'Paul Revere's Ride': what war was Longfellow really writing about in his classic poem?

• Author: Lepore, Jill
• Position: LITERATURE - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Paul Revere's Ride" was published on the same day--Dec. 20, 1860--that South Carolina seceded from the Union and set in motion the chain of events that launched the Civil War.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's best-known poem begins: Listen, my children, and you shall hear/Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere. Before Longfellow wrote those lines, however, Revere wasn't known for his ride, and Longfellow got almost every detail of what happened in 1775 wrong.

But Longfellow didn't care: "Paul Revere's Ride" is less a poem about the Revolutionary War than about the impending Civil War and the conflict over slavery that was its main cause.

Now, on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, the real meaning of Longfellow's poem has been almost entirely forgotten.

Longfellow, though a very private person, was a passionate abolitionist. His best friend was Charles Sumner, the U.S. Senator from Massachusetts who was known for stirring speeches against slavery.

In 1857, Longfellow wrote to Sumner, calling the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision (which said that slaves were not protected by the Constitution) heartbreaking, and wishing he could find a way to write about it: "I long to say some vibrant word, that should have vitality in it, and force. Be sure if it comes to me I will not be slow in uttering it."

A 'New Revolution'?

On Dec. 2, 1859, the day abolitionist John Brown was hanged for his failed attempt to start a slave revolt with a raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, Longfellow wrote in his diary, "This will be a great day in our history, the date of a new Revolution quite as much needed as the old one."

Pondering that new...