No present member of the current Round Table will ever forget our 50th anniversary dinner party. It had everything that previous generations of members would have emptied their wallets to enjoy. The entertainment was spectacular, starting with Linda Russell and her group while we had cocktails. Ms. Russell has been wowing audiences for 17 years and she treated us to a feast of colonial music. Next, as we sat down, there filed into the front of our dining room a group of characters dressed in colonial costumes. They were led by a short stumpy man with a frown on his face. He started singing about independence and the rest of the group roared: "SIT DOWN, JOHN!" We were all so mesmerized, we forget to drink the wine that was being poured at every table. The Village Light Opera company proceeded to sing a pocket version of the musical 1776, perfectly tailored to the size of our room and the need to give us time to enjoy the feast that the Williams Club had prepared for us. John Adams was portrayed by Brian Milesi, in a reprise of his talk-of-the-town performance in the role from the St. Bart’s Players production of the Broadway classic. Karen Mason was equally wonderful as Abigail Adams. After plaster-peeling applause, we feasted and talked Revolution for another hour and then Chairman Dave Jacobs introduced our speaker the Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David Hackett Fischer of Brandeis University. He gave us a talk that was in perfect syncopation with our mood. The theme was George Washington’s leadership, which he considers the key to our improbable victory in the Revolution. He is currently at work on a book about the two middle years of the war, after the last-gasp victory at Trenton, which he dramatized in his prize winning book, Washington’s Crossing. He added some fascinating comments on his latest groundbreaking book, Champlain’s Dream, a biography of another daring leader, Samuel Champlain. Dr. Fischer also told us how deeply honored he felt to join us for our epochal celebration. A born teacher, as he ended his talk, he urged us to ask questions and we had the privilege of delving into his thinking on many other aspects of our favorite topic. Chairman Jacobs then presented him with our Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the history of the Revolution. The room rose as one person to signal our approval with more thunderous applause.
This memorable evening did not happen by accident. We have to thank a number of people who made it possible. Chairman Jacobs provided the overall steady supervision. Treasurer Jim Davis deserves an extra kudo or two or three for selecting the entertainment and paying the costs out of his own pocket. Program Chairman Tom Fleming persuaded David Hackett Fischer to join us. Member Ed Happle eased the stress of our decision to pay for unlimited wine service with a donation of $1000. While we’re at it, maybe we should thank ourselves for a record turnout that forced Treasurer Davis to stop taking reservations several days before the Great Event. Three Cheers for Everybody!
While I cannot come to the Round Table's 50th birthday party because I teach classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays this year and can't get a substitute, I want to congratulate the ARRT for all you have contributed to the study, literature and overall national resurgence of public interest in the vital Revolutionary War period of this great nation's struggle for independence and survival. The Round Table has been an inspiration for me and so many writers. The admirers of our Founding Fathers and the thousands of less known Americans who made this nation possible have come back to life largely because of the kind of enthusiasm you have brought to the field. I still remember how much it meant to me to receive your prize for my biography of Benedict Arnold. I am still at work in our chosen field, digging into unexplored sources for a biography of Ethan Allen.
Willard Sterne Randall
This year, the Society of the Cincinnati is celebrating the 225th anniversary of its founding. Historian Kenneth Bowling gave a fascinating lecture full of little known facts at a symposium held at the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. He described the acrimony the Society created in 1783. Many people feared it was the first step to a military dictatorship. Washington came close to resigning, after accepting the presidency. Among the critics were Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. Washington changed his mind when he heard how many prominent Frenchmen, led by the Marquis de Lafayette, had joined a French chapter, after King Louis XVI had graciously given them permission. Washington feared the French might regard his resignation as an insult to the King. Washington introduced a series of amendments – the most important an abolition of hereditary membership. About half the state chapters obeyed the former commander in chief but the rest balked and when the furor from Jefferson and his followers died down, Washington remained the Society’s president. By that time he had other reasons to value the Cincinnati. Although the Society was only one tenth of one percent of the nation’s population, thirty-eight percent of the fifty five delegates to the Constitutional Convention were members. Most of them stoutly supported a strong president – the change Washington considered most important in the new government. Their numbers spurred some radical critics to call the new charter a Cincinnati plot to enslave the nation. In state after state, members ignored these carpers and played leading roles in the campaign for ratification. When the new Congress convened, twenty five percent of its ninety five members were Cincinnati. In the following years, the Society turned out to have no interest in military plots. Succeeding generations of members were overwhelmingly civilian -- lawyers, doctors, librarians and even a few fiction writers. Professor Bowling closed his talk with a recollection of a member who got into a cab in Washington DC and asked to be taken to Anderson House, the society’s headquarters on Massachusetts Avenue. When he started to give detailed directions, the cabbie said: "Sir. I know where the house is. I’m a member of the Society."
While we hail the golden old days, it is more than apropos to salute new talent on our historical horizon. Several members have urged us to write about James L. Nelson, who is creating an impressive reputation as a novelist and historian celebrating the Revolution on the water. Born in Lewiston, ME, he studied at the University of Massachusetts and the UCLA film school and decided to pursue a life-long dream of sailing aboard the traditional ships he had read about as a boy. In 1988 he joined the crew of the Golden Hinde. a replica of Sir Francis Drake’s 1577 warship. He spent the next six years on other square-rigged ships – and in 1993 began writing about them. By 2000 he had written five vivid totally authentic novels about men aboard American privateers and warships, and the women they left behind. Next he wrote three books he calls "The Brethren of the Coast Trilogy," about 18th Century pirates and their turbulent world. He followed these books with three novels on the naval side of the Civil War. In 2006 he turned to nonfiction and produced two highly praised books, Benedict Arnold’s Navy: How a Rag Tag Fleet Lost the Battle of Lake Champlain But Won the American Revolution and George Washington’s Navy: How the American Revolution Went To Sea. The latter deals with the impromptu fleet Washington sent to sea while he was besieging the British in Boston in 1775.
Speaking of Boston, New York chauvinists like us are reluctant to admit that Boston played a fairly important role in the American Revolution and is worthy of some attention. This does not imply an iota of enthusiasm for the Red Sox, the Patriots, or the Celtics, of course. But our sense of responsibility as Revolutionary reporters forces us to note that there is a terrific blog by a gentleman named J.L. (John) Bell that covers the subject marvelously. He got into our favorite topic like the rest of us, reading and researching what interested him. Most of it turned out to be in and around his native Boston. So he set up "Boston1775" in 2006 because he had a lot of stories that were too short for a book or a magazine article. The next thing he knew, he was being asked to speak at various venues, writing assignments poured in and he was named a fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Next year he will speak at the Organization of American Historians about his blogging experience. It’s a perfect fit for him, Bell told us, because he works best on a deadline and a blog is a daily deadline. He spends a lot of time exploring Google Books and other digital sources. We urge NY Round Tablers to take a trip to Revolutionary Beantown aboard http://wwwBoston1775.net . It could be the beginning of a good habit.
Lynne Saginaw has asked us for space to thank all those who read and reported on the books that we received in the past season. They are: Maria Deering, Jon Carriel, Belen and Fred Cookinham, Peter Ford, Mary Clifford, Patricia Sampieri, Jim Thomas, Tom Nordby, Lee Wittenberg, David Jacobs, Jim Davis, Andrea Meyer and of course Tom Fleming and our Dean of Reviewers, Jack Buchanan. Lynne apologizes to anyone she’s missed – and hopes everyone will report for duty at least once in 2009.
Everybody is getting into the anniversary act. The Onion, the giveaway humor paper, has issued a "Circa October 1783" issue, sent to us by a longtime friend, Michael Winn. It is printed in blindingly faint type and the prose has 18th Century touches. Among the best of 5 whimsical pages are: NEW YORK THREATENED BY O’ER CROWDING AS POPULATION CLIMBS TO O’ER TWELVE THOUSAND. A long letter from "Benj Franklin, presently Ambassador to our courageous ally, France," demands in capital letters: WHY WILL NO ONE TAKE MY IDEA FOR THE TELEVISION SERIOUSLY? The lead story on page 1 is: GENERAL WASHINGTON HINTS OF BID FOR PRESIDENCY IN 1789. MYSTERIOUS OFFICE WOULD BE HIGHEST IN ALL OF NATION. The General, in a sour mood, was interviewed not long after he had quelled a threatened mutiny by his officers over Congress’s failure to pay them. Washington was heard to growl if he could handle the pack of Jack Asses that made up the Continental Armie, then he was certain he could run the remainder of the country as President.
Another visit to the Revolution for laughs may become a classic. The last page of Smithsonian Magazine for October 2008 had an essay titled: "SAME OLDE SAME OLDE. Swiftboating George Washington" by David Martin. Supposedly copied from the Jan. 3, 1789 edition of the Pennsylvania Gazette, it is a statement by "We, the Delaware boat veterans," who urge the public to read the truth about "the Presidential Candidate who calls himself George Washington." The veterans solemnly avow that they all "did cross the Delaware. But none did see General Washington in any of the lead boats." If the General ever did bother to cross the river that night, "it was well after dawn and passage was in a heated ferryboat." In fact, they have reliable evidence that the General spent the night "at a local inn in the company of his goodly wife, Martha, whilst we suffered the bitter cold of that fearsome night." The witnesses insist no one, neither Thomas Jefferson nor John Adams, is influencing them. Their only concern is for "the well being of these United States."
It’s time for a serious note to be struck, lest readers think our anniversary high is causing tectonic shifts in our cranial plates. A recent Congressional report has fascinating information on the relative cost of America’s wars. In 2008 dollars, the American Revolution cost $1.8 billion – chicken feed compared to WWII $4.1 trillion – still the champ in the cash department. The Civil War cost the Union and Confederacy together $60 billion. Even more interesting is the cost of the wars as a percentage of the gross national product. There are no figures for a Revolutionary GDP but the War of 1812, which cost $1.18 billion, was only 2.2% of the GDP. The Revolution was probably close to if not inside that ballpark. Once more, nothing approaches WWII, which cost 35.8% of the GDP. The War in Iraq, on the other hand, has cost $648 billion but that’s only 1% of our trillion dollar GDP.
Alexis de Tocqueville was correct!! In his "Democracy in America," he noted that creating associations for everything seems to be an American pastime. If he were alive today, his opinion would be unchanged. Do you know that there is now a "Colonial Chocolate Society?" I kid you not, as Jack Paar would have said. It was founded by Forrest and Deborah Mars, of the mars bar Mars. Actually, it is a serious group dedicated to the study of this food's uses during the colonial period, and has a membership which includes U. of California @ Davis, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Fort Ticonderoga, Fort Louisburg, Nova Scotia and Williamsburg, Va. The Mars Corporation has even manufactured a line of American Heritage chocolate products which are now being sold at these historic sites. They will soon be featured at Williamsburg's newest reconstruction, Charlton's Coffeehouse. Presently an archeological dig near the Capitol on Duke of Gloucester Street, it will be completed by the end of 2009 thanks to a $5 million grant from the Mars family.
Not to be outdone by its private benefactors, Colonial Williamsburg has created another "association" named "The Tricorn Foundation." It is a support group for its famed Fife and Drum Corps, which for over 50 years, has trained local boys and girls in this musical heritage with all its disciplines. Performing over 700 times annually, both here and abroad, each person must commit to an eight year tour of duty. Their reward will now be a scholarship program, whose highest level of donation is called "The Order of the White Cockade." named after the decoration worn on men's tricorn hats. Membership in "The Order" starts at $1,776. By the way, the Williamsburg Fife and Drums will be marching in this year's Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, in celebration of their 50th anniversary
The answer to the June quiz: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Chester Alan Arthur are the only Presidents never to have a Vice-President.
Name the Signers of the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution who are buried in New York City. A free dinner to all who answer correctly by email, snail mail or phone.