The Forgotten Midnight Riders
18th of April in 75 Hardly a Man Recalls Patriots Longfellow Ignored
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a romantic imagination, and the propensity of Americans to love the underdog, have all converged to perpetuate memory's loss of the true labor of that long evening that delivered the dawn of American freedom! Longfellow's poem, while tending to obscure the work of a couple of dozen other heroes, did do us a great favor. It guranteed forever that Paul Revere, who was consigned to his own obscurity until "The Midnight Ride" was published, would never fail to spark America's imagination again. It is really due to Lonfellow's gift of notoriety that once again, Paul Revere was able to lead a band of faithful and resolute patriots to thier due place of prominence. It is to be regretted that it has taken 150 years longer to lead that effort than it did to rouse every Middlesex village and farm.
Historical Fiction or Literary License
Longfellow's poem was written on the 115th anniversery of what is now celebrated as Patriot's Day in the Massachusets. It was not published until 1863 when in it did a great deal to bolster the sagging moral of another group of self professed underdogs, the Great Union Army in America's Civil War. Longfellow should have known better. History could not have been unclear to a gentleman who lived in General Washington's old army headquarters in Cambridge, MA. However, Longfellow was a writer and literary license is no modern phenomena. Could he have sold as many copies of the masterpiece if he had written this?
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight rides of Paul Revere, William Dawes, Samuel Prescott
(and about twenty other guys)
That hardly a man alive
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Remembers or even knew there names in the first place.
Lucky Breaks or Plain Old Fashioned Hard Work
The truth is that those gritty New Englanders were far more organized than our romantic American memory wants to give them credit. Those lights hung in the old North Church were not a message for Paul Revere, instead they were a message from Revere; a backup plan in case word did not get through with him on the legendary horse, Brown Beauty. The whole evening had been meticulously planned. There were contingencies built in and no army has ever been more ready to battle an enemy then those poor embattled underdog farmers were on April 19th. The entire exercise had already taken place several times over the last year with several of the powder alarms of which this was just another in a long series. Just six months earlier, when General Thomas Gage had ventured a short distance into the coutnryside, 20,000 militia had been deployed in a very short time. There is no way this kind of response would have been possible without careful planning.
The Forgotten Few Who Have Remained in Obscurity
Here a few of those unsung heroes (fortunately, another great American pastime) who risked life and limb under that spring lit April moon to carry the alarm to Lexington, Concord and every other Middlesex village and farm. Doctor Martin Herrick rode from Medford to Stoneham, Reading, Lynn End, Lynnfield, Danvers and Salem. Nathan Rowe and Benjamin Tidd rode from Lexington to Bedford and Meriam’s Corner near Concord. Edward Bancroft rode from Acton to Groton, Pepperell, Townshend and Ashby. A Man named Weatherbee rode from Acton to Littleton and Shirley. Dr. Abel Prescott (Samuels brother) rode from Concord to Sudbury and Framingham. A Man named Captain Dudley rode from Sudbury to Natick. One young lady, Abigail Smith, is said to have ridden from Natick to Needham. Finally, even a nine year old African-American young man named Abel Benson rode to some of the outlying areas of Needham and Natick. There were at least 15 other unkown riders who have not been named who also spread the alarm that night. Of course, that in itself is also a uniquely American story. They were just the first few of countless thousands of obscure and unassuming people who have guaranteed the liberty that Americans enjoy today.
Sources
Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer, 1994, Oxford University Press
Paul Revere and the World He Lived In by Esther Forbes, 1999, First mariner Books
Charles Benson: Mariner of Color in the Age of Sail by Michael Sokolow, 2003, UMASS Press
