Hero on horseback: modern cynics downplay Paul Revere's accomplishments, but he deserves ample credit for his famous midnight ride and his many other contributions to the cause of liberty.(struggle for freedom)

Shortly after passing the Charlestown neck, the narrow base of a peninsula jutting out into Boston harbor, the 40 year-old messenger on horseback spotted two mounted men through the darkness. They were hiding under a tree just up the road. As the rider got closer, the light from the rising moon revealed the men were uniformed British soldiers. They had been placed as a roadblock to slop patriot intelligence from getting to Lexington and Concord.

The rider, Boston's Paul Revere, had been warned just hours before by his friend Richard Devens that nine or ten mounted British soldiers had been spotted going down the road to Lexington earlier that night.

Revere had rowed across the Charles River to Charlestown earlier that evening with his friends Thomas Richardson and Joshua Bentley. He then waited for a pre-arranged signal from the belfry of the Old North Church.

The alarm that had set off the American War for Independence could arguably be said to have been spread by officials of the Old North Church. Revere had borrowed his horse from church member Deacon Larkin. And the church sexton, Robert Newman, had raised the two lamps in the church steeple as a prearranged sign that the British would move by sea rather than march up the Charlestown neck.

Revere's mission was more important than that of any other man that evening. Only he could bring specific news of the British maneuvers to…