April 21, 2014

MIDNIGHT MESSENGER:

Searching For Paul Revere (G. Tracy Mehan, III, 7/03/10, Catholic Exchange)

Paul Revere, as described by Fischer, was a successful artisan and businessman, connected to all the various revolutionary cells active in the Massachusetts of 1775. In fact, he belonged to more groups and knew more operatives and political leaders than almost anyone, certainly in Boston. Moreover, he developed a significant intelligence and communications network for which he was one of the central nodes.

Fischer observes that "Paul Revere's primary mission was not to alarm the countryside. His specific purpose was to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were thought to be the objects of the expedition." The military stores at Concord were of secondary concern. Still, by morning thousands of fully-armed militia had arrived on the field at both Lexington and Concord ready for closed formation fighting.

"Paul Revere and the other messengers did not spread the alarm merely by knocking on individual farmhouse doors," says David Hackett Fischer. "They also awakened the institutions of New England. The midnight riders went systematically about the task of engaging town leaders and militia commanders of their region. They enlisted its churches and ministers, its physicians and lawyers, its family networks and voluntary associations....They knew from long experience that successful efforts requires sustained planning and careful organization."

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.

By the way, Fischer notes that Paul Revere did not say, "The British are coming." New Englanders all considered themselves to be British. This is why they were so outraged at the loss of what they considered to be their traditional rights as such. Revere and his countryman would have called the advancing forces Regulars, Redcoats, the King's men or "Ministerial Troops." The split in national identity had not yet happened.

Notwithstanding the greatness of Longfellow's poem, it seems to have made quite a hash of the historical record, poetic license seemingly run riot. According to Fischer New England historians have been laboring to correct these errors for years.


We grew up with a print of the Copley portrait on our dining room wall, our grandparents having been caretakers at the Paul Revere House.


[originally posted : 7/03/2010]


Posted by at April 21, 2014 5:38 AM
  

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