As part of our ongoing anniversary celebration, Martha Washington arrived from Mount Vernon via Amtrak and utterly charmed Round Tablers for a mesmerizing 45 minutes in December. She was there thanks to the generosity of Lucille Thomas, wife of RT board member Jim Thomas. Mary Wiseman, who has enchanted visitors to Colonial Williamsburg for a decade, and now delights people at Mount Vernon, makes a point of saying she is not "impersonating" America’s first first lady. She speaks in her voice, and wears her elaborate gowns, with an authority born of many hours of study and research. It is as close to meeting the real Martha as you can get, short of a resurrection. She was amusing at times, more often touching, and quite often wise. Her insights into "The General," as she called her famous husband, were fascinating. After a half hour of reminiscing, she answered questions for another twenty minutes with marvelous candor. As those with a need to catch trains or relieve baby sitters departed, a circle of RTers gathered around our famous visitor and talked animatedly with her for another half hour! Need we say that Martha aka Ms Wiseman was sensational?
After skipping book reviews at our 50th Anniversary blast in October, December found us able to winkle in two good ones, plus a round of Mike Harris’s witty book auctioning, before Martha arrived. Jonathan Carriel entertained us with his take on Patriot Pirates, the Privateer War for Freedom and Fortune in the American Revolution by Robert H. Patton. It was published in 2008 by Pantheon for $26.00. Jon quickly warned us that the "What’s-not-to-love title" was a little misleading. The book, written by a grandson of General George S. Patton, is a serious summary of the naval side of the Revolution.
We don’t know much about this war. Most of the ships, Jon notes, were privately financed and their crews were "private employees." Only a tiny percentage of the ships belonged to the U.S. Navy. In 1781, of an estimated five hundred American warships at sea, only ten were "Continental" navy vessels. Basically, Jon wryly notes, these sea-going rebels practiced piracy. The name of the game was not to sink an enemy ship, but to capture it and sell it and its cargo. There were some rules. Surrendered crews were not harmed. Why? They could be held for ransom! Loyalist owned-ships mostly operating out of New York, were also in the game. Well-financed privateers also sailed from Canada, the West Indies and Great Britain.
There was a downside to privateering, besides the risk of getting killed in action. The British captured literally hundreds of these warships and dumped the crews in putrid prison ships in New York harbor, (We’ll hear more about their hard fate from this month’s speaker.) Patton thinks their deaths accounted for forty percent of the estimated 25,000 Americans who died in the Revolution. The author devotes lively pages to major incidents such as the attack on the Gaspee in 1772. He also includes improbable tales of a few captains who struck it rich, got unlucky and were captured, escaped and promptly put to sea again. Patton does "a reasonable job" of sketching this "bewildering history," Jon says. But he wishes the author had added a bit more context by telling us about privateering in the colonial wars. More effective is Patton’s speculation that the privateering tradition has links to warfighting in 2008, notably in our use of private contractors in Iraq and elsewhere. He notes there was considerable "moral ambivalence" about the ethics of privateering in the days of 1776. But the revolutionaries dove into it with their eyes open – "which," Jon remarks, "can’t always be said for their descendants."
Our second review came from Mike Harris, who put aside his auctioneers gavel to tell us about Rough Crossing by Simon Schama, professor of history at Columbia. Mike calls this history of the slave trade "an academic masterpiece." That is not a compliment. The footnotes are ample, the literacy is phenomenal and the attitude "is definitely British." The author’s bias is delivered with matchless aplomb. After lambasting Washington and other slave owners for hypocrisy because they owned people while fighting for equality and the pursuit of happiness, Professor Schama "casually notes how slaves who fled to British protection in the Carolinas were dumped on the Outer Banks islands to starve to death." Schama calls the slave issue "The American Revolution’s dirty little secret." He writes as if he is the first to discover that Americans owned slaves and is triumphantly revealing the fact to an astonished world. There is not a word about attempts by Colonel John Laurens and others to free slaves by enlisting them in the Continental Army, nor is there much about the estimated 5,000 blacks who fought bravely on the American side in many battles. Nor is there anything about Britain’s responsibility for the slave trade in the first place, and the millions of pounds they made from it. In short, Mike does NOT recommend the book.
In one of his weekly speeches during the transition days, President Obama startled some of his supporters by citing George Washington’s Christmas 1776 foray across the Delaware as a lesson for us today. "Obama’s supporters must be rolling their eyes or assuming he’s just playing to the simple minded patriots in the peanut gallery," wrote William Kristol in the New York Times. Kristol suspects that Obama’s understanding of the founders is more in line with the "admiring spirit" of many recent biographies than with the belittling commentaries of "post-60s tenured radicals." Let’s hope he’s right.
Peter Henriques, author of a recent book on Washington, Realistic Visionary, which got a rave review from Tom Fleming, has shared with us his startling doubts about whether Washington said: "So Help Me God" after he took his oath of office as president. Mr. Henriques thinks the answer is almost certainly no. There is not a shred of contemporary evidence for it. A long letter by a French eyewitness, Comte de Moustier, repeated the oath verbatim and did not include the words. Not until 65 years after the ceremony did the first published mention of the phrase appear in a book, The Republican Court, by Rufus Griswold. The author based his claim on "a childhood memory" of the late Washington Irving. Not for another 27 years is there any documentation of a president adding the words – Chester A. Arthur in 1881. Henriques argues it would be "completely out of character for George Washington to have tampered with the constitutional text in this way." Three days before the ceremony, the House of Representatives had revised the oath that its members took, which included the words. A committee led by James Madison, no less, had specifically excluded the words. The Senate, meeting five days after the inauguration, ratified an oath which also omitted the words. The reason was stated clearly by Madison in the debate over ratifying the Constitution: "There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant violation."
David Paul Reuwer, president of the brand new American Revolution Association, has announced the nativity of a new magazine devoted to our favorite subject. Mr. Reuver will also be its editor. He is looking for subscribers as well as contributors of articles. The Association’s motto is Advocating Liberty, Saving Sites. They are operating from a town with a very recognizable name for their mission: Camden, S.C. Mr. Reuwer and his friends are well known to some of us. For many years he operated the Southern Campaigns of the Revolution on the web. It included an online magazine, conferences and tours. In a word, he is a pro. Those who want to learn more can contact him at: david@americanrevolutionmag.com.
Last November 25th the Brigade of the American Revolution did a great job of teaching puzzled New Yorkers about the Revolution on the 225th anniversary of Evacuation Day. Not one person in a hundred knew what they were talking about. The holiday was once one of the most important on New York City’s calendar. It was celebrated with marching bands, parading soldiers and sailors and a reenactment of tearing down the British flag from a pole on the Bowery. A limey wiseguy had cut the halyards and nailed the King’s colors to the pole before boarding the last boat home. Bonfires blazed along the Hudson for miles upriver. Anglophiles persuaded the city to abandon the celebration when Britain and the United States became allies in 1917. The last reenactment was on the 200th anniversary in 1983. At Federal Hall on Wall Street, where a magnificent statue of George Washington looks down on the passersby, the brigade staged a mock ceremony in which a British officer handed the key to the city to one of Washington’s officers. It never happened, of course, but it helped give the onlookers some idea of the day’s meaning. Other members of the brigade laid wreaths on the graves of Alexander Hamilton, Declaration of Independence signer Francis Lewis, and several Continental Army officers buried in Trinity churchyard. Instead of bonfires, a dozen 2,000 watt spotlights created a chain of lights from Beacon NY to Princeton NJ. Two weeks later, Sotheby’s auctioned off a fascinating letter signed by Washington welcoming back to New York patriots who had fled the city rather than endure seven years of British military government.
Five hundred feet down in the icy waters of Lake Ontario, the 22 gun HMS Ontario seemed likely to stay there until Global Warming dried up the giant pond. But a team of intrepid divers have discovered her whereabouts, and taken pictures of her. The ship went down on Oct. 31, 1780, carrying 60 British soldiers, a crew of about 40, and possibly 30 American prisoners of war. "It’s an archeological miracle," says Arthur Briton Smith, a Canadian historian who told the story of the ship’s loss in a storm in a 1997 book. The Ontario is perfectly preserved. There is no oxygen at 500 feet to hasten deterioration. The finders, Jim Kennard and Dick Scoville, who used side-scanning sonar and an unmanned submersible to find her, say "she looks like she only sank last week." Kennard, an electrical engineer in his day job, has found more than 200 wrecks in 40 years of diving in inland rivers and lakes. He has been searching for the Ontario for 35 years. They were able to identify her because of her distinctive features, such as two crows nests on each mast and a decoratively carved bow stem. They plan to create a documentary of their discovery. They shot over 80 minutes of underwater video. There are an estimated 4,700 ships lying at the bottom of the Great Lakes, including 500 on Lake Ontario.
Art Lefkowitz has volunteered to clear up a puzzling point raised In Paul Lockhart’s new book, The Drillmaster of Valley Forge, The Baron De Steuben and the Making of the American Army. The author identified his subject as Baron De Steuben. Lockhart explained in the text that Steuben wrote his name throughout his service in the American Revolution as Baron de Steuben. De is the French counterpart of the German von, meaning of.
Art consulted several credible historians on the subject. They pointed out that German officers, including German auxiliaries fighting alongside the British, wrote in French. The language was widely used in European military circles at the time of the Revolutionary War. Even Frederick the Great was "a linguistic Francophile." Steuben was no exception. He spoke fluent French and used the language for much of his correspondence. When necessary, it was translated into English by his French speaking aides-de-camp.
The definitive observation came from Philander D. Chase, Editor Emeritus of The Papers of George Washington. He told Art they used Baron von Steuben in their biographical footnote. Mr. Chase agreed that Steuben wrote in French nearly all of the time and Washington referred to him in his correspondence as Baron de Steuben. But Mr. Chase says that since Steuben was a German, Baron von Steuben is the correct usage. Art agrees with this conclusion.
Civil War preservationists know too well of the battles that have taken place in the region between Washington, DC and Richmond. The saving of Slaughter Pen Farm in Fredericksburg and the Mullens Farm in Chancellorsville are legend. Now the 21st Century Battle of The Wilderness looms ahead, as Wal-Mart has announced plans for a superstore, within walking distance of The Wilderness National Battlefield Park. Already several hundred historians (including Ed Bearss, David McCullough, James McPherson, Ken Burns, Gary Gallagher, Bud Robinson, and Richard Moe) have signed a letter asking them to move their operation further "down the road."
Now what does this have to do with the American Revolution? Well, the site of The Battle of the Wilderness was also one of the sites of Lafayette's camp as his forces moved to Yorktown. Lafayette, himself, headquartered on a piece of property now known as Grant's Knoll, where the Union General would also set his tent. This land, part of the Lacy Farm (where Stonewall Jackson's arm is buried) was also host to Lafayette during his 1824 Grand Tour. He visited Ellwood, the Lacy home, which would become a Civil War Hospital and Union Headquarters. Ah, how history intertwines, especially in Virginia!
The December Quiz answer: Francis Lewis and Lewis Morris are the Declaration signers buried in NYC. Alexander Hamilton, Rufus King, William Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, & Hugh Williamson are the Constitution signers.