250 and Counting

Category: General Gage

  • September 1, 1775: Virginia Gazette Headlines

    Cover art for September 1, 1775: photo of a mullet, via Wikimedia.

    Nothing beats the speed of gossip, and apparently the Virginia Gazette on this day had plenty of it to share.

    A few of the stories were quite serious, relating to events in both Virginia and Massachusetts. They closed out with a local story that had a more humorous edge to it…though it’s likely that the people involved had a hard time seeing the humor in it all.

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    PS Why is there a picture of a fish in today’s cover art? Well…mullet over a little and see if it comes to you.

  • August 19, 1775: Washington Hates the Rumor Mill

    Cover art for August 19, 1775: Interior of the British prison ship Jersey. Artist: Edward Bookhout, engraved by Felix Darley, created 1855 but meant to represent conditions during the Revolution.

    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.

    But when the rumors began that Washington was mistreating his prisoners…oh, that didn’t sit well with the General at all.

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  • August 11, 1775: Washington Gets Serious About POWs

    Cover art for August 11, 1775: A sample of George Washington's handwriting in a letter. It's NOT the letter described in today's episode (hence the blurring).

    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 petty grievance that needed to be put down.

    As a result, Washington was in frequent communication with his counterparts on the British side, and several people on the Colonial side, expressing his worry that his men were being treated poorly…or worse.

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  • June 15, 1775: The Original G-Man

    Cover art for June 15, 1775: Portrait of George Washington in 1775 by Samuel King

    Jeez, I gotta stop writing these titles late at night.

    Sometimes the history books make it sound like some people just appeared out of nowhere, but they did have pasts. George Washington would be a good example.

    Washington has been nearly invisible since this show started on January 1, but that doesn’t mean that the Congress hollered “Anyone wanna be a general?” and he stepped up first. In fact, he was a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774, and for some time he’d been a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, often simultaneously with the Congress thing. And he did have a commendable military background dating back to the French and Indian War, so appointing him the Commander of Colonial forces wasn’t part of someone’s crazy scheme: they thought he could really do it.

    And do it, he did.

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  • April 28, 1775: Jonathan Trumbull Chooses a Side

    Cover art for April 28, 1775: portrait of Governor Jonathan Trumbull, artist unknown but could be his son John Trumbull.

    Jonathan Trumbull was one of only two men to serve as governor of a Colony and of a State. (Nicholas Cooke of Rhode Island was the other.) This, to us, gives him a kind of air that perhaps he could be trusted by all parties to act appropriately.

    And when push came to shove, Trumbull found himself in the position of having to support the Colony rather than the crown, as you’ll see in today’s episode. And as things further deteriorated, he became more focal about supporting the Colony, since the British no longer appeared to view the Colonists as subjects of the Crown but as a genuine enemy to be crushed. (Which is exactly how many in Parliament felt, so.)

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  • April 15, 1775: The Short Life of Fort Pownall

    Cover art for April 15, 1775: from "History of the city of Belfast in the state of Maine, From its first settlement in 1770 to 1875." by Joseph Williamson, 1913.

    In retrospect, we feel like we may be picking on this historic site a little bit. In fact, the park surrounding the ruins of Fort Pownall are quite nice for hiking, biking, picnics and, as we mentioned, there are historical markers all over the place so you do get a sense of how important this particular site was.

    At any rate, on April 5 we told you about a detachment sent to the fort to disarm the place; today was the day that they arrived and succeeded, because even if spies knew about it (and they almost certainly did), word was not going to get to the fort in time to prevent what was going to happen.

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    N.B. for those of you who download the episodes as they come out, apparently the audio didn’t attach to this post correctly. Our apologies. It should be in your feed now.

  • April 5, 1775: The British Gear Up For War

    Cover Art for April 5, 1775: A 2007 photograph of the Old Powder House in Nathan Tufts Park, Somerville, Massachusetts. Photo by Erik Edson, via Wikimedia Commons.

    Up until now, we’ve presented General Thomas Gage as rather a hard liner who was looking to subjugate the Colonies somehow. Nothing could be further from the truth.

    The fact is, he like being a light-hearted guy, and when he became the Royal Governor of Massachusetts, he discovered exactly what kind of mess he’d stepped into. At that point, anything he did would only make matters worse.

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  • April 1, 1775: Thomas Gage is Steps Behind

    Cover art for April 1, 1775L Thomas Gage telling his troops to allow children to use Boston Common for sledding and ice skating.

    We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Thomas Gage was kind of a weird bird. In our cover art he’s defending children who were using Boston Common for sledding and skating. This was just a couple of months before today’s events.

    But other times, he was a little on the lazy side, often looking for clues that aren’t there, and letting other peoples’ opinions get the better of him. It’s entirely possible that the best idea Gage ever had was whatever he’d been told most recently. His decisions appear on their surface to be expressions of concern for the Colonists. Do with that what you will.

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  • March 29, 1775: The Brits Head to Roxbury

    Cover art for March 29, 1775: The Auckward Squad, painted by George Cruickshank, ca. 1780

    There are plenty of scholarly books and articles out there regarding American History, but there are elements of British history that stick out, too. General Gage giving the order today that his troops begin to march on Roxbury. It was a relatively small gesture at the time, but many, many colonial events can be traced to that particular action.

    And as a result the Colonists determined that Britain can’t move numbers of men like that again without bumping into a few flintlocks along the way.

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  • February 15, 1775

    Cover art for February 15, 1775: Portrait of Lord Horace Walpole

    Only a few people had figured it out, and it’s not clear whether they were just guessing, but by this point in time both England and the Colonies were locked into a path that would lead inevitably to a shooting war.

    To that end, Parliament approved sending over four thousand soldiers and sailors to the Colonies to help keep them in line. But it wasn’t as simple as that; there were still some people protesting the action, not that anyone listened to them.

    Today we also peek in on someone who’s watching the action and has some thoughts.

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