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Expedition Files - Season 4 - Episode 01: Mysteries of American History
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00:00On this episode of Expedition Files.
00:03In 1968, the USS Scorpion disappears without a trace.
00:09Accident or act of war?
00:13Did a Soviet spy inside the U.S. Navy help destroy it?
00:18For six decades, the truth has been submerged.
00:22Until now.
00:23And 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.
01:45We 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.
02:16We're on base at Naval Station Rota.
02:20And behind me is the USS Scorpion.
02:22A Skipjack-class nuclear-powered submarine about to depart for its home in Norfolk, Virginia.
02:28Due to arrive in two weeks' time.
02:30But this sub and all 99 men aboard will disappear.
02:34No distress call.
02:36No survivors.
02:37And what the Navy knows, well, that's classified.
02:40But then, more than 50 years later, a whistleblower claiming to have inside information
02:46will come forward to disclose something that, if true,
02:50would be one of the most well-kept secrets of the Cold 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,
03:12designed to be virtually undetectable 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,
03:26it can reach 33 knots underwater, nearly 40 miles an hour.
03:31Armed with classified weapons, including two nuclear warheads,
03:36it's one of the deadliest and most stealthy assets in the U.S. Navy.
03:40Here at the Submarine Force Atlantic headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia,
03:45radio men like Mike Hannon monitor the Scorpion
03:47and every other U.S. submarine operating in the Atlantic.
03:52While here, beneath the waves,
03:55the 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
04:09and a persistently faulty trash disposal unit.
04:13The crew starts calling it scrap iron.
04:16Despite this, in February of 1968,
04:20the submarine gets cleared for duty and begins patrols of the Mediterranean.
04:25For three months, the Scorpion travels throughout the Med.
04:28It 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 Rota, Spain,
04:37before it turns west into the Atlantic and heads home.
04:40On 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.
04:57May 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.
05:12It'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.
05:31The nuclear submarine USS Scorpion was scheduled to arrive in Norfolk this morning.
05:37But Navy officials say the vessel has yet to make contact.
05:51The 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.
06:03The 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.
06:21They 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.
06:35But 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.
06:48The 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?
07:06And 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.
07:17Some 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 sent, encrypted, by a submarine when it is on patrol.
08:36The Scorpion was on a 24-hour check report, so we want to hear from them every 24 hours.
08:43The message simply would say, check 2-4, submarine Scorpion.
08:49So, when no check report arrived, Hannon knew something was wrong.
08:54Very wrong.
08:56Any news on Scorpion?
08:59Yeah.
09:03When the daily check report stopped, Navy 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.
09:15Mike Hannon viewed a visualization of that data and believes he saw something that changes everything.
09:23They showed me the tape, and you could clearly see a squiggly up and down line.
09:30And you could see, boom, here, a couple seconds later, boom, there, two distinct torpedo hits.
09:43And Scorpion was sunk.
09:45After the two explosions, they could determine that a Russian submarine in that immediate area sped up, surfaced, and left.
10:00Hannan 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, in the 60 years since, no one else has ever
10:16reported 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.
10:35A bombshell claim from former Navy radio man Mike Hannon suggests the USS Scorpion submarine wasn't lost to an accident,
10:44but instead was destroyed in a calculated Soviet torpedo strike.
10:48But if the Scorpion was a virtually undetectable stealth sub, how could the Soviets have found it?
10:56The answer wouldn't surface until nearly two decades later, with revelations about John Walker Jr.,
11:02a chief warrant officer in the Norfolk Communications Office, alongside radio man Mike Hannon when the Scorpion vanished.
11:09In the 1980s, he was officially outed as a spy and sentenced to life in prison in one of the
11:16most damaging security breaches in naval history.
11:19Walker had been passing the U.S. Navy's most closely guarded secrets to the Soviets, including top-secret submarine patrol
11:27schedules.
11:29If the Soviets had access to the Scorpion's navigation plan, they would have known exactly where she was headed and
11:36could have been waiting to strike.
11:38We had a row of teletype machines where messages were coming in.
11:43And I had noticed that Walker would go back there and just go down the line looking at the messages
11:51on each of the machines.
11:52I 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.
12:03And there's no doubt in my mind that a Soviet ex-submarine fired two torpedoes and sank the Scorpion.
12:12No doubt whatsoever.
12:14And I will take those feelings to my grave with me.
12:20Soviet spy John Walker Jr. died in prison in 2014 without ever being directly linked to the fate of the
12:27Scorpion.
12:27Many experts are also skeptical of Mike's theory, noting that the wreck shows no clear sign of an external torpedo
12:35attack and that the sub likely imploded due to an unknown catastrophic event, which means that for Mike and the
12:41families of those aboard, there's no emotional closure to the case.
12:45It was painful then and for all the years since I knew 10 of those guys closely.
12:58The scar that that's left on me seldom does a night go by that I don't have that whole situation
13:08go through my head and wake me up.
13:11If you had seen those families on that pier, their anticipation and their dads are coming home or significant others
13:20are coming home, it broke my heart.
13:23I know that I know that I've said information that's still top secret, but I'm not going to die with
13:32the people of America not knowing what happened with that submarine and its 99 dedicated sailors.
13:48Over a decade ago, a submarine veterans group petitioned the government to reopen the case to determine the true cause
13:55of the Scorpion sinking.
13:57So far, the Navy has declined.
13:59Today, the USS Scorpion still lies at a depth of nearly 10,000 feet on the floor of the Atlantic
14:05Ocean, as does her nuclear reactor.
14:08The Navy monitors the area for signs of radioactivity, but the sub itself remains off limits, a silent steel tomb
14:15for 99 sailors who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.
14:24From a submarine lost at sea to the loss of an American president, it's April 26th, 1865.
14:32The Civil War is at an end, and Abraham Lincoln has just been murdered.
14:36And inside this blazing barn is the man who shot him.
14:42History records that in a few minutes, gunfire will ring out, and John Wilkes Booth will die.
14:48But soon, a conspiracy theory will emerge, one of the strangest theories you could possibly imagine, that John Wilkes Booth
14:55doesn't perish tonight, that he escapes, slips into a new identity, only to end up as, well, I don't want
15:02to spoil it for you.
15:03Just get ready for a wild ride as we use high-tech analysis to unravel the mind-blowing mystery surrounding
15:10America's most infamous assassin.
15:22Our strange story really begins 12 days before the barn.
15:28After four long years of bloodshed, the Civil War is finally over.
15:33President Abraham Lincoln is taking a rare night out to celebrate, enjoying the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre
15:40in Washington, D.C.
15:44But just as the performance reaches its climax, a single gunshot rings out.
15:50Lincoln has been murdered in cold blood.
15:54The killer leaps from Lincoln's box onto the stage.
15:58He lands on both feet, hard.
16:01His leg is now broken.
16:10Many in the audience wonder if this is all part of the play.
16:15That's because the man who just jumped on stage is one of the most famous actors in America, John Wilkes
16:21Booth.
16:24Before anyone can react, he flees the stage.
16:28You shot the president!
16:30Stop that man!
16:34Booth rides off into the darkness and vanishes, sparking one of the most frantic manhunts in American history.
16:42According to some reports, he alters his appearance, shaving off his trademark mustache to avoid being recognized.
16:49As word of Lincoln's assassination spreads, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton locks down Washington, sealing bridges and dispatching teams of
16:59soldiers, detectives and bounty hunters to track Booth's escape.
17:05A staggering $50,000 bounty, over a million dollars today, is placed on Booth's head.
17:15After 12 days of desperate searching, finally, there's a break.
17:20A tip leads Union soldiers to a farm two miles from Port Royal, Virginia.
17:25Two men are said to be hiding there, one matching the description of John Wilkes Booth.
17:31The soldiers are under clear orders to take Booth alive so he can expose any possible Confederate conspiracy.
17:42So the soldiers set the barn ablaze, hoping to force Booth out.
17:47Which brings us back here to the besieged barn.
17:50According to the account of the Union soldiers, they first demand the two men inside surrender.
17:56Eventually, one man emerges.
17:58It's David Harreld, one of Booth's accomplices.
18:02But the other man refuses to come outside.
18:07Sergeant Boston Corbett then confronts Booth through the doors of the barn.
18:12Come out, Booth!
18:13You're surrounded!
18:15Fearing the suspect is about to fire, he has no choice but to bring him down.
18:24The soldiers say they drag him, barely alive, onto the farmhouse porch.
18:30In his pockets, the soldiers find Booth's diary.
18:36Paralyzed from the gunshot, he apparently can't lift his arms.
18:40With his final breath, he stares down at his hands and whispers two words.
18:45Useless.
18:47Useless.
18:49Dawn is breaking, and John Wilkes Booth is dead.
18:54After 12 days on the run, the man who killed Abraham Lincoln has met his end.
19:00In the aftermath of Booth's death, the body is brought aboard the Union ironclad ship,
19:06the USS Montauk, where a surgeon performs an autopsy.
19:12Fearing his remains might be stolen or desecrated, Booth's body is then placed at a D.C. penitentiary,
19:19before ultimately being interred in a family plot at Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore.
19:27Meanwhile, four people, including David Herold from the barn fire,
19:31are found guilty of conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln,
19:34and are hanged on July 7, 1865.
19:39It would seem this tragic case has come to a close,
19:42but there are those that believe there's much more to the story.
19:47Enter Texas attorney Finnis Bates, who publishes a book in 1907 called
19:53The Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth.
19:56In its pages, Bates recounts the purportedly true,
20:00jaw-dropping story of a man he befriended named John St. Helen.
20:05In 1878, St. Helen falls gravely ill,
20:10and believing he's about to die makes an outrageous confession.
20:14Our name is not John St. Helena.
20:18Our real name is John Wilkes Booth.
20:21He says he is the assassin of Abraham Lincoln.
20:28According to Bates' tell-all book,
20:31John Wilkes Booth didn't die in that barn at all.
20:33He escaped justice and spent the rest of his life
20:36hiding behind a false identity.
20:38Now, that might sound like a crazy claim,
20:41but I promise, we're just getting warmed up.
20:43Because John Wilkes Booth then allegedly becomes
20:46an actual mummy in a traveling sideshow.
20:50Seriously.
20:58In 1878, a man on his deathbed named John St. Helen
21:02confesses an astonishing secret.
21:05He claims to be Abraham Lincoln's killer,
21:07John Wilkes Booth,
21:08and says he faked his death, escaping capture.
21:12The man explains that after assassinating Lincoln,
21:16he escaped through southern Maryland,
21:18hidden in the back of a wagon,
21:20and slipped back into Virginia.
21:22However, at one point, in order to avoid capture,
21:25St. Helen abandoned the wagon and fled into the woods.
21:29But in doing so, he lost his diary.
21:32St. Helen says he sent a messenger,
21:34a Confederate soldier known only as Ruddy,
21:37back for the diary.
21:38Ruddy collected it, but then panicked upon seeing the Union troops
21:42and fled to a nearby barn,
21:44where he apparently ended up alongside fellow Confederate conspirator David Harreld.
21:49St. Helen says it was his messenger who was shot and killed in the barn that night.
21:54But because the man resembled him and carried his diary,
21:59it led Union troops to mistakenly identify the messenger as Booth.
22:03St. Helen said in the years that followed,
22:06he assumed various aliases,
22:08constantly on the move to avoid capture.
22:14After telling this extraordinary tale to Finnis Bates,
22:18St. Helen presents an original photograph of John Wilkes Booth as proof,
22:23implying that only the real Booth would possess such a picture.
22:28But that's far from the end of this twisted tale.
22:31Following his dramatic deathbed confession that he is John Wilkes Booth,
22:36St. Helen recovers and promptly disappears.
22:40Bates keeps the photograph,
22:42but it would be another 25 years,
22:44in 1903,
22:46before he sees St. Helen again.
22:49Only this time,
22:50the man is definitely dead.
22:55Bates says he came across a newspaper article from Enid, Oklahoma,
23:00describing how a local mortuary had the preserved body of a drifter.
23:05The newspaper also reported the deceased man had been living under the name David E. George,
23:11but before he died, claimed to be John Wilkes Booth.
23:16One look at the photo of David E. George and Bates was certain it was the same man he'd met
23:22years earlier in Texas,
23:24John St. Helen.
23:26A few years later,
23:27Bates actually buys the corpse,
23:29just as he's preparing to publish a book detailing the wild tale of Booth's escape and secret life.
23:36With the mummified body in tow and a sensational story to promote,
23:41Bates is ready to take his show on the road.
23:44For the next 70 years,
23:46the so-called Booth Mummy takes to the stage,
23:49touring America with multiple circus productions,
23:52often with the less than subtle billing,
23:54See the Man Who Murdered Lincoln.
23:56The attraction even makes it to the World's Fair.
23:59The Mummy is a hit,
24:01but is there any shred of truth to its origin?
24:04Author Jane Singer has studied the legend closely.
24:07What's remarkable to me is how many people genuinely believe that John Wilkes Booth did not die in that barn.
24:17Was there a government conspiracy to suppress the fact that Booth really didn't die on April 26, 1865?
24:25A lot of people believed there was.
24:28Enough people probably believed and were suspicious of the government
24:31because toward the end of the Civil War,
24:34before Abraham Lincoln was killed, it was a very hard-handed regime.
24:39In order to win this war,
24:41Abraham Lincoln first had to suspend the right of habeas corpus.
24:45Can't have a trial.
24:46If you're a traitor, you get hauled off to jail.
24:49And then we have General William Tecumseh Sherman
24:53marching from Memphis to the sea
24:55and literally destroying much of the Confederacy.
24:59And so, to believe that that government was not trustworthy,
25:05I don't think was such a far reach for a lot of people.
25:10And let's be real,
25:11it would have been a terrible look for the Union if Lincoln's killer had just slipped away.
25:16But Singer isn't buying the conspiracy.
25:19Why?
25:20Because the soldiers at Garrett Farms swore up and down they knew exactly who they had.
25:25And other experts also corroborated it was John Wilkes Booth.
25:30And we are looking at Phineas Bates' theory
25:34that John Wilkes Booth escaped not just the burning barn, but death.
25:40It doesn't add up.
25:41Because there were credible witnesses called to come to the Montauk
25:47and identify the body.
25:50Dr. John Frederick May was a renowned Washington, D.C. physician
25:54who had removed a fibroid tumor from Booth's neck
25:58about three months before the assassination,
26:01and it left quite a vivid scar.
26:04And May allegedly said,
26:07that's the scar.
26:09That's the person I operated on.
26:11Unmistakable, in his opinion.
26:14Charles Dawson, who was a clerk at the National Hotel where Booth stayed,
26:18when he first saw the body of John Wilkes Booth,
26:22he said,
26:22oh my goodness,
26:23on the right hand between the thumb and finger
26:25was a tattoo
26:27with the initials JWB tattooed in India ink.
26:31And young Dawson said,
26:34that's the tattoo I've seen repeatedly
26:36when Booth signed the guest register.
26:39These were ordinary folks.
26:42It would be highly unlikely
26:43that the official autopsy of record
26:46would be part of some overreaching conspiracy.
26:51And what of John St. Helen,
26:54the mummified man who insisted he was the real Booth?
26:57A forensic team recently used facial recognition technology
27:01to render a definitive answer
27:03to his conspiratorial claim.
27:05In 2020,
27:07the Smithsonian Institution
27:08created a Civil War sleuth
27:11facial recognition software.
27:14They compared the face of John Wilkes Booth
27:18to the face of John St. Helen.
27:20During the testing of the photographs,
27:23there were data points that weren't matching.
27:25It was clear that John Wilkes Booth in photograph,
27:29John St. Helen in photograph,
27:31couldn't possibly be the same person.
27:37So, after 147 years,
27:40we can finally scientifically declare
27:42that John St. Helen is not John Wilkes Booth.
27:46More than likely,
27:47Finnis Bates spun the fanciful tale for pure profit,
27:50using the story and the mummy to promote book sales.
27:53But conspiracies don't die quietly.
27:56As recently as 2010,
27:58Booth's descendants lobbied
27:59to have his remains exhumed
28:01and his DNA tested.
28:02The request was denied.
28:04Regardless,
28:05I think it's safe to say
28:06if you happen to pass by a carnival
28:08with a sign hawking a John Wilkes Booth mummy,
28:11that's one sideshow you can happily avoid.
28:18I'm at a pub in Boston, Massachusetts,
28:20on April 18th, 1775.
28:23And even though the beer is flowing,
28:25the mood is anything but celebratory.
28:28These colonists,
28:29still technically British citizens,
28:31have been under the thumb of the crown for years,
28:33and they've reached their breaking point.
28:36A revolution is brewing,
28:37and militia commander Joseph Warren here
28:39has received word
28:41that the British are planning
28:42to strike back tomorrow morning.
28:44They need to take action now.
28:46And what happens next
28:47will become the stuff of legend,
28:49because the commander dispatches this man,
28:52Paul Revere,
28:53to set out on a dangerous mission.
28:58The story goes that after leaving the tavern,
29:01Revere spots two lanterns hanging in a church,
29:04signaling the British are attacking by sea.
29:08And so he begins his famous midnight ride.
29:14His words echoing through history.
29:17The British are coming!
29:19The British are coming!
29:21The British are coming!
29:23Revere's heroic ride
29:24will be remembered as saving America,
29:27one man alone protecting the birth of a new nation.
29:30But 250 years later,
29:33evidence will reveal that
29:34almost everything we think we know
29:36about Paul Revere's fateful night
29:38is in need of a rewrite.
29:52In 1775,
29:54the year of his famed ride,
29:56Paul Revere is a silversmith
29:58living in Boston,
29:59struggling to make ends meet.
30:00Britain has imposed taxes on the colonies,
30:04causing a recession
30:05and spawning the
30:06Taxation Without Representation movement.
30:10The most onerous tax is known as the Stamp Act,
30:14requiring the colonies to purchase special paper
30:17for all printed materials.
30:19The tax's true purpose
30:20is to raise money for the occupying British troops,
30:23essentially picking the colonists' pockets
30:25to pay for their very own oppressors.
30:28In response, some colonists,
30:30including Revere,
30:32form a clandestine militia
30:33known as the Sons of Liberty
30:35to battle the British.
30:38One of their most successful protests
30:40is the Boston Tea Party,
30:42where they sneak onto British ships
30:44and dump all their highly profitable tea leaves
30:47into the harbor.
30:48No better way to rile up a Brit
30:50than to mess with their tea.
30:52But the Boston Tea Party
30:53is only the beginning.
30:55What follows will ignite a revolution
30:57and bring Paul Revere
30:58and what he did,
30:59or notably didn't do,
31:02into the spotlight.
31:10It's 1775,
31:11a year and a half
31:12since the Boston Tea Party,
31:13and the American resistance
31:15to British rule
31:16is gaining momentum.
31:18Intelligence gathered
31:19by the colonial rebel group
31:21known as the Sons of Liberty
31:22reveals that the British
31:24have 700 soldiers at the ready
31:26for a raid on the colonists.
31:29In anticipation,
31:30the militia has been assembling
31:32stockpiles of weapons,
31:33gunpowder, and supplies.
31:35One of the largest is in Concord,
31:38a small town on the outskirts of Boston.
31:40The colonists know
31:41it's only a matter of time
31:42before the Redcoats
31:44make their attack,
31:44so they activate
31:45an early warning system.
31:48If the colonists spot
31:50any aggressive movement
31:51of British troops,
31:52a man will light a signal
31:54in the North Church's bell tower.
31:55If the British are marching
31:57out of Boston over land,
31:58he'll light a single lantern.
32:00If instead,
32:01the British cross
32:02the Charles River by boat,
32:04he will light two.
32:05Or, as you might remember it
32:07from your childhood,
32:08one if by land,
32:09two if by sea.
32:11On April 18th,
32:12the colonists' fears
32:13are realized.
32:14A spy spots British troops
32:16crossing the Charles River.
32:18Two lanterns it is.
32:20Now, unless you took
32:21Honor's American history
32:23in high school,
32:24here's the version
32:24of Revere's story
32:25you likely remember.
32:27Revere sees the lanterns,
32:29and so begins his ride
32:30to spread the alarm.
32:35Alone, galloping
32:36from town to town,
32:37Revere reportedly shouts
32:39that famous phrase.
32:40The British are coming!
32:42The British are coming!
32:43The British are coming!
32:45The British are coming!
32:47After an hour,
32:48it's said that he makes it
32:49to Lexington,
32:50and after another,
32:51he supposedly makes it
32:52to his destination,
32:54Concord,
32:54around 2 a.m.
32:56Revere has reportedly
32:58arrived just in time,
33:00single-handedly giving
33:01the rebel militia
33:02time to arm themselves
33:03and muster
33:04into formations.
33:10Just three hours later,
33:11those 700 British soldiers
33:13will march into Lexington,
33:15confronting the colonial militia.
33:18Gunshots ring out,
33:19and with that,
33:20the American Revolution
33:21officially begins.
33:24If it wasn't for Revere's warning,
33:26it all could have gone
33:27very differently.
33:32We all remember this story,
33:34but it may surprise you
33:35to learn that,
33:36for most of us,
33:36what we know
33:37comes from a single source.
33:39The 1861 poem
33:40titled Paul Revere's Ride,
33:42written an astonishing
33:4486 years after the event
33:45by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
33:50In the hour of darkness
33:52and peril and need,
33:53the people will waken
33:54and listen to hear
33:56the hurrying hoofbeats
33:57of that steed
33:58and the midnight message
34:00of Paul Revere.
34:02It's 14 stirring stanzas,
34:05really selling Revere's
34:06solo glory.
34:07Oh, but there is
34:08one small problem
34:10with the poem.
34:10It's wrong.
34:11It was written to be
34:13rousing, not historical.
34:14Historian Sammy Jerush
34:16explains.
34:18Longfellow's poem
34:19is a lovely poem.
34:22It tells a heroic story
34:24of someone who rose
34:27above the odds
34:28and proclaimed resistance
34:29out loud,
34:30but we have had to uncover
34:33numerous primary sources
34:35to truly piece together
34:36what took place
34:37during the actual
34:38midnight ride.
34:39That includes Paul Revere's
34:40diaries, Paul Revere's
34:42letters that he had sent
34:43with his own description
34:45of the midnight ride.
34:50In 1942, historian Esther Forbes
34:53dives into those primary sources
34:55and publishes a new biography
34:57of Revere.
34:58And some serious cracks emerge
35:00in Longfellow's version
35:02of Revere's story.
35:03The first issue is here
35:05at the very beginning
35:06of our story.
35:07Esther Forbes discovers
35:09a paper trail confirming
35:10Commander Warren dispatches
35:12not just Paul Revere,
35:13but fellow militia man
35:15William Dawes.
35:16Warren wants two men
35:18on separate routes
35:19so that if one is captured,
35:21the other can still
35:22complete the mission.
35:24Because as leaders
35:26of the Sons of Liberty,
35:27the fear was that
35:28they would be forced
35:29to give up
35:30all this information
35:30and it would be a lot
35:32harder to take on
35:33the British Army
35:34because all of the secrets
35:36would have been given up.
35:37Forbes' biography
35:38wins the Pulitzer Prize,
35:40but to the general public,
35:42the story of Revere's ride
35:43continues to be shrouded
35:44in myth.
35:45And it turns out
35:46the full, true story
35:48isn't just that Revere
35:50didn't ride alone.
35:51Buckle up,
35:52because what comes next
35:54will upend
35:54the most famous parts
35:56of Revere's legendary story.
36:04Paul Revere isn't the only
36:06Revolutionary War hero
36:07to take a legendary ride.
36:09In 1777,
36:11as British soldiers
36:12burned Danbury, Connecticut,
36:1416-year-old Sybil Ludington,
36:16the daughter of a local
36:17militia commander,
36:18reportedly rode alone
36:20through 40 miles
36:21of stormy woods.
36:22It's said that she
36:24warned neighbors,
36:25evaded British patrols,
36:26and by dawn,
36:27had mobilized 400 men.
36:30But her ride,
36:31twice the distance
36:32of Paul Revere's,
36:33went unrecognized
36:34at the time.
36:35The first written account
36:36of it surfaced in 1880,
36:38with a statue
36:39then erected in her honor
36:40and markers placed
36:42along her reported route.
36:43Today, some scholars
36:45question whether the ride
36:46really was as epic
36:47as recorded,
36:48but her inspiring story
36:50persists,
36:51a teenage girl
36:52braving the night
36:53to help save
36:54a fledgling nation.
36:55Ride on, Sybil.
37:00Paul Revere's renowned
37:02solo ride
37:03is not as we remember it.
37:05In Longfellow's
37:06immortal poem,
37:07a pair of lanterns
37:08was hung in the
37:09Old North Church
37:09and lit to indicate
37:11where the British
37:12were coming from,
37:13one if by land
37:14and two if by sea.
37:16Once Revere sees the signal,
37:18he begins his ride.
37:20Well, it turns out,
37:21Revere didn't start his ride
37:23because he saw the lanterns.
37:24He started because
37:25he'd been ordered to
37:26by Joseph Warren
37:27back in the tavern.
37:28The signal in the church
37:30wasn't for Revere.
37:31It was for the rest
37:32of the community.
37:34Revere didn't need a signal.
37:35He already had his mission
37:36from Warren.
37:37He already knew
37:38where he had to ride to,
37:39where he had to go.
37:40In reality,
37:41Revere came up
37:42with the signal idea.
37:43He went to the sexton
37:44of the church
37:44and he said,
37:45here's what you're going to do.
37:46If the British are coming
37:47by land,
37:48put one lantern in the belfry.
37:49If they're coming by water,
37:50put two.
37:51So the signal
37:52was more for other people
37:53to be aware of
37:55where the British
37:55would be coming from.
37:58And there's more
37:58myth-busting to come.
38:00Remember the most
38:01legendary moment
38:02of the ride?
38:03Revere's dramatic cry,
38:04the British are coming!
38:06Well, it turns out
38:07he probably never said it.
38:08At least not like that.
38:10The British are coming!
38:11The British are coming!
38:12The British are coming!
38:14It never happened.
38:15If you're riding
38:16past midnight
38:17and you're yelling
38:18out loud
38:18that the British are coming,
38:19but you're waking everybody up.
38:20Not a good move
38:21if you're trying to stay
38:22as discreet as possible.
38:23What Revere actually
38:24ends up doing
38:25on his midnight ride
38:27is he rides
38:28to people's homes
38:30and he knocks
38:31on their doors
38:32and lets them know,
38:33hey,
38:34the regulars are coming out.
38:37The regulars
38:38are coming out.
38:39What the regulars
38:40refers to
38:41is the British
38:42regular army,
38:43aka British soldiers.
38:46So where did
38:47the famous phrase
38:48the British are coming
38:49originate?
38:51It's not from
38:52the Longfellow poem
38:53that's the source
38:54of other errors.
38:55It's actually
38:56from an 1879
38:57school textbook
38:58that misattributes
39:00the phrase
39:00to revere.
39:02When you read history
39:04and when you study history,
39:05we're only understanding
39:06history from
39:07a certain point of view.
39:08There's no
39:08all-encompassing source.
39:10You have to think
39:11about what's missing.
39:13To put the final nail
39:15in poor old Longfellow's poem,
39:17historians point out
39:18one more major flaw.
39:20Revere never actually
39:21made it to Concord.
39:23The poem gets
39:25that part wrong too.
39:26It was another rider
39:27who reached
39:28the final destination.
39:30Digging into
39:30the historical record,
39:32it's clear Revere
39:33and Dawes
39:34actually met
39:34a third rider
39:35at John Hancock's
39:37house in Lexington.
39:38That's right,
39:39it wasn't one rider
39:40who saved America
39:41or two,
39:42but three.
39:45The third rider
39:46is a doctor
39:47named Samuel Prescott.
39:50Together,
39:51the three men
39:51set out from Lexington
39:52to Concord
39:53to warn
39:54of the oncoming British.
40:00But halfway there,
40:01the trio is spotted
40:02by a patrol
40:03of British soldiers.
40:05Prescott leaps
40:06to safety
40:07and rides on.
40:09Dawes escapes
40:10the Redcoats
40:11but is thrown
40:12from his horse
40:12and injured.
40:15And Revere,
40:16far from triumphantly
40:17making it to Concord,
40:18he's actually captured
40:20by the British.
40:21The British patrol
40:23that captures Revere
40:24press him for information.
40:26But Revere stands his ground,
40:28doesn't give them
40:28any information.
40:29What he tells them,
40:30though,
40:30is that you're about
40:31to be surrounded
40:32by a bunch of Americans
40:34who are ready
40:35to take up arms
40:36against you.
40:37The British
40:38don't initially
40:38believe Revere,
40:39so they keep him captured,
40:41but they run into
40:42other British soldiers
40:44who basically confirm
40:45what Revere has told them.
40:47And so they recognize
40:48that that's the bigger threat
40:50that they have to deal with
40:51and not on this one guy.
40:52So they end up
40:53letting Revere go.
40:54Revere ends up
40:55riding back to Lexington
40:56and helping John Hancock
40:57and his family escape.
41:03So ends the true saga
41:04of Paul Revere's
41:06midnight ride.
41:07It turns out
41:07he didn't ride alone,
41:09he was never warned
41:10by lamps,
41:11he never reached Concord,
41:12and probably never shouted
41:14the British are coming.
41:15But whatever license
41:16Longfellow's poem
41:17may have taken,
41:18Paul Revere was
41:19every bit a hero.
41:21He was part of a trio
41:22of daring riders
41:24who, along with
41:25tens of thousands
41:25of brave militiamen,
41:27battled against oppression
41:28to forge these United States.
41:31I'm Josh Gates
41:32and I'll see you
41:33on the next expedition.
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