Paul Revere was an expert silversmith. He became one of America"s first industrialists. He was active in the movement that led to American independence. Yet Paul Revere’s fame rests almost entirely on the few hours that he sped through the Massachusetts countryside in the early morning of April 19, 1775. He was warning the inhabitants that the British regulars were on their way. It marked the beginning of the Revolutionary War. Few people outside the Boston area knew of his exploit. It took another war—the Civil War—to make him famous throughout the country. A famous poet named Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wanted to prevent the Civil War. He showed his fellow Americans a hero they could all admire. To him—and to millions of others after him—Paul Revere was that hero.