False Things You Believe About Paul Revere

The seventh stanza of Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride" describes the eponymous midnight rider like this: "Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,/Booted and spurred, with heavy stride,/On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere," while the final stanza portrays "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!" Lines like these portray Revere as a solitary, individualistic hero of singular purpose who, working on his own, saved a nation. All he needed was a good horse and one friend (who doesn't even get a name) to light some lanterns for him. For Longfellow, such a message was key in the face of a looming Civil War, i.e., you, the reader, by the power of your individual action, have the power to steer the course of a nation, you handsome smoldering, brooding loner, you.

But according to The New York Times, Revere was anything but a loner. Besides the fact that Revere was only one of a system of riders on that fateful night, the famous midnight rider was also famously social. The revolutionary movement in the colonies was splintered and isolated. Some 83% of dedicated revolutionary members belonged to merely one each of the seven major factions in Boston. Paul Revere, on the other hand, belonged to five of these groups. The dude was a social butterfly of American independence.