NOTE: Click/tap HERE for information on History With Waffles.
My name is William Prescott Perry. Earlier this year, I began using my middle name with regularity because I am proud of my heritage for, as a little boy, I recall being told that my namesake was Col. William Prescott of Bunker Hill fame. I even shared on social media President Trump's recent executive proclamation of its 250th anniversaty when I modified my name on social media.
However, after my having applied for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution, it was discovered that I was not descended from him as I had assumed but rather a Jeremiah Prescott of the New Hampshire Militia. He was my namesake, not my great-{xxxx?} grandfather.
After meeting with the educational representative of SAR in Louisville, KY to discuss my crusade to BRING GEORGE WASHINGTON BACK TO WASHINGTON, I asked the librarian if he had overheard our conversation and what was with all the books. He said they were related to genealogy. He assisted me finding out more about my kin Jeremiah. Turns out Jeremiah had a father named Jeremiah and he also served in the Continental Army. Needless to say, that made me more proud than if it been confirmed that I was Col. William's kin.
Adding to the pride of my family heritage, my nephew on his own accord, became a member of the Sons of the Revolution, a different organization. The qualifying ancestor was an Erasmus Perry. That both sides of my family are descended from the patriots who served in the Continental Army, I have concluded that my passionate obsession to restore His Excellency, the Most Honorable George Washington's final words to the American people to their rightful place in the American conscience, classrooms and, most importantly, chambers of government is related to the fact the American revolutionary spirit is literally in my DNA through and through. Ditto for President Jackson's because of the manner in which he recognized President Washington's and built upon it his own to become a national treasure of equal brilliance.
I do not know how familiar or not you are with the farewell addresses of Presidents Washington and Jackson but they are national treasures that need to be resurrected and illuminated for the American people to see and cherish.
This passage from President Washington's farewell particularly relevant to his attempt at avoidance of the Civil War:
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
... as is this one from President Jackson's:
We behold systematic efforts publicly made to sow the seeds of discord between different parts of the United States and to place party divisions directly upon geographical distinctions; to excite the South against the North and the North against the South, and to force into the controversy the most delicate and exciting topics--topics upon which it is impossible that a large portion of the Union can ever speak without strong emotion...
What have you to gain by division and dissension? Delude not yourselves with the belief that a breach once made may be afterwards repaired. If the Union is once severed, the line of separation will grow wider and wider, and the controversies which are now debated and settled in the halls of legislation will then be tried in fields of battle and determined by the sword.
Another one of my earliest memories as a child is President Kennedy asking me to ask what I could do for our country. T'was then the seed of patriotism and sense of civic duty was planted which has since grown to maturity.
I turned 18 the very year the draft was eliminated and the war in Vietnam was winding down in and was in no way in inclined to join military service. It was not until 1996 that I first became aware President Washington's final words to the American people. I was disgusted and embarrassed the bicentennial anniversary of such a monumental event in American history could pass by unnoticed by our government and the media in comparison to the centennial in 1896.
Again, I have determined the best way I can be of service to our country is to do everything in my power to restore the words of these two towering figures in American history to their rightful place as national treasures.
I commend you on your splendid and detailed analysis of Civil War engagements. I have visited Gettysburg many, many times over the years as well as a few others -- including Antietam and Chicamauga - Gettysburg the most because, as you said in one of your presentations, it just keeps one coming back.
I don't know what your sentiments are with regard to ghosts at Gettysburg but, in my opinion through first hand experience, they are very, very real - as explained in my GETTYSBURG ADDRESS FOR THE THIRD MILLENNIUM. As I recently updated my page to include a photograph of the monument of the 20th Maine, I noticed the name of a Pvt. Stephen A. Prescott engraved upon it and can't not wonder if we are somehow related, however distantly.
In case you were unaware, the seeds of the tradition of reading President Washington's Farewell Address on the floor of the United States Senate around the time of his birthday began in the darkest hours of the Civil War. By selecting this link, it will take you to the official record of the day.
I appreciate the fine work you have been doing and intend to delve into it as deep as possible. I could go on longer, but wish to keep this brief as possible. Therefore, I will leave you with one of my favorite - and most prescient - passages from President Jackson's words to the American people and posterity.
