Independence Day

Old Glory proudly flying from the Schooner Alliance moored in the very port where the American Revolutionary War
was won. (click to enlarge)
Fujifilm X-T1 w/ 10-24mm f/4 lens @ 15.1mm; 1/180th sec. @ f/9; ISO 200

The Birth of a New Nation

"On July 1, 1776, the Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, and on the following day 12 of the 13 colonies voted in favor of Richard Henry Lee’s motion for independence. The delegates then spent the next two days debating and revising the language of a statement drafted by Thomas Jefferson. On July 4, Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence, and as a result the date is celebrated as Independence Day. Nearly a month would go by, however, before the actual signing of the document took place. First, New York’s delegates didn’t officially give their support until July 9 because their home assembly hadn’t yet authorized them to vote in favor of independence. Next, it took two weeks for the Declaration to be “engrossed”—written on parchment in a clear hand. Most of the delegates signed on August 2, but several—Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean and Matthew Thornton—signed on a later date. (Two others, John Dickinson and Robert R. Livingston, never signed at all.) The signed parchment copy now resides at the National Archives in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom, alongside the Constitution and the Bill of Rights."

The Culmination of the War and the Finalization of the New Nation 

"By the fall of 1781, (General Nathanel) Greene’s American forces had managed to force (Lord Charles) Cornwallis and his men to withdraw to Virginia’s Yorktown peninsula, near where the York River empties into Chesapeake Bay. Supported by a French army commanded by General Jean Baptiste de Rochambeau, Washington moved against Yorktown with a total of around 14,000 soldiers, while a fleet of 36 French warships offshore prevented British reinforcement or evacuation. Trapped and overpowered, Cornwallis was forced to surrender his entire army on October 19. Claiming illness, the British general sent his deputy, Charles O’Hara, to surrender; after O’Hara approached Rochambeau to surrender his sword (the Frenchman deferred to Washington), Washington gave the nod to his own deputy, Benjamin Lincoln, who accepted it."

                                                                Both from the website "History.com"

Two years later the Treaty of Paris made it official.  America was free and independent!

The Schooner Alliance, coincidentally, is moored in the very Yorktown Harbor (mentioned above) adjacent to the battlefield at which General George Washington defeated Lord Cornwallis in 1782 to solidify this budding nations's creation and longevity.

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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