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Expedition Files Season 4 Episode 1
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00:00On this episode of Expedition Files, in 1968, the USS Scorpion disappears without a trace.
00:09Accident or act of war? Did a Soviet spy inside the U.S. Navy help destroy it?
00:18For six decades, the truth has been submerged. Until now.
00:24And Paul Revere famously saved America on his midnight ride during the Revolutionary War.
00:31But does he deserve all the credit?
00:34Remarkable research changes everything we think we know about the birth of our nation.
00:41Then, a shocking claim.
00:44John Wilkes Booth, the killer of Abraham Lincoln, wasn't captured and killed at all.
00:49But instead, lived on to meet a far stranger end.
00:55We dig into this mind-blowing theory.
01:01In the corridors of time.
01:05Are mysteries that defy explanation.
01:10Now, I'm traveling through history itself.
01:16On a search for the truth.
01:20New evidence.
01:23Shocking answers.
01:26I'm Josh Gates.
01:29And these...
01:32are my expedition files.
01:37There are many things we know about America.
01:40Truths held self-evident.
01:42We have 50 states.
01:44We love freedom.
01:44We sing the national anthem off-key before every baseball game.
01:48And our idea of a small soda is still larger than any other nation on Earth.
01:53But tonight isn't about what we know about America.
01:56It's about what we don't.
01:57So prepare to look beneath the stars and stripes to uncover three American mysteries.
02:03We begin in Spain, of all places.
02:06It's May of 1968.
02:08And the Cold War is running red-hot.
02:10As we dive into the enigmatic fate of one of America's most valuable military assets.
02:44We're on base at Naval Station Rhoda.
02:46We'll come forward to disclose something that, if true, would be one of the most well-kept secrets of the
02:52Cold War.
02:53Is the fate of the Scorpion an accident or an attack?
03:05Commissioned in 1960, the USS Scorpion is one of the Navy's most advanced nuclear attack subs, designed to be virtually
03:13undetectable by the enemy.
03:16Powered by a nuclear reactor, it's built to run silently and stay submerged for months.
03:23At 252 feet long, about the length of a city block, it can reach 33 knots underwater, nearly 40 miles
03:30an hour.
03:32Armed with classified weapons, including two nuclear warheads, it's one of the deadliest and most stealthy assets in the U
03:39.S. Navy.
03:40Here at the Submarine Force Atlantic Headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia, radio men like Mike Hannon monitor the Scorpion and every
03:48other U.S. submarine operating in the Atlantic.
03:52While here, beneath the waves, the Scorpion spends most of her time training to hunt Soviet subs.
04:00But there's a problem.
04:02The Scorpion isn't exactly ship shape.
04:04The sub has been racking up maintenance headaches.
04:07There's a hydraulic leak they can't fix and a persistently faulty trash disposal unit.
04:13The crew starts calling it scrap iron.
04:15Despite this, in February of 1968, the submarine gets cleared for duty and begins patrols of the Mediterranean.
04:25For three months, the Scorpion travels throughout the Med.
04:29It doesn't find any threats.
04:30And on May 17th, its mission is scheduled to come to an end.
04:34Its last stop is the port of Roda, Spain, before it turns west into the Atlantic and heads home.
04:41On May 21st, the crew radios in from roughly 250 miles southwest of the Azores Islands of Portugal.
04:50They estimate they'll be back in Norfolk in six days' time.
04:58May 27th, 1968.
05:00The USS Scorpion is finally due home.
05:03Families gather at the pier eager to welcome their loved ones.
05:07But something is terribly wrong.
05:09And radioman second class Mike Hannon suspects it.
05:13It's Hannon's job to track messages from the subs at sea.
05:16The Scorpion hasn't sent one in six days.
05:19He's praying there's some logical explanation.
05:22But there's no sign of the Scorpion.
05:27By 6 p.m., the evening news is painting an unsettling picture.
05:32The nuclear submarine USS Scorpion was scheduled to arrive in Norfolk this morning.
05:37But Navy officials say the vessel has yet to make contact.
05:41That's right.
05:42Families worry as the status of the crew of Naval Submarine Scorpion remains unknown.
05:47It's been almost a week since the Navy has received communication from the vessel.
05:52The next day, word spreads across the country.
05:55A nuclear-powered submarine is missing.
05:58And with Soviet tensions at an all-time high, the Navy is looking to avoid a panic.
06:04The government tries to keep a lid on things, quietly sending search vessels out framed as routine operations.
06:11But behind the scenes, there's much more urgency as the Atlantic fleet surges into action.
06:18Dozens of ships and aircraft search for the missing submarine.
06:22They scour the Scorpion's projected path from the Azores all the way to Norfolk.
06:28Weeks pass, and the Navy offers no explanation to the families who are desperate for answers.
06:34But the operation presses on.
06:37And then, five months in, using cutting-edge sonar and underwater camera systems,
06:43the Navy pulls off the seemingly impossible.
06:46They find the Scorpion.
06:49The wreck of the submarine sits 9,800 feet below the surface of the Atlantic,
06:55approximately 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
06:59The submarine is badly damaged, its hull shattered.
07:04What could have caused this catastrophe?
07:07And was the Scorpion's nickname of scrap iron an omen of her destruction?
07:12The Navy's official inquiry is contentious, with various theories hotly debated.
07:18Some experts blame structural failure or a hydrogen explosion during a battery charge.
07:24Others believe one of the sub's own torpedoes accidentally detonated, imploding the ship.
07:30The investigation suspected some form of explosion, but lacked the evidence to prove its cause,
07:36ultimately determining that the reason the USS Scorpion sunk, quote,
07:40cannot be definitely ascertained.
07:47For the next 50 years, the loss of the Scorpion will remain one of the Cold War's biggest mysteries.
07:53But now, former Navy radio operator Mike Hannon has come forward with a stunning claim,
07:59that the Navy knew far more than it ever told the public.
08:02He believes the destruction of the Scorpion and the deaths of her crew was no accident.
08:07At the time the Scorpion was sunk, I was a service clerk,
08:13responsible for all incoming and outgoing messages.
08:19One of those messages was what's known in the Navy as a check report.
08:23Check report is a very simple message,
08:29sent, encrypted, by a submarine when it is on patrol.
08:36The Scorpion was on a 24-hour check report.
08:40So we want to hear from him every 24 hours.
08:43The message simply would say,
08:45Check 2-4, submarine Scorpion.
08:50So when no check report arrived,
08:52Hannon knew something was wrong.
08:54Very wrong.
08:56And he was on Scorpion?
08:59Yeah.
09:03When the daily check report stopped,
09:05Navy Command pulled data from the U.S. Sound Surveillance System,
09:09a vast network of underwater hydrophones designed to detect and track submarines across the world's oceans.
09:16Mike Hannon viewed a visualization of that data and believes he saw something that changes everything.
09:22They showed me the tape and you could clearly see squiggly up and down the line.
09:30And you could see, boom, here, a couple seconds later, boom, there, two distinct torpedo hits.
09:42And Scorpion was sunk.
09:46After the two explosions, they could determine that a Russian submarine in that immediate area sped up, surfaced, and left.
10:00Hannon believes the hydrophone recording is a smoking gun, proving the Scorpion was sunk in a Soviet submarine attack.
10:08But there is one big problem.
10:09The tape Mike claims he saw of the hydrophone recording,
10:13in the 60 years since, no one else has ever reported seeing it.
10:17And even if we do take Mike at his word, there's another question.
10:21How were the Soviets able to locate a stealth submarine?
10:24Mike believes he has the answer.
10:26His co-worker was a Russian spy.
10:34A bombshell claim from former Navy radio man Mike Hannon suggests the USS Scorpion submarine wasn't lost to an accident,
10:43but instead was destroyed in a calculated Soviet torpedo strike.
10:47But if the Scorpion was a virtually undetectable stealth sub, how could the Soviets have found it?
10:54The answer wouldn't surface until nearly two decades later, with revelations about John Walker Jr.,
11:01a chief warrant officer in the Norfolk Communications Office, alongside radio man Mike Hannon when the Scorpion vanished.
11:08In the 1980s, he was officially outed as a spy and sentenced to life in prison in one of the
11:15most damaging security breaches in naval history.
11:18Walker had been passing the U.S. Navy's most closely guarded secrets to the Soviets,
11:23including top-secret submarine patrol schedules.
11:27If the Soviets had access to the Scorpion's navigation plan,
11:32they would have known exactly where she was headed and could have been waiting to strike.
11:37We had a row of teletype machines where messages were coming in.
11:42And I had noticed a walker would go back there and just go down the line looking at the messages
11:49on each of the machines.
11:51I said, why all of a sudden is Walker interested in all of these damn messages?
11:58I think there's a good possibility that Walker could have been involved.
12:02And there's no doubt in my mind that a Soviet submarine fired two torpedoes and sank the Scorpion.
12:11No doubt whatsoever.
12:13And I will take those feelings to my grave with me.
12:19Soviet spy John Walker Jr. died in prison in 2014 without ever being directly linked to the fate of the
12:26Scorpion.
12:27Many experts are also skeptical of Mike's theory, noting that the wreck shows no clear sign of an external torpedo
12:33attack
12:34and that the sub likely imploded due to an unknown catastrophic event,
12:38which means that for Mike and the families of those aboard, there's no emotional closure to the case.
12:46It was painful then and for all the years since.
12:51Once I knew 10 of those guys closely, the scar that that's left on me, seldom does a night go
13:03by
13:04that I don't have that whole situation go through my head and wake me up.
13:10If you had seen those families on that pier, their anticipation and their dads are coming home
13:17or significant others are coming home, it broke my heart.
13:22I know that I've said information that's still top secret,
13:28but I'm not going to die with the people of America not knowing what happened with that submarine.
13:47Over a decade ago, a submarine veterans group petitioned the government to reopen the case
13:52to determine the true cause of the Scorpion's sinking.
13:55So far, the Navy has declined.
13:58Today, the USS Scorpion still lies at a depth of nearly 10,000 feet on the floor of the Atlantic
14:04Ocean,
14:04as does her nuclear reactor.
14:06The Navy monitors the area for signs of radioactivity,
14:10but the sub itself remains off-limits, a silent steel tomb for 99 sailors
14:16who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
14:23From a submarine lost at sea to the loss of an American president.
14:28It's April 26, 1865.
14:31The Civil War is at an end and Abraham Lincoln has just been murdered.
14:35And inside this blazing barn is the man who shot him.
14:39Throw it on your arms and come out!
14:41History records that in a few minutes, gunfire will ring out and John Wilkes Booth will die.
14:47But soon, a conspiracy theory will emerge, one of the strangest theories you could possibly imagine,
14:52that John Wilkes Booth doesn't perish tonight.
14:55That he escapes, slips into a new identity, only to end up as, well, I don't want to spoil it
15:01for you.
15:02Just get ready for a wild ride, as we use high-tech analysis to unravel the mind-blowing mystery
15:08surrounding America's most infamous assassin.
15:21Our strange story really begins 12 days before the barn.
15:27After four long years of bloodshed, the Civil War is finally over.
15:32President Abraham Lincoln is taking a rare night out to celebrate,
15:36enjoying the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.
15:42But just as the performance reaches its climax, a single gunshot rings out.
15:49Lincoln has been murdered in cold blood.
15:53The killer leaps from Lincoln's box onto the stage.
15:57He lands on both feet, hard.
16:00His leg is now broken.
16:09Many in the audience wonder if this is all part of the play.
16:14That's because the man who just jumped on stage is one of the most famous actors in America,
16:19John Wilkes Booth.
16:22Before anyone can react, he flees the stage.
16:27You're sure I'm the president!
16:29Stop that man!
16:33Booth rides off into the darkness and vanishes,
16:36sparking one of the most frantic manhunts in American history.
16:41According to some reports, he alters his appearance,
16:44shaving off his trademark mustache to avoid being recognized.
16:48As word of Lincoln's assassination spreads,
16:52Secretary of War Edwin Stanton locks down Washington,
16:55sealing bridges and dispatching teams of soldiers,
16:59detectives, and bounty hunters to track Booth's escape.
17:04A staggering $50,000 bounty, over a million dollars today, is placed on Booth's head.
17:14After 12 days of desperate searching, finally, there's a break.
17:18A tip leads Union soldiers to a farm two miles from Port Royal, Virginia.
17:24Two men are said to be hiding there,
17:26one matching the description of John Wilkes Booth.
17:30The soldiers are under clear orders to take Booth alive,
17:34so he can expose any possible Confederate conspiracy.
17:40So the soldiers set the barn ablaze, hoping to force Booth out.
17:46Which brings us back here to the besieged barn.
17:49According to the account of the Union soldiers,
17:52they first demand the two men inside surrender.
17:55Eventually, one man emerges.
17:57It's David Harreld.
17:59One of Booth's accomplices,
18:00but the other man refuses to come outside.
18:06Sergeant Boston Corbett then confronts Booth through the doors of the barn.
18:11Come out, Booth!
18:12You're surrounded!
18:13Fearing the suspect is about to fire,
18:16he has no choice but to bring him down.
18:22The soldiers say they drag him, barely alive, onto the farmhouse porch.
18:29In his pockets, the soldiers find Booth's diary.
18:35Paralyzed from the gunshot, he apparently can't lift his arms.
18:38With his final breath, he stares down at his hands and whispers two words.
18:44Useless.
18:46Useless.
18:48Dawn is breaking, and John Wilkes Booth is dead.
18:53After 12 days on the run, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln has met his end.
18:59In the aftermath of Booth's death, the body is brought aboard the Union ironclad ship,
19:04the USS Montauk, where a surgeon performs an autopsy.
19:11Fearing his remains might be stolen or desecrated,
19:15Booth's body is then placed at a D.C. penitentiary,
19:18before ultimately being interred in a family plot at Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore.
19:25Meanwhile, four people, including David Herold from the barn fire,
19:30are found guilty of conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln,
19:33and are hanged on July 7, 1865.
19:38It would seem this tragic case has come to a close,
19:41but there are those that believe there's much more to the story.
19:46Enter Texas attorney Finnis Bates,
19:49who publishes a book in 1907 called The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth.
19:55In its pages, Bates recounts the purportedly true,
19:59jaw-dropping story of a man he befriended named John St. Helen.
20:04In 1878, St. Helen falls gravely ill.
20:09And believing he's about to die makes an outrageous confession.
20:13Our name is not John St. Helen.
20:17Our real name is John Wilkes Booth.
20:20He says he is the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.
20:27According to Bates' tell-all book,
20:29John Wilkes Booth didn't die in that barn at all.
20:32He escaped justice and spent the rest of his life hiding behind a false identity.
20:37Now, that might sound like a crazy claim,
20:39but I promise we're just getting warmed up.
20:42Because John Wilkes Booth then allegedly becomes
20:45an actual mummy in a traveling sideshow.
20:48Seriously.
20:55In 1878, a man on his deathbed named John St. Helen
21:00confesses an astonishing secret.
21:02He claims to be Abraham Lincoln's killer, John Wilkes Booth,
21:06and says he faked his death, escaping capture.
21:10The man explains that after assassinating Lincoln,
21:13he escaped through southern Maryland,
21:16hidden in the back of a wagon,
21:17and slipped back into Virginia.
21:19However, at one point, in order to avoid capture,
21:23St. Helen abandoned the wagon and fled into the woods.
21:26But in doing so, he lost his diary.
21:29St. Helen says he sent a messenger,
21:32a Confederate soldier known only as Ruddy,
21:34back for the diary.
21:35Ruddy collected it, but then panicked upon seeing the Union troops
21:39and fled to a nearby barn,
21:41where he apparently ended up alongside
21:43fellow Confederate conspirator David Harold.
21:47St. Helen says it was his messenger
21:49who was shot and killed in the barn that night.
21:52But because the man resembled him and carried his diary,
21:56it led Union troops to mistakenly identify the messenger as Booth.
22:00St. Helen said in the years that followed,
22:04he assumed various aliases,
22:06constantly on the move to avoid capture.
22:10I need to show you something.
22:12After telling this extraordinary tale to Finnis Bates,
22:16St. Helen presents an original photograph
22:18of John Wilkes Booth as proof,
22:20implying that only the real Booth
22:23would possess such a picture.
22:25But that's far from the end of this twisted tale.
22:29Following his dramatic deathbed confession
22:31that he is John Wilkes Booth,
22:34St. Helen recovers and promptly disappears.
22:38Bates keeps the photograph,
22:40but it would be another 25 years,
22:42in 1903, before he sees St. Helen again.
22:46Only this time, the man is definitely dead.
22:53Bates says he came across a newspaper article
22:55from Enid, Oklahoma,
22:57describing how a local mortuary
22:59had the preserved body of a drifter.
23:03The newspaper also reported
23:05the deceased man had been living
23:06under the name David E. George,
23:09but before he died,
23:10claimed to be John Wilkes Booth.
23:14One look at the photo of David E. George
23:16and Bates was certain.
23:18It was the same man he'd met
23:20years earlier in Texas,
23:22John St. Helen.
23:23A few years later,
23:25Bates actually buys the corpse,
23:27just as he's preparing to publish a book
23:29detailing the wild tale
23:31of Booth's escape and secret life.
23:34With the mummified body in tow
23:36and a sensational story to promote,
23:39Bates is ready to take his show on the road.
23:41For the next 70 years,
23:43the so-called Booth mummy
23:45takes to the stage,
23:46touring America with multiple circus productions,
23:49often with the less-than-subtle billing
23:51See the Man Who Murdered Lincoln.
23:53The attraction even makes it
23:55to the World's Fair.
23:56The Mummy is a hit,
23:58but is there any shred of truth
24:00to its origin?
24:01Author Jane Singer has studied
24:03the legend closely.
24:05What's remarkable to me is how many people
24:09genuinely believe that John Wilkes Booth
24:12did not die in that barn.
24:14Was there a government conspiracy
24:16to suppress the fact that Booth really didn't die
24:20on April 26, 1865?
24:22A lot of people believed there was.
24:26Enough people probably believed
24:27and were suspicious of the government
24:29because toward the end of the Civil War,
24:31before Abraham Lincoln was killed,
24:33it was a very hard-handed regime.
24:36In order to win this war,
24:38Abraham Lincoln first had to suspend
24:41the right of habeas corpus.
24:43Can't have a trial.
24:44If you're a traitor,
24:45you get hauled off to jail.
24:46And then we have
24:48General William Tecumseh Sherman
24:50marching from Memphis to the sea
24:53and literally destroying
24:55much of the Confederacy.
24:58And so to believe that that government
25:01was not trustworthy,
25:03I don't think was such a far reach
25:05for a lot of people.
25:07And let's be real,
25:09it would have been a terrible look
25:11for the Union
25:11if Lincoln's killer had just slipped away.
25:14But Singer isn't buying
25:15the conspiracy.
25:17Why?
25:17Because the soldiers at Garrett Farms
25:19swore up and down
25:20they knew exactly who they had.
25:22And other experts also corroborated
25:25it was John Wilkes Booth.
25:28When we are looking at
25:30Finnis Bates' theory
25:31that John Wilkes Booth escaped
25:34not just the burning barn,
25:36but death,
25:37it doesn't add up
25:39because there were credible witnesses
25:42called to come to the Montauk
25:44and identify the body.
25:47Dr. John Frederick May
25:49was a renowned Washington, D.C. physician
25:52who had removed a fibroid tumor
25:54from Booth's neck
25:56about three months
25:57before the assassination
25:58and it left quite a vivid scar.
26:02And May allegedly said,
26:05that's the scar.
26:07That's the person I operated on.
26:09Unmistakable, in his opinion.
26:11Charles Dawson,
26:13who was a clerk at the National Hotel
26:15where Booth stayed,
26:16when he first saw the body
26:18of John Wilkes Booth,
26:19he said,
26:20oh my goodness,
26:21on the right hand
26:21between the thumb and finger
26:23was a tattoo
26:24with the initials
26:26JWB tattooed in India, Inc.
26:29And Young Dawson said,
26:31that's the tattoo
26:32I've seen repeatedly
26:33when Booth signed
26:35the guest register.
26:37These were ordinary folks.
26:39It would be highly unlikely
26:41that the official autopsy
26:43of record
26:43would be part of some
26:45overreaching conspiracy.
26:49And what of John St. Helen,
26:51the mummified man
26:52who insisted
26:53he was the real Booth?
26:55A forensic team
26:56recently used
26:57facial recognition technology
26:58to render a definitive answer
27:00to his conspiratorial claim.
27:02In 2020,
27:04the Smithsonian Institution
27:06created
27:06a Civil War sleuth
27:08facial recognition software.
27:12They compared
27:13the face of John Wilkes Booth
27:15to the face
27:16of John St. Helen.
27:17During the testing
27:19of the photographs,
27:21there were data points
27:22that weren't matching.
27:23It was clear
27:24that John Wilkes Booth
27:25in photograph,
27:27John St. Helen
27:28in photograph,
27:29couldn't possibly
27:30be the same person.
27:35So,
27:35after 147 years,
27:37we can finally,
27:38scientifically declare
27:39that John St. Helen
27:41is not
27:42John Wilkes Booth.
27:43More than likely,
27:44Finnis Bates
27:45spun the fanciful tale
27:46for pure profit,
27:48using the story
27:49and the mummy
27:49to promote book sales.
27:51But conspiracies
27:52don't die quietly.
27:53As recently as 2010,
27:55Booth's descendants
27:56lobbied to have
27:57his remains exhumed
27:58and his DNA tested.
28:00The request
28:01was denied.
28:02Regardless,
28:03I think it's safe to say
28:04if you happen
28:04to pass by a carnival
28:06with a sign
28:06hawking a John Wilkes
28:08Booth mummy,
28:09that's one sideshow
28:10you can happily avoid.
28:15I'm at a pub
28:16in Boston, Massachusetts
28:17on April 18th,
28:201775.
28:21And even though
28:22the beer is flowing,
28:23the mood is anything
28:24but celebratory.
28:25These colonists,
28:27still technically
28:27British citizens,
28:29have been under the thumb
28:30of the crown for years
28:31and they've reached
28:32their breaking point.
28:33A revolution is brewing
28:34and militia commander
28:36Joseph Warren here
28:37has received word
28:38that the British
28:39are planning to strike back
28:40tomorrow morning.
28:41They need to take action now
28:43and what happens next
28:45will become
28:45the stuff of legend
28:46because the commander
28:48dispatches this man,
28:49Paul Revere,
28:51to set out
28:51on a dangerous mission.
28:55The story goes
28:57that after leaving
28:58the tavern,
28:59Revere spots two lanterns
29:00hanging in a church,
29:02signaling the British
29:03are attacking by sea.
29:06And so he begins
29:08his famous midnight ride.
29:11His words echoing
29:13through history.
29:14The British are coming!
29:16The British are coming!
29:18The British are coming!
29:20Revere's heroic ride
29:22will be remembered
29:23as saving America,
29:24one man alone
29:26protecting the birth
29:27of a new nation.
29:28But 250 years later,
29:30evidence will reveal
29:31that almost everything
29:33we think we know
29:34about Paul Revere's
29:35fateful night
29:36is in need
29:37of a rewrite.
29:50In 1775,
29:52the year of his famed ride,
29:53Paul Revere
29:54is a silversmith
29:55living in Boston,
29:57struggling to make ends meet.
29:58Britain has imposed taxes
30:00on the colonies,
30:01causing a recession
30:02and spawning the
30:04Taxation Without Representation
30:06movement.
30:07The most onerous tax
30:09is known as
30:10the Stamp Act,
30:11requiring the colonies
30:13to purchase special paper
30:14for all printed materials.
30:17The tax's true purpose
30:18is to raise money
30:19for the occupying
30:20British troops,
30:21essentially picking
30:22the colonists' pockets
30:23to pay for their
30:24very own oppressors.
30:26In response,
30:27some colonists,
30:28including Revere,
30:29form a clandestine militia
30:31known as the Sons of Liberty
30:33to battle the British.
30:36One of their most
30:37successful protests
30:38is the Boston Tea Party,
30:40where they sneak
30:41onto British ships
30:42and dump all their
30:43highly profitable tea leaves
30:45into the harbor.
30:46No better way
30:47to rile up a Brit
30:48than to mess with their tea.
30:50But the Boston Tea Party
30:51is only the beginning.
30:52What follows
30:53will ignite a revolution
30:54and bring Paul Revere
30:56and what he did,
30:57or notably didn't do,
30:59into the spotlight.
31:06It's 1775,
31:08a year and a half
31:08since the Boston Tea Party,
31:10and the American resistance
31:11to British rule
31:12is gaining momentum.
31:15Intelligence gathered
31:16by the colonial rebel group
31:17known as the Sons of Liberty
31:19reveals that the British
31:20have 700 soldiers
31:22at the ready
31:23for a raid
31:24on the colonists.
31:25In anticipation,
31:27the militia
31:27has been assembling
31:28stockpiles of weapons,
31:30gunpowder,
31:31and supplies.
31:32One of the largest
31:33is in Concord,
31:34a small town
31:35on the outskirts of Boston.
31:36The colonists know
31:37it's only a matter of time
31:39before the Redcoats
31:40make their attack,
31:41so they activate
31:42an early warning system.
31:44If the colonists
31:46spot any aggressive movement
31:47of British troops,
31:49a man will light a signal
31:50in the North Church's bell tower.
31:52If the British are marching
31:53out of Boston over land,
31:55he'll light a single lantern.
31:56If, instead,
31:58the British cross
31:58the Charles River by boat,
32:00he will light two.
32:02Or, as you might remember
32:03it from your childhood,
32:04one if by land,
32:05two if by sea.
32:07On April 18th,
32:09the colonists' fears
32:10are realized.
32:11A spy spots British troops
32:13crossing the Charles River.
32:14Two lanterns it is.
32:16Now, unless you took
32:18Honor's American history
32:19in high school,
32:20here's the version
32:21of Revere's story
32:22you likely remember.
32:23Revere sees the lanterns
32:25and so begins his ride
32:26to spread the alarm.
32:31Alone, galloping
32:32from town to town,
32:34Revere reportedly shouts
32:35that famous phrase.
32:37The British are coming!
32:38The British are coming!
32:40The British are coming!
32:42The British are coming!
32:43After an hour,
32:45it's said that he makes it
32:45to Lexington,
32:46and after another,
32:48he supposedly makes it
32:49to his destination,
32:50Concord,
32:51around 2 a.m.
32:53Revere has reportedly
32:54arrived just in time,
32:56single-handedly giving
32:57the rebel militia
32:58time to arm themselves
32:59and muster into formations.
33:06Just three hours later,
33:08those 700 British soldiers
33:09will march into Lexington,
33:11confronting the colonial militia.
33:14Gunshots ring out,
33:15and with that,
33:16the American Revolution
33:17officially begins.
33:20If it wasn't for Revere's warning,
33:23it all could have gone
33:24very differently.
33:28We all remember this story,
33:30but it may surprise you
33:31to learn that,
33:32for most of us,
33:33what we know
33:33comes from a single source.
33:35The 1861 poem titled
33:37Paul Revere's Ride,
33:39written an astonishing
33:4086 years after the event
33:42by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
33:46In the hour of darkness
33:48and peril and need,
33:50the people will waken
33:51and listen to hear
33:52the hurrying hoofbeats
33:54of that steed
33:55and the midnight message
33:56of Paul Revere.
33:58It's 14 stirring stanzas,
34:01really selling Revere's solo glory.
34:04Oh, but there is one small problem
34:06with the poem.
34:07It's wrong.
34:08It was written to be rousing,
34:09not historical.
34:11Historian Sammy Jerush explains.
34:14Longfellow's poem is a lovely poem.
34:18It tells a heroic story
34:20of someone who rose above the odds
34:24and proclaimed resistance out loud,
34:26but we have had to uncover
34:29numerous primary sources
34:31to truly piece together
34:33what took place
34:33during the actual midnight ride.
34:35That includes Paul Revere's diaries,
34:37Paul Revere's letters
34:38that he had sent
34:39with his own description
34:42of the midnight ride.
34:46In 1942,
34:48historian Esther Forbes
34:49dives into those primary sources
34:51and publishes a new biography
34:53of Revere.
34:54And some serious cracks emerge
34:56in Longfellow's version
34:58of Revere's story.
35:00The first issue is here
35:02at the very beginning
35:02of our story.
35:04Esther Forbes discovers
35:05a paper trail
35:06confirming Commander Warren
35:07dispatches not just Paul Revere,
35:10but fellow militia man
35:11William Dawes.
35:12Warren wants two men
35:14on separate routes
35:15so that if one is captured,
35:17the other can still
35:18complete the mission.
35:20Because as leaders
35:22of the Sons of Liberty,
35:23the fear was that
35:25they would be forced
35:25to give up all this information
35:27and it would be a lot harder
35:29to take on the British Army
35:30because all of the secrets
35:32would have been given up.
35:34Forbes' biography
35:35wins the Pulitzer Prize,
35:36but to the general public,
35:38the story of Revere's ride
35:39continues to be shrouded in myth.
35:41And it turns out
35:43the full, true story
35:44isn't just that Revere
35:46didn't ride alone.
35:48Buckle up,
35:49because what comes next
35:50will upend the most famous parts
35:52of Revere's legendary story.
35:59Paul Revere isn't the only
36:01Revolutionary War hero
36:02to take a legendary ride.
36:04In 1777,
36:06as British soldiers
36:07burned Danbury, Connecticut,
36:0916-year-old Sybil Luddington,
36:11the daughter of a local
36:12militia commander,
36:14reportedly rode alone
36:15through 40 miles
36:16of stormy woods.
36:17It's said that she warned
36:19neighbors,
36:20evaded British patrols,
36:21and by dawn
36:22had mobilized 400 men.
36:25But her ride,
36:26twice the distance
36:27of Paul Revere's,
36:28went unrecognized
36:29at the time.
36:30The first written account
36:31of it surfaced in 1880,
36:33with a statue then erected
36:35in her honor
36:35and markers placed
36:37along her reported route.
36:38Today, some scholars
36:40question whether the ride
36:41really was as epic
36:42as recorded,
36:43but her inspiring story
36:45persists,
36:46a teenage girl
36:47braving the night
36:48to help save
36:49a fledgling nation.
36:50Ride on, Sybil.
36:54Paul Revere's renowned
36:56solo ride
36:57is not as we remember it.
36:59In Longfellow's
37:00immortal poem,
37:01a pair of lanterns
37:02was hung in the
37:02Old North Church
37:03and lit to indicate
37:05where the British
37:06were coming from,
37:07one if by land
37:08and two if by sea.
37:09Once Revere sees
37:11the signal,
37:11he begins his ride.
37:13Well, it turns out
37:15Revere didn't start
37:16his ride
37:16because he saw
37:17the lanterns.
37:18He started because
37:19he'd been ordered to
37:20by Joseph Warren
37:21back in the tavern.
37:22The signal in the church
37:23wasn't for Revere.
37:25It was for the rest
37:26of the community.
37:28Revere didn't need
37:29a signal.
37:29He already had
37:30his mission from Warren.
37:31He already knew
37:32where he had to ride to,
37:33where he had to go.
37:34In reality,
37:35Revere came up
37:35with the signal idea.
37:37He went to the sexton
37:38of the church
37:38and he said,
37:39here's what you're
37:39going to do.
37:40If the British
37:41are coming by land,
37:41put one lantern
37:42in the belfry.
37:43If they're coming
37:43by water,
37:44put two.
37:44So the signal
37:45was more for
37:46other people
37:47to be aware
37:48of where the British
37:49would be coming from.
37:51And there's more
37:52myth-busting to come.
37:53Remember the most
37:54legendary moment
37:55of the ride?
37:56Revere's dramatic cry,
37:58the British are coming!
38:00Well, it turns out
38:01he probably never said it.
38:02At least not like that.
38:04The British are coming!
38:05The British are coming!
38:06The British are coming!
38:07It never happened.
38:09If you're riding
38:10past midnight
38:11and you're yelling
38:11out loud
38:12that the British
38:12are coming,
38:13you're waking
38:13everybody up.
38:14Not a good move
38:15if you're trying
38:15to stay as discreet
38:16as possible.
38:17What Revere
38:18actually ends up
38:19doing on his
38:20midnight ride
38:21is he rides
38:22to people's homes
38:24and he knocks
38:25on their doors
38:26and lets them know,
38:27hey,
38:28the regulars
38:29are coming out.
38:30The regulars
38:32are coming out.
38:33What the regulars
38:34refers to
38:34is the British
38:35regular army,
38:37a.k.a.
38:37British soldiers.
38:40So where did
38:41the famous phrase
38:42the British are coming
38:43originate?
38:45It's not from
38:46the Longfellow poem
38:47that's the source
38:47of other errors.
38:48It's actually
38:49from an 1879
38:51school textbook
38:52that misattributes
38:53the phrase
38:54to Revere.
38:56When you read history
38:58and when you study history,
38:59we're only understanding
39:00history from
39:01a certain point of view.
39:02There's no
39:02all-encompassing source.
39:04You have to think
39:05about what's missing.
39:07To put the final nail
39:09in poor old
39:09Longfellow's poem,
39:11historians point out
39:12one more major flaw.
39:14Revere never actually
39:15made it to Concord.
39:17The poem gets
39:18that part wrong, too.
39:20It was another rider
39:21who reached
39:22the final destination.
39:23Digging into
39:24the historical record,
39:26it's clear Revere
39:27and Dawes
39:27actually met
39:28a third rider
39:29at John Hancock's
39:30house in Lexington.
39:32That's right,
39:33it wasn't one rider
39:34who saved America
39:35or two,
39:36but three.
39:39The third rider
39:40is a doctor
39:41named Samuel Prescott.
39:43Together,
39:44the three men
39:45set out from
39:46Lexington to Concord
39:47to warn of the
39:48oncoming British.
39:53But halfway there,
39:55the trio is spotted
39:56by a patrol
39:57of British soldiers.
39:59Prescott leaps to safety
40:01and rides on.
40:03Dawes escapes
40:04the redcoats
40:05but is thrown
40:05from his horse
40:06and injured.
40:08And Revere,
40:10far from triumphantly
40:11making it to Concord,
40:12he's actually captured
40:14by the British.
40:15The British patrol
40:16that captures Revere
40:17press him for information.
40:20But Revere stands his ground,
40:21doesn't give them
40:22any information.
40:23What he tells them though
40:23is that you're about
40:25to be surrounded
40:26by a bunch of Americans
40:28who are ready
40:29to take up arms
40:30against you.
40:31The British don't
40:32initially believe Revere
40:33so they keep him captured
40:35but they run into
40:36other British soldiers
40:37who basically confirm
40:39what Revere has told them.
40:41And so they recognize
40:42that that's the bigger threat
40:44that they have to deal with
40:45and not on this one guy.
40:46So they end up
40:46letting Revere go.
40:48Revere ends up
40:49riding back to Lexington
40:50and helping John Hancock
40:51and his family escape.
40:56So ends the true saga
40:58of Paul Revere's
40:59midnight ride.
41:00It turns out
41:01he didn't ride alone,
41:03he was never warned
41:04by lamps,
41:04he never reached Concord
41:06and probably never shouted
41:07the British are coming.
41:09But whatever license
41:10Longfellow's poem
41:11may have taken,
41:12Paul Revere was
41:13every bit a hero.
41:15He was part of a trio
41:16of daring riders
41:17who along with tens
41:19of thousands
41:19of brave militias
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