250 and Counting

This day in American History, 250 years ago.

  • 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 10, 1775: John Adams Loses A Brother

    Cover art for August 10, 1775: Portrait of Elihu Adams.

    It’s peculiar, sometimes, how we know a lot of stuff about famous people, but we don’t often know much about their relatives. Sometimes we don’t realize that they even existed,

    John Adams had two brothers, one of whom died on this day in 1775. He wasn’t famous, but he did have some involvement with the Siege of Boston until illness struck. Something like that must have made the loss just that much more worse for John, and the war effort that much more personal.

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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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  • August 8, 1775: The Battle of Gloucester

    Cover art for August 8, 1775: the HMS Falcon

    It was another net win for the Americans as the HMS Falcon, which had originally been assigned to the Colonies to enforce the Intolerable Acts, took a run at stealing livestock in order to provision the British who were stuck in Boston during the siege.

    Unfortunately for them, the Colonists were wise to their moves and took appropriate action…more than once.

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  • August 7, 1775: A Victory in Failure

    Cover art for August 7 1775: Map of St. Augustine in 1740.

    Once again, complacency wins the day. An American ship heads to Florida to raid the British ammunition stores there, and instead stumbles on a ship carrying literal tons of gunpowder. And it’s easily captured because the crew was asleep.

    Wasn’t anyone on watch? Apparently not, or they still managed to allow the American ship to get close enough that they could get on board. EIther way, American ships weren’t worth considering, and there wasn’t any American Navy…yet. But events over the next few days could change all that.

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  • August 6, 1775: A Long March in August

    Cover art for August 6, 1775: Portrait of Daniel Morgan by Charles Willson Peale, 1794.

    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.

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  • August 5, 1775: Open Up That Golden Gate

    Cover art for August 5, 1775: photo of a drawing by Walter Francis depicting the ship San Carlos entering the bay of San Francisco on August 5, 1775. via Wikimedia. Out of frame this Photoprint reads: "Drawn for 'The Beginnings of San Francisco'".

    Meanwhile, three thousand miles away from the action…

    …the Spanish were exploring the West Coast and claiming a lot of territory in their name. It was largely exploration and planting flags, although there were some colonies established as well.

    But what’s interesting about the bit of exploration we’ll be looking at today is that, even though the Spanish had been up and down the coast for a couple of hundred years, it wasn’t until 1769 that they realized that the strait leading into San Francisco Bay was even there. Possibly because it was frequently fogged in, possibly because the area was considered hazardous to navigate.

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  • August 4, 1775: A Letter of Dissatisfaction

    Cover art for August 4, 1775: Edward Thornborough, as an admiral in 1821. Painted by Samuel Lane.

    One of the reasons (we think) that the Colonial forces were able to gain small advantages over the British forces is that the Colonial Army was relatively untrained, and sometimes succeeded through dumb luck. They attempted things that “everyone knows” wouldn’t work, and surprise! It did work because nobody thought they’d be dumb enough to try it.

    The Colonies also didn’t have a lot of Navy going on just yet, and it may have been because of this that they were able to succeed at sea, as well. British ships would sail past American fishing vessels, thinking them of no consequence, and suddenly they’d find themselves outwitted by a whaling ship.

    Some British captains did manage to catch on to American tactics, though. Edward Thornborough was one of them, and he made his concerns clear in a letter written on this day in 1775.

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  • August 3, 1775: The Ammunition Crisis, Part 2

    Cover art for August 3, 1775: print of a relief image of one of Washington's Councils of War. This one took place before the Battle of Monmouth.

    As noted, two days ago we told you about how George Washington got the bad news that he didn’t have nearly as much gunpowder and ammunition as he thought he did.

    It was on this day in history that he and his team of generals put their heads together and came up with some rather solutions. Some of them depended on deception while others depended on dumb luck. Fortunately things worked out quite well.

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  • August 2, 1775: Congress Takes A Break

    Cover art for August 2, 1775: A picture of Independence Hall with a sign out front reading "Gone Fishin'". AI generated image via ChatGPT.

    Since May 10, the Second Continental Congress had been working for six days a week. And on any given day, depending on the committee to which they were attached, they’d work from anywhere between eight and twelve hours.

    And remember: this was in the height of summer in Philadelphia, where the temperatures were in the 90s and chances are, so was the humidity most of the time.

    Now, as Mike will attest in today’s episode, they got a LOT of stuff done in those ten weeks. And considering how thoughtfully they took every subject they tackled, it was a definite feat on their part. It was a well-deserved break.

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