Why We Revere Revere

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – April 9, 2011 – Posting #88
Paul Revere Revere’s Ride
Listen my children and you shall hear,
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere...

One of the enduring legends of the American colonists' fight for independence was Paul Revere's heroic ride from Boston to Lexington, Massachusetts on April 18, 1775. It foiled British plans to arrest American revolutionaries Samuel Adams and John Hancock. Although Revere was arrested after delivering his warning, he was released in time to witness the ensuing Battle of Lexington and Concord, the first skirmish of the Revolutionary War in 1860.

Considered by many Americans to be one of the greatest and most famous American patriots, a near mystique has gathered around Paul Revere. With his active involvement in the American Revolutionary War, Revere's heroic actions helped establish his own legend. Here are some facts about our beloved hero:

Silversmith
Paul Revere earned his living as silversmith, one of the most respected and admired tradesmen in Boston. His company produced tea sets, silverware and special engravings. Revere Ware is still sold today in some of our finest cookware stores.

Boston Tea Party
As a member of the Sons of Liberty, an underground organization that favored revolting against the British, Revere participated in the famed Boston Tea Party in 1773.

The Midnight Ride
Paul Revere remains best known for his involvement in the Midnight Ride, where he rode on horseback in April 1775 from Boston to Lexington, alerting colonists of approaching British troops. The battle that followed marked the start of the American Revolutionary War. Here we have a man who had everything to live for, but was willing to give his life for a cause very dear to his heart; freedom.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
In 1861, more than 40 years after his death, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride became immortalized when the famed poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote the classic American poem, Paul Revere's Ride.

The landlord of the Wayside Inn orally tells the fictionalized story of Paul Revere. In the poem, Revere tells a friend to prepare signal lanterns in the Old North Church to inform him if the British will attack by land or sea. He would await the signal across the river in Charlestown and be ready to spread the alarm throughout Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The unnamed friend climbs up the steeple and soon sets up two signal lanterns, informing Revere that the British are coming by sea. Revere rides his horse through Medford, Lexington, and Concord to warn the patriots.

Longfellow was inspired to write the poem after visiting the Old North Church and climbing its tower on April 5, 1860. The following morning he began writing the poem. The poem served as the first in a series of 22 narratives bundled as a collection, similar to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, which was published in three installments over 10 years. When written in 1860, America was on the verge of Civil War. The poem was published in the January, 1861, issue of The Atlantic Magazine on December 20, 1860, just as South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States. Paul Revere's Ride was meant to appeal to Northerners' sense of urgency and, as a call for action, noted that history favors the courageous.

Longfellow, who often used poetry to remind readers of cultural and moral values, warns at the end of the poem of a coming "hour of darkness and peril and need", implying the breakup of the Union, and suggests that the "people will waken and listen to hear" the midnight message again. By emphasizing common history, he was attempting to dissolve social tensions. Unfortunately, his ploy did not work.

The poem waffles between past and present tense, sometimes in the same sentence, symbolically pulling the actions of the Revolution into modern times and displaying an event with timeless sympathies.

Poetic License
Longfellow's poem is not historically accurate but his "mistakes" were deliberate. He researched the historical event, using works like George Bancroft's History of the United States, but he manipulated the facts for poetic effect. He was purposely trying to create American legends, much as he did with works like The Song of Hiawatha(1855) and The Courtship of Miles Standish(1858).

The poem depicts the lantern signal in the Old North Church as meant for Revere and not from him, as was actually the case. The historical Paul Revere did not receive the lantern signal, but actually was the one who ordered it to be set up. The poem also depicts Revere rowing himself across the Charles River when, in reality, he was rowed over by others. He also never reached Concord. Longfellow gave sole credit to Revere for the collective achievements of three riders. In fact, Revere and William Dawes rode from Boston to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that British soldiers were marching from Boston to Lexington to arrest Hancock and Adams and seize the weapons stores in Concord. Revere and Dawes then rode toward Concord, where the militia's arsenal was hidden. They were joined by Samuel Prescott, a doctor who happened to be in Lexington. Revere, Dawes, and Prescott were stopped by British troops in Lincoln on the road to nearby Concord. Prescott and Dawes escaped, but Revere was detained and questioned and then escorted at gunpoint by three British officers back to Lexington. Of the three riders, only Prescott arrived at Concord in time to warn the militia there.

What a great specimen to use as an example for your students. Discuss the use of poetic license by the author. Ask small groups of students to decide if poetic license is merited and to explain why or why not. Even today, this poem brings home the overwhelming feeling of the pride we feel for heroes then and now, those willing to give their lives for our freedom.

Paul Revere’s Ride
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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.