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The noble fight for freedom against oppression, all men being created equal, give us your tired, your hungry, your weak, land of opportunity, white picket fence, ect, ect.
The American History I was taught in public school turned out to be as accurate as Rome being founded by Romulus and Remus after being raised by their wolf-mother. The reality is we've got enough skeletons in our national closet to make even Caligula squirm.
I don't think he hangs around on the history board.
You might be surprised.
I've heard somewhere that when three men ( persons?) are gathering in the name of Jesus, he is kinda there. In spirit. ( Even on the history boards.)
That Paul Revere earned his high spot among the great heroes of the American Revolution.
When Paul Revere died in 1818, the Boston newspaper published an admiring obituary which described the high points of Revere's life. Skilled silversmith, pioneer in metal manufacturing, patriotic supporter of the revolution, loving family man.
Nowhere in the obituary do you find a single word about his "Midnight Ride."
There is a reason for this. No one, including Revere, thought that he had done anything especially distinguished that night. Revere turned in honorable service. He had volunteered to be part of the Minutemen's early warning sytem, and when the British moved out to march on Concord, Revere was one of four riders assigned to take the word to Lexington so that John Hancock and John Adams could escape before the troops arrived. This he did, discovering that he was the second messenger to arrive with this alert. Leaving Lexington, Revere sought to spread the word further, but was apprehended and held for hours by a British patrol who relieved him of his horse and eventually released him to walk back to Lexington. Revere arrived just in time to witness the brief fight that morning.
And that was it. Revere was but a small part of a large communications network and was but one of a couple of dozen men involved in alerting the countryside that night.
Revere was well respected citizen of New England, but he did not emerge from the war as any sort of lionized hero.
All of that came about as a consequence of the poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow which was penned in 1861. Longfellow's goal was to write a poem which warned of the coming Civil War and called for a patriotic response on the part of Northerners. He settled on the the image of the Minutemen being alerted to the danger from the British troops, and selected Revere to be represenative of them all..mostly because Revere was a name New Englanders would recognize. Before the poem, you would have been hard pressed to find anyone outside of New England who could even identify Revere.
Even though you may go online and easily find what to all appearances is a word for word copy of Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty, or give me death speech".....be warned.
The source for this supposed preservation of the speech was actually the recollections and attempted reconstruction of the speech by a member of the audience, some 32 years after it had been delivered.
In 1816, a writer named William Wirt set out to scribe "Life and Character of Patrick Henry" and contacted Judge St. George Tucker who had attended the meeting when Henry had spoken. Urged on by Wirt, Tucker reluctantly pieced together a reconstruction from memory alone, he had no notes of any sort.
So, whatever Henry actually said that day, we do not know, we have only this ex post facto recreation. How well could you reproduce a speech you heard once 32 years earlier? Most of us who are old enough, remember Ronald Reagan's address following ther loss of the Challenger shuttle in 1986. That was 25 years ago....what would your reconstruction look like?
Henry had been famous for the emotional power of his speeches and several observers, including Thomas Jefferson, remarked on how whenever Henry spoke, you could always recall the feelings he inspired while listening, but it was nearly impossible to remember a single specific thing that he said.
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