NC officials definitively ID Blackbeard’s ship

After a decade and a half of indecision regarding the identify of a shipwreck off the North Carolina coast, state officials have determined that the vessel resting just off Fort Macon is that of Blackbeard the pirate’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

“We have now changed our position, and we are quite categorically saying that it’s the Queen Anne’s Revenge,” said Jeffrey Crow, deputy secretary for the Office of Archives and History of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, which oversees the efforts to recover and display the remains of the ship.

It took years of research and the recovery and analysis of tens of thousands of artifacts to make the confirmation, Crow told McClatchy Newspapers.

The Queen Anne’s Revenge, a 300-ton vessel, was a man-of-war built in England in 1710. Originally named the Concord, she was captured by the French in 1711 and modified to hold more cargo, including slaves, and renamed La Concorde de Nantes.

Paper money’s inauspicious start in the US

Many Americans assume the use of paper money in the North America didn’t begin until the 1770s, when the Continental Congress issued Continental currency in a desperate bid to finance the Revolutionary War.

However, nearly a century earlier the colonial government of Massachusetts became the first governing body in the western hemisphere to issue paper money, beginning in 1690.

Massachusetts, at that time an English colony, was accustomed to launching plunder expeditions against the prosperous French colony in Quebec.

Generally, the expeditions were successful, and afterward would return to Boston, sell their booty, and pay off the soldiers with the proceeds, according to the late economist Murray Rothbard.

Remembering America’s first chief engineer

On this date in 1710, Richard Gridley was born in Boston. Though a relative unknown compared to some heroes of the American Revolution, Gridley in his time was widely regarded as one of the most distinguished military characters of his era.

He was renowned for personal bravery and considered a contemporary of George Washington, Israel Putnam and Henry Knox.

Gridley was a military engineer during the French and Indian Wars, from the reduction of Fortress Louisbourg in 1745 to the fall of Quebec 14 years later.

For his services he was awarded a commission in the British Army, a grant of the Magdalen Islands, 3,000 acres in land in New Hampshire and a life annuity.

When the American Revolution began in 1775, Gridley sided with the Thirteen Colonies and was made chief engineer in the New England Provincial Army. He laid out the defenses on Breed’s Hill and was wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill, at age 64.

George III on how not to handle a crisis

Some 235 years ago on this date, King George III, in a Speech from the Throne at the opening of Parliament, declared the American colonies in rebellion and authorized a military response to quell the American Revolution.

Of course, this was more than six months after actions at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775.

In the meantime, the 13 colonies had called out their militias, the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the Second Continental Congress convened and the Continental Army was created.

But, given the slow manner in which news traveled in those days, George can hardly be faulted for being a little slow on the uptake. 

Remembering the Battle of Lexington

The opening shots of the American Revolution were fired on this day 235 years ago, on the town square in Lexington, Mass.

The result was hardly surprising given that just a few dozen patriots were facing several hundred regular British soldiers; eight colonists were killed and many others injured, while just a single British infantryman was wounded.

Yet from that beginning, the Thirteen Colonies eventually outworked, outmaneuvered and outlasted the British – the greatest military power of the time - and earned their independence.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, the British found themselves in Lexington, en route to Concord with secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were reportedly stored in that community by the Massachusetts militia.

As the advance guard of the British troops entered Lexington at sunrise, 77 Lexington militiamen emerged from a local tavern and stood in ranks on the village common watching them. Another 40 to 100 spectators watched from along the side of the road. 

In large part, the militia effort was a family affair: Of the colonists who lined up, nine had the surname Harrington, seven Munroe, four Parker, three Tidd, three Locke and three Reed; fully one quarter of them were related to Captain John Parker in some way.

Parker was aware that his forces couldn’t match up to the British and it is said that he was not prepared to risk his forces. However, he was later supposed to have made a statement, “Stand your ground; don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here.”

To this day, no one knows for certain who fired the first shot. Some speculate that it came from someone away from the field of action while others have proposed that there may actually have been multiple near-simultaneous shots from both sides.

Witnesses at the scene described several intermittent shots fired from both sides before the lines of regulars began to fire volleys without receiving orders to do so. When the colonists realized they were heavily outgunned, they tried to scamper away. The British regulars then charged forward with bayonets. 

The eight colonists killed were John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathon Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Asahel Porter and Jonas Parker. Harrington, fatally wounded by a British musket ball, managed to crawl back to his home, where he died on his own doorstep.

As the militia fell back, the regulars proceeded on to Concord, where they searched for the supplies. But at the North Bridge in Concord, several hundred militiamen fought and defeated three companies of the King’s troops.

More militiamen arrived soon thereafter and inflicted heavy damage on the regulars as they marched back towards Boston.

In all, the colonists suffered about 50 killed on April 19, 1775, while the British lost about 80 men.

It was a stunning start to an event that would ultimately culminate in the creation of the United States of America.