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Rev War Tales Washington’s Lips Sink Ships 27 October 1777, Skippack Road, Pennsylvania. Washington presses the Continental Navy Board to scuttle the unfinished frigates on the Delaware before the British can take them. On 27 October 1777, writing from the fifteenth milestone on the Skippack Road, Washington told the Navy Board that the enemy’s hold on Philadelphia made the new frigates above Bordentown—Washington and Effingham—too dangerous to leave afloat. Howe already had the captured Delaware and was arming other vessels in the city. If those hulls joined a push against Fort Mifflin and Hazelwood’s galleys, the river defense would collapse. Washington preferred burning them if need be, but urged secret scuttling with or without ballast so they could not be raised without divers. Their crews should go downriver, where seamen were scarce. The Board soon sank the ships. The letter shows a general reaching beyond his army brief to keep the Delaware from becoming a British highway. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales An Impressive Navy 27–28 October 1776, River Thames, London. Press gangs from Deptford and Woolwich swept the river, taking more than a thousand seamen from civilian vessels. The men were forced into the Royal Navy. On October 25, the king issued a proclamation offering bounties for voluntary enlistment and pardons for deserters who returned. Two days later, before the offer could take full effect, the press began. About twenty boats, manned and officered, came up the river on the flood tide. They boarded ships and took every man except the master and mate. One lieutenant was shot while boarding. Eight seamen drowned trying to swim ashore. That night and the next day, the gangs worked from Gravesend to Rotherhithe. West India ships lost crews who had already been paid advance wages. The Lord Mayor ordered the arrest of press officers operating within his jurisdiction. The navy needed men for the American war. The press on the Thames supplied them by force. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales #Navy

Yankee Doodle Spies: The Clockmaker's Gambit yankeedoodlespies.blogspot.c…

Rev War Tales Shaping the Battlespace 27 October 1776, White Plains, New York. British General William Howe’s advance guards probed Alexander McDougall’s line. On 27 October 1776, General William Howe pushed his columns toward Washington’s new position at White Plains. Brigadier General Alexander McDougall’s brigade held the left and the high ground that would prove critical on Chatterton’s Hill. Colonel John Haslet’s 1st Delaware—already blooded at Long Island and Mamaroneck—was sent to stiffen the militia and McDougall’s Continentals. Skirmishing erupted with British and Hessian advance parties. American losses that day are often estimated at nearly thirty killed and wounded among the outposts. The 27th was the last day of maneuver before White Plains became a battle. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Woodford's Reserves 26–27 October 1775, Hampton, Virginia. Colonel William Woodford’s riflemen join local militia and drive a British naval attack out of the harbor. The clash, often dated to late October 1775, occurred at Hampton, not Norfolk. After a Royal Navy tender was wrecked and plundered, Captain Matthew Squire of His Majesty’s Ship Otter brought armed boats into Hampton Creek on 26–27 October to punish the town. Colonel William Woodford rode overnight from Williamsburg with Culpeper District Minute Battalion riflemen and reached the waterfront at dawn on the 27th. Posted in houses and along the wharf, the Virginians shot sailors from the decks of the tenders. One vessel, the Hawke, was taken; the rest hauled off. Norfolk itself was not seized until after Great Bridge in December. Hampton’s sharp little victory showed that Virginia riflemen could hold a tidewater town against Dunmore’s flotilla. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Yankee Doodle Spies: Loyalist on Two Continents yankeedoodlespies.blogspot.c…

I am pleased to announce a special Halloween treat for all. Needing a change of pace while I finish the latest installment of the Yankee Doodle Spies series, I developed a new writing genre I call the "nano novel!" Shorter than a novella but longer than the short story. My first venture in nano novel writing is seasonal. Inspired by an S.W. favorite, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," "Twelfthnightmare" takes it to the next level as a secret operation and a massacre rouse the ghosts of soldiers fallen in an orgy of ritual murder. A Continental Army captain and his investigative team race to solve the crimes and, more importantly, ward off the next act of vengeance before it strikes. This deliberately short read or listen is available on Kindle and Audible at the lowest prices allowed, so that you may enjoy the tale as well as head toward All Souls' Day and, dare I say, Twelfth Night? On Kindle at: amazon.com/Twelfthnightmare-… And Audible at: amazon.com/Twelfthnightmare-…

Rev War Tales Sir Guy Takes the Oath 26 October 1768, Quebec. Sir Guy Carleton took the oath as captain general and governor-in-chief of the Province of Quebec, succeeding James Murray. Carleton had arrived in the province in September 1766 as lieutenant-governor. In April 1768, he was named governor. On the twenty-sixth, he took the oath before the council. His commission was published on 1 November. He favored retaining French civil law and the Catholic Church and opposed an elected assembly modeled on the English system. Those views shaped the Quebec Act of 1774, which enlarged the province and restored French law and Catholic rights. American colonists listed the act among the Intolerable Acts. In 1775–76, Carleton held Quebec against the American invasion, though he was later criticized for a slow pursuit. He left in 1778 after quarrels with his council. He returned as Baron Dorchester in 1786 and served until 1796. But his first term began with the oath on 26 October 1768. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Dead River Run 25 October 1775, Dead River, Maine. Colonel Benedict Arnold’s column is stalled by rain and flood. Colonel Roger Enos turns back with about 300 men. Arnold keeps going. The expedition left Cambridge in September to reach Quebec through the wilderness. By mid-October, the bateaux were wrecked, the food was spoiling, and a storm on the twenty-first had swollen the Dead River. On the twenty-fourth, Arnold wrote that they had only twelve or fifteen days’ provisions left and ordered the sick sent back. The next day, Enos’s rear division caught up with Colonel Christopher Greene. A council decided that only men who could be given fifteen days’ food should go on. Enos took his own companies, plus the sick and stragglers from the others, and started for Cambridge with the larger share of the remaining stores. Greene’s men went forward on short rations. Arnold, already ahead on the lakes, never received the full news in time. He pressed toward the Chaudière with the men who stayed. Enos was later tried and acquitted. The column that reached Quebec was a third smaller. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Yankee Doodle Spies: Freedom Under Another Flag yankeedoodlespies.blogspot.c…

Rev War Tales The Third George 25 October 1760, London. George William Frederick became King George III of Great Britain and Ireland upon the death of his grandfather, George II. He was not crowned that day. The young king was twenty-two. He was proclaimed in London on the twenty-fifth. The formal coronation with Queen Charlotte took place at Westminster Abbey on 22 September 1761, after their marriage earlier that month. His reign lasted until 1820, longer than any British monarch before him. It covered the closing years of the Seven Years’ War, the American Revolution, the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and conflicts in India, Africa, and the Caribbean. He was the first Hanoverian king born and raised in Britain. His accession on 25 October 1760 began a reign that would see the loss of the thirteen colonies and the reshaping of the empire. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Ross’s Inferno 24–25 October 1781, Warrensbush (Warrensborough), New York. Major John Ross’s raiders burn the Mohawk Valley settlement before Colonel Marinus Willett forces them to fight at Johnstown. On 24–25 October 1781, Major John Ross, with some 700 British regulars, Loyalists, and a smaller body of Iroquois, struck Warrensbush on the south side of the Mohawk. Ross later boasted that by noon the settlement for seven miles was in flames—nearly a hundred farms, mills, and a public granary. Inhabitants fled in the night. The blow was meant to wreck the valley’s harvest and draw militia. Colonel Marinus Willett marched all night, crossed the river, and caught Ross near Johnstown that afternoon. After a running fight, the raiders withdrew; Walter Butler was killed days later at West Canada Creek. Warrensbush was among the last settlements torched in the northern war. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Choking on the Chesapeake 24–29 October 1781, mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. Admiral Thomas Graves’s relief fleet, carrying Sir Henry Clinton’s troops, arrives too late; news of Yorktown and the French blockade sends them back to New York. On 19 October 1781—the day Cornwallis surrendered—Clinton and Graves finally sail from New York with about twenty-five ships of the line, frigates, and some 7,000 regulars. They reach the Chesapeake on 24 October. De Grasse still holds the bay with a superior French fleet; word of the capitulation is already spreading. Graves and Clinton decline a hopeless fight to recover a lost army. On the 29th, the expedition turns for Sandy Hook. The voyage closes the naval chapter of Yorktown: Britain can still assemble a powerful squadron, but not in time. Cornwallis is already a prisoner, and the war’s last great campaign is over. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Yankee Doodle Spies: Bold Dragoon yankeedoodlespies.blogspot.c…

Rev War Tales Destruction on the Delaware 23 October 1777, Delaware River below Fort Mifflin. His Majesty’s Ship Augusta and His Majesty’s Ship Merlin grounded under American fire and burned—Augusta the largest Royal Navy ship lost in the war. On 22–23 October 1777, Admiral Lord Howe’s squadron moved up the Delaware to batter Fort Mifflin on Mud Island and support the attack on Fort Mercer. As the tide fell, the 64-gun Augusta and the 18-gun sloop Merlin ran aground near the chevaux-de-frise and Hog Island. American galleys, floating batteries, and Fort Mifflin’s guns raked them through the morning of the 23rd. Augusta caught fire—whether from her own wads, hot shot, or a fire vessel is still debated—and blew up about two o’clock. Her magazine blast was heard for miles. The British fired Merlin to keep her from capture. Augusta was the heaviest British warship destroyed in the Revolution. The river forts still blocked Howe’s supplies. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Scouts Out 23 October 1776, White Plains, New York. In General Orders from headquarters, Washington warns that reconnaissance parties must deploy security to the front and flanks. On 23 October 1776, as Howe’s army closed on White Plains, Washington issued orders from his new headquarters there. He noted “with some Concern” that scouting parties were going out without advanced or flanking parties, “both of which are absolutely necessary for their safety and success, and which they must have on all occasions.” The warning followed the confusion of the Westchester campaign—Pell’s Point, Mamaroneck, and reports of scouts colliding near the British lines. He also tightened camp guards by division and forbade meddling with public horses. The instruction was basic ranger craft: a patrol without flankers invited ambush. Issued days before the Battle of White Plains, it was a commander trying to school a raw army under pressure. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Delaware Committees 23 October 1774, Delaware (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex). Lower Counties tighten their committees of correspondence to act with the other colonies against Britain. By late October 1774, Delaware—still legally the Three Lower Counties on Delaware—already had county committees formed by Thomas McKean, Caesar Rodney, and others. On 20 October, the First Continental Congress adopted the Association and directed colonial committees of correspondence to monitor the customhouses and share intelligence. Within days, Delaware’s committees aligned with that network, exchanging letters with Boston, Philadelphia, and the rest. They were not a brand-new invention on the 23rd so much as a formal step in a system already at work. The committees later became committees of inspection, enforced the boycott, identified Loyalists, and pushed the assembly toward independence. Small as the colony was, it now spoke with one coordinated voice. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Vintage Yankee Doodle Spies: The Boat yankeedoodlespies.blogspot.c…