Posted on 04/14/2007 4:23:19 PM PDT by Pharmboy
BOSTON -- Paul Revere gets all the glory for his midnight ride. After all, it was a stirring tale of patriotism told by a great storyteller.
But one young messenger who called the colonists to arms during a remarkable five-day dash across five states is a mere footnote -- a man mentioned in historical documents that didn't even get his first name right. They called him Trail. His name was Israel Bissell, and he is one of the Revolutionary War's most unheralded heroes.
Bissell, a 23-year-old postal rider when the war broke out on April 19, 1775, rode day and night with little sleep during an exhausting 345-mile journey from Boston's western edge to Philadelphia. On the first leg, he rode one horse so hard that the animal collapsed and died beneath him as he arrived in Worcester, roughly two hours after leaving Watertown.
"To arms, to arms. The war has begun," Bissell shouted as he passed through each little town.
Dozens of other messengers also raced on horseback to spread the word, making it likely that Revere was a composite of these brave men, said J.L. Bell, a Massachusetts writer who specializes in Revolutionary War-era Boston.
In response to their cries, church bells were rung and muskets were fired: British redcoats were attacking. The American Revolution had begun.
But there were no bells pealing for Israel Bissell, whose ride was obscured in history's annals by Revere's 20-mile gallop, which was so greatly amplified by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. His 11-verse poem, first published in 1860 as "Paul Revere's Ride," became familiar to generations of American schoolchildren because it was a more dramatic story.
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"... So through the night rode Paul Revere
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!"
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"Very few people know about poor Israel because Longfellow wasn't writing a poem about him," said Kay Westcott, a librarian at the Watertown Free Public Library.
Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television and popular culture, said the poem marginalized Bissell's accomplishment and enhanced Revere's for reasons that have little to do with fact.
"Paul Revere rhymes with a lot more than Israel Bissell," he said. "And it is one of those poems that gets in your head and won't let go. It has a meter like the gallop of a horse. It's like taking the ride yourself."
History is built on facts, but Thompson noted that facts can be overwhelmed by the fame spawned by culture, art and fiction.
Christopher Columbus has been credited with discovering the New World despite ample evidence that vikings reached North America centuries earlier. And men such as Nikola Tesla and Edwin Armstrong pioneered key developments in radio even though Guglielmo Marconi is credited with inventing it.
"History is not filled with people who got overlooked, but that's because they got overlooked," Thompson said.
When he set out on his ride, Bissell carried with him a handwritten letter dated April 19, 1775, and signed by Massachusetts militia Gen. Joseph Palmer.
It read: "To all friends of American liberty, be it known that this morning before the break of day, a brigade consisting of about 1,000 or 1,200 men ... marched to Lexington, where they found a company of our colony militia in arms, upon whom they fired, without any provocation, and killed 6 men and wounded 4 others. By an express from Boston, we find that another brigade are now upon their march from Boston, supposed to be about 1,000."
The letter asked those Bissell encountered "to furnish him with fresh horses, as may be needed."
At each stop along the way, town leaders would keep the document Bissell delivered and hastily transcribe a new version that Bissell would carry to the next city or town. Although Palmer asked Bissell to deliver the news throughout Connecticut, the young messenger pressed ahead.
He arrived on Wall Street in New York City around 4 p.m. on April 23.
Roughly 24 hours later, he reached Philadelphia, where the pealing of what eventually became known as the Liberty Bell drew a crowd of 8,000 who would learn that war had begun. By then, the portion of the document bearing Bissell's name inaccurately listed his first name as Trail.
That document resides today in Philadelphia, in the American manuscripts section of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Bissell rested then made his way back to his home in East Windsor, Conn. He eventually joined the army and served alongside his brother, Justis. After the war, Bissell moved to Middlefield in western Massachusetts, where he bought property and became a sheep farmer. He married Lucy Hancock, and the couple had four children.
He lived his final years in the nearby hamlet of Hinsdale, where his grave is marked by a plain marble stone with the simple inscription, "IN MEMORY of Mr. ISRAEL BISSELL, who died October 24th 1823, Aged Sev'nty One Years."
Bissell's plot remained unadorned until 1967 when the Daughters of the American Revolution placed near his headstone a bronze plaque commemorating his participation in the nation's tumultuous birth.
no mention of Dawes here, or did I skip it?
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Robert Wuhl did this in his presentation on “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Paul Revere was a Freemason so it makes a better story in the context of history and for bashing American secret societies that created the new world.
That was a brilliant presentation.
Wuhl’s lecture/HBO special was good stuff ... I hope there’s another in the future.
Listen my friend and you shall hear,of the midnight ride of Israel Bissell. Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah !!!
Listen my children, and blow a whistle
For the 4 day ride of Israel Bissell...
naw, doesn’t rhyme....
Paul Revere stands out because he belonged to the inner circle of patriots in the Boston area, which was on the leading edge of the move towards independence in general.
Your Obdt. Svt.
P______y
Wow, I didn't know this. There is a BISSEL FERY from Windsor to South Windsor...back then, there was NO South Windsor, it was just East Windsor...
So, that's where it came from I guess!
And Revere was a major factor in the Sons of Liberty. I believe he was one of the people that rode between Boston and New York in the 1760s.
He was a protege of Joseph Warren and a kind of step&fetchit for Sam Adams, as well!
All righty, then...
Didn't get a poem? Didn't even get a dinner!
I wonder if he wore a diaper?
Ha,ha pretty good. If they had a poem for a midnight ride these days in Boston it would go something like this, “Listen my friends and ye shall hear of the midnight ride of Jake the queer” !!!
Another little known figure from the Revolutionary War, Ebenezer F. Kerry, (Senator John Kerry's great, great, great grandfather, rode through each town in New England shouting, "lay down your arms, lay down your arms, the war has begun".
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