General Thomas Sumter wins the Battle of Fishdam Ford

On this day in history, November 9, 1780, General Thomas Sumter escaped capture in South Carolina by the British Major James Wemyss at the Battle of Fishdam Ford. Instead, Wemyss was wounded in the arm and the knee and was captured by Sumter.

Sumter and Wemyss were arch rivals in the battle between the British and the colonists along the Santee River in east central South Carolina. Sumter’s plantation had been burned at the beginning of the summer by the infamous Colonel Banastre Tarleton (the villain in Mel Gibson’s "The Patriot" movie). In response, Sumter raised a powerful local militia to terrorize the British in return.

General Wemyss was sent to South Carolina by British General Charles Cornwallis to defeat Francis Marion, also known as the Swamp Fox an inspiring local figure using guerilla tactics against the British.

Wemyss failed in his mission to take Marion or Sumter. Sumter was however, wounded by Tarleton only a week and a half after Fishdam Ford, forcing him to step down from his position. Francis Marion stepped up to drive the British out of the Carolinas and into Virginia where they surrendered to George Washington the following year.

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Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever."

Thomas Jefferson – Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18, 1781

Washington seeks to make militias into a military

On this day in 1775, General George Washington seeks to resolve several problems facing the army: how to encourage experienced troops to enlist, how to assemble a capable officer corps and how to overcome provincial differences and rivalries. Describing the problems, he wrote, “Connecticut wants no Massachusetts man in her corps. Massachusetts thinks there is no necessity for a Rhode Islander…”

Just as the British had discovered the difficulties of waging war with obstreperous Yankees for soldiers during the Seven Years’ War, Washington, the Virginia planter-cum-soldier, was unimpressed upon meeting his supposed army outside Boston after being appointed commander in chief of Continental forces in 1775. He saw “stupidity” among the enlisted men, who were used to the easy familiarity of being commanded by neighbors in local militias with elected officers. Washington promptly insisted that the officers behave with decorum and the enlisted men with deference. Although he enjoyed some success with this original army, the New Englanders went home to their farms at the end of 1775, and Washington had to start fresh with new recruits in 1776.

Washington fought an uphill battle for military order until Friedrich von Steuben arrived at the Continental Army encampment at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778. The Prussian military officer commenced training soldiers in close-order drill, instilling new confidence and discipline in the demoralized Continental Army. Before von Steuben’s arrival, colonial American soldiers were notorious for their slovenly camp conditions. Von Steuben insisted on reorganization to establish basic hygiene, ordering that kitchens and latrines be put on opposite sides of the camp, with latrines facing a downhill slope. Just having latrines was a novelty to the Continental troops, who were accustomed to living in their own filth.

On the merit of his efforts at Valley Forge, Washington recommended that von Steuben be named inspector general of the Continental Army; Congress complied. In this capacity, von Steuben propagated his methods throughout the Patriot forces by circulating his “Blue Book,” entitled “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States.”

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Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

"The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one."
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

Governor Dunmore signs Dunmore’s Proclamation

On this day in history, November 7, 1775, what became known as Dunmore’s Proclamation was signed by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore and Royal Governor of the Colony of Virginia. This proclamation declared martial law in the colony and promised freedom to all slaves who would leave their Virginia masters and join the Royal army.

Dunmore hoped to reassert his authority in the colony after living aboard a ship at Yorktown for several months when the rebellion started becoming violent. His hopes were never realized, only one or two thousand slaves left to join his meager force of 300 soldiers. Patriot and Loyalist slave owners turned against him. The Virginia Convention issued an amnesty to any slaves who would return home.

The slaves that could fight became part of "Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment" and only fought in one battle, the Battle of Great Bridge, which the British lost. Many of Dunmore’s soldiers died in a smallpox outbreak the following year. In 1776, Dunmore was forced to abandon the colony and he took 300 of the slaves with him back to England.

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Jack Manning

Historian General
National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

John Carroll named first Catholic bishop in U.S.

On this day in 1789, Pope Pius VI appoints John Carroll bishop of Baltimore, making him the first Catholic bishop in the United States.

Carroll was born in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, in 1735. His mother came from a wealthy family and had been educated in France. At age 13, Carroll sailed for France in order to complete his own education at St. Omer’s College in French Flanders. At age 18, he joined the Society of Jesus, and after a further 14 years of study in Liege, he received ordination as a priest at age 34. Pope Clement XIV’s decision in 1773 to dissolve the Jesuit order, however, ended Carroll’s European career.

Three years after Carroll’s return to Maryland, the need to make allies of French Catholics in Canada created an opportunity for him to join a Congressional delegation dispatched to negotiate with the Canadians. Benjamin Franklin served on the same delegation, and although the mission failed, Franklin proved an excellent ally to Carroll. In 1784, Franklin recommended to the papal nuncio in Paris that Carroll assume the position of Superior of Missions in the United States of North America, which removed American Catholics from the authority of the British Catholic hierarchy. In this role, as bishop and ultimately as the first archbishop in the United States (1808), Carroll oversaw the creation of leading Catholic institutions in the new nation, including the nation’s first Catholic university (Georgetown University, founded in 1789) and cathedral (Baltimore Basilica, built in 1806).

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Jack Manning

Historian General
National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

"You will, by the dignity of your Conduct, afford occasion for Posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to Mankind, had this day been wanting, the World had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining."

George Washington – Response to the First Newburgh Address, March 15, 1783

De La Balme’s Defeat

On this day in history, November 5, 1780, a Revolutionary War battle known as De la Balme’s Defeat or De la Balme’s Massacre takes place when retired French cavalry officer Augustin de la Balme is killed near present day Fort Wayne, Indiana in a battle with Miami Indians. The officer had been appointed in 1777 as the Continental Army’s Inspector of Cavalry, but resigned this position due to his dislike for Polish General Casimir Pulaski, the Commander of the United States Cavalry.

In 1780, De la Balme left on a voyage down the Ohio River on a mission to capture the British Fort Detroit. Historians are uncertain whether he undertook this mission on his own or if he was acting on secret orders from General George Washington. De la Balme gathered Canadian colonists who had been living under British rule along the way in Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes (in what is now Indiana).

De la Balme’s men moved north toward Fort Detroit and when they arrived in Kekionga (modern day Fort Wayne, Indiana), they found an unoccupied British and Indian trading post, the British and their Miami Indian allies having left the post, apparently on a hunting mission. De la Balme occupied the post and began to raid other British posts in the area. On the 5th, De la Balme set out for a post along the Eel River.

In the meantime, a group of Miami hunters returned to Kekionga, killed the 20 men De la Balme had left there and spread the word among the local Indians. Chief Little Turtle, who lived on the Eel River nearby, attacked De la Balme’s party before he could reach the trading post. de la Balme’s men entrenched themselves along the river, but were eventually overcome. De la Balme and most of his men were killed, with only a few escaping to tell the tale.

Chief Little Turtle would go on to become a successful war chief against the Americans in the Northwest Indian Wars of the 1790s and, in spite of De la Balme’s failure, the British would post a group of Rangers at Kekionga to protect it from further attack. Fort Detroit would remain in British possession until the signing of the Jay Treaty in 1794.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com

Jack Manning

Historian General
National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined… The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun."

Patrick Henry – Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

Patriot, politician and physician William Shippen dies

Patriot William Shippen, of the powerful Shippen family of Philadelphia dies at the age of 89 at his home in Germantown, Pennsylvania, on this day in 1801. He was a descendant of the well-known Edward Shippen, colonial Philadelphia’s mayor and Pennsylvania’s chief justice.

William Shippen pursued a medical education instead of following in the footsteps of his father, a successful merchant. He established a large practice in Philadelphia and spent the 1740s immersed in civic projects including the establishment of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia and Benjamin Franklin’s Public Academy. The Academy evolved into the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, of which Shippen served as a trustee from 1755 to 1779. William’s brother, Edward, was instrumental in the founding of the College of New Jersey, now Princeton University, of which William also served as a trustee.

Shippen went on to serve as a Pennsylvania delegate to the Continental Congress from 1779 to 1780, before returning to his medical practice. His son, William Shippen Jr., graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1754, received a medical degree from the University of Edinburgh in 1761 and, with his father’s support, became an early faculty member at the first medical school in what would later become the United States at the College of Philadelphia in 1765. William Jr. then put his medical expertise to a patriotic purpose, serving the Continental Army as the director of hospitals from 1777 to 1781. He married Patriot Thomas Lee of Virginia’s daughter, Alice. Their daughter, Nancy, further tightened the bonds between the leading families of the new United States by marrying Robert Beekman Livingston of New York.

By contrast, William Sr.’s niece—Edward’s daughter, Margaret (Peggy) Shippen—married Benedict Arnold in 1779, when she was 18 and the then Patriot war hero was 37. Arnold’s attempt to keep his young bride in the affluent lifestyle to which she was accustomed is generally understood to be one cause of his decision to accept a bribe from the British. Peggy had courted British Major John Andre before meeting Arnold and likely introduced her old beau to her husband; Arnold later conspired with Andre, agreeing to hand over West Point to the British for 20,000 pounds sterling. For her part, Peggy is thought to have passed information to the British before her marriage to Arnold, although she convinced George Washington of her innocence after Andre’s capture and her husband’s flight. She remained a devoted wife to Arnold despite their financial and personal hardships when they fled to England, where she remained after his death in June 1801.

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Jack Manning

Historian General
National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."

Thomas Jefferson – Letter to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816

Washington learns of Conway cabal

On this day in 1777, General George Washington is informed that a conspiracy is afoot to discredit him with Congress and have him replaced by General Horatio Gates. Thomas Conway, who would be made inspector general of the United States less than two months later on December 14, led the effort.

Conway, who was born in Ireland but raised in France, entered the French army in 1749. He was recruited to the Patriot cause by Silas Deane, the American ambassador to France, and after meeting with Washington at Morristown in May 1777, he was appointed brigadier general and assigned to Major General John Sullivan’s division.

Conway served admirably under Sullivan at the battles of Brandywine, in September 1777, and Germantown, in October 1777, before becoming involved in an unconfirmed conspiracy to remove General Washington from command of the Continental Army. The rumored conspiracy would go down in history as the “Conway cabal.”

After the Continental Army suffered several defeats in the fall of 1777, some members of Congress expressed displeasure with Washington’s leadership and Conway began writing letters to prominent leaders, including General Horatio Gates, that were critical of Washington. After Washington got wind of Conway’s letter to General Gates, he responded with a letter to Congress in January 1778. Embarrassed, Conway offered his resignation in March 1778 by way of apology, and was surprised and humiliated when Congress accepted. After General John Cadwalader wounded him in a duel defending Washington’s honor, Conway returned to France, where he died in exile in 1800.

www.history.com

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"To stand well in the estimation of one’s country is a happiness that no rational creature can be insensible of."

George Washington – Letter to Joseph Reed, July 29, 1779