Brian P. O’Malley is a writer and real estate agent in Atlantic Beach, Florida. He earned a Master of Arts in history from the University of North Florida (Jacksonville). His writings include the occasional editorial in Folio Weekly (Jacksonville) and a 2008 Op-Ed piece in The Washington Post, “Lessons on Iraq From a Founding Father.” He blogs on historical subjects at http://brianomalley1776.blogspot.com/.
John Adams was certain he made a mistake by going to church. Philadelphia’s yellow fever outbreak only ended in November 1793. On Sunday, December 22, Adams attended a Presbyterian service in the morning and an Episcopalian service in the afternoon, “but I am not Sure it is prudent to go to Church or to Meeting […]
Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic medical descriptions. Throughout the Revolutionary War, prisoners learned that dysentery accompanied starvation. Confined to the prison ship Jersey in 1781, Christopher Hawkins described rations “not sufficient to satisfy the calls of hunger.” In the next two sentences, Hawkins mentioned that “the bloody flux or dyssenterry” prevailed on the Jersey, from […]
“I often thought that the situation of a people in a bombarded city, was not much worse, and on some accounts not so bad; we had no respite night nor day.” Writing to a friend in his native Massachusetts, newspaper publisher John Fenno was trying to convey the effect of the 1793 yellow fever outbreak […]
In 1793, a widely circulated American editorial observed, “A few years ago, to say of any man that he was ‘a friend to toleration,’ was to place his temper in the fairest point of view.” By the 1790s, people knew better. “Now every friend to the rights of man perceives that toleration was founded on […]
The words “under God” have been part of America’s fabric since its inception; any school child will recognize the words in the Pledge of Allegiance. But did the Founding Generation use this phrase the same way we do today? In 1775, Col. Benedict Arnold led a detachment of Continental forces into Canada. George Washington admonished […]
The British Army held New York City from 1776 to November 25, 1783. In prisoner exchanges, royal forces in New York periodically released prisoners of war who were “sickly and emaciated.” Sometimes the prisoners numbered a few dozen, sometimes a few hundred. In 1776, however, British military commander Lt. Gen. Sir William Howe released more […]
