“So we can confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?’” —Hebrews 13:6

John Finn and the Attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941

n commendation for their actions during the infamous Japanese attack on American bases at Pearl Harbor, fifteen U.S. servicemen were awarded our nation’s highest military award: the Medal of Honor. For fourteen of them, the honor was given posthumously, their valor having cost them their lives. The fifteenth recipient, aviation ordinance chief of the U.S Navy, John Finn, survived that dark day against all odds because, in his own words, “the Lord wasn’t ready for me yet.”

John William Finn (1909-2010) wearing his Medal of Honor

John Finn joined the Navy back in 1926, just days shy of his sixteenth birthday, when the world seemed permanently at peace and joining up presented a wonderful way for a curious young man to travel the globe. Travel he did, serving on a variety of ships that took him through the Panama Canal and six hundred miles up the Yangtze River. He not only traveled during this time but he also married a lovely lady named Alice. He earned one promotion after another for his diligent attitude, rising through the ranks to become chief petty officer in charge of a twenty-man ordnance crew whose primary duty was maintaining the weapons of a squadron of naval patrol planes.

Kanoehe Bay, Hawaii

December, 1941 found him stationed at the Naval Air Station in idyllic Kanoehe Bay, Hawaii. It was a perfect, serene and respectable place to have one’s family on base, and John Finn, sleeping in with his wife on a Sunday morning, was awoken by a popping noise. His initial reaction was aggravation, assuming some young buck had decided to start gunnery practice early.

Then he heard the sound of planes passing overhead and shouting in the street, followed by a loud knock on his door. It was the wife of one of his men. When he asked her what was wrong, she just pointed up in the air and told him he was wanted at the squadron right away.

Kaneohe Bay Marine Air Station in 1962

Still not aware of what was causing all the confusion, Finn then jumped in his car, clad only in his pajamas, and headed for the hangars where they kept the planes. His wife, Alice Kitt, sensing a more dire situation than he, yelled after him to come back alive.

He was still observing the base’s strictly-enforced speed limit of twenty miles an hour when a fighter plane came roaring down out of the sky above him. He watched it with curiosity for a moment until he saw the “red meatball” of the Japanese insignia, then rammed the car into second gear and stomped on the accelerator.

Sailors trying to save flying boat at Kaneohe Bay, December 7, 1941

He got to his squadron base where the amphibious patrol planes were towed back and forth between the water and their hangars, and found total chaos. All but three of the thirty-nine planes under his charge were already on fire. Some of his men were inside those burning planes, tenaciously trying to utilize their still-functioning machine guns to fire back at the enemy. Others had the bright idea of removing the guns out of the damaged planes, but there were no stationary gun mounts on the ramp to hold them. The sailors then took to improvising, using pipe from the machine shop and other materials. Finn found the squadron’s painter valiantly trying to figure out how to work a .50-caliber machine gun; Finn suggested he take it instead.

Finn found a mobile tripod on which guns were sometimes mounted to teach gunnery. He moved the stand into the nearby parking area where he would have clear visibility and mounted the .50-cal machine gun on it. Clear visibility goes both ways, and this entire time Finn and his men were being relentlessly strafed by the Japanese. Now Finn began to shoot back.

A map of the area on December 7, 1941, demonstrating what was hit and what was spared: Attacked targets: 1: USS California. 2: USS Maryland. 3: USS Oklahoma. 4: USS Tennessee. 5: USS West Virginia. 6: USS Arizona. 7: USS Nevada. 8: USS Pennsylvania. 9: Ford Island NAS. 10: Hickam field. | Ignored infrastructure targets: A: Oil storage tanks. B: CINCPAC headquarters building. C: Submarine base. D: Navy Yard.

John Finn would hold his position at the .50-cal in the middle of the parking lot for the next two hours. The Japanese fighters went by too quickly to track with the gun but he did hit some of the slower-moving bombers, although they quickly disappeared over the tree line so he never knew if any eventually crashed. He kept it up and didn’t stop firing until all the enemy planes had gone and it was quiet again.

Burned out cars at Kaneohe Bay, December 7, 1941

Extraordinarily gutsy and resourceful as this action was, due to the completely unprepared status of the men on the ground during the attack, it was commonplace amongst our servicemen that day. Battlefield heroics showcase a particularly carnal and immediate kind of courage, where impossible tasks are undertaken in murderous conditions due to split second instincts.

Kaneohe Bay in ashes after the attack, December 7, 1941

Lt. John Finn displayed all these things, but what set him apart was that he stuck to his post for two hours despite having been struck by shrapnel a total of twenty-one times. Several of these wounds proved to be severe. When silence descended in the aftermath of the attack, when no buzz of an approaching enemy plane threatened, Finn took stock. His appraisal noted that his left arm was numb and a bullet had passed through one foot.

Only when ordered to leave the gun and seek medical attention did he get some gauze slapped on these obvious abnormalities, but then returned despite his physical pain and set about supervising the rearming of the remaining planes.

For these actions he was awarded the first Medal of Honor of the Second World War. He was formally presented with the decoration on September 14, 1942, by Admiral Chester Nimitz, for courage and valor beyond the call of duty. The ceremony took place in Pearl Harbor on board the USS Enterprise and Finn would later cheekily remark he was relieved not to have received it from FDR as he “wasn’t a fan” of his. He also gave his wife and dedicated nurse, Alice, full credit for nursing him to health and ensuring he lived long enough to wear it. When asked by children how he won the medal, he was fond of telling them he didn’t win it, he just did his job.

Alice Finn admires her husband John’s Medal of Honor

U.S. Navy Admiral Chester W. Nimitz presents awards on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise at Pearl Harbor. The USS West Virginia is visible in the background with salvage work going on. The bottom of USS Oklahoma is visible in front of West Virginia, the main mast of USS Arizona is beyond her.

After the war Finn resided on a 90-acre ranch in California, where he and Alice became foster parents to five Native American children belonging to a nearby tribe. In his retirement he made multiple appearances at various events honoring veterans, and was dogmatic about remembering the other fourteen Medal of Honor winners from that day who perished.

Seamen at Kaneohe Naval Air Station decorate the graves of their fellow sailors killed at Pearl Harbor, 1941

He lived to be 100 years old and gave credit to his Maker for each:

“Twenty-one wounds and not one of them fatal. The doctors told me later a couple of those bullets missed my heart by inches. I told ’em, ‘Boys, it wasn’t inches—it was the hand of God.’ He had His hand on me that day, no question.”

Whatever the politics of the moment, the withheld warnings or the responsibilities of those in high command, a total of 2,403 common servicemen died from a Japanese preemptive attack on December 7, 1941. Some died aboard their ships, some in their barracks, some in the strafed hospitals, others while defending their bases and airfields. Let us never forget.

John Finn—in 2005 at the age of 96—speaking at a dedication ceremony

John Finn in 2008 (seated, center) with six other Medal of Honor recipients of WWII

Image Credits: 1 Hudson Taylor in 1893 (wikipedia.org) 2 Barnsley, Yorkshire, England (wikipedia.org) 3 Taylor age 21 (wikipedia.org) 4 Hudson and his wife Maria (wikipedia.org) 5 The Lammermuir Party (wikipedia.org) 6 Maria Dyer Taylor (wikipedia.org) 7 Jennie Faulding Taylor (wikipedia.org) 8 China Inland Mission Headquarters (wikipedia.org)

“l have been young, and now am old, yet l have not seen the righteous forsaken or His children begging for bread. He is ever lending generously, and His children become a blessing.”
—Psalm 73: 25-26

Hudson Taylor’s Holy Ambition, November 18, 1857

he great British missionary, Hudson Taylor, established his China Inland Mission in 1865, on the premise that it would never solicit funds but simply trust God to supply its needs. While this stringent policy may not be appropriate for every ministry, it provided Hudson Taylor with thousands of examples of God’s faithfulness: examples he was faithful to record for posterity—that includes us—so that we might marvel and take heart that we serve a most generous Lord.

Hudson Taylor (1832-1905), photographed in 1893

This policy was not enacted by some naïve, overzealous babe in Christ—no indeed, by the time of his establishment of the Inland Mission in 1865, Hudson Taylor had been faithfully ministering in China for over ten years. During this time his health had been broken, he was forced to navigate various rebellions and wars, and was at times condemned by fellow missionaries for assimilating into Chinese culture through clothing and tradition. None of this deterred him in the slightest from his ultimate aim—to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in China, far beyond her frequented port cities and into her interior.

Barnsley, Yorkshire, England, hometown of Hudson Taylor

Taylor himself had been born in Barnsley, England, to devout Methodist parents who prayed from his infancy that he would serve as a missionary. A sickly child who trained as a medical assistant to prepare for the field, Taylor initially doubted his parents’ faith, but then underwent a profound conversion at the age of seventeen and fearlessly dedicated his life to the service of his Creator.

Just as his parents had once prayed, a divine call to evangelize the vast, benighted regions of pagan China seized Taylor and in 1853, at the intrepid age of twenty-one, he sailed for Shanghai. He was sponsored by the English-based Chinese Evangelization Society, and arrived amid the chaos of the Taiping Rebellion. As is the case with so many of our evangelizing forbearers, Taylor’s first act of business in the port city of Ningbo was to open a hospital, thus giving back to the community he sought to ingratiate himself into. Over the next seven years, Taylor preached, distributed tracts, married Maria Dyer and faithfully ran the hospital—mostly without the promised funds from England.

Hudson Taylor at the age of 21

Hudson Taylor and his first wife, Maria photographed in 1865

In 1860 he was forced to return to England for a furlough, after almost succumbing to a life-threatening liver infection after repeated attacks of hepatitis. In London, Taylor struggled with guilt over leaving the mission field despite this health emergency. He also reflected on his ties to the various missionary societies, including that with the Chinese Evangelization Society, with whom he had broken partnership earlier, and who had not supplied his full sponsorship in China. During this furlough, Hudson Taylor said he had a “heavenly vision” on Brighton Beach, where he surrendered all his doubts and committed to a new vision for inland evangelization that would be supported by God’s provision alone.

In his own words, Taylor’s “holy ambition” was to penetrate China’s eighteen inland provinces, long neglected by coastal-focused missions. For this cause in 1865, he founded the China Inland Mission with no fixed salaries, relying solely on prayer for support, and governed from China rather than a distant board.

The “Lammermuir Party”, photographed in 1866—Hudson Taylor is seated, center, with his wife Maria to the right of him, each holding one of their children. The four children pictured are all theirs. After Maria’s death in 1870, Taylor would then marry Jennie Faulding, who is seen here seated to the left of Taylor.

Recruiting twenty-four missionaries, he led the “Lammermuir Party” back to China in 1866, establishing mission stations amid famine, riots, and threats by those natives who resented Christian and imperial influence. Taylor insisted all his workers dress and live as locals to foster trust and enable evangelism. Despite suffering severe personal losses—four of his children died young, as did his beloved first wife—he recruited over 800 missionaries to share in the task, emphasizing, “let us in everything not sinful, become like the Chinese, that by all means we may save some.”

In all this, his Lord provided. By the time of Taylor’s death in 1905, the Inland Mission project had become the world’s largest Protestant mission agency, with 125 schools, 18,000 converts, and churches in even the remotest of regions. To this day, Taylor’s legacy endures in China’s underground church boom, a testament that no culture is too far gone for redemption, and a defense of Taylor’s unyielding belief that “the Great Commission is not an optional suggestion but a command.”

Maria Dyer, Hudson’s first wife (1837-1870)

Jennie Faulding, Hudson’s second wife (1843-1904)

On November 18, 1857, at the start of his ministry, a young Hudson Taylor penned a letter which would immortalize the trust he put in his God to provide. The holy ambition displayed in it would continue to animate him until the very end of his life when he would be buried beside his first wife in the land he had sought to claim for Christ.

Many seem to think I am very poor. This is true enough in one sense, but I thank God it is “as poor, yet making many rich.” My God shall supply all my needs; to him be the glory. I would not, if I could, be otherwise than I am—entirely dependent myself upon the Lord, and used as a channel of help to others.

On Saturday we supplied, as usual, breakfast to the destitute poor, who came to the number of 70. Sometimes they do not reach 40, at other times exceeding 80. They come to us every day, Lord’s Day excepted, for then we cannot manage to attend to them and get through all our other duties, too.

Well, on that Saturday morning we paid all expenses, and provided ourselves for the morrow, after which we had not a single dollar left between us. How the Lord was going to provide for Monday we knew not; but over our mantelpiece hung two scrolls in the Chinese character—Ebenezer, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us”; and Jehovah-Jireh, “The Lord will provide”—and He kept us from doubting for a moment. That very day the mail came in, a week sooner than was expected, and Mr. Jones received $214. We thanked God and took courage. On Monday the poor had their breakfast as usual, for we had not told them not to come, being assured that it was the Lord’s work, and that the Lord would provide. We could not help our eyes filling with tears of gratitude when we saw not only our own needs supplied, but the widow and the orphan, the blind and the lame, the friendless and the destitute, together provided for by the bounty of Him who feeds the ravens.

—Hudson Taylor, November 18, 1857 in a letter to his sister, Amelia Hudson Taylor

The China Inland Mission headquarters in Shanghai, China in the late 1800s

Image Credits: 1 Hudson Taylor in 1893 (wikipedia.org) 2 Barnsley, Yorkshire, England (wikipedia.org) 3 Taylor age 21 (wikipedia.org) 4 Hudson and his wife Maria (wikipedia.org) 5 The Lammermuir Party (wikipedia.org) 6 Maria Dyer Taylor (wikipedia.org) 7 Jennie Faulding Taylor (wikipedia.org) 8 China Inland Mission Headquarters (wikipedia.org)

By Nathan Johnson

The Conversion of Nathan Bedford Forrest, November 14, 1875

he scoundrels of history, often looked down upon prematurely, are frequently found to shine in the moments that really count—thus they become the real heroes of the past. While the standard by which modern historians draw their conclusions may not be the divine law of God, they tend to dismiss the figure’s whole story entirely without giving them a second thought as to how their life may have changed in an unimaginable way.

Among the most controversial characters in American history is Confederate cavalry General Nathan Bedford Forrest. He is famously known for his fiery temper, unconventional battle strategies, and his alleged contributions to the early Ku Klux Klan organization in the post-Civil War south. He is less remembered for his unwavering sense of family honor, personal generosity, and protection of others. Least recalled, perhaps, is the fact that Forrest, like every person, had an eternal soul that God changed in an amazing way.

Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877), sometime before the war

Forrest’s boyhood home as it stands today in Chapel Hill, Tennessee

Forrest grew up in the backwoods of central Tennessee as the oldest of 11 children of William and Mariam Forrest. Forrest was 13 when the family moved to Tippah County, Mississippi. There, William Forrest tragically died in early 1837, leaving the 16-year-old Bedford (as he was usually called) as the man of the home.

Forrest’s home in Hernando, Mississippi, photographed in 1902

Soon after the elder Forrest’s death, Mariam Forrest was suddenly attacked by a panther while riding home one evening from visiting a neighbor, wounding both Mariam and her horse. After shaking off the attacking predator, Mariam finished the journey home and related to her children what had just happened. Forrest grabbed his rifle and dogs and proceeded to track the panther that night, finally killing it and returning home with its pelt as a prize for his mother. He was fiercely loyal and committed to his family; and no one would dare to hurt his mother.

In his career before the Civil War, Forrest seemed to excel at three things: business, family honor, and violence. These three traits came together during his work with his uncle Jonathan in 1845. Forrest watched as Jonathan was shot and killed by four brothers who had a scruple with Jonathan over an unpaid debt. Forrest shot two of the assailants with a pistol and chased away the other attackers with a Bowie knife.

In an interesting providence, Forrest married Mary Ann Montgomery, who was under the legal guardianship of her uncle Samual Cowan, a Presbyterian minister. When Forrest expressed his desire to marry Mary Ann, Samuel was not impressed, for he knew of Forrest’s vices and reputation. Still, Forrest promised to provide for, care for, and love his Christian wife, and he eventually married her.

After trying many business ventures, Forrest found one that would end up making him wealthy and famous at the same time: he became a slave trader. This endeavor would lead him into Memphis, Tennessee, where he continued to earn more money, partner with other businessmen, garner fame and respect from the people of Tennessee, and gain the ire of modern historians.

A business card for one of Forrest’s pre-war business partnerships

A poster advertising another of Forrest’s pre-war business partnerships

In 1861, when Tennessee seceded from the Union with the other southern states, Forrest saw it as his duty to serve his state, and enlisted as a Private in the cavalry for the newly-formed Confederate States of America. Forrest proceeded to raise and organize his own cavalry regiment, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in May 1861. He would later move up through the ranks, ending the war as a Lieutenant General. He was the only soldier in the war to rise from the rank of Private to Lieutenant General.

Forrest in Confederate uniform

Forrest went on to become one of the most feared and respected Generals in the Civil War. He quickly showed his strengths in being a remarkable leader of men. Although he had no formal military training, he became nearly unbeatable in battle due to his use of unconventional tactics: bluffing and fast-striking attacks. He was fearless and would lead his men from the front many times.

Forrest charging in the midst of his men at Bogler’s Creek, Alabama

As the war progressed, Forrest defeated multiple Federal armies, many larger than his own forces. Union General William T. Sherman was so frustrated with the nuisance of Forrest’s cavalry that he wanted Forrest to be hunted down at any cost. Sherman famously said, “That Devil Forrest must be killed if it costs 10,000 lives and breaks the Federal Treasury.” Forrest’s life was preserved time and again throughout the war. At the conclusion of the war, Forrest sent his men home rather than surrendering to the Federals. Shortly after Appomattox, when asked to name the greatest soldier produced on either side during the war, Robert E. Lee was said to have replied, “A man I have never seen, sir. His name is Forrest.”

William Montgomery Bedford Forrest (1846–1908), son of Nathan Bedford Forrest, enlisted at 15 in the Confederate Army and served with his father throughout the war

“That Devil ”Forrest

Throughout his life, Forrest had never seriously thought about the Christian faith. He wanted God’s influence and the prayers of others in his life when it meant a benefit for him in the temporal world, but he did not want to relinquish ultimate control of his life to God. By the 1870s, it was apparent that God had begun an earnest work in this man’s heart. In God’s Providence, Forrest met one of his former subordinate Colonels, Raleigh White, in the streets of Memphis, Tennessee. White had recently converted to Christ and was a Southern Baptist pastor. White’s testimony so moved Forrest that he asked White to pray for him. The two men entered a nearby bank lobby and knelt there as White prayed for his former commander.

God also used Forrest’s wife, Mary Ann, to influence his spiritual life. She never wavered from her Christian commitment and prayed daily for her husband. This godly example had a lasting effect on Forrest. Around the time that Forrest met Raleigh White in Memphis, Forrest began to accompany Mary Ann to Court Avenue Church, where Reverend George Tucker Stainback was the preacher.

George Tucker Stainback (1829-1902), Presbyterian minister and chaplain in the Confederate Army

On Sunday morning, November 14, 1875, Forrest was once again seated with his wife under the preaching of Reverend Stainback. The sermon was on Matthew 7:24-27, which is the parable of the two builders. The words of Christ in the text struck Forrest’s heart like a sudden light in a dark room:

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”

Forrest in 1868

Forrest finally saw that the “house” he was building in this world was built upon sand. He had vainly devoted his life to the pursuit of prestige, power, and money. After the service, Forrest went over to talk to Reverend Stainback. Stainback later recalled the next few moments:

“Forrest suddenly leaned against the wall and his eyes filled with tears. ‘Sir, your sermon has removed the last prop from under me,’ he said, ‘I am the fool that built on the sand; I am a poor miserable sinner.’”

Reverend Stainback sent Forrest home with the assignment to read Psalm 51 for further guidance from Scripture and said that he would visit him the next day. The next evening, Stainback visited Forrest to discuss the Gospel and to pray with him. After praying, Forrest said he was “satisfied” and that “all is right. I have put my trust in my Redeemer.” Forrest, who would never surrender to any man, had surrendered to Almighty God.

Although the exact words spoken during Stainback’s and Forrest’s prayer are not known, the reality of true conversion is evident as we see the fruit of a new spiritual life played out in Forrest’s actions and words in the coming months. This includes his speech to a civil rights organization for African-Americans, where he said, “I came to meet you as friends, and welcome you to the white people. I want you to come nearer to us. When I can serve you I will do so. We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together.”

Grave markers of Nathan Bedford Forrest…

…and his wife, Mary Ann Forrest

Every story of the conversion of the human soul is a story of the impossible. As historian Shane Kastler said, “Many scoundrels in history have been thought to be beyond change, yet God shocks the world by orchestrating their dramatic conversion.” One cannot explain from a human point of view how the salvation of the soul is accomplished. How did the Apostle Paul change from a persecutor of the Church to an Apostle of Christ? How did Nathan Bedford Forrest find redemption? The only explanation is that these men were changed by God. God raised the spiritually dead soul to new life. This is the message: God has all the power to save even the most impossible sinners.

Memorial Statue to Forrest in Memphis, TN—the statue was removed in 2017 and the park wherein it stood (originally called Forrest Park in his honor) was first renamed Health Sciences Park and later Memphis Greenspace

Image Credits: 1 Forrest pre-war (wikipedia.org) 2 Tennessee Home (wikipedia.org) 3 Mississippi Home (wikipedia.org) 4 Business card (wikipedia.org) 5 Business poster (wikipedia.org) 6 Forrest in uniform (wikipedia.org) 7 Forrest in battle (wikipedia.org) 8 William Montgomery Bedford Forrest (wikipedia.org) 9 Forrest later in war (wikipedia.org) 10 Rev. Stainback (wikipedia.org) 11 Forrest in 1868 (wikipedia.org) 12 Nathan Bedford Forrest Gravestone (wikipedia.org) 13 Mary Ann Forrest Gravestone (wikipedia.org) 14 Bronze memorial (wikipedia.org)

“For the ruthless shall come to nothing and the scoffer cease, and all who watch to do evil shall be cut off, who by a word make a man out to be an offender, and lay a snare for him who reproves in the gate, and with an empty plea turn aside him who is in the right.” —Isaiah 29: 20-21

Terence MacSwiney, Lord Mayor of Cork, Died for Irish Freedom, October 25, 1920

ne of the first, most harrowing guerrilla wars of its time was witnessed in the early part of the last century—that of Ireland’s fight to break away from her long occupation by Great Britain. She did this by any means possible, and the incentives were grossly oppressive indeed. Her free press had been abolished, her native language outlawed, her parliament dissolved, and her citizenry kept under martial law. In the midst of such calamitous times, Terence MacSwiney, Irish writer, poet and Republican activist, was elected Lord Mayor of Cork City in the south of the country. He was elected not only by the ballot box but with the blood of his predecessor, Tomás Mac Curtain.

Terence MacSwiney (1879-1920) in his official robes as Lord Mayor of Cork City, Ireland

Mac Curtain had been Cork City’s first mayor to be elected by running on a Republican ticket, and he had won it despite the continual suppression of the party’s platform by British authorities. In reprisal for his success, Mac Curtain was gunned down in his own bedroom at dawn by a squad of masked men—later revealed to be Crown Forces in disguise. They had burst into Mac Curtain’s home and fired point-blank into the sleeping mayor as his wife and children cowered nearby. Due to the enforced curfew and martial law, his panicked children risked their lives by running to fetch the doctor for their mortally wounded father. Mac Curtain died in the arms of his pregnant wife who found the soulful courage to remind him “this is for Ireland, Tomás.” It was his thirty-sixth birthday.

Tomás Mac Curtain (1884-1920)

The gory warning cloaked in this assassination was clear: the citizenry of Cork should think twice before electing any more free thinkers. No trial followed; the British Parliamentary inquest blamed “masked and unknown men,” but bragging by local British officials for having orchestrated it fueled outrage. When the Mayor of nearby Limerick was similarly assassinated in front of his family a mere two months later, shockingly the British Parliament agreed it was a perturbing coincidence, but declined further inquiry.

A Sinn Féin election poster from 1918 describing the Irish sentiment towards England’s oppression and underrepresentation of the Irish in the English Parliament

Terence MacSwiney had been Mac Curtain’s close comrade and vice-mayor; he stepped into the role fearlessly when elected and vowed at Mac Curtain’s funeral: “We will not falter. The fight for Irish freedom is our sacred duty.” In a chamber still echoing with grief, he took the oath in March, 1920.

The British struck back swiftly. On August 12, 1920, MacSwiney was arrested at a Republican safehouse, papers in hand that damned him as a plotter of civil unrest. Dragged before a military court, he was tried by court martial despite his elected status, facing vague charges of sedition. “I am not afraid to die,” he told the judge, his voice steady as steel. “Whatever your government may do, I shall be free, alive or dead, within a month.”

A Sinn Féiner prison camp in Ireland during the 1919-1921 Irish War for Independence

He was shipped to London’s Brixton Prison for incarceration, making a mockery of the supposed justice system in place in his native land. There MacSwiney joined his fellow Irish Republican prisoners on hunger strike, with the aim of demanding Britain acknowledge him and his fellows as political prisoners. This was no new tactic for the Irish, and was met with no mercy at the hands of English guards. With MacSwiney being a duly elected Lord Mayor and the most high-profile striker at Brixton, he became an international celebrity, his emaciated features broadcast in newspapers from Dublin to Delhi. It was of the utmost importance for the British to break his spirit and force a retraction from him; the ordeal proved harrowing. Force-fed through tubes that tore his throat, MacSwiney endured convulsions and delirium, indignities and veiled threats towards the welfare of his wife and infant child. Undaunted herself by these threats, Muriel MacSwiney traveled to London with her baby daughter Máire, pleading for clemency at Westminster’s gates and joining the crowds that swelled outside Brixton Prison, chanting Gaelic hymns to encourage the strikers.

Terence MacSwiney and his devoted wife and political supporter Muriel, likely on the occasion of their marriage in 1917

Prison Brixton, London, England

A lifelong devotee of the Catholic faith, MacSwiney’s historic association of martyrdom as a blessed impetus for change was at odds with his fear of committing the “unabsolvable” sin of his religion—suicide. He wrote letters of explanation and resolve from Brixton, reasoning: “To die for Ireland is not to throw away life, but to give it purpose. We offer ourselves not to end our fight, but to ensure its triumph.”

The world watched in horror: labor unions in Britain appealed for clemency, Indian nationalists drew parallels to their own struggle, the Pope interceded but to no avail. President Woodrow Wilson sent an American Senator as envoy to Ireland to investigate the state of justice in the country. Even King George V personally appealed to Prime Minister Lloyd George’s cabinet to make an exception and release MacSwiney, but the government held firm, branding the prisoners as “republican murderers” unfit for mercy.

Terence MacSwiney on his deathbed

A crowd in Dublin gathers to pray for Terence MacSwiney

On this raw October morning in 1920, as fog clung to the walls of London’s Brixton Prison, Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork, drew his final breath after 74 days kept as a political prisoner. At age forty-one, the poet-turned-revolutionary slipped away in the arms of his brother and a prison chaplain, his body a skeletal testament to an unyielding will. “It is not those who can inflict the most, but those who can suffer the most who will conquer,” he had written years earlier in his treatise Principles of Freedom. MacSwiney’s death was no quiet surrender; it served as a lurid exclamation mark in Ireland’s gruesome War for Independence, a death that reverberated across the Atlantic. Pictures of MacSwiney’s beautiful widow clutching her infant child upon collecting her husband’s body circulated in papers across the globe, and incited outrage that shamed an empire.

Terence MacSwiney’s brother Seán at the funeral of Terence

The coffin of Terence MacSwiney lies in state at Cork City Hall, Cork, Ireland

In Dublin, trams halted, shops shuttered; in Cork, 100,000 mourned as his cortège wound through streets lined with black crepe. Yet it was across the Atlantic that his sacrifice kindled the fiercest flame. Irish America, with its millions of descendants nursing old grievances, erupted in solidarity. New York City declared a day of mourning on October 26; Broadway theaters dimmed their lights, factories sounded sirens, and at noon, every citizen paused in silence—a “city frozen in grief,” as the New York Times reported. Vigils blazed for weeks: in Boston’s Fenway Park, 50,000 gathered under torchlight, reciting the Rosary; Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral hosted masses where priests thundered against British “barbarism.” Funds poured in—over $1 million (a fortune then) for the Irish cause, funneled through the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland. In Pittsburgh, 5,000 crammed the Lyceum Theater on Halloween night, 1920, to hear eulogies for MacSwiney. Women’s leagues in Philadelphia sewed Sinn Féin flags; schoolchildren in San Francisco penned letters to Muriel MacSwiney, promising “we’ll fight with words until you win with guns.”

Muriel MacSwiney in 1920

Funeral procession of Terence MacSwiney in Cork

In New York, 200,000 people filled St. Patrick’s Cathedral to mourn him, the largest memorial service the city had seen up to that point. Muriel MacSwiney undertook an overseas voyage to America that December, and while professing she had no strength to do so, she nevertheless went when asked by leaders of the Irish Republican Party. MacSwiney’s sister Min traveled with her. The ladies were hosted by governor Al Smith, as well as given the chance to provide unofficial evidence regarding the dire situation in Ireland before Congressmen belonging to the American Commission on Irish Affairs. Muriel MacSwiney would then become the first woman to be awarded the Medal of Freedom from the City of New York.

Muriel MacSwiney (second from right, holding front sign) takes part in protests during a trip to America

Sinn Féin visits Downing Street, 1921

When MacSwiney’s body was finally released for burial after long political wrangling, it lay in state in London, then at Dublin’s City Hall before sailing home. Buried in his hometown of Cork amid a sea of green, MacSwiney left no grand monument—only a legacy of suffering transmuted into strength. “That we shall win our freedom I have no doubt,” he had mused in prison, “that we shall use it well I am not so certain.” His death hastened the Anglo-Irish Treaty which came about one year later, forcing Britain into peace talks and paving the way to an independent Irish Republic.

Prayer vigil outside the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations, July 1921

Image Credits: 1 Lord Mayor MacSwiney (wikipedia.org) 2 Tomás Mac Curtain (wikipedia.org) 3 1918 Poster (wikipedia.org) 4 Sinn Féiner Prisoners (wikipedia.org) 5 Terence and Muriel MacSwiney (wikipedia.org) 6 Brixton Prison (wikipedia.org) 7 Deathbed portrait (wikipedia.org) 8 Prayer vigil for MacSwiney(wikipedia.org) 9 Séan MacSwiney (wikipedia.org) 10 Lying in state (wikipedia.org) 11 Muriel in 1920 (wikipedia.org) 12 Funeral procession (wikipedia.org) 13 Muriel protesting (wikipedia.org) 14 Sinn Féin visits Downing Street (wikipedia.org) 15 Prayer vigil for Anglo-Irish Treaty (wikipedia.org)

“But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.” —Numbers 14:24

John Champe and the Plot to Kidnap
the American Judas, October 13, 1780

n October 13, in the year 1780, General Washington invited one of his cavalry commanders, Major Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, to his headquarters to discuss “a particular piece of business.” At this secretive meeting, Washington broached a topic that had rankled him greatly: the recent treason of Benedict Arnold and how to repay it.

Benedict Arnold (1741-1801)

Before his name became synonymous in America with treachery, Benedict Arnold had been a great patriot hero. He was the twice-wounded victor of Saratoga, one of Washington’s most reliable officers, and the one he entrusted with the defense of West Point. A self-pitying descent into vainglorious ambition, disgruntlement with the leadership of Congress, and the honeyed drip of his Tory wife’s persuasions to join the Royalist cause came to a despicable culmination when Arnold contacted the British general, Sir Henry Clinton, and offered to sell his post at West Point.

Sir Henry Clinton (1730-1795)

Benedict Arnold’s oath of allegiance to the United States of America, signed at Valley Forge, May 30, 1778

Benedict Arnold’s price for this treachery was £20,000 (approximately $3.5 million in today’s value) in return for the fortification of West Point and all its garrison. Additionally, Arnold sought a commission in the British Army and a pension. When Washington and his staff paid Arnold an impromptu visit at West Point during these duplicitous negotiations, Arnold contacted his British agent again and—not being satisfied with the extent of his grubby perfidy—told the British to increase the sum because he was now in a position to hand over Washington himself to the British.

The home occupied by Benedict Arnold while commander of West Point

This plot was foiled by sheer Providence, involving the stopping of Arnold’s British contact—a Major John Andre—by a squad of drunken Continental soldiers who originally only wished to rob the man, but who then discovered the damning maps and papers detailing the plot. These were forwarded with haste to Washington’s staff officers who set in motion a well-executed lockdown of West Point. But they did not act quickly enough to catch Arnold, who fled out of his literal back door and caught a boat headed up river. His charming wife—the remarkably shrewd Peggy Shippen Arnold—served as a decoy for his escape by pretending to descend into a fit of feminine hysterics and thus split the energies of Washington’s staff who sought to comfort her.

Peggy Shippen Arnold (1760-1804), wife of Benedict Arnold, with their daughter

The escape pf Benedict Arnold from West Point

Since the incident at West Point, Benedict Arnold had set himself up in British-occupied New York. He received the commission he craved and some of the stated wages for his betrayal. He was a despised character amongst the British, however, as no one likes a turncoat. Not being trusted by them with the command he sought after, he set himself up as “Spymaster General”, hoping to gain British approbation by ruthlessly ferreting out every brave patriot citizen informant who worked in Washington’s spy rings.

One of Benedict Arnold’s coded communications with the British while he was negotiating his attempt to surrender West Point. Lines of text written by his wife, Peggy, are interspersed with coded text (originally written in invisible ink) written by Arnold.

Enraged by Arnold’s past treachery and current persecution of these informants, Washington called Major Henry Lee to his tent on October 13, 1780 and proposed a laughably daring plot: they would kidnap Arnold and bring him back so that justice might be served. Could Lee find a man among his cavalry willing to embark on such a mission?

Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee III (1756-1818)

It took Lee a week to find two volunteers “to undertake the accomplishment of your Excellency’s wishes.” Interestingly, Lee omitted to mention to these volunteers that they were acting on Washington’s specific orders since, if they failed, the commander-in-chief’s name could not be linked to such an unorthodox mission. The first man was a sergeant in Lee’s regiment named John Champe. A tall Virginian in his early twenties, his taciturn nature and “total absence of cheerfulness” masked a “remarkable intelligence”, according to Lee.

His task would be to enter New York, somehow capture Arnold, and bundle him down to a waiting boat for removal to Patriot-held New Jersey. Modestly desirous of an officer’s commission, all Champe asked for in reward for his dangerous services was a promotion. The other volunteer, whose name was never revealed, would be Champe’s contact man in Newark, New Jersey, and Lee promised him “one hundred guineas, five hundred acres of land, and three negroes.”

Washington was most pleased at Champe’s public-spiritedness. He admitted himself reluctant to cast around for officers to undertake the business, which even he regarded as being a shade dishonorable. After inquiring into Champe’s details, in the strictest of confidences, Washington authorized the operation and approved the rewards Lee had arranged with “the conductors of this interesting business.” He made one stipulation: Arnold was to be brought in alive. If he were killed during the mission, the British would be quick to spin it as “ruffians being hired to assassinate him,” whereas Washington’s aim was “to make a public example of him.”

After these arrangements had been made, Lee summoned Sergeant Champe to his quarters and ordered him to desert to the enemy immediately. To ensure complete authenticity, Lee added that no help could be given to Champe during his flight; he would have to find his way to the British lines as if he were a real turncoat. The most Lee could offer was to delay pursuit for as long as he could if Champe’s absence was noted before the next morning.

With that, Champe collected his belongings (including the regiment’s orderly book, for added authenticity) and rode his horse out of camp at about 11 o’clock that night. He was given three guineas to cover his immediate expenses (Washington refused him any more, saying it would ring too many alarm bells) and the names of two known friendlies in New York.

No one stopped Champe’s leaving, but just half a mile out of camp, at a crossroads, a mounted Patriot patrol returning from duty issued a challenge. Champe kept silent, pulled up his hood, plunged his spurs into his steed’s flanks, and galloped past them. The patrol gave chase but their horses were tired and they soon quit. Unfortunately, the patrol belonged to Lee’s own regiment, and half an hour later a certain Captain Carnes briskly woke up Major Lee to tell him of the incident. Lee understood instantly it was Champe that they had seen and played dumb, forcing the captain to repeat his entire story, questioning tiny details, dismissing Captain Carnes’ belief that the mysterious rider, judging by his riding style, was a cavalryman and suggesting instead he was “a countryman” in a hurry.

Lee could see Captain Carnes wasn’t convinced, and finally was forced to direct him to muster every man and horse and see if any were missing. That would waste yet another hour, at least, Lee hoped. Sooner than he expected, Captain Carnes returned and declared that one, a Sergeant Champe, was gone. It had come to the point where to continue piddling would invite suspicion, and Lee called out the regiment to give pursuit, as would be expected in the context of a desertion.

A pursuit party was selected and Lee chose a young cornet named Middleton, whom he knew lacked Captain Carnes’ experience and rigor, to lead it. Lee thought him to be of a gentle enough disposition that he would not kill Champe outright were he to capture him. In his quarters with Middleton, Lee managed to waste ten minutes going over in tedious detail exactly which route he should take, which equipment he might need, and how many men he should bring. Finally, after waiting precious minutes for Lee to sign his orders and reiterate how Champe should be treated humanely, an impatient Middleton was allowed to go.

Champe, thanks to Lee’s intervention, had gained an hour’s head start, but by that point, it unexpectedly began to rain: not hard enough to prevent pursuit, but sufficient to leave tracks on the muddy roads. Lee’s men were dragoons, and none in the army knew better than they how to follow hoof-prints. Worse yet, the regiment had one farrier who used a single, peculiar pattern of horseshoe, which made their tracts distinct. Unlike his pursuers, Champe could not afford to gallop through the countryside. Aside from the risk of laming his horse, the place swarmed with colonial militiamen who might set off a hue and cry at the sight of a lone, be-cloaked horseman running at full pelt so late at night.

Therefore, by dawn, Champe was still several miles north of Bergen, New Jersey on a wide and open plain where he could be easily spotted. Behind him he could hear the faint clatter of hooves, and knew his pursuers were closing. Looking behind him, Champe was horrified to see several horsemen pausing at the crest of a hill half a mile away and signaling to their comrades that the quarry was near. Champe gave spur to his horse and he made for the bridge traversing the Hackensack River. Most of the pursuers, including their leader Middleton, were local men and knew the terrain far better than the man they pursued. Middleton split his forces in two, so as to trap Champe in a pincer at the bottom of the hill near the river’s crossing. Caught between two forces, Champe would be forced to surrender.

And yet, Middleton miscalculated Champe’s brazen daring. Seeing his intended path was blocked and the original plan to defect to Paulis Hook (a British fortress on the Jersey shore) was impossible, Champe instead plunged straight ahead into the town of Bergen itself. He tore down one paved street after another before taking the road leading to the Hudson River, not the one heading to Paulus Hook.

Seeing his miscalculation, Middleton gave chase. There were two British ships anchored a mile ahead of Champe on the Hudson, and he made for them. Behind him, also a mile away, were the pursuing cavalrymen. There was nothing for it but to lighten the horse’s load and make a break for it. After shrugging off his cloak and tossing away his scabbard, Champe reached the shore in quick time but lost valuable minutes trying to attract the crews’ attention by dismounting and waving his arms. By the time the crews noticed him, Middleton had closed the distance and was just two hundred yards away.

Sergeant Major John Champe (1752-1798) riding for his life to escape his own men and carry out Washington’s secret mission

No longer able to wait for a boat to bring him in, Champe, weighed down by full dragoon regalia, splashed through the marsh on the bank and plunged into the chilly river, determined to swim toward the vessels. As Middleton pulled up and cried out for Champe to surrender, marksmen aboard the ships opened fire. The Patriot dragoons fired back before being driven away. Friendly British hands reached down and hauled an exhausted Champe from the water. There was not a single one among them who doubted the credibility of a deserter with bullet holes on his coat.

He was taken into New York and brought before General Clinton, the man who had accepted Arnold into his ranks. Clinton was greatly impressed when he heard of the young sergeant’s adventure. Champe was only the second man ever to have deserted from Lee’s legion, a unit famed for its fidelity. Champe played along admirably, telling Clinton that Arnold’s defection would only be the first of many among the dispirited Americans. Clinton chatted with him for an hour, and he was particularly interested in knowing how fondly Washington was regarded by the troops, whether other senior officers seemed disaffected, and which measures might prompt large-scale desertions.

Once finished with his inquiries, Clinton recommended that Champe see Arnold, who was then busy raising a regiment of deserters and Tories. It was an unexpected offer, almost too fortuitous considering Champe’s real mission in New York, but one Champe could not refuse without causing great suspicion. General Arnold took an instant shine to the young man sent to abduct him, going so far as to make him a recruiting sergeant a day after he enlisted.

For several weeks, Champe paid close attention to his prey’s movements. Arnold’s house was situated on one of the city’s principal streets, which made it impossible to abduct him through the front door, but Champe noticed that Arnold had a habit of taking a midnight stroll in his back garden before going to bed. This garden bordered an obscure alley, a wooden fence separating the two. One night, Champe sneaked along the alley and loosened several slats to allow enough space for a man to pass through. At that point, he contacted one of the two incognitos provided by Lee and asked him to get a message across the Hudson to the Newark contact, whose task it was to tell Lee to have a boat and several dragoons waiting on a particular night on the Jersey shore. At a prearranged time, they were to row to a darkened, deserted Manhattan wharf and pick up Champe’s Arnold-sized “package.” Champe’s other New York contact would accompany Champe to the alley, and they would hide themselves in Arnold’s garden.

On the day Champe had chosen for the deed, he prepared his kit: a gag and a bar with which to bludgeon the general. The plan was to tackle Arnold, hit and silence him, push him through the fence, pull his hat down over his face, and hold him up with his arms sagging around their shoulders. To passersby, it would look like two friends taking their drunken friend home after a hard night. Once at the wharf, Arnold would be tied up and bundled into the boat, and Champe would make off with his fellow dragoons. The first face a groggy Arnold would have seen the next day would have been Washington’s vengeful one.

Benedict Arnold, however, was destined to be conspicuously spared from every attempt to bring him to account. Just as he had miraculously escaped being taken at West Point, he would do so again. The very evening that Champe was to kidnap the general, he discovered that Arnold had been suddenly transferred to new quarters to oversee the embarkation of his “American Legion” aboard naval transports, a result of General Clinton having issued emergency orders directing the legion to proceed to Virginia.

Champe, who was now a most unwilling part of that American Legion, was immediately confined to barracks with his fellows, and then marched to the docks to depart for the South. The only person being kidnapped, it seems, was Champe himself. The depth of his aggravation can only be imagined. Lee, meanwhile, had been impatiently waiting with his dragoons on the banks of the Hudson all night, and it was only a few days later that he realized that Champe would never be coming.

Months went by. Lee had no word of his man. Then, without any warning, a bedraggled, bearded Sergeant Champe appeared in Lee camp with a harrowing story to tell, but no Arnold to deliver.

It had come about that, after landing in his native Virginia, Champe had been obliged to fight against his compatriots to keep up the duplicitous front. Finding this existence insuperable and the likelihood of carrying out his mission increasingly futile, Champe had deserted Arnold’s Legion, for real this time. He hid out in the country, traveling only at night through Virginia and North Carolina to evade Loyalist sympathizers and British pursuers, until he had at last arrived back at his old regiment. Lee immediately called the regiment to muster and proceeded to narrate to their great astonishment the truth of Champe’s whereabouts, and that he had been acting under the commander-in-chief’s orders all along.

Then Lee took Champe to Washington, who, in place of the promised promotion, offered him a lavish bounty and a discharge from military service. Champe however, objected and pleaded vehemently with his General that he would like to rejoin his regiment, not at all too tired to see the war to its conclusion. Washington sagaciously counseled against any such notion: if Champe were to be taken prisoner by the British, he would inevitably be recognized and hung as a double agent. Forced to see the wisdom of this, Champe, his remarkable service done, bid farewell to his commanders and mounted the horse given to him by Washington. He went back to Loudoun County, Virginia, riding right out of our revolution’s narrative.

The last time anyone recorded seeing the mysterious Sergeant John Champe was sometime in the late 1780s when Angus Cameron, a Scottish captain in Arnold’s Legion, happened to get lost while traveling deep in the Loudoun County woods one summer night. A terrible storm rolled over him, and he spotted a cottage by the flash of the lightning—the first he had seen in many miles. The man of the house ushered him inside, a man strangely familiar to Cameron.

Cameron, it turns out, had been Champe’s old superior during his days in the Legion. “Sergeant Champe stood before me!”, Cameron later recalled, and his shock at seeing the audacious sergeant was not altogether pleasant. Champe was, after all, a two-time deserter. Cameron was an unarmed outsider hours away from help, and his host might not relish this blast from the past turning up unexpectedly. Cameron’s misgivings were, thankfully, misplaced. Champe remained the charmingly benign man he had always presented himself to be. “Welcome, welcome, Captain Cameron!” exclaimed Champe, upon recognizing the bedraggled guest he had opened his door to, “a thousand times welcome to my roof.”

Amongst the exuberant storytelling and good-natured argumentation of the night, Champe would assure Cameron that he had been “the only British officer of whose good opinion I was covetous”, owing to his kindly behavior toward him during the Virginia expedition. The war over and the threat of being found out gone, Champe chose Cameron as the only man to whom he told the entire plot. All other accounts we have of it come from Champe’s fragmented letters, Lee’s accounts, and the correspondence between Lee, Washington and Washington’s aides regarding it.

A marker at Champe Rocks in modern-day West Virginia commemorates the daring deeds of John Champe, and the rock formation named in his honor

A few years after Cameron’s visit to him, having since married and had six children, Champe moved to Hampshire County, Virginia (now in West Virginia). In 1798, while negotiating to buy land in Morgantown, on the banks of the Monongahela River, this remarkably modest man died and was buried in the soil he had once so bravely defended.

Champe Rocks in West Virginia, named in honor of John Champe

Image Credits: 1 Benedict Arnold (wikipedia.org) 2 Sir Henry Clinton (wikipedia.org) 3 Arnold’s oath of allegiance (wikipedia.org) 4 West Point Home (wikipedia.org) 5 Peggy (wikipedia.org) 6 Arnold’s escape (wikipedia.org) 7 Cipher letter (wikipedia.org) 8 Lee (wikipedia.org) 9 Escape of Sergeant Champe (wikipedia.org) 10 Champe Rocks Marker (wikipedia.org) 11 Champe Rocks (wikipedia.org)