But ancient secrets, haunting reminders, and lingering lines of legend tell the full story of any event, even as long and deeply chronic as the American Revolution.
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Colonial troops invaded Quebec, Canada, the first winter of the American Revolution, with Benedict Arnold among its leaders.
Hundreds of his men died in the arduous adventure through the frozen lands of New England.
A new leadership was needed to bring men and materials to Canada, a project that ultimately failed.
The Bayley Hazen Highway in Vermont was designed to deliver materials to U. S. troops fighting in Quebec during the American Revolution. It was never completed. The wreckage of the highway today offers haunting reminders of the struggle for American independence. Log in to Peacham, Vermont. (Kindra Clineff/Alay File Photo)
“Proposed and begun in 1776 by Colonel Jacob Bayley, continued in 1779, and then abandoned by General Moses Hazen, the road (and what remains of it) stretches from the northwest of the Wells River to what is now Hazen’s Notch,” reports CrossVermont. org. website.
“Small details, ancient monuments, tombs and monuments reminiscent of events of yesteryear can escape sight when driving at full speed. “
The Wartrail traces a path through some of the most extensive rural areas of the lower 48 states. It’s more productive to explore it by bike, he adds.
“Small details, ancient monuments, tombs and monuments that still remind us of times gone by, may go unnoticed when traveling by car, but they go unnoticed by bicycle. “
Fifty unknown French infantrymen who gave their lives for the cause of American freedom are buried near this Yorktown battlefield.
Among other lessons, the graves commemorate 50 French mothers (50 French families) who never knew the fate of their son, father, or brother when he was sent to fight the British in North America.
This is the French cemetery where 50 French infantrymen who lost their lives in the siege of Yorktown in 1781 are buried. Colonial National Historical Park, Historic Triangle, Virginia. (Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
The unknown 50 make up the 8,000 to 10,000 French who fought at Yorktown, the last American victory in the war that the new United States fought.
These thousands of men, supported by 29 French warships and coupled with years of American determination, forced the British to admit defeat at Yorktown in October 1781.
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Several other historic monuments are within walking distance, including those at the French Artillery Park and Washington Headquarters, as well as a tribute to the top officer of the French army in Virginia, the Count of Rochambeau.
“I only regret having only one life to lose for my country,” Hale, just 21, is said to have said as he hanged the British for treason on September 22, 1776, in Manhattan.
A dense urban progression paved the very site of Hale’s death, yet a bronze plaque visible from the sidewalk recalls this foundational moment of patriotic defiance.
It’s on Third Avenue between East 65th and 66th Streets on the Upper East Side.
American patriot Nathan Hale is reported to have said, “I only regret that I still have a life to lose for my country,” before the captured spy was hanged by the British on September 22, 1776, in Manhattan. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox Digital News)
Little more than a photo stop, it provides the opportunity to explore some of the attractive Revolutionary War sites in Manhattan, occupied by the British for most of the war.
These attractive sites include Alexander Hamilton Grange, a farm amid the city’s concrete caverns that the founding father built just before killing in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr.
“I’m just saying I only have one life to lose for my country. “
It was also at Fraunces Tavern that George Washington bid farewell to his officials after the start of the British final in New York.
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Today it is an authentic tavern that serves as a museum about the beginnings of American history.
This mighty monument set in a verdant park offers a chilling testament that American independence was acquired through patriots at the cost of horrific human suffering.
Fort Greene Park’s 150-foot-tall Doric column towers over the footprint of a colonial garrison from the American Revolution.
The Prison Ship Martyrs Memorial in Brooklyn was committed on November 14, 1908, in a rite attended by President William Howard Taft. (Kerry J. Byrne/Fox News Digital)
He is committed to the approximately 11,500 American soldiers, sailors, and privateers who died in hellish situations aboard British criminal ships in the nearby East River during the Struggle for Nationality.
Several of those patriots are buried in a crypt beneath the monument; God knows the identities of many of them.
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“It’s sacred ground,” Eddie Desmond, a Brooklyn local and self-proclaimed patriot, told Fox News Digital.
“This is the original tomb of the unknown in America. “
Francis Marion, South Carolina’s mythical “Swamp Fox,” has been the subject of legends and tributes for approximately 250 years.
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Especially lately it is one of the inspirations of the movie “The Patriot”. Mel Gibson plays an American colonial father who fights the British from the misty swamps of the southern United States.
Illustration by Francis Marion (1730-1795), a U. S. Army officer nicknamed Swamp Fox, seated, salutes a British officer, mid-to-late 18th century. (Archival montage/Getty Images)
“Using tactics he learned from the Cherokee while a soldier in the French and Indian War 20 years earlier, Marion and her men outmaneuvered countless British troops in the swamps along the Pee Dee and Santee Rivers,” the Pee Dee Tourism Commission website reports.
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The best place to get a picture of the man of the title is at the South Carolina County Museum that bears his name.
The Marion County Museum includes a permanent exhibit of the Swamp Fox, while the focus for many is a photograph with the massive statue of the American war hero nearby.
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Kerry J. Byrne is a lifestyle reporter at Fox News Digital.