Posted on 07/04/2005 11:02:41 PM PDT by nickcarraway
John Adams wrote to his wife, Abigail, "...1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival.'
He suggested that it be commemorated, as the "Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty.'
Furthermore, he said it ought to be celebrated with "Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward for evermore.'
Though indefatigable in his efforts to secure loans from the Netherlands to finance the war, Adams, as well as the other Founding Fathers, was crushed by the events from the last week of August to the last week of December 1776.
It was, perhaps, the darkest time in the history of the country. Representatives at the Continental Congress saw no hope of victory against the mighty British and fled Philadelphia. Some 2,000 hopeless Army recruits walked off the battlefields and returned home when their enlistments were up. Others deserted.
Meanwhile, Britain's overwhelming naval might controlled New York harbor. Its armada was poised for one of the most crushing victories the world had ever witnessed.
General George Washington was forced to accept what he called "the melancholy Truths.'
The first truth was that his army could not compete with British regulars on the conventional battlefields.
The second, Joseph Ellis points out in his recent book on Washington, was that the essential engine for producing new recruits, continued to sputter despite victories at Trenton and Princeton.
He writes, "One French partisan of the cause claimed that there is a hundred times more enthusiasm for the Revolution in any Paris cafe than in all the colonies together.'
But a small band of determined men and women and their leader miraculously changed the course of history. One must remember that it was not in Washington's character to ever quit despite the fact that most of his barefoot troops had no gunpowder and no coats, let alone uniforms, to protect them from the winter elements.
Sir George Otto Trevelyan would later write: "I may be doubted whether so small a number of men ever employed so short a space of time with greater and more lasting effects upon the history of the world.'
Abigail Adams, the mother of the revolution, hoped their sacrifices would never be forgotten.
David McCullough, a national treasure in his own right, and author of "1776,' told a standing-room-only audience in Cal Tech's Beckman Auditorium in Pasadena last week that one of our nation's sins is that we have forgotten those who died in this most bitter of wars.
"Since we equate reality with photographs, we can't relate to the 18th century,' McCullough said. "The dead of the revolution don't fill our thoughts. No artists or newspapers covered the event. No drawings or sketches, file clips or recordings of the event exist. All we have are diaries, memoirs and official correspondents.'
But we must not forget that the Revolutionary War was the longest war, except for Vietnam, in our nation's history. It also was among the deadliest, except for the Civil War, claiming 1 percent of the population.
"That would equate today to about 3 million people,'McCullough said.
Instead, McCullough said, Americans don't see these people as real. "They come to us as people in a costume pageant. We tend to think that they walked around saying, 'Isn't it wonderful we are living in the past and people will remember what we did.''
However, he said our forefathers were very real, very simple, and had absolutely no idea what the eventual outcome would be.
"We need to remember them because without them the Declaration of Independence would be words on paper,' McCullough said.
Through "1776' we come to know some real heroes. They include:
John Greenwood, a 16-year- old from Boston. Upon hearing the news of Lexington, he set off on foot with just his clothes on his back and a fife protruding from a front pocket. He walked 150 miles in the uninhabited wilderness from Portland, Maine, to Boston, where he enlisted with the promise of $8 a month. In battle he was terrified, wishing he had never enlisted.
Joseph Hodgkins, a 32-year- old Ipswich cobbler. He went to war with a heavy heart, having seen his wife and four of their five children die of disease.
Jabez Fitch, a 14-year-old boy from a Norwich, Connecticut, farm. He volunteered along with his father, a veteran of the French and Indian War, but was captured and ended up comforting his commander, in excruciating pain after being bayoneted twice in the chest and stomach, until he expired .
On the whole, they were a dreadfully clad lot. To Charles Willson Peale, an artist with a Philadelphia militia unit, they looked as wretched as any men he had ever seen.
"One had almost no clothes. He was in an old dirty blanket jacket, his beard long, and his face so full of sores that he could not clean it.' He was so disfigured that Peale failed to recognize him as his own brother.
McCullough's book is a testament to their efforts and our first president.
"If Washington had been captured or killed, it would have been over,' McCullough said.
Major General Nathaniel Greene, only one of three to serve the entire war, referred to Washington as "the deliverer,' who at the end of the war gave his power back to Congress unheard of in world history.
In hearing that, England's King George III said, "If that is true, George Washington will be the greatest man in the world.'
Washington, on the other hand, said it was not him, but "the hand of God' had intervened, including the dramatic change in winds in Brooklyn that allowed Washington to ferry his troops across the bay.
For McCullough, Americans need to know more about the magnificent Washington and his extraordinary men. For without them "we would be sipping tea and paying homage to the Queen of England.'
Tony Fellow, head of the journalism program at Cal State Fullerton, is author of "American Media History,' which he was encouraged to write by David McCullough. He can be reached at afellow@fullerton.edu.
Thank you to those who started this great nation and to those who keep it safe to this very day.
Thank you to those who started this great nation and to those who keep it safe to this very day.
Let's set the record straight about George Washington. Liberals have often falsely portrayed him as a supporter of slavery.
Washington was one of the founders who sought to end slavery in Virginia and the nation, and who worked to bring civil rights to all Americans, regardless of color.
Many authors of the time attest to his lack of personal bigotry and his abhorrence of slavery.
He would have freed his slaves during his lifetime but Virginia laws imposed requirements that a slave could not be freed unless the slave owner either provided for his transportation out of the country, or guaranteed a security bond for the education and support of the freed slave to ensure he would not become a burden to the community.
These laws placed impossible economic hardships on slave owners who tried to free their slaves, on top of stiff penalties for any slave owner who did so.
Washington spoke out against these laws and worked to influence the Virginia legislature to change them, with no success.
After a lifetime speaking out against slavery, Washington was finally able to free his slaves in his will at his death in 1799.
Bump!
Brit Hume had David McCullough on Fox's "Special Report" yesterday for a fascinating half hour. His book "1776" should be required reading for every high school in the USA, because we are ignorant of the sacrifice of those who won our independence. I didn't realize that at the time of the crossing of the Delaware, Gen. Washington was down to 3,000 pitifully equipped men. The only casualities in the battle of Trenton were the two soldiers who froze to death in the crossing of the river. I WILL get McCullough's book on Amazon today. He has done the country a great service in reminding us of our courageous forefathers, and I agree that he is "a national treasure" in his own right.
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