Ben Franklin Gets Fired
...and the King is going to regret it.
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July 26, 1775
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In a stately Georgian mansion turned rebel headquarters, a 43-year-old George Washington pulls out a chair in the dining room, now a war room, and starts writing out his orders for the day. His brand-new army is fresh off a defeat at Bunker Hill. The Redcoats hold Boston, just across the river. His side is outfunded, outmanned, outgunned. And Washington is living the unglamorous truth at the heart of every war: if you can’t communicate, you can’t win.
What he doesn’t know is that on this very day, the rebel Congress in Philadelphia is voting to hand him a new weapon. Not cannons. Not troops. A different kind of general. A postmaster general. They elect Benjamin Franklin. Unanimously.
Here’s the funny part: it’s Franklin’s old job. He ran the mail in America for decades, and ran it brilliantly. Then, eighteen months earlier, just weeks after the Boston Tea Party, the Crown dragged him in front of the King’s Privy Council, berated him for over an hour, and fired him.
Forty years of loyal service. One hour of public humiliation. One revolution.
This week: how does a runaway teenage printer end up running the mail for an entire continent? What did Franklin do to get himself fired? (The saga involves leaked letters, a mob, a near-duel, and a royal governor fleeing the colonies.) And how did a humble postal service help the rebels win the Revolutionary War?
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