Another Dose of Independence Info

Author’s note: Last issue I made casual mention of writing interesting snippets of American history in honor of Independence. While I was expressing a preference to avoid doing so again (I have done this in the past), several readers (enough to persuade me) politely requested such a column. Below is the fulfillment of these requests.

• Ten days after the Boston Tea Party, a group in Philadelphia who sympathized strongly with the actions of the Bostonians, stage their own protest, albeit much more restrained. As the British tea ship, the Polly, waited to dock and unload a hold full of tea, the ship’s captain was informed that if he did indeed unload his goods he would be seized, tarred, and feathered. The captain, who no doubt was aware of the events ten days before in Boston, decided that his best course of action was to turn around. Thus, Philadelphia achieved the same result without any brouhaha at all.

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalized Paul Revere with his famous poem, “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere.” Of course, what Longfellow overlooks in his poem is that Revere’s ride consisted of a sum total of about 10 miles (Boston to Lexington). Granted, Revere did alert John Adams and John Hancock (with whom he shared a cup of tea). Leaving the company of Adams and Hancock, Revere, now riding with William Dawes, gathered up another rider named Dr. Samuel Prescott. The three men left the outskirts of Lexington and were promptly detained by a British patrol.

I mention all of the above because the story of Revere has led us to forget Sibyl Ludington (and many others). Nine days after Revere’s ride, with the British pressing the fight, Sibyl Ludington’s father sent her to alert neighbors to the advancing British while he, a colonel, organized his men. Sibyl far exceeded her father’s request. At the age of 16, the girl rode throughout the night and covered more than 40 miles, knocking on the doors of farmhouses.

As I mentioned, there were other riders spreading news throughout the colonies, but because of her young age and the tremendous number of miles she traversed, Sibyl Ludington deserves special recognition.

• On the morning of May 28, 1754, the 22-year-old George Washington, then commanding a small force of Virginia militia along with a group of Native Americans, led by Tanaghrisson (known to the English as Half King) made a decision that changed history.

Deep in the western wilderness of Pennsylvania, Washington’s party came upon a relatively small detachment of French soldiers. Though he had orders not to engage any French troops he came upon, Washington feared that many more French soldiers might show up, and with his superiors in far off Williamsburg, he chose to attack.

According to later reports, a French soldier spotted Washington’s men on a outcropping above the French camp and, before any orders were given, shots were fired. Washington’s Native American allies sealed off any possible French retreat, and after approximately 15 minutes of gunfire, Washington’s forces had one dead and three injured. The French suffered 14 casualties and another 20 men were captured alive.

One of the unharmed Frenchmen was an ensign named Joseph de Jumonville, who managed to catch Washington’s attention. Jumonville handed Washington a sheaf of papers and, after much confusion and difficulty in translation, he was finally able to make his point: Washington had attacked a diplomatic party on their way to deliver a message to the English authorities in Virginia.

So the situation was pretty bad for Washington but, as is so often the case, it quickly became a lot worse. Unbeknownst to Washington, Half King’s father had been killed by the French. Thus while Washington struggled to communicate with Jumonville, his efforts were rendered moot when Half King buried his hatchet in Jumonville’s skull. The rest of the Native Americans quickly slew the remaining Frenchmen before Washington’s men could react.

Well, folks, in the report Washington filed with his superiors the next day, “I cannot tell a lie” Washington did the only thing he could do given the situation: he lied. Granted it was a lie of omission, Washington simply chose not to relate too many details, but – as luck would have it – one Frenchman survived by hiding on the outskirts of the camp. This Frenchman made his way back to the French command and related the whole – un-sanitized version of events.

Well, folks, to make this long story somewhat shorter, Washington’s actions that day in May – particularly the gruesome details he chose not to share with his superiors – set off a sequence of events that resulted in the Seven Years War, better known in our part of the world as the French and Indian War. According to James Thomas Flexner in his book, “The Forge of Experience,” this war resulted in 853,000 soldiers and perhaps hundreds of thousands more civilians losing their lives – all tracing back to an ill-advised skirmish that resulted in a massacre deep in the western Pennsylvania woods.

• Finally, there is the story of George Robert Twelves Hewes, who was an apprentice shoemaker suddenly unemployed when his master’s business went bust. Since America was still a colony, George decided that he would enlist in the British Army (the British at the time were busy fighting the French and Indian War, or Seven Years War). There was only one problem: George stood only 5 feet 1 inch, too short for the British Army. So George opened his own shoe shop.

In 1770, as tensions were rising between Britain and the Colonies, George witnessed British soldiers firing into a crowd of protestors (one of the protestors reportedly died in George’s arms) in what became known as the Boston Massacre. Thus began George the revolutionary.

On December 16, 1773, George was one of the disguised revolutionaries tossing tea into the sea at the Boston Tea Party. Once the war began, George served 20 months with the Revolutionary Army. And history has passed down one other interesting story about George: it seems that George Robert Twelves Hewes was able to create a near deafening single pitch whistle that came in very handy when a room needed to be quieted in order for a speaker’s words to be heard.

Thus the man that was too short for the British Army became a revolutionary and was witness or participant at some of the defining moments of early American history.