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Midnight Rider

© Anita Stratos

“Come listen my children and you shall hear, Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere….” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of this famous poem, would have made a great publicist. After all, no one even remembered the name Paul Revere or knew anything about his ride until Longfellow’s poem was published in 1861.

Longfellow actually wrote the poem to rally northerners during the Civil War and make them realize the importance of fighting for liberty as well as to point up the fact that each and every person, singly, can make a difference. In altering history, Longfellow made Paul Revere a national hero. Up until then, Revere’s name hadn’t been included among any of the lists of American worthies; he wasn’t even mentioned in William Allen’s biographical dictionary, which listed the accomplishments of 7,000 people.

Once Revere’s name finally became widely known, the facts of his ride, naturally, were blown out of proportion. The biggest myth about Paul Revere’s ride on April 18 and 19, 1775, is that he single-handedly rode on horseback to warn residents of the British attack. During the 18th century, lots of people kept diaries and wrote memoirs. Literally hundreds of the documents that survived contain accounts of what happened, so accurate records are plentiful and conclusive. And what these accounts all say is that while Paul Revere did take part in the ride, he was more of an organizer than a messenger.

In reality, there were 60 riders who spread the word that night. One man alone could never have covered such a distance, especially on horseback; it was a collective effort rather than an individual one.

And what about his famous cry, “The British are coming!”? Well, that didn’t happen at all. Though it may sound strange, back in 1775 the colonists still thought of themselves as British. They considered this a civil war rather than a revolution, and when they referred to British soldiers, they called them “the regulars”. The real story is that there was a guard in the Lexington militia who was not familiar with Paul Revere. When Revere came galloping along in the middle of the night, the guard told him to stop making so much noise. Revere responded by saying “Noise? You’ll have noise enough before long. The regulars are out.” The well-known yet inaccurate quote that made its way into history began in the 19th century when grandfathers told the tale of Paul Revere.

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