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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.
Occasionally something that you looked at many times, but have never seen, suddenly jumps out and changes your whole perspective. For example, I had always thought that as far as the Revolutionary War went, Delaware’s only claim to fame was that the new flag was first flown in battle on Delaware’s soil…….
Not so! Two hundred thirty-six years ago today, things were really jumping in these parts. It may seem like a long time ago to most of us, but in reality it is only a string of three ten year olds who each knew someone who was ninety. In the vernacular, that means that most of us know someone, who themselves knew someone who actually had spoken to someone, who was alive during the Revolutionary War!…… Whoa…….
August 25, 1777 close to 300 ships sailed up the Chesapeake Bay, anchored off off Elk Neck, Maryland, and began disembarking. That has been called the largest fleet ever assembled off either of the America’s coasts. To put that number into perspective, the famous Spanish Armada, consisted of a meager 130 Spanish ships. The most-oft talked about Battle of Trafalger, consisted of a combined total of some 60 ships. Modern historians can get a perspective by comparing those 300 ships to the 700 off of Dunkirk or the 900 off of Normandy…….
It must have been quite a sight to stand on the top Iron Hill and see over 300 tall masts sailing to defeat you. And on board those ships, were 15,000 solders disembarking to begin marching towards your capital city….That’s close to the total number of women living across Greater Newark in 2010.
Were we living 236 years ago, we would all be on edge! Anticipating a major battle on Delaware soil, 11,000 continental troops were moved into Delaware and bivouacked at what used to be known as Red Mill Neck, and now is near the Marshalltown bridge over top of Red Clay Creek.
The British moved in steps, out of Elkton to Gray’s hill, then up the road to Newark. One account said their line stretched from Glasgow to the bridge across the Christiana, where the I 95 and 896 interchange is today. They marched through the village of Newark, and then advanced parallel to today’s Kirkwood highway and camped at Milltown, just two miles from the American Camp in Newport. For one day, they stared each other down. The potential existed for a pitched battle to have occurred on Delaware soil. When no attempt was made by the British, Washington got scared that he was to be flanked to the north. Had General Howe chosen to do so, Washington and the Continental Army would have suffered a catastrophic defeat. At 2 am, the Continentals forced marched north to Chadd’s Ford, thereby occupying the high ground, and then on the following day, occurred the Battle of the Brandywine, the second to last major battle to be fought by Washington until Yorktown, four years latter.
Just a small footnote: it was in Delaware where General Pulaski, from Poland, met Washington while in Wilmington and was placed in charge of developing the calvary.
Although only a small skirmish actually occurred in this small state, with just a few things happening differently, a major conflagration could have happened that could have ended the war for the Americans.
Needless to say, it was relatively scary “in these parts” just 11 score and sixteen years ago.
Senator Coons just returned this week from the Middle East. Lindsay Graham, Kelly Ayotte, John McCain, Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal went as well.
Jordan and Turkey have welcomed Syrian refugees with open arms. The camp visited, Zaatari, is at a population of 42,000 and absorbing 2000 a night. They need help before their scarce resources cause tensions within their own country.
This affects the US… Aid is in the United States’ interest. If we can provide aid to the rebels on the ground inside Syria we are preventing a much greater future cost of a full blown jihadist regime sharing a border with Israel….
Currently the aid we actually are providing is going through NGO’s into Damascus, where the Syrian government is distributing it to their supporters and away from the rebel towns who are hardest hit. The American people believe this aid is reaching the population they see on their televisions. Sad thing it isn’t.
The Assad administration is” dug in pretty hard.”
It is clear that air power is needed to protect people from Syria. A no-fly zone would even the odds. Currently the jihadists can stir up unrest. The war gives jihadist opportunity, The jihadists are the better fighters. When you as a people are being tortured and killed, the people fighting alongside of you gain legitimacy. Extremism always thrives inside anarchy. Any money now spent to facilitate the end of Assad is cheaper than what we will be grappling with jihadists at a later date.
It is time to give the Syrian Opposition Council more legitimacy, by recognizing it’s rightful representation of the Syrian people
The window is closing for the US… Either we act now, or get caught inside another Mid East bubble just as it explodes….
Here is how we move forward.
A) Step up Aid to Syrian People
B) Send aid to Turkey and Jordan and direct to refugee camps.
C) Apply to Assad to US to accompany aid into Syria and to those opposition towns inside.
D) When he refuses, enable a No-fly zoned over the Rebel held zones to enable OUR AMERICAN aid to get through.
E) Step up diplomatic pressure on Assad and his supporters to step down…..
F) Invite China to be part of the peace process and send humanitarian troops and infrastructural aid…..
A. A woman, with two small children, separated from an abusive husband. He has just started violating a no-contact order, and is making threats over the upcoming divorce.
B. A father of three boys, married, lives in rural area. Owns 97 acres of woods. Has a two mile driveway. Then fifteen miles of one lane road to the nearest major highway, whose junction is 38 miles from the nearest police station.
C. A 15 year old urban dropout, who was jumped and beaten up badly when he was twelve in an act of random violence; he was in the wrong place when they were looking for something to do, allegedly to “teach him a lesson”; the reality? There was no reason for it.
D. A thirty year old man, who was raped over 100 times while a child by a neighbor, and that neighbor now is politically well connected, who boasts on talk radio of how big his arsenal is….
E. A bright, attractive professional woman of twenty five, who has a high powered job, lives alone out of necessity and convenience, lives on an international schedule, enters and exits often between midnight and 6 am.
F. A 43 year old mother, who at 18 became state’s witness and testified against her acquaintance and he, is being freed tomorrow, sentence done….
G. A 62 year old pill popping DJ, who excels at conservative talk radio, by stirring up hate, spinning lies into truth, and coining derogative names to be recycled by bitter old white me, like “femminazi’s”….
H. Pastor Washington, who has taken the calling of walking around the inner city on very cold nights, and persuade homeless people to swallow their pride and come inside to a warm shelter…
I. One day, you?
Brian Selander to those of you who don’t know, is a really good guy… I bet he wishes (like most dads), that he had more time to spend with his children….
It happens quickly. You get a call. You just sat down at the dinner table. It’s a Sunday, the only time you ever get to spend with your family, … and it’s a reporter who says: “Occupy Delaware just defied the state government and is staking a claim at that plaza beside the Federal Building in Wilmington. Do you want to go on record with any statement or comment, considering you have now been defied and all?”
You want to say, “I’m eating dinner with my family. Leave me alone, Ms Reporter!”… but you don’t.
Instead the words come out without you thinking as that delicious smell of food that you almost had in your mouth, becomes all you really care about, and that professional part of you that functions so much that it is automatic, takes over and says something like: “The state made a very reasonable offer with the use of state managed properties at Brandywine and Fletcher Brown park,” Selander said. “It was an offer that respected constitutional rights to be heard and assemble. They’ve chosen a different path.”
And it gets twisted like this: Brian Selander expressed dismay at the group’s decision to defy the state, for the second straight day, by choosing not to accept the Brandywine Park permit.
Thinking you made a neutral statement that says nothing but holds them off for a while, you exit and go back to your dinner.
You can be forgiven. I WOULD HAVE SAID THE SAME THING, primarily because I wouldn’t have had time to think about it first….
But thinking changes things, a lot.
This is not some ragtag group of protesters. These are former professionals, people currently employed or not, who are scared to death, that their country is going down the wrong path, fast. As much as you and Jack have been scrambling to bring jobs here to Delaware, YOU KNOW THEY ARE RIGHT!!
We ARE going down the wrong path, … and HAVE BEEN, ever since the 2000 elections! And the nuts who got elected from conservative districts in 2010, haven’t helped!
What you have underestimated, Brian, is the amount of resonance this movement has. They, are expressing the sentiments of a vast majority of humanity. Those human beings have looked for “hope” when “change” was promised… and not delivered. They looked with “promise”, when “throwing out the bums” was “delivered”, but things got worse. What you may not realize is that most Americans look at this Occupy Movement, and say, “finally, finally, someone is saying what we feel. Even better, someone is doing something about it! It may not be much, but at least, SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING!”
You, dear colleague, have the most unenviable task. In a way, you are in the exact same position as was King George’s governor of Massachusetts, attempting to put down the rebellious nature of its citizens…. If you remember history, you have only one time, ONE TIME, to get it right. Had the British immediately repealed the Stamp Act, and said, “thanks Colonies, for bringing it to our attention; you’re right, it was stupid of us to try that! Forgive us, we’ll do our best to act better in our future,” seriously, we’d be speaking Kings English right now. There would be no United States of America because there would not have been an American Revolution. In fact, as things continued to unravel in the colonies, the British did just that: repealed the Stamp Act. (Yep, it was too late.)
Instead, the initial reaction was a response to those catcalls from the insignificants on the sidelines: “are you letting them get away with it? Are you some kinda pussy or something” (To be perfectly clear, I am talking about real cats here). They felt they had to show who was in charge and they cracked down, killing 6 in a massacre, and then later, sneaking off to the arsenals of Lexington and Concord to confiscate their powder and arms….
Bad plan.
Today no one knows off the top of their head, the name of that governor of Massachusetts. But his actions, at his expense, planted the seed that grew into the greatest nation this planet has ever known.
Since you are a great guy, and have a family, and are in a very, very difficult position right now, I’m going to advise you how to work your way out of it… I could do it in an email, but I fully believe in public disclosure, for the simple reason that if I do it here, all know, and if the possibility rises that a flaw exists, someone is sure to point it out in public, and the action in question can be amended to cover that detail. Make sense?
Never give into bullies. The bullies here are NOT the “Occupy Movement.” They are Greg Lavelle and the 9/12 Patriots. How many Republicans are there in Delaware? You don’t need them. You do need the rest of us. So what I would do, is strategically take this approach.
“These people are citizens of this nation. They are protected by the U.S Constitution like everyone else. We are a fee based society. Sometimes, like the poll tax, those fees get in the way of pure democracy. Heaven forbid, that democracy could only exist, for those who could afford to pay a fee. In fact, the Stamp Act by the British, that event that triggered the American Revolution, was exactly that. A fee for a permit. Currently, the Occupy Movement is representing the revolutionary spirit that created this country. Likewise, they represent the moral equivalent of those who felt slavery, despite it’s being sanctioned by the Federal government, was intensely immoral, and an abomination. They too, like those who said it was wrong to have a second class citizenry, based solely upon the color of ones skin, even though that too, was approved and sanctioned by State governments around this nation.
For this reason, we are going to issue permits for this group. They have the same right as every citizen in America, to make their grievances known. When the wealthy lost an election, they had money to advertise, set up rallies, buy media spokespersons, pour unheard amounts of money into tiny local campaigns. But when the poor want to do the same, we say, sorry, you can’t because you don’t have cash…. and your checks come back stamped: insufficient funds.
One must wonder, if our current mayor, yes, that one who got his start during the Civil Rights movement right here in Wilmington, would be here today, if he, failed, yes, failed to lead a protest on some steps near here, because to do so, he would have first, had to pay a fee?
A fee/permit system is the surest method to silence the poor. Yet those who can’t afford it, were expressly given the same rights under the Constitution of the United States of America. They were given them, simply because, we were going to be a nation designed like no other, where each person, no matter his income, had the equal right to life, to liberty, and to their individual pursuit of happiness..
Like Philadelphia to the north of us, Baltimore to the south of us, New York to the northeast of us, we too will allow these citizens of the Occupy movement, to make their grievances known, in their own way. Their symbol of communication, is with tents. We ask, and have been given assurances, that they will respect every other citizen’s rights and property, in their pursuit of expressing their message.
We wish them luck with their endeavor.
Done.
Simple, short, to the point. Your second term is safe.
But, it couldn’t hurt to have the entire line of Democratic office holders, sail by Greg Lavelle, the GOP, and the 9/12 with gun-ports open, cannons fully loaded and primed, and unleash a fusilade of the like that has never before been seen, equating Greg Lavelle, the GOP, and the 9/12 Patriots with the likes of King George, Southern Plantation Owners, and Southern Whites who enforced segregation. That’s exactly what they are. Hanging on to power by impeding democracy; not celebrating it.
Did you get your IRA or Keogh plan financials yet?
Just wondering how much the “contrived” debt ceiling crises cost you?
The debt ceiling was raised 7 times during the Bush administration but it was never a crises… Why? Because it was the Republicans doing it..
Now, put a Democrat in the White House who is up for re-election, and presto… we have a crises…
The Republicans wanted to default the government. That is a pretty bad crises.
So how much did this Cantor-ization cost you? 6%?
If your plan currently has a value of $50,000 Eric Cantor directly cost you a cool $3,000.
At $100,000 Eric Cantor cost you $6,000.
At $150,000 Eric Cantor cost you $9,000.
At $200,000 Eric Cantor cost you $12,000.
At $250,000 Eric Cantor cost you $15,000.
At $300,000 Eric Cantor cost you $18,000..
In just 3 months. Multiply those by four to find out how much Republicans will cost you in just one year?…
Now add that cost to what the last recession cost you. A job? Your house? Lost savings?
Now you are beginning to see the true value of what Eric Cantor offers… the financial equivalent of death and destruction.
Don’t be too hard on yourselves. You were fooled. Fooled by the very people profiting off every dollar you spend. You were not told the truth, so you cannot blame yourself for not knowing…
Truth is: Republicans are the touch of death……. Not the individuals who make up the party, not the people!… they didn’t know either. Just like forgiving the German people for the sins of their leader, we carry no animosity for those who were corralled by their party, who supported Republicans for other issues, without understanding the consequences of their actions… They were victims too.
Everyone needs to call Republican out for what they are. it would have been nice if the same had happened in Nazi Germany during the ’30’s…..
So? How much did Eric Cantor cost you?
How much will he cost you tomorrow?
How much will he cost you again next year?
Artistic Photography Courtesy of Delaware Liberal
Poor Bill Lee… Copeland asks, then begs, then pleads with him to run as Governor so Charlie and Protack would not be running mates…. and Charlie turns around and endorsed Jack Markell?… Poor Bill Lee is crushed right now, and no expert spin performed by Ms. Evans could ever put a good face on that once great Republican again… Charlie appears to have sold out the entire party to salvage his own future career… What? No support for McCain? What? No support for Sarah Palin? What? No support for what was once said on circuit…”his good friend” Bill Lee? Just support Charlie Copeland for Lieutenant Governor?
Obviously no Republican will vote for him now… What’s Charlie planning to do? Start the Dupont Political party beginning November? He had better think of something… In the meantime….Poor Bill Lee.
As an aside… why would anyone want to put in a snake into office… when such a hero is standing by? Matt Denn by his actions alone, has saved every insured Delawarean at least $100 on insurance costs, by delinking credit scoring with insurance rates…..
If Republicans can’t trust Copeland… should you?
kavips 
