250 and Counting

Author: Claude Call

  • The Battle of Great Cane Brake–December 22, 1775

    Cover art for December 22, 1775: Historical marker placed at the location of the Battle of Great Cane Brake.
    Historical marker placed at the site of the Battle of Great Cane Brake, explaining where another historical marker is located.

    The Battle of Great Cane Brake took place near modern-day Simpsonville, South Carolina. That’s a few miles southeast of Greenville.

    A “Brake of Canes” is pretty much what it sounds like. The cane stalks in question are a kind of bamboo that grows in the area, and a “Cane Brake” is a large thicket of these stalks. It would probably be a good place to hide, if the Loyalists weren’t also cutting and burning the stalks to keep warm, and because they were wet, they were popping quite loudly. It’s like sending up an audio flare.

    While the Battle of Great Cane Brake was a victory for the Patriots, before very long the weather would turn it into a bigger problem for the troops involved.

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  • One Thing Ends, Another One Begins–December 21, 1775

    Cover art for December 21, 1775: portrait of Richard Richardson, attributed to Jeremiah Theus.
    Undated portrait of Richard Richardson, attributed to Jeremiah Theus.

    General Richard Richardson was a delegate to the Provincial Congresses in South Carolina in 1775 and 1776, and he served in both the South Carolina Militia and the Continental Army during the Revolution. He was instrumental in the Americans winning the Battle of Charleston in 1776, but doesn’t get much else attention, perhaps because he was captured a few years later and then sent home, essentially to die.

    But the fact that he spent time driving Loyalists out of the western areas of South Carolina led directly to that province getting on board with the Independence movement more quickly. He also left behind a legacy of descendants who would affect the state well into the twentieth century.

    Incidentally, I have no idea if there’s any truth to the rumor that Richard Richardson was so poor as a child that he couldn’t afford a different last name. Largely because I made that rumor up just now.

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  • The Gadsden Flag Debuts–December 20, 1775

    Cover art for December 20, 1775: one variation of the flag.
    One variation of the flag. Some of them have an apostrophe in “DONT”, some use a non-serifed font, some don’t have any greenery under the snake. A few have the snake facing right.

    It’s arguably the most recognizable and popular symbol of the Revolutionary Era, and its debut turns 250 years old today. Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the Gadsden Flag.

    The concept of the snake image representing the Colonies is a little older than this by about twenty years, with the “JOIN OR DIE” image of the snake broken into nine pieces, each representing some portion of the colonies. In either case it’s a means of using a uniquely American species of snake to represent the Colonies.

    Not only did Christopher Gadsden design the flag, he did it on his own, without anyone prompting him to do it. While the Join or Die snake was probably a little more generic, Gadsden specifically chose a rattlesnake largely because he was from South Carolina, and the rattlesnakes in the Charleston area had the good grace to warn you before taking a bite out of you. To that end, the rattlesnake was considered an honorable, “glorious” creature.

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  • Protecting the Chesapeake–December 19, 1775

    Cover art for December 19, 1775: The Fry-Jefferson Map of the Chesapeake Bay area, commissioned in 1750 and completed in 1753.
    The Fry-Jefferson Map of the Chesapeake Bay area, commissioned in 1750 and completed in 1753. This was also one of the first maps of the area that had the “North is Up” orientation.

    The Great Chesapeake Bay, which is protected by the Delmarva Peninsula (DELaware, MARyland, VirginiA, get it?) is a watershed area that is hugely important for these three states, plus New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

    Because of its importance, there are sensor buoys all over the place, measuring water temperature, salinity levels, turbidity (how clear the water is), air pressure and maybe a dozen other factors. They’re connected to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and you can actually get the data for your own research here. I’ve actually used it in the classroom to demonstrate how bad weather can affect things like salinity, or how fertilizer-laden water runoff from farms can lead to algae blooms.

    It’s been called “Chesapeake” for so long that historians and etymologists aren’t quite sure where it derives from. It could be a corruption of the Algonquin word Chesepiooc; it could refer to the Chesepian people a tribe from the modern-day Hampton Roads area of Virginia. According to Wikipedia it’s the seventh-oldest place name in the US, but they weren’t telling what #1 through #6 are.

    It’s also—especially in the 18th Century—rather hard to defend. And while the Continental Congress dragged its feet a little bit to get the Navy raised, the more-nimble Virginia Convention commissioned a few ships of their own. Their first was a ship aptly named the Patriot.

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  • Washington Has Some Intel–December 18, 1775

    Cover art for December 18, 1775: A hand-colored printed halftone of a 19th-century illustration of George Washington writing at his desk.
    A hand-colored printed halftone of a 19th-century illustration of George Washington writing at his desk.

    Military Intelligence is a peculiar thing, if only because you never know where it’s going to come from, and/or what it’s going to affect.

    And that’s where today’s episode comes in, because Congress received a letter written today which detailed some plans for British military activity in Virginia. What’s surprising is that the intelligence came from…George Washington, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

    Washington was the lucky recipient of food that had been intercepted on its way to the British folks under siege in Boston. He also received several documents outlining plans that were afoot in Virginia, and he dutifully passed them along.

    Most of it was related to Great Bridge, which had already seen some action, but it still put Congress wise to the fact that the war wasn’t only taking place in the northeast, and that military intelligence can come from anywhere.

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  • The Noble Train Of Artillery–December 17, 1775

    Cover art for December 17, 1775: One of many, MANY images mistakenly showing the Ticonderoga artillery being transported on ox-drawn sleds. Author unknown, National Archive Collection number 111-SC-100815.
    One of many, MANY images mistakenly showing the Ticonderoga artillery being transported on ox-drawn sleds. Author unknown, National Archive Collection number 111-SC-100815.

    Colonel Henry Knox was just about ready to begin moving the Noble Train of Artillery (a phrase he coined, incidentally). He’d have everything he needed to move by the 20th or 21st of December, and then just seventeen days later, he’d be marching into Cambridge.

    As we all know, he was wrong about how long it would take. But that sort of thing happened frequently.

    What we don’t know is why he said he had the animals he needed to transport the materiel when he didn’t. And even though there are numerous images of the Noble Train of Artillery involving oxen, there weren’t any at all: everything was moved using horses.

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    On a personal note: today would have been my grandmother’s 103rd birthday. A lot of things have changed since I was born, but a lot more things changed from the time she was born. The mind boggles.

  • The Delaware Who Came To Congress–December 16, 1775

    Cover art for December 16, 1775: Historical Marker on Ohio Highway 93, just south of US 36, commemorating Chief White Eyes' founding of a Delaware Tribe-based town not far from this place. Image via remarkableohio.org.
    Historical Marker on Ohio Highway 93, just south of US 36, commemorating Chief White Eyes’ founding of a Delaware Tribe-based town not far from this place. Image via remarkableohio.org.

    I rather dislike using historical markers back-to-back for the cover art, but there are no images of Chief White Eyes, and I’d about run out of images of Great Bridge yesterday, so here we are.

    Also—and I admit I only know this because there’s a town not far from where I grew up with this name—I’m pretty sure that Mike mispronounced the word “Sachem,” though I suppose it’s possible that there’s a West Coast variant. But he’s a nice guy so we’re letting it slide. Especially since I made him re-record when he mispronounced “Narragansett” the other day.

    Yes, I am in a mood. Why do you ask?

    Koquethagechton was the given name of Chief White Eyes. and you may see it spelled differently elsewhere. The Lenape did not have a standardized written language, so everyone was making do with the Roman alphabet and doing their best to transliterate.

    As Mike notes during the episode, he later became a guide for an expedition in the Ohio Territory. He died during that trip, reportedly from smallpox, but questions have been raised regarding whether this actually happened. After his death, the Americans had no interest in a territory under Lenape control, and whatever deal he’d worked out completely unraveled.

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  • Colonel Woodford’s View–December 15, 1775

    Cover art for December 15, 1775: Historical marker commemorating the Battle of Great Bridge.
    Historical marker commemorating the Battle of Great Bridge.

    We’ve done several episodes about the Battle of Great Bridge, and there’s a reason for that. Bunker Hill gets all the press, but remember we LOST that battle.

    Great Bridge was the first real Patriot victory, it was the first major battle in Virginia, and therefore it poked the Virginia Convention into adopting the first public declaration expressing a spirit of independence.

    Also of note is that, according to the Great Bridge Battlefield Museum, the last Patriot to retreat before the battle began in earnest was named Billy Flora, a free black man. He came under heavy fire but he managed to remove a plank from near the end of the bridge, thus slowing the British advance.

    The shorter version of all this is that Great Bridge gave us the possibility of actually winning this thing. And oddly enough, Independence still really wasn’t on the table.

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  • Credit Where Credit Is Due

    This is a peek behind the curtain, as the expression goes.

    Mike Messner and I (Claude Call) share the duties of putting this podcast together. Mike did a lot of the calendar research (in fact, he did nearly all of it). I got a bunch of the technical stuff in place before the show launched.

    For the episodes themselves, he and I usually take turns researching, writing and recording the episodes. At that point, everything goes into my hands.

    I edit the episode if necessary (rare), check it for any weird glitches, and run it through some software to even the volume out across the episode. I also write all the show notes and put together the artwork that appears alongside each episode.

    More often than not, the artwork is materials that can be found in the public domain, which is pretty easy when you’re looking for images from 250 years ago. But for our July 2nd episode, I failed to do that.

    The cover art for that episode (assuming you didn’t click the link and look) was a closeup photo of a button created by Aaron M. Peasley. The photo came from a web-based article about the creation of the emblem that appears on the US Marine Corps’ uniform buttons written by 2nd Lt. Kevin Rosentreter, and if you think it’s a niche topic…well, you’re correct in that respect.

    On the other hand, if you think it’s a boring topic, you’d be sorely mistaken. Lt. Rosentreter has woven a fascinating tale which is also comprehensively sourced. What’s more, he took several of the photos of the buttons seen in the article, including the one I used.

    When he called it to our attention through a comment at our sister webpage (Acroasismedia.org), I did reply to him that I was the person to blame, plus I corrected the original post to give him credit. I’m also apologizing to him here publicly and I’ll be sending him an email shortly after I post this, just in case he’s written us off entirely.

    As I said to Lt. Rosentreter at the Acroasis site, the rule in the military is that you can delegate authority but you can’t delegate responsiblity. The responsibility for this lies entirely with me, and I hope you’ll see better effort in the future to credit materials appropriately.

  • Thomas Cochrane–December 14, 1775

    Engraving of Thomas Cochrane, Lord Dundonald. Original painting by James Ramsay, engraving by John Cook, published 1866.

    Thomas Cochrane had quite the colorful, storied life, and it’s too bad that we can only cram so much into a twenty-minute podcast episode.

    For instance, it’s entirely possible that he was involved in a stock fraud scheme based on false rumors of Napoleon’s death. Fortunately for him, he was elected back into the House of Commons about a month after his conviction. Even today, his guilt is in question by historians.

    Cochrane also spent several years serving in the Chilean Navy and spent time as that nation’s first Vice Admiral, reorganizing the structure and assisting with the independence of Peru.

    At any rate, if you dig naval history, take a look at Thomas Cochrane’s career.

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