The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night That Saved America

With respectful appreciation to Henry Wordsworth Longfellow for his poetic narrative, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, we hold onto the image of Revere, a Boston silversmith, riding alone through the night to challenge the English Redcoats disembarked from the warship HMS Somerset lying off the coast.

Paul Revere did indeed ride through the night, but not alone. Together with some forty Militiamen and Patriots, he rode through the dark countryside seeking Samuel Adams and John Hancock, urgently warning them and everyone they awoke as they rode, to be prepared for the battle that would launch the American Revolution.

The author’s captivating, vigorous account of the ride is a page-turner. What many of us view as simply a class assignment, Kennedy’s fluency brings the story to life. The pages, while centered on the singular date, provide a remarkable account of the hero, his fellow men, and their 1780s lifestyle. A skilled engraver and church bellringer, Revere served as a Freemason for 40 years and remains a patriotic model centuries later.

As one of the great stories of American history, The Ride is surely a labor of love as well as the fruition of extensive research.