Philadelphia nurse overhears British plans to attack Washington’s army

Legend has it that on the night of December 2, 1777, Philadelphia housewife and nurse Lydia Darragh single-handedly saves the lives of General George Washington and his Continental Army when she overhears the British planning a surprise attack on Washington’s army for the following day.

During the occupation of Philadelphia, British General William Howe stationed his headquarters across the street from the Darragh home, and when Howe’s headquarters proved too small to hold meetings, he commandeered a large upstairs room in the Darraghs’ house. Although uncorroborated, family legend holds that Mrs. Darragh would eavesdrop and take notes on the British meetings from an adjoining room and would conceal the notes by sewing them into her coat before passing them onto American troops stationed outside the city.

On the evening of December 2, 1777, Darragh overheard the British commanders planning a surprise attack on Washington’s army at Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, for December 4 and 5. Using a cover story that she needed to buy flour from a nearby mill just outside the British line, Darragh passed the information to American Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Craig the following day.

The British marched towards Whitemarsh on the evening of December 4, 1777, and were surprised to find General Washington and the Continental Army waiting for them. After three inconclusive days of skirmishing, General Howe chose to return his troops to Philadelphia.

It is said that members of the Central Intelligence Agency still tell the story of Lydia Darragh, one of the first spies in American history.

READ MORE: How George Washington Used Spies to Win the American Revolution

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Phi Beta Kappa fraternity is founded

In Williamsburg, Virginia, a group of five students at the College of William and Mary gather at Raleigh’s Tavern to found a new fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa. Intended to follow strictly American principles as opposed to those of England or Germany, the new society engaged in the fervent political debate typical of student life at the college in Virginia’s capital. The fluent scholars of Greek and Latin who gathered to found the society, which was destined to count presidents and poets of the newly declared republic among its ranks, could not have differed more greatly from their Patriot fellows suffering as prisoners of the crown in British-occupied New York.

From the British stronghold, an officer writing on this day described his 5,000 American captives in Shakespearian terms: “…many of them are such ragamuffins, as you never saw in your life; I cannot give you a better idea of them than by putting you in mind of Falstaff’s recruits, or poor Tom in King Lear; and yet they had strained every nerve to cover their nakedness, by dismantling all the beds.”

While students toasted and the captured shivered, General George Washington pled the virtues of a standing army above those of an ad hoc militia. His missive to Congress came at the end of his notice that his batch of ragamuffins and their supplies were still in transit across the Delaware to Pennsylvania, protected from the rampaging redcoats by a rear guard at Princeton commanded by Lord William Stirling and General Adam Stephens.

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Pennsylvania ratifies the Constitution

On December 12, 1787, Pennsylvania becomes the second state to ratify the Constitution, by a vote of 46 to 23. Pennsylvania was the first large state to ratify, as well as the first state to endure a serious Anti-Federalist challenge to ratification.

Pennsylvania was the most ethnically and religiously diverse state in the new nation. One-third of Pennsylvania’s population was German-speaking, and the Constitution was printed in German for the purposes of involving that population in the debate. The chairman of the Pennsylvania ratifying convention, Reverend Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg, was the son of the leading German Lutheran minister and grandson to Conrad Weiser (1696-1760), who had been a leading colonial Indian interpreter and German-speaking political leader. The leader of the Anti-Federalist opposition was the Delaware-born Scots-Irishman Thomas McKean. Future Supreme Court Justice and Scottish immigrant James Wilson was the most articulate defender of the Federalist cause.

Pennsylvania drafted the most radical of the state constitutions during the War for Independence. By excluding Quakers and all other pacifists unwilling to take oaths of allegiance to the Revolutionary cause, a fervently anti-British and anti-Indian Scots-Irish faction had seized power for the first time in the remarkably diverse state. Only when pacifists were again able to exercise the franchise in peacetime was it conceivable that the more conservative U.S. Constitution might pass in Pennsylvania. Large states had the most to lose by joining a strengthened union. James Wilson’s genius in describing the nature of layered sovereignty in a federal republic, using the solar system as an analogy, was invaluable in convincing Pennsylvanians to ratify. Anti-Federalists found themselves in the hypocritical position of criticizing the federal Constitution for failing to codify the freedom of religious practice they had actively denied their fellow citizens during the War for Independence.

READ MORE: How the Constitution Has Changed and Expanded Since 1787

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Pennsylvania militiamen murder Patriot allies


Year
1782
Month Day
March 08

On March 8, 1782, 160 Pennsylvania militiamen murder 96 Christian Indians–39 children, 29 women and 28 men–by hammering their skulls with mallets from behind as they kneel unarmed, praying and singing, in their Moravian Mission at Gnadenhutten in the Ohio Country. The Patriots then piled their victims’ bodies in mission buildings before burning the entire community to the ground. Two boys managed to survive, although one had lost his scalp to his attackers. Although the militiamen claimed they were seeking revenge for raids on their frontier settlements, the Native Americans they murdered had played no role in any attack.

This infamous attack on non-combatants led to a loss of faith in the Patriots by their Indian allies and reprisals upon Patriot captives in Native custody. The Native Americans resurrected the practice of ritualized torture, discontinued during the Seven Years’ War, on the men they were able to apprehend who had participated in the Gnadenhutten atrocity.

Although the Moravians and their Indian converts were pacifists who refused to kill under any circumstances, they found other ways to assist the Patriot cause. Like other Indian allies who refused to kill fellow Indians, they aided the Patriots by working as guides and spies. The German Moravian missionaries were also supplying the Americans with critical information, for which they were later arrested and tried by the British.

None of this protected the Indians when 160 members of the Pennsylvania militia decided to act as judge, jury and executioner. The Delaware Natives they murdered were neutral pacifists. Their Christian missionaries were aiding the Patriot cause. Furthermore, they did not live in the manner described as savage by European settlers–they were instead engaged in European-style settled agriculture in their mission village. There was no political, religious or cultural justification for the militiamen’s indiscriminate brutality during the Gnadenhutten massacre; the incident is sadly illustrative of the anti-Indian racism that sometimes trumped even political allegiances during the American Revolution.

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Patriots take Montreal

Year
1775
Month Day
November 13

On November 13, 1775, Continental Army Brigadier General Richard Montgomery takes Montreal, Canada, without opposition.

Montgomery’s victory owed its success in part to Ethan Allen’s disorganized defeat at the hand of British General and Canadian Royal Governor Guy Carleton at Montreal on September 24, 1775. Allen’s misguided and undermanned attack on Montreal led to his capture by the British and imprisonment in Pendennis Castle in Cornwall, England. Although a failure in the short term, Allen’s attack had long-term benefits for the Patriots. Carleton had focused his attention on suppressing Allen’s attack, while refusing reinforcements to Fort St. Jean, to which Montgomery’s expedition laid siege from August 21 to November 3, 1775. Fort St. Jean’s commander, Major Charles Preston, surrendered on November 3, fearful of the hardship the town’s civilians would face during a winter under siege. With the final fortification between Montgomery and Montreal in Patriot hands and Carleton’s defenses depleted by the conflict with Allen, Montgomery’s forces entered Montreal with ease on November 13.

READ MORE: 7 Times the U.S.-Canada Border Wasn’t So Peaceful

After Montgomery’s success at winning Montreal for the Patriots, Carleton escaped and fled to Quebec City, where he and Montgomery would, in December, again face one another in a climatic battle that would determine the fate of the Patriot invasion of Canada.

Facing the year-end expiration of their troops’ enlistment, Patriot forces advanced on Quebec under the cover of a blizzard at approximately 4 a.m. on December 31, 1775. The British defenders under Carleton were ready, however, and when Montgomery’s forces came within 50 yards of the city’s fortifications, the British opened fire with a barrage of artillery and musket fire. Montgomery was killed in the first assault, and after several more attempts at penetrating Quebec’s defenses, his men were forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, Colonel Benedict Arnold’s division suffered a similar fate during their attack on the northern wall of the city. A two-gun battery opened fire on the advancing Americans, killing a number of troops and wounding Benedict Arnold in the leg. Patriot Daniel Morgan assumed command and made progress against the defenders, but halted at the second wall of fortifications to wait for reinforcements. By the time the rest of Arnold’s army finally arrived, the British had reorganized, forcing the Patriots to call off their attack. Of the 900 Americans who participated in the siege, 60 were killed or wounded and more than 400 were captured.

The remaining Patriot forces then retreated from Canada. Benedict Arnold remained in Canadian territory until the last of his soldiers had crossed the St. Lawrence River to safety. With the pursuing British forces almost in firing range, Arnold checked one last time to make sure all his men had escaped, then shot his horse and fled down the St. Lawrence in a canoe.

Carleton had successfully snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and secured Canada for the British empire.

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Patriot siege of Ninety Six, South Carolina begins

Year
1781
Month Day
May 22

On May 22, 1781, Major General Nathanael Greene and 1,000 Patriots attempt an attack on the critical village of Ninety Six in the South Carolina backcountry. After failing to seize the fortified settlement, they began a siege of it, which lasted until their retreat on June 18, making it the longest of the Revolutionary War.

Ninety Six, on the Saluda River, was critical for the defense of the northwest portion of the state and the most strategically important position in South Carolina after Camden. It was manned by 550 Loyalists commanded by British Lieutenant Colonel John Harris Cruger. The Patriots lay siege to the city beginning on May 22, using siege lines—trenches and structures built for the use of the besieging army and its artillery—which were designed by the Continental Army’s noted engineering talent Thaddeus Kosciusko and are considered the best example of their kind in the United States.

When the Patriots learned that British Lieutenant Colonel Francis Rawdon was on his way to reinforce the Loyalists, they began a preemptory assault led by Major General Nathanael Greene on June 18. Unable to breech the defenses at Ninety Six’s Star Fort, the Patriots were forced to retreat, with 185 Patriot casualties to a mere 75 for the Loyalist defenders. Lord Rawdon arrived and General Greene withdrew on June 19.

Although Greene failed to remove the British from Ninety Six, he and Brigadier General Francis Marion of the South Carolina militia were remarkably successful at taking back other British outposts, capturing five others before their attempt at Ninety Six. By the time the time the British left Ninety Six of their own accord, on July 1, 1781, it was the last Loyalist fort in South Carolina.

READ MORE: 5 Patriot Spies of the American Revolution

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Patriots defeat Loyalists at Kettle Creek


Year
1779
Month Day
February 14

A Patriot militia force of 340 led by Colonel Andrew Pickens of South Carolina with Colonel John Dooly and Lieutenant Colonel Elijah Clarke of Georgia defeats a larger force of 700 Loyalist militia commanded by Colonel James Boyd on this day in 1779 at Kettle Creek, Georgia.

The Patriots attempted a two-pronged attack. Pickens’ line engaged the Loyalists, while Dooly and Clarke’s men attempted to cross the creek and surrounding swamp. Dooly and Clarke’s troops were soon bogged down in the difficult crossing and though Boyd had sent 150 of his men out to forage for food that morning, the Loyalists still had the upper hand.

The tide turned when the Loyalists saw their commander, Boyd, collapse from a musket wound. Panicked, they disintegrated into a disorderly retreat towards the creek as Pickens’ Patriots fired down upon their camp from above. Shortly thereafter, the two South Carolina commanders, Dooly and Clarke, emerged with their men from the swamp and surrounded the shocked Loyalists, who were attempting to retreat across the creek.

By the end of the action, the Loyalists suffered 70 killed and another 70 captured, compared to 9 killed and 23 wounded for the Patriots. Colonel Boyd, who was wounded during the engagement, died shortly afterward. The victory was the only significant Patriot victory in Georgia and delayed the consolidation of British control in the largely Loyalist colony.

In 1780, Colonel John Dooly was murdered at his log cabin home on his Georgia plantation by South Carolina Loyalists. Dooly County, Georgia, was named in his honor, and the spring near his former cabin in Lincoln County, Georgia, within the grounds of the Elijah Clarke State Park—named for his former Patriot partner—bears a historic marker in the martyred patriot’s memory.

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Patriots are defeated at Quebec


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Original:
Year
1775
Month Day
December 31

On December 31, 1775, Patriot forces under Colonel Benedict Arnold and General Richard Montgomery attempt to capture the city of Quebec under cover of darkness and snowfall. They fail, and the effort costs Montgomery his life.

On December 2, Arnold, Montgomery and their troops met on the outskirts of Quebec and demanded the surrender of the city. Governor Sir Guy Carleton rejected their demand, and on December 8 the Patriots commenced a bombardment of Quebec, which was met by a counter-battery by the British defenders that disabled several of the Patriots’ guns. Facing the year-end expiration of their troops’ enlistment, the Patriot forces advanced on the city under the cover of a blizzard at approximately 4 a.m. on December 31. The British defenders were ready, however, and when Montgomery’s forces came within 50 yards of the fortified city, the British opened fire with a barrage of artillery and musket fire. Montgomery was killed in the first assault, and after several more attempts at penetrating Quebec’s defenses, his men were forced to retreat.

Meanwhile, Arnold’s division suffered a similar fate during their attack on the northern wall of the city. A two-gun battery opened fire on the advancing Americans, killing a number of troops and wounding Benedict Arnold in the leg. Patriot Daniel Morgan assumed command and made progress against the defenders, but halted at the second wall of fortifications to wait for reinforcements. By the time the rest of Arnold’s army finally arrived, the British had reorganized, forcing the Patriots to call of their attack. Of the 900 Americans who participated in the siege, 60 were killed or wounded and more than 400 were captured.

The remaining Patriot forces then retreated from Canada. Benedict Arnold remained in Canadian territory until the last of his soldiers had crossed the St. Lawrence River to safety. With the pursuing British forces almost in firing range, Arnold checked one last time to make sure all his men had escaped, then shot his horse and fled down the St. Lawrence in a canoe.

Less than five years later, Benedict Arnold, then commander of West Point, famously turned traitor when he agreed to surrender the important Hudson River fort to the British for a bribe of £20,000. The plot was uncovered after British spy John Andre was captured with incriminating papers, forcing Arnold to flee to British protection and join in their fight against the country that he had once so valiantly served.

READ MORE: 7 Times the U.S.-Canada Border Wasn’t So Peaceful

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Patriots ambush Loyalists as French set sail

Year
1781
Month Day
August 13

On August 13, 1781, Patriot forces led by Colonel William Harden and Brigadier General Francis Marion, known as the “Swamp Fox,” lure British commander Major Thomas Fraser and his 450 soldiers into an ambush at Parker’s Ferry, 30 miles northwest of Charleston, South Carolina. Meanwhile, 3,000 soldiers set sail with the French fleet on their way to aid the Patriot cause.

Fraser’s command consisted of 450 Loyalists who had begun an uprising in the region. Marion, who earned his nickname for his ability to “outfox” his opponents in the swamps of the South Carolina backcountry, sent his fastest riders ahead to tempt Fraser into a waiting Patriot trap. The maneuver succeeded. Fraser ordered his men to charge, and three successive volleys of musket fire by the Patriots mowed down the ranks of the Loyalist cavalry. Only a shortage of ammunition among the Patriots saved the Loyalists, who lost half their force in the skirmish. Fraser himself was hit three times in the course of the engagement, but managed to continue in command of his men.

While Marion and Fraser tested their mettle in South Carolina, General George Washington celebrated the Patriots’ good fortune that just as the French fleet commanded by Francois DeGrasse departed St. Domingue for the Chesapeake Bay, British General Charles Cornwallis had chosen Yorktown, Virginia, at the mouth of the Chesapeake as his base. Washington realized that it was time to act. After DeGrasse beat the British at sea on September 5, Washington trapped Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 17, 1781, effectively ending the War for Independence.

READ MORE: American Revolution: Causes and Timeline 

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Nathan Hale is executed by the British for spying

Year
1776
Month Day
September 22

In New York City on September 22, 1776, Nathan Hale, a Connecticut schoolteacher and captain in the Continental Army, is executed by the British for spying.

A graduate of Yale University, Hale joined a Connecticut regiment in 1775 and served in the successful siege of British-occupied Boston. On September 10, 1776, he volunteered to cross behind British lines on Long Island to spy on the British in preparation for the Battle of Harlem Heights.

Disguised as a Dutch schoolmaster, the Yale-educated Hale slipped behind British lines on Long Island and successfully gathered information about British troop movements for the next several weeks. While Hale was behind enemy lines, the British invaded the island of Manhattan; they took control of the city on September 15, 1776. When the city was set on fire on September 20, British soldiers were told to look out for sympathizers to the Patriot cause. The following evening, September 21, Hale was captured while sailing Long Island Sound, trying to cross back into American-controlled territory. Although rumors surfaced that Hale was betrayed by his first cousin and British Loyalist Samuel Hale, the exact circumstances of Hale’s capture have never been discovered.

Hale was interrogated by British General William Howe and, when it was discovered that he was carrying incriminating documents, General Howe ordered his execution for spying, which was set for the following morning. After being led to the gallows, legend holds that the 21-year-old Hale said, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” There is no historical record to prove that Hale actually made this statement, but, if he did, he may have been inspired by these lines in English author Joseph Addison’s 1713 play Cato: “What a pity it is/That we can die but once to serve our country.”

READ MORE: Revolutionary War Spies 

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