Episodes
Reading the feed…
Reading the feed…
At this point, both George Washington and General William Howe know that they’re literally on the eve of battle, and they’re making their final preparations. The British, along with the Hessians, were making plans to move along the Jamaica Pass (it’s the road just above the Acroasis logo in today’s art), which, while they didn’t […] The post Eve of Battle–August 26, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
That George Washington chose to add Israel Putnam to his leadership rolls in Brooklyn isn’t specifically mysterious. What is mysterious is that Putnam was added rather than used as a replacement for someone else. As a result of that move, there were essentially two men in charge on Long Island, with Putnam as the theater […] The post Meet The New Boss–August 24, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
The day after the British landed on Long Island, George Washington was disheartened to learn that army provisioning wasn’t at the level he’d expected, despite his orders only a week earlier. It was bad enough that he’d been caught a little flatfooted by both the magnitude and the direction of the British movement, now he […] The post Reacting to Brooklyn–August 23, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
It’s been coming for at least two months, and the Battle of Long Island has finally begun. As we’ve noted a few times the past couple of days, George Washington had to make a few educated guesses about what the British were planning to do, but this left his troops thinly spread throughout Brooklyn and […] The post The Battle Begins–August 20, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
George Washington’s means for maintaining motivation in the Continental Army came from two directions: discipline and stirring rhetoric as a means of providing the troops with something to rally for. And his Orders of the Day for this day seem to be focused simultaneously on both. As noted elsewhere, Washington could be a stickler for […] The post Maintaining Motivation–August 11, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
The idea to have a flying camp at all belonged to Geroge Washington. He knew that he was going to be facing huge numbers of British soldiers soon, and he proposed having a mobile unit that could show up wherever they were needed. While the soldiers came from three specific states, they were intended to […] The post Flying Camp Rations–August 9, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
I promised you a postscript for the Christopher French story, but let me offer up some broader context first. In July 1776, French wrote to George Washington from Connecticut, where he was being held as a prisoner of war. The purpose of the letter was to request parole from his confinement. Washington’s reply reads: Sir: […] The post A Gift For George, None For Chris–August 7, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
When it came to army discipline, George Washington had some definite opinions. The punishments we hear about were rather harsh by modern standards, but Washington had some problems with his recruits that modern armies don’t tend to have. Specifically, (and we’ve mentioned this before), the Continental Army had a relatively short enlistment period, which meant […] The post Laying Down The Law–August 4, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
George Washington had a deep-set sense of right and wrong, and sometimes his sense of Army decorum could get in his way. Our July 14 episode demonstrated that to a certain extent. Other times it demonstrate the high expectations he placed on himself and others. He wanted his officers to be behavior models, especially because […] The post It’s Only Proper–August 3, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
The presence of the British in Staten Island wasn’t a big mystery, but within a month after they first arrived, the number of ships in New York Harbor was well over 100, and still growing. And, as George Washington suspected (along with many others), the British began moving up the rivers surrounding Manhattan, working their […] The post British Forces Gather in NY–July 29, 1776 appeared first on 250 and Counting.
