What does the phrase "hardly a man is now alive"

A saying from Paul Revere meaning " don't you remember the war that we fought and how it was such a cost"!!!

By saying "hardly a man is now alive that remembers that famous day and year " ( im not sure if this is the quote your referring to but it's the only one that makes sense ) he was referring that most of the people from 1775 had died by 1860 , or that the events of the revolutionary war had been largely forgotten.