A Whole Week of July Fourth
June 28, 2012
AT a new traditionalist blog called The Americanist, Pilgrim’s Pride writes:
Celebrations and remembrances have begun in earnest, here on the Philadelphia Main Line. Because so much history was made between here and Philadelphia, the townships and boroughs are forced to stagger their official observances simply to ration the available supply of marching bands, fireworks companies, WWII veterans, and enthusiastic Americans to watch them.
In my little corner of Colonial America, the ground lays such that our fireworks display thundered and reverberated enough to thump our chests with each report, frightening some of the little ones in attendance. Is it so hard to imagine the men who witnessed the first American pyrotechnics, the soldiers of the Continental Army, were any less frightened?
The Paoli Massacre was inflicted on the evening and night of 20th September, 1777. General “Mad” Anthony Wayne and his force were encamped in a field not far from here, thinking it safe to rest after heavy action, but they had been betrayed by Loyalists to the local detachment of the Royal Army. [cont.]
