Caesar Rodney Rode 80 Miles Through a Thunderstorm to Cast One Vote. Nobody Remembers His Name.
What the clean parchment doesn't show: the heat, the arguments, and the document Jefferson spent the rest of his life trying to correct.
July 1, 1776.
Caesar Rodney, a Delaware delegate to the Continental Congress, received an urgent letter from colleague Thomas McKean in Philadelphia:
Get back now.
The vote for American independence was tied. His delegation needed him. Rodney suffered from facial cancer and asthma, and a summer storm was rolling in. It was 11 pm.
He rode furiously for 80 miles anyway, through mud and lightning.
On roads that were little more than packed dirt.
Rodney arrived on the morning of July 2, filthy and tired, spurs still on, to break the tie and cast Delaware’s vote for independence.
Think about the last decision that left you sweaty, exhausted, with blisters, and stiff with pain. Most of us never face this situation.
Rodney did.
He’s barely in the story we tell about July 4. Neither is most of what actually happened that frantic summer.
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