Did Paul Revere really shout 'The British are coming'?

No. Historians and museums that study the ride say Revere did not shout "The British are coming!" on the night of April 18-19, 1775. The Paul Revere House calls the phrase almost certainly a bit of history that was skewed and twisted over the years. What he most likely said, quietly and house to house, was "The Regulars are coming out," meaning the professional soldiers of the British army. [1] [2]

There are two main reasons. The first is secrecy. Revere's mission depended on not being noticed, and British patrols were out looking for him and other riders. According to the Paul Revere House, he was nearly captured by a two-man patrol just as his ride began. Instead of shouting, he stopped at individual houses and alerted trusted people. [1] [2] [3]

The second reason is identity. Most colonists in Massachusetts still considered themselves British. The Paul Revere House explains that many saw themselves as true heirs of the unwritten British constitution, so a warning that "the British" were coming would have been confusing. The American Battlefield Trust and the Constitution Center make the same point. [1] [4] [5]

The Paul Revere House points to the deposition of William Munroe, the sergeant in command at Lexington, who reported that Revere used the words "the regulars are coming out." Wikipedia says eyewitness accounts and Revere's own descriptions agree on that wording. The Paul Revere House adds that small variations are possible, such as "Redcoats" or similar terms, so the exact words cannot be known with certainty. [1] [2]

Revere was also not the only rider. Wikipedia says there were probably as many as 40 riders across Middlesex County by the end of the night. The Constitution Center notes that William Dawes and Samuel Prescott also rode, that Revere was detained by the British after leaving Lexington, and that Prescott carried the warning on to Concord. [2] [5]

The Paul Revere House says the phrase first appears in the record in 1822, nearly 50 years after the ride, when a dinner guest reported that Dorothy Scott, formerly Dorothy Hancock, recalled a man running past the Hancock-Clarke house in Lexington shouting it. By then two wars had drawn clear lines between Americans and the British. The phrase appeared sporadically through the 19th century and by the 20th had overtaken the original wording. [1]

Mental Floss adds that Longfellow's 1860 poem "Paul Revere's Ride" popularized the image of a lone rider shouting warnings. It says Longfellow wrote to stir patriotic feeling before the Civil War, not to give a precise record. Note that the poem is not the source the Paul Revere House gives for the phrase itself, so the exact route by which the words entered popular memory is not fully settled in these sources. [3] [1]