While hindsight is very much a 20/20 vision, it’s still worth exploring why the Battle of Quebec went so poorly for the American side:

Now, I am by no means a military expert, but these are the things that stood out for me just based on a quick read of the situation. It was hubris, and a brand of short-sightedness that this particular city got deep into the heads of Montgomery and Arnold, and they refused to let it go.

The post The Battle of Quebec–December 31, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Back on October 8, the Continental Army determined that Blacks were no longer to be permitted to enlist, and that existing soldiers would not be allowed to re-enlist.

But on this date, George Washington changed his mind. Was he suddenly an abolitionist? Not a chance. He owned slaves until the day he died. This was a more pragmatic decision. It was borne of the fact that he and his staff suddenly realized that a lot of soldiers were going to end their enlistment come January. That October decision was starting to look rather short-sighted.

Add to that the fact that word had gotten about about Lord Dunmore’s offer to free slaves who fought on the British side. Now, he really couldn’t do anything for slaves who came from anywhere other than Virginia, but the offer was still hanging out there.

Finally, it was quite apparent that there was a growing number of Blacks, whether slave or free, who had shown interest in fighting for the Patriot cause.

It suddenly looked like a whole lot of bodies were getting turned down by the Continental Army for no good reason.

The post Washington Has A Change Of Heart–December 30, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

While the Massachusetts Naval Militia was pretty much wiped out in 1779 (oops, spoiler alert), it wasn’t the end of a state-based Navy for Massachusetts.

Massachusetts began to rebuild, but in 1780 a new state constitution was adopted, and just as the navy was delayed in its original inception by bureaucracy, the Massachusetts State Navy wound up dissolved the next year. They were re-established for the War of 1812, but again disbanded when that war ended.

Nowadays, any state naval militia are automatically part of the United States Militia, and in Massachusetts specifically, any attempt to reactivate a naval militia in Massachusetts must be done either by the governor of Massachusetts or the Massachusetts General Court.

There are five state naval militia extant, so far as I can tell: Alaska, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas.

The post Birth Of A Navy–December 29, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

You’ll remember I mentioned Samuel Adams in this space a couple of days ago, as a member of the Continental Congress, and as a member of several committees, most of them related to defense. He was almost certainly at the heart of the events of today that took place in Congress which Mike describes in our episode, even though he isn’t named directly in conjunction with either of them.

But organizing the military, and forging alliances with other nations are activities that are definitely in Samuel Adams’ wheelhouse, so it’s likely that he was in the middle of both of these.

The post Congress Organizes Military Support–December 28, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

While he didn’t use a rattlesnake, Benjamin Franklin was the guy who came up with the original “Join or Die” snake image [right]back in 1754. (At least most people give him credit for it.)

It was based in a superstition that if you cut up a snake into pieces and then reassembled those pieces before sunset, the snake could be resurrected. In 1754, during the French and Indian War, Delaware was part of Pennsylvania and New England’s four colonies were simply grouped together. Georgia was altogether omitted and nobody knows why.

At any rate, it’s only fitting that when the Gadsden Flag, which we talked about in the December 20th episode, made its debut, Franklin was the one who took the time to opine on why a snake was so appropriate; what’s more why a rattlesnake was the best choice. He published an essay in a local newspaper under a pen name, but his identity was figured out anyway.

The post Ben Franklin Analyzes the Snake–December 27, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Most of us have a pop culture view of the American Revolution period, and some of us go so far as to have some idea of what happened via the 1970 film 1776. Oddly enough, that movie has both a ton of accuracy with its facts (but not necessarily in the right order), and a ton of dramatic license.

One thing the film gets right is that John Adams was a bit of a nudge, constantly pushing the other delegates toward the Indepency movement. He wasn’t considered exactly obnoxious, but maybe a bit zealous. At the same time, his cousin Samuel Adams wasn’t represented at all in the movie. And that’s a shame, because while he was the quieter one overall, he was instrumental in shaping the debate.

As far as historians can tell (and it’s tough, because Congress worked under a secrecy rule–their notes tell you what happened but not necessarily who did what), Samuel Adams acted as a kind of parliamentary whip, schmoozing with delegates and getting them to see his side of things. He was on most of the military committees, and in fact was the man who first proposed that George Washington become the Continental Army’s Commander-in-Chief.

See? It’s not about the beer.

The post Sam Adams Has Thoughts–December 26, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Great Bridge may be over, but its effects linger on.

Lord Dunmore, the former Royal Governor of South Carolina, communicated to General Robert Howe that he’d like to effect a prisoner exchange.

It’s not clear whether Howe was playing hard-to-get, or playing dumb, or something else. He and Dunmore exchanged several letters over the next couple of days, and apparently didn’t end in a prisoner exchange. It did, however, end in violence. We’ll be talking about that as we get into the new year.

The post Confusing–And Howe–December 25, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Mike’s pretty much covered the story of the capture of a British ship in the episode, so I’m going to tell you a little bit about Joseph Warren, who (you may recall) was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill.

Warren became a doctor early in his career, and he also became a Patriot before it was fashionable. He was a powerful speaker, and for several years in a row he would deliver a speech commemorating the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

In the fall of 1774, he composed the Suffolk Reserves, which urged armed resistance to the British and a boycott of British goods.

So by the time 1775 rolled around, he was one of the most influential men in Massachusetts; in fact he was the president of the Provincial Congress, which by then was the body actually running things there.

In addition, he was on the Safety Committee, ensuring that gunpowder and ammunition was available to militiamen who needed it.

We’ve been talking about the Siege of Boston since April. That was his doing; he’d organized the siege in the first place. George Washington took over a while later. He then organized the building of the earthworks at Bunker Hill before that battle started. And when the British began to overrun the Patriots, he was instrumental in giving them an opportunity to escape. But that’s where his luck ran out: a British soldier recognized him and shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

The Brits then stripped his body and stabbed it several times, then buried him in a shallow grave with another Patriot who’d been killed. Later on, Paul Revere had to identify the body.

The point to all of this is that, had he survived the battle, Joseph Warren would almost certainly have been a much larger figure in the American mythos; maybe he’d even have been our first President instead of Washington.

Ponder that!

The post Merry Christmas, Indeed–December 24, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

As important as some of the action in the southern colonies was—and make no mistake, Colonel Richard Richardson’s campaign to sniff out the Loyalist leaders in the western part of the state wound up being very important—other events were important in different ways.

One such event would be the Snow Campaign. There came a point where Richardson decided that he’d done about as much as he could, so he started to head back to the Low Country, where Charleston is located. On the way back his men, who were ill-prepared for poor weather, ran into snow.

Lots of snow.

Fifteen inches of snow.

Before very long the troop had disbanded and about 130 prisoners had to be escorted to Charleston, after which a few were set free as a conciliatory move.

So no, not everything took place during the snow; in fact the snow was really the very ending of the Snow Campaign.

The post The Snow Campaign–December 23, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The Battle of Great Cane Brake took place near modern-day Simpsonville, South Carolina. That’s a few miles southeast of Greenville.

A “Brake of Canes” is pretty much what it sounds like. The cane stalks in question are a kind of bamboo that grows in the area, and a “Cane Brake” is a large thicket of these stalks. It would probably be a good place to hide, if the Loyalists weren’t also cutting and burning the stalks to keep warm, and because they were wet, they were popping quite loudly. It’s like sending up an audio flare.

While the Battle of Great Cane Brake was a victory for the Patriots, before very long the weather would turn it into a bigger problem for the troops involved.

The post The Battle of Great Cane Brake–December 22, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.