Paul Revere's Ride by David Hackett Fischer Page A

suffered the indignity of being changed into a stallion, and given the head of a Greek war horse, and the body of a Renaissance military charger.
    There was an interpretative problem in the first design of Dallin’s sculpture. It was called “Waiting for the Light,” and showed Paul Revere in Charlestown, looking back toward the Old North Church for the lantern signal.” The committee liked the conception, and awarded its prize to Dallin. But critics forcefully pointed out that the interpretation was an error borrowed from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Dallin was sent back to his studio, and produced another version of Paul Revere, as militant as before, but without Longfellow’s errors. The ensuing controversy, however, destroyed the momentum for the project, and the money could not be found to construct a full-scale bronze statue. Dallin’s sculpture remained a plaster model for many years, which he redesigned at least seven times. But even in its unfinished state, it captured the spirit of yet another myth of the midnight rider. In this latest incarnation, Paul Revere became less a man than a military monument. He was made to personify the new union of power and freedom in a Great Republic that was beginning to flex its muscles throughout the world. 23
    The interpretative mood in this era was also captured by a piece of music titled “Paul Revere’s Ride; a March-Two Step,” published in 1905 by E. T. Paull, a prolific composer of popular music. This musical version of the midnight ride began with the faint hoofbeats of a galloping horse. It advanced through movements that the composer called the “The Cry of Alarm,” “The Patriots Aroused,” “The Call to Arms” (double fortissimo), the Battle of Lexington and Concord (triple fortissimo), and “The Enemy Routed” (quadruple fortissimo). The piece was advertised as “one of E. T. Paull’s greatest marches,” no modest claim for the composer of “The Burning of Rome” and “Napoleon’s Last Charge.” His rendition of the midnight ride was “respectfully inscribed to the Daughters of the American Revolution.” 24
    In Boston, the Daughters of the American Revolution actively promoted the reputation of Paul Revere. They took an active part in the rescue and preservation of Paul Revere’s home, which had become a rundown tenement in Boston’s North End. To preserve it, a voluntary society was founded with the name of the Paul Revere Memorial Association. It acquired title to the house, restored it with high enthusiasm, and opened it to the public in 1908 as a shrine of the Revolution. Today, the Paul Revere House is the only 17th-century building that survives in what was Old Boston. 25
    In 1891, the first full-length biography of Paul Revere was published by Elbridge Henry Goss, a Boston antiquarian. It was a classic specimen of a two-volume Victorian “Life and Letters” biography, mainly a compendium of primary materials in two thick volumes, handsomely embellished with many illustrations and facsimiles. Goss was mostly interested in his subject as Colonel Revere, a political and military figure. Nearly 100 pages (of 622 inthe two volumes together) were devoted to the Penobscot Expedition alone. Very little attention was given to Revere’s private life.

    The Filiopietists in Full Cry. This musical version of the militant Paul Revere had a grand crescendo scored quadruple fortissimo. (Brandeis University Library)
     
    The major contribution of the work was to assemble and reprint primary evidence of Revere’s public life. Goss was given access to Revere manuscripts by the family. He published for the first time many letters and documents, including Revere’s deposition on the midnight ride, and also collected much colorful testimony from Boston families who preserved the folklore of the event. Every subsequent student of Revere’s life is heavily in Goss’s debt for the materials that he collected. Wherever possible, the author allowed Paul