Tater Hales' Dispatch from the American Revolution Battles of Lexington and Concord - April 1775

Despite what some of these little rags that call themselves newspapers around the colonies have been printing, my good buddy Paul Revere did not yell, "The British are coming. The British are coming," during his brave ride to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams and other patriots about the British march toward Concord. Ole Tater was there, and let me tell you he said no such thing. What he said was, "The regulars are coming out." If w'ere going to win this fight, we should at least get the story straight.
By now you've probably heard the news from Lexington and Concord, we are at war. The Battle of Lexington didn't last long - we had only about 70 colonial Minutemen against 700 British soldiers, but their Lt. Col. Francis Smith said exactly what the Tater has been thinking since the night we fed the fish at Boston Harbor some tea: "Stand your ground, don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." I guess the redcoat colonel knows by now that we mean to fight.
But you probably haven't heard the full true account of what happened that night, about my buddy Paul Revere's little midnight ride to Lexington. The British had sent Gen. Thomas Gage to destroy our military stores in Concord. He didn't even tell his own officers his plan until the last minute because they were after Hancock and Adams, and he wanted it to be a complete surprise. What he didn't know was we were all watching in Boston, and let me tell you those British do look silly marching in those red uniforms. So when they crossed the Charles River under a bright yellow moon about midnight, Revere was right behind them. I was out on my own horse, Boone, near Cambridge, when I met Revere galloping like the dickens on some old horse he'd found. So I decided to tag behind him.
Revere had already had friends put two lanterns in the Old North Church to signal patriots in Charlestown that British troops were coming by sea. He went directly to Jonas Clarke's house, where Adams and Hancock were staying, and issued the warning. "The regulars are coming out."
After that, Revere and another rider, a tanner named William Dawes, decided to warn every house on the way to Concord, but they only made it to the outskirts of the town of Lincoln, where the regulars had established a roadblock. They tried to run their horses through them, but the British whippersnappers took my buddy prisoner, although his companion got away.
Here's where it gets funny. Ole Tater had told him if he were ever to get taken by any British soldier, to have some fun with them. So he decides to tell his captors that he knew more than they did about their own mission, and if they remained in Lexington, they would be taking their lives into their own hands because we would soon have more than 500 men there ready to fight. We had no such thing, but Revere is quite the poker player - the regulars bought his bluff. They made him remount his horse, and they headed toward Lexington Green when suddenly a gunshot rang out. Revere told the British officer it was a signal "to alarm the country." Not long after that came more sounds: the crash of a musketry volley that sounded like it came from the Lexington meeting house and the ringing of the town bell. Another colonist the regulars had taken prisoner, who was a resident of Lexington, then turned around and said, "The bell's a ringing! The town's alarmed, and you're all dead men!"
Tater found out later that the musketry sound was only caused by some Lexington men discharging their weapons before going into the tavern. You know most of the taverns won't let us come in with a loaded musket. But the British didn't know that. So as you can see, already some people are spreading fibs about Revere's midnight ride and the battle at Lexington. I'm sure many colonists around Boston may say it doesn't matter because he was able to warn so many people. After all, they say who is going to remember a little horseback ride on a spring Boston evening? They just better not say any such thing to Tater's face. I didn't go to the tavern tonight, so my musket is loaded. Whether we win this war with King George III or not, Tater will make sure people around here don't forget Revere's midnight ride. And doggone it, the man's words were, "The regulars are coming."