“THE PENSIVE AND AWFUL SILENCE.” The final scene of 1776, as I remember it, is silent except for the tolling of a bell and a solemn voice announcing the name of each of the delegates portrayed and the colony he represented. Each then steps forward and signs. It turns out that this scene also tracks the historical record. SIGNING THEIR LIVES AWAY quotes a letter (link here) from Benjamin Rush to John Adams:
“Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence” which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at the time to be our own death warrants?”