Paul Revere, Bells, Guns, Drums. and history.

 This account in "Paul Revere's Ride" by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press 1994), may be of interest to Think Progress and all the others laughing because they purport to be so much better informed than Palin:

"A townsman remembered that 'repeated gunshots, the beating of drums and the ringing of bells filled the air.'.... Along the North Shore of Massachusetts, church bells began to toll and the heavy beat of drums could be heard for many miles in the night air."

It's available on Google Books.