Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

• James 1:17

“As Dolley Madison fled the city, the flames filled the skies behind her. But as the city burned, the weather began behaving oddly. A hurricane swept in from nowhere, triggering a tornado in the middle of the city that headed straight down Constitution Avenue toward the British soldiers, one of whom wrote:

“The most tremendous hurricane ever remembered by the inhabitants broke over Washington.  Roofs of houses were torn off and carried up into the air like sheets of paper, while the rain which accompanied it was like the rushing of a mighty cataract rather than the dropping of a shower. This lasted for two hours without intermission, during which … thirty of our men   were buried beneath the ruins. Two cannons standing upon a bit of rising ground were fairly lifted in the air and carried several yards to the rear.

“The rain doused the fires, and the British left as quickly as they had come. As Admiral Cockburn retreated, he reportedly snarled at a local woman, saying, ‘Great God, Madam! Is this the kind of storm to which you are accustomed in this infernal country?’
“She replied, ‘No, Sir, this is a special interposition of Providence to drive our enemies from our city.’”

• Robert J. Morgan, 100 Bible Verses That Made America

In my recent trip to visit the grandchildren, the oldest of them went with me to Nashville, to sell used books and games.  One of the books that I purchased in return was 100 Bible Verses That Made America by Robert J. Morgan.  As we approach the 250^th anniversary of the birth of the USA, I thought I would do a condensed mini-series on some of these verses, four posts per week for a few weeks – maybe not all 100 verses.

The author goes on to explain that James Madison declared a day of Thanksgiving and in his proclamation, he used James 1:17 as his Scripture reference.

George Washington was the only president to not live part of his presidency in the White House.  He helped approve the sight, not far from his home at Mount Vernon. But the building’s construction was not completed until after he had left office.

Incidentally, General Friedrich Wilhelm von Stueben helped turn George Washington’s army into a legitimate fighting force.  He had left the service of Kaiser Karl Wilhelm, where he oversaw the building of the city of Karlsruhe (meaning Karl’s rest, where the Kaiser is buried beneath a pyramid near the city center).  But the tower of the castle is the city center.  Major streets radiate from the center and then there a circles that turn the streets of Karlsruhe into a wheel.  Gen. von Steuben was a decorated war hero and he bristled at taking a pay cut to order engineers around.

Gen. von Steuben trained a company of 100 men, hardly knowing any English.  Translators, like Alexander Hamilton, helped communicate.  And then those 100 men trained the rest of the Continental Army.  All in the bleak winter while camped at Valley Forge.  The men lacked discipline.  They lacked organization.  They could not sustain a firing line that would keep the enemy off balance.  Gen. von Steuben provided that.

It is interesting that the city of Washington, DC is built with streets radiating from the White House and the Capitol Building, similar to Karlsruhe.  Did Gen. von Steuben purloin a set of prints?  Actually, Thomas Jefferson received the maps from several European cities, and he chose the Karlsruhe layout.

Sorry, I have had that thought ever since I lived in Karlsruhe for three years.

What is documented about General von Steuben is that von Steuben wrote down everything he had taught that company of 100 men.  He wrote this in French.  Translators translated it into English, and they bound it with a blue binding.  The Blue Book became the soldier’s guide as the USA became a nation.

But it took time to build the city.  Then during the War of 1812, actually in August of 1814, the British came into Washington, DC and wanted to burn the entire city to the ground.  The valiant efforts of Dolley Madison, wife of President James Madison, are documented in saving things from within the White House before leaving at the last second.

Madison finished his term in office while living in a couple of different buildings while the White House was being rebuilt.  It was James Monroe in the fall of 1817 who moved back into the White House.

But again, while George Washington had a few of his battles won by the weather instead of his leadership, the secular historians speak of Dolley Madison saving the painting of George Washington.  But it was the tornado, spawned by a hurricane that drove the British from the city.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.