Portrait of Elisha Haley, artist unknown, created approximately 1860.
Elisha Haley wasn’t necessarily a lawmaker at either the State or the Federal level who made such a huge mark that he’s become a kind of household name, but he appears to have been solid enough that he could get elected multiple times at both levels.
I did discover, after recording the episode, that Haley is not, in fact, buried in Crary Cemetery but rather in the Wightman Cemetery, which is also in Groton. His wife and four of his children are also buried there.
Charles Pinckney Sumner was a man ahead of his time, in the sense that he knew not only that slavery was wrong, but that slaves need not only to be freed, but to be treated as equal citizens.
He also carried a rather Utopian view of what society should be like, that Nature was at least as important as Nurture, if not more so.
Although he and his wife Relief Jacob had at least nine children, they were considered to be not especially demonstrative with one another, even described by some as “formal.”
Painting of the Continental Congress by John Trumbull, created around 1819. This painting depicts a date several months after today. Trumbull was especially insistent on painting subjects from life whenever he could.
The Second Continental Congress Committees, several of them anyway, reported out on this day in 1776 and it was starting to become clear that the individual colonies had some needs when it came to defense.
There were issues with prisoners possibly being mistreated, word had gotten back regarding what had happened in Quebec on New Year’s Day, South Carolina had some need for sailors to defend the Charleston Bay…there was a lot going on, and while we view the large number of committees, with names that are either too obvious or a little silly, to be a bit much, we’re also viewing it through a modern-day lens.
Not that life was simpler—though it was, in a sense—but that the Congress was quite pragmatic and direct in the way they operated.
Given that Benjamin Church was discovered to be a traitor long before Benedict Arnold was, it’s a little peculiar that Arnold’s name has carried down through history much more than Church’s was.
Maybe it’s because Church was a little less prominent in the Revolution before he was caught. Maybe “Benedict Arnold” has a better ring to it as something to hurl at someone who’s broken your trust.
It’s also possible that, at that time, nobody really knew the extent of the damage Benjamin Church had done, while Arnold’s treachery was immediately apparent.
(For what it’s worth, it’s been postulated that Benedict Arnold’s traitorous activities were pushed on him by his wife, but nobody gets called a “Peggy Shippen,” so in the end, who knows?)
(Pardon my brevity for this episode; as I write this my wife has spent the better part of the day in the hospital for a surgical procedure, and I’m too exhausted to be my usual clever self.)
This appears to be a colorized print taken from a monument relief. This is actually Washington’s Council of War from shortly before the Battle at Monmouth.
George Washington was a good leader in the sense that he knew what his troops needed, but he was also a good leader because he sought the counsel of others before making decisions. Washington would call a Council of War before he made big movements, and the Boston Council of War was no exception.
Washington knew that the Siege of Boston wasn’t going to last forever. Before much more time would pass, the weather was going to break and it would start to get warmer, and in his eyes, that’s when there’d be a huge infusion of British soldiers to come in from the harbor side and bust the whole thing wide open.
And this is one of the things he discussed with his Boston Council of War. (To be fair, I don’t think that’s what he actually called it; I’m just using that phrase to make a distinction between this group and other Councils he called.)
In addition, Washington changed his mind about recruiting soldiers who’d previously been banned.
Samuel Adams in 1772, painted by John Singleton Copley. via Wikimedia Commons and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
Samuel Adams made a point of telling his second cousin John Adams that he didn’t have a lot of time to write. Then he cranked out 570 words of worries about the language in the New Hampshire constitution, which had been ratified ten days earlier.
Then the next day he tacked on another 250 words. If he’d typed all 820 words out, it would be about three pages (double-spaced). The script for this episode is 219 words; even when Adams was in a hurry he was verbose.
But Samuel Adams kinda-sorta had a point, in that the New Hampshire constitution hedged its bets a little bit. Clearly he had this in mind when he worked on the original Articles of Confederation (the document that preceded the US Constitution), and when he joined the Constitutional Convention for Massachusetts a couple of years later.
Correspondence from Charles Thompson, Secretary to the Second Continental Congress, to George Washington. via Library of Congress.
As George Washington’s aide-de-camp, Joseph Reed was privy to a lot of things on his Commander-in-Chief’s mind. And it shows in the level of prose that Washington uses when writing to Reed, because it’s much less formal.
Compare that to the letter he sent to the Continental Congress the same day. In both cases he was expressing concerns regarding his troops, but in one case it’s a criticism of their readiness (Joseph Reed), and in the other it’s concern for their well-being (John Hancock).
Washington’s troops would remain relatively undisciplined for several months, until the winter encampment at Valley Forge. But I’m getting waaaaay ahead of the story, so stick around. Meanwhile, put this in your ears.
Portrait of John Maugridge Snowden, Third Mayor of Pittsburgh. From the Snowden Family Collection via Wikimedia Commons.
What can I say about John M. Snowden that I didn’t tell you about in the episode itself?
The truth is, he’s not a well-documented man, nor is his family, even though (as I noted) his wife was an advisor to George Washington for awhile.
I can note that I foreshortened his career a little bit, in that he had done a little public service before he was the mayor of Pittsburgh. He also spent some time as the Allegheny County Recorder and Treasurer before he was elected mayor. It should be noted, however, that until 1835 mayors were appointed by the City Council. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it could lend itself to corruption. And the incumbent won the first election, so chances are the process wasn’t too bad.
We also spend a little time with Henry Knox, who (you might remember) began the Noble Train of Artillery journey back on December 17. His arrival in Cambridge is still about two weeks out; we don’t know a lot about what happened during that time because today is the day that his diary stops. But when he arrives, we’ll all be there to greet him.
Prudence Park on Prudence Island, from a 1930s-era postcard. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Prudence Island, in the Narragansett Bay off Rhode Island, didn’t have a lot of strategic value to anyone. What it DID have was livestock, and the British were hard-pressed to get supplies, especially for Boston, which had been under siege since mid-April.
And, as Mike notes during the episode, neither army was really shy about stealing what they needed to advance their cause.
While the residents of Prudence Island managed to repel the British on their second engagement, everyone just pretty much noped out of there, with only a few ever returning. So in the long run, it was a win for the British.
