"From the Bay to the Blue Ridge"
by Sarah Becker ©2017 George Washington’s Death and Holiday “Remembering that all must die…I hope you will bear the misfortune with that fortitude and complacency of mind, that become a man and a Christian,” General George Washington wrote in 1777. Washington died at home on December 14, 1799, at age 67. His death surprised the […]
By Sarah Becker ©2018 Robert E. Lee, the Marble Model West Point classmates called Virginia-born Robert E. Lee the Marble Model, the Marble Man. He was nicknamed such probably for reason of heritage; his statuesque quality, dignity and bravura. Lee entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on July 1, 1825, mostly because it […]
©2017 Sarah Becker The Content of Character “It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy,” John McCain wrote with Alexandrian Mark Salter in Character is Destiny. “That is all that really passes for destiny. And you choose it.” McCain, a former Navy flier […]
By Sarah Becker War & Remembrance Conflict is often remembered by the men and women who cared: for the home front during war; for comrades and soldiers including burials, for the disabled and others. During the Revolutionary War Martha Washington successfully served as the public face of a women’s fund-raising campaign, a national campaign to […]
History of Veterans Day World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” – officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, […]
by Sarah Becker ©2017 George Washington Masonic National Memorial What do George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette; Benjamin Franklin and Amadeus Mozart; W.E.B. Du Bois, Winston Churchill and Harry S. Truman have in common? All are Freemasons. Washington became a Freemason in 1752 at age 20 in Fredericksburg; then Worshipful Master of Alexandria Lodge […]
©2017 Sarah Becker The Sounds of Silence In 1966 Simon & Garfunkel had a number one song, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the U.S. Department of Transportation, and U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd, Sr. (D-VA) died at his Berryville home. The Byrd machine passed politically from father to son, Johnson appointed the first […]
By Sarah Becker ©2017 Born in 1917—100 years ago—President John F. Kennedy (D-MA) died in his prime. On November 22, 1963 an assassin shot Kennedy dead. He died of a wound in the brain caused by a rifle bullet. Kennedy was the fourth U.S. President to succumb to such wounds. For Kennedy, the past was […]
By Doug Coleman THE NEW CIVIL WAR – IS IT ON? Traditionally, Americans have gone to the polls, voted, and lived with the results whether they liked them or not. An exception was 1860, where Lincoln prevailed with a plurality of just 39.8% of the vote (even Trump got 47.5%). Lincoln’s name was not even […]
By Sarah Becker © 2017 An Act to Encourage Immigration Abraham Lincoln, in his 1864 holiday proclamation, praised Almighty God for augmenting “our free population by emancipation and by immigration…” To immigrate: to enter and settle in a foreign country. To naturalize: to admit a foreigner to citizenship. In 1790 naturalization was limited […]
