The Polish, the Revolution and That Danged Troublemaker Archibald Campbell

Casimir Pulaski was a Polish nobleman by birth and a military commander who fought against Russian domination of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When this uprising failed, he emigrated to North America as a soldier of fortune. During the American Revolution, he saved the life of George Washington and became a general in the Continental Army. He was a cavalryman. He died of wounds suffered in the Battle of Savannah. Pulaski is one of only seven people to be awarded honorary membership in the United States.

The Seige of Savannah was an encounter of the American Revolutionary War in 1779. The year before, the city of Savannah, Georgia had been captured by a British expeditionary corps under Lieutenant-Colonel Archibald Campbell. The siege itself consisted of a joint Franco-American attempt to retake Savannah from September 16, 1779 to October 18, 1779. On October 9, 1779, a major assault against the British siege works failed. During the attack, Polish Count Kazimierz Pułaski, fighting on the American side, was mortally wounded. With the failure of the joint American-French attack, the siege failed, and the British remained in control of Georgia until July 1782, close to the end of the war.

The battle is much remembered in Haitian history; the Fontages Legion, consisting of over 500 gens de couleur—free men of color from Saint-Domingue—fought on the French/American side. Henri Christophe, who later became king of independent Haiti, is thought to have been among these troops.

In 2005 archaeologists with the Coastal Heritage Society and the LAMAR Institute discovered portions of the British fortifications at Spring Hill. The brunt of the combined French and American attack on October 9, 1779, was focused at that point. The find represents the first tangible remains of the battlefield. In 2008 the CHS/LAMAR Institute archaeology team discovered another segment of the British fortifications in Madison Square.

A Color Blind Revolution

The following piece is totally plagiarized, mostly from Wikipedia which plagiarized various Colonial source documents.)

Crispus Attucks, a Free Black American, was the first American martyr in an event prior to the Revolutionary War itself. The son of a native African and a Native American of the Natick tribe, Attucks ran away from his slave owner and became a sailor and whaler. He learned to read and write and to understand the basic principles of different types of government.

Attucks attended meetings with other patriots to discuss taxes levied by Britain, and wrote a letter of protest to Governor Thomas Hutchinson, the Tory governor of Massachusetts. On March 5, 1770, at Dock Square in Boston, Attucks was with a group of men who were defying the British Red Coats. He was the first man to die in the ensuing skirmish, later called the Boston Massacre.

As the first to die for the American cause, he was buried with honor, and a monument on the Boston Common was erected to immortalize his sacrifice.

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Salem Poor, a Free Black-American, married, and twenty-eight years old, enlisted in a Massachusetts militia company commanded by Benjamin Ames. Poor was also engaged at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

He has been described as having been among the most prominent and meritorious characters at the battle of Bunker's Hill. Indeed, the historical painting of that scene, by Col. Trumbull, an eyewitness, done in 1785, gives Peter Salem , with other black patriots, a conspicuous place.

That he distinguished himself is certain; six months after the battle, fourteen Massachusetts officers, all of whom had taken part in the battle, petitioned the Massachusetts General Court to reward Salem Poor as follows.

"To the Honorable General Court of the Massachusetts Bay: The subscribers beg leave to report to your Honorable House (which we do in justice to the character of so brave a man), that, under our own observation, we declare that a negro man, called Salem Poor, of Col. Frye's regiment, Capt. Ames' company, in the late battle at Charlestown, behaved like an experienced officer, as well as an excellent soldier. To set forth particulars of his conduct would be tedious. We would beg leave to say, in the person of this said negro, centres a brave and gallant soldier. The reward due to so great and distinguished a character, we submit to the Congress."
Cambridge, Dec. 5, 1755.

Was Benjamin Franklin a Socialist?

I am now hearing that the mandating of health insurance of individuals so that the more responsible no longer pay for the irresponsible who can pay but don't is "Un-American and a Socialistic blasphemy".

I wonder what Benjamin Franklin would have to say about this attitude toward mandating individuals to meet a common need. HHHMmmmmmm!!

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Under (Benjamin) Franklin's goading, a group of thirty men of Philadelphia came together to form the Union Fire Company on December 7, 1736. Their equipment included "leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets (for packing and transporting goods), which were to be brought to every fire. The blaze battlers met monthly to talk about fire prevention and fire-fighting methods.

Homeowner's were mandated to have leather fire-fighting buckets in their houses.

Incidentally, the one thing that Franklin said gave him the most satisfaction of all his accomplishments was his co-founding, by a combination of public funding from the city of Philadelphia and private donors, of Pennsylvania Hospital, the first hospital in the Colonies, "to care for the sick, poor and insane who were wandering the streets of Philadelphia".

Well, Today IS Another Day

The baby chicks my friend brought for me to chick-sit yesterday, (just before the power outage, and only those who have nurtured newly hatched chickens know how upsetting that was) are doing well.

I am working on this artsy-crafty thing for the reunion and on Reunion Day I want all smart alecky comments on the results held at a minimum please!

Let’s just say it involved wallpaper scraps, spray-on glue and Styrofoam..

Now, in addition to all my socks being brown from the newly applied floor stain that all but one experts polled say will NEVER dry, (I’m betting on the one) and the seat of all my jeans sticking to everything I sit on, my fingers are now semi-permanently webbed with an “industrial strength” tacky glue! And the wallpaper scraps never scrapped out right to my measurements (nothing ever does) so it looks a little like a Home Depot decoupage thing..

I think I’ll go out and watch the baby chickens and relax.