C W. Johnson, Jr.

Rev War Tales Barbados Bound 2 November 1751, Barbados. The brigantine Success anchored in Carlisle Bay after more than a month at sea. George Washington, age nineteen, came with his half-brother Lawrence, who hoped the tropical climate would ease his tuberculosis. They left Virginia in late September. Early on the second, the lookout cried land while the ship was still far east of the captain’s calculations. The east coast is rocky and reef-bound. They rounded the south end safely and entered the bay later that day. Bridgetown was the largest town Washington had ever seen, a busy port with fortifications and warehouses. The brothers stayed nearly six weeks. The heat brought Lawrence no improvement. On 17 November, George contracted smallpox and remained confined for weeks. He recovered, departed in late December, and reached Virginia in early 1752. Stopping at Williamsburg on the way home, he sarcastically called it “the great metropolis.” This was Washington’s only trip outside the North American mainland. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales First Fleet 2 November 1775, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Congress appropriated funds and authority so the Naval Committee could buy and man the first Continental warships. On 2 November 1775, Congress granted the Naval Committee $100,000 and the authority to engage officers and seamen for the vessels already ordered to sea. The committee then purchased merchant hulls and gave them fighting names. Black Prince became Alfred, a 24-gun ship and Hopkins’s flagship. With her came Columbus, Andrew Doria, Cabot, and the sloop Providence. Smaller craft—Hornet, Wasp, and Fly—joined the force as they were taken up. Not all eight were bought and renamed on that single day. On 2 November, Congress paid for a fleet and told the committee to put it in commission. Esek Hopkins would take that squadron to sea in 1776. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Ocracoke Opportunity 1 November 1776, Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina. Carteret County’s independent company seized the foundered British brig Aurora, her crew, and a cargo of navy stores. On 1 November 1776, the victualling brig Aurora, Captain John Bishop, bound for New York with a convoy of supplies, went aground or foundered in the shallows near Ocracoke Inlet. She was not a ship of the line. She was a storeship packed with beef, pork, bread, flour, peas, oatmeal, rice, rum, and other provisions worth about £1,000. Captain Enoch Ward’s Core Sound Independent Company, posted near Cape Lookout for Carteret County, crossed to the wreck, seized the vessel, cargo, captain, and crew. In May 1777, Ward’s men were awarded half the value of the prize. The capture was a small-boat prize that fed the patriot coast and denied the British fleet a load of food and drink. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales

Rev War Tales Last Stand on Manhattan 31 October 1776, Fort Lee, New Jersey. Nathanael Greene reports the enemy above King’s Bridge and asks Washington how far to hold the island around Fort Washington. On 31 October 1776, Greene wrote from Fort Lee that the British held Fort Independence on the heights above King’s Bridge. Valuables were off; bridges were down; he had told Colonel Robert Magaw to block the mountain road. The question was whether to hold the entire line from the Bridge to the lower lines—which would require more men—or to pull the garrison into Mount Washington (Fort Washington) alone, in which case the island would be overmanned. He would send Rawlings’s regiment to Magaw until Washington decided. The grand army’s movements, he added, would settle the point. Three days after White Plains, Greene was still planning to hold the last American work on Manhattan. By mid-November, the plan proved too bold. #RevWar #History #AmRev #RevWarTales