Today, in history, Apr 19th,

[yagotme]

2. The usual word salad,

let's see if we can sort out some of the nuggets from the chaff:

"Elyse: Jim explains that rebels raided several forts and armories across Massachusetts. But their most audacious theft was from Major Adino Paddock’s artillery arm of the Boston militia. That’s the theft"

"Elyse: So a brass cannon was stolen – from the militia – which fits our story perfectly."

"He puts ammunition, and provisions before cannons. So we can’t say the stolen cannons were the only motivation for the march - but they were there and they were on Gage’s mind."

So, the initial plan was to retrieve the cannons taken by the rebels from the militia, but the final orders were changed to put ammo and provisions above the cannon. Sounds like I may still be a little right on the confiscation part...