Celebrating Independence P3

Decades later, religious faith still remained at the forefront of our Independence Day celebrations. This was evident in a Fourth of July oration delivered by an elderly John Quincy Adams some 62 years after America’s birthday. He had been fully aware of the intimate inner workings of the War, in part through his father but also because of his own experiences.

When only eight years old, John Quincy Adams had participated in musket drills with the famous Massachusetts Minutemen. He witnessed the burning of Charlestown as well as the Battle of Bunker Hill, where he saw his family’s physician, Joseph Warren, brutally butchered by the British. When only 10, he served as the private secretary to his father, who was then Ambassador to France.

At 14, Congress sent him to serve as the translator for the American Ambassador to the Court of Catherine the Great in Russia. When 16 he returned to Paris and helped arrange the peace negotiations that ended the War.

More on this next week for another American Moment.

Sourced from The American Story: The Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton.