Do you ever write down a quote, and then years later, when wanting to use it for part of a post, discover that you can’t find your original notes, and then spend hours chasing every thread of memory you have around that research, only to come up empty?
That’s where I have been for about a week now. I clearly remember reading an account of Leslie’s Retreat, 26 February 1775, that I found amusing. I also clearly remember that wherever I had read this, they had used Monty Python as a descriptor of the events. All that I can find, evidence wise, of something I wrote down regarding it is the following text that I wrote on a Facebook post at the time.
“Go home and tell your master he sent you on a fool’s errand and has broken the peace of our Sabbath. What! Do you think we were born in the woods to be frightened by owls?” – Sarah Tarrant, yelling at British soldiers during the unsuccessful “raid” of Salem prior to Lexington and Concord.
Note to self: Be more like Sarah Tarrant.
I had very specific thoughts about this passage being in a book (which could be wrong). I had very specific thoughts about writing down notes about this passage. (These notes have not materialized.) I have now been through several books in my collection, several of which don’t even mention Col. Alexander Leslie in the index, let alone have mention of Leslie’s Retreat in the text.
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