250 and Counting

General William Heath was around for the battle at Lexington and Concord, but you may remember him from our episode from just a few days ago. He was already a Brigadier General in Massachusetts before Lexington & Concord, and as the siege in Boston started, he worked at training the troops. When the Continental Army […] The post More Bad News–September 10, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

First off, my apologies to you, and to Mike (because it was his episode), for not double-checking that yesterday’s episode was actually loaded into the feed. I’ve been fighting off a ridiculous sinus infection and I think my medication had me woozy. On the bright side, I’m probably sounding extra sexy in today’s episode because […] The post The Peace Delegation–September 9, 1776 appeared first on...

There are lots of images of Nathan Hale that have him looking like a middle-aged fellow, and then there are others that have him looking like some kind of idealized young man, with a prominent jaw and youthful good looks. The fact is, nobody today is 100% sure what he looked like, because no contemporaneous […] The post Nathan Hale’s Fateful Decision–September 8, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Cou...

…but the situation was not excellent, for the American side, anyway. George Washington got a wake-up call in the form of a letter from Congress. In that letter he was told that it was not a good idea to burn down New York City; what’s more, they weren’t quite so invested in his holding the […] The post All Under Heaven Is Chaos–September 7, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

I’ve brought this up in the past, but Maryland appears to have an extraordinary grasp of its own history, even when it comes to naming Maryland counties. As Mike notes today, Maryland has the first two counties established by local representatives, and the first counties named after popular Americans. But even in Maryland, when the […] The post Redrawing Maryland Maps–September 6, 1776 appeared fi...

The American Army has evacuated Brooklyn. Reports are coming in from all over that the Loyalists are being rather sore winners over the event. Refugees are coming into Connecticut from across the Long Island Sound. George Washington, literally the last man out of Brooklyn, is trying to figure out his next move, and that of […] The post More Brooklyn Aftermath–September 5, 1776 appeared first on 25...

When Nicholas Emery was born, the state in which he did most of his important work didn’t yet exist. At the time of his birth, Maine was still considered part of Massachusetts, which is a vast oversimplification, since New Hampshire also had claim to a lot of this land (and that partially explains why New […] The post Nicholas Emery–September 4, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

The HMS Rose was a British ship that we first discussed a little over a year ago. Her job was largely to patrol the waters off southern New England to prevent smuggling activity on the part of the Americans. In July 1776 the Rose was dispatched—like many, many other British ships—to New York Harbor for […] The post Down By The Bay–September 3, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

General John Sullivan had been captured only a few days before by the British, during the Battle of Long Island. Now, Mike tells us in this episode that the Howes talked him into approaching the Continental Congress with their peace offering, but equally likely is that Sullivan simply agreed to deliver the message because it […] The post A British Offer–September 2, 1776 appeared first on 250 and...

If nothing else, Ezekiel Bacon was a fairly reliable Representatvie in Congress, given how often he voted with his party, and the fact that he had a good attendance record as well. Bacon became a representative in Massachusetts when his predecessor, Barnabas Bidwell, resigned from the state legislature over irregularities in the Berkshire County books […] The post Ezekiel Bacon–September 1, 1776 a...

Washington wrote two letters today: one to General William Heath, and the other to Congress. To Heath, he basically gave a little bit of an “attaboy” in agreeing with Heath’s assessment regarding the British Army’s next move. So he recommended that chevaux de frise be sunk in the waters nearby the next likely target (Huntspoint), […] The post Washington Is Back To Business–August 31, 1776 appeared...

Even though George Washington was in charge of the whole Continental Army, he still had people to answer to. Most directly that would be the Continental Congress and that will happen very soon, but in the meantime there were also some local officials he had to placate. Which brings us to today’s episode, in which […] The post GW Explains His Exit–August 30, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting...

The Maryland 400 (who got that name because “The Maryland 270 ” was too awkward?) was directly responsible for keeping the American losses relatively low, considering how badly the battle went for them. In the final accounting, about 300 soldiers were dead, another 650-800 were wounded and 1100 were captured. British and German casualties numbered […] The post The Maryland Heroes–August 29, 1776 a...

As we told you yesterday, Washington got the word rather late that the battle wasn’t going down the way he thought it would, largely because the Jamaica Pass, which was rarely used, was the path that most of the British Army took against the Continental Army. At the same time, they left a contingent of […] The post The Battle Winds Down–August 28, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

The Battle of Long Island was one of our largest engagements with the British, and it was also the first one after the Declaration of Independence. And it was a rout; the Americans got their heads handed to them. The British took New York and they occupied it for the rest of the war. After […] The post The Battle of Long Island–August 27, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

At this point, both George Washington and General William Howe know that they’re literally on the eve of battle, and they’re making their final preparations. The British, along with the Hessians, were making plans to move along the Jamaica Pass (it’s the road just above the Acroasis logo in today’s art), which, while they didn’t […] The post Eve of Battle–August 26, 1776 appeared first on 250 and...

Like the Continental Army didn’t have enough problems with being outnumbered nearly two-to-one, now they’re looking at another five thousand Hessians landing in Brooklyn. The name “Hessians” is what they call a synecdoche; that’s when a part of something is used to refer to the whole. For instance, when we say “boots on the ground,” […] The post More Hessians Arrive–August 25, 1776 appeared first...

That George Washington chose to add Israel Putnam to his leadership rolls in Brooklyn isn’t specifically mysterious. What is mysterious is that Putnam was added rather than used as a replacement for someone else. As a result of that move, there were essentially two men in charge on Long Island, with Putnam as the theater […] The post Meet The New Boss–August 24, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Coun...

The day after the British landed on Long Island, George Washington was disheartened to learn that army provisioning wasn’t at the level he’d expected, despite his orders only a week earlier. It was bad enough that he’d been caught a little flatfooted by both the magnitude and the direction of the British movement, now he […] The post Reacting to Brooklyn–August 23, 1776 appeared first on 250 and C...

One fine Thursday morning in August of 1776, about 4000 British troops, led by General Henry Clinton and General George Cornwallis, landed at Gravesend Bay in Brooklyn. By the end of the day, their number had swelled to over 16,000. George Washington’s problem was that he only heard about the initial 4000 later that day […] The post Landing In Brooklyn–August 22, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Cou...

When looking at historical documents related to Joseph Healy, it appears that most of them relate to Healy in a rather ancillary manner. We know how many times he voted in Congress because someone keeps tallies of everyone in Congress. We know about his family tree because he was traced back via Ancestry.com. Healy is […] The post Joseph Healy–August 21, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

It’s been coming for at least two months, and the Battle of Long Island has finally begun. As we’ve noted a few times the past couple of days, George Washington had to make a few educated guesses about what the British were planning to do, but this left his troops thinly spread throughout Brooklyn and […] The post The Battle Begins–August 20, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

The reason that this portrait—and most of the others—of Rufus Putnam is in profile is that, when he was a child, one of his eyes was disfigured in an accident, giving it a, “outward, oblique cast.” Putnam joined the Revolutionary War effort the very first day, after the battle at Lexington and Concord. During the […] The post Not Making It Easy–August 19, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting .

Samuel Dunbar was born in Boston on October 2, 1704. When he was 4, his father died. At a very early age he attracted the attention of the Reverend Cotton Mather. With Mather’s guidance, Dunbar attended Boston Latin School and Harvard College. In 1727, the people of Canton reached out and sent letters of inquiry […] The post The Declaration, In Church–August 18, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Coun...

Ever the polite man, George Washington strongly urged (rather than ordered) civilians to evacuate Manhattan before the British began their attack. Washington’s biggest problem was that he knew that the British were coming, but he had no idea how they were going to do it, given that Manhattan is an island, and while Brooklyn is […] The post Get Outta Town!–August 17, 1776 appeared first on 250 and...