250 and Counting

Lots of prominent early Americans weren’t Americans to begin with. For instance, the first President of the United States who was actually born in the United States would be Martin Van Buren, our eight president. But while most of these folks were born on the North American continent, the subject of today’s episode was not. He was born in Bermuda. So while George Tucker was still a Bri...

In 1681, John Dryden said in his poem “Absalom and Achitophel”: Beware the fury of the patient man. I hear ya, Dryden, because that’s how I operate. And apparently George Washington operated the same way, because he initially took the high road, assuming that rumors about how American prisoners were being treated were just that, and giving General Gage the benefit of the doubt. B...

James Elliot was born in 1839 (like the stone says over there), in Massachusetts. Later on he became a legislator for the state of Vermont, which was neither a state nor even a colony when he was born; it was still disputed territory between New York and New Hampshire. Although Elliot was too young to participate in the American Revolution, his political fortunes waxed and waned…but mostly w...

Philip Schuyler served as a delegate from New York to the Continental Congress until June 1775 when he was appointed a major general to the Continental Army. We’ll hear more about him as we start to delve into the Invasion of Quebec later this year. Schuyler was on his way to Saratoga, NY when he got word that the tribes of the Six Nations—the Mohawks, Oneidas, Tusscaroras, Onondagas, Cayuga...

Just a couple of days ago we told you about the efforts on the part of the Continental Congress to get around its own rules in order to provide Washington’s army with the materials they needed to maintain the Siege of Boston. This time around, John Adams takes steps to do what he needs to do without running afoul of the Intolerable Acts. It’s like the legal equivalent of the obnoxious...

We do seem to be spending a lot of time with George Washington this week. It stands to reason, though: Washington was a very busy guy at this time, what with getting his army organized. That meant finding the men who were smart and reliable, to get the ones who weren’t into fighting shape. It also meant figuring out what resources he had and what he needed. What we’re learning is that...

There’s an episode of The West Wing in which Leo McGarry explains how, several years earlier, the President wanted to meet the Dalai Lama. The problem was that China was strongly opposed to such a meeting, so they arranged for an “accidental” meeting between the two: Set up a low-level meeting with someone else and leave the door open. The President wanders by, “Hey, how ya...

As you may recall, several months ago some members of the Continental Congress thought it was important to make one last effort to reconcile with Britain before things got worse. So they composed the Olive Branch Petition and sent it off to England. Transit times being what they were then, the petition took several weeks to get to its destination. In the meantime, things got worse. So when the Oli...

One thing that you can’t say about George Washington is that he was a slacker. He was constantly communicating with people, whether it was the orders of the day, making plans to organize his army, or writing letters. And Washington was absolutely prolific at writing letters. In this case, he’s writing to a Rhode Island merchant, thanking him for the advance notice of an incoming shipme...

While today is perhaps the earliest documented instance of George Washington expressing concern for his captured troops, it certainly wouldn’t be the last. For years he worried about this, largely because the British didn’t always consider the Continental Army to be a genuine army, nor did they consider themselves to be “at war” with America; instead this was some kind of p...

It’s peculiar, sometimes, how we know a lot of stuff about famous people, but we don’t often know much about their relatives. Sometimes we don’t realize that they even existed, John Adams had two brothers, one of whom died on this day in 1775. He wasn’t famous, but he did have some involvement with the Siege of Boston until illness struck. Something like that must have made...

This. This artwork right here is why I’m reluctant to use A.I. to generate cover art. But this one came out too hilarious for me not to use, am I right? George Washington worried about supplies for his troops pretty much throughout the Revolutionary War. Sometimes it was ammunition, as we discussed a couple of days ago, other times it was basic things like clothing and blankets. Fortunately,...

It was another net win for the Americans as the HMS Falcon , which had originally been assigned to the Colonies to enforce the Intolerable Acts, took a run at stealing livestock in order to provision the British who were stuck in Boston during the siege. Unfortunately for them, the Colonists were wise to their moves and took appropriate action…more than once. The post August 8, 1775: The Bat...

Once again, complacency wins the day. An American ship heads to Florida to raid the British ammunition stores there, and instead stumbles on a ship carrying literal tons of gunpowder. And it’s easily captured because the crew was asleep. Wasn’t anyone on watch? Apparently not, or they still managed to allow the American ship to get close enough that they could get on board. EIther way,...

I’m the first to admit that my math didn’t work out during yesterday’s episode. I have no excuse other than I’m on vacation this week and perhaps not as detail-oriented as usual. You may remember a couple of days ago when we mentioned that one of the things that broke in George Washington’s favor was the timely arrival of a company of riflemen. These were the men in q...

Meanwhile, three thousand miles away from the action… …the Spanish were exploring the West Coast and claiming a lot of territory in their name. It was largely exploration and planting flags, although there were some colonies established as well. But what’s interesting about the bit of exploration we’ll be looking at today is that, even though the Spanish had been up and dow...

One of the reasons (we think) that the Colonial forces were able to gain small advantages over the British forces is that the Colonial Army was relatively untrained, and sometimes succeeded through dumb luck. They attempted things that “everyone knows” wouldn’t work, and surprise! It did work because nobody thought they’d be dumb enough to try it. The Colonies also didn&#82...

As noted, two days ago we told you about how George Washington got the bad news that he didn’t have nearly as much gunpowder and ammunition as he thought he did. It was on this day in history that he and his team of generals put their heads together and came up with some rather solutions. Some of them depended on deception while others depended on dumb luck. Fortunately things worked out qui...

Since May 10, the Second Continental Congress had been working for six days a week. And on any given day, depending on the committee to which they were attached, they’d work from anywhere between eight and twelve hours. And remember: this was in the height of summer in Philadelphia, where the temperatures were in the 90s and chances are, so was the humidity most of the time. Now, as Mike wil...

For those of you who are coming here from Hamilton Radio for the first time: welcome to 250 and Counting! Each day we spend just a couple of minutes telling you about some event that took place exactly 250 years ago today, to give you an idea of some of the events leading up to, and then beyond, our nation’s 250th birthday next year. For those of you who aren’t new to the show, you may...

It’s not entirely Lord North’s fault that his proposal for securing peace took so long to get to the Colonies; messages took a long time to get across the ocean. It is his fault that he sent it to individual people across the Colonies, thinking he could demonstrate that the Colonies are divided and aren’t on board with the revolution. It’s also his fault for not counting on...

Boston had been under siege since Lexington and Concord. Of course the British felt that they needed to break out of it from time to time, and today was one of those attempts. Now, this was a success for the Continental Army, but the fact is, few people realized at that time just how close they were to losing that battle, and badly. But that’s for a couple of days from now, on August 1st. Co...

George Washington didn’t have a ton of military experience when he was named Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. But it’s clear that he gave the position a great deal of thought as he made his way from Philadelphia to Boston. When he arrived, he clearly had a lot of ideas about what an army should look like. Furthermore, he had ideas regarding the overall structure of things an...

We told you a short time ago about a document sent to Canada by the Second Continental Congress. It outlined the reasons we got into a shooting match with Britain. It also made a point of noting that we’re not asking them to join us, but we wouldn’t complain too loudly if they did. The Canadians declined and they maintain a connection to Britain even as an independent nation. (As this...

The Continental Congress thought they had a strong candidate in Dr. Benjamin Church as their Surgeon General. And while Church was a generally good doctor as such, and a loyal member of the Sons of Liberty, he wasn’t especially good at leading others to do the same. This eventually turned into a big problem that came to a head in October, when George Washington needed to step in. The post Ju...