Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/251

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REVERE
REXFORD

and William Dawes he pushed on for the purpose of rousing the people of Concord and securing the military stores there. They awakened the minute- men on the route, but at Lincoln they were stopped by a party of British officers, excepting Prescott, who escaped capture by leaping a wall, and rode on to Concord, where he alarmed the inhabitants, while Revere and Dawes were taken by their cap- tors back to Lexington, and there released. Henry W. Longfellow has made the midnight ride of Paul Revere the subject of a narrative poem. Re- vere was the messenger that was usually employed on difficult business by the committee of safety, of which Joseph Warren was president. He repaired the cannon in Port Independence, which the Brit- ish, on leaving Boston, had sought to render use- less by breaking the trunnions, but which he made serviceable by devising a new kind of carriage. After the evacuation a regiment of artillery was raised in Boston, of which he was made major, and afterward lieutenant-colonel. He took part in the unsuccessful Penobscot expedition of 1779. After the war he resumed the business of a gold- and silver-smith, and subsequently erected a foundry for casting church-bells and bronze cannon. When copper bolts and spikes began to be used, instead of iron, for fastening the timbers of vessels. In- ex- perimented on the manufacture of these articles, and when he was able to make them to his satisfac- tion he built in 1801 large works at Canton, Mass., for rolling copper, which are still carried on by the Revere copper company. He was the first in this country to smelt copper ore and to refine and roll copper into bolts and sheets. As grand-master of the masonic fraternity he laid the corner-stone of the Boston state-house in 1795. In that year he aided in the establishment of the Massachusetts charitable mechanic association, of which he was the first president. He was a munificent contribu- tor to enterprises of benevolence, and at the time of his death was connected with numerous chari- ties. His grandson, Joseph Warren, soldier, b. in Boston, Mass.. 17 May, 1S12: d. in Iloboken, N. J., 20 April, 1880. He was made a midshipman in the IT. S. navy. 1 April, 1828, became a passed midshipman on 4 June, 1834, and lieutenant on 25 Feb., 1841, took part in the Mexican war, and re- signed from the navy on 20 Sept., 1850. He then entered the Mexican service. For saving the lives of several Spaniards he was knighted by Queen Isa- bella of Spain. He was made colonel of the 7th regiment of New Jersey volunteers on 31 Aug., 1861, and promoted brigadier-general of U. S. volunteers on 25 Oct.. 1862. He led a brigade at Fredericksburg, was then transferred to the command of the Excelsior brigade in the 2d division, fought with it at Chancellorsville, and after the engagement fell under the censure of his superior officer. In May, 1863, he was tried by court-martial, and dismissed from the military service of the United States. He defended his conduct with great earnestness, and on 10 Sept., 1864. his dismissal from the army was revoked by President Lincoln, and his resignation was accepted. His "Keel and Saddle" (Boston, 1872) relates many of his personal adventures. Another grandson, Edward Hutchinson Robbins, physician, b. in Boston, Mass., 23 July. 1827; d. near Sharpsburg, Md., 17 Sept., 1862, entered Harvard, but left in 1S46, pursued the course in the medical school, and received his diploma in 1849. He practised in Boston, and on 14 Sept., 1861. was appointed assistant surgeon of the 20th Massachusetts volunteers. At Ball's Bluff lie was captured by the enemy's cavalry, and was kept as a prisoner at Leesburg, and afterward at Richmond, Va., till 22 Feb.. 1862, when he was released on parole. He was exchanged in April, 1862, and served with his regiment through the peninsular campaign and Gen. John Pope's campaign on the Rappahannock, was present at Chantilly, and was killed at llir battle of Antietam. A brother of Edward H. It., Paul Joseph, soldier, b. in Boston, Mass., 10 Sept., 1832; d. in Westminster, Md., 4 July. ISiili, was graduated at Harvard in 1*52, and at the beginning of the civil war entered the Na- tional army as major of the 20th Massachusetts vol- unteers. At Ball's Bluff he was wounded in the leg and taken prisoner, and he was confined in Libby prison until he and six other officers were selected as hostages to answer with their lives for the safety of Confederate privateersmen who had been con- victed of piracy in the U. S. court. They were transferred to the Henrico county prison, and con- fined for three months in a felon's cell. Mnj. Revere was paroled on 22 Feb., 1862, and in the beginning of the following May was exchanged. He was engaged in the peninsular campaign until he was taken sick in July. On 4 Sept., 1862, he was made a lieutenant-colonel, and served as as- sistant inspector-general on the staff of Gen. Edwin V. Sumner. At Antietam, where he dis- played great gallantry, he received a wound that compelled him to retire to his home. On his re- covery he was appointed colonel of his old regi- ment, 14 April, 1863. and returned to the field in May. He was brevetted brigadier-general of vol- unteers for bravery at Gettysburg, where he re- ceived a fatal wound in the second day's battle.


REVILLE, Albert (ray-vil), French Protestant theologian, b. in Dieppe, France, 4 Nov., 1826. He studied at Geneva and Strasburg, was pastor of the Walloon church in Rotterdam in 1851-'72, and in 1880 became professor of the history of religions in the College of France. In 1886 he was made presi- dent of the section for religious studies in the Ecole des hautes etudes at the Sorbonne. Besides nu- merous other works, he has published " Theodore Parker, sa vie et ses oauvres" (Paris, 1869). and "Les religions de Mexique, de FAmerique centrale, et du Perou " (Paris, 1884), an English translation of which was published in the " Hibbert Lectures" (London, 1884).


REVOIL, Benedict Henry (ray-vwol), French ant IKII-, b. in Aix, Bouches du Rhone, France, 16 Dec., 1816. He is the son of the painter, Pierre Henri Revoil, of Lyons, who died in 1842. Benedict was for several years connected with the department of pub- lic instruction and with the manuscript section of the Bibliotheque royale. Just after his father's death he visited the United States, where he remained nine years. During this period he collected the material for many of his works. Among these are " C'hasses et peches de Fautre moude " (Paris, 1856) ; "La fille des Comanches" (1867); "Les Parias du Mexique" (1868); and many translations from the English and German into French. Of the latter the best known are " Les harems du nouveau monde " (1856); "Les pirates du Mississippi" (1857); "Les prairies du Mexique" (1865); and Le tils de 1'Oncle Tom " (1866). During his stay in New York city M. Revoil wrote and placed on the stage the plays " New York as it Is and as it Was," " Nut-Yer-Stick," a Chinese "fantasy." and " Iloratius Trelay, or Fourierism." He also wrote, in French, the libretto of the " Vaisseau Fantome," a two-act opera, and has contributed frequently to both the French and American press.


REXFORD, Eben Eugene, poet, b. in Johnsburg, Warren co., N. Y., 16 July, 1848. He was educated at Lawrence university, Appleton, Wis.,