Massachusetts Volunteer Major or Boston Brahmin Legacy

Massachusetts Volunteer Major, Paul Joseph Revere, was a grandson of Paul Revere, of Revolutionary War fame and also carried on a Boston Brahmin Legacy of serving in the United States military. A burly outdoorsman and champion of the poor, Revere was married, the father of two, and a successful businessman, in 1861, when he volunteered to serve in the Civil War. Paul Joseph Revere, a staunch abolitionist, shared with his mother before he enlisted,

“I have weighed it all and there is something higher still. The institutions of the country, indeed free institutions throughout the world, hang on this moment…. I should be ashamed of myself if I were to sit down in happy indulgence, and leave such a great matter as this to take its course…. I will never go without your consent; but I shall be humbled if I stay at home.”

Paul Joseph Revere, was born on September 10, 1832, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Joseph and Mary Revere. He was educated in the schools in Boston, with occasional periods of country life at school, making friends in every place, and forming warm attachments for life with many of his chums. A close friend remembers Revere,

“When a boy, in that truest of all republics, the playground, his companions instinctively recognized in him a leader. There that keen sense of justice which seemed to be part and parcel of him was so conspicuous, that he was the well-known umpire in the boyish disputes of his companions, and we fondly recall the often-used expression, I’ll leave it to Paul.”

In 1849, Revere enrolled at Harvard University and graduated with the class of 1852. After graduation, he started a mercantile career, however, in 1854, on his father’s urging he traveled to the Great Lakes region to investigate copper mining opportunities in the area of Lake Superior. The following four years he undertook the care of an extensive wharf in Boston and there exerted himself for the benefit of laborers and exposed women and children.

In 1859, he married Lucretia Watson Lunt, daughter of Reverend W. P. Lunt, D. D. and made their home near his ill and aged father. When the Civil War began, though occupying a prestigious place in the community and surrounded by everything calculated to make life pleasant, he at once volunteered his services and accepted a commission as major in the 20th Massachusetts regiment of volunteers.

Not long after, he and his older brother, Edward, a surgeon, were both wounded and captured, at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff and imprisoned, at Libby Prison, an old warehouse in Richmond, Virginia. Observation and reflection, while a prisoner, had confirmed his original conviction, that the war of the Rebellion was a war for the supremacy or extermination of human slavery. He clearly saw that the institution of slavery was the salient point of the Rebellion, and that the success of the Union arms, even if it demanded “the last man and the last dollar,” was an imperative duty.

After a lengthy and excruciating incarceration, Revere and his brother were finally exchanged. He next participated in the campaign on the James river and at Antietam was on General Sumner’s staff, where his brother was killed ministering the wounded, Revere, was complimented for his gallantry and promoted to the rank of colonel and command of the 20th Massachusetts. Having received a severe wound, Revere had a long period of pain and rehabilitation.

On July 2, 1863 as Revere was leading his troops at Gettysburg he was wounded in the chest and died on July 4, 1863, only 30 years old. He was laid to rest at the Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, Massachusetts.  After his death, Revere was posthumously promoted to Brigadier General, from July 2, 1863, for “gallant and meritorious services in the battle of Gettysburg, Pa., where mortally wounded.” He was survived by his wife Lucretia and daughter Pauline.

In 1884, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior, another comrade in the 20th Massachusetts, who was not present at Gettysburg, gave a Memorial Day speech titled “In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched by Fire” in which he recalled Revere,

“I see one – grandson of a hard rider of the Revolution and bearer of his historic name – who was with us at Fair Oaks, and afterwards for five days and nights in front of the enemy the only sleep that he would take was what he could snatch sitting erect in his uniform and resting his back against a hut. He fell at Gettysburg.”

Massachusetts Volunteer Major, Paul Joseph Revere, in the true Legacy of the Boston Bramin, was an older, established family and business man. A champion for the underdog and down trodden. However, Revere left the comfort of hearth, home and family in order to support and serve his country and the ideals of the constitution, he held so dear.

Bummer