Phiip McBride
Corporal
- Joined
- Jan 17, 2014
- Location
- Lockhart, Texas
On this day, March 23, 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution, Virginian Patrick Henry presented a proposal to organize a volunteer company of cavalry or infantry in every Virginia county. Henry's whole speech was not transcribed, but his closing words have become an American mantra. From the Colonial Williamsburg website based on eyewitness accounts, here are Henry's closing sentences
"Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Eighty years later, Patrick's grandson William was a captain of Texas Rangers on the Callahan Expedition of 1855. If grandfather Patrick was a passionate and excitable patriot of Virginia, grandson William was a passionate and excitable patriot of Texas. Unsurprisingly, William Henry's life came to an early and violent end.
His reputation as a fighting man enhanced by the Callahan Expedition, the voters of San Antonio elected William Henry sheriff in 1856. In 1862, yearning for an appointment to command a new company of Confederate soldiers being recruited in San Antonio, Henry instigated an argument with William Adams who desired the same position. The quarrel, begun on the main plaza of the city, devolved into a gunfight in which William Henry was mortally shot. The subsequent investigation concluded that Adams killed Henry in an act of self-defense—killed over who would wear the three collar bars of Confederate captain.
"Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace, but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Eighty years later, Patrick's grandson William was a captain of Texas Rangers on the Callahan Expedition of 1855. If grandfather Patrick was a passionate and excitable patriot of Virginia, grandson William was a passionate and excitable patriot of Texas. Unsurprisingly, William Henry's life came to an early and violent end.
His reputation as a fighting man enhanced by the Callahan Expedition, the voters of San Antonio elected William Henry sheriff in 1856. In 1862, yearning for an appointment to command a new company of Confederate soldiers being recruited in San Antonio, Henry instigated an argument with William Adams who desired the same position. The quarrel, begun on the main plaza of the city, devolved into a gunfight in which William Henry was mortally shot. The subsequent investigation concluded that Adams killed Henry in an act of self-defense—killed over who would wear the three collar bars of Confederate captain.
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