Lead: Listen my children and you shall hear, how Longfellow confused the ride of Paul Revere.

Tag: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Among American poets few have matched the popularity of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His works have been required reading and memorization for many generations of school children. Narrative poems such as Hiawatha (1858) and Evangeline (1849) portray the sweep of America's past and his anthology The Poets and Poetry of Europe (1845) highlighted the rich variety of European literature.

One of Longfellow's most famous and beloved poems was his descriptive narrative of a famous event during the early days of the American Rebellion, Paul Revere's Ride (1860). Unfortunately, according to essayist Richard W. O'Connell, on many of the important parts of that evening's excursion, the poet got his meter better than his facts.

The political atmosphere of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the Spring of 1775 was highly charged. During the previous fall and winter tension between British soldiers and provincial militia had almost provoked open warfare. The stockpiling of arms and ammunition by the colonists had begun to alarm the British in their Boston headquarters.

On April 18th, Governor Gage heard there was a colonial powder store in Concord and dispatched several hundred British troops to capture the ammunition and a particularly prized cannon the colonists had in their possession. Paul Revere and William Dawes went to warn of the British approach. Longfellow's poem picks up the story at that point.

In the poem Revere is portrayed as waiting on the Charlestown side of Boston harbor for a signal hung by a friend in the tower of Old North Church. If the British were marching overland down the Boston Neck then by way of Brookline, the friend would hang a single lantern. If they were coming by water in boats across the harbor and up the Charles River to Cambridge such would be the message of two lamps. "One if by land, two if by sea."

The truth is Revere was still in Boston when the lanterns were hoisted. The signals were intended for patriots in Charlestown who were to supposed to spread the alarm. To check on them Revere was rowed by two friends across to Charlestown about the time the British were getting in their boats. He found to his shock that the men on the Charlestown side were confused by the elaborate signals and were doing nothing. He borrowed a horse and he was off.

Next time: Paul Revere spills the beans.

At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts.

Resources

Arvin, Newton. Longfellow: His Life and Work. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, Publishers, 1963.

Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride. New York : Oxford University Press, 1994.

O'Connell, Richard W. " 'On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five..,' Longfellow Didn't Know the Half of It," Smithsonian 4 (1, April, 1973), 72-78.

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