Paul Revere's Ride (73 page)

William Bell Clark,
NDAR,
Vol. I,
American Theatre: Dec. 1, 1774-Sept. 2, 1775 …
(Washington, D.C., 1964), a very full collection of documents. Marjorie Hubbell Gibson,
H. M. S. Somerset, 1746-1778: The Life and Times of an Eighteenth Century British Man-o-War and Her Impact on North America
(Cotuit, Mass., 1992).

The New England Militia

General studies include: Fred Anderson,
A People’s Army, Massachusetts Soldiers and Society in the Seven Years’ War
(Chapel Hill, 1984), an academic monograph, strong on the social history of its subject. John R. Galvin,
The Minute Men: A Compact History of the Defenders of the American Colonies, 1645-1775
(New York, 1967), an important and useful work by an experienced infantry officer and onetime commanding general of NATO. Two of the most valuable works are unpublished dissertations: Archibald Hanna, Jr., “New England Military Institutions, 1693-1750,” unpub. diss., Yale, 1951; John Murrin, “Anglicizing an American Colony: The Transformation of Provincial Massachusetts,” unpub. diss., Yale, 1966. Norman Castle
et al.
(eds.),
The Minute Men, 1775—1975
(Southborough, Mass., 1977), is a collection of fifty essays on minutemen in individual towns, with much material not available elsewhere.

Weapons and Equipment

In this highly specialized field, some of the leading works include: Anthony D. Darling,
Red Coat and Brown Bess
(Ottawa, 1970); Lindsay Merrill,
The New England Gun
(New Haven, 1975); Howard Blackmore,
British Military Firearms, 1650-1850
(New York, 1968); Warren Moore,
Weapons of the American Revolution … and Accoutrements
(New York, 1967); George C. Neumann,
History of the Weapons of the American Revolution
(New York, 1967); George C. Neumann and Frank J. Kravic,
Collectors’ Illustrated Encyclopaedia of the American Revolution
(Harrisburg, 1975).

Charles ffoulkes and E. C. Hopkinson,
Sword, Lance and Bayonet
(London, 1938); George C. Neumann,
Swords and Blades of the American Revolution
(Harrisburg, 1973); R.J. Wilkinson-Latham,
British Military Bayonets, from 1700 to 1845
(New York, 1969); Graham T. Priest,
The Brown Bess Bayonet, 1720—1860
(Wiltshire, 1968); R. D. C. Evans and F. J. Stephens,
The Bayonet: An Evolution and History
(London, 1985); Robert M. Reilly,
American Socket Bayonets and Scabbards
(Lincoln, R. I., 1990), with a bibliography of the journal literature.

Madison Grant,
Powder Horns and Their Architecture
(York, Pa., 1987); Nathan L. Swayze,
Engraved Powder Horns of the French and Indian War and Revolutionary War Era
(Yazoo City, Miss., 1978); William H. Guthman,
Drums A’beating, Trumpets Sounding; Artistically Carved Powder Horns in the Provincial Manner, 1746-1781
(Hartford, Conn., 1993), with an excellent bibliography of the large journal literature.

Frank E. Schermerhorn,
American and French Flags of the Revolution, 1775—1783
(Philadelphia, 1948); anonymous, “The Bedford Flag,”
MHSP
(1885): 166, 199;
NEHGR
25 (1871): 138-39.

The Aftermath

Richard D. Brown,
“Knowledge is Power”: The Diffusion of Information in Early America, 1700—1865
(New York, 1989); Philip Davidson,
Propaganda and the American Revolution, 1763-1783
(Chapel Hill, 1941); Fred J. Hinkhouse,
The Preliminaries of the American Revolution as Seen in the English Press, 1763—1775
(New York, 1926; rpt. 1969); Frank L. Mott, “The Newspaper Coverage of Lexington and Concord,”
NEQ
17 (1944): 489—505; Ian M. G. Quimby, “The Doolittle Engravings of the Battle of Lexington and Concord,”
Winterthur Portfolio Four
(Charlottesville, 1968), 83—108; Robert S. Rantoul, “The Cruise of the ‘Quero’: How We Carried the News to the King,”
EIHC
36 (1900): 5—13; J.H. Scheide, “The Lexington Alarm,”
AAS Proceedings
50 (1940): 49—79; Arthur M. Schlesinger,
Prelude to Independence: The Newspaper War on Britain, 1764—1776
(New York, 1958).

The Myth of the Midnight Ride

General studies include: Sidney George Fisher, “The Legendary and Mythmaking Process in Histories of the American Revolution,”
APS Proceedings
51 (1912): 53—76; Dixon Wecter,
The Hero in America: A Chronicle of Hero Worship
(New York, 1941), chap. 5, “The Embattled Farmers”; Wesley Frank Craven,
The Legend of the Founding Fathers
(New York, 1956); Jayne Triber,
The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere: From History to Folklore
(Boston, n.d.); and an unpublished research report for the Paul Revere Memorial Association; Michael Kammen,
The Mystic Chords of Memory
(New York, 1991), a major work; Susan Wilson, “North Bridge: Span of History,”
Boston Globe,
April 15, 1993, an excellent and informative essay; Arthur Bestor, “Concord Summons the Poets,”
NEQ
6 (1934) 602-13; Josephine L. Swayne (ed.),
The Story of Concord, Told by Concord Writers
(Boston, 1905); George L. Varney,
The Story of Patriots’ Day …
(Boston, 1895).

And Methods of Transcription

Note: In direct quotations, spelling and punctuation have been modernized where necessary to make the meaning clear to a modern reader. The method of transcription in these cases, as in
Albion’s Seed
(New York, 1989), 906, follows Samuel Eliot Morison’s “modern”
(not
modernized) text. The rule is to “spell out all contractions and abbreviations in the manuscript, to adopt modern usage as to capitalization, punctuation and spelling,” but scrupulously to respect … language.” The method is explained at greater length in
Harvard Guide to American History
(Cambridge, Mass., 1954), 94-99.

Introduction