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In 1682, William Penn landed on the land that became the “City of Brotherly love.” It was a city of religious tolerance. The first school in the colonies was established there in 1698, and in 1719 the city was the first to buy a fire engine. The first botanical garden, first library, and first hospital were built here in the 1700’s. It was a city that looked for ways to better itself.

This port city of Philadelphia soon became known for its broad, tree-shaded streets, substantial brick-and-stone houses, as it continued to grow. In 1787, the wharves on the Delaware River were crowded with ships, passengers, merchants, Indians, and laborers. All interested in the imports from Europe and the West Indies.

Market Street was crowded. Women and men shopped the stores, looking for luxury items. The bakeries were busy all day, because women bought fresh bread every day; the smells of fresh bread lured the customers in.

There were open-air markets on the street that opened 3 days a week where farmers brought in their wares from the farms. They sold fresh produce, dairy goods, poultry, fish, and meat.

 Dry good stores sold coffee, sugar, and spices. Also available were sundry other items. From books and spyglasses, Windsor chairs, teas from China, shoes made locally, baskets, buckets, wine and horses.

Philadelphia was the leading publishing center in America; there were 10 newspapers published in the city.

Claypoole and Dunlap published the Pennsylvania Packet and were asked to publish the first copies of the Constitution. In 1784, the Pennsylvania Packet became the first successful daily newspaper published in the US. They also printed books, proclamations, posters, and political pamphlets. Their business served as an information center. Often people gathered there to bring and exchange news. During that time in our history, the printed word was the best way to communicate over long distances.

Philadelphia boasted 33 churches, a Philosophical Society, a public Library, a museum, a poorhouse, a model jail, a model hospital, and 662 street lamps.

Taverns, inns, and beer houses were scattered around the city; most of the beer houses were on the water front. The Blue Anchor was a popular fish house that opened in 1682. The City Tavern on Second Street was new; it could accommodate 60 men overnight on its third floor. It boasted club rooms, lodging rooms, two kitchens, a bar, and a coffee room. To encourage visits, they supplied the public rooms with magazines and newspapers.

The roles of unmarried women were clearly defined. They opened their homes as boarding houses or were a school mistress in their homes. Teaching positions were also available for them as tutors in Young Ladies Academies. Women also earned money by spinning, as hat makers, and as menders. Married women ran their households.

This was the city that hosted the framers of the Constitution.

Around 40,000 people lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1787, as 55 delegates from twelve states gathered; Rhode Island wasn’t represented. They gathered in the same building, where many of them had signed the Declaration of Independence, worked hard on the Articles of Confederation, and now these learned men were back. As one historian noted, it was a “Convention of the well-bred, the well-fed, the well-read, and the well-wed.”

They were called framers, because this word defines their job. These men shaped, planned, and constructed a new document to govern a new country, the Constitution of the US.

The delegates all arrived and settled in boarding houses and taverns and then they went to work. Even at night, they didn’t talk about their thoughts and plans. When in the taverns or boarding houses, they were silent.

On the starting day of May 21, only eight state delegates were present, but soon others trickled in. The Convention was convened on Friday. George Washington was elected President, and the South Carolinian William Jackson was elected secretary. Elected that same day for the Committee on Rules were George Wythe from Virginia, Alexander Hamilton from New York, and Charles Pinckney from SC.

All were familiar with the two story building, the Pennsylvania State House, where they conducted their discussions and debates, because this was the same site where many of the same men wrote the Declaration of Independence eleven years earlier. This building of Georgian architecture boasted a bell tower and steeple that gave it the look of a church. That bell today is called the Liberty Bell.

It has often been remarked that in the journey of life, the young rely on energy to counteract the experience of the old. And vice versa. What makes this Constitutional Convention remarkable is that the delegates were both young and experienced. The average age of the delegates was 42 and four of the most influential delegates——Alexander Hamilton, Edmund Randolph, Gouverneur Morris, and James Madison——were in their thirties. Over half of the delegates graduated from College with nine from Princeton and six from British Universities. Even more significant was the continental political experience of the Framers: 8 signed the Declaration of Independence, 25 served in the Continental Congress, 15 helped draft the new State Constitutions between 1776 and 1780, 40 served in the Confederation Congress between 1783 and 1787, and 35 had law degrees.

George Nash has written a book about these men entitled Books and the Founding Fathers. I want to share some facts from his book.

To summarize Nash’s point: the Framers 1) read, 2) owned, 3) used, 4) created, and 5) donated books without being simply bookish or “denizens of an ivory tower.”

1. John Dickinson, the person whose legacy is his August observation at the Constitutional Convention that “we should let experience be our guide” because reason may mislead us, would, at university, “read for nearly eight hours a day, dined at four o’clock, and then retired early in the evening, all the while mingling his scrutiny of legal texts with such authors as Tacictus and Francis Bacon.” William Paterson, who introduced the New Jersey Plan in June at the Constitutional Convention, in large part because it was a practical alternative to the Virginia Plan, took his college entrance examinations in Latin and Greek, and entered Princeton “at the age of fourteen. For the next four years he immersed himself in ancient history and literature, as well as such English authors as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, and Pope.”
2. Benjamin Franklin’s personal library “contained 4,276 volumes at the time of his death in 1790.” George Washington’s library at his death in 1798 contained 900 volumes, “a figure all the more remarkable since he was much less a reader than many.”
3. Washington, in turn, “used” Joseph Addison’s Cato in drafting his Farewell Address. Jefferson “sent back books by the score” from Paris to Madison that, after three years of intense reading, the latter used to draft the Virginia Plan as a response to the history of failed confederacies.
4. The Papers of Madison constitute “52 volumes.” The Jefferson Papers are  comprised of 75 hefty volumes.”
5. Finally, Franklin, Dickinson, Madison, and Jefferson were each “a faithful patron of libraries.” For example, Dickinson “donated more than 1,500 volumes to Dickinson College.”

They met behind closed doors and windows in sessions to hammer out our Constitution. Reporters and visitors were banned; these leaders wanted no outside influences. Guards were placed at the doors to keep sight-seers out. James Madison was the note keeper. (We know this because his wife Dolly sold his notes to the federal government in 1837 for $30,000 after his death.)

James Madison of Virginia was a quiet fellow, but you could always tell that his mind was working and sifting through ideas. He stayed at Mrs. House’s boarding house, and he kept a candle burning all night so he could get up at any time and write down thoughts as they came to him. He told her he’d always done that. He never slept but 3 or 4 hours anyway.

Mrs. House didn’t know whether to charge him extra for all the candles. She had other boarders from Virginia, including Governor Edmund Randolph.

These dedicated men worked six days a week from 10-3 with only a 10 day break. It was during this July 4 break that James Madison and a few others put together a rough draft.

Their work took place in the Committee of Assembly Chamber Around tables laden with candlesticks, books, paper, ink wells, quill pens, and clay pipes. The newspapers printed regular articles of encouragement. Ben Franklin livened up the proceedings by using his cane to trip various delegates.

The city street commissioners had gravel put down in front of the State House to muffle the sounds of carriages and horses so as not to disturb them. Philadelphia was proud of the history being made there. In those summer months debates, bitter arguments, and compromises were on the daily docket; it was a time of hot weather and even hotter emotions.

George Washington later wrote to his friend Lafayette, “It (the Constitution) appears to me, then, as little short of a miracle.”

The American Revolution had been over for four years, and the Articles of Confederation weren’t strong enough to hold the new states together. In 1786 Alexander Hamilton called for another convention to create a stronger government.

These men called it the Grand Convention or the Federal Convention. Today its name is the Constitutional Convention. Except for Rhode Island, all states were represented. George Washington was elected President.

George Washington’s presence made the convention a prestigious event. His arrival in Philadelphia was spectacular, and a spontaneous parade quickly formed. The general was riding in his fine little coach called a chariot, and he was met by the officers of the Revolution. All those officers were joined by the Philadelphia Light Horse Company, and they rode into the city all in uniform. The city church bells were rung; some cannons were fired, and most all of Philadelphia turned out along the way to applaud the general.

He was going to stay at Mrs. House’s Boarding House, but Robert and Mary Morris insisted he be their guest.  It was one of the most elegant homes in the city. Washington just took time enough to get his things in, and then he set out to pay a call on his 81 year-old friend Benjamin Franklin.

One by one the delegates arrived and began their work.

Time moved slowly during those summer months, but the men continued their meetings.

Three plans for the Constitution were looked at, and a compromise finally reached for the institution of executive, legislative, and judicial arms of government. All states would have equal representation in the Senate, and the elected officials for the House would be based on population. Even on that last day, a change was made to lower the population number for representatives.

George Washington was the first to sign his name. As the delegates moved to sign the Constitution on September 17, it was Franklin, who on the last day of the Convention said of the rising sun chair that Washington had sat in at the front of the room for four months. “During the past four months of this convention, I have often looked at the painting. And I was never able to say if the picture showed a morning sun or an evening sun. But now, at last, I know I am happy to say it is a morning sun, the beginning of a new day.”

On the night of September 17, the delegates met for one last time together at the City Tavern on Second Street to celebrate the birthplace of America’s new Government.

It seems fitting that they chose this tavern in Philadelphia. Built in 1773, many had stayed there during the First Continental Congress. A few months earlier, Paul Revere had ridden up to the Tavern with the news of the closing of the port of Boston by the British.

These leading figures of the Revolutionary War would now go back to their home states and encourage them to ratify the Constitution of the United States of America.

As James Madison proclaimed, “The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.”

Historically, new governments come about because of war or chance. Madison’s  words ring true today, as we continue to celebrate this living document.

The Framers of the American Constitution were visionaries. They designed our Constitution to endure. They sought not only to address the specific challenges facing our nation during their lifetimes, but to establish, broad foundational principles that would sustain and guide the new nation into an uncertain future, even in September, 2015.

As Samuel Adams, Harvard graduate and Sons of Liberty once said, “It does not take a majority to prevail…but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men.”

Happy birthday to the Constitution of the United States of America!

I have pictures in my mind of my brother Critt and I standing or sitting beside each other as we watched life. He was always to the left of me.

We watched people and vehicles move up and down Wentworth Street in Charleston. I paid attention to the women and their clothes, and he trained his eyes on the cars and bicycles. Our grandparents had a second-floor apartment in a huge house, and the front porch ran the length of it. A sturdy balustrade kept us in, but there was room to look through.

At Lulu’s farm in Kentucky, we climbed a rickety, three-rail fence to watch the cows walk from the barn to the field. Their shifting bodies reminding us of walking boats. We never understood how they knew it was time to wander back to the barn to be milked in the afternoon. It seemed they could tell time. They were always a bit curious about us.

Critt liked to watch the planes at the Downtown Spartanburg Airport, and he was content to while away more time there than I was. We would lean over the short concrete wall or sit on its top and wonder where the planes were going. I tended to guess Charleston, and he would guess Texas. He enjoyed western movies and programs like our Daddy.

On Labor Day weekends, we always went to Hendersonville, NC. Lots of family lived there, and the Apple Festival was the place to be. We had the best seats for the parade, because we sat on the curb. With knees under our chins, we waved our flags and clapped for the different performers.

Childhood memories are often seen through rose-colored glasses. I had never thought about the ways that he and I practiced watching the various processions in our small worlds until recently. We enjoyed the exhibits and learned about variety, as well as appreciated its diversity. It was all so captivating.

What about packing a basket with fried chicken, watermelon, pimento cheese sandwiches, deviled eggs, and potato chips? In a cooler, put gallons of lemonade and sweet iced tea. Then find a cool place under a shade tree or beside a stream and lay a red-and-white gingham tablecloth for a picnic.

Or even take your lunch and sit in the back yard. It’s the being outside and enjoying nature, even if the ants show up. Don’t forget the chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Doesn’t this sound like a good way to celebrate September?

As someone said, ““A picnic is an opportunity to escape the ordinary and embrace the extraordinary beauty of the outdoors.”

On Saturday, August 19, 2023, South Carolina Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution, and Children of the American Revolution will celebrate the Patriot victory over Tory troops that happened on August 18, 1780.

During that summer, Loyalist troops camped at Edward Musgrove’s land, because it was prime real estate. The ford across the Enoree River on his property provided a known crossing. His gristmill provided food for hungry soldiers, and its location provided a convenient and recognizable gathering place for the British. In an effort to gain control of communication and transportation throughout the backcountry, the British took control of the ford and the mill, setting up camp around Edward’s home. Tents covered the property, and the house was a hospital.

A group of 200 Patriot militiamen rode to strike what they thought was an equal number of Loyalists at Musgrove Mill. Instead, they found themselves badly outnumbered, the Tories having been joined by 300 provincial regulars from the British post at Ninety Six. A retreat was impossible, a frontal assault suicidal. The Patriots were unable to either retreat or make a frontal assault. Using their wits, they lured the Loyalists into attacking them.

The Patriot force consisted of Georgians under Colonel Elijah Clarke, South Carolinians under Colonel James Williams, and a group of “Over Mountain Men” from present-day Tennessee commanded by Colonel Isaac Shelby.

With their position compromised by an enemy patrol and horses unable to go on without rest, the Patriots understood that they must stand and fight despite being outnumbered better than two to one. At the top of a ridge across the road leading down to Musgrove Mill, the partisans quickly formed a semicircular breastwork of brush and fallen timber about three hundred yards long.

In the best tradition of guerrilla tactics, a band of about 20 men under the leadership of Captain Shadrach Inman crossed the Enoree and engaged the enemy. Feigning confusion they retreated back toward the line of ambush until the Loyalists were nearly on the Patriot line. When the Loyalists spotted the Patriot line, they fired too early. The Patriots, however, held their fire until the Loyalists got within killing range of their muskets.

Patriot musket fire operated “with devastating effect.” Nonetheless, the Tory regulars were well disciplined and nearly overwhelmed the Patriot right flank with a bayonet charge. Isaac Shelby ordered his reserve of “Over the Mountain Men” to support him, and they rushed into the battle shrieking Indian war cries. The Tories wavered, and when a number of their officers went down, they broke. Their guerilla warfare prevailed and won.

Patriots ran from their positions “yelling, shooting, and slashing on every hand.” The whole battle took perhaps an hour. The backcountry made sure that their enemy knew that a line had been drawn in the sand. They chose with their lives on the line to not be ruled by a foreign king any longer.

As the Patriots rode away, there was hope in their hearts because of this decisive win.

And it was only two months later that the Battle of Kings Mountain would be fought. And once again, the British saw that the backcountry meant business.

Visiting the Musgrove Mill Historic site gives us another opportunity to walk through history.

Today is National Purple Heart Day. It is a special opportunity to say “Thank You” to the nearly two million brave men and women who fought for our nation’s freedom, and bear the physical scars of war.

The original Purple Heart, designated as a Badge of Merit, was awarded by George Washington in 1782. There was a lack of funds in the Continental Army at the time so the award was a way to honor enlisted and deserving people. The honor is presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious action.” It was designed with a piece of silk bound through it with a thin edge of silver. Washington only gave out three of the badges himself, and instead authorized subordinates to issue the badges as they saw fit.

The Badge of Merit faded from use but was revived and relaunched in 1932, this time as the Purple Heart. As well as honoring those wounded in combat, this iteration of the Purple Heart recognized commendable action. It was in 1944 that the policy was tweaked slightly and the Purple Heart was given the purpose we know it for today, specifically to honor those who have been wounded or died.

The first service member to be given the modern Purple Heart was General Douglas MacArthur for his service in the Pacific theater during World War II. In total there have been 1.8 million Purple Hearts awarded over the years.for his service in the Pacific theater (specifically in the Philippines) during World War II.

Army Lieutenant Anne G. Fox for her heroic actions during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Annie, who was serving as the chief nurse at Hickam Field, Hawaii, remained calm throughout the attack on Pearl Harbor and her hospital, and successfully directed hospital staff to tend to the wounded as they came in from the harbor.

Purple Heart Day was first observed in 2014 and has been observed every year since. It’s a chance to reflect on the bravery of those who have fought for the U.S. and to ensure that their courage is never forgotten.

My daddy, Samuel Moore Collins, fought in World War II. He was a member of the Citadel Class of 1944. Their class left their military training in their junior year to join various armed services to fight for freedom. Daddy was a radioman in the Army, so he communicated artillery information between the field and command. At the Battle of the Bulge, he was hit with shrapnel in both his legs and ended up in a hospital in France. For the rest of his life, he carried both the little chunks of metal and scar from others.

Thank you for your service, ladies and gentlemen!

While taking her husband and sons supplies at the prison in Seventy-Six on July 11, 1780, Jane Thomas overheard a conversation between two Tory women. They were talking about a surprise attack that was planned against a Rebel camp at Cedar Springs for the following night (John Buchanan 112).

Jane knew that Rebel camp well. It was the meeting site for the Spartan Regiment, led now by her son, John. Her reactions quickly became a plan to protect these sixty men. Her horse ride to encourage her imprisoned husband and two sons at Ninety-Six was now a rescue plan for another son.

“Cedar Spring derived its name from a large cedar tree that formerly ornamented the banks of this fine spring, which is about fifty feet in circumference. It has three principal fountains or sources of supply, which force the water from the bowels of the earth, forming a beautiful basin three feet deep” (Lyman Draper 74).

As the opening photograph for Conner Runyon’s “Did the First Cedar Springs Skirmish Really Happen?” in the Journal of the American Revolution is a recent photograph of the beautiful Cedar Spring. The sun-dappled water is an invitation for a picnic, not a war games meeting of citizen soldiers, as it was in July, 1780.

Another sixty-mile ride on horseback was Jane’s plan for the next day. Leaving early in the morning would give her time to not wear the horse out. This determined mother and grandmother knew she could warn her son of the danger before the British attackers arrived (Logan). After a grueling horseback ride, probably bareback, Jane delivered her message and then left for home. She had done her best to alert them and save lives.

She must have been exhausted, but even more grateful, that she had been in the right place and time to hear the Tory plans of attack and be able to intervene for the safety of her family and other friends of liberty.

Colonel Thomas, Jr. quickly laid out a surprise for the British that night. He set his camp fires for the look of a camp asleep. The soldier volunteers rolled up their blankets to appear as a sleeping roll. Silence covered the camp, and then the militia sneaked away. They hid in the woods and waited. Rifles were primed for signs of the enemy.

Before long, around 150 Loyalists quietly jumped off their horses on the outskirts of the Whig camp and quietly made their way toward the dim light of the banked fires.

The hidden, Whig soldiers saw the enemy’s shadows, and the first volley fired. Looking into the dark from the camp, the Tories could see nothing.

Rather than catching snoring rebels rolled up in their blankets, a hidden force of shrill rifles greeted the British. There was a sudden and quick retreat. They ran in panic (Wes Hope 40).

Celebration was in the air, as these Patriots saw their enemy run from them, not toward them. Their resistance and win against Ferguson’s forces was the boost they needed, as did the Back Country Whigs, all because of the warning by Jane Thomas.

For eight years, the lives of the Thomas family were centered on war. Striving for liberty and freedom took over their days and nights. Defending her hearth and home was behind every decision that Jane Thomas made. She was steadfast and dependable; Jane was relentless in preserving her family.

Posted in the Charleston Carolina Gazette was Jane’s obituary, which gives us more clues about her personality and what others knew of this remarkable woman.

DIED, on the 16th of April, in the 91st year of her age, Mrs. Jane Thomas, wife of Col. John Thomas. She was descended from respectable parents of the name of Black, in the state of Pennsylvania, was an useful member of society, and a pious christian of the Presbyterian persuasion, The husband of her youth is left, dove like, to lament his irreparable loss, and though old and decriped, he feels it most sensibly–Her children, grand-children and great- grand children, are very numerous; while they lament their loss, they are consoled with the hope that she is gone to the friend of sinners Jesus Christ. She was a sincere and spirited whig. In the year 1779, when the tories attacked the house of her husband, to get at a magazine kept there, she cooperated with her son and son-in-law in guarding it. While they fired on the assailants, she advanced in front of them, with a sword in her hand and dared them to come on. They were intimidated and retired. She steadily refused to drink any tea after the revolutionary war commenced, saying “it was the blood of some of the poor men who first fell in the war.” She enjoyed good health throughout her long life, lived on a spare diet, with frequent draughts of butter-milk but never took any physic.

It is obvious from these words of respect that Jane Thomas lived out the words from Leviticus inscribed on the Liberty Bell, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof” (25:10).

Huzzah!

Today is June 28, 2023, and it is Carolina Day. This is the anniversary of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island that was fought during the Revolutionary War in 1776. The Battle of Sullivan’s Island was the first major patriot victory in the Revolutionary War.

It was an amazing victory for the Patriots against the mighty British navy. Nine British warships mounting nearly 270 guns (cannon) were soundly defeated by Colonel William Moultrie and about 400 Continental soldiers defending an uncompleted fort. Out-manned and out-supplied, the militia stood their ground., knowing they didn’t stand a chance.

Portrait of Colonel William Moultrie

“Moultrie’s square fort had 500′ long double walls, ten feet high and sixteen feet apart, filled with sand, and punctuated by embrasures (openings for the guns); construction of the rear (landward) portion had not been completed. When the British began firing, the Continentals had thirty-one cannon, and less than thirty rounds of powder. Moultrie’s orders were not to waste fire, and “never did men fight more bravely, and never were men more cool.” During the day, boats delivered supplies of gunpowder from Charleston and Mount Pleasant, but there was still too little for comfort. At one point, Moultrie stopped firing entirely, reserving powder for the muskets that would be needed against a land attack. However, Clinton’s army failed to cross Breach Inlet, defeated by the treacherous tides and American infantry.

“An early casualty of the engagement was a young soldier remembered only as Sgt McDaniel.

All we know about the soldier are his actions in the last moments of his life: When a British canon ball tore through his torso and drove him into the sandy earth, McDaniel’s last words were not expressions of anguish, regret, or pain. Instead, he raised his bloody body up onto his knees and with his last breath, he bellowed, “Fight on my brave boys; Do not let liberty expire with me today!”

What a rallying cry that must have been!

The battle of Sullivan’s Island lasted nearly ten hours. The British cannon had no effect on the earth-filled palmetto log walls of the fort; only the shots that came above the wall or through the embrasures took any lives. Thousands of people, both civilians and militia, observed the action from Charleston, standing along the Cooper River or beneath lookouts perched on high roofs. Early in the day, a cannonball broke the mast of the fort’s flag, and it fell from view. Agonized spectators feared the Americans had struck the flag and given up the defense. According to Moultrie, Sergeant William Jasper “jumped from one of the embrasures, and brought it up through a heavy fire, fixed it upon a staff, and planted it upon the ramparts again,” visible to the onlookers several miles away.

William Moultrie’s men continued firing even after sunset, listening as their shots hit the British ships. Finally, Parker called a retreat and moved his ships out of range; Moultrie sent a dispatch boat to inform those in town that the navy had retired.” (The Preservation Society of Charleston)

PBS produced this video several years ago that tell this story of bravery among the colonists.

https://www.pbs.org/video/carolina-day-mtyekc/

The Palmetto Society has organized a Carolina Day event since the group was first established in 1777. Traditionally, the organization marks the patriot victory at the Battle of Sullivan’s Island with a service of thanksgiving at St. Michael’s, followed by a procession to White Point Garden. There are also festivities at Fort Moultrie to enjoy.

What an opportunity to celebrate the patriotism of South Carolina by participating in this commemoration. See you next year in Charleston!

The year Samuel Moore Collins, my daddy, died, I wrote about his class at the Citadel. He was in the Class of ’44, but after their sophomore year, their lives drastically changed. They left the Citadel to fight in World War II. Some returned to finish their education, and others chose another school.

After interviewing several of his classmates, the “Sandlapper” magazine chose to print his article on these heroes.

Here is part of their story in “The Class That Never Was.”

The Class That Never Was

“I am seeking. I am striving. I am in it with all my heart,” said Vincent van Gogh.

After watching John with his paintbrush and paper or a hook knife and wood for many years, I have seen a certain look in his eyes as he visualized and then created.

When John and I visited the SAR Museum and library in Louisville, Kentucky several years ago, I bought a scarf in the store. I was intrigued by the pattern and delicacy of the flowers on the black background. The story of the creator Mary Delany, who started a career, at 72 in the 18^th century amazed me, and I thought you might be, too.

Imagine starting your life’s work at seventy-two. At just that age, Mary Granville Pendarves Delany (May 14, 1700-April 15, 1788), a fan of George Frederic Handel, a sometime dinner partner of satirist Jonathan Swift, a wearer of green-hooped satin gowns, and a fiercely devoted subject of blond King George III, invented a precursor of what we know today as collage.

After her second husband died, she was given a cottage at Windsor by her friends George III and his queen Charlotte. An acquaintance during her life of virtually everyone worth knowing, including political figures such as Edmund Burke and the writer Fanny Burney, she was a popular figure into her old age, and her written work is a valuable asset for Georgian historians.

One afternoon in 1772 she noticed how a piece of colored paper matched the dropped petal of a geranium. After making that vital imaginative connection between paper and petal, she lifted the eighteenth-century equivalent of an X-Acto blade (she’d have called it a scalpel) or a pair of filigree-handled scissors — the kind that must have had a nose so sharp and delicate that you could almost imagine it picking up a scent. With the instrument alive in her still rather smooth-skinned hand, she began to maneuver, carefully cutting the exact geranium petal shape from the scarlet paper. (She ignored her arthritis and poor vision.)

Then she snipped out another.

And another, and another, with the trance-like efficiency of repetition — commencing the most remarkable work of her life: a series of almost a thousand cut paper botanical collages, each flower composed of hundreds of dots, squiggles, and moons of bright paper on dramatic black backgrounds. Each flower steps forth as onto a lit stage and takes center stage.

Seventy-two years old. It gives a person hope. It gives me hope of the other books and articles I want to write.

Mrs. Delany’s Passion Flower, Passiflora laurifolia Under a Magnifying Glass

When Mrs. D. picked up her scissors, grief was the chief prompt. After the death of her beloved second husband Dean Patrick Delany in 1768, which followed the death of her sister Anne in 1761, she wrote that she considered each of her flower portraits to be “an employment and amusement, to supply the loss of those that had formerly been delightful to me; but had lost their power of pleasing; being depriv’d of that friend, whose partial approbation was my pride, and had stampt a value on them.”

The Paper Garden is a biography of this woman, and here is her portrait.

Mary Granville Pendarves Delany

Surviving an arranged marriage at 17 to a sixty-one-year-old alcoholic and then a loving second marriage, she combined propriety and inner fire when she designed her own clothes, crafted exquisite embroidery, took drawing lessons with Louis Goupy, cultivated stalwart, lifelong friends (and watched her mentor William Hogarth paint a portrait of one of them), played the harpsichord and attended John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, owned adorable cats, and wrote six volumes’ worth of letters — most of them to her sister, Anne Granville Dewes (1701-61), signifying a deep, cherished relationship that anyone with a sister might understand. In those letters are reminisces of the royals, their family, and court life that have helped historians with their research on the Georgian age.

Here are photos of her paintings that can be seen in the British Museum. A delicate touch mixed with precision join in her work.

I am amazed at what she did. No, she didn’t live in the colonies, as they were called then, but in the middle of London society. She chose her own path and created beauty through paper blooms. I love my scarf. Every time I wear it, I remember this indomitable woman who created a new art for all to admire.

I wonder what new styles, fashions, or grandeurs she might have started in Charlestown?

Henry Ward Beecher said, “Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures.” As we look at her creations, that beauty was in the soul of Mary Delany!

It seems like the Battlefield at Cowpens,about twenty miles from where I live has always been a part of our family.

Our son Scott walked the trail as a scout, camped there as a scout, and then studied the tactics of General Daniel Morgan while in ROTC at Furman.

When John joined the Daniel Morgan Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution, they hosted a celebration at the park for the National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. When he became president of his chapter, he had the privilege of organizing this celebration. He also enjoyed marching in the state color guard to begin the program.

Then I wrote a biography about Kate Moore Barry, who was one of the scouts who sent her husband and brother to join the militia who fought at this battle. It is called “Courageous Kate.” One summer, I worked part time as a teacher at the battlefield teaching workshops to various school groups. Then I had the privilege of speaking and signing books at many of their celebrations.

Many books and articles have been written about this famous battle that turned the tide of the American Revolution.

Even Lord Cornwallis admitted to a superior force on the battlefield when he wrote, “The disaster of the 17th of January cannot be imputed to any defect in my conduct, as the detachment was certainly superior to the force against which it was sent…”

From the journal of Lt. Thomas Anderson from Delaware that provides an excellent telling from the perspective of a Continental infantry officer.

January 17, 1781: Before day reced information that col Tarlton was within five miles of us with a strong body of horse and infantry whereon we got up and put ourselves in order of battle by day light they have in sight halted and form’d the line in full view. as we had no artillery to annoy them and the Genl not thinking it prudent to advance from the ground we had form’d. We look’d at each other for a considerable time, about sunrise they began the attack by the discharge of two pieces of cannon and three huzzas advancing briskly on our riffelmen that was posted in front who fought well disputing the ground that was between them and us. flying from one tree to another at last being forst to give ground they fell back in our rear the enemy seeing us standing in such good order halted for some time to dress their line which outflanked ours considerably. They then advanced on boldly under a very heavy fire untill they got within a few yards of us but their line was so much longer than ours they turn’d our flanks which caused us to fall back some distance. The enemy thinking that we were broke set up a great shout charged us with their bayonets but in no order. We let them come within ten or fifteen yards of us then give them a full volley and at the same time charged them home. They not expecting any such thing put them in such confusion that we were in amongst them with the bayonets which caused them to give ground and at last to take to the flight. But we followed them up so close that they never could get in order again untill we killed and took the whole of the infantry prisoners. At the same time that we charged, Col Washington charged the horse which soon give way. We followed them ten miles but not being able to come up with them returned back to the field of battle that night and lay amongst the dead & wounded very well pleased with our days work. March this day.

The painter, Don Troiana, brought these words to life in his painting, “The Battle of Cowpens.”

Samuel Adams said on the day of the battles at Concord and Lexington, “What a glorious morning.” Perhaps someone said the same after this battle.

One other visual for you from YouTube is this short background video on that day!

Huzzah! We must remember those men who never wavered and put their lives on the line for our liberty.

Norman Vincent Peale said, “Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.”

“Silent Night” is about a calm and bright silent night, and the wonder of a tender and mild newborn child, words written in 1816 by a young priest in Austria, Joseph Mohr, not long after the Napoleonic wars had taken their toll.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=n036kBC1HEw%3Ffeature%3Doembed

In 1818, a roving band of actors was performing in towns throughout the Austrian Alps. On December 23 they arrived at Oberndorf, a village near Salzburg where they were to re-enact the story of Christ’s birth in the small Church of St. Nicholas.

Unfortunately, the St. Nicholas’ church organ wasn’t working and would not be repaired before Christmas. (Note: some versions of the story point to mice as the problem; others say rust was the culprit) Because the church organ was out of commission, the actors presented their Christmas drama in a private home.

That Christmas presentation of the events in the first chapters of Matthew and Luke put assistant pastor Josef Mohr in a meditative mood. Instead of walking straight home that night, Mohr took a longer way to his house. The longer path took him up on a hill overlooking the village.

From that hilltop, Mohr looked down on the peaceful snow-covered village. Reveling in majestic silence of the wintry night, Mohr gazed down at the Christmas-card like scene. His thoughts about the Christmas play he had just watched made him remember a poem he had written a couple of years before. That poem was about the night when angels announced the birth of the long-awaited Messiah to shepherds on a hillside.

Mohr decided those words might make a good carol for his congregation the following evening at their scheduled Christmas eve service. The one problem was that he didn’t have any music to which that poem could be sung. So, the next day Mohr went to see the church organist, Franz Xaver Gruber. Gruber only had a few hours to compose a melody which could be sung with a guitar.

However, by that evening, Gruber had managed to compose a musical setting for the poem. That the church organ was inoperable no longer mattered to Mohr and Gruber. They now had a Christmas carol that could be sung.

Photo of original church buildingnear Salzburg, Austria, in which “Silent Night”was first performed

On Christmas Eve, the small Oberndorf congregation heard Gruber and Mohr sing their new composition to the accompaniment of Gruber’s guitar.

It was Christmas Eve, 1818, when the now-famous carol was first performed as Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht. Joseph Mohr, the young priest who wrote the lyrics, played the guitar and sang along with Franz Xaver Gruber, the choir director who had written the melody.

Franz Xaver Gruber (1787-1863)

Joseph Franz Mohr (1792-1848)

An organ builder and repair man working at the church took a copy of the six-verse song to his home village. There, it was picked up and spread by two families of traveling folk singers, who performed around northern Europe. In 1834, the Strasser family performed it for the King of Prussia. In 1839, the Rainer family of singers debuted the carol outside Trinity Church in New York City.

The composition evolved, and was translated into over 300 languages with many different arrangements for various voices and ensembles. It was sung in churches, in town squares, even on the battlefield during World War I, when, during a temporary truce on Christmas Eve, soldiers sang carols from home. “Silent Night,” by 1914, known around the world, was sung simultaneously in French, German and English.

Over the years, the carol’s mystique grew with its popularity. After the original manuscript was lost, for decades, some speculated that the music had been written by Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven. In 1994, an original manuscript was found in Mohr’s handwriting, with Gruber named as composer.

Children and adults are touched by the words. And even in war, its impact crosses enemy lines.

The power of the carol was never so clear as on Christmas Eve 1914, when fighting on the battlefields of World War I stopped – and a lone soldier’s exquisite voice made history.

“It was impromptu, no one planned it,” Stanley Weintraub, the author of Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce, told Daybreak South’s Chris Walker.

“It has to begin with something, and it did begin with elements of shared culture. If it hadn’t been for shared culture, certainly there would have been no Christmas truce.”

Weintraub said it started with German officer, Walter Kirchhoff, a tenor with the Berlin Opera.

“He came forward and sang Silent Night in German, and then in English. In the clear, cold night of Christmas Eve, his voice carried very far.

“The shooting had stopped and in that silence he sang and the British knew the song and sang back.”

Gradually the troops crawled forward into No Man’s Land, said Weintraub.

The song had a deep impact on many of the soldiers.

“Soldiers … wrote home the day after to their families, to their wives, and to their parents, saying, ‘You won’t believe this. It was like a waking dream.'”

“They recognized that on both ends of the rifle, they were the same.”

An illustration from the London News, originally published Jan. 9, 1915, showing the temporary ceasefire in World War I over the Christmas of 1914.

The song’s fundamental message of peace, even in the midst of suffering, has bridged cultures and generations. Great songs do this. They speak of hope in hard times and of beauty that arises from pain; they offer comfort and solace; and they are inherently human and infinitely adaptable.

Over 200 years later from the first singing of this hymn, we still sing with hope in our hearts “Silent night. Holy night. All is calm. All is bright.”

As Charles Dickens said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

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