Monday is Patriots' Day, a holiday celebrated in Massachusetts, Maine, and Wisconsin. Though it is better known as the day on which the Boston Marathon is run (and sadly, now associated with a terrorist attack), this day officially commemorates the beginning of the American Revolution at Lexington and Concord, a conflict preceded by the famed midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Revere was memorialized in Henry Longfellow's epic 1861 poem “the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” written to inspire the courage of Americans as they faced the coming horrors of the Civil War. Though it made Revere a household name to all future generations of Americans, this poem has long been decried by historians as a piece of fiction which massacres the actual narrative of April 18 and 19, 1775. Perhaps most lamentably, it does not pay any credit to the dozens of other riders and patriots who co-labored in spreading the alarm, most especially the other two main riders that night, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott.
Growing concerned by the build-up of arms and militia in the countryside surrounding the occupied city of Boston, and knowing that war was growing more inevitable, the British military authorities were laying plans to make raids into the countryside to seize guns and ammunition from the Colonists. Even as the British were carefully watching the movements of famous patriots and gathering their own intelligence, men like Revere developed a network by which the alarm could be spread whenever the soldiers set out on their raids.
On April 18 it was clear from intelligence that the British would be marching to Lexington to arrest the two most famous patriots, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, and to Concord to seize the stores of arms being built up there. At this time, Boston was surrounded by water except for a narrow, heavily guarded neck of land, so getting word of what was known out of Boston was no easy task.
Dr. Joseph Warren decided that two different people should be deployed to spread the message, so as to give it a better chance of reaching the country-side, where the ringing of church bells, firing of muskets, and other riders would assist in spreading the alarm. He chose Paul Revere to go by sea, and William Dawes to go by land.
Two lanterns were hung in the bell tower of the Old North Church to signal to watchers in Charlestown that the British were coming by sea and to make ready a horse for Revere, who was then rowed by two men across the river, avoiding detection by the British, who were using small boats to ferry their men to the farther shore.
But before the lanterns were hung, Dawes had set out on the longer land route to Concord. This involved the daring task of riding past the British sentries guarding Boston Neck. Legends differ on how he accomplished this feat, but it is likely that since his profession as a tanner regularly took him out of Boston, he was let past because he was known to the guards.
Also, unlike Revere, Dawes was not a famous rabble-rouser, so that while Revere would not have been let out on such a momentous night, Dawes could plausibly convince the guards he was on usual business. Still, he got out just in time, for only half an hour later, the British authorities closed Boston Neck, not allowing anyone to leave.
Revere and Dawes met up in Lexington, and proceeded together to Concord to complete their mission. But the British knew that couriers were attempting to raise the alarm around the countryside, and had patrols attempting to cut them off. After Dr. Samuel Prescott – a patriot who was visiting his fiancé – joined Revere and Dawes, they were discovered by a British patrol.
Prescott fled into the woods and continued on his way to reach Concord – the only one of the riders to do so. Revere was cornered and caught by the patrol, and eventually released once they had taken his horse away. Dawes was chased down by two soldiers, but called out to a house, pretending he had an ambush prepared for the guards, and thus scared them away. He was thrown from his horse, however, and never made it to Concord.
Though the British made it to Concord with meager resistance, the long night's work by all three riders of alerting the countryside had paid off. The British found hundreds of armed Colonists in Concord, who sent them retreating back to Boston, and the retreat route was now swarming with Colonists from all surrounding towns who carried on a running fight with the British soldiers (who, of course, would not have been called “British” by the Colonists, who still considered themselves British, but would have been called “regulars,” since they served in the regular army and not in militia units). The retreating units may have been wiped out if not for the rescue of a relief column from Boston which met them in Lexington.
Many have wondered if Paul Revere is so much better known to history than William Dawes – who had the riskier mission – because of the poem, and if he was only selected by Longfellow because more words rhyme with Revere than with Dawes. This view overlooks the fact that Revere was a better-known patriot at the time, and had been a frequent courier for secret messages even before the Midnight Ride. Revere was also asked, at the time, to write the official account for the evening, so his part of the story was better known in the 1860s, whereas Dawes left little behind.
Still, it is undeniable that the masterful writing of this poem was what propelled Revere into the national memory, while its failure to mention his contemporaries left them in the dust. In protest, in 1896 Helen F. Moore penned the poem “The Midnight Ride of William Dawes,” as a parody to Longfellow's poem. It is worth the read, and so I have concluded this entry with the full text of the poem:
I am a wandering, bitter shade,
Never of me was a hero made;
Poets have never sung my praise, Nobody crowned my brow with bays; And if you ask me the fatal cause, I answer only, "My name was Dawes"
'Tis all very well for the children to hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere; But why should my name be quite forgot, Who rode as boldly and well, God wot? Why should I ask? The reason is clear - My name was Dawes and his Revere.
When the lights from the old North Church flashed out,
Paul Revere was waiting about, But I was already on my way. The shadows of night fell cold and gray As I rode, with never a break or a pause; But what was the use, when my name was Dawes!
History rings with his silvery name;
Closed to me are the portals of fame. Had he been Dawes and I Revere, No one had heard of him, I fear. No one has heard of me because He was Revere and I was Dawes.
Caleb E. Smith is a Washington, D.C.-based RealClearHistory contributor.
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