On this day in 1778, George Washington prepares to strike the British near Monmouth Court House in New Jersey. The conflict that followed nearly ended in disgrace and retreat because one of Washington’s officers made a critical mistake.
Fortunately, General Washington arrived on the scene, just in time.
The clash at Monmouth occurred just after Washington’s army emerged from its long winter at Valley Forge. Americans were in pursuit of the British, then evacuating Philadelphia. The British army was moving very slowly—too slowly! Washington began to wonder if he was being pulled into a trap. On June 24, he held a council of war.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-battle-monmouth
On this day in 1782, George Washington writes a letter to the Reformed Dutch Church at Albany. He was then in the middle of a quick trip to that city.
“May the preservation of your civil and religious Liberties still be the care of an indulgent Providence,” Washington wrote the church, “and may the rapid increase and universal extension of knowledge virtue and true Religion be the consequence of a speedy and honorable Peace.”
Funny words to write if he truly believed that church and state should be separated. Don’t you think? Food for thought for your day.
Dear regular readers: Full-fledged history stories resume on Monday.
During this summer in 1776, Betsy Ross works as a seamstress and an upholsterer. At least according to legend, she would make the first American flag at the request of George Washington.
History remembers her as “Betsy Ross,” but would that seem funny to her? She was widowed three times and lived most of her life with other names.
She was born Elizabeth Griscom to an abolitionist Quaker family, where she was the eighth of seventeen children. She attended a Quaker school and was then apprenticed to an upholsterer. It was during this apprenticeship that she met John Ross.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-betsy-ross
On this day in 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt signs a law setting a federal minimum wage. The bill was the culmination of months of work: He’d asked Congress to send such a law to his desk roughly a year earlier.
Such a proposal might sound normal to modern ears, but it was far from normal back then. To the contrary, there was a pretty big dispute about the constitutionality of FDR’s plan—and many today still contend that these types of requirements are unconstitutional.
Why? Early Americans would have expected that the states may set such labor requirements. The federal government may not.
Regardless, the proposal was unsurprising, coming from FDR, who defaulted on big government measures during the Great Depression. Yet, even then, he would have failed in his efforts but for a startling Supreme Court decision during the spring of 1937.
The story continues here: https://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-fdr-new-deal
