War was coming closer, but nobody knew just how close. Two committees came together in Concord to make plans. They arranged for certain munitions to be moved around, for others to be prepared for action, and to ask people to lead combat units. And if those people said “No Thanks,” who the backup person would be.
Then they all went out to a nearby tavern, as you do when planning a revolution.
But nobody could suspect that the time from then to the war was measurable in hours by then, not by weeks.