The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: April 18, 1775

On the evening of April 18, 1775, multiple men set out on a fateful ride to warn liberty-loving American colonists that British troops were on their way from Boston to seize military supplies and arrest popular Patriot leaders. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized that risky journey in his poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

Longfellow did take a few poetic liberties with the true story in his poem. According to Biography.com, which has a number of interesting details about the ride, the famous lantern signals from the church tower were actually “from” Revere to other Sons of Liberty rather than being for him. That said, silversmith and “Son of Liberty” Revere did indeed ride from Boston at the request of his friend and fellow Patriot Dr. Joseph Warren to warn that British soldiers might be heading to Concord for the military stores and also perhaps to Lexington to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock. In real life, however, Revere was only one of several riders who went to spread the alarm.

Revere and William Dawes were the original emissaries, and Revere was able to warn Hancock. Later they and another rider who joined them, Patriot Dr. Samuel Prescott, were stopped by a British patrol. Dawes managed to get away safe, and the British were trying to drive Revere and Prescott into a meadow when the two suddenly rode off in separate directions. The local man—Prescott—successfully made it to Lincoln and Concord to alert the militia, but Revere was unfortunately recaptured, questioned, threatened, and his horse confiscated (another incident Longfellow did not mention in the poem). Revere did make it back to Lexington in time to hear the “shot heard round the world” sound on Lexington Green as Patriots and British troops exchanged the opening shots of the American Revolution.

“Paul Revere’s Ride” is a poem that perfectly captures everything that is best about American history and the American spirit. I previously wrote a piece on how this masterpiece of Longfellow’s is the quintessential American poem. In closing this article on the fateful ride that led to the start of one of history’s greatest struggles—the American Revolution—I would like to quote a few of my favorite sections below, telling in Longfellow’s brilliant and unforgettable verses the tale of April 18, 1775:

‘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 to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch…

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere…

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 that flies 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…

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, blank 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 meadows 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 red-coats 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 forevermore!
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.’

God bless America, and may the spirit of 1775 live again!