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Penobscot Expedition

Six Fun Facts About Paul Revere’s Ride

The poem Paul Revere’s Ride took an obscure patriot of the American Revolution and elevated him to American myth.

In 1860, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow first asked his children to listen so they shall hear the midnight ride of Paul Revere. He meant it as legend but people took it as historical fact.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1868

The poem created legions of Paul Revere fans who solidified his fame after the Civil War. They installed an equestrian statue in Boston’s North End, where he had lived for 30 years. His great grandson then bought his house to save it from demolition. The Paul Revere Memorial Association raised the money to buy and restore it. Paul Revere’s house is now an important stop on Boston’s Freedom Trail.

But the backlash had already started in 1896, when a poet named Helen F. Moore wrote a parody of Paul Revere’s Ride called The Midnight Ride of William Dawes. It read, in part,

‘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.

1. Paul Revere’s Ride

Paul Revere’s Ride was really about fighting slavery, which Longfellow hated. He gave money to fugitive slaves, bought slaves their freedom and supported African-American churches, schools and newspapers. His close friend, U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner, was such an outspoken abolitionist that a southern colleague, Preston Brooks, beat him within an inch of his life on the Senate floor.

Longfellow published Paul Revere’s Ride in The Atlantic Monthly magazine, which appeared on newsstands the day South Carolina seceded. At the time, people viewed it as a call to arms for the North. More recently, historian Jill Lepore has argued the poem is an allegory about slavery itself. Paul Revere’s Ride is “a poem about waking the dead,” wrote Lepore in The American Scholar. “The dead are Northerners, roused to war. But the dead are also the enslaved, entombed in slavery…”

2. Paul Revere Made Lots of Rides

Paul Revere had made the same ride a week and a half earlier. He made lots of rides, in fact. On Dec. 13, 1774, Revere rode all the way to Portsmouth, N.H., to warn the patriots that the King’s troops were on their way to seize gunpowder from Fort William and Mary in New Castle. The redcoats arrived three days late, and they didn’t intend to take the powder in the first place. But a skirmish did result — between 400 New Hampshire volunteers and six British soldiers defending the fort. The redcoats surrendered. Then, 11 days before his midnight ride, Revere rode to Concord to warn that the redcoats would probably come to seize the large cache of military supplies stored there. The patriots moved the supplies.

3. Longfellow and Revere

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had a family connection to Paul Revere dating to the American Revolution. His grandfather, Peleg Wadsworth, commanded Revere, then a colonel, during the disastrous Penobscot Expedition. Recrimination followed the worst U.S. naval disaster until Pearl Harbor. And investigation revealed Revere had made enemies because of his arrogance. He demanded a court martial, which exonerated him.

Penobscot Expedition by John Thomas Serres

4. Some Birthday Present

Rose Kennedy made all of her children memorize the poem. John F. Kennedy campaigned for U.S. Congress in 1946 at the base of Paul Revere’s statue in the North End. His brother Edward recited the entire poem during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing. When in 1975 Rose Kennedy turned 85, she asked each of her 28 grandchildren to memorize a stanza of the poem as a birthday present.

5. Mistakes Were Made

The poem got a lot of facts wrong about Paul Revere’s ride. For example, Revere – not a friend – ordered the lanterns hung in the belfry of Old North Church. He also had help, which Longfellow omits. The aforementioned William Dawes took a parallel route to the south and met in Lexington. There they encountered a third rider, Dr. Samuel Prescott, while”‘returning from a lady friend’s house at the awkward hour of 1 a.m. (Revere’s words).”

Paul Revere by John Singleton Copley

6. Obituary Omission

No one outside of the Boston area knew who Paul Revere was until Longfellow wrote Paul Revere’s Ride. Even during his lifetime, Bostonians knew Revere as a successful businessman who had lots of friends. That’s how his obituary read after he died on May 10, 1818. It didn’t even mention the ride.

This story was updated in 2023.

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Six Revolutionary War Battlefields in New England

Revolutionary War battlefields abound in New England, where, after all, the whole thing began. The patriots fought the British in every colony before and during the war, and many of the sites remain undeveloped.

Here is our choice for the best six Revolutionary War battlefields in New England, with one in each state.

Fort Griswold, Connecticut

Fort Griswold, one of the most infamous Revolutionary War battlefields.

Named after Deputy Gov. Matthew Griswold, the Connecticut Colony built the fort in 1775 in Groton to defend the supply depot at the mouth of the Thames River. The fort also protected privateers operating out of the harbor.

In 1781, the traitor Benedict Arnold led a company of British soldiers in an attack on New London. Meanwhile, another British commander, Edmund Eyre, attacked the fort. The British had the advantage. Arnold knew the angle to attack so the American gun positions couldn’t fire effective shots.

The British forces infamously massacred the American soldiers. After Col. William Ledyard surrendered his sword to the British, they ran him through with it. At the time of surrender, six Americans were dead and 20 wounded. When it was all over, 83 Americans were dead and 36 wounded. Arnold went on to burn New London.

The earthen walls of the fort still stand. The Ebenezer Avery House, which sheltered the wounded after the battle, has been restored on the grounds. A Revolutionary War museum also depicts the era.

For directions to Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, click here. For information from the Friends of Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park, click here.

Fort George, Maine

Fort George, the Revolutionary War battlefield where the Penobscot Expedition ended in ignominy.

Castine, located in Downeast Maine, is one of the oldest European communities in North America. Since the early 1600s, French, Dutch and English colonists have built trading posts, forts, missions and permanent settlements there.

In 1779, the British sent troops to occupy Castine with the hope of establishing a colony called New Ireland. They built a fort and named it after King George III.

Massachusetts, alarmed by the British occupation, sent a combined naval and military expedition to capture the fort that summer. Known as the Penobscot Expedition, it had 19 warships and 24 transports. Though the patriots outnumbered the British, they failed to take Fort George and suffered the worst U.S. naval defeat until Pearl Harbor. Paul Revere, in charge of ordnance, ended up court martialed for cowardice and insubordination. He fought the charges and won his acquittal.

Some of Fort George still remains, as does the British canal built in 1779, gravesites of Revolutionary War soldiers and historic houses, taverns and churches. Castine has marked its many historic sites with signs. (Click here for a map.)

Minute Man State Park, Massachusetts

North Bridge, the granddaddy of all Revolutionary War battlefields.

It doesn’t get much better than Minute Man National Historic Park in Lexington, Lincoln and Concord.

The 970-acre park memorializes the opening battles of the American Revolution – and then some.

Lexington Battle Green, site of the shot heard round the world, belongs to the Town of Lexington. The Buckman Tavern sits on the green, which leads to the five-mile-long Battle Road Trail. Patriot militia skirmished with the British regulars along the trail, now a restored colonial landscape that includes the Hartwell Tavern.

In Concord, Daniel Chester French’s famous Minute Man statue stands by the North Bridge, where the colonial militia shot back at British soldiers in the second battle of the day.

The Wayside also belongs to the park. Authors Amos Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Sidney lived there (not all at the same time).

The Town of Lexington owns and maintains Lexington Battle Green, site of the shot heard round the world.

Fort Constitution, N.H.

Fort Constitution and the Portsmouth Harbor Light.

An important skirmish before the war took place in New Castle, N.H. A handful of British soldiers manned Fort William and Mary there in 1774, when tensions rose between the colonies and England. The stone fort stood at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, guarding access to the harbor and to Kittery, Maine (then Massachusetts).

Paul Revere rode to Portsmouth in December to warn patriots that British troops might seize powder and guns at the fort. A raiding party of 400 men then stormed the fort. They subdued the six soldiers inside and took the gunpowder, muskets and cannon.

The fort, renamed Fort Constitution, now belongs to the State of New Hampshire. The Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse stands inside the fort.

Fort Constitution Historic Site is a great spot for a picnic. For more information click here.

Quaker Hill, R.I.

The most famous Rhode Island battle of the American Revolution is called the Battle of Rhode Island or the Battle of Quaker Hill. By August 1778, the British had occupied Newport, on Aquidneck Island, for almost two years. That month, Continental Army troops led by Gen. John Sullivan sailed from Tiverton to Portsmouth and set up a siege on Aquidneck. They planned to drive the British soldiers back to Newport and then recapture the town with the help of French naval forces.

But a hurricane prevented the French naval commander, Count d’Estaing, from attacking the 6,000 entrenched British soldiers. D’Estaing instead sailed his fleet to Boston for repairs. The patriots then tried to withdraw, but the British attacked them in Portsmouth in a valley among three hills. The Americans retreated to Tiverton without a single soldier killed. The 1^st Rhode Island Regiment, comprised of African- and Native-American soldiers, took part in the action.

The 365 acres of the battlefield had no structures on them at the time of the conflict, but since then 36 houses and a barn have been built.

At the intersection of Route 2 and West Main, the state chapter of the NAACP put up a marker to commemorate the 1st Rhode Island’s role in the battle. And a granite memorial stone marks the Battle of Rhode Island on the corner of Union Street and Route 138 in Portsmouth.

A site of another skirmish is nearby. On the night of July 11, 1777, Col. William Barton and about three dozen infantrymen sailed from Tiverton to Middletown and captured British general Richard Prescott in his bed.

Prescott was occupying a farm owned by a Loyalist, despite warnings of inadequate security. That farm, now known as Prescott Farm, was restored with the help of heiress Doris Duke. The public can now visit. Visitors can tour the house where Barton captured Prescott, a windmill, a country store, a guardhouse and a historical vegetable garden. For more information, click here.

Hubbardton Battlefield, Vermont

Vermont’s only Revolutionary War battlefield, in Hubbardton.

The Hubbardton Battlefield in Hubbardton is the site of the only Revolutionary War battle fought entirely in Vermont (or what would become Vermont). (The Battle of Bennington was actually fought in New York state.) It’s also one of the best preserved battlefields in America.

The battle started on July 7, 1777, when British forces caught up with the American rear guard of the forces retreating after they withdrew from Fort Ticonderoga. The Americans, led by Seth Warner, fought with discipline and inflicted heavy casualties on the British. Though they lost the battle, they halted the British and prevented them from pursuing the main American army.

The battlefield itself and the small museum that explains it lie off the beaten path, but they feature stunning views of the Vermont landscape. It’s off Exit 5 on Route 4, between Rutland and New York state.

Click here for more information.

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Coming soon from the New England Historical Society! Click here to order your copy.

Photos: Portsmouth Harbor Lighthouse and Fort Constitution By Kenneth Dupont – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62728239. Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park by By Staxringold via English Wikipedia. Fort George earthworks and cannon by Jerrye and Roy Klotz via Wikipedia. Old North Bridge By Daderot at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5942756. This story about Revolutionary War battlefields was updated in 2024.

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Jonathan Haraden, Revolutionary Privateer, Wins a Battle and Pleases a Crowd

During the American Revolution, Capt. Jonathan Haraden captured dozens of British merchant ships at sea. Most people only heard of the privateer’s bold exploits, but on June 4, 1780, thousands had a ringside seat for one of the most dramatic engagements of the war.

Jonathan Haraden

Haraden preyed on British fears of Yankee privateers, outmaneuvering larger foes and often capturing them through sheer nerve — without firing a shot. If he ordered his helmsman to steer for a vessel, his crew assumed they had their prize in the bag.

Pirate Navy

Privateers were crucial to the American war effort.

They commanded 1,697 ships – 26 times as many as the continental navy’s 64 vessels. It was a risky business. Seventy-eight percent of privateer ships were captured or sunk by the Royal Navy.

John Adams was a fan:

This is a short, easy, and infallible method of humbling the English, preventing the effusion of an ocean of blood, and bringing the way to a conclusion … it is by cutting off supplies, not by attacks, sieges, or assaults, that I expect deliverance from [our] enemies.

Jonathan Haraden Takes Everything

Haraden’s exploits on the sea put him alongside John Paul Jones as an American naval hero.

According to one story, an American ship’s boy imprisoned on a British brig-o’-war spied a sail on the horizon. He began to sing and dance. The sailors asked him why. “My master is in that ship and I shall soon be with him,” the boy said. The sailors asked him who his master was. “Captain Haraden,” the boy said. “He takes everything he goes alongside of, and he will soon take you.”

The boy was correct.

Jonathan Haraden was born in Gloucester, Mass., on Nov. 11, 1744, but went to work for merchant George Cabot of Salem as a boy.

When the Revolution broke out, he was commissioned lieutenant of the Tyrranicide, a brigantine in the Massachusetts State Navy. The ship was destroyed in the ill-fated Penobscot Expedition. Harden then took command of the General Pickering. The vessel was a Letter of Marque ship, a merchant ship with official permission to sail as a privateer when the occasion warranted. It was a smallish frigate, with 14 six-inch guns and 45 men and boys.

The Penobscot Expedition

General Pickering

The General Pickering carried weapons and cognac from France and rum, sugar, chocolate and molasses from the Caribbean. Along the way Haraden captured a number of enemy merchant ships, making himself and the ship owners rich.

In April of 1780, Haraden set sail on the General Pickering with a cargo of sugar, bound for Bilbao, Spain, a favorite rendezvous for privateers. In the Bay of Biscay, the General Pickering overtook the British privateer Golden Eagle, which had 22 guns and 60 men.

It was dark, and Haraden decided to bluff. “This is an American frigate, sir,” he shouted through the speaking trumpet. “Surrender, or I will strike you with a broadside.”

The Golden Eagle, a victim of outsized fears of American privateers, fell for the ruse and surrendered. Haraden put 15 of his men onto the Golden Eagle and sailed into Bilbao Harbor with his prize sailing alongside. Another ship was sailing out. It was the Achilles, a British privateer with 42 guns and 140 men. It recaptured the Golden Eagle at dusk, but a battle would soon begin over it.

French privateer Confiance attacking an East Indiaman, Kent, 1800, by Ambroise Louis Garneray.

The Spanish Flotilla

By morning, word broke out that a British and an American privateer were about to do battle– within sight of land. Thousands flocked to the coast and got closer to the action in fishing boats, cutters, rowboats and sailing vessels.

Haraden maneuvered the General Pickering between the Achilles and a line of shoals and raked the British vessel with a broadside fire. The wind died down, and it took two hours for the Achilles to work herself into position and escape the American fire. The General Pickering, with her cargo of sugar, sat so low in the water the larger ship couldn’t rake her. A witness said the General Pickering looked like a longboat next to a ship. Another said Haraden stood exposed as shot flew around him – as if he were amid a shower of snowflakes.

Cheers rose from the flotilla of boats and the spectators on shore as the General Pickering raked the Achilles. Finally the Achilles captain was able to bring the ship about and open fire on the General Pickering.

After three hours, the General Pickering ran short of ammunition. Haraden ordered his men to load the cannons with crowbars. They flew like iron arrows, tore through the Achilles’ rigging, smashed the decks and sent the gun crews from their stations. The flight of crowbars persuaded the Achilles’ captain to retreat, and the General Pickering recaptured the Golden Eagle.

By then the flotilla of small boats had pressed in closer to the General Pickering. At the close of battle they escorted the victor into the harbor. The crowd swarmed to his landing place, caught up Captain Haraden and carried him through the streets on their shoulders.

Hot Chocolate Pot

The grateful owners of the General Pickering then gave Haraden an engraved silver hot-chocolate pot and two silver canns, now at the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem.

Haraden continued capturing British merchant ships. Almost exactly two years after the battle with the Achilles, Haraden aboard the General Pickering encountered the Caesar. The two ships fought for two hours, but neither gained a decisive advantage. Said Haraden,

…both parties separated, sufficiently amused.

Finally his luck ran out, but only briefly. When he sailed into the Dutch Caribbean port of Sint Eustatius, British Admiral George Brydges Rodney’s fleet captured the General Pickering and her prizes. Haraden managed to escape, and he returned to privateering in command of the Julius Caesar.

Jonathan Haraden died in Salem, on land, on Nov. 23, 1803.

This story was updated in 2023.

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Peleg Wadsworth Escapes the British in Castine, Maine

The escape of Peleg Wadsworth from Fort George in Castine, Maine, was not something Col. John Campbell was anxious to report to his commander.

On June 22, 1781, Campbell wrote a letter to Sir Henry Clinton, starting off with his plans to leave for Halifax, the fortification of Fort George and details about the disposition of British troops at the fort.

Silhouette of Peleg Wadsworth

At the end of the letter Campbell finally broke the bad news.

I am sorry to inform your Excellency that on the 19th instant, the Rebel Brigadier General Wadsworth who was confined here in a Barrack Room, With one Burton once a Major of Militia, made their escape, by cutting a Hole in the ceiling of the Room, altho two Sentrys were constantly Posted at the Door of the Room and a Window but in the Door for the Sentrys to look through to observe their Motions.

Peleg Wadsworth

Peleg Wadsworth, the grandfather of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, served as a brigadier general in the patriot forces. As such, he had a discouraging task. He commanded troops raised for the defense of the Province of Maine, then part of Massachusetts. He didn’t have nearly enough men, and the colonists along the sparsely settled frontier switched loyalties between the British and the Americans.

The British had almost completed an earthworks fort in Castine that could accommodate 350 soldiers. They wanted to establish a colony in Downeast Maine they called New Ireland

The British at Fort George had already turned back an attack in 1779, known as the Penobscot Expedition. It resulted in the destruction of 43 American ships – the worst U.S. naval disaster until Pearl Harbor.

Nighttime Raid

In early 1781, the 32-year-old Wadsworth headquartered in a small frame house in Thomaston, Maine. With him he had three bodyguards, his wife, his two children and a friend of the family, a Miss Fenno.

On the night of Feb. 17, one sentry stood guard over the sleeping family and four other soldiers were stationed in the kitchen. Then suddenly a British raiding party of 25 men stormed into the house.

They quickly overpowered the sentry and the guards. Wadsworth’s wife, Elizabeth ran to their two children, who the British did not harm. Wadsworth barricaded his bedroom door and shot at the British from his window with pistols, blunderbuss and musket.

Only when a raider shot him in the arm did he surrender.

Henry Clinton

Peleg Wadsworth was taken to Fort George, where he was treated as an officer and a gentleman. Though he was confined to a room, he ate in the officers’ mess and was allowed books and writing paper. His wound was tended to and his wife was allowed to visit.

Eventually, Wadsworth got a roommate: Maj. Benjamin Burton of Cushing, Maine, captured by a privateer off Monhegan Island. Burton and Wadsworth began to fear their captors would ship them to England, where they’d probably be tried for treason and hanged. They decided to escape.

They bought a gimlet from a servant, and Burton began to drill tiny holes in a circle in the ceiling. Wadsworth acted as lookout, as the door to their barracks room grate through which their sentries could watch them.

They made a paste of breadcrumbs to fill the holes and hide their handiwork. They feared detection when butter in the bread discolored the wood.

After three weeks of drilling holes they readied for their escape.

‘No More To Do With The Military’

On a stormy night in June, the two prisoners punched through the ceiling and crawled out along the joists. They lowered themselves over the earthworks using blankets and met on the banks of the Penobscot River. Then they found a canoe and paddled across the river, evading a search party. For three days they hid in the woods, finally reaching safety in Warren, Maine.

Wadsworth went home to Plymouth, Mass., and, as he wrote in a letter, “I had no more to do with the Military. “

In 1784, he returned to Maine and bought property in what is now Portland. He built the first brick house in the city, now known as the Wadsworth-Longfellow House. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Maine Historical Society runs it as a museum.

The National Register of Historic Places now lists Fort George.

With thanks to Maine Memory and Hidden History of Midcoast Maine by Patricia M. Higgins. This story last updated in 2022.

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