Celebrating America’s 250th: Bill Knightly on “Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor…”

This year, we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, and my friend Bill Knightly, a historian with special expertise in the Revolution (and Lawfire contributor!), helps us remember how challenging it was for the Revolution to succeed.  In fact, winning the Revolutionary War was, as he says, “never a sure thing.”  

Although Americans can sometimes forget what an amazing place the U.S. really is, a recent Gallup poll revealed that the U.S. is still by far the country to which most foreigners want to emigrate.

Moreover, Bill notes numerous articles about how foreign visitors to the U.S. for the World Cup have found “to their delight…a welcoming, vibrant, and abundant America.”  Yesterday, the London Times article pointed out that the “World Cup has achieved what no tourist campaign could: make people from other countries fall in love with the United States.”

To have the freedoms we enjoy today required tremendous sacrifices.  Bill rightly observes that Americans should not take the blessings the Revolution won for granted, and adds this vital admonition: “Each generation of Americans must stay engaged and, when necessary, put their sacred honor on the line.”  

Here’s Bill’s wonderful essay:

Our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor

by Bill Knightly 

Land of abundance

As America marks the 250^th anniversary of its independence, the celebration coincides with the 2026 World Cup in the United States. Tens of thousands of international visitors have arrived to support their teams. To their delight, they have found a welcoming, vibrant, and abundant America.

Countless YouTube videos show joyful visitors competing to offer the highest praise for the country. One young British visitor described his experience by emphasizing “the pure kindness of average Americans.”

It is a fitting irony that someone from the nation America broke away from now reminds us of our fundamental goodness. At a time when our nation seems so divided, the fortuitous timing of the World Cup has provided the venue for Americans to rediscover and feel good about their country.

It’s true that America at 250 years is a land of wealth, abundance, and freedom. But it was not always so. Declaring independence in 1776 was deadly serious and risky business.

1776: A year of defeat and retreat

The American Revolution was never a sure thing. In fact, looking back to 1776, there was little reason to assume the revolution would succeed. Despite the excitement of July 4, the year 1776 was a year of defeat and retreat.

Washington’s Continental Army had lost every major engagement with the powerful British regular army. This included the Battle of Brooklyn, the Battle of White Plains, and major engagements along the Hudson River, such as the Battle of Fort Washington.

By late 1776, Washington chose to make a general retreat across New Jersey, eventually crossing the Delaware River into Pennsylvania to preserve what remained of his ragtag army.

Two hundred fifty years ago, there was little cause for celebration. In December 1776, American patriot Thomas Paine captured the nation’s grim mood when he wrote:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”

Paine knew this hardship firsthand, having accompanied the army during its winter retreat across New Jersey. By the end of 1776, defeat seemed imminent. The war had entered its second year, and there was no turning back. 

The founders’ risk all

Looking back on the Revolution, it is difficult to fully grasp the risks our founding generation took. These men and women secured our freedom through great sacrifice and immense personal danger.

Their awareness of that risk still speaks to us in the final sentence of the Declaration of Independence: “And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

This sentence was not an afterthought, nor was it a casual statement. It was an acknowledgment that the signers were fully aware of the consequences and costs of their actions. By signing the Declaration of Independence, they made themselves traitors in British eyes, a crime punishable by death. In addition to risking their lives, they also placed their homes, property, and family reputations in jeopardy.

Ordinary soldiers share the risk

At the soldier level, sacrifice was just as great—if not more severe—than that of the celebrated figures of the American Revolution. Soldiers in the Continental Army endured every kind of deprivation. They lacked proper clothing, suffered constant exposure to the elements, and, perhaps most cruelly, went without enough food.

Joseph Plumb Martin, a soldier in the 8^th Connecticut Regiment, recorded in his memoir that inadequate rations were a devastating hardship. “We never received what was allowed us. Oftentimes have I gone one, two, three, even four days without a morsel, unless the fields or forests might chance to afford enough to prevent absolute starvation.”

Martin went on to say that that Continental soldiers could be “tracked by the blood of their feet on the frozen ground.”

Disease was a constant companion of the Continental soldier, as one recent discovery shows. A mass grave from the American Revolution was recently uncovered in Wilmington, Delaware.

The grave contains the remains of 28 soldiers from the Rhode Island Regiment, including 14 African American soldiers. Remarkably, their names have been identified—a rare circumstance for any mass grave. The soldiers died of smallpox while being treated at a Continental hospital in Wilmington. They were marching home after participating in the decisive American victory at Yorktown.  

The story of the African American soldiers is especially poignant. Although their precise motivations remain uncertain, freedom was surely central to their service. Beginning in 1778, Rhode Island granted freedom to enslaved men who enlisted in its regiments. In that sense, they were fighting for two freedoms: the nation’s and their own.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech perfectly applies to these American heroes. He declared:

“ When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men–yes, black men as well as white men– would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . . .

Two hundred fifty years later, the African American heirs of the Rhode Island Regiment proudly serve in every branch and at every rank of America’s armed forces.

As a footnote to this story, the city of Wilmington will formally honor the 28 soldiers of the Rhode Island regiment and 38 British soldiers buried with them, as part of the city’s 250^th celebrations on September 23, 2026. The soldiers of both nations unremembered and unknown for so long will not be forgotten.  

Finally, a miracle in 1776

By December 1776, Washington and his Continental Army could scarcely have been in a worse position. After decisive defeats in New York and New Jersey, his exhausted men crossed the Delaware River into the relative safety of Pennsylvania. Enlistments were also expiring, threatening to strip him of much of his already understrength army. Through sheer force of character, Washington persuaded his soldiers to remain for one more attempt to secure a victory.

On Christmas Eve, amid a fierce winter storm, he led his army back across the Delaware and attacked three regiments of Hessian soldiers at Trenton. The surprise was complete, even though the Hessians had expected an attack. By the battle’s end, more than one hundred Hessians were dead or wounded, and 900 were captured. It was a stunning victory—and exactly the win Washington needed. It was, in a real sense, the miracle that closed 1776.

Keeping our republic and cherishing our independence

It’s good to remember that independence was not a sure thing for America. Far from it. The founding generation responsible for America’s independence, from luminary to foot soldier, took enormous risks. They put their “sacred honor” on the line not knowing the outcome.

In 1787, at the constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin was asked what form of government the new country would have. He answered: “A republic. If you can keep it.” Franklin has laid down a challenge to every succeeding generation.  He knew instinctively that the form of government chosen by the new country required citizens who were informed, educated, and engaged.

As we celebrate the 250^th anniversary of our independence, our international visitors marvel at and remind us that we are a land of abundance and freedom.

We should not take these blessings for granted. Each generation of Americans must stay engaged and, when necessary, put their sacred honor on the line.  Our founding generation did so in the dark days of 1776.

We must be worthy of that legacy.

About the Author

Bill Knightly retired from the U.S. Army after a career of 30 years. His service worldwide spanned 23 different countries, including multiple tours with units assigned to NATO. Among these assignments was a three-year stint as chief of the war plans division for the U.S. Army V Corps in Frankfurt, Germany, during the height of the Cold War.  Bill is a graduate of the U.S Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and the U.S. Army War College Advanced Operational Fellowship Program.

After retiring from the Army as a Colonel, Bill worked as a civilian for the United States Southern Command (Miami, FL), where his duties took him throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean basin.   He has also worked in the private sector and run his own small business. He now lives in Delaware, where he lectures, writes, and delivers podcasts on the history of northern Delaware and the surrounding region during the American Revolution.