Franklin

These patriots and forefathers of the United States of America brought forth a form and function of government—by the people and for the people—that many around the world still try to grasp and multitudes attempt to emulate. Despite America’s past and present imperfections, throngs of immigrants still seek to reach her shores. She is one of a just a few countries throughout human history in which fellow citizens would rather cooperate and contend with one another than flee to a preconceived life of better opportunity somewhere else.

There is one name missing from the above list. One who for more than 150 years has been overlooked in prominent annals of American history. His convictions and sacrifice organized and propelled a disparate people’s struggle for independence from the British Empire’s increasing tyranny and intransigent oppression. That his name is not more prominent in historical discussions and the public mindset remains an enigma to this day.

While many of the brave and boisterous men of the late eighteenth century contemplated pledging their sacred honor on parchment, he birthed this creed with his own blood. Should he have survived the Battle of Bunker Hill (on Breed’s Hill), he would have been a leading nominee and contender for first president of these United States.

CHAPTER ONE

Tea and a Timber Rattlesnake

Boston’s North End, Massachusetts Colony | April 18, 1775

It was a night like few others that produced a morning to remember.

The waning gibbous moon slowly rose in an odd position southeast of Boston on this restless April eve. The Royal Navy’s HMS Somerset—anchored in the Charles River to block any unauthorized passage to neighboring towns—sat in direct contrast to this celestial anomaly as if in abject defiance to nature itself. This opposing moon and ship alignment formed a unique corridor through which a well-known Son of Liberty could pass undetected to notify a nascent nation. Lanterns and moonlight, alleyways and shadows—this night would birth a different day.

Under the cover of darkness on Boston’s North End late that fateful night, Paul Revere boards a strategically-moored rowboat pointed toward Charlestown, lying north-northwest across the watery abyss. Into the cold water go the muffled oars, slicing silently and steadily through the ink-black depths. He must slip quietly past the seventy-gun British man-of-war while it and prowling longboats try to prevent any colonist’s movement after the evening curfew. As the dark of night commences, the British soldiers, better known as Redcoats or Lobsterbacks, have closed the Boston Neck land bridge and Charlestown ferry crossing. Throughout the Massachusetts countryside, more Redcoats conduct roving patrols to enforce a lockdown in preparation for the supposed surprise march and raids on Lexington and Concord.

Revere’s little skiff, dwarfed by the Somerset’s massive hull, slides past uncontested under the camouflage of unusual shadows on its determined course. Near the Charlestown shore a few fathoms ahead and alerted by the posting of two lanterns in the steeple of the Old North Church, attentive Patriots carefully saddle a steed for this crucial midnight ride.

Back on the Boston Common, British troops muster to make final preparations before launching their longboats across the same river Revere just traversed, for a similar yet opposing purpose. The clashes set to occur just a few hours into the future—at Lexington Green, Concord’s North Bridge, and Menotomy village—would either unleash the call for liberty or crush it definitively. These are the hours when slumber and indecision are jolted by a call for courage and action.

The midnight ride of Paul Revere, along with that of William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, was not something just quickly cobbled together or spontaneously created as popular culture and poems infer. It was part of an elaborate alert system connected to a web of informants and the original band of brothers, the Sons of Liberty. Its machinations were months in the making, and the musket shots on Lexington Green the morning of April 19, 1775, were packed with the emotional gunpowder of the Boston Massacre five years before and subsequent British intransigencies. Primarily in Boston, but also felt in varying degrees across the other colonies, the increasingly heavy hand of the British government was taking its toll on the loyalty and patience of a burgeoning population.

Boston had seen its share of misery and insults. The smallpox epidemic of 1764, and the constant threat of its resurgence, haunted the inhabitants from all walks of life. It was the pestilence that lurked along cobblestone streets, within the close confines of humble homes, and as the unwanted cargo of arriving ships.

The ships that transported the pox carried other caustic messages and merchandise. Some of the British Parliament’s most egregious legislation to tax and regulate the colonies—such as the Sugar, Stamp, and Townshend Acts—were a constant source of insult and inflammation. In 1773, the Tea Act—the only remaining vestige of the 1767 Townshend Acts—set the stage for turning outrage into action. It was a reminder that a remote Parliament could impose taxes at will—the ‘taxation without representation’ infraction that posed a clear and present danger to the Massachusetts Charter and overall function of constitutional government across the colonies. It was arbitrary power of the most blatant form wrapped in the packaging of East-India Company tea. The major colonial seaports—Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Charleston—were targeted for compliance. Boston would be the first port to receive the tea; and thus, bore the responsibility as first to respond.