John Ransom:
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The key to understanding what Palin is talking about is to know that Paul Revere’s celebrated “ride” was not just a one-off event. That’s why Palin said “and it wasn’t just one ride.”
Months prior to the most famous “ride,” Revere took part in the powder alarms, acting as a courier to warn communities that the British would try to seize gunpowder stored in the country in order to deny it to potential rebels, to deny them arms.
More importantly, Revere also acted as one of the main organizers of the warning systems that communities in New England used as a type of low-tech “emergency broadcast warning system.” These systems were perfected during the powder alarms.
The systems included warning bells and alarm guns, as Palin implied when she said “by ringing those bells… to send those warning shots and bells.”
Both bells and guns could be heard over long distances between New England towns.
In response to this alarm system the British tried to quarantine Boston in order to prevent the activation of the alarms.
That is why the patriots hung lanterns in the Old North Church. The lanterns would activate a system, created by Revere, of couriers, alarm bells and alarm guns that would warn that the “British were coming.”
It’s clear by her remarks that Palin understood all this. Far from damning her, I’m impressed by her grasp of the details of Paul Revere, a rather neglected but important figure in American history.
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“According to the Washington Post,” writes NYMag, “Palin appears to be referring to a part of the story in which Revere is detained by the British and warns them, while at gunpoint, that 500 American militiamen await in Concord. That segment isn't in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, the layman's version of events, but it is in fact described elsewhere in historical accounts.”
Not to be bothered picking up a real, historical account of Revere’s ride to check Palin’s accuracy, apparently the MSM only consulted the Longfellow poem. Since it wasn’t in the poem, it probably didn’t happen, they concluded.
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Revere was a silver smith besides being a patriot and a courier. Palin has highlighted a little known part of his work that many in the media refuse to acknowledge even now.
Image via Wikipedia
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