{"id":6557,"date":"2025-01-03T07:59:36","date_gmt":"2025-01-03T12:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/?p=6557"},"modified":"2025-01-03T07:59:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T12:59:36","slug":"america-250-the-importance-of-1775","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/america-250-the-importance-of-1775\/","title":{"rendered":"America 250: \u00a0The\u00a0Importance\u00a0of\u00a01775"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Edward Spannaus<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note:  the following is <\/em>an adaptation of an article written by the author for the Sons of the American <\/em>Revolution<\/em>  (<\/em>SAR)<\/em>, Sgt. Lawrence Everhart Chapter, Frederick, Maryland<\/em>. <\/em>We think the topic<\/em> will also be of interest to readers of this newsletter.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we enter the year 2025, and continue in our commemoration of the 250th<\/sup> Anniversary of the American Revolution, it is valuable to study what happened 250 years ago, during the critical year of 1775. This was the year when in which the shooting war started, and in which British royal authority crumbled, as American Patriots created new governing institutions to replace the old colonial administrations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The then-President General of the SAR, Davis Wright, alreadyhad pointed out in the summer of 2021, the important of going beyond a narrow focus on July 4, 1776:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur Patriot ancestors struggled and rebelled for over a decade\u2014and actively engaged in open warfare for eight years\u2014to guarantee our liberty,\u201d Davis said.  \u201cOur mission, therefore, is to celebrate and commemorate the entirety of the American Revolutionary period, from the 250th<\/sup> anniversary of the Boston Tea Party in 2023, to the 250th<\/sup> anniversary of the British Army\u2019s departure from New York City in 2033.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that standpoint, a closer look at 1775 is merited.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was at least a year and a half of preparation and mobilization, which made the Declaration of Independence possible, and, from an international standpoint, an absolute necessity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u00a0have already commemorated\u00a0the Boston Tea Party of\u00a0December 1773.\u00a0That momentous event\u00a0set things in motion,\u00a0but,\u00a0communications being what they were in those days,\u00a0news of the British response didn\u2019t reach the American colonies\u00a0until late Spring of 1774. \u00a0The\u00a0British\u00a0response was what were called the Coercive, or \u201cIntolerable\u201d Acts, which shut down the port of Boston\u00a0in addition to other serious infringements on the rights of the\u00a0citizens of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.\u00a0

Immediately, the Boston Patriots issued a call for\u00a0support from the other colonies, and dispatched messengers. \u00a0They reached\u00a0Maryland and Virginia in late May of 1774. \u00a0Maryland\u2019s response was\u00a0that\u00a0town meetings\u00a0were\u00a0held in most counties. \u00a0On June 20, we commemorated the Frederick Resolves, which declared that Boston\u2019s suffering was \u201cin the common cause of America,\u201d and urging a cessation of all trade with Great Britain.\u00a0And in Virginia\u00a0last\u00a0summer,\u00a0we celebrated the Loudoun\u00a0Resolves (June 14),\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0Fairfax Resolves\u00a0(July 17)\u00a0—\u00a0the latter being written by George Washington and George\u00a0Mason..\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Citizens reacted to the Coercive Acts throughout the colonies \u2013here, in Massachusetts.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Maryland, as in other colonies, these local town meetings fed into a general convention; these, in turn, led to the first Continental Congress held in Philadelphia in September.  This Congress created the Continental Association to conduct a trade embargo against Britain, and it called for the creation of revolutionary Committees of Safety (or Observation), to monitor and enforce the cut-off of imports from Britain and later of exports. This clearly and decisively set the colonies on the road to revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A depiction of the First Continental Congress, which mandated the establishment of local Committees of Observation to enforce their decisions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Frederick County (then encompassing all of western Maryland) is exemplary of this process. In mid-November 1774 a committee was formed to carry out the purposes of the Association created by the Continental Congress.  In January, more local Committees of Observation were formed, and a new county government was established under the direction of the county-wide Committee of Observation. Not only was it charged with carrying out the trade embargo, but it undertook the purchase of arms and ammunition. As historian T.J.C. Williams put it: \u201cThe Committee of Observation exercised all the functions of government during the turbulent and disorderly times from the date of its organization to the formation of the State Government in 1777.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lexington and Concord<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired on April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord.  This was not an unplannedevent, as it is sometimes portrayed. It is estimated that 14,000 colonists were already under arms in eastern Massachusetts, and they had been undergoing training for a year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
The clash at Lexington and Concord, depicted here, was a battle waiting to happen, as Massachusetts militias had been training for months.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And within days, in response to the report about Lexington and Concord, another 20,000 militiamen and minutemen from the New England colonies, and from other parts of Massachusetts, flooded into the Boston area, encircling the British enclave. Others seized the British forts at Ticonderoga and Crown Point. This mobilization culminated in the June 17, 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill (or \u201cBreed\u2019s Hill\u201d), which showed that colonial militiamen could take on what was regarded as the strongest and best-trained army in the world at that time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia: preparations for war<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, things were stirring in Virginia, the largest and most important southern colony. Weeks before Lexington and Concord, on March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry had delivered his stirring \u201cGive me liberty, or give me death\u201d speech at the Second Virginia Convention. At issue was a motion that all Virginia counties should create independent  militia companies. Pointing to the obvious British preparations for war, on land and sea, Henry said that it was too late to avoid war. \u201cThe war is inevitable,\u201d he proclaimed. \u201cThe war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patrick Henry was not alone in this view. Even before this, on March 14, 1775,the Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, had written to Lord Dartmouth in London informing him that Virginia was preparing for war, and that the revolutionary Virginia Convention was voting to raise troops. On April 21, before the reports from Lexington and Concord had reached Virginia, Dunmore had deployed British naval troops to remove the gunpowder from the town magazine in Williamsburg. Angry militia companies led by Patrick Henry marched on Williamsburg, and in June, Dunmore fled to the safety of a British ship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Patrick Henry at the Stamp Act convention.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Our neighbors in Loudoun County, Virginia, fully supported Patrick Henry\u2019s efforts.  An independent militia company from Loudoun headed for Williamsburg, and got as far as Fredericksburg when it was informed that Henry had obtained restitution from officials of Dunmore\u2019s weakened government. The Loudoun County Committee on Public Safety adopted Resolves declaring that they completely approved of the conduct of their fellow countrymen \u2013 Captain Patrick Henry and the other volunteers who marched with him \u2013 in seeking reprisal for the trespass committed by Dunmore, and then avowed that \u201cwe are determined to hazard [to put at risk] all the blessings of this life\u201d rather than to allow any injury to Patrick and his men, or to their property. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Creating a new government<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Revolutionary fervor and patriotic zeal spread throughout theAmerican colonies during 1775, taking hold most firmly in New England and the southern colonies. Royal Governors fled in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina during 1775, and Georgia\u2019s Royal Governor followed in February 1776.  Patriots were in control of all of New England outside of Boston harborwhere the British maintained fortifications and its naval ships lurked off-shore.  The middle colonies, particularly New York and Pennsylvania, were laggards, New York being dominated by merchants, and Pennsylvania by war-opposing Quakers. But even in Pennsylvania, resolutions condemning the Coercive Acts were adopted in Scotch-Irish and German areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Washington after his selection as Command in Chief of the Continental Army in June 1775.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A landmark was the creation of the Continental Army by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1775, and the appointment of George Washington as its commander. Congress authorized the creation of ten rifle companies from the frontier areas of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia.  Later in 1775, the Continental Congress created a Navy (on October 13), and a Marine Corps (on November 10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maryland was assigned to supply two of these rifle companies, and the Maryland Committee of Observation assigned this responsibility to Frederick County. On June 21, 1775, the two Frederick County companies mustered at the courthouse in Fredericktown \u2013 an event which we will commemorate this year, on June 21, 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Virginia\u2019s two rifle companies were raised in the frontier towns of Winchester and Shepherdstown; these companies marched (leaving on July 14 and July 17, 1775 respectively) to Frederick and then to Cambridge in the famous \u201cBee Line\u201d march. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Summarizing the dramatic events of 1775, historian Kevin Phillips writes of the breakdown of royal authority:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

It had been replaced by de facto American self-rule through local committees of correspondence and safety, trade-monitoring committees of inspection, oath-swearing associations, militia organizations, and provincial congresses. They began to exercise power twelve to eighteen months before the July 1776 arrival in New York of massive but belated British military might. This Patriot infrastructure, activity, and enforcement represented a governmental and political underpinning of American independence that was never effectively defeated\u2026.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Edward Spannaus Note:  the following is an adaptation of an article written by the author for the Sons of the American Revolution  (SAR), Sgt. Lawrence Everhart Chapter, Frederick, Maryland. We think the topic will…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6561,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6557"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6568,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6557\/revisions\/6568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}