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Tag: Edward Rutledge

  • Board of War and Ordnance–June 21, 1776

    Cover art for June 21, 1776: Seal of the United States Board of War and Ordnance, created in 1778. It was used by the U.S. War Department until 1880.

    We’ve spent a bunch of episodes describing a day in the life of the Second Continental Congress, and many of them were almost exclusively dealing with military matters.

    In January 1776 George Washington recommended that the Congress designate a specific office for these dealings, and Edward Rutledge picked up the idea and suggested it to the Congress. It took a little time, but the Congress ultimately agreed and set up a Board of War and Ordnance, which began operating on this day in 1776.

    The original Board of War and Ordnance was five delegates to the Congress, plus a secretary who wasn’t a delegate. After only a few months they recognized that they couldn’t do their jobs as delegates and keep up with the War workload, so they had themselves replaced with a permanent Board.

    The Board operated until the war ended, after which it was dissolved, but the logo (see cover art) persisted in the War Department until 1880. Incidentally, note the Phrygian Cap in the artwork. We haven’t talked about that in a while, but in those days the Cap was a universally-recognized symbol of freedom dating back to ancient Rome, when it was given to former slaves. In the Revolutionary Era, it specifically symbolized freedom from British tyranny.

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  • The Address That Didn’t Happen–May 29, 1776

    Cover art for May 29, 1776: Portrait of Caesar Rodney, possibly by John Thomas Scharf, circa 1888. There are no contemporary portraits of Rodney known to be extant.

    While the Second Continental Congress always had a lot going on, not creating “an animated address” to make the Independence movement appearent to everyone seems like an odd failure.

    But sure enough, when it was recommended that such an address be created, this specific committee came up with nothing. Other committees appear to have presented addresses without problems, and many delegates worked on multiple committees, so was this an oversight? Was it overwork? Or perhaps the need to actually write a Declaration of Independence obviated the need for creating “an animated address”?

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