Samuel Davies Chapter NSDAR

On This Day In History > April 12, 1776:
North Carolina became the first state to vote in favor of independence from Britain.

"North Carolina is the first state to call for independence from Great Britain. Her Provincial Congress, meeting at Halifax, North Carolina, passed a resolution that has come to be known as the Halifax Resolves. In the document, the Congress instructs its representatives to the Continental Congress to vote for independence if the other colonies agree to do so. The resolution does not instruct them to introduce a resolution for independence to the Congress, but to vote in the affirmative if the other colonies agree to it.

North Carolina was a hotbed of rebellion against royal authority from the beginning of tensions with England. North Carolina was the site of the "War of the Regulation," a conflict that lasted from 1760 to 1771. This "war" was an effort of poor western farmers to remove corrupt officials in the more prosperous east who were oppressing them with high taxes. The movement was finally defeated at the Battle of Alamance in 1771.

After the Boston Tea Party, the women of Edenton, North Carolina joined in a compact to boycott tea, the first political resistance organized by women in the colonies. The first North Carolina Provincial Congress met in 1774 and elected members to attend the Continental Congress. The second Provincial Congress met the next year, causing Royal Governor Josiah Martin to dissolve the official assembly.

North Carolina was the site of an early invasion attempt by the British in 1776, but the attempt failed when a large group of Loyalists were defeated at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. The Halifax Resolves were adopted less than a month later on April 12. In July, after Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a formal vote for independence to the Continental Congress, North Carolina's representatives, Joseph Hewes, William Hooper and Lyman Hall, voted for independence in accordance with their instructions in the Resolves. In the same month, Governor Martin fled with the attempted British invasion fleet, bringing royal rule to an end in North Carolina.

North Carolina remained free from fighting with the British for the next several years as the fighting was concentrated in the north. During this time, however, she was involved in numerous battles with Indian tribes allied with the British to the west. In the latter half of the war, the fighting moved south and North Carolina saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war. After the crucial Battle of Guilford Courthouse, British General Charles Cornwallis wrote, "I never saw such fighting... the Americans fought like demons."

Though the battle was won by the British, Cornwallis' troops were worn out and ill-supplied after a year of chasing the Continental Army through the state. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse finally broke his strength and Cornwallis was forced to flee to the coast for reinforcements, where he was trapped at Yorktown, Virginia and forced to surrender, bringing about the end of the American Revolution."

On This Day In History > April 10, 1778:
Revolutionary War Commander John Paul Jones sets out to raid British ships

"Commander John Paul Jones and his crew of 140 men aboard the USS Ranger set sail from the naval port at Brest, France, and head toward the Irish Sea to begin raids on British warships. This was the first mission of its kind during the Revolutionary War.

Commander Jones, remembered as one of the most daring and successful naval commanders of the American Revolution, was born in Scotland, on July 6, 1747. He became an apprentice to a merchant at 13 and soon went to sea, traveling first to the West Indies and then to North America as a young man. In Virginia at the onset of the American Revolution, Jones sided with the Patriots and received a commission as a first lieutenant in the Continental Navy on December 7, 1775.

After departing from Brest, Jones successfully executed raids on two forts in England s Whitehaven Harbor, despite a disgruntled crew more interested in “gain than honor.” Jones then continued to his home territory of Kirkcudbright Bay, Scotland, where he intended to abduct the earl of Selkirk and then exchange him for American sailors held captive by Britain. Although he did not find the earl at home, Jones crew was able to steal all his silver, including his wife s teapot, still containing her breakfast tea. From Scotland, Jones sailed across the Irish Sea to Carrickfergus, where the Ranger captured the HMS Drake after delivering fatal wounds to the British ship s captain and lieutenant.

In September 1779, Jones fought one of the fiercest battles in naval history when he led the USS Bonhomme Richard frigate, named for Benjamin Franklin, in an engagement with the 50-gun British warship HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard was struck, it began taking on water and caught fire. When the British captain of the Serapis ordered Jones to surrender, he famously replied, “I have not yet begun to fight!” A few hours later, the captain and crew of the Serapis admitted defeat and Jones took command of the British ship."

One of the greatest naval commanders in history, Jones is remembered as a “Father of the American Navy,” along with fellow Revolutionary War hero Commodore John Barry.

On This Day In History > April 3,1776:
Congress authorizes privateers to attack British vessels

"Because it lacked sufficient funds to build a strong navy, the Continental Congress gives privateers permission to attack any and all British ships.

In a bill signed by John Hancock, its president, and dated April 3, 1776, the Continental Congress issued "INSTRUCTIONS to the COMMANDERS of Private Ships or vessels of War, which shall have Commissions of Letters of Marque and Reprisal, authorizing them to make Captures of British Vessels and Cargoes."

Letters of Marque and Reprisal were the official documents by which 18th-century governments commissioned private commercial ships, known as privateers, to act on their behalf, attacking ships carrying the flags of enemy nations. Any goods captured by the privateer were divided between the ship’s owner and the government that had issued the letter.

Congress informed American privateers on this day that "YOU may, by Force of Arms, attack, subdue, and take all Ships and other Vessels belonging to the Inhabitants of Great Britain, on the high seas, or between high-water and low-water Marks, except Ships and Vessels bringing Persons who intend to settle and reside in the United Colonies, or bringing Arms, Ammunition or Warlike Stores to the said Colonies, for the Use of such Inhabitants thereof as are Friends to the American Cause, which you shall suffer to pass unmolested, the Commanders thereof permitting a peaceable Search, and giving satisfactory Information of the Contents of the Ladings, and Destinations of the Voyages."

The British Strategy: The Revolutionary War in Four Minutes Visit our Civil War page at: https://www.battlefields.org// Chris Kolakowski explains British strategy during the Revolutionary War, putting the American con...

KSDAR State Conference for March 26-29 has been canceled

In 1853, Louisa Bird Cunningham wrote these words to her daughter, Ann Pamela Cunningham, after seeing the decrepit state of George Washington's home while traveling on the Potomac River.

Inspired by her mother's words, Cunningham took it upon herself to challenge the nation to save Mount Vernon.

She founded the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association in 1853, and by 1858 had raised $200,000 to purchase the Mansion and 200 acres. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association was the first national historic preservation organization & is the oldest women's patriotic society in the US, and continues to safeguard George Washington’s home to this day. Learn more today on : http://bit.ly/3aAKp2q

On This Day In History > March 6,1820:
President Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise

"President James Monroe signs the Missouri Compromise, also known as the Compromise Bill of 1820, into law. The bill attempted to equalize the number of slave-holding states and free states in the country, allowing Missouri into the Union as a slave state while Maine joined as a free state. Additionally, portions of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the 36-degrees-30-minutes latitude line were prohibited from engaging in slavery by the bill.

Monroe, who was born into the Virginia slave-holding planter class, favored strong states’ rights, but stood back and let Congress argue over the issue of slavery in the new territories. Monroe then closely scrutinized any proposed legislation for its constitutionality. He realized that slavery conflicted with the values written into the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence but, like his fellow Virginians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, feared abolition would split apart the nation they had fought so hard to establish.

Passage of the Missouri Compromise contributed to the Era of Good Feelings over which Monroe presided and facilitated his election to a second term. In his second inaugural address, Monroe optimistically pointed out that although the nation had struggled in its infancy, no serious conflict has arisen that was not solved peacefully between the federal and state governments. By steadily pursuing this course, he predicted, there is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable.

In the end, the Missouri Compromise failed to permanently ease the underlying tensions caused by the slavery issue. The conflict that flared up during the bill’s drafting presaged how the nation would eventually divide along territorial, economic and ideological lines 40 years later during the Civil War."

in 1913 thousands of women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue to demand the right to vote. Organized by DAR Daughter Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, the Great Suffrage Parade was one of the first protest marches to use the main thoroughfares of Washington, D.C. as a back-drop.

BUT, do you know where the women ended this historic event? Right here at Memorial Continental Hall! Completed in 1910, Memorial Continental Hall offered a large auditorium space for the women to reconvene after the parade (pictured here; this space now houses the DAR Library ).

Originally, Paul planned speeches to rally and unite the marchers; however, after a near riot obstructed the parade, harming nearly 100 women in its wake, she decided to pursue a different tactic. As the women gathered at MCH, they were encouraged to write down the violence and aggression they had experienced first-hand. The parade committee then collected these accounts and used them for press releases that were distributed to the women's hometown newspapers.

Despite the strangled success of the parade, this publicity worked! Newspapers across the country decried the targeted hostility faced by the marchers, turning many toward the suffragist cause. To learn more about this event, check out Rebecca Boggs Roberts' Tuesday Talk lecture "Suffragists in Washington DC: The 1913 Parade and the Fight for the Right to Vote" on the DAR Museum's website: http://ow.ly/2TY930nSr78

1780 February 29: Lafayette, dressed in his American major general's uniform went to the Court of Versailles to take formal leave of the court of France to resume his duties for General Washington.

On This Day In History > February 28, 1784:
John Wesley charters first Methodist Church in U.S.

"Despite the fact that he was an Anglican, Wesley saw the need to provide church structure for his followers after the Anglican Church abandoned its American believers during the American Revolution.

Wesley first brought his evangelical brand of methodical Anglicanism to colonial Georgia from 1735 to 1737 in the company of his brother Charles, with whom he had founded the ascetic Holy Club at Oxford University. This first venture onto American soil was not a great success. Wesley became embittered from a failed love affair and was unable to win adherents to his studious practices. However, while in Georgia, he became acquainted with the German Moravians, who hoped to establish a settlement in the colony. The meeting proved momentous, as it was at a Moravian meeting upon his return to London that Wesley felt he had a true experience of God’s grace.

While closely allied to the Moravians, Wesley began taking the advice of fellow Oxford graduate George Whitfield and preaching in the open air when banned from Anglican churches for his unorthodox evangelical methods. By 1739, Wesley had separated himself from the Moravians and attracted his own group of adherents, known as Methodists, who were held in disdain by the orthodox Anglican clerical and civic hierarchy. By 1744, the Methodists had become a large enough group to require their own conference of ministers, which expanded to create an internal hierarchy, replicating some of the Anglican Church’s ecclesiastical order.

Wesley, however, remained within the Anglican fold and insisted that only ministers who had received the apostolic succession—the laying on of hands by an Anglican bishop to consecrate a new priest—could administer the sacraments. The refusal of the Anglican church to ordain Dr. Thomas Coke to preach to Americans newly independent from the British State Church, finally forced Wesley to ordain within his own Methodist conference in the absence of a proper Anglican bishop. He performed the laying on of hands and not only ordained Coke as the superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America but also commissioned him to ordain Francis Asbury as his co-superintendent."

On This Day In History > February 27, 1776:
Patriots defeated the North Carolina Loyalists at Moores Creek Bridge

"Responding to the call by Josiah Martin, North Carolina’s royal governor, British Colonel Donald McLeod began marching 1,600 Loyalists from Cross Creek, North Carolina, toward the coast, where they were supposed to rendezvous with other Loyalists and Redcoats at Brunswick, North Carolina. When Commander Richard Caswell (1729-89) and some 1,000 Patriots arrived at Moores Creek Bridge, near present-day Wilmington, ahead of the British Loyalists, Caswell positioned his troops in the woods on either side of the bridge, awaiting the British with cannons and muskets at the ready. The British learned of the Patriot troops at Moores Creek in advance, but, expecting only a small force, decided to advance across the bridge to attack. The British Loyalists shouted, “King George and Broadswords!” as they moved across the bridge; they were swiftly cut down by a barrage of Patriot musket and cannon fire.

The British Loyalists quickly surrendered, giving the Patriots a victory and an important morale boost. The victory also aborted British plans to land a force at Brunswick, and ended British authority in the colony.

Battle of Moores Creek Bridge: Aftermath

Within two months of the American victory, on April 12, 1776, North Carolina became the first colony to vote in favor of independence from Britain.

On This Day In History > February 26, 1813:
Robert R. ( R.R.) Livingston, also known as "the Chancellor," died. In 1776, he represented the Provincial Congress of New York at the Continental Congress and helped to draft the Declaration of Independence.

"He was born on November 27, 1746, later known as “the Chancellor”—becomes the first of nine children eventually born to Judge Robert Livingston and Margaret Beekman Livingston in their family seat, Clermont, on the Hudson River in upstate New York.

The Livingston family were proprietors of large land claims in the Hudson Valley and their attempt to enforce restrictive leases led to tenant uprisings in 1766, during which tenant farmers threatened to kill the lord of Livingston Manor, Robert Livingston (R.R.’s relative), and destroy his opulent homes. The British army suppressed the revolt, saving the Livingstons.

In 1777, the British army burned down Clermont and another of R.R.’s estates, Belvedere, in retribution for Livingston’s decision to side with the Patriots. During the 11 years between the tenant uprising and the burning of Clermont, Robert R. Livingston, who had graduated from King’s College (now Columbia University) in 1764, had established himself as a lawyer and political leader. He represented the Provincial Congress of New York at the Continental Congress in 1776 and helped to draft the Declaration of Independence, although he returned to New York before he was able to sign the document.

During the War of Independence, Livingston served as secretary of foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation. In 1783, he accepted the post of chancellor of the state of New York; he bore the title as a moniker for the rest of his life. “The Chancellor” was a Federalist delegate to the ratification convention in New York, and as New York’s senior judge administered President George Washington’s first oath of office. Under President Thomas Jefferson, Livingston negotiated the Louisiana Purchase and, while minister to France, sponsored Robert Fulton’s development of the steamboat.

Today, both a bust in the U.S. Capitol and the name of New York’s Masonic Library memorialize R.R. Livingston as “the Chancellor.”

On This Day In History > February 25, 1779:
The British surrendered Fort Sackville.

"Fort Sackville is surrendered, marking the beginning of the end of British domination in America’s western frontier.

Eighteen days earlier, George Rogers Clark departed Kaskaskia on the Mississippi River with a force of approximately 170 men, including Kentucky militia and French volunteers. The party traveled over 200 miles of land covered by deep and icy flood water until they reached Fort Sackville at Vincennes (Indiana) on February 23, 1779. After brutally killing five captive British-allied Native Americans within view of the fort, Clark secured the surrender of the British garrison under Lieutenant-Governor Henry Hamilton at 10 a.m. on February 25.

Upon their arrival in Vincennes, French settlers, who had allied themselves with Hamilton when he took the fort in December, welcomed and provisioned Clark’s forces. Inside Fort Sackville, Hamilton had only 40 British soldiers and an equal number of mixed French volunteers—French settlers fought on both sides of the American Revolution—and militia from Detroit. The French portion of Hamilton’s force was reluctant to fight once they realized their compatriots had allied themselves with Clark.

Clark managed to make his 170 men seem more like 500 by unfurling flags suitable to a larger number of troops. The able woodsmen filling Clark’s ranks were able to fire at a rapid rate that reinforced Hamilton’s sense that he was surrounded by a substantial army. Meanwhile, Clark began tunneling under the fort with the intent of exploding the gunpowder stores within it. When a Native American raiding party attempted to return to the fort from the Ohio Valley, Clark’s men killed or captured all of them. The public tomahawk executions served upon five of the captives frightened the British as to their fate in Clark’s hands. Their subsequent surrender revealed British weakness to the area’s Native Americans, who realized they could no longer rely on the British to protect them from the Patriots."

Southern Campaigns Revolutionary War Pension Applications & Rosters Transcriptions are provided for pension applications filed by Revolutionary War soldiers serving in the Southern Campaigns. Rosters are also included, as available. All site documents are indexed and simultaneously searchable.

On This Day In History > February 22, 1732:
George Washington is born

"George Washington is born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. (Augustine had three additional children from his first marriage.) An initially loyal British subject, Washington eventually led the Continental Army in the American Revolution and became the new nation's first president. He is often referred to as the father of the United States.

Washington rose to eminence on his own merit. His first job at age 17 was as a surveyor in the Shenandoah Valley. In 1752, he joined the British army and served as a lieutenant in the French and Indian War. When the war ended, Washington left the army and returned home to Virginia to manage Mount Vernon, the plantation he had recently inherited upon the death of his older brother. He married a wealthy widow, Martha Dandridge Custis, in 1759. Although the couple had no children, Washington adopted Martha’s son and daughter from her previous marriage. While in Virginia, Washington served in the colonial House of Burgesses and, like many of his compatriots, grew increasingly frustrated with the British government. He soon joined his co-revolutionaries in the Continental Congress.

In 1775, the Continental Congress unanimously chose Washington to command the new Continental Army. In addition to advocating civilian control over the military, Washington possessed that intangible quality of a born leader and had earned a reputation for coolness under fire and as a strict disciplinarian during the French and Indian campaign. In that war, he dodged bullets, had horses shot out from under him and was even taken prisoner by the French. Part of his success in the Revolutionary War was due to his shrewd use of what was then considered the ungentlemanly, but effective, tactic of guerrilla warfare, in which stealthy hit-and-run attacks foiled British armies used to close-formation battle-line warfare. Although Washington led almost as many losing battles as he won, his successes at Trenton, Princeton and Yorktown proved pivotal for the Continental Army and the emerging nation. In 1789, in part because of the leadership skills he displayed during the war, the Continental Congress elected Washington as the first American president.

George Washington’s legacy has endured a long process of untangling myth from fact. The famous cherry tree incident never occurred, nor did Washington have wooden teeth, though he did have only one tooth by the time he became president and wore a series of dentures made from metal and cow or hippopotamus bone. In portraits of Washington, the pain caused by his dentures is evident in his facial expression. Known for being emotionally reserved and aloof, Washington was concerned with personal conduct, character and self-discipline, but was known to bend the rules if necessary, especially in war. Although Washington was undoubtedly ambitious, he pursued his goals humbly and with quiet confidence in his abilities as a leader.

An extraordinary figure in American history and unusually tall at 6′ 3, Washington was also an ordinary man. He loved cricket and fox-hunting, moved gracefully around a ballroom, was a Freemason and possibly a Deist, and was an astute observer of the darker side of human nature. His favorite foods were pineapples, Brazil nuts (hence the missing teeth from cracking the shells) and Saturday dinners of salt cod. He possessed a wry sense of humor and, like his wife Martha, tried to resist the vanities of public life. Washington could also explode into a rage when vexed in war or political battles. Loyal almost to a fault, he could also be unforgiving and cold when crossed. When Republican Thomas Jefferson admitted to slandering the president in an anonymous newspaper article for his support of Federalist Alexander Hamilton’s policies, Washington cut Jefferson out of his life. On at least one occasion, Washington’s stubbornness inspired John Adams to refer to him as Old Muttonhead.

An unenthusiastic political leader, Washington nevertheless recognized his unique and symbolic role in keeping a fledgling nation together. He worked hard to reconcile competing factions within his administration and was keenly aware of setting unwritten rules of conduct for future presidents. He struggled with advisors over what sort of image a president should project. He preferred one of dignity and humility and stumbled when encouraged to act out of character or monarchical. After two terms, old, tired, and disillusioned with vicious partisan politics, he resigned. His granddaughter remembered him as a prisoner of his own celebrity. Abigail Adams described Washington as having a dignity which forbids familiarity mixed with an easy affability which creates love and reverence.

After leaving office, Washington returned to Mount Vernon, indulged his passion for the rural life and started a successful whiskey distillery. A member of the Virginia planter class, he grew increasingly uncomfortable with the hypocrisy of owning slaves, yet publicly he promoted a gradual abolition of slavery. In his will he requested that his slaves be freed upon Martha’s death. Although he and Martha had a good relationship, the great love of his life was Sally Fairfax, the wife of his friend George. Abandoning his characteristic self-control, Washington wrote to Sally toward the end of his life, confessing that his moments with her had been the happiest of his life.

On December 14, 1799, Washington died of a severe respiratory ailment. He humbly identified himself in his will as George Washington, of Mount Vernon, a citizen of the United States."

On This Day In History > February 21, 1777:
George Weedon was promoted to brigadier general Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army.

"George Weedon (1734–1793) was an American soldier during the Revolutionary War from Fredericksburg, Colony of Virginia. He served as a brigadier general in the Continental Army and later in the Virginia militia.

Weedon served as a lieutenant under George Washington in the French and Indian War, mainly assigned to garrison duty in western Virginia.

After the war, he moved to Fredericksburg and opened a tavern. It was within Weedon's tavern that Thomas Jefferson in January 1777 wrote the Statute of Religious Freedom; the very first document of its kind to acknowledge government recognition of religious tolerance.

In 1775, he was made a lieutenant colonel and second in command to Hugh Mercer. They were tasked with creating the 3rd Virginia Regiment, Virginia Line, Continental Army. He was promoted to colonel in 1776 and succeeded Mercer in command of his regiment. On Mercer's death at Princeton, Weedon was promoted to brigadier general in 1777 and again succeeded him. He fought in the Battles of Trenton, Brandywine, and Germantown.

At Valley Forge, Weedon commanded a brigade in Nathanael Greene's division. His brigade included Stewart's 13th Pennsylvania Regiment along with the 2nd, 6th, 10th, and 14th Virginia regiments.

In 1778, he resigned after a dispute with the Congress over seniority. He went home to Virginia to lead a brigade of the state's militia at the request of Governor Thomas Jefferson. He led his militia unit in the Yorktown campaign, where his brigade successfully repelled the feared and infamous unit of Colonel Banastre Tarleton, thus closing the one means of British escape at Gloucester Point."

The Revolutionary War: Animated Map We at the American Battlefield Trust are re-releasing our Animated Battle Maps with newly branded openings. Enjoy learning about our nation's Revolutionary W...

242 Years ago Today: February 19th, 1778. Newtown, PA: British capture 34 prisoners and “2,000 yards of cloth” in raid of supply depot in Bucks County. Hessian officer von Munchausen estimates it was enough cloth for 500 uniforms.

[Image Description: historical plaque commemorating the Newtown Raid can be found on State Street near the corner of Centre Avenue. (Photo by David Lawrence, NPS)]

February 19 1788 Madison published the Federalist #57 which advocates the election of "men who possess the most wisdom to discern, and ... pursue, the common good of the society."

In the essay Madison’s argument states the representatives will be true to their constituents for the following reasons: 1) will be somewhat distinguished also by those qualities which entitle them to it, and which promise a sincere and scrupulous regard to the nature of their engagements. 2) they will enter into the public service under circumstances which cannot fail to produce a temporary affection at least to their constituents. 3) it must generally happen that a great proportion of the men deriving their advancement from their influence with the people, would have more to hope from a preservation of the favor, than from innovations in the government subversive of the authority of the people. 4) the House of Representatives is so constituted as to support in the members an habitual recollection of their dependence on the people 5.) they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society.

On This Day In History February 18, 1791:
An Act for the admission of the State of Vermont into this Union.

The State of Vermont having petitioned the Congress to be admitted a member of the United States,

"Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in (congress assembled, and it is hereby enacted and declared, That on the fourth day of March, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one, the said State, by the name and style of "the State of Vermont," shall be received and admitted into this Union, as a new and entire member of the United States of America.

Approved, February 18,1791.

(1) An act approved March 2, 1791, declared that " from and after the third day of March next, all the laws of the United States, which are not locally inapplicable, ought to have, and shall have, the same force and effect within the State of Vermont as elsewhere within the United States."

* Vermont, admitted March 4, 1791, was formed from the territory of the Vermont Republic (earlier known as the New Hampshire Grants). This territory that was also claimed by New York. The resulting dispute led to the rise of the Green Mountain Boys and the later establishment of the Vermont Republic. New Hampshire's claim upon the land was extinguished in 1764 by royal order of George III, and on March 6, 1790 the state of New York ceded its claim to Vermont for 30,000 dollars."