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Paul Revere's Ride (1861)
"Listen my children, and you shall hear. Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth day of April, in Seventy Five; Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, 'If the British
march by land of sea from the town to-night, hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch,
Of the North Church tower as a signal light, One, if by land, and two, if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be, ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm, for the country folk to be up and to arm....'
More than any other single source, this poem established the classic elements of the Paul Revere myth: that lanterns were hung in the church tower as signals and that Revere made the difficult journey alone, almost singlehandedly warning the nation of imminent British attack.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the poem to serve as inspiration to Union soldiers fighting in the Civil War, and used considerable dramatic license to achieve that end. "He made the ride into a solitary act," says historian David Hackett Fischer. "Paul Revere for him becomes a historical loner who does almost everything by himself... The point was that one man, acting alone, could turn the course of history, and this was an appeal to individuals in the North to do it again in another crisis."
Historians now believe that as many as 60 men rode that night to warn of the British attack. "That doesn't in any way take away from Paul Revere," Fischer says. "He, more than anybody, set those other people in motion." And while there may have been lanterns in the North Church tower, Fischer points out, Paul Revere wasn't the one who received the signal, he was the one who sent it to others, just in case he wasn't able to get across the Charles River to begin his ride.
In his book Lies, Legends, and Cherished Myths of American History,Richard Shenkman isn't so charitable about Revere. He writes:
Paul Revere rode into the hero's spotlight only in 1863, when Longfellow wrote his famous poem....rescuing Revere from virtual obscurity. Historians say before the poem many Americans were not even familiar with Revere's name. In the early nineteenth century, not a single editor included Revere in any compendium of American worthies...[But] by the end of the century, his reputation had improved so immensely that the Daughters of the American Revolution put a plaque on his home in Boston.
And let's not forget, Paul Revere didn't even finish his famous ride..... he was captured by the British!
The preceding was taken from Uncle John's Absolutely Absorbing Bathroom Reader by the Bathroom Readers Institute. Copyright 1999 EarthWorks Press.
