On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, the Continental Congress adopted a resolution granting General Washington permission to re-enlist free blacks in the Continental Army. Washington had originally recommended to the Congress that it bar the enlistment of blacks but recognized in late December that he needed their re-enlistments because so many of their fellow soldiers had gone home at the end of their original enlistment instead of remaining with the Army.
Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93paUhXfO2A;
On this day 250 years ago in Williamsburg, Edmund Pendleton, the President of Virginia’s Committee of Safety — effectively the acting Governor of Virginia — wrote to Col. William Woodford in Norfolk approving of the destruction of Norfolk by Woodford’s and Col. Robert Howe’s men in order to deny the British the use of the town as a base if they invaded Virginia in the future. Pendleton wrote:
While the town of Norfolk was entire, I could not think it right for you to abandon it as it was too shocking to think of our making a conflagration of our own town though too much of the property of our enemies, but after Lord Dunmore had done that horrid work fit only for him, I saw no reason for your stay and yet a determination has been put off from time to time by our slow moving body till yesterday when a resolution passed that you should evacuate as soon as it was judged necessary or prudent by a council of field officers. A resolution for demolishing the remaining buildings and town and suburbs was rejected but I am inclined to think it will pass today as I did not see the propriety of leaving such comfortable lodgings to our enemy.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1230676722457169
[note to readers — Edmund Pendleton was the brother of my 7th great-grandmother Mary Pendleton]
On This Day In The Revolution 