On this day in 1780, a force led by Benjamin Tallmadge silently crosses the Long Island Sound. You might know Tallmadge for his association with the Culper Spy Ring, but on this occasion, he was on a different sort of mission: George Washington had authorized him to attack a British fort.   The attack came mere weeks after Benedict Arnold’s treason, and Tallmadge would write that “my former scheme of annoying the enemy on Long Island came fresh upon my mind” in the wake of Ar

On this day in 1751, Revolutionary War patriot Margaret Cochran Corbin is born. Margaret is one of the patriotic women behind the folk hero “Molly Pitcher.”   “[Molly Pitcher] has held a revered place in the patriotic lore of the American Revolution,” one National Archives article concludes, “right next to Betsy Ross.” Yet no one is sure if one woman inspired the legend or if “Molly Pitcher is merely a persona created from numerous sources.”   Whether she was the true inspira

On this day in 1781, George Washington’s stepson passes away. It had been less than three weeks since Washington’s victory over British General Charles Cornwallis at Yorktown. What an odd mixture of emotions? Washington had been celebrating America’s miraculous victory after a long, brutal war. Now he was mourning the death of his only stepson. George Washington never had any children of his own. Historians speculate that an early case of smallpox, apparently followed by tub

On this day in 1732, a baby boy is born. While that boy was born into slavery, he would go on to become a free man and a hero of our American Revolution.   Relatively little is known about Jordan Freeman’s early life, but we do know that he was born into the household of Richard Lord of Old Lyme, Connecticut. At some point, Jordan was sold to Groton merchant John Ledyard. John, in turn, gave Jordan to his son William to be his “man-servant.”   The two became friends, and Will