Paul Revere's Ride (72 page)

On the Charlestown Alarm: Robert P. Richmond,
Powder Alarm, 1774
(Princeton, 1971), is the fullest account, with a bibliography.

On the Portsmouth Alarm: Charles L. Parsons, “The Capture of Fort William and Mary, December 14 and 15, 1774,”
New Hampshire Historical Society Proceedings
4 (1899— 1905): 18—47; Ballard Smith, “Gunpowder for Bunker Hill,”
Harper’s Monthly Magazine
73 (1886): 236-43; Elwin L. Page, “The King’s Powder, 1774,”
NEQ
18 (1945): 83-92.

On the Marblehead and Salem Alarm: William Gavett, Samuel Gray, Samuel Holman, Abijah Northey, Joseph Story,
EIP
1 (1859): 120-35; John Pedrick, “Narrative,”
EIHC
17 (1880): 190-92; Susan Smith, “Memoir,” (Boston)
Columbian Centinel,
Sept. 19, 1794; anonymous account,
EIHC
38 (1901): 321-52;
Essex Gazette,
Feb. 28, Mar. 7, 1775; Charles M. Endicott, “Leslie’s Retreat,”
EIP
1 (1859): 89-120; James Duncan Phillips, “Why Colonel
Leslie Came to Salem,”
EIHC
90 (1953): 313;
Essex Journal
Mar. 1, 1775;
Salem Gazette,
Feb. 28, Mar. 3, 1775.

The Midnight Ride, and Signals from Old North Church

Remarkably little has been published in a scholarly way on the midnight ride. The few recent works are written mainly as popular history: e.g., Bernard A. Weisberger, “Paul Revere, the Man, the Myth, and the Midnight Ride,”
American Heritage
28 (1977): 24—37; Richard W. O’Donnell, “On the Eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five … “Longfellow didn’t know the half of it,’”
Smithsonian
4 (1973): 72-77; and Thomas J. Fleming, “Paul Revere— He Went Thataway,”
Yankee
39 (1975): 94, 98-103, 112-14, 116. Gwen Ellen Brown, “A Study of Paul Revere’s Ride,” is an unpublished essay, at the Paul Revere House.

On the signal lanterns, there are: Richard Frothingham,
The Alarm on the Night of April 18,
(Boston, 1876); John Lee Watson, “Revere’s Signal,”
MHSP
15 (1876): 163-77;
idem, Paul Revere’s Signal
(Boston, 1876), (Cambridge, 1877) also
MHSP1
15, 163; William W. Wheildon,
History of Paul Revere’s Signal Lanterns
(Boston, 1878); and Charles K. Bolton,
Christ Church, A Guide
(Boston, 1941).

The Battles of Lexington and Concord

Richard Frothingham, Jr.,
History of the Siege of Boston, and of the Battles of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill
(Boston, 1851), publishes primary materials no longer available elsewhere.

Works published for the centennial include: Frederic Hudson, “The Concord Fight,”
Harper’s Monthly Magazine
50 (1875), a monograph on the battle with much useful material; and the Rev. Artemas B. Muzzey, “The Battle of Lexington, with Personal Recollections of Men Engaged in It” (Boston, 1877), reprints material that appeared in
NEHGR,
31 (1877): 377; and Grindall Reynolds,
Concord Fight, April 19, 1775
(Boston, 1875).

Frank Warren Coburn,
The Battle of April 19th, 1775
(Lexington, 1912; rev. ed., 1922), is specially helpful on the march out, and on the fighting in Menotomy and Cambridge. The second edition publishes many, but not all muster rolls; also Frank Warren Coburn,
Truth and Fiction About the Battle on Lexington Common
(Lexington, 1918).

Harold Murdock,
The Nineteenth of April, 17
75 (Boston, 1923), is a collection of essays by an American Anglophile; an intelligent and suggestive work, but with a strong bias.

Ellen Chase,
The Beginnings of the American Revolution.
3 vols. (New York: Baker & Taylor, 1910), is a remarkable work which gleaned much valuable material from antiquarian sources; very carefully done, with excellent citations and many good leads.

Allen French published many important monographs, including
The Day of Concord and Lexington: The Nineteenth of April,
1775 (Boston, 1925);
General Gage’s Informers: New Material Upon Lexington and Concord. Benjamin Thompson as Loyalist & the Treachery of Benjamin Church, Jr.
(Ann Arbor, 1932); and
The First Year of the American Revolution
(Boston, 1934).

Douglas P. Sabin, “April 19, 1775: A Historiographical Study” (Concord, 1987), is a major study, historical as well as historiographical, of the battles by the historian at Minute-man National Historical Park. For many aspects of its subject, this is the most full and careful investigation. It is an indispensable work for serious students of the battles and deserves to be published by the National Park Service.

Many works center on the role of militia from individual towns. Ezra Ripley,
History of the Fight at Concord, on the 19th of April 1775
(Concord, 1827; 2nd ed., 1832), stresses the role of Concord men; William W. Wheildon,
New Chapter in the History of the Concord Fight
(Boston, 1885), centers on the Groton minutemen. Abram English Brown,
Beneath Old Roof Trees
(Boston, 1896);
idem, Beside Old Hearthstones
(Boston, 1897), two volumes of stories
and legends by a historian of Bedford. Frederick Brooks Noyes,
The Tell-tale Tomb
(n.p., n.d.), stresses “Acton aspects of the Concord fight.”

Specialized studies include John R. Alden, “Why the March to Concord,”
AHR
49 (1943-44): 446-54, on Gage’s secret orders of Jan. 27, 1775; George Lincoln Goodale,
British and Colonial Army Surgeons on the 19th of April,
1775 (Cambridge, 1899).

W. E. Griswold,
The Night the Revolution Began
(Brattleboro, Vt., 1972), and Frank Wilson Cheney Hersey,
Heroes of Battle Road
(Boston, 1930).

Military and Naval Histories: The British Army

Richard Cannon,
Historical Records of the British Army
(London, 1850—70). Edward E. Curtis,
The Organization of the British Army in the American Revolution
(New Haven, 1926). Sir John Fortescue,
History of the British Army.
13 vols, in 20 (London, 1899-1930), a monument of military historiography, with an extreme Tory bias, not at its best on the American Revolution, but the maps are excellent. Sylvia Frey,
The British Soldier in America
(Austin, 1981). J. F. C. Fuller,
British Light Infantry in the Eighteenth Century
(London, n.d.). Charles Hamilton (ed.),
Braddock’s Defeat
(Norman, Okla., 1959). Reginald Hargreaves,
The Bloody-backs; The British Serviceman in North America and the Caribbean, 1655—1783
(New York, 1968), anecdotal. J. A. Houlding,
Fit for Service: The Training of the British Army, 1715—1795
(Oxford, 1981). Robin May,
The British Army in North America, 1775—1783
(London, 1974), is helpful on uniforms and equipment. Stanley Pargellis, “Braddock’s Defeat,”
AHR
41 (1936): 253—69. John Shy,
Toward Lexington: The Role of the British Army in the Coming of the American Revolution
(Princeton, 1965).

British Unit Histories

4th Foot (King’s Own): L. I. Cowper,
The King’s Own: The Story of a Royal Regiment
(Oxford, 1939), one of the best of the British regimental histories.

5th Foot (Northumberland Fusiliers): Lt.-Col. R. M. Pratt,
The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers
(Alnick, 1981); H. M. Walker,
A History of the Northumberland Fusiliers, 1674—1919
(London, 1919); Walter Wood,
The Northumberland Fusiliers
(London, n.d.).

10th Foot: Albert Lee,
History of the Tenth Foot (The Lincolnshire Regiment)
(London, 1911); Col. Vincent J.-R. Kehoe,
A Military Guide: The Tenth Regiment of Foot of 1775,
2d edition enlarged, 4 vols. (Somis, Calif., 1993).

18th Foot: G. E. Boyle, “The 18th Regiment of Foot in North America,”
Journal of the Society of Army Historical Research
2 (1923): 65.

23rd Foot; or Royal Welch Fusiliers: A. D. L. Cary and Stouppe McCance (eds.),
Regimental Records of the Royal Welch Fusiliers (Late the 23rd Foot),
Vol. I, 1689-1815 (London, 1921); also
The Regimental Museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, 23rd Foot
(n.p., n.d.).

43rd Foot: Sir Richard G. A. Levinge,
Historical Records of the Forty-Third Regiment, Monmouthshire Light Infantry
(London, 1868).

47th Foot: H.G. Purdon,
An Historical Sketch of the 47th (Lancashire) Regiment and the Campaigns Through Which They Passed
(London, 1907); Col. H. C. Wylie,
The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment.
2 vols. (London, 1933).

59th Foot: Anonymous, “Notes for a History of the 59th Foot,”
ca.
1920, Regimental Headquarters, Queen’s Lancashire Regiment, Fulwood Barracks, Preston, Lancashire; photocopies in the library of the Minuteman National Historical Park, Concord.

64th Foot: H. G. Purdon,
Memoirs of the Services of the 64th Regiment (Second Staffordshire) 1758 to 1881
(London, n.d.).

Royal Regiment of Artillery: Francis Duncan,
History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery.
2 vols. (London, 1872). Royal Marines: Col. C. Field,
Britain’s Sea Soldiers.
2 vols. (Liverpool, 1924); Capt. Alexander Gillespie,
Historical Review of the Royal Marine Corps
(Birmingham,
1803); J. L. Moulton,
Royal Marines
(London, 1972); Lt. P. H. Nicolas,
Historical Records of the Royal Marine Forces.
2 vols. (London, 1845).

Naval and Maritime History