-
Early in the morning on this day 250 years ago on Bald Head Island at the mouth of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina, 150 men of the 4th North Carolina Regiment commanded by Col. Thomas Polk and Capts. Thomas Harris and Robert Smith battled Royal Navy sailors manning Fort George on the island…
-
Late at night on this day 250 years ago in New York Harbor, Sgt. Ezra Lee of Connecticut piloted the submarine Turtle in an unsuccessful attempt to attach explosives to the HMS Eagle in the first instance of the use of a submarine in combat anywhere in the world. Inventors David Bushnell and Isaac Doolittle,…
-
On this day 250 years ago in Philadelphia, uniforms for Continental Navy officers were adopted by the Marine Committee of the Continental Congress. Captains were required to “wear blue coats with red lapels with a standing collar and flat yellow buttons, blue breeches, and a red waistcoat” acquired at their own expense. Uniforms were not…
-
On this day 250 years ago, in New York City General Washington replied to Lt. Col Henry Beekman Livingston of the 2nd New York Regiment who had requested orders for the three companies of the regiment detached under his command to eastern Long Island. The huge British Army occupying western Long Island essentially meant Livingston’s…
-
On this day 250 years ago on Long Island, a British diarist recorded that American batteries on Manhattan fired on the HMS Rose in the East River and wounded two or three of the men onboard. He also wrote that the woods near Brooklyn are “noisome with the Stench of the dead Bodies of the…
-
On this day 250 years ago in New York City, General George Washington wrote to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress: Our situation is truly distressing—The check our Detachment sustained on the 27th Ulto, has dispirited too great a proportion of our Troops and filled their minds with apprehension and despair . . .…
-
On this day 250 years ago on Long Island (in what is now the Queens borough of New York City), British sailors from the brig HMS Halifax raided and stole goods from a warehouse owned by Francis Lewis, one of the members of New York’s delegation to the Continental Congress and a signer of the…
-
On this day 250 years ago in New York City, General Washington consolidated the remnants of the Pennsylvania militia battalions from Northampton County and Berks County with Lt. Col. Edward Hand’s regiment of Pennsylvania riflemen. The Northampton and Berks County battalions had lost many of their men captured at the Battle of Brooklyn, including their…
-
On this day 250 years ago in New York, the Continental Army had completed its evacuation of Long Island. The evacuation had begun at 7:00 pm the previous evening and had taken all night. The evacuation was aided by weather producing wind that prevented the British Navy from sailing into the East River to intercept…
-
On this day 250 years ago at a council of war at his headquarters in the “Four Chimneys” house on Brooklyn Heights in New York, General Washington ordered the withdrawal of the Continental Army from Long Island to Manhattan under cover of darkness that evening. Beginning at 7:00 pm the experienced Massachusetts seamen of Col.…
-
Subscribe
Subscribed
Have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
