Photo courtesy of Emily Lodish

I thought there might be horses. Besides that, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the historical re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington.

My knowledge of the American Revolution is cursory at best, I am ashamed to say. I was aware of Paul Revere and the fact that he took a ride. I know he did this on horseback, which is why I thought there might be horses.

A word of advice: don’t ask people at the historical re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington where Paul Revere is. He was not there and he won’t be coming later (he did his thing the night before), and if you ask this question you will not want to be there either.

If you keep your mouth shut, though, and just take in your surroundings, you might learn a thing or two. But you will need to get there at about 4 am, unless you plan on bringing your own ladder, in order to be able to snag a spot where you can actually see what’s going on. This may initially seem like overkill. It is not. Hundreds of people do this.

Bostonians care about things that happened in the past. This much is clear. Unlike many other US cities and states that take pride in regional history—Texas and their decade of independence, fur traders somewhere up in Michigan—Boston lays claim to the whole nation’s narrative. And this day of all days, April 19th, Patriots’ Day—an official state holiday in Massachusetts—is the day to show you’re on board.

Among the hundreds of people who get to the Lexington Battle Green way ahead of time are the re-enactors themselves, who will take the opportunity between the hours of 4 and 6 to inform you of various Revolutionary fun facts and to answer any questions you may have about horses.

These re-enactors are dressed in their colonial garb, but since most of them were farmers, they are not wearing fancy costumes. You may be slightly disappointed by this, but you shouldn’t be because when the British come you will have a chance to see some fancy costumes.

The re-enactors will speak in the first person about their lives in colonies. They will say things like: “I have two horses, which is rare. And I have some sheep. I do not have a cow.” Show me your horses, you will want to say.

The bell rings and the Patriots gather on the green. The British soldiers are coming. The Minute Men aren’t walking, but they aren’t running either. I would call it a casual jog. They line up in two skinny lines in the center of the green with swaths of land around them. Not exactly the intimidating front you might imagine, but here we are, ready for battle and rarin’ to go. We are waiting and looking and waiting some more.

Since my friends and I had been camping out on the sidewalk for several hours before the emcee even uttered the words “bloody spring dawn,” we had established an unspoken familiarity with the enthusiasts around us.

There was a friendly woman in a furry hood standing next to my friend Stephanie.

“Are you a history major?” she asked Steph.

“I was in college,” Steph replied.

“I would like to be your friend,” said the lady, leaning in toward Steph like it was the beginning of something.

Stephanie, truth be told, is a bit of a Revolutionary history buff. Ask her when she first got turned on to the period, though, and she doesn’t have a good answer. She was born and raised in Boston, and it seems to have occurred at some point between her first Sox game and her grandmother telling her she had to go to Harvard so she “could die happy.” Which is to say, it may have happened via osmosis.

A few moments passed. Then, the lady in the furry hood turned again to Steph and inquired as to whether the British would be on horseback.

“I’m not sure,” said Steph. “I think the infantrymen were primarily on foot, but the officers might be on horseback.”

A stout woman in wire frames turned slowly to face us. “Smith and Pitcairn were definitely on horseback. Definitely,” she said.

Steph and I stopped talking for a little while after that. I decided to wait until the pancake breakfast to ask Steph who Smith and Pitcairn were.

When the British arrived, there was a gallop in their step, but they were not on horseback. They gathered at the mouth of the green to face the Minute Men. There was some talking I couldn’t make out, which presumably included the infamous, “Disperse, ye rebels,” and then there was chaos.

There was a first shot followed by more shots and some running around. Soldiers fell and a couple switched sides. There was a trunk.

It was hard to figure out exactly what was going on. But that’s the thing. No one knows to this day who shot the first shot, or even which side. From what I understand of historical re-enactments, they are meant to give people a visceral attachment to the past. And the soldiers that day were quite probably as befuddled as I was 235 years later.

A small group of Redcoats turned away from the Minute Men to face us, the observers. They began firing their muskets, the ends of which flamed up every time and emitted clouds of smoke.

“What are you firing at?” screamed a British officer.

“I don’t know. I thought I saw something,” replied the Redcoat.

The end of the battle was anti-climactic. The Patriots, for the most part, dispersed. Some women in cloaks hit the scene to tend to the wounded and the dead. The British regrouped and then pressed onward.

I learned that people in Boston are interested in what happened in the past. They are interested enough to wake up in the middle of the night—or not go to sleep, as the case may be—to see grown men in knee-high boots and fur hats shoot at each other with fake muskets. And I am interested enough in those people to wake up with them.

At the re-enactment of the Battle of Lexington, I was standing on tip-toe like everyone else without a ladder. A Bostonian I may never be, but we were all there for the same reasons. To take a break from the routine of life and see something you don’t see every day, that happens to pan out the same way every year—sans horses.

ODDS FACT: The odds a person 16 or older will go to a historical area, site, building, or memorial in a year are 1 in 2.17.

Click here for the previous entry.

Click here for the next entry.