Posted on 08/13/2013 3:43:07 PM PDT by NYer
For the Journal of the American Revolution, Todd Andrlik compiled a list of the ages of the key participants in the Revolutionary War as of July 4, 1776. Many of them were surprisingly young:
Marquis de Lafayette, 18
James Monroe, 18
Gilbert Stuart, 20
Aaron Burr, 20
Alexander Hamilton, 21
Betsy Ross, 24
James Madison, 25
This is kind of blowing my mind...because of the compression of history, I'd always assumed all these people were around the same age. But in thinking about it, all startups need young people...Hamilton, Lafayette, and Burr were perhaps the Gates, Jobs, and Zuckerberg of the War. Some more ages, just for reference:
Thomas Jefferson, 33
John Adams, 40
Paul Revere, 41
George Washington, 44
Samuel Adams, 53
The oldest prominent participant in the Revolution, by a wide margin, was Benjamin Franklin, who was 70 years old on July 4, 1776. Franklin was a full two generations removed from the likes of Madison and Hamilton. But the oldest participant in the war was Samuel Whittemore, who fought in an early skirmish at the age of 80. I'll let Wikipedia take it from here:
Whittemore was in his fields when he spotted an approaching British relief brigade under Earl Percy, sent to assist the retreat. Whittemore loaded his musket and ambushed the British from behind a nearby stone wall, killing one soldier. He then drew his dueling pistols and killed a grenadier and mortally wounded a second. By the time Whittemore had fired his third shot, a British detachment reached his position; Whittemore drew his sword and attacked. He was shot in the face, bayoneted thirteen times, and left for dead in a pool of blood. He was found alive, trying to load his musket to fight again. He was taken to Dr. Cotton Tufts of Medford, who perceived no hope for his survival. However, Whittemore lived another 18 years until dying of natural causes at the age of 98.
!!!
Interestingly, he was English, and didn’t even arrive in the colonies until he was already in his 50s as a Captain of Dragoons.
“A role model I can look up to.”
I think Whittemore’s fortitude to live was like yours when you fell off the mountain - neither of you gave up.
In the time of Whittemore, I’m surprised he didn’t die from infection from so many wounds.
/johnny
I’m also finding that the puritans were a pretty rowdy and fun loving bunch who were very interested in the sciences. My uncle has some notes taken by an ancestor at a public hearing where Cotton Mather was discussing the possibility that God might not oppose the process of Variolation against smallpox (An early form of vaccination).
From what I’m reading I’m finding that anyone who has a family going back 6 or 7 generations very likely has a fair amount of indian blood.
None that we can identify in our direct family tree and we got here in 1620 and 1632.
“old dead white men”
My ggg-grandfather Jacob Allen was captured during the Battle of Long Island and was held a prisoner at “The Old Sugar House” in New York. They said he was so hungry that he ate his leather shoes. I think Nathan Hale also was at that prison.
Get off my lawn...
I’m related to all these guys, especially that old man. I’m an American. My grandpa came here after WWI and sent for a bride from his area.
I don’t think he came with papers.
Did any of these guys come here with papers? I mean American papers, not British. They were illegals regardless, fighting for something far better.
bfr
(As a future president, he was invited even though he was just a kid.)
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
I would not be surprised if ninety-five percent of high schoolers today could not quote Ethan Allen.
How stupid of me. I was reading Ethan Allen and thinking Nathan Hale. I hope I can live this down.
If I can show proof, will that get me an invite to join the D.A.R.?
They hadn't yet learned that the only way to deal with geezers is to nuke us from orbit....maybe.
The US Army was greatly expanded in both world wars. Basically you had company grade officers serving in field grade slots while field grade officers filled out the flag ranks (temporary).
20-something colonels were still relatively rare and mostly limited to the Army Airforce where the casualty rates were heavy.
Yep, and Major General Curtis Lemay was crossing off fire-bombed Japanese cities from his list as commander of all strategic air forces against Japan in 1944 at the ripe old age of 37!
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