A footnote in the early drafts of the history of the American Revolution, Paul Revere’s Ride has become one of the iconic episodes of the fight for independence. The ride itself is a heroic undertaking in the cause of liberty, and it remains one of the best-known episodes in the American colonists’ improbable fight for independence from Great Britain, the most powerful nation in the world. At the same time, its path to becoming a national icon also represents a singular lesson in the ways in which a nation’s historical memory is formed.
Paul Revere was a silversmith in Boston who alerted the Massachusetts militia at Lexington and Concord that British troops were marching to seize colonial armaments. His modest role in the early stage of the American Revolution was glorified in Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a poet who came along much later and embellished the legends of early American figures like Miles Standish and Hiawatha. (National Archives)
Revere’s and his fellow riders’ efforts were the product of a well-orchestrated plan on the part of a long-established intelligence operation run by the American colonists. In 1775, the Patriots recognized that the British army had altered their established patrols around Boston while also repairing and launching their small boats, events that coincided with the arrival of a new transport ship. While it was moored in Boston Harbor, colonists learned that this ship carried additional British soldiers. The colonists also learned that Britain’s own extensive spy network had alerted Crown officials to the return of Patriot leaders Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The two returned to Massachusetts to attend the Massachusetts Provincial Congress meeting in Concord. Their presence offered the British a pair of inviting targets, and they hoped that military action against them would dissipate growing revolutionary sentiment.
One of the Patriot leaders, Dr. Samuel Warren, helped to organize the reconnaissance efforts of the colonial resistance movement. He served as president of the Provincial Congress, but agreed to stay behind in Boston to monitor British troop movements. On the evening of April 16, Warren dispatched forty-year-old Paul Revere, a well-known silversmith, to Lexington to warn John Hancock and John Adams that some form of aggressive British action was imminent. It should be noted that this occurred two nights before Revere’s famous ride. After Revere delivered Warren’s message, he returned to Boston and met with the head of the Charlestown Committee of Safety, and together they devised a communication plan for spreading the news once the British actually began their march. It was decided that if the British went by water, two lanterns would be hung in the steeple of the Old North Church and if they went by land, only one lantern would be hung. The warning signals were not intended solely for Revere but for all members of the committee whose responsibility it would then be to spread the news, especially to Adams and Hancock in Lexington. The signals were also for other delegates, as well as those in charge of the Concord-based munitions.
When the British soldiers began their march on the night of April 18, the colonists pursued their own parallel course. Despite the heightened British military presence, Revere was able to slip out of Boston. Two friends rowed him across the Charles River, depositing him on the Charlestown side around 11:00. Upon arriving in Charlestown, Revere borrowed a horse from Deacon John Larkin and set off on his ride. He eluded capture near Cambridge and upon reaching Medford, Revere awakened Minuteman leader Captain Isaac Hall and then sounded a more general alarm along the way to Lexington. Arriving around midnight at the home of Reverend Jonas Clark, with whom Adams and Hancock were staying, Revere was refused entry by Sergeant William Munroe of the Lexington militia. Munroe informed the messenger that the family had retired and did not want any noise. In testimony offered years later, Munroe recalled that Revere had told him that there would be plenty of noise shortly for the British soldiers were on the way. That news was deemed important enough to override the previous order, so the warning was conveyed. Meanwhile, Warren dispatched another messenger, William Dawes, who arrived shortly afterward. Dawes, a local tanner, had been assigned the longer land route. He was able to escape the city just prior to a British order that halted all exiting travel. Also, before leaving the city, Dawes passed through Cambridge and directed a group of local citizens, including many Harvard students, to remove the planks from the Great Bridge, piling them up on the Charlestown side in an effort to thwart the passage of any British reinforcements. Continuing on his ride, Dawes arrived at Clark’s home shortly after Revere.
With Lexington and Concord now alerted to the British advance, Revere and Dawes had completed their mission, for the ride to Lexington was the extent of their assignment from Dr. Warren. However, recognizing the importance of the munitions, as well as the wide range of additional supplies that had been stockpiled by the anxious Patriots over the course of the past few months, Revere and Dawes decided to continue. They headed off to Concord, now accompanied by a third rider, young Dr. Samuel Prescott, intent on further spreading the word. Despite the late hour, the British were patrolling the roads in advance of their march to Lexington, and the night-riders were intercepted on their trip to Concord. Revere was captured and interrogated, although he was released in the aftermath of his defiant report that the British were too late because Patriot forces were fully aware of the British efforts. Revere was able to get back to Lexington without his horse in time to see the end of the battle. Meanwhile, Dawes was thrown from his horse, but he was able to elude capture by escaping into the nearby woods. At the same time, Prescott was also briefly captured before eluding his captors. He completed the ride and arrived in Concord to spread the news, but his efforts only echoed and reaffirmed the warning that had already arrived courtesy of the well-developed and highly effective communication network that the colonists had developed.
The ride itself was little more than a precursor to the battle of Lexington and Concord and the historic “shot heard round the world.” Until the 1860 publication of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” the joint efforts of Revere, Dawes, and Prescott appeared destined to be little more than a footnote in the annals of American history, one of the countless unsung actions that had fueled the struggle for independence. Indeed, there was no mention of the event in the obituaries that appeared at the time of Revere’s death in 1818. There can be no doubt that the Longfellow poem played a great role in the elevation of Revere’s ride into the historical pantheon. The riveting and lyrical narrative lionized the courage and daring of Revere, while placing him squarely in the middle of the nation’s ongoing fight for freedom and democracy. Coming on the eve of the Civil War, the poem reminded Americans of the values for which Revere and his fellow patriots had fought and sacrificed, and it rallied the support that Union advocates were seeking.
The Minutemen and “The Shot Heard Round the World”
The Minuteman is both a historical figure and a notion of immense cultural weight regarding the foundational sense of self in the popular American imagination. Referring to a new, anti-British version of the old colonial militias, Minutemen were so called because they were expected to be armed and ready at a minute’s notice. The Minutemen were put to their first real test at the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, where the “shot heard round the world,” the mythical first round fired in the American Revolution, set off clashes with British troops. The continuing significance of the image of the free-farmer-cum-militiaman represented by this figure is so important to American national identity that the name Minuteman was adopted for the iconic U.S. Cold War nuclear missile; the Minuteman is also the mascot of the University of Massachusetts.
C. Fee
Despite its historical inaccuracies, Longfellow’s widely circulated account soon became the accepted historical narrative, one that catapulted Revere to Olympian heights while consigning Dawes and Prescott to historical oblivion. This itself was no small irony given that each of Revere’s own official accounts and subsequent correspondence fully acknowledged the important roles played by Dawes and Prescott. Part of the reason that Longfellow’s version would become embedded in the fabric of American lore was because it was the right message at the right time. The poem’s singular heroism resonated deeply with a nation facing the reality of an impending war, a civil war that would test the strength of the democracy whose very existence could be traced back to the shots fired in Lexington just hours after Revere’s ride. The ride was a potent reminder of what the Union stood for and what they would be fighting for in the coming months. It was not that an accurate depiction of events, a full story in which all participants were given their due, would have undermined that message, it was just that Longfellow depicted a nice tight heroic endeavor, one that celebrated the importance of an individual’s contribution to the development of this democracy. In that way it also served as a reminder that the country remained a democracy worth defending. Also, beyond the way it connected with the national psyche, it also fit in nicely with the nation’s developing educational practices in the aftermath of the reform era of the 1830 and 1840s. This resulted in a significant increase in public education, and Massachusetts was in the fore of the move. A central teaching tool that emerged was the practice of public declamation, and “Paul Revere’s Ride” was a perfect vehicle through which multifaceted lessons could be taught. Consequently, the poem circulated even more, and with each passing year, it became a more established part of the national narrative. While the full story would eventually be told, and the important roles played by a wide-ranging network of courageous patriots would be uncovered and illuminated by generations of future historians, the Longfellow portrayal of Paul Revere’s ride remains a touchstone in the American story. It is a legendary and comforting example of the individual commitment to freedom and liberty that fueled the development of the American democratic experiment.
William H. Pruden III
See also Allen, Ethan; Attucks, Crispus; Founding Myths; Henry, Patrick; Washington, George
Further Reading
Fischer, David Hackett. 1994. Paul Revere’s Ride. New York: Oxford University Press.
Galvin, John R. 1967. The Minute Men: The First Fight: Myths and Realities of the American Revolution. Portland, OR: Hawthorne Books.
Johnston, Arthur. 1908. Myths and Facts of the American Revolution: A Commentary on United States History As It Is Written. Toronto: William Briggs.
Tourtellot, Arthur Bernon. 2000. Lexington and Concord: The Beginning of the War of the American Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton.
Triber, Jayne. 1981. The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: From History to Folklore. Boston: The Paul Revere Memorial Association.
Ride of Paul Revere—Primary Document
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Paul Revere’s Ride” (1860)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) is considered the first professional poet in the United States. He was born in Maine and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825, whereupon he traveled in Europe for a number of months. Upon his return, he served as a professor at Bowdoin, and then, after another period of European study, assumed a professorship at Harvard University. In 1854, Longfellow resigned his post to write poetry, including such well-known works as “The Song of Hiawatha” and “The Courtship of Miles Standish.” These, together with “Paul Revere’s Ride,” represent an effort to mythologize the American past.
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth 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 or 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.”
Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.
A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.
It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.
It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,—
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.
Source: Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. “Paul Revere’s Ride.” The Atlantic Monthly, January 1861.