Author: Mike Messner

Yesterday, George Washington was unanimously elected Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.

Today he officially accepted the position.

Jeez, I gotta stop writing these titles late at night.

Sometimes the history books make it sound like some people just appeared out of nowhere, but they did have pasts. George Washington would be a good example.

Washington has been nearly invisible since this show started on January 1, but that doesn’t mean that the Congress hollered “Anyone wanna be a general?” and he stepped up first. In fact, he was a delegate to the First Continental Congress in 1774, and for some time he’d been a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, often simultaneously with the Congress thing. And he did have a commendable military background dating back to the French and Indian War, so appointing him the Commander of Colonial forces wasn’t part of someone’s crazy scheme: they thought he could really do it.

And do it, he did.

No tongue-in-cheek for today.

No weird jokes.

No political stances.

Just thanks for giving us America, and then helping us keep it.

In today’s episode, Mike takes you back to the first day.

It wasn't even close to being the first time, but this was an important "get": the colonist forces learned that troops were coming to capture Charlestown and Dorchester in an effort to break the siege. They got lucky, it all led to some ugliness and eventually both sides could call it a win, and both sides could call it a loss.

The folks in America wanted to ensure that the folks in Canada knew just how bad the conditions were, but the problem was that most of the regular inhabitants of Canada spoke French, so when the Continental Congress created documents meant to sway the Canadians to our side of the loyalty fence, they were written in French.

But the problem was, they couldn’t use these documents as evidence for folks here in the Colonies, because not enough people understood French. What to do, what to do?

Full Disclosure: I have no idea whether I pronounced “Machias” correctly. We’ll all have to live with that one, I suppose.

The Battle of Machias was not exactly one of epic proportions. It was a couple of boats chasing after a couple of other boats, and one boat got away but the other one managed to damage itself and was ultimately boarded.

So why is it significant?

Well. Not only was it the first naval battle of the American Revolution, it was a battle that the Colonies won, no matter how you look at it. And every little win was, in fact, a big win.

In the wake of Lexington and Concord, some places didn’t wait to start assembling troops to fight off the British. Most of them were in that part of the Colonies, though.

Enter the Berkeley County Riflemen, from a section of Virginia that is now West Virginia. George Washington put out the word that soldiers were needed, and about a hundred men from Martinsburg stepped up, even going so far as to ensure that they dressed mostly alike, since there was no Continental Army just yet, and therefore there were no uniforms.

And while the sign doesn’t really say much about it, the Berkeley County Riflemen are said to be the genesis of the United States Army.

We’ve spent all our time on the East Coast; let’s take a side quest to the West Coast to see what the Spanish are up to.

We have two main players here: Bruno de Heceta, after whom at least two locations on the West Coast are named (and they’re pronounced differently, go figure), and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra.

They sailed together, each in charge of a ship, and made it almost to Canada before Heceta headed back to Mexico and Bodega y Quadra continued on up to Alaska. Their goal was to find Russians, and in that respect they failed, but they did manage to claim a lot of territory for Spain.

In the aftermath of the Gunpowder Incident, Lord Dunmore decided that the better part of valor involved getting out of town before the locals could get a good lynch mob together, and he left Virginia on the HMS Fowey.

Here’s the interesting part: the Fowey which Dunmore boarded was not the first of its name; in fact it was the fifth. But the other interesting part is that it was the second one of that name to sink in American waters.

The fourth HMS Fowey was a fifth-rate vessel (remember, ratings refer to the number of guns, not the quality of the boat) with 44 guns on it. It was first launched in 1744. In June of 1748 the ship struck a coral reef and sank off the coast of Florida (see map). She wasn’t re-discovered until 1975 and, through an agreement with England, is considered a Protected Site by the National Park Service. The photo used for today’s art is of divers swimming over the exposed timbers of that ship. It’s definitely a “look but don’t touch” situation.

In 1749 another Fowey was built, a sixth-rate frigate with 24 guns. This is the one which Lord Dunmore used to skip town. The remains of this ship are probably in the York River, but it’s not known for sure.

Why is “Fowey” such a popular name for a ship? It’s not clear. In fact, it’s not clear whether the name comes from the Cornish town of Fowey, or the river Fowey which runs through it.

The Second Continental Congress was in full swing by now. The first committees are beginning to report out to the Congress. New committees are being created for various purposes. The Congress is meeting as a group to determine the state of America. And one committee is recruited to draft a proclamation that, to modern ears, might sound a little peculiar. But the fact is, even a hundred years later a proclamation like this was quite common.