The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and William Dawes
While every schoolchild knows of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, Dawes made an even more daring gallop out of Boston that same April night in 1775. Unlike his silversmith counterpart, he managed to evade capture by the British. Dawes set off around 9 p.m., about an hour before Warren dispatched Revere on his mission. Within minutes, he was at the British guardhouse on Boston Neck, which was on high alert. According to some accounts, Dawes eluded the guards by slipping through with some British soldiers or attaching himself to another party. Other accounts say he pretended to be a bumbling drunken farmer. The simplest explanation is that he was already friendly with the sentries, who let him pass. However Dawes did it, he made it in the nick of time. Shortly after he passed through the guardhouse, the British halted all travel out of Boston. The riders encountered a British patrol around 1:30 a.m. Revere was captured.
Dawes was apparently bucked off his horse and limped into the night and into obscurity.
Little is known about Dawes after the midnight ride, he did fight at the Battle of Bunker Hill and Died at the age of 53, Revere lived until he was 83.
Both men were relatively unheralded when they died, but the silversmith got the PR boost of a lifetime when Henry Wadsworth Longfellow penned “Paul Revere’s Ride” in 1861. Longfellow’s historically inaccurate verses not only venerated Revere, but they wrote Dawes out of the storyline altogether.
• 100% combed and ring-spun cotton (Heather colors contain polyester)
• Fabric weight: 4.2 oz/yd² (142 g/m²)
• Pre-shrunk fabric
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We created 1776 United to evoke a sense of patriotism found in our forefathers. Most have forgotten to ask themselves not what their country can do for them, but what they can do for their country.
Our dream is to inspire a new wave of patriotism that might lead to the next Greatest Generation. We aim for the clothing we create to embody the many chapters of American history. Each shirt is a cotton reminder of who we are, where we live, and where we're going.
