Reading 3 of 6 free1776 Club · all 6 storiesSunday, August 23
From the desk
Start with 1775: George III's proclamation branding the colonies in "open and avowed rebellion," drafted, notably, before London had even seen the colonists' Olive Branch Petition asking for peace. That single fact tells you how far apart king and colonies already stood. Worth a longer look: Eugene Bullard, turned away by the U.S. Army Air Service for his race, flew fighters for France in WWI and wasn't commissioned a Second Lieutenant by the Air Force until 1994, 33 years after he died. Fort Morgan's broken sword is worth a glance too.
— The Patriot Compass desk
1775Featured · This day in history
George III declares the colonies in "open and avowed rebellion"
About four months after shots were fired at Lexington and Concord, King George III moved to declare, formally, whether Britain would treat the fighting in America as war or as treason. On August 23, 1775, King George III issued A Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, branding the colonies as being in "open and avowed rebellion" and ordering imperial officials to "use their utmost endeavours to withstand and suppress" it. The proclamation went further, urging subjects across the empire to inform on anyone in "traitorous correspondence" with the rebels. It was drafted before Lord Dartmouth even had a copy of the colonists' Olive Branch Petition asking for peace.
The proclamation reached colonial moderates like John Dickinson just as they were staking their credibility on the Olive Branch Petition, which argued the king would still choose reconciliation over Parliament's hard line. George III's answer arrived instead as a warrant for suppression, and colonial attachment to the crown, already strained, snapped. Ten months later, Congress listed those same grievances in the Declaration of Independence.
Did you know
QWhat specific act of retaliation did Congress threaten over the proclamation's informant clause?
Congress's December 6, 1775 response didn't just object to being called traitors. It issued a direct warning to the crown: any British subject who was punished for 'favouring, aiding, or abetting the cause of American liberty' would face retaliation from the colonies. This meant Congress was claiming the power to retaliate against actions taken on British soil, not just in the colonies.
QHow did George III describe the rebels' true goal when he spoke to Parliament that October?
Two months after the proclamation, on October 27, 1775, the king addressed Parliament directly from the throne and went further than the August document had. He insisted the rebellion wasn't really about grievances at all, claiming the colonists' actual ambition was to carve out an 'independent empire' for themselves. It was the king publicly naming independence, not reform, as the rebels' actual goal.
QWhat earlier document from Congress did the proclamation effectively override before it even arrived?
Congress had spent weeks in July 1775 drafting and approving the Olive Branch Petition, a carefully worded appeal asking George III to step in personally and broker peace with Parliament. Lord Dartmouth, the official responsible for colonial affairs, hadn't even received his copy of that petition by the time the proclamation was drafted. The king's proclamation was already drafted before he had read that petition.
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1864military
Fort Morgan falls; Page breaks his sword rather than hand it over
Two weeks of Union siege guns had left Fort Morgan's walls battered and its garrison worn down. On August 23, 1864, Brig. Gen. Richard L. Page surrendered the fort unconditionally to forces under Gordon Granger, refusing to hand over his sword and breaking it across his knee instead. The surrender followed Admiral David Farragut's naval victory in the bay on August 5 and Fort Gaines's fall shortly after. With Fort Morgan gone, Mobile was effectively sealed off as a Confederate port, though other Southern ports such as Wilmington remained open.
Mobile Bay's closure was the last major blow to a Confederate blockade-running economy that had kept the South armed and financed through blockade-running trade with Europe. With only Galveston left, the Union blockade now controlled nearly every Confederate Gulf port. The fight also produced one of the war's enduring lines, Farragut's order to "damn the torpedoes" as his fleet entered the mine-strewn bay, which entered American military memory alongside the fort's fall.
Did you know
QWhat family tie linked Fort Morgan's Confederate commander to the Confederacy's top general?
Richard L. Page was a first cousin of Robert E. Lee, making the Fort Morgan surrender a family matter within the Confederate high command as well as a military one. Page had spent decades in the U.S. Navy before resigning to join the Confederacy, and by 1864 he held the rank of brigadier general commanding the garrison at Mobile Point. His relation to Lee did not shield him from suspicion once Federal officers accused him of destroying munitions after agreeing to surrender terms. He was arrested and imprisoned regardless of the family name attached to him. The connection illustrates how tightly interwoven the Confederacy's officer corps was, with cousins and old Army colleagues sometimes commanding opposite ends of the same defense.
QWhat specific act of sabotage did Confederate gunners actually commit before the flag went up?
The court of inquiry that cleared Page of destroying the fort's works still confirmed one deliberate act: Confederate artillerymen spiked their own guns before surrendering, driving metal into the touchholes to render the cannons useless to the Federals who would take possession. This was distinct from the ammunition destruction Page was accused of ordering, which investigators blamed on an accidental Citadel fire instead. So the garrison left Fort Morgan's walls intact for Union occupation but spiked its guns so the artillery pieces could not be turned against them.
QWhat relation was General Page to the Confederacy's most famous general?
Richard L. Page was a first cousin of Robert E. Lee. That connection did him no favors when Federal authorities suspected him of destroying munitions after his surrender terms were agreed; his arrest and imprisonment went forward regardless of his family name, and only the court of inquiry's findings secured his release.
1994military
Thirty-three years after his death, the Air Force finally makes Eugene Bullard an officer
Eugene Bullard flew fighters for France in World War I after the U.S. Army Air Service turned him away for his race. On August 23, 1994, 33 years after his death, the United States Air Force posthumously commissioned him as a Second Lieutenant. The ceremony finally recognized the man France had knighted and whose pilots called him "L'Hirondelle noire." His own country had refused to let him fly; decades later, it finally recognized him.
Bullard's posthumous commission is a reminder of what Jim Crow cost the American military: a combat pilot it refused, who then flew and fought for France instead. The 1994 ceremony did not undo the refusal. It put it on the record, decades late.
Did you know
QWhat bet led Bullard to become a pilot in the first place?
While recovering from his Verdun wounds in 1916, Bullard reportedly took up flying because of a wager with fellow soldiers, not out of a lifelong ambition. He learned to fly during his convalescence, then volunteered for the French Air Service once he was fit enough to serve again. It explains why a wounded infantryman with no aviation background ended up in a cockpit at all. From that wager came more than twenty combat missions and a place in French aviation history.
QHow many French decorations did Bullard collect over his military career?
Fourteen. The French government awarded Bullard fourteen separate decorations and medals across his service, including the Legion of Honor, France's highest order of merit. That total reflects two separate wars: his infantry and aviation service in World War I and his intelligence work in World War II. No single American medal ever matched that count, since the U.S. military did not commission him at all until 1994. The number itself is a quiet measure of how thoroughly one country recognized him while another looked away.
QWhat was Bullard wearing when a national television audience finally saw him in 1959?
His elevator operator's uniform. When Dave Garroway interviewed Bullard on NBC's Today Show on December 22, 1959, the decorated former fighter pilot and French war hero appeared not in the wings France had given him, but in the work clothes of his day job as an elevator operator in a New York building. Two years later, in October 1961, he was dead, still without an American commission to his name.
