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On June 18, 1775, 245 years ago tomorrow, Abigail Adams took up her pen to write to her husband John, far away in Philadelphia at the Second Continental Congress:
The Day; perhaps the decisive Day is come on which the fate of America depends. My bursting Heart must find vent at my pen. I have just heard that our dear Friend Dr. Warren is no more but fell gloriously fighting for his Country—saying better to die honourably in the field than ignominiously hang upon the Gallows. Great is our Loss. He has distinguished himself in every engagement, by his courage and fortitude, by animating the Soldiers and leading them on by his own example. A particular account of these dreadful, but I hope Glorious Days will be transmitted you, no doubt in the exactest manner.
Joseph Warren was the family physician of the Adams Family, but he was much more . He was arguably the most important man in the Massachusetts rebellion, more so than John Adams, orr even John’s cousin Samuel Adams, or John Hancock. At the moment of his death Joseph Warren was indeed in many ways the most prominent of all the American rebels against the British crown. With me on the 245th anniversary of Joseph Warren’s death to discuss that death but also his life and afterlife of Joseph Warren is Christian DiSpigna, author of Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero.
For Further Investigation
- Christian di Spigna’s website
- “John Trumbull and Historical Fiction”–a splendid lecture, one of a series given at the Yale University Art Gallery in 2013 by John Walsh on “historical paintings” in the gallery. You’ll have to watch the series to find out what a historian painting is, and I recommend that you watch them all. Walsh is a brilliant lecturer, who effortlessly conveys ideas, pathos, and context.
- Imagining the Battle of Bunker Hill–a lesson plan from the American Revolution Institute
