This day 233 years ago in Revolutionary America was calm as the eye of the hurricane, though panic, rage and despair would shortly overwhelm the Patriots fighting for freedom.
The day before, some American irregulars had captured a charming young man carrying extremely questionable papers from Major General Benedict Arnold’s files. They had turned him over to the Continental Army, but no one yet knew him as anything other than John Anderson. In fact, he was the British Army’s adjutant general as well as the go-between for Gen. Arnold and the Redcoats.
Tomorrow, Gen. Arnold will learn of Anderson’s apprehension. He alone will realize its significance. He’ll flee American lines and save his life, though not his plans to restore America to its place in the British Empire. (For the untold – and anarchic – story of Benedict Arnold and his “treason,” look for my novel, Abducting Arnold, due to be published in another few weeks. Email me if you’d like notification when it’s available.)
Patriots couldn’t have learned of Gen. Arnold’s plot at a worse time. The year 1780 had unleashed one military defeat after another; even an eclipse that summer seemed a sign to folks who didn’t follow the new discoveries in astronomy that the Almighty Himself frowned on the rebellion. No one in September of 1780 could have predicted that the American Revolution would effectively and victoriously end the following year.
We, too, are often utterly discouraged as we suffer under the State’s pomp and power. The bloodthirsty cabal in DC tirelessly gins up war. Obummercare looms, threatening to bankrupt anyone who isn’t yet homeless. The NSA continues eavesdropping and spying on us, 24/7. And the execrable UN meets this week, turning much of New York City into even more of a prison-camp than usual. Cops strut, protecting Leviathan’s lackeys from us, as if we’re the ones who launch murderous drones on and steal trillions of dollars from them. They cage citizens on sidewalks, forbidding us to walk the pavement our taxes buy lest Their Majesties suffer a moment’s delay as they zip about town from one orgy to the next.
No one surveying these atrocities and intimidation would expect liberty to survive, much less flourish. And yet…
Perhaps this time next year… Or the year after…
1:28 pm on September 24, 2013
