Battle of Bennington Skies #SkywatchFriday

Bennington Battle Day is a state holiday in Vermont.  It commemorates an important Revolutionary War battle fought on  August 16, 1777. The actual battle was fought on a farm in Walloomsac, New York, which is about 10 miles (16 km) from Bennington.

On August 13, 2022, we went to a battle reenactment held in Hoosick Falls, New York.  There, I took a picture of an encampment under a partially cloudy sky.

Before the battle, we were able to visit the camps of those reenacting participants of both sides, British/Germans vs. Patriots (we would call them Americans today), in addition to about 100 Native Americans.

(If you are interested in the details of the battle, you can find information here.)

This year is our 250th birthday, and I could wish to be in Bennington this weekend but, alas, I won't be able to.

Joining Yogi and other skywatchers for #SkywatchFriday.

Kings Mountain (National Military Park) #AtoZChallenge

I don't know much about the colonial era and our United States' Revolutionary War.  In recent years, we've been trying to fill in some of the gaps of our knowledge.

South Carolina is a good place to fill in some of those gaps, as this colony was the site of over 200 Revolutionary War battles, more than any other state.

The Battle of Kings Mountain (October 7, 1780), which lasted all of 65 minutes,  was a major turning point of the Revolutionary War, yet, in my schooling, I had never heard of it.   President Theodore Roosevelt said of it, "This brilliant victory marked the turning point of the American Revolution."

I learned about two of the South Carolina battles, the Battle of Cowpens and the Battle of Kings Mountain, from visiting the South Carolina State House in Columbia, South Carolina.   The people of South Carolina are justly proud of their role in obtaining the independence of the then-13 colonies.

On our way to Greenville, South Carolina in February, we took a slight detour to visit Kings Mountain National Military Park (not to be confused with Kings Mountain State Park).  This park is near the border of North and South Carolina - in fact, from the South Carolina Welcome Center we had to backtrack and exit off Interstate 85 in North Carolina and use a North Carolina local road to reenter South Carolina and the military park.  This can get a little confusing, but we made it.

Kings Mountain, incidentally, is not named after King George III, but a local settler.

 

To me, battlefields are sacred ground, and Kings Mountain was no exception.  You walk a quiet path on a mid February Sunday, and you would never guess at the bloodshed that occurred here on an October day in 1780.

Until you view historic plaques.

And a marker at the gravesite of a Scottish officer in the British Army, Patrick Ferguson, designer of the Ferguson rifle. (Fans of Louis L'Amour will recognize this name).

The Ferguson Rifle display at the visitor center's museum.

Another monument, showing its age.

Back to the silence of the forest where history was made so many years ago - history that helped to shape the county we of the United States live in today.

"K" Day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge.  My theme:  Exploring South Carolina and the Eastern United States.

Veterans Day

Yesterday was the 48th anniversary of the untimely death of my mother.  I was raised after that point by my father, a single Dad who had to cope all the rest of his life with the aftermath of a head injury suffered (not in combat but in support) in his service in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II.  I've always been aware of how badly we sometimes (well, too many times) treat our veterans here in the United States.

Today, let us all take a moment out of our busy schedules to think of those who made this day possible for us.

Our veterans, past and present, deserve our thanks, and so much more.

As you look at these monuments, please take a moment to ponder the poem at the end of this post.

These are some memorials in our area of upstate New York.  I took the Endicott photos this past August - I wish things were that green here now!

 Endicott, New York, just down Main Street from where I live.

Veterans Memorial statue.

Plaques commemorating the war dead.  An American flag is kept,fresh, on each one.

The war memorials - World War II, which my father served in (in the Army Air Force) as did one of his brothers, and one of his sisters.

The Korean War. When I grew up it wasn't a "war", it was a "police action". But the people were just as dead.

The forgotten war, Vietnam, where our dead were dishonored and our veterans were mocked - a sad thing I will never forget. Both of my next door neighbor boys (growing up in the Bronx) served in 'Nam, as did other young men I grew up with.

Binghamton - part of the Korean War monument on the Broome County courthouse lawn.

And the Revolutionary War monument, also on the Courthouse lawn.

I am not a "poetry person" (although there are a couple of poets I do enjoy) but this poem always touches my heart. Written by a Canadian soldier in 1915 upon the battle death of his friend in Flanders, Belgium, during World War I.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
      Between the crosses, row on row,
   That mark our place; and in the sky
   The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
   Loved and were loved, and now we lie
         In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

What's in a Name?

Today, in the United States, we are celebrating a holiday called....um, no one really knows.

When I was growing up, there was a holiday, Washington's Birthday, which was celebrated on - imagine that, his birthday. February 22. We'll ignore the fact that Washington actually was NOT born on February 22.  He was born on February 11, 1732, under the old Julian calendar.  When Britain switched over to the Gregorian calendar we now use, his birth date was renumbered.

(Can you imagine the chaos today, in our computer-driven world, if they renumbered the calendar?  More proof that our ancestors were more adaptable to change in some ways than we moderns are.)

February 22 became a Federal holiday in 1885. Washington's Birthday, honoring George Washington, our first President.  The beloved "Father of our Country." 

Well, that meant that sometimes the holiday could not be celebrated as a three day weekend.  We couldn't have that, could we?  In the early 1970's it was decided that Washington's birthday, and several other holidays that were celebrated on specific days, would be moved so we could have three day weekends.

So, this holiday was moved to the third Monday of February.  Ironically that also means it can never be celebrated on February 22.


After all these years, most people here no longer call the holiday "Washington's Birthday", although that is still its official name.  It is called either "Presidents' Day" or "President's Day". (Sometimes, Presidents Day with no comma.) And herein lies the power of a comma.

Presidents' Day:  honors all Presidents. President's Day: honors one President.  George Washington. Or maybe not always.

Adding to the confusion, states have passed their own laws specifying what the holiday is called, and the honoree(s) thereof.  Some states honor Washington.  Some states honor Washington and Lincoln (Lincoln was the Federal president during our Civil War 1861-1865). At least one Southern state honors Washington and another President, Thomas Jefferson, as most of the states that seceded during the Civil War still choose not to honor Lincoln in any way, 152 years after the fact.

So, if you are in the United States, happy....uh, whatever your state calls it.

And if you are not from the United States - does your country have something as confusing?

Give Me Liberty or Give Me Sand Gnats

On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry gave his famous (for Americans) "Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death" speech in front of the Virginia Convention.

If Patrick Henry had given that speech in Charleston, SC, I think he would have worked in sand gnats.  I don't know if anyone would prefer death to being a dinner plate for low country sand gnats, but some people might think about it for a few minutes.

Although that famous speech wasn't given here in Charleston, a lot of Revolutionary War history was made in the Charleston area.  One famous building related to this period, built in 1770-1771, was the Old Exchange Building and Provost Dungeon.  It's still there:  very much there, having survived the Revolution, the Civil War, the Earthquake of 1886 and the Hurricane of 1938.  They knew how to build 'in those days'.  (I recommend you read, on the website, just how the building was built. It was a technique perfected by the ancient Romans.)

We were on our way to an antebellum home when, for some reason, this building beckoned.  I love history and, although my major interest right now is the Civil War, I've also visited various sites related to our Revolutionary War.  I was not disappointed.

Part of the the original sea wall of Charleston was found during excavations made during renovations in the 1970's.

The varied history of this building involves pirates, one of whom was hung at nearby White Point Garden (the Battery).

The Declaration of Independence was read to the citizens of Charleston in 1776 from the balcony of the building. (As an irony, slaves were sold next door for a time.)

Still later came the imprisonment of patriots during the British occupation of Charleston. We stood on the very bricks where they lay chained to the wall for some two years, some 25 of them.  Not all made it out alive.  One, patriot Isaac Hayne, executed by the British for treason against the Crown, spent his last night in this building. 

For all that time, gunpowder was hidden, successfully, by the patriots just a few feet away from where the prisoners lay chained.  The British never decided to investigate a locked room to see what was in there.

After the war, the Constitution was ratified by South Carolina in this building.

In 1791, President George Washington attended a reception and ball in his honor in the building.  In the room below, Washington, then 59 years old, spent the night dancing with (it is said) some 260 Charleston women, some of whom swooned (it is said) from the experience.

The building was restored and reopened to the public in 1981.

Besides a lot of Revolutionary War history, there is a very nice Civil War exhibit within the building. 

One day, if I ever visit Charleston again, I might get to that other house....