250 and Counting

Elisha Haley wasn’t necessarily a lawmaker at either the State or the Federal level who made such a huge mark that he’s become a kind of household name, but he appears to have been solid enough that he could get elected multiple times at both levels. I did discover, after recording the episode, that Haley […]

The post Elisha Haley–January 21, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Charles Pinckney Sumner was a man ahead of his time, in the sense that he knew not only that slavery was wrong, but that slaves need not only to be freed, but to be treated as equal citizens. He also carried a rather Utopian view of what society should be like, that Nature was at […]

The post Charles Pinckney Sumner–January 20, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Second Continental Congress Committees, several of them anyway, reported out on this day in 1776 and it was starting to become clear that the individual colonies had some needs when it came to defense. There were issues with prisoners possibly being mistreated, word had gotten back regarding what had happened in Quebec on New […]

The post Busy Day In Congress–January 19, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Given that Benjamin Church was discovered to be a traitor long before Benedict Arnold was, it’s a little peculiar that Arnold’s name has carried down through history much more than Church’s was. Maybe it’s because Church was a little less prominent in the Revolution before he was caught. Maybe “Benedict Arnold” has a better ring […]

The post Church Gets Out–January 18, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

George Washington was a prolific letter writer, and as such he also tended to receive a great number of letters. We have to day three missives sent to George Washington on this day in 1776. (Pardon my brevity for this episode; as I write this my wife has spent the better part of the day […]

The post Many Letters to George–January 17, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

George Washington was a good leader in the sense that he knew what his troops needed, but he was also a good leader because he sought the counsel of others before making decisions. Washington would call a Council of War before he made big movements, and the Boston Council of War was no exception. Washington […]

The post A Council of War–January 16, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Samuel Adams made a point of telling his second cousin John Adams that he didn’t have a lot of time to write. Then he cranked out 570 words of worries about the language in the New Hampshire constitution, which had been ratified ten days earlier. Then the next day he tacked on another 250 words. […]

The post Sam Adams Also Has Concerns–January 15, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

As George Washington’s aide-de-camp, Joseph Reed was privy to a lot of things on his Commander-in-Chief’s mind. And it shows in the level of prose that Washington uses when writing to Reed, because it’s much less formal. Compare that to the letter he sent to the Continental Congress the same day. In both cases he […]

The post Washington Has Concerns–January 14, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

What can I say about John M. Snowden that I didn’t tell you about in the episode itself? The truth is, he’s not a well-documented man, nor is his family, even though (as I noted) his wife was an advisor to George Washington for awhile. I can note that I foreshortened his career a little […]

The post John M. Snowden–January 13, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Prudence Island, in the Narragansett Bay off Rhode Island, didn’t have a lot of strategic value to anyone. What it DID have was livestock, and the British were hard-pressed to get supplies, especially for Boston, which had been under siege since mid-April. And, as Mike notes during the episode, neither army was really shy about […]

The post Prudence Island Under Attack–January 12, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.