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The cannon fire could be heard from Brandywine Hundred. It was louder in Concord. It was deafening in Chadd’s Ford. The Battle of the Brandywine was in full swing, and the result was a defeat of the American Forces leaving Philadelphia wide open to the British invasion.
Sadly for us this marks the end of Delaware’s direct involvement in the Revolutionary War. After this battle, the war in the North became a sitting game, and Cornwallis felt compelled to shift to the South to try and gain some momentum. He misread the South’s resilience, and the war of course ended when he got boxed at Yorktown.
As for Delaware, the British had previously marched up from Glasgow through Newark then up Kirkwood Highway and camped at Marshalltown. One can still see the embankments they threw up. The Americans realized that they had only a narrow route north before did the British. Had the British chosen to fight through the night, the war would have been over with Washington’s defeat. He was trapped by water on three sides. General Howe was a person adverse to exertion, and chose to investigate the following morning. When the British awoke, they saw the Americans had disappeared in the night, leaving their camp fires burning to fool the British watchmen.
The British marched north to Kennett Square, probably along what is now Route 82… On the morning of 9/11 the British marched towards Philadelphia. Washington assumed the lazy Howe would march the easiest route and set up defenses in Chadd’s Ford covering the road to Baltimore, which is Route 1 today. What Washington miscalculated is that the British had better intelligence than he. Here is how.
Washington was employing those in Philadelphia to give him advice. Howe was approaching on the outside, and chose those locals to tell him the layout. The difference in intelligence was a simple as one looking out, and one looking in. Perhaps you may remember the meme last decade of showing a city as the makeup of their entire World? For instance one of Rehoboth, would show Rehoboth and Dewey and Ocean City in Great detail, and Washington and Baltimore as tiny patches on the last edge of the map? Well that myopia actually affects our judgment. As one approaches the unknown, one is apt to know only his one way. But to use that same analogy backwards, as one approaches the known, from the area of the unknown, one is far more perceptive of all other options leading towards that goal or destination.
So it was with Howe, who found out there were two ford to the north, both overlooked by Washington, and the access to the battle field was relative easily. Howe committed 5000 of his 18,000 troups to attacking Washington’s front lines, and sent 13,000 north to cross both the west and east branches of the Brandywine, then head south. imagine the surprise of the American army who had been confident that they were holding their own, to find they’d been fighting a measly 5000 men in the fog, and now had 13,000 marching behind them on their right side….
We retreated. Some said it was a disciplined retreat, and Lafayette is given a lot of credit for that. He was wounded this day in history by the way, yet he established a rallying point, communicated it to all the troops, and an orderly retreat was managed. But the surprise to our right cost us dearly. We lost 11 of our 14 artillery guns. The British listed 587 as killed, missing or wounded, but no records of the Americans lost is known.. General Nathaniel Greene is later quoted as guessing 1200 to 1400 Continentals were lost… Commander Howe wrote to the British Foreign Secretary that 300 dead, 600 wounded, 400 prisoners were the total of America’s casualties.
One cannot imagine how dark things seemed for the prospects of an American nation after this day.
- Americans had been tricked and easily routed.
- They’d lost 79% of their artillary, having only 3 cannons left.
- The Continental Congress fled in the night to Lancaster for one day, then to York.
- Military supplies were moved to Reading.
- Philadelphia, the cradle of democracy, was wide open to the British Army.
- It was 52 years before the founding of Yeungling’s brewery, so none was available to drown one’s sorrows.
They suffered fully sober. If we can remember the tragedy of our 9/11, try to imagine something ten times worse. There was no hope, period.
A makeshift hospital was scrambled together in Wilmington Delaware, and 350 causalities were sent.
If you didn’t hear Allan Loudell today, you missed one of the best broadcasts I have heard since those early days of CNN leading up to the First Gulf War.
You know how today’s news is kinda sickening and syrupy? Promoting an agenda, with t’s crossed and i’s dotted? Well this broadcast went back to the old days of journalism, as when CNN was starting out, … of putting people familiar with the MId-East on, and letting them tell us what they knew….
It was amazing and one came away from is with a wider knowledge of who is pushing what, even though why still, at this point makes no sense….
As a lesson that “what makes sense” usually turns out wrong, is this potential solution that seems to be a win, win, win for all.
Only in America…
Actually Britain, but it was still an American, our own Secretary of State, John Kerry. When asked by a reporter in London, what, if any, alternative there was other than war that could possibly solve this, Kerry flubbed and said.… Well, if Assad were to turn over all his chemical weapons to the international community and let them be destroyed, US would find it hard to go to war….
Putin quickly responded… That is a great idea… Let me call Assad… In minutes, Assad said… “why yes. What a great idea.”
The White House was quick to back track…
“Uhhh, Kerry wasn’t serious… We still want to go to war (reason still unknown), and Kerry was just making a hypothetical argument knowing full well that the impossible could never occur, that Assad would give up his Chemical Weapons…”
(Mental note: the White House really wants war.)
Meanwhile all those familiar with the problems begin working through the implications. It is a win for Assad. It is a win for Russia. It is a win for Iran, Hesbollah, Israel, Jordan. It is a win for America and the west. it is a win for the rebels in Syria. We’ve gone full circle…
So, John Kerry’s big FU’… may have just unintentionally saved the world from a war no one except those in the White House, ever wanted…
Only in America… (well technically Britain)
What a great excuse for a cup of tea… and a biscuit or even better, two.
Courtesy of Climate Code Red
If you kinda thought the weather was wild this year, you were right. The most ice lost is taking place right while you read this. A large chunk was broken up by a freak storm. Another similar on is on its way. The question that no one knows the answer to, is… will this affect the circulation pattern.
We all know in our lives that as human beings we can put up with aggravation rather well, unless we are Type A. Whether it is aggravation from our boss, from our spouse, from our in-laws, from our choir director, from that guy selling papers on the corner,… we put up with it, accepting it as the normal course of business. Except once or twice in our lives, we just snap. And the consequences of that, momentary snap, cause big changes… maybe in our employment, maybe in our marriage, maybe in our in-law’s will, maybe from the choir director’s husband, maybe from the police…. things change for us in a big way…..
That is how we have to see this. From a mud core taken from an ancient lake, Lough Monreach, in Ireland in 2009 it was discovered that in a matter of one month 12,900 years ago, we went from normal seasonal temperatures to an ice age. The cause came from a switch in ocean currents. As cold fresh water entered the ocean, warm water stopped flowing north. That Ice Age lasted 1300 years before the thaw returned. It flipped in one month…. 30 days more or less.
So is that happening?
The science is too big. We don’t know. It will be like on the Day after Tomorrow where we first find out from buoys scattered across the Atlantic. It cannot be predicted.
What can be foretold is that the earth has never had this much stress before during civilized mans span on earth. Do you know when you snap, or does it take you off guard as well?
That is where we are…
Of course nothing could come about it… Just like when your boss insults you in front of all your staff, your office competitor’s staff, and ridicules you like you have never been before… You just take it…
The boss tells your competitor… “I knew he was a wus… I wasn’t worried one bit… you have nothing to worry about him…”
Republicans will say in Tampa:… “I knew it was a scam…. I wasn’t worried one bit… we have nothing to worry about burning carbon fuels and putting carbon dioxide into the air.”
News Flash: The earth is not a wus……..
2012, day 230, 2.87743 million square kilometers
2011, day 253, 2.90474 million square kilometers (previous record low)
kavips 