But there is more to Dolly vs. Dolley than simply their names. Familiarity with Dolly Parton can help you better understand Dolley Madison.

In fact, there are enough similarities between the two that when I hire an actress to play Dolley Madison in my feature-length film, WHITE HOUSE PHOENIX, I will point her to Dolly Parton as an example of Dolley Madison’s personality. They have several things in common.

Dolly Parton’s and Dolley Madison's similar characteristics:

• Southern

• Sociable

• Popular

• Charming

• Charismatic

• Charitable

• Hospitable

• Fashion Icons

• Buxom

• Controversy avoiders

• Started non-profits benefiting children

• Reserved husbands

• A sincere faith in God

The Differences

Their physical differences are obvious. Both well-endowed, dark-haired Dolley Madison was 5’6” while platinum blond Dolly Parton was 5’, which is my height. Living centuries apart, Dolley Madison was a politician's wife and the first, First Lady while Dolly Parton was as legendary as an entertainer as she was a business woman and philanthropist.

In the coverage of Parton's death, several who knew her have pointed out her charisma. Parton made you feel like you were the most important person in the room when you met her. She calmed people’s nerves. Dolley Madison also had this gift.

In fact, Dolley was far more popular than her husband, James Madison, to the point that it may have swayed the 1808 presidential election. Charles Pinckney, the South Carolinian who lost to the introverted James Madison, credited Dolley for his loss.

"I was beaten by Mr. and Mrs. Madison. I might have had a better chance had I faced Mr. Madison alone," Pinckney quipped.

Anti-political

What stood out to me the most about Dolly Parton in the wake of her death was her approach to politics. Knowing she had fans who were both Republicans and Democrats, Parton removed herself from political controversy by not endorsing politicians or expressing her political opinions.

“My daddy was a Republican, my mama was a Democrat, and I’m a hypocrite!" Parton quipped with a laugh, pronouncing 'hypocrite' as 'hypo-crat' in her signature Southern drawl.

She went as far as to reject both President Trump’s and President Biden’s efforts to give her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Why? She didn't want to appear partisan or political by accepting the award. We've seen the fruit of Parton’s decision because the reaction to her death has crossed political party lines and transcended our very fractured culture. By setting politics aside, she maintained her popularity. I would love to see more entertainers follower her example.

Obviously, as the wife of a politician who became president, Dolley Madison could not stay out of politics. However, she established a bipartisan social culture, one we desperately need more of today.

When President Thomas Jefferson held parties at the White House, he rarely invited members of both political parties to the same event. Why? Well, this was the age of duels. If things got too heated between political opponents, they could challenge each other to a duel.

The most famous duel took place on July 11, 1804, when Jefferson's Vice President, Aaron Burr, killed Alexander Hamilton. Hence, Jefferson was understandably hesitant to host bipartisan parties at the White House in case men got too heated and challenged each other to a duel.

When Jefferson’s successor, James Madison became president, his wife rectified this problem. Dolley Madison opened the White House to weekly parties on Wednesdays. Anyone could attend. This open-house approach meant that members of both political parties risked coming to a White House party at the same time as their political opponents. In addition, Dolley made sure that ladies attended because men would not usually challenge each other to a duel in the presence of women. Dealing a death blow to dueling culture, this bipartisan approach created a fashionable and charming society in Washington, DC.

Dolley Madison and Dolly Parton both valued charity.

In the eulogies for Dolly Parton, many mentioned her charity. Because her father was illiterate, Parton wanted to give needy children books to help them learn to read. Parton's Imagination Library has distributed more than 325 million books to young children.

Dolley Madison also focused on children in her charitable work. After the British military burned the White House in 1814, Dolley took stock of her life and priorities. Starting an orphanage for girls, she became the first presidential wife to engage in public service by taking on a platform. This sealed her legacy and earned her the name, “the lady of the land” at her funeral.

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/dolly-parton-slept-little-3-hours-did-her-own-hair-makeup-set-co-star-danica-mckellar-says

In closing, I want to point you to a Fox News article about actress Danica McKellar's reflections on Dolly Parton. They worked together in a movie called Christmas at Dollywood, which takes place at Dolley's theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Parton's Imagination Library also featured McKellar’s children’s book, "Goodnight, Numbers.” McKellar narrated the documentary "The Library That Dolly Built."

This Fox article also caught my eye because I can see Danica McKellar as Dolley Madison in White House Phoenix, my feature-length screenplay, adapted from my book, The Burning of the White House.

Dolly vs. Dolley shows us that two women living centuries apart can have alot in common. Comparing and contrasting helps us to identify timeless qualities that can inspire us.

Thanks for reading and drop a comment about your thoughts on who should play Dolley Madison!

This weekend is the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington DC, an event celebrating America’s 250th year. When I first heard about this car race, I immediately thought about the first time that Washington was the site of an automobile speedway. Automobile lovers President William Howard Taft and his wife Helen “Nellie" Taft turned the swampy Potomac Park into a speedway, which was later beautified with cherry trees. This was one of the fun facts that I discovered when I served on President Bush's White House website team.

In 2001, I knew that websites were new. Broadband was becoming a reality slowly but surely. Because of this, I found myself drawn to other stories in history when presidents embraced new technologies. For example, President Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to go under water in a submarine while his cousin President Franklin Roosevelt was the first to appear on a TV at the world’s fair. Today, I’m still drawn to some new technologies. I used AI generative technology to convert public domain black and white images into full color images for this article.

In 1909 President Taft became the first president to rely on automobiles instead of horse-drawn carriages. He even used his automobile steam valve to avoid the press.

Taft established the first official White House automobile fleet through a $12,000 congressional appropriation. Converting the presidential stables into a garage, he purchased four cars: a 1909 White Model M Steam Car, two Pierce-Arrow limousines, and a Baker Electric.

The White House Motor Fleet

• Taft's 1909 White Model M Steamer was his personal favorite. This automobile featured 40 horsepower, leather seats, and a seven-passenger capacity.

• Pierce-Arrows: Two large, luxurious gasoline-powered touring limousines, these Pierce Arrows were used for official state functions and family outings.

• Baker Electric: A quiet, clean electric car frequently used by the first lady.

President Taft loved his 1909 White Model M Steamer. While driving through Washington, DC, Taft often used bursts of steam from his car’s release valve to send press photographers and crowds running away from him.

First Lady Nellie Taft also enjoyed riding their automobiles. She loved the drive around Potomac Park so much that she turned it into aspeedway along the Potomac River and the Tidal Basin. The speedway was the best place for automobiles to drive fast without horse-drawn carriages.

Nellie also loved cherry blossom trees, which she’d seen in Japan when President Roosevelt sent her and her husband to Asia. As first lady, Nellie transformed this speedway and other Washington DC spaces by adding a bandstand and landscaped parkways as well as planting Japanese cherry trees.

https://clsimmons.com/

📸 A Hidden Cipher. A Darkroom Secret. A Town Rebuilding from War.

1867. Marietta, Georgia. The Civil War is over, but for a town striving to rebuild from the ashes, the shadows of the past still hold dangerous secrets.

When Helen, a former midwife, takes a job assisting in a local photography studio, she expects quiet portraits and chemical plates. Instead, she stumbles into a web of secret codes hidden inside wet-plate glass negatives.

Partnering with Edward—a former Union surgeon carrying his own deep wounds—the two must race against the clock to decode the ciphers before a quiet threat catches up to them. In 19th-century photography, a photographer has only minutes to develop a plate before the liquid dries... and in post-war Marietta, every moment counts.

Why Readers Are Falling in Love with Moment in Time:

• 🕵️‍♀️ High-Stakes Historical Suspense: Packed with hidden codes, darkroom intrigue, and unexpected twists.

• 📸 A Unique Historical Lens: Experience the fascinating, high-urgency world of 1860s wet-plate photography.

• ❤️ Unforgettable Characters: A resilient midwife and a compassionate surgeon seeking hope and second chances after trauma.

• 🐾 A Perceptive Studio Companion: A sharp-eyed cat who notices the quiet shifts in the air long before the humans do!

“No matter how dark the past has been, every single moment counts.”

Step into the mystery, follow the clues, and discover the power of second chances in Cynthia L. Simmons’ newest historical novel!

📖 Grab your copy of Moment in Time today:

👉 Order on Amazon

https://clsimmons.com/

Award-winning author Cynthia L Simmons has five grown children and two grandchildren. She serves as president of Christian Authors Guild and hosts “Heart of the Matter” Radio and History Chats with Cynthia. Fond of growing orchids and rag-doll cats, Cynthia has spoken at events nationwide and has a special place in her heart for mothers. She has written historical fiction mysteries, homeschool curriculum, devotions, Bible studies, and serves as a columnist for Leading Hearts Magazine. Visit her website at: www.clsimmons.com

Below is the final excerpts from my book, War of Lies: When George Washington Was the Target and Propaganda Was the Crime. If you’ve seen the new movie Young Washington, you’ll recognize this story of George Washington’s near-death miracle during the French and Indian War years to life. Now is a great time to revisit this relevant story.

When False News is Deadly

The news in July 1755 was false. How did Washington know? The truth was as obvious as the warmth of his breath. He was not dead. He was still alive.

“As I have heard since my arrival at this place, a circumstantial account of my death and dying speech, I take this early opportunity of contradicting the first, and of assuring you that, I have not yet composed the latter,” Washington urgently wrote from the crude, pathetic post known as Fort Cumberland, Maryland, to his brother Jack on July 18, 1755. Cumberland was named for one of King George II’s sons, William Augustus, who was the Duke of Cumberland.

After the worst battle he’d ever witnessed, Colonel Washington had arrived at Fort Cumberland only to see shock on the sunburned faces of the regular British redcoats when they realized that he was alive. Though they’d concluded that he’d died in the enemy attack near Ohio’s Monongahela River, he knew that their intent wasn’t malicious. Their assumption was understandable. After all their commander, General Edward Braddock, had also died, as had most of the officers. Sir Peter Halkett, the Scottish baronet and former member of Parliament, who led the 44^th Regiment was shot dead on the spot. Colonel Washington was the only aid-de-camp to Braddock who wasn’t killed or wounded.

After Braddock’s injury, Washington had stepped in to issue the general’s orders to complete the retreat. As a result, he was one of the last to leave the battle and make the one-hundred twenty-mile journey back to Fort Cumberland.

With his name on the killed-in-action list, Washington feared that the survivors who’d already left Fort Cumberland to travel back to Virginia would deliver the false report of his death to his family. Hence, he speedily wrote separate letters to his mother and brother to assure them that he was alive.

“As I doubt not but you have heard of our defeat, and perhaps have had it represented in a worse light (if possible) than it deserves,” he wrote delicately and diplomatically to his mother.

Seeing Washington walk into Fort Cumberland wasn’t just shocking to his fellow soldiers. It was also miraculous. How did Washington survive? After all, the repeated fire of muskets in the forest created a cloud of smoke that hovered under the canopy of trees. This prevented the soldiers from being able to see both their fellow soldiers and the enemy, who hid behind the trees with their bellies on the ground and fired.

“But by the all-powerful dispensation of Providence, I have been protected beyond all human probability and expectation for I had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me, and yet although death was leveling my companions on every side of me, escaped unhurt,” Washington explained with awe to Jack over the mystery of his preservation seemingly at the hands of angels. With so many bullet holes in his coat, he, too, was astonished that he hadn’t been injured or killed.

In this near-death experience, Washington showed his sincere respect for God by crediting Providence for his survival. In contrast to the modern definition of good luck, in the 1700s, ministers defined Providence as God’s presence among his people. Likewise, the 110 Rules of Civility had taught that: “When you speak of God or his attributes, let it be seriously and with reverence.” In Washington’s world, Providence was a respectful way of invoking and celebrating God’s divine intervention.

Washington also gave his mother a few details of the battle. “I have taken this earliest opportunity to give you some account of the engagement, as it happened within seven miles of the French fort on Wednesday the 9th Inst (July 9).”

In response to the construction of French forts in the Ohio River valley, King George II and the Duke of Cumberland had sent General Braddock with regiments of regular British soldiers to the colonies. Along with militia from Virginia, this combined English force of regulars and militia left Fort Cumberland in late May 1755 to march to France’s Fort Duquesne. The advance parties literally cleared paths and built the roads on their route. Sometimes the hills were so steep and the paths so rough, that they had trouble hauling their wagons, which carried supplies, cannon, and the sick. This included Washington for several days.

On their final advance toward Fort Duquesne on July 9, Braddock ordered his men to march with their British flags flying while the band played the Grenadiers’ March. Such an ear and eye-catching spectacle was typical of European warfare, but not common among the area’s native tribes, who fought from behind trees.

Hearing the rhythmic music and marching and seeing the red and buff uniforms of the English, the nearby French troops and their native allies fanned out in a crescent shape among the trees on both sides of the route and prepared for an ambush. Colonel Thomas Gage led Sir Peter Hackett’s regiment, the 44^th, in the English procession. General Braddock was next with the 48^th Regiment. As an aid-de-camp to Braddock, Washington accompanied him. Behind them were the soldiers from Virginia. As the advance regiment approached, the natives fired single shots at particular officers.

“We were attacked by a party of French and Indians, whose number, I am persuaded, did not exceed three hundred men; while ours consisted of about one thousand three hundred well-armed troops, chiefly regular soldiers, who were struck with such a panic that they behaved with more cowardice than it is possible to conceive,” Washington angrily revealed to his mother about his brothers-in-arms, the redcoats.

Gage ordered his men to maintain their rows and return fire, which was a signal to the French and natives to ambush them. Letting out a war cry, they fired at Braddock’s soldiers from the forest. They continued to fire at specific officers, especially Washington, who stood out because of his tall height. Though the officers tried to rally the soldiers, the 44th and 48th regiments broke and retreated. The Virginians continued to fight, often taking positions behind trees, for three hours. In the midst of the fire, Washington had successfully moved the mortally-wounded General Braddock to a wagon, which carried him across the knee-deep river.

“I was the only person then left to distribute the general’s orders, which I was scarcely able to do, as I was not half recovered from a violent illness, that had confined me to my bed and a wagon for above ten days,” Washington wrote, referring to his recent bout with dysentery, a diarrhea disease.

During a pause in the action while the enemy scalped some of the wounded, Washington organized some of the fleeing troops into a rear guard. He brought wagons and medical supplies to remove the wounded. While assuring his family of his survival, he also fumed about the regular regiments, who failed to support the Virginia militia and instead fled in a panic.

“In short, the dastardly behavior of those they call regulars exposed all others that were inclined to do their duty to almost certain death; and at last, in despite of all the efforts of the officers to the contrary, they broke, and run as sheep pursued by dogs; and it was impossible to rally them,” he wrote with disdain.

Washington had also experienced snubbing and snobbery against him by the British officers before the battle. Refusing to recognize his rank as a lieutenant colonel, they had tried to place him under the authority of English officers in the regular army of lower rank than Washington’s. To avoid being under the command of a junior officer in the British regular army, Washington had kept his self-respect intact by serving as an unpaid volunteer aid-de-camp for Braddock.

Whatever frustrations he may have had before the battle with his fellow officers from England, their behavior and abandonment left a seed of distrust against the British in his heart that only grew stronger with time.

After such a devastating loss, Washington longed not for his stern mother’s home but for sturdy Mount Vernon, where his brother Jack lived. “We have been most scandalously beaten by a trifling body of men; but fatigue and want of time will prevent me from giving you any of the details till I have the happiness of seeing you at Mount Vernon; which I now most ardently wish for,” he wrote to Jack, hinting that he needed a few days to regain his strength before traveling home. No doubt relief washed over him when he arrived at Mount Vernon on July 26, 1755.

The Pennsylvania Gazette published an article about the Battle of Monongahela River and Braddock’s death along with the fate of his other two aide-de-camps. “The general had five horses killed under him and at last received a wound through his right arm and into his lungs of which he died the 13th instant; Secretary Shirley was shot through the head; Captain Morris wounded.”

Because Washington had intercepted the erroneous military report of his death, the Pennsylvania Gazette reported the truth of his status while also praising his valor on July 31. “Mr. Washington had two horses shot under him and his clothes shot through in several places, behaving the whole time with the greatest courage and resolution.”

Washington was not alone in his awakening to the cowardice of the British regulars.

The fallout from Braddock’s defeat was discussed in London. Accusations of corruption and contempt poured from the pens of Englishmen reeling from the resounding loss. Many were angry that the regiments had abandoned their duty to the Americans.

The prestigious publication of record published this story in London. “The Virginians who formed the rear still stood unbroken, and continued the engagement on very unequal terms near three hours, but were then compelled to retire,” the Gentleman’s Magazine praised the American fighters while also blaming the British regulars. “The European troops, whose cowardice has thus injured their country and (are) the same that ran away.”

Likewise, private letters sent to Dublin, Ireland, from London were published in the Pennsylvania Gazette on October 30, 1755. The letters declared that “the regiments of foot commanded by Colonel Dunbar and Sir Peter Halkett being struck with a panic refused to fight, and laid down their arms, by which 62 of their officers, who fought bravely with the Americans, are killed or wounded.” The author of this letter faulted the British soldiers. “Had these private men of the above regiment done their duty; victory would have been on our side.”

Still others pointed to corruption as a reason for the failure. A report from London printed in the Boston Evening Post in December 1755 revealed that the crown rewarded Governor Dinwiddie in Virginia by sending the troops there. “That our land forces were sent to Virginia instead of Pennsylvania to their inseparable disadvantage, merely to answer the lucrative use of a friend to the ministry, to whose share the remittances would then fall at the rate of two and a half per cent profit.”

This report believed that Braddock should have landed his troops in New York or Philadelphia and attacked France’s Niagara fort instead. The assertion implied that someone in the British government was paying Governor Dinwiddie a political and financial favor by sending Braddock to Virginia. Though corruption may have played a role, General Braddock and his bosses failed to understand that the Potomac River was too narrow to carry troops by boat from Virginia into Maryland. They under-estimated the difficulty of clearing paths and building roads.

Braddock had been advised to be aware of being surprised and to listen to the Americans, who knew the territory and had allies with certain native tribes. “Your courage is undoubted, but accidents may happen; and they will be forgiven. What you were expected above all to guard against is a surprise and to keep in with the Americans, who will prove your best instructors in the important expedition you are engaged in,” an anonymous source revealed about his advice to Braddock.

The fallout from Braddock’s defeat was a widespread war. “This unfortunate and unexpected change of our affairs will deeply affect every one of his Majesties colonies,” the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania declared in a speech to the general assembly. Benjamin Franklin published this speech alongside the account of Braddock’s loss and Washington’s miraculous preservation in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Washington’s near-death experience gave him a bond with those who’d also survived. Another officer who was wounded was thirty-six-year-old Lt. Colonel Thomas Gage, who led the 44^th Regiment. Also shot in the chest was another British regular soldier, Horatio Gates. Both Gage and Gates had what Washington desired, a regular commission. Both men would later influence Washington’s life in ways he couldn’t possibly imagine in 1755. He had no idea he’d become a commanding officer over Gates and an enemy combatant to Gage.

Another man’s name in particular would later play a role in the Revolution’s War of Lies decades later. His ancestry was associated with treason and an officer who died under Braddock.

“Sir Peter Halkett was killed in the field,” Washington reported to his mother, Mary Ball Washington. of the aristocrat with a haughty history and questionable loyalty. This was possibly the first member of Parliament that Washington had ever met.

Though Halkett was a prestigious Scottish baronet who had lived in a castle, he had a notorious history as did his regiment. Led by Colonel John Lee, the 44th Regiment was raised in 1741. When Prince Charles Edward Stuart landed in Scotland in 1745, and claimed the British throne for his father, an armed conflict broke out known as the Jacobite Rebellion. Lee was conspicuously absent when this conflict erupted. This forced Halkett, a lieutenant at the time, to lead the 44th in Lee’s place against the Jacobines at the Battle of Prestonpans in October 1745.

The battle was a swift victory for Stuart. Halkett and fifteen of his soldiers surrendered. The Jacobines freed them. In exchange, Halkett and the 44th Regiment did not participate in the British government’s remaining battles with the Jacobines. Suspecting Halkett of treason, King George II and his son, the Duke of Cumberland, fired Halkett. Though the king later rehired him, he and others viewed him and his regiment with cowardice and incompetence.

Colonel John Lee was under similar suspicion for a time, though he was later promoted to a general. His son Charles Lee joined his father’s old regiment under Halkett’s leadership. General John Lee died before the conflict in Ohio broke out.

When the Duke of Cumberland chose the 44th Regiment to serve under Braddock, Captain Charles Lee was enjoying the spa resort town of Bath, England. “I fancy you have heard that our regiment is order’d to Virginia,” he wrote to his sister, cancelling his visit to see her. He wrote his will and traveled to Cork, Ireland, where the 44^th led by Halkett departed for Alexandria, Virginia.

In Washington’s view, Charles Lee was like a sheep pursued by dogs for fleeing the battlefield with the 44^th in Ohio. He was likely at Fort Cumberland when Washington arrived after Braddock’s defeat. From the start of their relationship, the two were destined to be rivals.

News of Washington’s miraculous preservation soon caught the attention of many colonists. Some wondered publicly if Washington’s life had been preserved for a special task. His survival inspired many Virginians to sign up to fight, including Captain Overton’s Independent Company of Volunteers in Hanover County, Virginia. They gathered on August 17, 1755, to hear from a minister who’d been part of the spiritual revival that had swept the colonies in the 1740s called the Great Awakening.

The Reverend Samuel Davies was a Presbyterian minister who’d recently traveled throughout England and Scotland to raise money to train ministers at a new college in New Jersey, which was later called Princeton. He’d returned to his ministry in Hanover County, Virginia, at the same time that Braddock had landed in Alexandria with this troops.

Davies spoke to Overton’s company and pointed out the heroism of Colonel Washington, whom Providence had preserved for important service to his country. During this era, publishing sermons was common but ministers only published the sermons they considered to be their best. Fond of this one, Davies published this sermon with the footnote about Washington’s miraculous survival and distributed it throughout the colonies and England in 1755. This sermon, along with newspaper articles, spread Washington’s name and fame on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Washington’s near-death experience elevated him to hero’s status and erased any doubts the alleged assassination story may have created. Washington was more than a newsmaker. He was a media darling and a well-deserved war hero.

Within three months of returning to the comforts of Mount Vernon, Washington received urgent news that required him to leave again. “By an express just arrived (in Williamsburg) from Fort Cumberland,” the Pennsylvania Gazette was informed on October 30, 1755, that the enemy had “lately appeared in that neighborhood, and have killed and captured upwards of 20 families.”

Governor Dinwiddie convinced Virginia’s House of Burgesses to fund money for raising recruits to go to Ohio to fight. The Burgesses also gave Colonel Washington a new mission. The Pennsylvania Gazette reported that Washington would “take upon him the command of such of the recruits already raised, in order to go in pursuit of them.”

Defeating the French now required Washington to mount his horse and ride to several places to recruit regiments of soldiers. For the first time, people in other colonies had the chance to meet their hero. His arrivals in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston were so significant, that each made the newspapers in the winter of 1756.

The Pennsylvania Gazette reported on February 12: “Last week Colonel Washington arrived here from Virginia.” A few days later on February 16, the New York Mercury reported that upwards of one hundred recruits had arrived: “Last night Colonel Washington arrived here (New York) from Philadelphia.”

“Colonel Washington, of and from Virginia . . . left this city (New York) for Boston on Friday last, there, ‘tis thought to consult with General Shirley, measures proper to be taken with several tribes . . . particularly the Cherokees, some hundreds of whom, from the back parts of the two Carolinas, it is reported, have assured the Western governments of their coming in, and firmly adhering to the Indians of the English in opposition to the French.”

Washington also lobbied Governor Shirley for a commission in the Royal Army. Though he didn’t give him what he wanted, Shirley issued an order that officers in the Virginia militia would outrank officers of lower rank in the British army.

Recruiting wasn’t easy. “You may, with almost equal success, attempt to raise the dead to life again, as the force of this country,” Washington wrote sarcastically to his brother Jack about the challenges of convincing men to fight. Little did he know at the time, but by dutifully recruiting men from New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, he developed knowledge of these colonies and a kinship with the men he recruited. Such ties of brotherhood strengthened over time.

Parliament officially declared war in May of 1756. In North America, the conflict was called the French and Indian War while in Europe it was called the Seven Year’s War. More Virginians rallied to Washington’s heroism. The prominent Randolph family stepped forward. Though he’d failed to convince the king’s Privy Council to repeal the tax issued by Dinwiddie, Virginia Attorney General Peyton Randolph had returned from London to Williamsburg. There he raised three hundred reservists called the associators.

“Some public spirited gentlemen have done me the honor to fix upon me as their leader, till we can come to the place where you command; when we shall be very glad to follow such orders, as you shall think most conducive to the public good,” Peyton Randolph wrote to Washington on May 3, 1756. Not every member of the Randolph family would prove as loyal to Washington in the decades to come. One would become a viable suspect in the Revolution’s War of Lies.

Within a year of his recruiting efforts, Washington came face to face with false news that once again threatened his public image. As he soon discovered, the most convincing misleading news is a report that mixes truth with fiction, leaving people confused about what to believe.

The terms of his surrender after the Battle of Fort Necessity in 1754 had forced Washington to turn his journal over to the French. Three years later in 1757, the French commander of Fort Duquesne published Washington’s journal in French. When Washington saw the English translation of the French version of his English journal, he instantly recognized that part of it was a forgery. At least some of the diary entries published under his name were fabricated.

Washington was traveling when he received a request from historian William Smith of Philadelphia to respond to the French publication of his journal. “In regard to the journal . . . rough minutes of occurrences I certainly took, and find them as certainly and strangely metamorphosed,” Washington defended.

He made general observations about this translation of his journal, writing that “some parts (were) left out, which I remember were entered, and many things added that never were thought of; the names of men and things egregiously miscalled; and the whole of what I saw Englished is very incorrect and nonsensical.”

Unlike the false report of his death at Fort Cumberland, this was maliciously fake, a forgery. Up until this point in his life, false news was largely the result of inaccurate information. The delay of weeks before news from the frontier could arrive in places such as Philadelphia led to simple mistakes, such as calling Washington a major when he’d been promoted to a colonel. His commitment to linger at the Battle of Monongahela to care for the wounded and dead resulted in the redcoats’ erroneous assumption that he’d died.

In contrast, by publishing his journal and removing or adding passages in 1757, the French committed a malicious act, a form of war propaganda. This was a direct attempt to take the shine off an English hero’s chivalrous, shining public image. Great Britain’s enemy was deliberately falsifying Washington’s words.

Did Washington tell the public that his journal was a forgery? No. In this letter, he didn’t have time to go into great detail or “point out such errors as might conduce to your use, my advantage, and the public satisfaction; but now it is out of my power.”

This was one of several occasions where Washington didn’t directly and publicly refute false information about him in the newspapers. Without time to let it bother him, Washington put his faith in his fellow English subjects. Relying on his character and reputation, he believed that they would see the publication for what he believed it was: rubbish from their enemy. He seemed to be putting his faith in civility rule “50: “Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any.” What mattered most to him was the big picture. He had a war to win for his country and king.

Deciding to reorganize their forces in America in 1758, the British military gave the command to General John Forbes. Colonel Washington and his Virginia regiment served under Forbes along with Colonel William Byrd’s regiment. Forbes planned and organized the effort that culminated in an expedition to Fort Duquesne in 1758. Once again, the newspapers chronicled Colonel Washington’s role in these events.

“Since our last we have had several imperfect accounts of a skirmish between a party of our army, and another of the French, near Loyal Hanna, from which the best account we can at present give is as follows,” the Pennsylvania Gazette reported on November 30, 1758. Loyal Hanna was roughly forty miles east of Fort Duquesne. “That on the 12th instant, Colonel Washington being out with a scouting party, fell in with a number of the enemy, about three miles from our camp, who he attacked, killed one, (and) took three prisoners.”

The only good news that came out of this incident was that one of the prisoners, Mr. Johnson of Pennsylvania, knew a lot about the French at Fort Duquesne. If enough pressure was put on him, he just might tell them everything. Best of all, they didn’t need a translator. Johnson spoke English.

Warning him not to give “false intelligence,” an interrogator said that he’d “forfeited his life by being found in arms against his king and country; the only way left to save it, and make atonement, was, to give as full information of the condition of Ft. Duquesne and of the enemy as he could; which being found to be true, his life should be spared.”

Johnson complied, revealing that many of the French Canadians and their native allies had left Fort Duquesne. “The French were very scarce of provisions as well as weak in men.” The sight of nearby horse carcasses was a sign that the French were short on food and had resorted to eating horses. “Whole skins and bones were afterwards found by some of our men.” Convinced that Johnson was telling the truth, Forbes, Washington, and Byrd led their combined force of six thousand men to seize Fort Duquesne. Building a road, in late November of 1758, Washington’s forces led the advance and approached the fort, which the French abandoned and burned. This allowed the British to easily make it their own.

“Pittsburgh, formerly Fort Duquesne,” the letter published by the New York Mercury began. “I have the pleasure to write this letter upon the spot where Fort Duquesne once stood, while the British flag flies over the debris of its bastions in triumph,” an unnamed member of the British forces wrote.

These victorious Englishmen renamed the fort to Pittsburgh after William Pitt, the leader of the House of Commons. This spot on the banks of the Ohio River was “the finest and most fertile country of America.” With the French retreating, the war had turned in Britain’s favor, at least in North America. The war would continue in Europe until 1763.

The victory was bittersweet for Washington. After all he’d sacrificed by risking his life numerous times in Ohio, the British military still withheld the one honor he felt he most deserved: a commission in the regular Royal Army.

Washington resigned his commission in the Virginia militia at the end of 1758. Recently elected to the House of Burgesses, he married Martha Custis, a wealthy widow with two children, on January 6, 1759. Together they lived at Mount Vernon, which he’d inherited from his brother Lawrence, who’d died in 1752. Washington took on a new occupation as a farmer. By this time, his life in one way or another had intersected with key people—Thomas Gage, Horatio Gates, Charles Lee and members of the Randolph and Rivington families—who opposed him in various ways during the American Revolution. One or more of them would play a part in the theatrics of the War of Lies.

Except for occasional mentions in the newspaper as a member of the House of Burgesses or advertising real estate, Washington never envisioned that he’d ever play the role of newsmaker again, much less newsmaker-in-chief. How wrong he was. Five years before the American Revolution began, one chief with the insight of a prophet, made an astonishing prediction.

Colonial Cancel Culture

“Being frequently censur’d and condemn’d by different persons for printing things which they say ought not to be printed, I have sometimes thought it might be necessary to make a standing apology for myself, and publish it once a year,” Ben Franklin had published decades earlier on June 10, 1731, in the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Franklin, who was twenty-five-year-old at the time, had printed an advertisement from a captain seeking passengers for Barbados. At first, the advertisement had seemed as innocent as a carrier pigeon returning home. But the ad had concluded with a line discriminating against transporting the clergy, who need not apply. Worst of all, the announcement had compared preachers to loud birds.

Some readers were so infuriated that they vowed to stop buying the Pennsylvania Gazette. How did Franklin respond to their censorship, the colonial form of cancel culture? He published an essay called Apology for Printers.

“Men are very angry with me on this occasion,” he wrote, showing his fear and worry about losing customers. “That if they were printers they would not have done such a thing on any consideration; that it could proceed from nothing but my abundant malice against religion and the clergy: They therefore declare they will not take any more of my papers, nor have any farther dealings with me; but will hinder me of all the custom they can. All this is very hard!”

Denying him custom meant that they were socially ostracizing him. Despite his anxiety, he took the occasion to present a rational argument. Little did he know that his response would be as relevant in 1731 as in 2021. “I request all who are angry with me on the account of printing things they don’t like, calmly to consider these following particulars,” Franklin had written with the skill of the best attorney in town.

“That the opinions of men are almost as various as their faces; an observation general enough to become a common proverb, so many men so many minds.” He’d then written a set of ethics that would shape the guardians of freedom of the press in America for centuries.

“That the business of printing has chiefly to do with men’s’ opinions; most things that are printed tending to promote some, or oppose others,” he’d explained, noting that other professions and trades, such as carpenters and shoemakers ,sold their products to everyone, people of all persuasions, without risk of offending them or “suffering the least censure or ill-will.” When it came to commerce, a person’s political opinion shouldn’t matter as long as he had enough shillings to pay for the product.

Franklin’s colonial common sense could apply to any generation. “That it is as unreasonable in any one man or set of men to expect to be pleas’d with everything that is printed, as to think that nobody ought to be pleas’d but themselves.”

“Printers are educated in the belief, that when men differ in opinion, both sides ought equally to have the advantage of being heard by the public,” he wrote, believing that truth and evidence would win in the end. “That when truth and error have fair play, the former is always an overmatch for the latter.”

“Hence, they cheerfully serve all contending writers that pay them well, without regarding on which side they are of the question in dispute.” As a printer and publisher, Franklin was not the arbiter of truth. His printing presses were neutral.

“Being thus continually employ’d in serving all parties, printers naturally acquire a vast unconcernedness as to the right or wrong opinions contain’d in what they print; regarding it only as the matter of their daily labor,” he explained, noting that this practice led to publishing controversial ideas that may be hostile to some.

“They print things full of spleen and animosity, with the utmost calmness and indifference, and without the least ill-will to the persons reflected on; who nevertheless unjustly think the printer as much their enemy as the author, and join both together in their resentment.”

Franklin’s view on freedom of speech and debate set publishing standards for testing and proving truth. “That it is unreasonable to imagine printers approve of everything they print, and to censure them on any particular thing accordingly; since in the way of their business they print such great variety of things opposite and contradictory.”

He knew what would happen if publishers printed only items that reflected their opinion.

“It is likewise as unreasonable what some assert, that printers ought not to print anything but what they approve. . . an end would thereby be put to free writing, and the world would afterwards have nothing to read but what happen’d to be the opinions of printers.”

Freedom of speech would end and the world would only know one point of view: the view of those controlling publications. “That if all printers were determin’d not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”

Although he was good friends with members of the clergy and didn’t intend to offend them by publishing the captain’s advertisement, he had avoided publishing items that would promote vice or immorality or would “do real injury to any person, how much soever I have been solicited, and tempted with offers of great pay.”

Remembering his brother’s stint in jail for publishing essays that questioned the government, he’d often avoided offending either the church or the state in his essays.

“I consider the variety of humors among men, and despair of pleasing everybody; yet I shall not therefore leave off printing. I shall continue my business. I shall not burn my press and melt my letters.”

Soon another printer in South Carolina published Franklin’s essay as a defense for something controversial that he’d printed. Franklin’s common-sense approach helped his readers sort fact from fiction, to let truth win the day.

After being accused of being an assassin in 1754, Washington had to channel his inner-Franklin and promote the truth in the newspapers without being self-promoting.

Within a couple of weeks, an officer in Washington’s regiment came to his public defense by asking newspapers to publish a letter he wrote. Following rule number 50 in the 110 Rules of Civility, “Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any,” this unnamed officer stepped forward to defend Washington.

“As the articles of capitulation and as the English mention in your Philadelphia newspapers, are censored and thereby seem to reflect dishonor on Colonel Washington, who is a brave and worthy gentleman, as well as all the corps then present,” the Virginia officer defended in a letter to the Pennsylvania Gazette, published on August 22.

Taking issue with the term assassination, the officer explained that they had relied on a man named, Jacob Van Braam, as their translator. Van Braam had been a lieutenant in the Dutch military and had recently come to the American colonies. He was recruited to join Washington’s men.

“We were obliged to take the sense of them from his mouth (Van Braam’s words); it rained so hard that he could not give us a written translation of them,” the officer wrote, explaining that they had very little candlelight available to read anything in writing and relied on oral communication.

“Every officer there is ready to declare, that there was no such word as assassination mentioned; the terms expressed were, the death of Jumonville. If it had been mentioned, we would by all means have had it altered, as the French during the course of the interview, seemed very condescending and desirous to bring it to a conclusion,” the officer wrote to combat the intense public scrutiny. Noting that those who were criticizing them didn’t understand their dire situation, he specifically defended Washington’s predicament as a leader.

“Let any of those brave gentlemen, who fight so many successful campaigns over a bottle (of wine), imagine himself at the head of 300 men, whose lives in a great measure he is answerable for, laboring under all the disadvantages above-mentioned, and environed with four times his number of an active enemy, and would he not be glad to accept of worse terms than Colonel Washington did?” he wrote, claiming the surrender terms were well-conducted and citing that the French were instructed to pay their native friends with “our scalps and spoils.”

“They call it an assassination; for my part, I call it a brave little action, and after hearing the whole, I doubt not but you will be in my opinion,” the gentleman concluded.

With help from an intermediary, a relieved Washington began a habit of letting others come to his defense in the press. Such was an honorable approach, but would it always work?

Though he didn’t defend himself in the newspapers, Washington privately conveyed his opinion about the assassination controversy.

“That we were willfully, or ignorantly, deceived by our interpreter in regard to the word assassination, I do aver, and will to my dying moment; so will every officer that was present,” he privately reflected, writing in an unpublished document that their Dutch interpreter didn’t understand enough English to properly catch the tone and meaning of certain words.

“But, whatever his motives were for so doing, certain it is, he called it the death, or the loss, of the (Mon)sieur Jumonville. So, we received and so we understood it, until, to our great surprise and mortification, we found it otherwise in a literal translation.”

Reflecting on the events at Great Meadow, he didn’t believe that Jumonville was a diplomat or that the motives of his party were honorable.

“And instead of coming as an ambassador, publicly, and in an open manner, they came secretly, and . . . they encamped, and remained hid for whole days together, and that, no more than five miles from us: From thence they sent spies to reconnoiter our camp,” Washington had defensively written in his journal. “Besides . . . an ambassador has no need of spies, his character being always sacred.”

Hadn’t Washington conducted himself differently when he’d been an ambassador months earlier on his first mission? Yes. He’d not hidden his presence but had openly approached the French forts when he delivered the cease-and-desist letters for Governor Dinwiddie. He believed that Jumonville and his men had been following them with the goal of attacking or killing them to launch a war.

“And seeing their intention was so good, why did they tarry two days, at five miles distance from us, without acquainting me with the summons, or, at least, with something that related to the embassy?”

Washington had also relied on the judgment of his native allies, who had more experience with the French in this region.

“It was the opinion of the Half King in this case, that their intentions were evil, and that it was a pure pretense; that they never intended to come to us but as enemies; and if we had been such fools as to let them go, they (Half King’s men) would never help us any more to take other Frenchmen.”

In other words, the French had engaged in propaganda or a disinformation campaign by claiming that Jumonville was a diplomat and accusing Washington of assassination. Washington relied on others to defend him publicly while privately documenting his side of the story. While this misinformation crisis passed, a new one was brewing.

Washington had lost his journal. As part of the capitulation terms, the French had seized everything, including his diary. Little did he know that in the years ahead, his journal would become the source of another deceit and the subject of fake news.

«««««

Newspapers also published the response of government officials to the growing crisis in Ohio. The New York Mercury printed a speech by Horatio Sharpe, the royal governor of Maryland, to the general assembly. Sharpe’s conclusion was emotional.

“The designs of the French must now be evident to everyone: they have openly, in violation of all treaties, invaded His Majesty’s territories, and committed the most violent acts of hostility, by attacking and entirely defeating the Virginian troops under Colonel Washington,” Sharpe declared in a call to arms.

While Washington suffered the humility of being called an assassin and Sharpe called for war, Benjamin Franklin and representatives from seven colonies met in Albany, New York, to discuss Franklin’s plan to unite the colonies under a single central British government.

Franklin proposed a grand council made of representatives from the colonial governments. The British government would appoint a president general. With the power of taxation, the grand council would regulate the relationship between the colonies and native tribes as well as solve disputes between the colonies over territory and other issues. Though the Albany Congress adopted this plan on July 10, 1754, colonial governors and their assemblies rejected it.

The time for a united government for Britain’s American colonies had not yet come.

As part of his capitulation, Washington agreed to stay away from Ohio for one year. He did just that. However, when Washington returned to Ohio a year later, he would also meet, for the first time, two of the suspects in the Revolutionary War’s War of Lies. Yet, the false report that emerged in 1755 was enough to break his mother’s heart.

Assassination

Years earlier at the age of sixteen, Benjamin and his older brother, James Franklin, had operated a Boston newspaper’s printing press. They didn’t mind the tedious toil of setting blocks of type by picking capital letters from the press drawer’s upper case and choosing the smaller letters from the drawer’s lower case. Their noses had gotten used to the fishy, sometimes nutty, smell of linseed oil mixed with soot to create oily ink.

James and Ben’s hands were continuously stained by balls of wool, which resembled little handheld mops, called ink beaters. They willingly dipped the beaters into the ink and slathered it onto a rectangular frame holding rows of typeset blocks. They’d gotten used to the smelliest part of the job: cleaning the ink beaters every night with urine. They also eagerly accepted the repetitive motion of pulling the wooden lever as it pressed paper over the inked typeset to create a newspaper sheet. The Franklin brothers didn’t mind this labor because James had a greater purpose to accomplish. To these awakened Bostonians, it was time to speak truth to power.

Frustrated at the hypocrisy of the government and clergy, James and a group of talented writers had started an anti-establishment rag called the New England Courant in 1721.

Instead of publishing news and without receiving permission from the government, the Courant printed weekly essays on a variety of topics designed to stimulate discussion among Boston residents. Stimulate it did. Those who approved of the Courant referred to its writers as the Free Thinkers. Those who disapproved called them the Hell First Club that was guilty of wicked libel.

In July 1722, Benjamin experienced horror when the British government arrested James and put him into jail. This left the teenage Benjamin in charge. What should he do? While his brother languished in a prison cell, Benjamin published one of his finest works on July 9, 1722, on the New England Courant’s front page. Its key passage resonates even today.

“Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech,” Benjamin boldly wrote, using a false identity as a woman named Silence Dogood to avoid being thrown in jail like his brother. “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation, must begin by subduing freeness of speech, a thing terrible to public traitors.”

Meanwhile the government published a resolution against James and the New England Courant. “Resolved, that no such weekly paper be hereafter printed or published without the same be first perused and allowed by the Secretary, as has been usual (for other papers).”

When James was released four weeks later, he responded by publishing excerpts from the Magna Carta, the 1215 British document that guaranteed Englishmen political liberties. The conflict between freedom of the press and the British authorities in Boston continued for several months, leading the Massachusetts General Court, which was the House of Representatives, to issue an edict.

Because the “tendency of the said paper to mock religion” and injure His Majesty’s government, the House of Representatives censored James. “For the prevention of the like offense for the future, the committee humbly proposes that James Franklin, the printer and publisher thereof, be strictly forbidden by this Court to print or publish the New England Courant, or any pamphlet or paper of the like nature except it be first supervised by the Secretary of this Province.” In addition to stripping him of freedom of the press and speech by requiring government approval for each newspaper he published, they fined him.

How did James Franklin respond? He got creative. Instead of publishing in his name, he listed Benjamin as the publisher. Proving himself to be an effective writer through his Silence Dogood essays, Benjamin continued to show his writing prowess. As time wore on, it was clear that Benjamin had a more appealing, lighter writing style and a more congenial personality than his brother, which endeared Ben to readers. Such skill, however, also erupted in jealousy from James.

Eventually Benjamin left his brother’s paper and moved to Philadelphia. Believing that “every body’s business is no body’s business, and the business is done accordingly,” Franklin humorously led colonial newspaper publishing into their golden age when he bought the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1729. Because Pennsylvania had been founded by Quakers, the colony had welcomed all people, regardless of their religious beliefs, including Jews, Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists and so on. The result was a more tolerant society that gave Franklin what he wanted – freedom of speech and of the press.

From news to literature to science and mathematics, Franklin held a wide view of his world. Knowing that some colonies didn’t have newspapers or even a printing press, Franklin also published a magazine and Poor Richard’s Almanac to reach readers in other colonies, especially those in the South. For years the people loved reading Franklin, and he loved educating and entertaining them.

With George Washington’s discoveries of the French incursion into English territory in 1754, now Franklin called his friends to action through his join or die snake woodcut. The image was tied to an important June meeting in Albany, New York. For months, Franklin had been working to implement a British government edict to bring the colonies together under a common government called the Albany Plan of Union. Colonel Washington’s news had given him the justification he needed to advocate for a united front against the French. Franklin hoped that his join or die message and Washington’s journal would motivate these separately-charted colonies to unite under one national government.

The book, 110 Rules of Civility, had given Washington a lifelong code for evaluating the truth or falsehood of something. “Be not apt to relate news if you know not the truth thereof,” rule 79 instructed. That advice works best when people speak the same language as their opponents. If not, the results can be disastrously false.

Was the news true? Say it isn’t so. Had their hero, George Washington, assassinated an ambassador? As he and his followers discovered in the spring of 1754, sometimes the truth is complicated, especially during the fog of war.

Because he’d been assured that additional recruits from Virginia, South Carolina, and New York were marching to join him, Colonel Washington remained in the Ohio territory in May 1754. Camping in an area called the Great Meadows, the colonel and his men prepared to defend themselves.

As he’d done on his first mission, Washington pragmatically enlisted the help of Half King, an indigenous ally of the English. Half King was a village leader within the Iroquois Confederation, which was a compact among several tribes. The English called him Half King because he could present diplomatic gifts as part of the Iroquois confederation but he lacked the power to make treaties.

Why was Half King an ally of the English? The answer was less about a preference for the English and more about vengeance against the French. Half King carried a grudge against the French for breaking their treaties with his tribe and killing his father. His story showed that native tribes allied themselves with Europeans for different reasons. This war pit tribe against tribe as well as European nations against each other.

“Major (Colonel) Washington had intelligence from our friend the Half King, that a party of French were encamped this side of the fork,” the Boston Post Boy newspaper reported on July 1, 1754.

For a few days, Washington and Half King led their men in a game of hide and seek with this group of thirty Frenchmen, who seemed to be following them while attempting to conceal their location and intentions. Finally, fearing the French would attack first, Washington marched forty men toward the French camp on May 28, 1754. When the Frenchmen saw his men, they fired and killed one of them. Washington’s soldiers returned fire, killing seven or eight Frenchmen. The rest of the French ran for their lives.

“But the Half King” and his native allies lay in an “ambush to cut off their retreat, fell upon them and soon killed and scalped five of them,” the Boston Post Boy chronicled. Among the dead was a Frenchman named Sir de Jumonville. The rest of the Frenchmen surrendered and begged the native fighters for quarter. At first Half King refused, wanting to kill all of the Frenchmen.

“Major (Colonel) Washington interposed between them and it was with great difficulty that he prevented” them from “doing any further mischief, the Half King insisting on scalping them all, as it was their way of fighting and he alleged that those people had killed, boiled and eat(en) his father,” the Boston Post Boy detailed.

Washington found himself in the most awkward social circumstance of his young life. No manners book could prepare him for this situation. What should he do? He employed his best manners and talked to Half King. If he followed the 110 Rules of Civility, he gave Half King the chance to speak first and showed empathy for the native leader’s desire for revenge.

“However, Major (Colonel) Washington at length persuaded him to be happy with the scalps he had already got,” the Boston Post Boy reported. Sparing the lives of the remaining Frenchmen, Washington sent them back to Virginia as prisoners. His good manners saved his life and theirs.

Londoners learned about the news weeks later when a letter that Washington wrote to his younger brother Jack about the incident appeared in the August 1754 edition of the London Magazine.

“I fortunately escaped without a wound, though the rightwing where I stood was exposed to and received all the enemy’s fire and was the part where the man was killed and the rest wounded,” Washington had written to Jack.

Readers of the London Magazine also discovered that this young Colonel Washington had a cocky side. “I can with truth assure you, I heard bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound,” he’d penned. This sensational phrase caught the attention of the king of England. “He would not say so, if he had been used to hear many,” King George II quipped of Washington’s bragging about the charming sound of bullets.

Washington had also made a bold declaration to Jack. “We expect every hour to be attacked by a superior force, but shall, if they stay one day longer, be prepared for them.”

Little did he know, but a Washington would soon find himself at the center of a breaking news story.

The next standout news suddenly changed Washington’s fortunes and his public image as the darling of the press. He was accused of being an assassin.

“The third of this instant July, about 9 o’clock, we received intelligence that the French, having been reinforced with 700 recruits, had left Monongahela, and were in full March with 900 men to attack us,” the New York Mercury printed of the latest news from Ohio. Captain James Maccay had brought Washington reinforcements from the Carolinas. Their combined force was about two-hundred fifty men. Washington and Maccay issued a joint report, which was printed in multiple newspapers.

After building a crude fortification called Fort Necessity for his men and about eighty of their native allies’ families, Washington and Maccay were outnumbered more than three to one. Though they tried to defend themselves, heavy rain dampened their ammunition, making much of it unusable. Despite hours of having the upper hand, the French suddenly called for a parley. The signal puzzled Washington, who thought it was a ruse or a deceit because the French were winning. The French called for parley again.

What was going on? Had his men killed a French officer? Concluding this was likely the case, Washington sent an officer over to the French side. In a back-and-forth negotiation through a translator, Washington agreed to surrender in exchange for the Frenchmen that he had saved from Half King but had imprisoned five weeks earlier and had sent to Virginia. Had he allowed Half King to kill those men as Half King had wanted, the French might have killed him on the spot. The two sides signed the capitulation terms, which were written in final form in French.

Controversy about his surrender arose a few weeks later when the New York Mercury and other newspapers printed a translation of Washington’s capitulation terms. “And as the English have now in their power an officer, two cadets and most of the prisoners made in the assassination of Sir de Jumonville, that they promise to send them back with a safe guard to the Fort Duquesne,” the newspaper reported.

The word assassination was fake news at worst, misleading at best. Yes, Half King and his men had killed Jumonville at the battle of Great Meadows. The term implied that Washington had assassinated Jumonville, whom the French claimed was a diplomat. If true, then Washington had violated the rules of warfare.

Washington’s reputation was on the line. What should he do? Fully appreciating his dilemma requires understanding the role of the truth and standards for the press in his day. One person who understood this was Ben Franklin, especially after he faced colonial cancel culture.

I provide the most details of Washington’s heroism in his 20s in my book, War of Lies: When George Washington Was the Target and Propaganda Was the Crime. In this post and future posts, I am excerpting the book’s chapters that show Washington’s mistakes and triumphs during the French and Indian War. The book is a true crime history-mystery about a propaganda campaign the targeted Washington by publishing counterfeit letters in his name. He never knew who was behind it, but I think I’ve figured it out and flesh out the story through four suspects. At the end, I reveal my opinion of who done it.

The invasion on the border had to end. “Mr. Washington, the ambassador,” the Boston Gazette began in its report on March 5, 1754, “is returned” from his nine-hundred-mile journey from the western territory of Ohio (Pennsylvania) to Williamsburg, Virginia. Virginia’s Royal Governor Robert Dinwiddie had sent twenty-two-year-old Major George Washington on a diplomatic expedition to discover if Frenchmen were building forts in English territory and violating their treaty. He ordered Washington to deliver cease-and-desist letters to commanders of every French fort.

What had Washington discovered? His mission had confirmed the worst fears of the king of England, King George II.

“It is undoubtedly affirmed for truth, that the French have settled and fixed several forts near the Ohio tract, especially one upon (a) French River,” the Boston Gazette continued of Washington’s discovery. Just as the English sought to expand their colonial territory to the west, so the French also sought to extend their territory to the south from Canada. Their paths crossed in land named after the Iroquois word for great river, O-Y-O, or Ohio.

During this dangerous mission, Washington had come across three French forts at the intersection of three rivers—the Ohio, Allegheny, and Monongahela. The commanders of the first two forts had rejected Dinwiddie’s letter. Despite their hostility, Washington had observed their posts’ size, the number of men they housed, and their defensive capabilities.

“Mr. Washington was received in a polite genteel manner by the commandant of the fort,” the Boston Gazette explained of his reception at the last fort, which was the largest boasting five hundred men and twelve cannon. After reading Dinwiddie’s letter, the French commander revealed that his orders to build and defend these forts came from France’s king. The commandant “added, that he had expected an army to be sent for 12 months past by the English, and that they were prepared for them,” the Boston Gazette reported of the ominous news that France was expecting to go to war against England. The question was this: Were the English ready and willing to go to war, too?

Why did Governor Dinwiddie choose Washington for this important mission? After all, Washington was part of the middle class, known as the mid-gentry, and not the upper class. Though he was at least six feet in stature, if not taller, Washington knew that he wasn’t a standout for his education. He didn’t have a status-making degree from Virginia’s university for those with higher social pedigrees, the College of William and Mary.

He didn’t come from a wealthy family, such as the Randolphs, with connections to royalty. Virginia Attorney General Peyton Randolph and his brother John Randolph could brag that their ancestor, Sir Thomas Randolph, had been an advisor to Queen Elizabeth. Little did Washington know, but one member of the Randolph family would emerge as a suspect in the War of Lies’ forgeries years later.

The stigma he carried over not having as high a social status as the Randolphs and other families also stemmed from a childhood tragedy. If his father, Augustine Washington, had not died when George was eleven years old, George might have had the same educational opportunity as his half-brother Lawrence, who was fourteen years older. Like their father, Lawrence had been educated at a respectable school in England before returning to the colonies. Instead, George had to study at home, under the influence of his mother, Mary Ball Washington, who was loving and overbearing at the same time.

Without a formal education and a high social ranking, how did Washington stand out to Dinwiddie? Taking pride in his best assets, he leveraged two important qualifications: his experience as a land surveyor and his good manners.

As a youth, Washington had used a quill pen to make a copy of all of the social rules in the must-have book for up-and-coming modern-day gentlemen, 110 Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. Beyond practicing good handwriting, duplicating these guidelines deepened Washington’s understanding of how to behave in social situations. The first rule provided a foundation for how to treat others. “Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.”

While in the presence of someone of higher social rank, such as Governor Dinwiddie or Attorney General Randolph, Washington made sure that they spoke to him first and not the other way around. Likewise, he also extended courtesy to those of lesser social rank. Washington’s good manners and polite behavior would be his best passport in delivering letters to hostile Frenchmen on the Ohio frontier. If need be, Washington’s manners just might save his life.

How did George become a surveyor with six years of experience by age twenty-two? When he was fifteen, he moved in with Lawrence and his wife, Ann Fairfax Washington, at their Potomac River home called Mount Vernon. Lawrence taught him the precision of hunting, art of horseback riding, finesse of fencing, and joy of dancing. Waking up to the cock-a-doodle-do of the rooster and slumbering under the music of crickets at Mount Vernon had given the young George much happiness.

Mount Vernon had also expanded his social network by giving him a chance to know Lawrence’s father-in-law, Colonel William Fairfax. Impressed by his manners and work ethic, the colonel asked George to survey his extensive land holdings. At age sixteen, Washington took on the respectable trade of surveying.

For six years, George developed important skills that would prove valuable in the years to come. He learned how to prepare for long journeys, arrange for supplies, and live off the land. With stamina to ride a horse for long periods of time, he also developed and honed the mathematical skills needed to calculate and measure terrain.

While Washington’s good manners and surveying skills stood out to Governor Dinwiddie, why would Washington risk his life to find out if the French were building fortifications on England’s claims? He had personal, financial, and patriotic reasons for accepting this duty. Lawrence was a shareholder in the Ohio Company of Virginia, the land speculation business that had bought land from the king and had sold it to settlers in the Ohio River territory.

Loyal to King George II, Washington saw the opportunity as a stepping stone to what he most wanted, an officer’s commission in the Royal Army like his brother. While serving as the military adjutant and training officer for Virginia, Lawrence had received a brevet officer’s commission in the regular British army from King George II.

Success in Dinwiddie’s mission could bring a commission to Major Washington, who was part of the Virginia militia but not the Royal Army. Despite his lack of social status, George knew he had what it took to be an excellent officer and diplomat.

Washington may not have realized it, but when the Boston Gazette, Pennsylvania Gazette, and London’s Gentleman’s Magazine reported on his first Ohio mission, he became a newsmaker and a reporter at the same time. How was that possible?

After returning to Williamsburg on his first mission in early 1754, Washington had given his journal to Governor Dinwiddie, who had needed an opportunity to boost his own sagging popularity. A year earlier in 1753, Dinwiddie had enforced a fee for new land grants in Virginia. Though approved by the Board of War, this tax had incensed the upper class and the House of Burgesses, Virginia’s legislative body. They had sent Attorney General Randolph to London to plead with King George II’s Privy Council to overturn the tax. Randolph’s cousin, Thomas Jefferson, would reflect decades later that Dinwiddie and the crown’s overuse of taxing power was done “without the sanctions of any law.”

Dinwiddie quickly arranged to print Washington’s journal as a pamphlet to widely spread the news of the French fortifications in British territory. This news would also distract from the fallout of the tax.

On May 14, 1754, the Boston Gazette published Washington’s journal in installments to its six hundred subscribers to relay what had happened on his first Ohio mission. Boasting a motto of “Containing the freshest advices foreign and domestic,” the Boston Gazette, like other newspapers, could not afford to hire staff reporters. Instead they relied on citizens sending them information. Washington’s journal proved to be a goldmine of concerning information to fill newspaper columns.

“And they told me that it was their absolute design to take possession of the Ohio,” Washington wrote in his journal. “And by G--, they would do it,” he added, quoting the French commander while being careful not to spell out God’s name lest he be accused of using the Lord’s name in vain. The 110 Rules of Civility taught gentlemen to only use words of respect when speaking of God.

As other newspapers published his journal, readers throughout the colonies soon discovered Washington’s day-by-day account of his mission, which spanned from October 1753 until mid-January of 1754. Not only did he break the news of emerging French fortifications, but he also provided rich details of the roadless Ohio territory, its native tribes, and its natural resources. Washington’s journal also revealed his good manners as he interacted with the indigenous people and Frenchmen. With each new installment, the colonists from New England to Georgia learned that they were in danger of losing their western territory. They also became more and more smitten with Washington.

In June 1754, people in England were also introduced to Major Washington in Gentleman’s Magazine, which had reprinted a part of his journal. English readers discovered Washington’s Lancelot-like athleticism, such as when he guided a raft on an icy river.

“In this distress, the major put out his setting pole, that , if possible the ice might pass clear of his raft, but the rapidity of the stream drove it with such violence against the pole, that being unwilling to quit it, he was jerked into ten feet of water. He fortunately saved himself by catching hold of one of the raft logs.”

Readers on both sides of the Atlantic were developing a fondness for George Washington in his dual role of reporter and newsmaker. Infatuated some were.

Among those readers in London were two brothers, John and James Rivington, who were about ten years older than Washington. As English as English can be, they ran their deceased father’s publishing business at a shop long known by its white signboards of Rivington or Bible and Crown at St. Paul’s Churchyard in London. John and James often advertised their new publications in the Gentleman’s Magazine. A month before publishing his journal, this advertisement appeared in the magazine’s May 1754 edition. “Sermons before the Governor of the London hospital, by the Archbishop of Oxford, 6d Rivington.” One of the Rivington brothers would soon become so smitten with America that he would make a life-altering decision and would play a significant role years later in the Revolution’s War of Lies.

While readers’ fingers became stained with ink and their tongues made bitter by English tea in 1754 as they read about his exploits, Washington returned to the Ohio territory for a new mission. This journey would lead to an unusual test of his good manners and, worse, result in the most sensational news yet about him.

Governor Dinwiddie sent Washington and other militiamen to support Englishmen who were constructing a new English fort at the Monongahela River. Arriving in mid-April in 1754 with a party of nearly one-hundred-sixty men and supplies, Washington learned the devastating news that the French had already captured this post. Many of the English survivors joined Washington, as the editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette reported on May 9, 1754.

“Friday last an express arrived here from Major Washington, with advice that Mr. Ward, ensign of Captain Trent’s company, was compelled to surrender his small fort in the forks of the Monongahela to the French, on the 17th past (April),” the editor relayed with one technical error. By this time, Washington had received a promotion to the rank of lieutenant colonel in Virginia’s militia. While this was honorable and well-deserved, he still didn’t have the regular British army commission that he wanted.

What stood out the most about this article were repetition and a new icon. First, the editor used the word join or joined three times. “Mr. Ward having but 44 men and no cannon to make a proper defense was obliged to surrender and they had accordingly joined Major Washington,” the Pennsylvania Gazette’s editor reported, noting that the French outnumbered the English with a fleet of three-hundred and sixty canoes, a thousand men, and eighteen pieces of artillery.

“The Indian chiefs, however, have dispatched messages to Pennsylvania and Virginia, desiring that the English would not be discouraged, but send out their warriors to join them and drive the French out of the country before they fortify, otherwise the trade will be lost, and to their great grief an eternal separation between the Indians and their brethren the English,” the Pennsylvania Gazette’s editor continued, using join a second time.

He very purposefully used the word join a third time to describe French reinforcements. More than four hundred Frenchmen and six hundred of their native allies had come from a lake “to join them.” The article switched from facts to opinion, revealing the writer’s purpose.

“The confidence in the French of this undertaking seems well grounded,” he wrote. Then he pointed out the lack of cohesion in the colonies. “In the present disunited state of the British colonies and the extreme difficulties of bringing so many different governments and assemblies to agree in any speedy and effectual measures for our common defense and security, while our enemies have the very great distinction of being under one direction with one council and one purse.”

The editor reminded his readers that the great distance of England from its colonies allowed the French Canadians to “presume that they may with impunity violate the most solemn treaties subsisting between the two crowns, kill, seize and imprison our traders, and confiscate their efforts at pleasure (as they have done for several years past) murder and scalp our farmers, with their wives and children and take easy possession of such parts of British territory as they find most convenient for them.”

His conclusion was dire, “which if they are permitted to do, must end in the destruction of the British interest” in America. This news article turned editorial was followed by a second stand-out item, which had long lasting effects. Except for the reusable, engraved masthead, rarely did publishers include pictures in their papers. Why? Because it took too much time to whittle an image into a woodcut or etch a sketch for each edition. This crisis, however, was so concerning to this gentleman, that he’d taken time to draw a picture and carve it into a block of wood to set into his frame in between the typeset.

Directly below this article was an image of a snake divided into eight pieces with the initials of the other colonies on each piece. New England, which represented the northernmost colonies, was the head, while South Carolina was the tail. In between were New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina. This woodcut included a slogan about the current crisis: Join or Die. The writer of this article and his supporting visual statement clearly conveyed that the colonists were going to have to join together to fight the French or lose their status as Britain’s American colonies.

Who wrote this article and designed the first political visual cartoon ever printed in an American newspaper? Who concluded that this news from Colonel Washington, this suave and heroic newsmaker, was vitally important to everyone in the colonies, not just to those living in the West? Who was the brains behind this radical idea of bringing the colonies together under one government in the name of national security?

The author was the celebrated publisher, Benjamin Franklin. Little did the forty-eight-year-old Franklin realize that not only had he created America’s first political cartoon, but by connecting Washington with the snake image, he had also elevated the young military diplomat into stardom. Franklin had turned George Washington into a media darling, the chivalrous knight fighting for English rights against their centuries-old nemesis, the French.

Although he showed his patriotism in this join-or-die political statement, Franklin adhered to a higher principle, one tattooed on his heart. Franklin first and foremost was a passionate proponent of freedom of speech and its cousin, freedom of the press. The reason? Censorship had nearly cost him his family.

New Book: A Great and Grateful Nation

Over the past several weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to talk to amazing American men and women to share stories from America’s founding era. Below are links to these interviews in chronological order. Enjoy! And again, Happy America 250th!

Don Ma and NTD News

Brian Kilmeade’s Radio Show

Eden Gordon Hill on Pray.com and WMAL

Tina Griffin’s Counter Culture Mom Show

Richard Lim This American President

Benjamin Franklin Fellowship’s Junto Podcast

Larry O’Connor on WMAL and Salem

TC Wright Kingdom Crossroads

Bruce Oliver’s Talks for Christ Podcast

For the past few months, I’ve seen ads for YOUNG WASHINGTON, a new movie from Jon Erwin and Angel Studios that focuses on George Washington’s origins as a young soldier in the French and Indian War in the 1750s. Because I’ve written about this phase of Washington’s life in at least four of my books, I have been dying to see this film. Then, several friends and colleagues saw screenings of the film before its release and loved it. I found my self feeling a bit jealous that I didn’t get to preview it with them.

Subscribe now

Share

But hooray and huzzah! I saw the film on the first day it was in theaters and loved it. Among the story’s many action points, Young Washington portrays a seminal moment in Washington’s life in the midst of great danger.

I first discovered Washington’s near-death miracle nearly 20 years ago when I wrote my first book about the American Revolution called Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War. Researching original sources, such as letters, for this book changed my perspective and inspired me to write many more books about the American Revolution and the War of 1812.

Before I began writing my Rev War devotional book for AMG Publishers, I had wondered if Washington was over-rated. After discovering his experiences in the French and Indian War and Revolution, I was humbled and realized why he became a great leader. As Young Washington effectively captures, George learned to put the soldiers in his care above personal glory or ambition. This approach proved essential for winning the Revolutionary War.

One of the most seminal moments in Washington’s life took place on July 9, 1755, when he had four bullets fly through his coat and two horses shot under him in a battle but was unhurt. Word of this miracle spread throughout Virginia. A month later in August 1755, a minister accurately predicted, perhaps even prophesized, that young Washington’s life had been spared for future important service to his nation. This was two decades before the Revolutionary War began.

Fifteen years later in 1770, a native chief, who’d fought against him and had witnessed the 1755 miracle, told Washington that the Great Spirit had protected him that day and he would be the chief of a great nation. Indeed.

As soon as Washington arrived at Fort Cumberland, Maryland, nine days after the 1755 battle, he discovered that his name was on the killed-in-action list that was on its way to Virginia. Even worse, his family would soon be told that he had died, when he hadn’t. Too weak to travel immediately back to Virginia, Washington responded by writing his brother and mother letters to assure them that he was alive. He attributed his miraculous survival in the land of the living to Providence, which protected him beyond all human expectation. Providence in the 1770s meant God’s presence. Because we can now search his digitized writings by keyword, we now know that Washington wrote the name Providence in his letters more than 560 times.

Young Washington captures Washington’s essence and the spirit of his experience and character. The movie uses one of my favorite screenwriting and book-writing techniques to grab the viewer’s attention by starting the story in medias res, which means in the midst of the action. Young Washington begins with Washington on that battlefield on July 9, 1755, in what is now Pittsburgh.

The film then flashes back to the day his father was buried. Washington was only 11 years old when his father died. His half-brother Lawrence Washington, who was 14 years older, steps in and becomes George’s father-figure.

The movie unfolds by unraveling different story threads that culminate in Washington’s realization that he needs to prioritize his men’s needs above all else. Just as he did in my favorite historical TV series, House of David, producer and director Jon Erwin effectively combines action, romance, internal struggle and strong acting into a film that is as satisfying as it is inspiring. Because of the battlefield violence, this film is not for young children. The violence, however, is not gratuitous. Director Erwin is an expert at directing action scenes.

If you want to know what is true vs what was invented in the film you can rest assured that most of the events and story beats are true. Sometimes, however, the timing or chronology of these events are out of sequence of when they actually took place. I wrote in depth about Washington’s French and Indian War years in my book, War of Lies. As a result, I am familiar with the basic chronology of when things happened in his early years, such as the death of his brother Lawrence.

In the film, however, Lawrence’s death happens out of sequence. It is revealed in the movie later than it actually took place. My guess is that the filmmakers timed Lawrence’s death when it had the strongest emotional impact on Washington and the viewer. They did this with several events or facts. This is called compositing, which is a common technique that is often necessary to make a story work in a narrative, non-documentary film.

Another type of compositing is combining two characters into one character. I didn't notice any character compositing. Though some events took place out-of-sequence, the result reveals Washington’s internal and external struggles as his leadership and character are tested. The best films capture a relatable character arc where the main character undergoes a significant transformation.

I appreciate that the filmmakers accurately portrayed the story’s broad strokes and didn’t compromise the overall truth. The average viewer won’t notice the film’s out-of-order chronological timing. It’s a bit like a mystery where a mystery is revealed to the viewer. The truth about Sally Fairfax, for example, lands at a pivotal moment. What happened is more important than precisely when it happened or when Washington found out about it. By prioritizing the viewers’ emotional responses, the film will have a greater, longer-lasting impact.

That’s important right now because Americans suffer from dire historical illiteracy. For example, only 13% of eighth graders are proficient in American history. Movies and videos are the fastest, most emotionally-impactful medium in our culture. We need more films like Young Washington to reverse this lack of knowledge in our culture. John Adams believed that preserving liberty depended on both the moral character and intellectual character of the people. This lack of historical knowledge leaves young Americans debased in their understanding about America’s origins.

Don’t miss Young Washington. This is a FOMO moment, fear of missing out. Watch it on theaters if you can. If you need to wait until it streams, it will be worth the wait. Young Washington will make you proud to be an American and leave you hungering by for more.

Today, we remember the Declaration of Independence that planted the seeds of liberty. As we look back on 250 years, we honor the harvest, the fruit of those planted seeds.

I am excited to share with you this video of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams reflecting on each other’s roles in drafting and fighting for the Declaration of Independence.

Subscribe now

Share

As I wrote in my new book, A Great and Grateful Nation, the two men started out as colleagues in the Continental Congress. Both served on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence. Both thought the other should write the Declaration, but Adams believed that Jefferson wrote ten times better than he did. Jefferson used his “happy talent for composition” to draft the greatest document of freedom the world has ever seen.

Though their friendship started strong in 1776, they became rivals in the 1790s and some would say—enemies—during their bitter, bickering presidential years. In their senior, post-presidential years, however, their mutual friend Benjamin Rush encouraged them to set aside their differences. In 1809, Rush had a prophetic dream of both of them dying on the same day. “These gentlemen sunk into the grave nearly at the same time, full of years and rich in the gratitude and praises of their country,” Rush wrote to Adams on October 17, 1809. “For they outlived the heterogeneous parties that were opposed to them and to their numerous merits and honors posterity has added, they they were rival friends.”

This led to an exchange of dozens of letters between the two. They praised each other’s role in adopting the Declaration of Independence and buried the hatchet over their differences.

In April 1826, they wrote their last letters to each other as their health mutually declined. Both held out to make it to the nation’s 50th birthday on July 4, 1826. Jefferson passed away at noontime while Adams died in the early evening. Not knowing his friend had already passed, Adams’s last words were “Jefferson still survives.”

Americans throughout the nation responded to the news by hosting vigils and memorials for both men at churches. Many believed that the timing of their deaths on America’s 50th birthday was an act of Providence. This moment is captured in the opening sequence of the movie, The American Miracle, which is now streaming on Amazon.

Share Jane Hampton Cook’s Substack

The Great Seal of the United States

Celebrating America’s 250^th anniversary is a great opportunity to discover a little-known date in American history. On June 20, 1782, the Continental Congress adopted the Great Seal of the United States. For the first time, they gave Americans seven virtues defining the nation’s colors that are still relevant today.

When Congress adopted the U.S. flag on June 14, 1777, they were prosecuting a war. They didn’t have time to take perspective because war is chaos. Though they explained that the 13 stars and stripes represented the union of the 13 states, they didn’t define the meaning of the colors red, white, and blue.

Following the war’s last major battle in 1781, Congress took time to reflect. When they released the Great Seal of the United States in June 1782, they explained that the seal’s eagle symbolized independence because nothing held it down. On the eagle’s breast was a red, white, and blue shield. Here Congress defined the nation’s colors for the first time. They gave Americans seven inspirational, timeless virtues.

“The colors of the pales [stripes] are those used in the flag of the United States of America,” the Journal of the Continental Congress recorded. “White signifies purity and innocence. Red [means] hardiness and valor and Blue … signifies vigilance, perseverance, and justice.”

Red Stripes—Hardiness and Valor

They chose valor and hardiness for the color red. Valor is battlefield courage. Hardiness is the ability to withstand all seasons. The Continental Army demonstrated both during the Revolutionary War: 6,800 soldiers died in battle and 17,000 died of disease.

Congress also understood the literal cost of the war. After receiving a death sentence from the British for spying in New York, Haym Salomon escaped to Philadelphia. This Jewish American from Poland personally raised $650,000, the equivalent of $15 million today, for the war. When Congress couldn’t repay his loans, he faced poverty.

John Paul Jones, whom Congress had elevated to captain on the same day they adopted the flag in 1777, best expressed the virtue of valor on September 23, 1779. While his ship was sinking, he famously declared, “Surrender? I have not yet begun to fight!” Jones lost his ship but won the battle, becoming America’s first naval hero.

When Congress defined the flag’s red stripes, they also knew of the valor of black heroes such as Peter Salem. A freed slave and minuteman, Salem was credited with shooting Major Pitcairn, a British officer, at the Battle of Bunker Hill. The patriots blamed Pitcairn for the war’s first shots in 1775. Salem was one of 5,000 black soldiers who fought in the American Revolution.

White Stars—Purity and Innocence

Congress gave the white stars and stripes the virtues of purity and innocence. These gentle words seem out of place. Yet, Congress understood that innocence and purity implied loyal motives, their children and the generations to come.

On July 2, 1776, General George Washington told his men that they weren’t just fighting for their future but for future Americans. “The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.”

Blue Background—Vigilance, Perseverance and Justice

Congress gave the color blue the virtues of vigilance, perseverance, and justice.

Vigilance means watchfulness. After Philadelphia Quaker Lydia Darrah overheard a British officer planning a surprise attack on Washington’s Army in December 1777, she slipped out of town, found the army’s camp and warned Washington’s men. When British soldiers tried to attack, the Continental Army was ready. The redcoats retreated thanks to Darrah’s vigilance.

Watchfulness also meant gathering intelligence. From New York’s Culper spy ring to General Lafayette’s intelligence circle at Virginia’s Yorktown, many spies had shown vigilance.

When James Armistead, a slave and spy, infiltrated British General Cornwallis’s command at Yorktown in 1781, he kept watch for the patriots and gave Lafayette intelligence that led to the war’s last battle. When he became a free man after the war, he changed his last name to Lafayette.

America had also persevered, especially the Continental Army. As Washington said goodbye to his soldiers, he reflected on their determination: “The singular interpositions of Providence in our feeble condition” and “the unparalleled perseverance of the armies of the United States, through almost every possible suffering and discouragement, for the space of eight long years, was little short of a standing miracle.”

Congress knew that undergirding the colors was the final meaning for blue—justice. The Declaration of Independence’s central premise was a statement of justice.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This clause became America’s creed. John Adams included it in the Massachusetts Constitution. In 1783, a judge declared that slavery was unconstitutional based on this clause in the Massachusetts Constitution. Massachusetts became the first state to abolish slavery. Because of this act of justice, the end of the American Revolution was the start of the abolition movement to eradicate slavery culminating in the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War finished what the Revolutionary War started.

Over the centuries, civil rights leaders claimed the Declaration’s justice clause for different groups. In the 1800s, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Ida B. Wells-Barnett applied the Declaration’s promise to women and to slaves. Martin Luther King also claimed the Declaration’s promise for black Americans in the 1960s.

When Congress released the Great Seal in 1782, they were introspective. They knew what the nation’s colors meant. They had witnessed valor, hardiness, purity, innocence, vigilance, perseverance and justice.

For America’s 250^th celebrations, we can do the same. The Declaration of Independence planted the seeds of liberty on July 4, 1776. Through these virtues, those seeds flourished over time, making America’s 250^th anniversary the harvest of liberty.

The article takes inspiration from one of my favorite quotes from John Adams. Eight years before America’s 50th anniversary, a magazine editor asked the 82-year-old Adams to reflect on the American Revolution. His thoughts are relevant today as we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

I’m encouraging my fellow Americans to take the opportunity of America’s 250th to do at least one thing to rediscover the American Revolution, such as reading a book or watching a film from a reputable source. Americans deserve to to know the stories of our nation’s founding. America's 250th is a reason to do so.

Read Jane's Article on Foxnews.com

America’s 250th wouldn’t be complete without a salute to the first official U.S. flag, which Congress adopted on June 14, 1777. Here’s the story behind it.

After the Continental Army’s victories at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton in December 1776 and January 1777, General George Washington and his men rested and regrouped in Morristown, New Jersey in the first several months of 1777. This gave Washington an opportunity to reflect on the next steps in the fight for independence. Because the Declaration of Independence had created the new nation on July 4, 1776, he decided to also focus on something that his army and the American people needed: an official flag.

Washington had learned the hard way that their unofficial flag, the Grand Union flag, was too British. When he drove the British military from Boston in March 1776, he flew the Grand Union flag, which confused the enemy. The British thought that he was flying a British flag. It’s understandable why. Despite its new feature of 13 stripes, the Grand Union Flag included the British flag in the upper left quadrant.

This confusion exposed the need for a new flag that distinguished America in its new, non-British and non-colonial identity.

Washington discussed the flag matter with members of the Continental Congress and others. Nearly a year after adopting the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress passed a resolution describing the first official flag of the United States of America on June 14, 1777.

“In CONGRESS, June 14, 1777. Resolved, That the FLAG of the United States be THIRTEEN STRIPES alternate red and white; that the union be THIRTEEN STARS white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”[i] The public first learned about it when the Pennsylvania Evening Post reported on Aug. 30, 1777, the minutes from Congress’s June 14 meeting.

Discover more in my new book, A Great and Grateful Nation.

Gone were the Union Jack and the Grand Union flags. Gone, too, were the thirteen British colonies. Replacing them were America’s new thirteen states, which both the flag’s stripes and stars represented.

These states were more than just separate entities. Whereas the colonies had often acted as separate nation states disjointed from each other, these new united states were united into one nation. Though many view the flag today as a symbol of freedom. The first official flag meant union. In order to symbolize freedom, it first needed to symbolize unity.

The meaning of the first official United States flag had nothing to do with skin color, sex, class, race, ethnicity, religion or any other distinction. Congress intended for the flag of the United States to mean one thing: UNION.  

Through a new constellation, the white stars on the blue background depicted this union of states. When the stars were arranged in a circle, they also conveyed the equality of that union because no state was more important than another.

The new U.S. flag embodied the sentiment of Patrick Henry.

“The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American,” Patrick Henry declared.

Unfortunately, the Continental Congress was too busy prosecuting the business of the war to provide more information in their journal record about the flag on June 14, 1777. We know that integrity was on their minds that day. Their record shows that they fired a ship captain of poor character and replaced with him with a new upstart: Captain John Paul Jones. He later became America’s first naval war hero because he literally wouldn’t surrender his ship’s colors—the flag—in a battle with a British ship.

On that first flag day in 1777, Congress didn’t explain the meaning of the colors, red, white and blue. But in the days and weeks ahead, Congress would come to know the meaning of these colors through the valor and perseverance of George Washington’s army and others who contributed to the cause of liberty.

[i] “In Congress,” Pennsylvania Evening Post, Aug. 30, 1777, (Philadelphia, PA) 453, Genealogy Bank, accessed Jan. 22, 2022,  https://www.genealogybank.com/nbshare/AC01111014165929282711643488439

“He [Rev. Duffield] concluded that the course of events indicated strongly the design of Providence that we should be separated from G. Britain,” John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail on May 17, 1776.

John Adams’s Providential Moses Moment

https://providencemag.com/2026/05/john-adamss-providential-moses-moment/

Fireworks Galore on FoxNews.com

I’m also pleased to let you know that Fox News has published my America 250 article about the origin story of our fireworks tradition.

“A forgotten 1776 celebration launched America’s booming fireworks tradition”

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/forgotten-1776-celebration-launched-americas-booming-fireworks-tradition

The American Miracle is Streaming

I also wanted to let you know that The American Miracle movie is streaming on Amazon. It’s a perfect fit for Memorial Day weekend, an opportunity to discover the many miracles that took place 250 years ago to establish the United States of America.

May 17, 2026—Today, Americans are gathering on Washington DC’s National Mall for Rededicate 250, a national day of jubilation, prayer, praise and thanksgiving for America’s 250th anniversary.

This date feels Providential to me because the Continental Congress set aside this day, May 17, 1776, as a day for fasting and praying. John Adams also heard an inspiring and pivotal sermon on this day.

For months Adams had longed for a critical mass of Americans to come to the same decision that he and Abigail had concluded a year earlier: America needed to declare independence from England. By May 17, 1776, Adams realized that thousands were ready to do just that, especially after reading the blockbuster pamphlet, Common Sense. The May 17 sermon he heard proved that members of the clergy were also ready to declare independence.

As he listened to this sermon, Adams found himself wondering what role he would play in this unfolding drama. Would he be Moses leading the way or Aaron, Moses's brother, who prepared the way? Below is an excerpt of this story from my book Stories of Faith and Courage from the Revolutionary War. Enjoy!

Bricks and Bushes

“I have this morning heard Mr. Duffield upon the signs of the times. He ran a parallel between the case of Israel and that of America, and between the conduct of Pharaoh and that of King George,” Adams wrote to Abigail, on May 17, 1776.

Adams had heard George Duffield preach many times. In an earlier letter, he told Abigail that Duffield was a minister “whose principles, prayers and sermons more nearly resemble, those of our New England clergy than any that I have heard.”

Duffield’s comparison between Pharaoh and King George tasted sweeter than manna to Adams. The reason? It made sense of the madness. “Jealousy that the Israelites would throw off the government of Egypt made him issue his edict that the midwives should cast the children into the river, and the other edict that the men should make a large revenue of bricks without straw,” Adams reminded her of the account. Then he explained Duffield’s current analogy.

“He concluded that the course of events, indicated strongly the design of Providence that we should be separated from G. Britain, &c.”

Indeed. The oppression and decisions of King George III were Pharaoh-like. “Is it not a saying of Moses, who am I that I should go in and out before this great people?” Adams noted.

What also pressed on Adams’s mind was his own call, his own burning bush triggered by musket fire. “When I consider the great events which are passed, and those greater which are rapidly advancing, and that I may have been instrumental of touching some springs, and turning some small wheels … I feel an awe upon my mind, which is not easily described,” he wrote as he grasped the gravity of the situation in one hand and hope for liberty in the other.

“Great Britain has at last driven America, to the last step, a complete separation from her, a total absolute independence, not only of her Parliament but of her crown.” Adams added that there was something very “unnatural and odious” in a government that was “1000 leagues” away.

Whatever role he would play in this separation operation—whether he would speak with the eloquence of Aaron or muster the courage of Moses to face Pharaoh—Adams knew one thing was certain. “Confederation will be necessary for our internal concord and alliances may be so for our external defense.”

America would need many bricks of colonial unity sealed by the mortar of foreign alliances to construct a new nation.

By July 1776, Adams found himself playing the role of Aaron, who paved the way for Moses, Thomas Jefferson. Adams recommended Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. [i]

“The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with dressed stone; the fig trees have been felled, but we will replace them with cedars” (Isaiah 9:10).

Prayer: Restore a fresh sense of purpose in my life. Replace any bricks that have fallen into disrepair and rebuild my foundation, with you as my cornerstone.

[i] John Adams, “To Abigail, May 17, 1776,” in Adams Family Papers.

Excerpted from A Great and Grateful Nation: From Grievance to Gratitude by Jane Hampton Cook.

May 16, 2026—Why did Americans celebrate independence with fireworks and a parade weeks before July 4, 1776?

On May 15, 1776, 112 men attended a convention in Williamsburg, Virginia. Their goal was to give instructions to the Virginia delegates for the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. They cited their attempts to reconcile with King George III.

“For as much as all the endeavors of the United Colonies, by the most decent representations and petitions to the King and Parliament of Great Britain, to restore peace and security to America under the British government, and a reunion with that people under just and liberal terms, instead of a redress of grievances, have produced, from an imperious and vindictive administration, increased insult, oppression, and a vigorous attempt to affect our total destruction,”[i] the Pennsylvania Ledger published on June 1, 1776. A year earlier the Continental Congress had sent King George III an Olive Branch Petition. Without even reading it, the king had declared war on the colonies.

Virginians had had enough. “By a late act, all these colonies are declared to be in rebellion, and out of the protection of the British Crown, our properties subjected to confiscation, our people … compelled to join in the murder and plunder of their relations and countrymen, and all former rapine and oppression of Americans declared legal and just,” the Virginia resolution declared on May 15, 1776. “Fleets and armies are raised, and the aid of foreign troops engaged to assist these destructive purposes.”

At the time of the convention, Virginia’s royal governor was aboard an armed ship. He was seizing property on Virginia’s rivers and coast. The delegates’ choices were dire.

These Virginians unanimously voted on declaring independence for Virginia. “That the delegates appointed to represent this colony in General Congress be instructed to propose to that respectable body TO DECLARE THE UNITED COLONIES FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.” They proposed that the Continental Congress issue a declaration of rights to “secure substantial and equal liberty to the people.”

These Virginians were so happy that they collected money for a celebration. The first independence parade, fireworks and a feast took place on May 16, 1776, the day after their decision for Virginia to leave England and less than two months before July 4. The soldiers in Williamsburg “... paraded in Waller’s Grove, before Brigadier General Lewis, attended by the gentlemen of the Committee of Safety, the members of the General Convention, the inhabitants of this city...” After reading the resolution aloud to the Virginia militia, they toasted America’s independent states, the Continental Congress, General Washington and victory to America. They discharged artillery and small arms, and shouted acclamations.

Instead of flying the Union Jack of Great Britain, they raised a new flag with thirteen red and white stripes with a small version of the British flag in the upper left-hand corner. How did their celebration end? With fireworks, of course!

“…[T]he evening concluded with illuminations (fireworks), and other demonstrations of joy, everyone seeming pleased that the domination of Great Britain was now at an end, so wickedly and tyrannically exercised for these twelve or thirteen years past, notwithstanding our repeated prayers and remonstrances of redress.”

Four Pennsylvania newspapers soon reported on these festivities, which may have inspired John Adams to make a prediction to Abigail a few weeks later that declaring independence “will be the most memorable epocha, in the history of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”[ii]

[i] “In Convention Present 112 Members (in Virginia) Wednesday, May 15, 1776,” The Pennsylvania Ledger, June 1, 1776, Genealogy Bank, accessed January 17, 2022, https://www.genealogybank.com/nbshare/AC01111014165929282711643045718.

[ii] John Adams, Letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776, Founders Online, accessed January 13, 2022, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0016.

Though the tradition of Mother’s Day started in 1914, its sentiment gives us a fun way to better understand our founding mothers.

President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill in 1914 designating the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. If the holiday had existed in 1776, what would Abigail Adams have wanted on Mother’s Day 250 years ago? A letter to her husband in the spring of 1776 tells us while the latest in modern technology shows us. Enjoy this video!

Subscribe now

Get a copy of my new book for Mother’s Day!