[Luthor Hall, Metropolis Museum]
"Wow!" Chloe exclaimed. "A Luthor was at Concord!"
Lex chuckled. "The shot heard round the world. So the legend goes. I'm sure most of the East Coast bluebloods would like to claim that their forefathers were there. This recent excavation may finally put to rest any speculation about my family's origins."
"I almost expected the Luthors to be backing the redcoats, considering conquest is something close to your father's heart," Pete remarked, only half-jokingly.
"Pete," Clark admonished, "I'd like to think Lex doesn't take after his father in some respects."
"The War of Independence wasn't a clear-cut as that," Chloe replied, "Both sides sacked towns and persecuted 'traitors' to their cause."
"It's war," Lex interjected, "the Geneva Convention didn't exactly exist back then. And at that time, Britain was the greatest power in the world. Defeating the patriots should have been a cakewalk."
"But it wasn't," Clark replied, as he examined the faded redcoat unearthed from its 300-year-old sleep.
No, Lex thought, it wasn't easy at all ...
[1776, Boston]
British reinforcements were late in coming. Colonial militias stalked all the main roads. Edward Wayne wisely chose not to press on to New York. The British still held Boston.
For now. An officer by the name of Washington had taken command of the Continental Army. The Yankees had beaten the British at Bunker Hill. Now, they were prepared to bombard Boston with cannon fire from Dorchester Heights.
General Howe, the new British commander, chose to evacuate his troops. This would be Edward's lone opportunity to save his family.
Sara waded through the panicked crowd at Boston Harbour. She waved frantically. "Edward!"
Edward hugged his sister. "The fleet is departing for Nova Scotia. The naval port of Halifax. The Canadas will be safe ... they've rejected this foolish rebellion."
"Please, don't stay. Come with us!" Sara pleaded.
"No! I would have been dead in Concord, had I joined Jack. He did not die in vain. The Yanks took our house. Our lives! I must make them pay!" Sara began to weep.
"You must be strong," Edward insisted, " For us. For the boys. You are now head of the family. I trust that you will defend it with the same dignity our father showed against the French so many years ago." He handed her a bulky pistol.
"If the time comes, do not hesitate to use this. If things go badly, the Americans may move north."
He waved as his entire family boarded a rowboat that would take them to a British frigate. And freedom.
Edward eagerly enlisted in one of the Loyalist militias that fought alongside the British. The local newsletters had talked of Yankee victories in the South. A Patriot regiment, commanded by a Captain Luthor, had defeated Loyalist partisans in the Carolinas and Virginia.
He had hoped to reverse those victories, but there was a greater threat. The Yankees were moving to take Quebec. Edward and his band of loyalists harassed the Continental Army's supply lines, depriving Benedict Arnold's invading force of badly needed ammunition.
Defeated, the Yankees returned to New England. Edward's militia - now known as Wayne's Rangers - attached themselves to a British invasion force that swept from Canada south to Albany. New York was within reach. But that dastardly Benedict Arnold put up a stiff resistance and forced the British back to Quebec.
Edward, commissioned as a militia captain by General Howe, could have joined in the retreat. He remained. The British were gaining the upper hand. They still threatened to sweep through New York and crush the Patriots from behind. Although the rebel Congress had fled, Howe captured Philadelphia. Washington's army were outflanked and retreated.
Wayne's Rangers had hoped to strike a crippling blow against the fleeing Yankees. But Washington had heard of Edward's troublesome feats in New York. He had arranged an ambush.
With the daring Edward Wayne as the prize. Yankee snipers decimated his Loyalist force near Valley Forge.
"As a gentleman of honour," Washington declared, "I offer you the opportunity to surrender. Do so, and I spare your company of men. Your injured will receive treatment. Promise not to escape, and I will have you treated with the dignity accorded your rank."
Edward glanced at his men. The bitter fall cold had stricken many from their ranks. The ambush wiped out half of them in a matter of hours. A dozen were crying for help, for their mothers, for something to stop the pain.
"Refuse ... choose to resist," Washington growled, "and every single one of you will die here today." The snipers prepared to rain a hail of deadly volleys upon them.
Survive, Edward told himself. I will not have my men die like dogs in these woods.
Edward pulled out his sword, turned the hilt towards Washington and handed the sword to him.
"I surrender Wayne's Rangers to your mercy, General," Edward began, "and I give you my parole: my promise not to escape. I trust that you will tend to my men."
A Yankee soldier removed Edward's pistol. "Keep your sword," Washington replied, "as a sign of respect. You have put your company's interests ahead of your own." The general instructed his men to grant Edward all the courtesies befitting an army officer.
Washington had little to offer. The retreat to Valley Forge was miserable. The coming winter left them with few supplies and low ammunition. The winter brought more sickness and death to Washington's beleaguered army.
As a prisoner, Edward could do nothing but tend to his men ... and observe the stubborn dedication of these American soldiers. To pass the long winter nights, Washington gave his prisoner several books.
Thomas Payne. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Patriot newsletters. Essays from the Revolution's leaders: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson.
Edward read that Yankee militias in the south continued to resist British attacks. "I shall promote this New England officer, one Elijah Luthor," Washington remarked during a dinner with his officers. With a stroke of a pen, Luthor gained a major's rank and his own regiment. When the British threatened to retake Virginia and the Carolinas, Washington sent orders to Luthor: hold the line, at all costs! Congress also received word from the French that the British navy may try to seize the Mississippi, using old Fort Orange to harass Yankee forces on the frontier from Mohawk territory to the east coast.
Edward learned of British atrocities. Summary executions of Yankee soldiers, for 'treason'. Attempts on both sides to use the native Indians to their advantage - promising land, self-government and other hollow schemes. The concept of the 'inalienable rights' of man began to appeal to the Loyalist. Why should a distant king care about the sufferings of subjects half a world away? We have died from scurvy, while his palace court has dined on the very fruits we have harvested!
Spring came. Rebirth. Edward wrote to his sister, Sara, in Halifax: "Please do not hate me. I could not bear it. As a prisoner of the Americans, I have seen first-hand why they feel they must fight. They are Englishmen no longer. They are Americans. They fight to live as free men. This is their country now."
And mine, he thought. The Waynes built their lives on their own. For over a hundred years, they endured the discrimination of the anti-Catholic New England administration. Our family has served the Crown loyally. They repaid us with neglect. Only when their precious cotton and tobacco plantations in the South were threatened, did they lift a finger and deployed British reinforcements.
When Edward told his surviving Rangers that he wished to cross sides and join the Americans, a sergeant spat at him. "I saw what they did to our homes in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Albany. Set ablaze, they were! Our property stolen. Our women humiliated. And you now dare to sympathize with their cause! This country does not want us. I am a Loyalist to death, even if you no longer are. God curse you, Edward Wayne!"
The momentum shifted in the Americans' favour. While his men rotted on a prison ship, Edward Wayne joined the Continental Army. He fought in the critical battle of Saratoga ... and remembered the face of every redcoat he killed. Last year, he would have counted them as friends.
They were the enemy now. Servants of a foreign master.
Years passed. Captain Wayne and his new Yankee regiment helped to drive the British out of every New England port, town and city from New Jersey to Maine. Luthor kept his word and held the Yankee line in the South.
Cornwallis, the new British commander, wanted to defend Fort Gotham, a strategic base that connected British supply lines between Virginia and New Jersey.
Washington mustered a large force - 8,000 men - to take the fort. There were rumours of reinforcements from Nova Scotia, sent to relieve the besieged British garrison. Washington summoned Luthor to join this critical campaign.
"We would like a portrait for the paper in Boston," the reporter had asked Washington the night before the battle.
"I did not fight this war alone," Washington insisted, "Include these officers, too."
Luthor proudly stood right beside General Washington. "We are going to make history with this republic," Elijah beamed.
Edward reluctantly stood in the rear as the portrait artist sealed his destiny in oil and canvas. The Waynes, a loyal English family who - despite their Catholicism - had backed Protestant Elizabeth I against the Stuarts. England should be ruled from London, not Rome, they had professed. The Waynes, who were among the founding fathers of New England. And the gallant William Wayne, Edward's father, who had scaled the cliffs of Quebec and drove the French off the continent forever.
With this painting, all that became irrelevant. The Waynes would be known as patriots of the revolution. Freedom fighters. His thoughts soared. Across the hills, the ocean. To his family in Halifax. His sister, Sara, wrote less frequently. In her last letter, she told him the younger brothers were coming of age. They would join the British Army to fight the Yankees.
As the artist sketched their faces, Edward shed a tear.
Please God, spare me the possibility that I may yet face them in battle ...
[Luthor Hall, 2002]
Chloe nudged Lex's arm. "So? What happened then?"
Lex paused. "Well, you know the rest. Edward Wayne and his troops took the fort. The Waynes would go down in history as the founding fathers of Gotham City. When Fort Gotham fell, Washington sent Major Luthor to capture Fort Orange. That fort remained in British hands until the end of the war. Wayne witnessed Cornwallis' surrender at Yorkton, effectively sealing his legend in American history. "
"Did Edward ever see his family again?" Clark wondered.
Lex gazed at the frayed Union Jack in the display case. The flag that defiantly flew above Fort Orange - and denied the Luthors their well-earned place in American myth.. "A sniper with the British 'Fighting Fortieth' regiment was about to put an end to Washington's career. Edward gave the order to fire. He saved Washington's life."
"Cool," Pete mused, as Chloe and Lana gasped in amazement.
"Not really," Lex stated, "the sniper that Edward's men fired upon ... was one Pvt. James Wayne, 40th regiment of Nova Scotia. Edward's youngest brother. From Charleston to Boston, the Wayne name became synonymous with 'American patriot'."
"But at a high price," Chloe stated.
"You see, that's what makes a person great," Lex replied, "Sacrifice. Perseverance. Risk. Wayne could have played it safe. Climbed the ranks of His Majesty's army. He knew his destiny - and seized it, despite his betrayal of family bonds. If Edward had been sent to Fort Orange instead, Major Luthor may have held the privilege of witnessing the birth of a new country at Yorkton."
"Tough break," Pete added. Sounds like sour grapes to me, he thought to himself.
"Enjoy the rest of the museum," Lex glanced at his watch, "I have to return a call to the city archivist. I'll catch up with you guys later."
Pete rolled his eyes. "The way he was talking ... it's as if his family won the Revolution on its own!"
"The Luthors are almost as legendary as the Waynes," Lana replied, "He must be thrilled that these excavations are giving him some insight into his ancestors."
Clark stepped aside. "It's nice to have roots. To know where you're from. Why you're here." Lex could touch these relics. Make a connection to his past.
He was envious. The Clark Kent history began in Smallville.
His true ancestors were not from this continent. Not from this world.
"Wow!" Chloe exclaimed. "A Luthor was at Concord!"
Lex chuckled. "The shot heard round the world. So the legend goes. I'm sure most of the East Coast bluebloods would like to claim that their forefathers were there. This recent excavation may finally put to rest any speculation about my family's origins."
"I almost expected the Luthors to be backing the redcoats, considering conquest is something close to your father's heart," Pete remarked, only half-jokingly.
"Pete," Clark admonished, "I'd like to think Lex doesn't take after his father in some respects."
"The War of Independence wasn't a clear-cut as that," Chloe replied, "Both sides sacked towns and persecuted 'traitors' to their cause."
"It's war," Lex interjected, "the Geneva Convention didn't exactly exist back then. And at that time, Britain was the greatest power in the world. Defeating the patriots should have been a cakewalk."
"But it wasn't," Clark replied, as he examined the faded redcoat unearthed from its 300-year-old sleep.
No, Lex thought, it wasn't easy at all ...
[1776, Boston]
British reinforcements were late in coming. Colonial militias stalked all the main roads. Edward Wayne wisely chose not to press on to New York. The British still held Boston.
For now. An officer by the name of Washington had taken command of the Continental Army. The Yankees had beaten the British at Bunker Hill. Now, they were prepared to bombard Boston with cannon fire from Dorchester Heights.
General Howe, the new British commander, chose to evacuate his troops. This would be Edward's lone opportunity to save his family.
Sara waded through the panicked crowd at Boston Harbour. She waved frantically. "Edward!"
Edward hugged his sister. "The fleet is departing for Nova Scotia. The naval port of Halifax. The Canadas will be safe ... they've rejected this foolish rebellion."
"Please, don't stay. Come with us!" Sara pleaded.
"No! I would have been dead in Concord, had I joined Jack. He did not die in vain. The Yanks took our house. Our lives! I must make them pay!" Sara began to weep.
"You must be strong," Edward insisted, " For us. For the boys. You are now head of the family. I trust that you will defend it with the same dignity our father showed against the French so many years ago." He handed her a bulky pistol.
"If the time comes, do not hesitate to use this. If things go badly, the Americans may move north."
He waved as his entire family boarded a rowboat that would take them to a British frigate. And freedom.
Edward eagerly enlisted in one of the Loyalist militias that fought alongside the British. The local newsletters had talked of Yankee victories in the South. A Patriot regiment, commanded by a Captain Luthor, had defeated Loyalist partisans in the Carolinas and Virginia.
He had hoped to reverse those victories, but there was a greater threat. The Yankees were moving to take Quebec. Edward and his band of loyalists harassed the Continental Army's supply lines, depriving Benedict Arnold's invading force of badly needed ammunition.
Defeated, the Yankees returned to New England. Edward's militia - now known as Wayne's Rangers - attached themselves to a British invasion force that swept from Canada south to Albany. New York was within reach. But that dastardly Benedict Arnold put up a stiff resistance and forced the British back to Quebec.
Edward, commissioned as a militia captain by General Howe, could have joined in the retreat. He remained. The British were gaining the upper hand. They still threatened to sweep through New York and crush the Patriots from behind. Although the rebel Congress had fled, Howe captured Philadelphia. Washington's army were outflanked and retreated.
Wayne's Rangers had hoped to strike a crippling blow against the fleeing Yankees. But Washington had heard of Edward's troublesome feats in New York. He had arranged an ambush.
With the daring Edward Wayne as the prize. Yankee snipers decimated his Loyalist force near Valley Forge.
"As a gentleman of honour," Washington declared, "I offer you the opportunity to surrender. Do so, and I spare your company of men. Your injured will receive treatment. Promise not to escape, and I will have you treated with the dignity accorded your rank."
Edward glanced at his men. The bitter fall cold had stricken many from their ranks. The ambush wiped out half of them in a matter of hours. A dozen were crying for help, for their mothers, for something to stop the pain.
"Refuse ... choose to resist," Washington growled, "and every single one of you will die here today." The snipers prepared to rain a hail of deadly volleys upon them.
Survive, Edward told himself. I will not have my men die like dogs in these woods.
Edward pulled out his sword, turned the hilt towards Washington and handed the sword to him.
"I surrender Wayne's Rangers to your mercy, General," Edward began, "and I give you my parole: my promise not to escape. I trust that you will tend to my men."
A Yankee soldier removed Edward's pistol. "Keep your sword," Washington replied, "as a sign of respect. You have put your company's interests ahead of your own." The general instructed his men to grant Edward all the courtesies befitting an army officer.
Washington had little to offer. The retreat to Valley Forge was miserable. The coming winter left them with few supplies and low ammunition. The winter brought more sickness and death to Washington's beleaguered army.
As a prisoner, Edward could do nothing but tend to his men ... and observe the stubborn dedication of these American soldiers. To pass the long winter nights, Washington gave his prisoner several books.
Thomas Payne. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Patriot newsletters. Essays from the Revolution's leaders: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson.
Edward read that Yankee militias in the south continued to resist British attacks. "I shall promote this New England officer, one Elijah Luthor," Washington remarked during a dinner with his officers. With a stroke of a pen, Luthor gained a major's rank and his own regiment. When the British threatened to retake Virginia and the Carolinas, Washington sent orders to Luthor: hold the line, at all costs! Congress also received word from the French that the British navy may try to seize the Mississippi, using old Fort Orange to harass Yankee forces on the frontier from Mohawk territory to the east coast.
Edward learned of British atrocities. Summary executions of Yankee soldiers, for 'treason'. Attempts on both sides to use the native Indians to their advantage - promising land, self-government and other hollow schemes. The concept of the 'inalienable rights' of man began to appeal to the Loyalist. Why should a distant king care about the sufferings of subjects half a world away? We have died from scurvy, while his palace court has dined on the very fruits we have harvested!
Spring came. Rebirth. Edward wrote to his sister, Sara, in Halifax: "Please do not hate me. I could not bear it. As a prisoner of the Americans, I have seen first-hand why they feel they must fight. They are Englishmen no longer. They are Americans. They fight to live as free men. This is their country now."
And mine, he thought. The Waynes built their lives on their own. For over a hundred years, they endured the discrimination of the anti-Catholic New England administration. Our family has served the Crown loyally. They repaid us with neglect. Only when their precious cotton and tobacco plantations in the South were threatened, did they lift a finger and deployed British reinforcements.
When Edward told his surviving Rangers that he wished to cross sides and join the Americans, a sergeant spat at him. "I saw what they did to our homes in Boston, in Philadelphia, in Albany. Set ablaze, they were! Our property stolen. Our women humiliated. And you now dare to sympathize with their cause! This country does not want us. I am a Loyalist to death, even if you no longer are. God curse you, Edward Wayne!"
The momentum shifted in the Americans' favour. While his men rotted on a prison ship, Edward Wayne joined the Continental Army. He fought in the critical battle of Saratoga ... and remembered the face of every redcoat he killed. Last year, he would have counted them as friends.
They were the enemy now. Servants of a foreign master.
Years passed. Captain Wayne and his new Yankee regiment helped to drive the British out of every New England port, town and city from New Jersey to Maine. Luthor kept his word and held the Yankee line in the South.
Cornwallis, the new British commander, wanted to defend Fort Gotham, a strategic base that connected British supply lines between Virginia and New Jersey.
Washington mustered a large force - 8,000 men - to take the fort. There were rumours of reinforcements from Nova Scotia, sent to relieve the besieged British garrison. Washington summoned Luthor to join this critical campaign.
"We would like a portrait for the paper in Boston," the reporter had asked Washington the night before the battle.
"I did not fight this war alone," Washington insisted, "Include these officers, too."
Luthor proudly stood right beside General Washington. "We are going to make history with this republic," Elijah beamed.
Edward reluctantly stood in the rear as the portrait artist sealed his destiny in oil and canvas. The Waynes, a loyal English family who - despite their Catholicism - had backed Protestant Elizabeth I against the Stuarts. England should be ruled from London, not Rome, they had professed. The Waynes, who were among the founding fathers of New England. And the gallant William Wayne, Edward's father, who had scaled the cliffs of Quebec and drove the French off the continent forever.
With this painting, all that became irrelevant. The Waynes would be known as patriots of the revolution. Freedom fighters. His thoughts soared. Across the hills, the ocean. To his family in Halifax. His sister, Sara, wrote less frequently. In her last letter, she told him the younger brothers were coming of age. They would join the British Army to fight the Yankees.
As the artist sketched their faces, Edward shed a tear.
Please God, spare me the possibility that I may yet face them in battle ...
[Luthor Hall, 2002]
Chloe nudged Lex's arm. "So? What happened then?"
Lex paused. "Well, you know the rest. Edward Wayne and his troops took the fort. The Waynes would go down in history as the founding fathers of Gotham City. When Fort Gotham fell, Washington sent Major Luthor to capture Fort Orange. That fort remained in British hands until the end of the war. Wayne witnessed Cornwallis' surrender at Yorkton, effectively sealing his legend in American history. "
"Did Edward ever see his family again?" Clark wondered.
Lex gazed at the frayed Union Jack in the display case. The flag that defiantly flew above Fort Orange - and denied the Luthors their well-earned place in American myth.. "A sniper with the British 'Fighting Fortieth' regiment was about to put an end to Washington's career. Edward gave the order to fire. He saved Washington's life."
"Cool," Pete mused, as Chloe and Lana gasped in amazement.
"Not really," Lex stated, "the sniper that Edward's men fired upon ... was one Pvt. James Wayne, 40th regiment of Nova Scotia. Edward's youngest brother. From Charleston to Boston, the Wayne name became synonymous with 'American patriot'."
"But at a high price," Chloe stated.
"You see, that's what makes a person great," Lex replied, "Sacrifice. Perseverance. Risk. Wayne could have played it safe. Climbed the ranks of His Majesty's army. He knew his destiny - and seized it, despite his betrayal of family bonds. If Edward had been sent to Fort Orange instead, Major Luthor may have held the privilege of witnessing the birth of a new country at Yorkton."
"Tough break," Pete added. Sounds like sour grapes to me, he thought to himself.
"Enjoy the rest of the museum," Lex glanced at his watch, "I have to return a call to the city archivist. I'll catch up with you guys later."
Pete rolled his eyes. "The way he was talking ... it's as if his family won the Revolution on its own!"
"The Luthors are almost as legendary as the Waynes," Lana replied, "He must be thrilled that these excavations are giving him some insight into his ancestors."
Clark stepped aside. "It's nice to have roots. To know where you're from. Why you're here." Lex could touch these relics. Make a connection to his past.
He was envious. The Clark Kent history began in Smallville.
His true ancestors were not from this continent. Not from this world.