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Tag: American Revolution

  • April 18, 1775: Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride

    Cover art for April 18, 1775: "Paul Revere Bringing News to Sullivan," by Howard Pyle, 1886

    Once in awhile, we fear that students of history don’t necessarily put things into the appropriate perspective when it comes to dates. We offer them some facts regarding what happened and when, but the events still kind of mush together.

    That’s how we get the Simpsons joke: “Let’s take a look back at the year 1928- the year when you might have seen Al Capone dancing the Charleston on top of a flagpole!”

    To that end, students might place the Boston Massacre, say, as quite close in the timeline to the start of the Revolutionary War, when in fact they happened several years apart. But at this specific period of time, things were in fact moving quickly and closely together: Colonies were lining up behind Massachusetts, various areas began to prepare for all-out war, General Gage was doing his best to control the colonists based on the orders that were sent to him several weeks earlier from London, and Lord North was in fact hoping to provoke the colonists into doing something that would give him a reason to crush them hard.

    So when word got out that the British were coming up the Charles river to make a move on Concord and Lexington, Colonist spies were wise to it and they got the word out as fast as they could. Listen, my children, and you will hear.

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  • April 17, 1775: Some Prescient Preparations

    Cover art for April 17, 1775: map of Boston and the immediate area, 1775

    War was coming closer, but nobody knew just how close. Two committees came together in Concord to make plans. They arranged for certain munitions to be moved around, for others to be prepared for action, and to ask people to lead combat units. And if those people said “No Thanks,” who the backup person would be.

    Then they all went out to a nearby tavern, as you do when planning a revolution.

    But nobody could suspect that the time from then to the war was measurable in hours by then, not by weeks.

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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 13, 1775: North Carolina Raises the Dragoons

    Cover art for April 13, 1775: Private in the Light Dragoons. Painting by Charles Lefferts, 1910.

    It seems fitting that groups like this changed names and designations quickly, given that events in the Colonies were also moving quickly. In two events this week, we’ve told you stories of armies that were raised to defend individual colonies but quickly became part of the Continental Army. The Light Dragoons of North Carolina would be one of those groups.

    Likewise, the rest of this episode is a throwback to TWO earlier episodes, as the activities are formally recorded in the Virginia Gazette.

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  • April 12, 1775: North Carolina Takes the First Step

    Cover art for April 12, 1775: Portrait of Josiah Martin, the last Royal Governor of North Carolina. Artist unknown.

    First off: apologies for the late posting. I had a very rough night last night, and there was no element of today that was my own. We’ve all had days like that, I think, and I thank you for your forbearance.

    A lot of people get their American History from the play 1776, and it’s mostly accurate with the facts, if not necessarily with the people involved or the specific dates. And that’s also why it gets cited here as often as it does: we hope that the common cultural touchstone provided by the play demonstrates to you that it wasn’t entirely made up, though the writers did play a little fast and loose to make for a good story.

    As a result of this play, most people think that Virginia came up with the whole Independence thing first, and there’s a kernel of truth in it: the activity leading to the Declaration did emerge from the Lee Resolution, but North Carolina was the first to send delegates to the Continental Congress with instructions to call for independence, through something called the “Halifax Resolves.”

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  • April 11, 1775: Graves Brings in The Big Guns

    Cover Art for April 11, 1775: "View of the Attack on Bunker's Hill with the Burning of Charlestown, Engraving by Lodge. The Somerset is among the ships in the image.

    When the HMS Somerset first reached Boston, she was an old, leaky, weathered mess. Admiral Graves asked for permission to repair it, and while the work was slow at first, the sailors actually managed to get the important parts of the work completed. By this day in 1775, the ship was considered seaworthy and capable of doing more from its perch in the harbor, so Graves moved it into the place of two other ships, largely to demonstrate that he could do it, and safely.

    Had the lookouts been more alert when the battles of Lexington and Concord first broken out, the outcome could have been quite different.

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  • April 10, 1775: Skirmishes in Assonet, MA

    Cover art for April 10, 1775: Profile Rock in Assonet, MA. Scanned from a 1902 postcard. The formation collapsed in 2019.

    This isn’t the first time you’ll see a statement like this, but the bottom line is: the history books aren’t 100% correct. Sure, the Shot Heard Round The World was at Lexington and Concord. But that’s not where the fighting started.

    Nearly two weeks before Concord, there were small battles going on in Assonet, Massachusetts, near the Rhode Island border.

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  • April 9, 1775: Something’s Happening…Maybe Not

    Cover art for April 9, 1775: Portrait of Ann Arrundell (original spelling of her name), artist and date unknown.

    In January of 1775 someone took the time to write a 1400-word account of a riot that took place in Annapolis, Maryland just a few days earlier. The pseudonymous author alleged that a shipload of tea was burned in the harbor as an alternative to destroying the tea and tar-and-feathering the ship’s owner.

    But word got back to the folks in Annapolis, of course, and they countered with a resolution involving a reprinting of that article, plus a refutation of the allegations made. The basic thrust? The guy made it all up, and whatever he didn’t make up still isn’t true; it just happens to be close to the truth.

    Who’s the woman in the cover art? Tune in and find out.

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  • April 8, 1775: The New England Army

    Cover art for April 8, 1775: painting of members of the New England Army. Painting by Don Troiani

    Well…it’s official. It was on this day in 1775 that our assorted collection of irregular militiamen turned into a genuine army.

    The Provincial Congress in Massachusetts proposed, and adopted, a resolution that provided for a genuine army dedicated to protecting our shores against the British. That was the New England Army, but the name didn’t last long. Tune in to find out their other name.

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  • April 6, 1775: Stop the Presses!

    Cover art for April 6, 1775: Detail of the front page of the Massachusetts Spy, July 7, 1774.

    In past episodes (quite recently, in fact) we’ve talked about the Colonists’ need to move caches of gunpowder and other weaponry when they got wind of an imminent British seizure.

    By the time April of 1775 rolled around, it wasn’t just the explosive weapons that the British were after; it was the press as well. And the more you hear about the specific things that the British imposed on the Colonies as events moved closer to all-out war, the more obvious their need to appear in the Bill of Rights becomes. (Whatever you think of any specific Amendment, it’s not too tough to see the reasoning that went into its inclusion if you look at it from a contemporary standpoint rather than a modern-day one.)

    This it was that on this day, the Colonists heard that the British were going to move in on restricting a free press, so the Massachusetts Spy simply up and left so there would be nothing to seize.

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