250 and Counting

Category: George Washington

  • September 11, 1775: One Siege Begins, Another Continues

    Cover art for September 11, 1775: "Siege of Boston" wood engraving (detail), created 1879, artist not cited. via the New York Public Library digital collection.

    As the winter of 1775 approached, George Washington had to think about the state of the siege of Boston. In short, housing and clothing thousands of men in a New England winter is a very different proposition than doing it in the summer.

    So Washington convened his War Council to discuss the possibility of breaking the siege by attacking the city from a different direction.

    Meanwhile up in Canada, General Philip Schuyler takes another run at Fort St. Jean.

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  • September 10, 1775: A Mutiny in Cambridge

    Cover art for September 10, 1775: "Soldiers in Uniform, American Rifleman" (detail), Jean Baptiste Antoine de Verger, 1781

    The riflemen in the Continental Army were a special breed of soldier. They weren’t subject to all the drudge work that most of the other soldiers had to endure.

    The downside to this is, they knew it and they took advantage of it. So when one rifleman got himself in trouble, word got out and suddenly a relatively small problem turns into a relatively big one.

    And while George Washington kinda-sorta recognized this stratification of soldiers, he didn’t do much to discourage it. He did, however, demonstrate more patience with the infantrymen than most people would give him credit for.

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  • September 6, 1775: Washington Appeals Directly to Canadians

    Cover art for September 6, 2025: the first page of Washington's letter to the Canadians. from Library of Congress.

    The Second Continental Congress tried appealing to the Canadian leadership in order to get support for the Independence cause, but they apparently weren’t biting.

    So George Washington tried a different tack: write to the Canadian people themselves. He reasoned that the folks in charge were mostly wealthy landowners who were doing all right financially under British rule. Maybe, he thought, the ordinary Canadian folks weren’t quite so happy with the King.

    He was not, unfortunately, correct in that assessment and nobody was swayed by his argument.

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  • September 5, 1775: Setback in Canada

    Cover art for September 5, 1775: Painting of the Schooner Hannah by John F. Leavitt, date unknown

    American forces began to move on Fort St. Jean in Canada. Unfortunately they ran into a couple of unexpected obstacles on the way, so they had to adjust their approach. This led to a six-week siege of the fort.

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  • August 29, 1775: From One Virginian To Another

    George Washington was a very good general and a disciplined soldier, but the fact that his men weren’t…well, that worried him a lot.

    He had a huge number of soldiers with him at Cambridge for the Siege of Boston. But since the British were so bottled up in the city, there weren’t many things for them to do other than patrol and keep an eye open for any possible moves the British made.

    Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on whom you ask), Washington was typically forthcoming with this information and he’d tell it to anyone relevant. In today’s case, his concerns fell on someone who was actually paying attention.

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  • 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 15, 1775: Washington Makes Some Appointments

    Cover art for August 15, 1775: portrait of Colonel George Baylor

    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 the men that he did promote would eventually go on to prosper, whether in the military or in politics or just their personal lives after the war. There were only a few who did not, and oftentimes there was a reason. Not all of them didn’t prosper out of incompetence; some of them simply had to deal with things like illness or lingering effects of injuries inflicted during the conflict.

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  • August 12, 1775: George Washington Writes a “Dear John” Letter

    Cover art for August 12, 1775: a miniature portrait of John Brown by Edward Greene Malbone, created in 1794.

    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 shipment, and reassuring him that the shipment will reach its destination safely, at least to the extent that he had any control over the matter.

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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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  • August 9, 1775: An Appeal for Supplies

    Cover art for August 9, 1775: AI-generated image of a Colonial-era woman in the Rosie the Riveter pose. It's the third arm that makes it art.

    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, there were people who heard his concerns and took action on behalf of the soldiers who were working to break us away from England.

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