Balladeer’s Blog’s 2017 post about Revolutionary War Privateer Captain Jonathan Haraden has proven to be a very popular item. Here’s another neglected American Privateer cut from the same cloth. And for the Haraden post click HERE
CAPTAIN SILAS TALBOT – Even if he had never gone on to a career in Privateering, Talbot would still have been a fascinating figure from Revolutionary War history. On June 28th, 1775 Silas was commissioned as a Captain in a Rhode Island regiment and served in the military operations which ended with the British surrender of Boston in March of 1776.
During the New York campaign Talbot and a picked crew sailed a Fire Ship into the 64-gun British ship Asia. Under heavy fire from the Asia and with his own craft already burning, Silas was the last man overboard, suffering severe burns which left him temporarily blinded. Talbot was promoted to Major upon recovering and rejoining his unit. Continue reading
For starters, the irrational haters of de facto Third Party President Donald Trump lied again when they claimed it was “unprecedented” for a President to address the nation during a Fourth of July celebration and that by doing so he was making the holiday “about himself.” Presidents Woodrow Wilson (D), Harry Truman (D), John F Kennedy (D), Gerald Ford (R), Ronald Reagan (R), Bill Clinton (D) and George W Bush (R) all addressed the nation on July 4th. 
Second, when even the rabidly anti-Trump Washington Post can admit that Trump’s speech was, as the Post put it, “not partisan, but unifying” we see once again how shrill and out of touch so many Trump critics are. The man has done more for the working class and the poor than any other president in my lifetime. 
Regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog are familiar with my fondness for old Silent Movies. America was D.W. Griffith’s 1924 production about the Revolutionary War. The movie is pleasant enough for the July 4th holiday season, but don’t expect a classic like The Phantom of the Opera, The Mark of Zorro or many other masterpieces of the silent era. 
The Holdens can’t stand the snobbish Montagues and the Montagues pompously look down on the Holdens and the rest of the rebels. Nancy’s father would rather see Nancy married off to the prominent British military officer Captain Walter Butler, played with aristocratic and sadistic flair by THE Lionel Barrymore. 
FIRST BATTLE OF MACHIAS – This battle took place June 11th and 12th of 1775, less than two full months after the Battles of Lexington & Concord kicked off our Revolutionary War. At this point in the 1700s Maine was still technically a Department of Massachusetts, which is why Maine is not listed as one of the original 13 colonies despite all the action that took place there. 
The Fourth of July is fast approaching! Balladeer’s Blog presents another seasonal post in honor of that upcoming holiday. 
With the July 4th Holiday hurtling toward us here is a look at the men from the New Hampshire delegation to the Continental Congress in 1776. These were the individuals who signed America’s Declaration of Independence. 
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