It had been a very hectic week in Williamsburg for Peyton Randolph, the Speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and the President of the Continental Congress. It had begun with a startling alarm in the pre-dawn hours of April 21, 1775. The commotion just outside his house roused the corpulent Speaker from his bed. Like […]
No one disputes that the fighting that erupted at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 ignited a war between Great Britain and her thirteen American colonies. As we all know, the bloodshed of that day in Massachusetts initiated an eight year war that culminated with American independence. It is important to remember, however, that […]
Lord Dunmore, John Murray, the 4th Earl of Dunmore (1730-1809) and Royal Governor of Virginia (1771-1776),[1] was an important political and military figure during the early stages of the American Revolution. One of Dunmore’s most controversial actions involved issuing a proclamation to free all slaves and indentured servants of rebels who would rally to the […]
In April 1775, reports about the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord took five days to reach Philadelphia and nearly three weeks to reach Charleston, South Carolina. It wasn’t yet immortalized in history books as the start of the Revolutionary War. It was breaking news.[1] In July 1776, the Declaration of Independence took at least two […]
