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The New Jersey Seal looks like a complicated and maybe convoluted project on its surface, but when you take a closer look, it becomes clear that in fact a lot of thought went into it and many of the individual pieces do tie together.

New Jersey statutes are pretty specific about the Great Seal. Title 52, §2-1 reads:

The great seal of this state shall be engraved on silver, which shall be round, of two and a half inches in diameter and three-eighths of an inch thick; the arms shall be three ploughs in an escutcheon, azure; supporters, Liberty and Ceres. The Goddess Liberty to carry in her dexter hand a pole, proper, surmounted by a cap gules, with band azure at the bottom, displaying on the band six stars, argent; tresses falling on shoulders, proper; head bearing over all a chaplet of laurel leaves, vert; overdress, tenne; underskirt, argent; feet sandaled, standing on scroll. Ceres: Same as Liberty, save overdress, gules; holding in left hand a cornucopia, or, bearing apples, plums and grapes surrounded by leaves, all proper; head bearing over all a chaplet of wheat spears, vert. Shield surmounted by sovereign’s helmet, six bars, or; wreath and mantling, argent and azure. Crest: A horse’s head, proper. Underneath the shield and supporting the goddesses, a scroll azure, bordered with tenne, in three waves or folds; on the upper folds the words “Liberty and Prosperity”; on the under fold in Arabic numerals, the figures “1776”. These words to be engraved round the arms, viz., “The Great Seal of the State of New Jersey”.

That actually gives us the modern-day (that is, the 1928 design) version of the New Jersey Seal, which can be seen at right here. The lines have been simplified and the colors made more vibrant. In 1965 the colors were specifically defined by law using the Cable color system, with the blue as Cable Number 70087 and the buff as Cable Number 65015, and their hexidecimal equivalents being #2484C6 and #E1B584, respectively.

That there’s a disembodied horse’s head in the New Jersey Seal makes it way too easy for me to do a cheap joke, so I’m going to lampshade the whole thing by making a point of not doing one, and telling you about it here.

The post The New Jersey Seal–October 3, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The day after the British landed on Long Island, George Washington was disheartened to learn that army provisioning wasn’t at the level he’d expected, despite his orders only a week earlier.

It was bad enough that he’d been caught a little flatfooted by both the magnitude and the direction of the British movement, now he discovers that troops he’d ordered to move had done so without proper provisions.

So, he took the time to create new orders regarding army provisioning and ensure that the General Commissary had the manpower to do what it needed to do. He also took the time to write an inspirational note to the troops, which we couldn’t do in a two-minute show, but which read thus:

The Enemy have now landed on Long Island, and the hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty—that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men: Remember how your Courage and Spirit have been dispised, and traduced by your cruel invaders; though they have found by dear experience at Boston, Charlestown and other places, what a few brave men contending in their own land, and in the best of causes can do, against base hirelings and mercenaries—Be cool, but determined; do not fire at a distance, but wait for orders from your officers—It is the General’s express orders that if any man attempt to skulk, lay down, or retreat without Orders he be instantly shot down as an example, he hopes no such Scoundrel will be found in this army; but on the contrary, every one for himself resolving to conquer, or die, and trusting to the smiles of heaven upon so just a cause, will behave with Bravery and Resolution: Those who are distinguished for their Gallantry, and good Conduct, may depend upon being honorably noticed, and suitably rewarded: And if this Army will but emulate, and imitate their brave Countrymen, in other parts of America, he has no doubt they will, by a glorious Victory, save their Country, and acquire to themselves immortal Honor.

Yes, I said that cowardice “will not be tolerated” in the episode; clearly I under-sold that one.

The post Reacting to Brooklyn–August 23, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The advantage of having a large military force, as the British did, is that they were able to concentrate on multiple places at once with experienced soldiers. So while they had one group getting ready to move in on New York, they had others preparing to take on the southern states.

Enter Sir Peter Parker and Lord George Cornwallis, who arrived in North Carolina on this day. Parker and Cornwallis’ mission was to take on the city of Charleston, in South Carolina. Why land in North Carolina?

This is a guess, but at the time there really wasn’t anything between Wilmington and Charleston. None of what we now call The Grand Strand was developed to any significant extent. So staging everything in North Carolina, while simultaneously sending ships to observe Charleston, was the practical move to make.

The post Two Men To The Carolinas–May, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

As we noted back in July, a day of prayer, humiliation and fasting wasn’t new to the Continental Congress. (Go back to that episode’s show notes to see my explanation of the word “humiliation” in this context.) And, as Mike notes in the episode, it wasn’t even close to the last for this Congress.

That’s neither good nor bad; it probably gave everyone the opportunity to simply stop and contemplate matters. Tensions were rising high by now, and it would have been easy to make a rash, emotion-based decision. So why not take a moment to ensure that whatever deity you subscribe to is inclined to help you?

I don’t frame it that way to be provocative; we all too often hear rhetoric suggesting that all of the Founding Fathers were good Christians. In fact they ran the gamut from orthodox Christianity, through rationalistic theism, through Deism. Thomas Jefferson once edited a Bible which removed references to miracles and the divinity of Jesus. Even among the “orthodox Christian” crowd, one could find Quakers, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed, Anglicans, and Presbyterians. One of our first episodes featured a Jewish Patriot. And even though he didn’t appear to practice publicly, Alexander Hamilton was raised Jewish as a child.

The point here is that when you’re in hopeless times—and fighting off the British was considered a lost cause in those days—you take the comfort where you can. Whether that’s in God, Buddha, Krishna, Zeus, Mohammed or another human being, it’s not wrong to give yourself some form of contemplation.

Okay, rant over.

The post A Special Proclamation–March 16, 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 knew that the Siege of Boston wasn’t going to last forever. Before much more time would pass, the weather was going to break and it would start to get warmer, and in his eyes, that’s when there’d be a huge infusion of British soldiers to come in from the harbor side and bust the whole thing wide open.

And this is one of the things he discussed with his Boston Council of War. (To be fair, I don’t think that’s what he actually called it; I’m just using that phrase to make a distinction between this group and other Councils he called.)

In addition, Washington changed his mind about recruiting soldiers who’d previously been banned.

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

We’ve done several episodes about the Battle of Great Bridge, and there’s a reason for that. Bunker Hill gets all the press, but remember we LOST that battle.

Great Bridge was the first real Patriot victory, it was the first major battle in Virginia, and therefore it poked the Virginia Convention into adopting the first public declaration expressing a spirit of independence.

Also of note is that, according to the Great Bridge Battlefield Museum, the last Patriot to retreat before the battle began in earnest was named Billy Flora, a free black man. He came under heavy fire but he managed to remove a plank from near the end of the bridge, thus slowing the British advance.

The shorter version of all this is that Great Bridge gave us the possibility of actually winning this thing. And oddly enough, Independence still really wasn’t on the table.

The post Colonel Woodford’s View–December 15, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

The siege and battle at Ninety Six managed to end abruptly, largely because the leaders on both sides were convinced that something was about to happen the would benefit the other side.

What a gentlemanly way to go out!

For all that shooting, hardly anyone was seriously hurt. There was one death on each side, and most of the others who were injured had the ability to get treated right away. But for the second important battle of the Revolution in South Carolina, and the first one to get someone killed in the name of Independence there.

The post The End of the First Siege at Ninety Six–November 22, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Montgomery had done his thing at Fort St. Jean. Benedict Arnold had finally made it through the Maine (heh.) Now it was time to move in on Montreal.

What the Canadians didn’t count on was the possibility that Americans weren’t moving on Quebec, but Montreal. Americans can walk and chew gum at the same time, though, so they moved on Montreal, taking the city, and moved on Quebec at the same time, with less result. But the city was besieged just a few weeks later.

The post Erm…now what?–November 13, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.

During the episode we noted that not much is known about David McConaughy’s early life. Even his adult life isn’t especially well-documented. We don’t even know who painted the portrait in today’s cover art.

But there’s no question that, even if the man himself is a bit of a cypher, his legacy at Washington College is not.

Meanwhile, another couple of Washingtons are in communication with each other. Lund Washington, a cousin of George, is taking care of Mount Vernon in George’s absence. Unfortunately, he’s having a rather tough week.

The post September 29, 1775: David McConaughy appeared first on 250 and Counting.

Note: we inadvertently posted the January 20 episode yesterday. That episode has been replaced with the correct one, so if you want to hear the real January 19th episode, scroll down to the previous post and listen “again.” Apologies for the error and any confusion.

It’s Cake and Candles today for André-Marie Ampère. He was an advanced mathematician by the time he turned 12, and when he was 18 he estimated that he’d learned everything there was to learn about electricity and electromagnetism at that time.

So, as one does, he continued his studies and expanded that branch of science, and beccame a full professor of physics at the Polytechnical school in Paris, even though he had very little formal education to that point. Many of his discoveries led to enormous breakthroughs in the use of electricity and electromagnetism for generations to come.

The post 250 and Counting: January 20, 1775 appeared first on 250 and Counting.