Paul Revere, We Don’t Need You to be Our News Source
“Paul Revere… he would just fill my news feed with ‘RED COATS ARE COMING! OMG!'” We all have that Facebook friend that seems to want to work as an anchorman on social media; always posting news articles or announcing news that everybody already knows. Of course, the legend of Paul Revere’s ride is actually misunderstood and greatly exaggerated. The story goes a little like this. In order to warn the colonists of Massachusetts that the British army was about to attack, Paul Revere rode his horse through the streets, shouting “The British are coming! The British are coming!” This timely warning allowed the colonists to be prepared for the attack and Paul Revere has gone down in history as a pivotal figure in the American Revolution.
Paul Revere was an important player in the American Revolution and he did warn the colonists of the British attack. But the details of that night have been significantly altered. Most of the blame for this lies with poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote a poem in 1860 entitled “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” bringing attention to an otherwise obscure historical event. While it is believed that Longfellow had an accurate account of the event from which to base his poem, he took considerable creative license in his retelling. Revere’s ride was actually prompted by Dr. Joseph Warren, who sent him to warn Concord of the impending attack, but also asked him to stop in Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that British troops were planning to arrest them (though this later turned out to be false intelligence).