William Woodford was both smart and able to see the bigger picture. He’d already begun training his troops in earnest in anticipation of a British attack. Then the word came in that his men were to protect Norfolk or Portsmouth.
When they began the march, they had not idea that they were about to stumble into a British attempt to attack amphibiously. Woodford’s men repelled the attack and created the first important British casualties of the war effort.
William Woodford got his start in the military when he joined George Washington’s Virginia Regiment, and was promoted to Lieutenant in 1761.
When hostilities with Britain began to turn into actual shooting at each other, Woodford became a colonel commanding the 2nd Virginia Regiment. Based on a letter he’d received from his fellow Virginian George Washington, he determined to ensure that his men were well-trained.
In early December we’ll learn how that paid off handsomely.
Thomas Jefferson was a writer, an inventor, a lawyer, a philosopher, a statesman, and of course a soldier.
Wait, what?
Yes, indeed. Thomas Jefferson was named commander of the militia in Albemarle County. It could be argued that the title was little more than ceremonial, but then again…Jefferson saw no combat. It’s entirely possible that his mere presence was a deterrent to the British, who wanted no part of this fierce warrior.
It’s not likely, but it’s possible.
OK, I’m kind of in a mood today, I admit. Go listen to Mike and his story of Jefferson the Soldier.
We mentioned a while back that John Adams had siblings, as did George Washington. This wasn’t one of them, and as far as anyone can tell, it’s more of a cousin-type relationship.
William Washington essentially won a bet with his brothers, and his prize was the ability to join the militia in Virginia to fight for independence. From this day in 1775 until 1781 he was engaged in multiple battles against the British in Virginia and the Carolinas. It was in 1781 that his horse was shot out from under him. The fallen animal pinned him down. He was bayoneted and captured, and spent the rest of the war under house arrest in Charleston, SC.
After the war he remained in South Carolina where he spent some time in the state legislature, but declined to run for governor because, as the story goes, he wasn’t a native Carolinian.
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 British citizen by birth, he didn’t come to America until he was twenty years old, making him an honest-to-goodness immigrant.
But let’s not hold that against him. As you’ll learn today, Tucker had a long and varied career as a politician, an educator and an author.
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 question. Rifles have different barrels from the typical guns that Colonial forces used, and were therefore more accurate. In addition, riflemen were specially trained for improved accuracy.
Daniel Morgan’s crew was one of the reasons that Washington’s ruse against the British worked out well: with these men around, the British were less likely to attack, and Washington was able to replenish his ammunition stores within a couple of weeks.
Given the fact that the existing government of Virginia was technically extra-legal, it’s a little amusing to think that they themselves felt the need to conduct extra-legal activities of their own. A more cynical mind would think that they were hedging their bets, so that if anything Revolutionary were to come up and the British started rounding up people, they could say, “That wasn’t us…it was that Virginia Convention crowd!”
A more cynical mind would think that. Heh.
But the various conventions, while not having large agendas, did have important ones, and they managed to help the colony get their act together and improve their overall effectiveness during the Revolution.
In the wake of Lexington and Concord, some places didn’t wait to start assembling troops to fight off the British. Most of them were in that part of the Colonies, though.
Enter the Berkeley County Riflemen, from a section of Virginia that is now West Virginia. George Washington put out the word that soldiers were needed, and about a hundred men from Martinsburg stepped up, even going so far as to ensure that they dressed mostly alike, since there was no Continental Army just yet, and therefore there were no uniforms.
And while the sign doesn’t really say much about it, the Berkeley County Riflemen are said to be the genesis of the United States Army.
In the aftermath of the Gunpowder Incident, Lord Dunmore decided that the better part of valor involved getting out of town before the locals could get a good lynch mob together, and he left Virginia on the HMS Fowey.
Here’s the interesting part: the Fowey which Dunmore boarded was not the first of its name; in fact it was the fifth. But the other interesting part is that it was the second one of that name to sink in American waters.
The fourth HMS Fowey was a fifth-rate vessel (remember, ratings refer to the number of guns, not the quality of the boat) with 44 guns on it. It was first launched in 1744. In June of 1748 the ship struck a coral reef and sank off the coast of Florida (see map). She wasn’t re-discovered until 1975 and, through an agreement with England, is considered a Protected Site by the National Park Service. The photo used for today’s art is of divers swimming over the exposed timbers of that ship. It’s definitely a “look but don’t touch” situation.
In 1749 another Fowey was built, a sixth-rate frigate with 24 guns. This is the one which Lord Dunmore used to skip town. The remains of this ship are probably in the York River, but it’s not known for sure.
Why is “Fowey” such a popular name for a ship? It’s not clear. In fact, it’s not clear whether the name comes from the Cornish town of Fowey, or the river Fowey which runs through it.
It’s been nearly two months since the Gunpowder Incident started, and the entire time, the Royal Governor, Lord Dunmore, has been trying to keep things from getting out of hand.
He might—might—have succeeded, had something not happened on this day in 1775.
