Government without representation? The Colonies dared to fight for separation from Great Britain, but our Declaration of Independence was not expected to clutter New York Harbor with a staggering surprise. Just look at the shock of Britain’s overwhelming response.
My gosh, a hundred and thirty warships, plus supply ships. And troop ships that landed ninety-three hundred trained soldiers on Staton Island. That advance force was followed, day after day, until there were five hundred ships around the island. Thirty-two thousand combat troops, fully equipped, were ready to invade New York.
What did we have? Farmers, craftsmen, trade people, clerks. No battle training. Only shaping of a hostile wilderness that carved us to rely on ourselves and our neighbors. Outnumbered by overpowering forces but nowhere near defeated, we dared to win.
George Washington had grown up wanting to be a soldier, and he had a brilliant sense of sophisticated intelligence that gave us the turning point in the Revolution. In his Harlem Heights tent, he shaped his formula for strategic espionage to allow a weaker force to subdue in combat.
In occupied New York, Hercules Mulligan was a husky Irish tailor whose clothing shop was frequented by British officers. They enjoyed his gift of gab; he listened for snatches of trivial significance. Alexander Hamilton was a Kings College student living there in Mulligan’s home, and, in a back room, they sent secret messages between lines of innocent ‘family news’. Their ink stain information reached other spies who had chemicals to read their indelible ink words. Twice, Hercules alerted of death plots against George Washington , and once interrupted plans to invade Pennsylvania. In jovial mingling with the British, he was heroic.
March 17, 1779. It was a blustery cold day in New York when four hundred ‘Volunteers of Ireland’ gathered for America’s first St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Led by Lord Rawden, they marched down lower Broadway, following a British band while sidewalk crowds cheered.
After the parade, there was a British banquet for the marchers, boisterously beginning a St. Patrick’s Day tradition. But their celebration had nothing to do with the British. All four hundred ‘Volunteers of Ireland’ were secretly Revolutionary patriots, and one of them was Hercules Mulligan.
–Mildred
Generation Gapping 