Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a passionate abolitionist who regarded slavery as a moral outrage in a nation founded on freedom. Years before he composed “Paul Revere’s Ride,” Longfellow crusaded against slavery—his 1842 collection Poems on Slavery featured poems centered on the evils of slavery and on the dignity of the African and Caribbean natives, most notably the poignant “The Slave Singing at Midnight.” Given the polarizing nature of the slavery question, however, the collection received mixed reviews and was among the poorest selling volumes of Longfellow’s career.

Within that context, if Longfellow plays loose with the historical facts about Paul Revere, his drama of Paul Revere’s ride reminded his imperiled nation that, at its darkest moments, America needed heroes driven by ideals. Although the poem never mentions slavery or the South, the exemplum of Longfellow’s Paul Revere serves in its way as a contemporary wake-up call, Longfellow alerting his nation to prepare for the fast-approaching crusade to at last end slavery.

Among the most widely published and most respected poets of the first generation of Americans not born British subjects, Longfellow wrote copiously and passionately about the need for the new nation to find its