Today In History – November 22 Part 1

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Today In History – November 22 Part 1

Edward Teach, Blackbeard the Pirate

On November 22, 1718 – Edward Teach, also known as Blackbeard the pirate, was killed off North Carolina’s Outer Banks during a bloody battle with a British navy force sent from Virginia.

Believed to be a native of England, Edward Teach likely began his pirating career in 1713, when he became a crewman aboard a Caribbean sloop commanded by pirate Benjamin Hornigold. In 1717, after Hornigold accepted an offer of general amnesty by the British crown and retired as a pirate, Teach took over a captured 26-gun French merchantman, increased its armament to 40 guns, and renamed it the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

During the next six months, the Queen Anne’s Revenge served as the flagship of a pirate fleet featuring up to four vessels and more than 200 men. Teach became the most infamous pirate of his day, winning the popular name of Blackbeard for his long, dark beard, which he was said to light on fire during battles to intimidate his enemies. Blackbeard’s pirate forces terrorized the Caribbean and the southern coast of North America and were notorious for their cruelty.

In May 1718, the Queen Anne’s Revenge and another vessel were shipwrecked, forcing Blackbeard to desert a third ship and most of his men because of a lack of supplies. With the single remaining ship, Blackbeard sailed to Bath in North Carolina and met with Governor Charles Eden. Eden agreed to pardon Blackbeard in exchange for a share of his sizable booty.

At the request of North Carolina planters, Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia dispatched a British naval force under Lieutenant Robert Maynard to North Carolina to deal with Blackbeard. On November 22, Blackbeard’s forces were defeated and he was killed in a bloody battle of Ocracoke Island. Legend has it that Blackbeard, who captured more than 30 ships in his brief pirating career, received five musket-ball wounds and 20 sword lacerations before dying.

Daniel Marshall with a very small part of his congregation of Sandy Creek Baptist Church

ACCORDING TO ONE of Daniel Marshall’s friends, historian Morgan Edwards, Marshall was “a weak man, a stammerer, and no scholar…a man of no bright parts, nor eloquence nor learning. Piety, earnestness and honesty are all he can boast of.” Marshall’s  brother-in-law Shubal Stearns was a short man with little education. Nonetheless, their zeal was so great that a thousand Baptists churches in the south look back to them as founding fathers.

Both men were from New England—Marshall from Connecticut and Stearns from Massachusetts—and both had been profoundly influenced by the ministry of George Whitefield.  Although neither knew the other to begin with, their zeal to convert others drew their paths together. Finding the established Congregational churches lifeless, they became “Separates” and eventually Baptists. Both were evangelists and pastors when they met in Virginia. They attempted to found a church at Cacapon Creek, Virginia without much success.

In 1755 the two headed southward with their families. They settled near Greensboro, North Carolina. On

this day, 22 November 1755, Shubal Stearns, Daniel Marshall and fourteen others founded the Sandy Creek Baptist Church in North Carolina. Although they were ridiculed because of the trembling and screams of those who heard them preach, the church soon had six hundred members. From the very start, even while their own numbers were small, they spread the gospel into the surrounding region, and several other Baptist churches sprang up. Within three years, they formed those churches into an association.

Marshall moved to South Carolina, where he planted more Separate Baptist churches and then moved on to Georgia where he continued to plant churches even when he was old and infirm. Baptists of the day were persecuted and Marshall certainly received the brunt of it. Arrested in Georgia and told never to preach again, he simply replied that he must obey God, not man. Three of those involved in his arrest became converts.

Marshall’s last words were, “My breath is almost gone. I have been praying that I may go home to-night. I had great happiness in our worship this morning; particularly in singing, which will make a part of my exercises in a blessed eternity.”

Stearns remained at Sandy Creek. In 1771, its congregation plunged to just fifteen people. Many of the democratically-inclined Separates had joined a rebellion (the War of Regulation).  When it was crushed, they fled west. They founded new churches wherever they settled, so that by Stearns’s death that year, there were forty-two Separate Baptist churches. Sandy Creek had sent out one hundred and twenty-five ministers. Many Separate churches were eventually assimilated by other Baptist denominations.

November 22, 1873, Horatio Spafford’s four daughters are drowned in a shipping accident when the French ship Ville du Havre sinks.

Horatio Spafford (1828-1888) was a wealthy Chicago lawyer with a thriving legal practice, a beautiful home, a wife, four daughters and a son. He was also a devout Christian and faithful student of the Scriptures. His circle of friends included Dwight L. Moody, Ira Sankey and various other well-known Christians of the day.

At the very height of his financial and professional success, Horatio and his wife Anna suffered the tragic loss of their young son. Shortly thereafter on October 8, 1871, the Great Chicago Fire destroyed almost every real estate investment that Spafford had.

In 1873, Spafford scheduled a boat trip to Europe in order to give his wife and daughters a much needed vacation and time to recover from the tragedy. He also went to join Moody and Sankey on an evangelistic campaign in England. Spafford sent his wife and daughters ahead of him while he remained in Chicago to take care of some unexpected last minute business. Several days later he received notice that his family’s ship had encountered a collision. All four of his daughters drowned; only his wife had survived.

With a heavy heart, Spafford boarded a boat that would take him to his grieving Anna in England. It was on this trip that he penned those now famous words, When sorrow like sea billows roll; it is well, it is well with my soul.. 

Philip Bliss (1838-1876), composer of many songs including Hold the Fort and Let the Lower Lights be Burning, was so impressed with Spafford’s life and the words of his hymn that he composed a beautiful piece of music to accompany the lyrics. The song was published by Bliss and Sankey, in 1876.

For more than a century, the tragic story of one man has given hope to countless thousands who have lifted their voices to sing, It Is Well With My Soul. 

It Is Well With My Soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Refrain:
It is well (it is well),
with my soul (with my soul),
It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.

Refrain

My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

Refrain

For me, be it Christ, be it Christ hence to live:
If Jordan above me shall roll,
No pang shall be mine, for in death as in life
Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.

Refrain

And Lord haste the day, when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7) 

  Swaziland

Christian historian Susan E. Elliott has written about Dorothy Davis. On a Sunday afternoon in September 1928, sixteen-year-old Dorothy Davis heard the voice of God calling her to Africa. The key verse that day was Psalm 2:8—”Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Dorothy didn’t know that day that her inheritance, her children, would be the Swazi women she raised and trained to be Christian nurses.

Dorothy Fay Davis was born in Hugo, Colorado, on March 29, 1912. Raised in a Christian home, she spent the majority of her childhood in Alhambra, California. She graduated from Pasadena College (now Point Loma Nazarene University) in 1934. She got her hands on training at Nazarene the Samaritan Hospital in Nampa, Idaho. She then completed her bachelor of science degree at Northwest Nazarene College, also in Nampa. She was appointed to Nazarene missionary service on November 22, 1939.

Dorothy then spent 6 weeks at sea, crossing the Atlantic. That was no small feat because the Atlantic Ocean was a World War II battlefield at that time – June 1940. Davis, on arrival in Swaziland, began learning the Zulu language and the importance of prayer in a missionary’s life. King Subhuza was always known there as “the Lion of Swaziland” and reigned from 1921 until 1982 (61 years). On request of this king, the Nazarene hospital was moved from a more remote area to a larger city that was more in the center of this small country. In 1943, Dorothy Davis placed herself on night duty in the hospital so that her mornings and evenings would be free for teaching and for clinic visits. She constantly studied diseases common to Swaziland.

Dorothy lived in a cramped little house and later meals with the nurses. She wrote about her experiences and included this: “My first classroom my first night of teaching was directly next to the morgue. I asked if we could be moved and was told yes, but I never knew beforehand where our classroom would be at any time.” Nothing hindered Dorothy’s faith that Christ would give her the power to do anything. She wrote for books for nurses and many other countries received healing through those books. She also became editor of a newspaper for nurses. All the time she was doing these things, she was sharing the love of Christ and his Gospel.

Dorothy Davis is known to this day in Swaziland as “the Mother of Swazi Nurses”. For her amazing service, by order of Queen Elizabeth II, she was honored with the Member of the British Empire award and the Dorothy Fay Davis Silver Medal was established to reward the nursing student from the 3 territories in Swaziland who received the highest score on their final examinations.

Dorothy left Swaziland in 1972. In a final letter to the nurses she wrote “Thank you for loving me, for understanding by strange foreign ways, for your patience, for your kindness. Today I am rich because of you. You are my inheritance. I am going. The time for my departure is at hand. I have finished the work God gave me to do in Swaziland. I wish I could have done better. However, it is a great comfort to me to know that you have grown up and that the work is in good and efficient hands. Your Mother and your Teacher, Dorothy Davis.”

Stalingrad survivors

On this day in 1942, a Soviet counteroffensive against the German armies pays off as the Red Army trapped about a quarter-million German soldiers south of Kalach, on the Don River, within Stalingrad. As the Soviets’ circle tightened, German General Friedrich Paulus requested permission from Berlin to withdraw.

The Battle of Stalingrad began in the summer of 1942, as German forces assaulted the city, a major industrial center and a prize strategic coup, if it could be occupied. But despite repeated attempts, the German 6th Army, under Paulus, and part of the 4th Panzer Army, under Ewald von Kleist, could not break past the adamantine defense by the Soviet 62nd Army, commanded by Gen. Vasily I. Chuikov, despite having pushed the Soviets almost to the Volga River in mid-October and encircling Stalingrad.

Diminishing resources, partisan guerilla attacks, and the cruelty of the Russian winter began to take their toll on the Germans. On November 19, the Soviets made their move, launching a counteroffensive that began with a massive artillery bombardment of the German position. The Soviets then assaulted the weakest link in the German force-inexperienced Romanian troops; 65,000 were ultimately taken prisoner by the Soviets.

The Soviets then made a bold strategic move, encircling the enemy, launching pincer movements from north and south simultaneously, even as the Germans encircled Stalingrad. The Germans should have withdrawn, but Hitler wouldn’t allow it. He wanted his armies to hold out until they could be reinforced. By the time those fresh troops arrived in December, it was too late. The Soviet position was too strong, and the Germans were exhausted. It was then only a matter of time before the Germans would be forced to surrender.

Today In History – November 22 Part 1

Today In History – November 22 Part 1