 FACT: The circumstances of Caesar Rodneys ride are historically  inaccurate. Rodney suffered from asthma and skin cancer, but he had  not returned to Delaware because he was dying. As a brigadier  general in the Delaware militia, he was in Sussex County monitoring  Tory activity when he received word that the vote on independence  was about to take place. Changing horses several times, he rode all  night, eighty miles through a thunderstorm, to reach Philadelphia in  time to cast his vote. He remained almost continuously in public  service until his death in 1784.