A Teacher on Teaching

1766

2026-10-31T22:21:40.926-04:00

GEORGE WASHINGTON has a slave he describes as a “Rogue & Runaway.” To be rid of him, he sells him to a buyer in the West Indies.

THE STAMP ACT is repealed, although some members of Parliament favor using the army to enforce it.

Declaratory Act. The repeal of the Stamp Act did not mean that Great Britain was surrendering any control over its colonies. The Declaratory Act, passed by Parliament on the same day the Stamp Act was repealed, stated that Parliament could make laws binding the American colonies “in all cases whatsoever.”

Resistance to the Quartering Act in New York. New York served as headquarters for British troops in America, so the Quartering Act (1765) had a great impact on New York City. When the New York Assembly refused to assist in quartering troops, a skirmish occurred in which one colonist was wounded. Parliament suspended the Assembly's powers but never carried out the suspension, since the Assembly soon agreed to contribute money toward the quartering of troops.

The Third Amendment will eventually be added to the U.S. Constitution, as part of the Bill of Rights, to address this quartering matter.

1767

2026-10-31T22:11:02.990-04:00

A modern curry comb for horses.

“IN 1767,” John C. Miller has noted, “four Virginia slaves found guilty of conspiring to murder an overseer were hanged, their heads cut off, and put on public display.” (300/156)

In Philadelphia, a French traveler reported:

Slaves are here regarded as being part of the family: they are assiduously cared for when they are sick; they are well fed and clothed. They attached themselves to their masters, whose children they regard as their own. Several women of my acquaintance have brought to them daily the children of their negroes, caress them, feed them, have them play with their own children. While traveling I have often happened to spend the night in the houses of Dutch or Germans. In the morning the negroes wake them, crying “Get up, master, it is time for us to go to work.” The master gets up, they eat a light breakfast, work together, and dine together as equals. They are clothed in the same way, and the slave can be recognized only by his color.

(300/157-158)

TO HELP PAY the expenses of governing the Thirteen Colonies, Parliament passes the Townshend Acts. Duties are placed on glass, paper, lead, painter’s colors and tea.

Massachusetts leaders call for nonimportation of British goods – a boycott – if you will.

“Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies” is published, first in newspapers and then as a popular pamphlet. John Dickinson declares that Parliament cannot tax the colonies. He calls the Townshend Acts unconstitutional, and denounces the suspension of the New York Assembly as a threat to colonial liberties.

(As already noted, this suspension does not occur.)

Philip Vickers Fithian reports on colonial life, including slavery, in his journals and letters. On one occasion he talked to a cruel overseer who told him how he handled disobedient slaves:

For Sullenness, Obstinacy or Idleness, says he, Take a Negro, strip him, tie him fast to a post; take then a sharp Curry-Comb, & curry him severely till he is well scrap’d; & call a Boy with some dry Hay, and make the Boy rub him down for several Minutes, then salt him, & unloose him. He will attend to his Business (said the inhuman Infidel) afterwards! (300/151-152)

1768

2026-10-31T21:59:42.334-04:00

Massachusetts Circular Letter. Samuel Adams wrote a statement, approved by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, which attacked Parliament’s persistence in taxing the colonies without proper representation, and which called for unified resistance by all the colonies. Many colonies issued similar statements. In response, the British governor of Massachusetts dissolved the state’s [sic] legislature. British Troops Arrive in Boston. Although the Sons of Liberty threatened armed resistance to arriving British troops, none was offered when the troops stationed themselves in Boston.

ACCORDING to Lancaster and Plumb, freedom of the press was not always honored by or forefathers:

Editorially there was a massive unanimity in the press, for the Sons of Liberty were more than reluctant to allow much liberty to opposition sheets. Mr. Royle of the Virginia Gazette, the man who suppressed all mention of the Virginia Resolves, was hustled out of the way and his paper taken over by local Sons. In Boston, John Mein closed his Chronicle and fled to England.

The patriot press, with the field to itself and often bolstered by a stern, unbending disregard for the truth, bombarded inlanders with blood-chilling warnings. If a tax on merchandise went through unchallenged, who was foolish enough to think that a killing land tax was impossible? (48/63)

FOUR BRITISH REGIMENTS are sent to Boston, “a military guard over a peaceable community.” (2/45)

1769

2026-10-31T17:47:08.491-04:00

__________

“Children on the very brink of the Grave … have almost miraculously recovered after having worn the famous Anodyne Necklace but one night’s time.”

A miracle medical cure is proclaimed

__________

A colonial gentleman.

AS EXPLAINED by the Library of Congress, it was in 1769 that,

The Virginia House of Burgesses passed resolutions condemning Britain’s actions against Massachusetts, and stating that only Virginia’s governor and legislature could tax its citizens. The members also drafted a formal letter to the King, completing it just before the legislature was dissolved by Virginia’s royal governor.

GEORGE WASHINGON warned his fellow colonists: “Our lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of American liberty.”

AS JOHN C. MILLER explains, in 1769, “it was forbidden in Virginia to castrate slaves for any offense other than a rape or attempted rape upon a white woman.” (300/156)

CHILDREN AFFLICTED with rickets are common in the Thirteen Colonies. Today we know that the problem is caused by lack of Vitamin D or calcium, or both, in the diet.

Alice Morse Earle notes that in the latter part of the seventeenth century, “Snails furnished many doses for the rickets. The cure suggested by Rev. Joseph Perry of Windsor, Connecticut to a friend is little better:

Rev’d Sir

In ye Rickets the best Corrective I have ever found is a Syrup made of Black Cherrys. Thus. Take of Cherrys (dry’d ones are as good as any) & put them into a vessel with water. Set ye vessel near ye fire and let ye water be Scalding hot. Then take ye Cherrys into a thin Cloth and squeeze them into ye Vessell, & sweeten ye Liquor with Melosses. Give 2 Spoonfuls of this 2 or 3 times in a day. If you Dip your Child, Do it in this manner: viz: naked, in ye morning, head foremost in Cold Water, don’t dress it Immediately, but let it be made warm in ye Cradle & sweat at least half an Hour moderately. Do this 3 mornings going & if one or both feet are Cold while other Parts sweat (which is sometimes ye Case) Let a little blood be taken out of ye feet ye 2nd Morning and yt will cause them to sweat afterwards. Before ye dips of ye Child give it some Snakeroot and Saffern Steep’d in Rum & Water, give this Immediately before Diping and after you have dipt ye Child 3 Mornings Give it several times a Day ye following Syrup made of Comfry, Hartshorn, Red Roses, Hog-brake roots, knot-grass, petty-moral roots, sweeten ye Syrup with Melosses. Physicians are generally fearful about diping when ye Fever is hard, but oftentimes all attemps to lower it without diping are vain. Experience has taught me that these fears are groundless, yt many have about diping in Rickety Fevers; I have found in a multitude of Instances of diping is most effectual means to break a Rickety Fever. These Directions are agreable to what I have practiced for many years.

Another “surefire” cure for all kinds of illnesses and ailments was a special “Anodyne necklace.” When children were teething, it could be had for only twenty shillings, but what mother could be without it!

Children on the very brink of the Grave and thought past recovery with their teeth, fits, fevers, convulsions, hooping and other violent coughs, gripes, looseness, and all proceeding from their teeth who cannot tell what they suffer nor make known their pains any other way but by crying and moans, have almost miraculously recovered after having worn the famous Anodyne Necklace but one night’s time. A mother then would never forgive herself whose child should die for want of so very easy a remedy for its teeth. And what is particularly remarkable of this necklace is, that of those vast numbers who have had this necklace for their children, none have made any complaints but express how glad they have been that their children have worn it whereas if they had not had it, they believed their children would have been in the grave, all means having been used in vain until they had the necklace.

Other devices for easing teething in infants: necklaces of fawn’s teeth or wolf’s fangs.

1770

2026-10-31T17:17:58.231-04:00

__________

“They had laid a foundering stone

for the Minutemen at Lexington

& Concord, first to defy & die.”

Yusef Komunyakaa

__________

IN THIS ERA, you might catch sight of John Hancock, attired in lavender jacket, lilac-colored breeches, with frills of lace on his cuffs and shirt front. (300/117)

A leader in the battle against British taxation.

The Boston Massacre.

THIS DESCRIPTION comes from Coe’s Makers of the Nation, written in 1914:

Nothing serious, however, occurred until the evening of the fifth of March, 1770. A barber’s boy had jeered at a British officer passing through King Street. A sentry stationed near by had knocked him down. A small crowd of rough young men and boys began to pelt the sentry with stones. “Kill him! Kill him!” they shouted in a most threatening manner.

The sentry was alarmed and called for aid. Colonel Preston and seven soldiers came to his assistance and lined themselves up beside him, facing the crowd, which had by this time increased to the number of fifty. The muskets, however, did not daunt the mob. They pressed forward and struck the guns with sticks, at the same time shouting and calling upon the redcoats to fire. In the confusion the soldiers thought that Preston had given the order to shoot, and discharged their arms. Five citizens were wounded and three killed. There they lay, their blood staining the whiteness of the newfallen snow.

Pointing at Gov. Thomas Hutchinson afterwards, Sam Adams exclaimed with flashing eyes: “If you have the power to remove one regiment, you have the power to remove both. It is at your peril if you do not.”

As Adams said later, in talking over the event with Dr. Joseph Warren, “I observed his knees to tremble, I saw his face grow pale, and I enjoyed the sight.”

ANDREWS makes note of the results of the soldiers’ trial: “That the soldiers had considerable justification is proved by the fact that a jury acquitted all but two, who were convicted of manslaughter, and branded.” (2/46)

YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA, a modern poet, points out the role of Crispus Attucks on that fateful day,

Five colonists lay for calling hours

in Faneuil Hall before sharing a grave

at the Granary Burying Ground.

They had laid a foundering stone

for the Minutemen at Lexington

& Concord, first to defy & die,

& an echo of the future rose over

the courtroom as John Adams

defended the Brits, calling the dead

a ‘‘motley rabble of saucy boys,

negroes & mulattoes, Irish

teagues & outlandish jacktars,’’

who made soldiers fear for their lives,

& at day’s end only two would pay

with the branding of their thumbs

DURING the French and Indian War, the Virginia legislature had promised George Washington and his men 200,000 acres in the Ohio Valley; but the grant was not made till 1769. The next year Washington traveled west to spot good lands. The mouth of the Kanawha, he observed was “abounding in Buffalo and Wild game of all kinds as also in all kinds of Wild fowl.” He and his companions, with Native American guides, were gone nine weeks. (109/39)

1771

2026-10-31T17:15:26.370-04:00

Year 1771

__________

“You will be turn’d into hell, with ugly devils, to eternity.”

Mr. Beacon

__________

A trip by stage from Philadelphia to New York City would take two days.

This was considered so fast, the stages were called "flying machines."

ANNA GREEN WINSLOW has just turned twelve, when her 72-page diary or journal (edited in 1894, by Alice Morse Earle) begins. It has been a hard winter in Boston, where her parents have sent her to “finishing school.”

She writes home from Nova Scotia to let them know how she is faring, as well as to practice her penmanship.

Earle sets the scene:

Through this journal we see “Nanny Green’s” simple and monotonous daily life; her little tea-drinkings; her spinning and reeling and knitting; her frequent catechisings, her country walks. We find her mother’s testimony to the “appearance of reason that is in my children and for the readiness with which they seem to learn what is taught them.” And though she repeatedly thanks God for living in a warm house, she notes that “my bason of water froze on the hearth with as good a fire as we could make in the chimney.” This rigor of climate and discomfort of residence, and Anna’s evident delicacy shown through the records of her fainting, account for her failing health.

Anna herself begins with an undated note, and then an entry for November 18, 1771, addressed to her mother:

I guess I shall have but little time for journalising till after thanksgiving. My aunt Deming says I shall make one pye myself at least. I hope somebody beside myself will like to eat a bit of my Boston pye thou’ my papa and you did not (I remember) chuse to partake of my Cumberland performance. I think I have been writing my own Praises this morning. Poor Job was forced to praise himself when no man would do him that justice. I am not as he was. I have made two shirts for unkle since I finish’d mamma’s shifts.

November 18:

Mr. Beacons text yesterday was Psalm cxlix. 4. For the Lord taketh pleasure in his people; he will beautify the meek with salvation. His Doctrine was something like this, viz: That the Salvation of Gods people mainly consists in Holiness. The name Jesus signifies a Savior. Jesus saves his people from their Sins. He renews them in the spirit of their minds – writes his Law in their hearts. Mr. Beacon ask’d a question. What is beauty – or, wherein does true beauty consist? He answer’d, in holiness – and said a great deal about it that I can’t remember, & as aunt says she hant leisure now to help me any further – so I may just tell you a little that I remember without her assistance, and that I repeated to her yesterday at Tea – He said he would lastly address himself to the young people: My dear young friends, you are pleased with beauty, & like to be tho’t beautifull – but let me tell ye, you’l never be truly beautifull till you are like the King’s daughter, all glorious within, all the orniments you can put on while your souls are unholy make you the more like white sepulchres garnish’d without, but full of deformyty within. You think me very unpolite no doubt to address you in this manner, but I must go a little further and tell you, how cource soever it may sound to your delicacy, that while you are without holiness, your beauty is deformity – you are all over black & defil’d, ugly and loathsome to all holy beings, the wrath of th’ great God lie’s upon you, & if you die in this condition, you will be turn’d into hell, with ugly devils, to eternity.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I wonder what modern students would think of Mr. Beacon’s lecture. Would they see any relevance to their lives?

November 29:

My aunt Deming gives her love to you and says it is this morning 12 years since she had the pleasure of congratulating papa and you on the birth of your scribling daughter. She hopes if I live 12 years longer that I shall write and do everything better than can be expected in the past 12.

Miss Attwood as well as Miss Winslow are of this family. And Miss N. Glover did me honor by her presence, for she is older than cousin Sally and of her acquaintance. We made four couple at country dansing; danceing I mean. In the evening young Mr. Waters 13 hearing of my assembly, put 7his flute in his pocket and played several minuets and other tunes, to which we danced mighty cleverly. But Lucinda 14 was our principal piper. Miss Church and Miss Chaloner would have been here if sickness,—and the Miss Sheafs, if the death of their father had not prevented. The black Hatt I gratefully receive as your present, but if Captain Jarvise had arrived here with it about the time he sail’d from this place for Cumberland it would have been of more service to me, for I have been oblig’d to borrow. I wore Miss Griswold’s Bonnet on my journey to Portsmouth, & my cousin Sallys Hatt ever since I came home, & now I am to leave off my black ribbins tomorrow, & am to put on my red cloak & black hatt—I hope aunt wont let me wear the black hatt with the red Dominie—for the people will ask me what I have got to sell as I go along street if I do, or, how the folk at New guinie do? Dear mamma, you dont know the fation here—I beg to look like other folk. You dont know what a stir would be made in sudbury street, were I to make my appearance there in my red Dominie & black 8Hatt. But the old cloak & bonnett together will make me a decent bonnett for common ocation (I like that) aunt says, its a pitty some of the ribbins you sent wont do for the Bonnet.—I must now close up this Journal. With Duty, Love, & Compliments as due, perticularly to my Dear little brother (I long to see him) & Mrs. Law, I will write to her soon.

I am Hon^d Papa & mama,

Yr ever Dutiful Daughter

Anne Green Winslow.

N.B. My aunt Deming dont approve of my English & has not the fear that you will think her concernd in the Diction.

December 6: Yesterday I was prevented dining at unkle Joshua’s by a snow storm which lasted till 12 o’clock today, I spent some part of yesterday afternoon and evening at Mr. Glovers. … The snow is up to the peoples wast in some places in the street.

December 14:

I went to Mrs. Whitwell’s last wednessday—you taught me to spell the 4 day of the week, but my aunt says that it should be spelt wednesday. My aunt also says, that till I come out of an egregious fit of laughterre that is apt to sieze me & the violence of which I am at this present under, neither English sense, nor anything rational may be expected of me.

December 24:

Elder Whitwell told my aunt, that this winter began as did the Winter of 1740. How that was I dont remember but this I know, that to-day is by far the coldest we have had since I have been in New England. (N.B. All run that are abroad.)

This day, the extremity of the cold is somewhat abated. I keept Christmas at home this year, & did a very good day’s work, aunt says so. How notable I have been this week I shall tell you by & by. I spent the most part of Tuesday evening with my favorite, Miss Soley, & as she is confined by a cold & the weather still so severe that I cannot git farther, I am to visit her again before I sleep, & consult with her (or rather she with me) upon a perticular matter, which you shall know in its place. How strangely industrious I have been this week, I will inform you with my own hand – at present, I am so dilligent, that I am oblig’d to use the hand & pen of my old friend, who being near by is better than a brother far off. I dont forgit dear little John Henry so pray mamma, dont mistake me.

December 28: Last evening a little after 5 o’clock I finished my shift. I spent the evening at Mr. Soley’s. I began my shift at 12 o’clock last monday, have read my bible every day this week & wrote every day save one.

1772

2026-10-30T21:27:57.328-04:00

__________

“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”

John Adams

__________

The Americans set fire to the Gaspee.

January 1: Anna Green Winslow, age twelve, writes in her journal

I wish my Papa, Mama, brother John Henry, & cousin Avery & all the rest of my acquaintance at Cumberland, Fortlaurence, Barronsfield, Greenland, Amherst &c. a Happy New Year, I have bestow’d no new year’s gift, as yet. But have received one very handsome one, viz. the History of Joseph Andrews abreviated. In nice Guilt and flowers covers. This afternoon being a holiday I am going to pay my compliments in Sudbury Street.

January 17: Anna describes a party she has attended with a “Miss Soley,” which she had previously explained to her mother she would be attending:

I have now the pleasure to give you the result, viz. a very genteel well regulated assembly which we had at Mr Soley’s last evening, miss Soley being mistress of the ceremony. Mrs Soley desired me to assist Miss Hannah in making out a list of guests which I did some time since, I wrote all the invitation cards. There was a large company assembled in a handsome, large, upper room in the new end of the house. We had two fiddles, & I had the honor to open the diversion of the evening in a minuet with miss Soley. Here follows a list of the company as we form’d for country dancing.

(There are seventeen girls and young women present.)

Miss Cregur (usually pronounced Kicker) & two Miss Sheafs were invited but were sick or sorry & beg’d to be excus’d. There was a little Miss Russell & the little ones of the family present who could not dance. As spectators, there were Mr & Mrs Deming, Mr. & Mrs Sweetser Mr & Mrs Soley, Mr & Miss Cary, Mrs Draper, Miss Oriac, Miss Hannah – our treat was nuts, rasins, Cakes, Wine, punch, hot & cold, all in great plenty. We had a very agreeable evening from 5 to 10 o’clock. For variety we woo’d a widow, hunted the whistle, threaded the needle, & while the company was collecting, we diverted ourselves with playing of pawns, no rudeness Mamma I assure you. Aunt Deming desires you would perticulary observe, that the elderly part of the company were spectators only, they mix’d not in either of the above describ’d scenes.

I was dress’d in my yellow coat, black bib & apron, black feathers on my head, my past comb, & all my past garnet marquesett & jet pins, together with my silver plume – my loket, rings, black collar round my neck, black mitts & 2 or 3 yards of blue ribbin, (black & blue is high tast) striped tucker and ruffels (not my best) & my silk shoes compleated my dress.

January 18: Miss Winslow writes:

Yesterday I had an invitation to celebrate Miss Caty’s birth-day with her. She gave it me the night before. Miss is 10 years old. The best dancer in Mr Turners school, she has been his scoller these 3 years. My aunt thought it proper (as our family had a invitation) that I should attend a neighbor’s funeral yesterday P.M. I went directly from it to Miss Caty's Rout & arriv’d ex

January 31:

I spent yesterday with Aunt Storer, except a little while I was at Aunt Sukey’s with Mrs Barrett dress’d in a white brocade, & cousin Betsey dress’d in a red lutestring, both adorn’d with past, perls marquesett &c. They were after tea escorted by Mr. Newton & Mr Barrett to ye assembly at Concert Hall. This is a snowy day, & I am prevented going to school.

February 9:

My fingers are not the only part of me that has suffer’d with sores within this fortnight, for I have had an ugly great boil upon my right hip & about a dozen small ones—I am at present swath’d hip & thigh, as Samson smote the Philistines, but my soreness is near over. My aunt thought it highly proper to give me some cooling physick, so last tuesday I took 1-2 oz Globe Salt (a disagreeable potion) & kept chamber. Since which, there has been no new erruption, & a great alteration for the better in those I had before.

I have read my bible to my aunt this morning (as is the daily custom) & sometimes I read other books to her. So you may perceive, I have the use of my tongue & I tell her it is a good thing to have the use of my tongue. Unkle Ned called here just now—all well—by the way he is come to live in Boston again, & till he can be better accomodated, is at housekeeping where Mad^m Storer lately lived, he is looking for a less house. I tell my Aunt I feel a disposician to be a good girl, & she pleases herself 22that she shall have much comfort of me to-day, which as cousin Sally is ironing we expect to have to ourselves.

February 10:

This day I paid my respects to Master Holbrook, after a week’s absence [at school]. … Yesterday was very bad weather, neither aunt, nor niece at publick worship.

February 12:

Yesterday afternoon I spent at unkle Joshuas. Aunt Green gave me a plaister for my fingure that has near cur’d it, but I have a new boil, which is under poultice, & tomorrow I am to undergo another seasoning with globe Salt. The following lines Aunt Deming found in grandmama Sargent’ pocket-book & gives me leave to copy ’em here.

Dim eyes, deaf ears, cold stomach shew,

My dissolution is in view

The shuttle’s thrown, my race is run,

My sun is set, my work is done;

My span is out, my tale is told,

My flower’s decay’d, & stock grows old,

The dream is past, the shadows fled,

My soul now longs for Christ my head,

I’ve lived to seventy six or nigh,

God calls at last, & now I’ll die.

Anna later adds:

My honor’d Grandma departed this vale of tears 1-4 before 4 o’clock wednesday morning August 21, 1771. Aged 74 years, 2 months & ten days.

April 1: Like any student today, she likely enjoyed the day off. The winter drags on in Boston, as she reports.

Will you be offended mamma, if I ask you, if you remember the flock of wild Geese that papa call’d you to see flying over the Blacksmith’s shop this day three years? I hope not; I only mean to divert you. The snow is near gone in the street before us, & mud supplys the place thereof; After a week’s absence, I this day attended Master Holbrook with some difficulty, what was last week a pond is to-day a quag, thro’ which I got safe however, & if aunt had known it was so bad, she sais she would not have sent me, but I neither wet my feet, nor drabled my clothes, indeed I have but one garment that I could contrive to drabble.

May 16: She writes:

Last Wednesday Bet Smith was set upon the gallows. She behav’d with great impudence. Thursday I danc’d a minuet & country dances at school, after which I drank tea with aunt Storer. To day I am somewhat out of sorts, a little sick at my stomach.

It would be interesting to know what crime Bet Smith committed that led her to her execution.

June 10: Rhode Islanders board, burn, and sink the British revenue cutter, H.M.S. Gaspee. Andrews says the Gaspee, which had run aground, was captured “after a spirited fight.” (2/58)

The British vessel had been chasing a smuggler.

In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson announced that, as of 1773, his salary and those of all Massachusetts judges would be paid by the Crown. It would have been hard to dream up a step more fatal to the British cause. The instant colonial officials looked to England for pay and support, they slipped completely out of local control.

… what the announcement actually did was to hand Samuel Adams and like-minded men a glittering propaganda weapon. Adams sprang into action at once, toiling to revive and greatly expand those Committees of Correspondence that earlier troubles had called into being. A Boston Committee was set up, its 21 members empowered to communicate with other Massachusetts towns. Then, as though intoxicated by this success, the Committee’s field was widened to take in all colonies and, in a final wild gesture, “the World!” (48/74-75)

GENERAL THOMAS GAGE, commander-in-chief of British forces in North America, orders all settlers beyond the Appalachians to quit these countries “instantly and without delay.” (125/134)

This policy, he believes, will keep the settlers from riling up the natives, requiring British troops to support the settlers.

1773

2026-10-30T21:24:36.278-04:00

__________

“Mysterious abbreviations and signs,

like some black magic.”

Sarah Keeler, complaining about complicated math

__________

GOVERNOR JOHN PENN of Pennsylvania announces,

I do hereby prohibit and forbid all His Majesty’s Subjects of this, or any other Province or Colony, on any pretense whatsoever, to intrude upon, Settle, or Possess any of the aforesaid unpurchased Lands (beyond the last Pennsylvania purchase), as they will answer the contrary at their Peril. (125/134)

May 1: At least one colonial lass was exposed to complicated mathematics, though perhaps not to her liking. Earle notes:

A manuscript sum-book in my possession is marked, “Sarah Keeler her Book, May ye 1st, A.D. 1773, Ridgbury.” There are multiplication examples of fifteen figures multiplied by fifteen, and long division examples of a dividend of quintillions, chiefly in sevens and nines, divided by a mixed divisor of billions in eights and fives – a thing to make poor Sarah turn in her grave. There are Reductions Ascending and Reductions Descending and Reductions both Ascending and Descending at the same time, as complicated as the computations of the revolutions of the celestial spheres. There are miserable catch-examples about people’s ages and others about collections of excises, with “Proofs,” and still others about I know not what, for there are within their borders mysterious abbreviations and signs, like some black magic. Sainted Sarah Keeler! a melancholy sympathy settles on me as I regard this book and all the extended sums you knew, and think of the paths of pleasantness of the present pupils of kindergartens; and wonder what kind of a mathematical song or game or allegory could be invented to disguise these very “plain figures.” (226/139)

“Imagination! who can sing thy force?”

A second colonial woman – this time a young African American named Phillis Wheatley – had a chance to show her skill another way. Wheatley, had been born in present-day Senegal and Gambia, sold into slavery and arrived in Boston in July 1761. Now, in her late teens, she was undergoing examination by eighteen men, “the most respectable characters in Boston.” Had the young slave woman written the poems that it was said she had written? They wanted to be sure.

Their examination proved to their satisfaction that Miss Wheatley was the author. Her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published soon after.

Even when she was young, Wheatley’s owners, John and Susanna Wheatley, recognized her brilliance. John was a wealthy Boston merchant and purchased Phillis, as they named her, as a servant for his wife. At a time when few slaves were taught to read or write at all, they provided the girl with training in several languages. As Smithsonian explains, “She became proficient in the traditional Greek and Latin texts by age 12 and fell in love with the English poet Alexander Pope, modeling her own work after his.” She had had her first poem published in 1767, in Rhode Island’s Newport Mercury, taking as her subject a near-shipwreck. And in 1770 her elegy for George Whitefield, one of the leading Methodists, was also printed.

Wheatley hoped to publish a second collection of her poems, but the Revolution soon exploded. Aid from several patrons in England, who had helped her with her first book, was cut off and she did not publish again. Her owners emancipated her and she married a free black man, John Peters. She had several children, all of whom died in infancy, and she herself died at age 31, in 1784.

One expert believes Wheatley was writing about the chains of slavery when she wrote about Prometheus, the figure from Greek mythology who angered the gods, and ended up chained to a rock for all eternity. As she wrote in one poem:

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

Or who describe the swiftness of thy

course?

EVE L. EWING offers a modern take on the life of the colonial poet:

Pretend I wrote this at your grave.

Pretend the grave is marked. Pretend we know where it is.

Copp’s Hill, say. I have been there and you might be.

Foremother, your name is the boat that brought you.

Pretend I see it in the stone, with a gruesome cherub.

Children come with thin paper and charcoal to touch you.

Pretend it drizzles and a man in an ugly plastic poncho

circles the Mathers, all but sniffing the air warily.

We don’t need to pretend for this part.

There is a plaque in the grass for Increase, and Cotton.

And Samuel, dead at 78, final son, who was there

on the day when they came looking for proof.

Eighteen of them watched you and they signed to say:

the Poems specified in the following Page, were (as we verily believe)

written by Phillis, a young Negro Girl, who was but a few Years since,

brought an uncultivated Barbarian from Africa

and the abolitionists cheered at the blow to Kant

the Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling

and the enlightened ones bellowed at the strike against Hume

no ingenious manufacturers amongst them, no arts, no sciences

Pretend I was there with you, Phillis, when you asked in a letter to no one:

How many iambs to be a real human girl?

Which turn of phrase evidences a righteous heart?

If I know of Ovid may I keep my children?

Pretend that on your grave there is a date

and it is so long before my heroes came along to call you a coon

for the praises you sang of your captors

who took you on discount because they assumed you would die

that it never ever hurt your feelings.

Or pretend you did not love America.

Phillis, I would like to think that after you were released unto the world,

when they jailed your husband for his debts

and you lay in the maid’s quarters at night,

a free and poor woman with your last living boy,

that you thought of the Metamorphoses,

making the sign of Arachne in the tangle of your fingers.

And here, after all, lay the proof:

The man in the plastic runs a thumb over stone. The gray is slick and tough.

Phillis Wheatley: thirty-one. Had misery enough.

“At New York and Philadelphia the tea-ships were forced to put to sea again without unlading.” “At Boston there was a deadlock; the people would not let this tea be landed; the governor would not let the ships leave without unlading.” (2/48)

Thomas Jefferson’s father-in-law, John Wayles dies. Through his wife, Martha, the future president now inherits 40,000 acres of land and 135 slaves.

1774

2026-10-30T17:51:49.313-04:00

__________

“There is no man among us that would not be happy to see accommodation with Britain.”

John Adams

__________

March 31: Angered by the colonists’ dumping of the tea, Parliament, at the urging of King George III, passes the Boston Port Act (which will go into effect on June 1.)

As Andrews describes it: “The king’s anger led to the Boston Port Bill, which… closed Boston harbor to all commerce.” “Town meetings were forbidden except for elections.” (2/49)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It might work to ask students which rights, that we are guaranteed today, would be curtailed by such British acts.

LANCASTER AND PLUMB explain the results of the Port Bill:

The port of Boston was closed, even to the shortest ferry-run, and the city could be supplied only across the narrow neck that linked it to the mainland. The Royal Government was leaving Boston for Salem and the Customs were being shifted to Marblehead. To make sure that this tight cloture be enforced, additional regiments of infantry were to reinforce the 14th and the 29th, backed by the Royal Navy in the harbor. This state of affairs was to endure until such time as the Bostonians had paid for the jettisoned tea, plus the duty which would have accrued to his Majesty’s Customs had that cargo been landed. (48/78-79)

As men in Delaware and New York and Virginia and Georgia studied this last step it was all too clear to them that the sacred Charter of Massachusetts had been virtually cancelled, leaving only vestigial traces of self-government. The governor's council was to be Crown-appointed and responsible only to the Crown. The attorney general, judges, sheriffs, and justices of the peace were to be named by the governor, and even juries were to be selected by a Crown-appointed sheriff. The town meeting, mainspring of Massachusetts life, could still be held, but only when the governor gave his written consent. Even then the agenda had to be approved by him. These measures, along with the Port Bill, became known as the “Intolerable Acts” and shook all the colonies, although their specified target was fractious Massachusetts alone. (48/80)

Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, Thomas Hutchinson was turning over the highest office in the colony not to another civilian appointee, but to General Thomas Gage, who assumed the titles of Vice-Admiral, Captain-General, and Governor-in-Chief. Boston, and the lands stretching inland from it, were to all intents and purposes passing from civil rule to military occupation. (48/81)

August 1: George Washington promises the Virginia Convention: “I will raise one thousand men, subsist them at my own expense, and march myself at their head for the relief of Boston.” (109/41)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: If you’ve never asked your students, I found it interesting to query them on the idea: Do you think all young people, at age 18, should have to join the military (or some other public service group) or not?

As a former Marine, I’ve asked a lot of veterans that question. Most of us think it would be good.

September: General Gage decides to exercise his troops, sending them out on route marches across the narrow Neck from Boston and into the interior.

Flippant young officers, pushing on to Waltham or Dedham, were amused to see rustics drilling in the fields, but more sober-minded seniors were impressed by the unity and purpose in these formations.

Without warning, one such march turned out to be more than mere practice. A few scarlet-coated companies swung over the Charles into Cambridge, and seized powder and arms belonging to the Province. Then they passed on to Charleston, nobbled up more Province supplies and returned, rejoicing to Boston. (48/90)

JOHN ADAMS can still say, late in the year, “There is no man among us that would not be happy to see accommodation with Britain.” (48/86)

December 6: Rhode Island lawmakers order Colonel Nightingale to remove all cannon and ammunition from Fort George, save three guns, which he does.

December 14: “News of this was carried to New Hampshire, and resulted in the capture of Fort William and Mary at New Castle… which some have referred to as the opening act of the Revolution. This deed was accomplished by fourteen men from Durham, who entered the fort at night when the officers were at a ball in Portsmouth. The powder which they captured is said to have done duty at Bunker Hill.” (2/59)

ON THE TREATMENT of the natives, Thomas Jefferson writes,

Whoever shall attempt to trace the claims of the European Nations to the Countrys in America from the principles of Justice, or reconcile the invasions made on the native Indians to the natural rights of mankind, will find that he is pursuing a Chimera, which exists only in his own imagination, against the evidence of indisputable facts. (125/22)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I sometimes paired the terrible fate of Col. Crawford with the terrible fate of Chief Logan’s family, wiped out by settlers in 1774, and tried to show students how one atrocity led to another, in a chain of events, until it became almost impossible to see who was to blame. Usually, the innocent suffered for the sins of the guilty, on both sides of the fighting.

I called it the “Cycle of Violence.” I think the same cycle plays out in gang warfare in American cities, in clashes between Bosnians and Serbs, and for many years did also in Northern Ireland, between Protestant and Catholic.

You can pick all kinds of examples: Israeli vs. Palestinian, Hindu vs. Muslim in India, etc.

1775

2026-10-30T17:44:30.691-04:00

__________

“A good deal of the reality has been filtered out.”

Bruce Catton

__________

BRUCE CATTON, writing in an introduction, in 1958, says:

We had our American Revolution nearly two centuries ago, and the years have done something to it. The legend remains, and the statues and the grassy earthworks and the great body of tradition, but a good deal of the reality has been filtered out. When we look back we see Washington crossing the Delaware on a cold winter night, or kneeling in prayer in the snow at Valley Forge; we see the Minuteman, or the lanky Virginia rifleman picturesque in fringed buckskin; but somehow it all seems to be out of a pageant, and neither Washington nor the men who followed him quite come alive for us.

It was a struggle, furthermore, that was fought out by people very much like ourselves; which is to say that they were often confused, usually divided in sentiment, and now and then rather badly discouraged about the possible outcome of the tremendous task they had undertaken. (48/7-8)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It has always been my belief that this is the problem – that the life of human beings has been leached out of most history, leaving us with statues in a park, not real people. It is our job to bring the people back to life.

First shots of the American Revolution: Lexington, April 19.

JOHN ADAMS in later years “declared that about one-third of the American people were ‘Tories.’” (56/188)

AS EARLE, “up to the Revolution boys reached man’s estate at sixteen years of age, became taxpayers, and served in the militia.” (226/190)

ACCORDING to Harry Ammon,

The utopian vision of the revolutionary age cannot be reduced to a simple formula. Never spelled out in specifics, it was voiced in the form of broad maxims such as the belief that republican governments were superior to all others, that social institutions were subject to natural law, that all men were created equal and that the object of government was the preservation of liberty. (24/vii)

According to John Adams, “America was designed by Providence for the Theatre, on which Man was to make his true figure, on which science, Virtue, Liberty, Happiness and Glory were to exist in Peace.” (24/viii)

April 19: Lancaster and Plumb set the scene at Lexington (I am reminded of the confusion at Kent State in 1970, over who or if anyone gave an order to fire.)

Lexington’s Captain John Parker on the Green, and Major John Pitcairn on the road estimated the situation, and each took appropriate action. Parker, heavily outnumbered, ordered his two companies to disperse. The Marine, under instructions to disarm quietly any militia encountered, swung his men from column into line, trying to oblique beyond Parker’s left flank, ordering his men “on no account to Fire or even attempt it without orders.”

Someone did fire. Just whose finger tightened on the trigger will probably never be known, although Pitcairn’s own report to [Gen. Thomas] Gage strongly suggests that the shot came from an American straggler near the edge of the Green. Several British volleys crashed out, and smoke coiled heavily about Buckman’s Tavern and the Harrington house, over the Green itself. For a moment, the troops got out of hand, broke ranks, rushed toward houses from which they swore shots were coming. Pitcairn and his officers shoved and bullied their men back into formation, firing ceased and the militia scattered as Colonel Smith came on with the grenadiers. (48/95-96)

Redcoat forces pushed on toward Concord, and then retreated again, one recalled marching through “a Veritable Furnass of Musquetry.” (48/99)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: My students were slow to understand the idea that the shots fired at Lexington and Concord were “heard round the world.” It worked to ask them what they thought Emerson meant:

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,

Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,

Here once the embattled farmers stood,

And fire the shot heard round the world.

The badly mauled British had no choice but to retreat, as patriot forces continued to gather in growing numbers.

Andrews says “the panting troops found shelter in Boston. Out of 1,800 nearly 300 were killed, wounded, or missing.” (2/70)

IN THE COLONIES, regiments are being organized to serve to the end of the year, labeled the “Eight-Months Army.” (48/103)

May: John Adams is “cautioned by the Philadelphia Sons of Liberty not to utter the word independence. ‘It is as unpopular,’ they said, in ‘Pennsylvania and all the Middle and Southern States as the Stamp Act itself.’” (2/54)

May: After reading an old story in American Heritage (“The Good Soldier White”), regarding the experiences of an American soldier named Joseph White, I went looking for additional information. White enlisted at age 18, in 1775, and served till 1777, when, feeling he had done enough, he returned home to Massachusetts.

In 1833 he set down some of his experiences in what he titled A Narrative of Events, as They Occurred from Time to Time, in the Revolutionary War. Wherever White is quoted, the spelling and syntax are his own.

White joined as a “bombardier” in May, but one day an officer in his regiment “came to me and said, I understand that you are a good speller, I told him I could spell most any word. Why cannot you come and be my Assistant said he. … He said it paid five shillings per week, besides his rations, and mine would be the same, which he would pay…”

White consented, bought an officer’s coat, and noted that the buttonholes and hat were trimmed with “gold lace.”

On the evening of June 16, he would later write, “our whole army were drawn up in a circle, to attend prayers. After which, they marched toward Bunker Hill. I had a lame hand, and they would not let me go.”

On a different occasion, he was sent to George Washington’s headquarters, to deliver a message. The American commander made note of White’s youth, saying that he was “very young” to hold the position of assistant adjutant in an artillery regiment.

“I told him I was young, but was growing older every day, “White recalled, “He turned his face to his wife, and both smiled. He gave me my orders, and I retired.”

White himself made light of his service, to this point. He stayed with the army until the end of the year, but admitted, “I was a feather bed soldier all this time.” (See 1776.)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It might interest your students to point out that not all soldiers do heroic duty, even in wartime. This blogger joined the Marines in 1968 and volunteered (twice) in the summer of 1969, to go to Vietnam, but was never sent.

Instead, he did clerk duties in a supply unit at Camp Pendleton, California, until September 1970.

I used to tell my students, “I defended my country with a staple gun!”

In the Marines, we were tested and assigned our MOS (military occupation specialty). I had dropped out of college but still had good language skills. So, I spent my time in California filling out paperwork. In boot camp, I remember a recruit being assigned an MOS none of the rest of us recognized.

“Plumber,” our drill instructor said.

That Marine defended the country with a toilet plunger.

I read somewhere that General Eisenhower’s army in Europe had 50,000 cooks. So there are many men and women in the military, who never see combat at all, or only in brief moments.

May 31: With war clouds gathering, George Washington wrote to Lord Fairfax, his former patron, now in England:

Unhappy it is, though to reflect that a brother’s sword has been sheathed in a brother’s breast, and that the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with blood or inhabited by slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous man hesitate in his choice?

June 7: Nicholas Cresswell, a young Englishman, is surprised by the way the colonials in Virginia act – while dancing.

Last night I went to the Ball. … Here was about 37 ladies dressed and powdered to the life, some of them very handsome and as much vanity as is necessary. All of them fond of dancing, but I do not think they perform it with the greatest elegance. Betwixt the Country dances they have what I call ever-everlasting jigs. A couple gets up and begins to dance a jig (to some Negro tune) others comes and cuts them out, and these dances always last as long as the Fiddler can play. This is sociable, but I think it look more like a Bacchanalian dance than one in a polite assembly. Old Women, Young wives with young children on the lap, widows, maids and girls come promiscuously to these assemblies which generally continue till mourning. A cold supper, Punch, Wines, Coffee and Chocolate, but no Tea. This is a forbidden herb. The men chiefly Scotch and Irish. I went home about two o’clock, but part of the company stayed, got drunk and had a fight. (300/101)

June 15: George Washington is chosen to lead the new “Continental Army.” Some had favored the selection of Gen. Artemus Ward, a son of New England. During a meeting of the Second Continental Congress, the day before, John Adams had spoken in favor of the Virginian, who he described as “a Gentleman whose Skill as an Officer, independent fortune, great Talents and universal Character would command the Approbation of all America, and unite the cordial Exertions of all the Colonies better than any other Person in the Union.”

John Hancock made it official, noting that the vote in favor of Washington was unanimous. (48/111)

“I do not think myself equal to the command.”

June 16: George Washington responds to his choice to be commander of the new Continental Army:

Since the Congress desire, I will enter upon the momentous duty and exert every power I possess in their service and for the support of the glorious cause. But I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room, that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with. (Coe, Makers of the Nation)

To his wife, George writes:

You may believe me, dear Patsey, when I assure you in the most solemn manner that, so far from seeking this appointment, I used every endeavour in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family but from a consciousness of its being a trust too great for my capacity. (124/183)

Washington then rode north, passing through New York City. Van Loon writes,

The entire city turned out to see His Excellency.

A company of the local militia acted as a bodyguard.

A few days later the town turned out with equal enthusiasm to see the new governor, arrived that very moment from London, England.

The same company of the local militia acted as a bodyguard. (124/184)

Van Loon offers description of the new American general, 44, his face marked by smallpox. “He stood six feet three inches in his stocking-feet. He weighed two hundred and twenty pounds but nevertheless was a fine horseman.” (124/185)

For the rest, as long as you did what you were supposed to do you could be sure that he appreciated your efforts and would take your side if you got into trouble with some busybody selectman whose chicken-yard had been plundered by a couple of hungry soldiers. But God help you when you fell asleep at your post, when you discovered that you had urgent business in the rear as soon as a British man-of-war had got your range. He would bawl you out right then and there and once going he could curse like the marines. But that was alright. Sure it was alright. This was war. … Anybody ever hear of a war that was fought without swearing? And he would see to it that you got well fed if he had to pay for your grub out of his own pocket. Yes, that was right, too. He would not take a cent for his services. Said that he was rich enough and meant to make no money out of something he merely considered his duty. He had not wanted the job much anyway. He had a nice place down there in Virginia and all the land and slaves he needed. … All in all a fine gentleman. Not the sort you slap on the back. No, not exactly. But if he decided to go somewhere, you somehow or other decided that you would go there too. Leadership they called it. Well, he had it. (124/186-187)

“So much for the man,” Van Loon writes. “What about the ‘situation?’ It was so bad it was almost funny.” (124/188)

June 17: The Battle of Bunker Hill is fought. McMaster writes:

While the battle was raging Charlestown was shelled and set on fire and four hundred houses burned. Later, in October, a British fleet entered the harbor of Falmouth (now Portland in Maine), and burned three fourths of the houses. January 1, 1776, Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, set fire to Norfolk, the chief city of Virginia. The fire raged for three days and reduced the place to ashes. These acts were charged against the king in the Declaration of Independence: “He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” (97/162)

John Quincy Adams, just three weeks and three days short of his eighth birthday, remembers his mother taking him by the hand to a high hill, so they could watch the distant scenes of battle. He later wrote of her:

For the space of twelve months my mother with her infant children dwelt, liable every hour of the day and of the night to be butchered in cold blood, or taken and carried into Boston as hostages. My mother lived in unintermitted danger of being consumed with them all in a conflagration kindled by a torch in the same hands which on the seventeenth of June (1775) lighted the fires of Charlestown. I saw with my own eyes those fires, and heard Britannia’s thunders in the Battle of Bunker Hill, and witnessed the tears of my mother and mingled them with my own. (226/171)

Andrews says that British losses were 1,054, including 157 officers; American losses totaled nearly 500.

Lancaster and Plumb insist that the Redcoats were carrying 120 pounds of equipment, including three days’ rations and blankets, as they made their first assault.

They note,

this was a frontal attack against an entrenched force of unknown strength, despite the fact that Howe, under cover of the omnipresent fleet, could have landed his men at the base of the Neck and clamped a stranglehold about the American garrison. But custom, eighteenth-century military honor, and possibly a not too farfetched belief that the defenders could not stand against such a disciplined mass, decreed the head-on smash.

With no one in overall command, Bunker Hill “was black with troops who had come on during the morning, but there they stayed, largely because there was no one to tell them where to go or what to do when they got there.”

British sources agree that the first ripping volley was delivered when the bayonet points, sharp in the sun, were less than fifteen paces from the lines. Bearskin caps flew in the air; bright uniforms were strewn over the trampled green of the grass. Then powder-blackened eyes in the redoubt, along earthwork and rail fence, looked out incredulously as the disordered wreckage of the attack went pounding back in angry flight to the beaches and the waiting boats.

By late afternoon, the slopes of Breed’s Hill were red with a litter of scarlet and white, thickened by the failure of a second attack that had been smashed as utterly as the first. Eyes in Boston, eyes behind the defenses, watched the shredded companies re-form and wondered if any troops could rally after two such murderous smashings.

…Men in the defenses watched them form [for a third attack], start up those ghastly slopes once more, and, watching, slipped shaky fingers into cartridge pouches. Four rounds left? No, only two. Perhaps none. As before, they waited, clutching bayonet-less muskets. … There was one, perhaps a second, blast that shook the attackers, then silence from the works.

The Americans were driven off the crest but retreated in some order.

General William Howe had won for General Thomas Gage an utterly useless peninsula, and at horrible cost. … The total casualty list showed 1,054 dead and wounded out of some 2,300 who had gone in through the smoke and flying lead of the three attacks. And something intangible died in the British command on that June afternoon. No officer who witnessed the slaughter could ever get the memory of it out of his mind. Where drive and initiative were displayed by the British high command during the rest of the war, they usually came from someone who had neither toiled up the slopes that led from the beaches to Breed’s Hill nor watched others on that ghastly ascent. (48/107-110)

Bunker Hill.

ACCORDING TO COE, at news of Bunker Hill, Washington had but one eager question, “Did the militia fight?” When told how well they had behaved, he replied: “The liberties of the country are safe.”

Coe describes the condition of the camps around Boston, prior to his arrival:

The discipline was lax. A visitor at camp heard this conversation. The speakers were a captain and one of his men.

“Bill,” said the captain, “go and bring a pail of water for the men.”

“I shan’t,” said Bill. “It’s your turn now, captain; I got it last time.”

The men had no uniforms. Washington asked Congress to provide ten thousand hunting shirts. He thought that to clothe the soldiers alike would be a step towards making them act alike.

[At one point, the commander learns his men have half a pound of powder each.] When that fact was told Washington, he was silent half an hour in dismay. The barrels in the magazines that should have held powder were filled with sand. Then a little powder was sprinkled on top. This was to deceive any British spy who might be seeking information. (Coe, Makers of the Nation)

Andrews notes, in similar vein: “Congress, too, afraid of a standing army, would authorize only short enlistments.” (2/74)

As for Washington’s situation at Boston, Andrews adds, “All fall and winter he was obliged to lie inactive for want of powder.” (2/75)

Of Gen. Washington, Andrews says that he was qualified to lead because of his “wonderful self-control, sound judgment, lofty patriotism, and sublime courage” (2/73)

He also describes Washington as “the most perfect human personality the world has known.” (2/157)

“George had always been a good son,” Andrews says his mother once said; but we know from later historians that the two were not always on the best of terms. (2/159)

Fall: “The feeling of dependence on the mother-country and of loyalty to the king was deep-rooted and died hard.” (2/51)

“Congress declared that it had ‘not raised armies with the ambitious design of separation from Great Britain.’” (2/54)

December 2: Having struggled north, through thick wilderness and deep snow, in bitter cold, two American “armies” unite near Quebec, and prepare to capture the city. One of those two small forces was led by Gen. Benedict Arnold, who, with his men, had overcome incredible difficulties to make it this far. One Pennsylvania soldier described how he had watched comrades collapse from complete exhaustion. If a man stopped to help another up, he himself lost his footing.

At length the wretches raise themselves up ... wade through the mire to the foot of the next steep and gaze up at its summit, contemplating what they must suffer before they reach it. – They attempt it, catching at every twig and shrub they can lay hold of – their feet fly from them – they fall down – to rise no more.

The second “army,” led by Gen. Richard Montgomery, has also battled its way through hard country, and captured Montreal, before moving on to Quebec.

December 25: New Hampshire, in forming a new state government, “totally disavowed” any desire for independence.

Washington wrote that independence was not then “desired by any thinking man in America.”

Pennsylvania “strictly” warned her representatives in Congress not to support any “proposition that may lead to separation.”

Maryland soon follows suit. (2/53)

December 31: With a thousand men combined, Montgomery and Arnold finally launch an attack on Quebec. In the first blast of fire Gen. Montgomery is killed and his men lose heart. Arnold is wounded, and the Americans are scattered or captured.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: When covering Washington’s military career, I tried to include all these issues:

Terms to know included regiment, infantry, patriot, New England, revolution, “Spirit of 76,” Hessian, Tory, militia

We discussed leadership: What is it and how does one show leadership? (I have always liked the example of Alexander the Great and the story of water in the desert. His dejected army is retreating across India, and water is almost impossible to find.

Finally, several of his cavalrymen return with a helmet full of water they had found and gave it to Alexander. While his troops passing by watched, he poured it on the ground.

I asked my students why.

Washington travels with minimal baggage, normally stays in a tent, like his troops, and takes no pay for serving.

I liked my students to know that as a boy, Washington studied 110 rules of conduct, including showing self-control.

He was a big man, and in one case broke up a fight between two rival regiments by wading into the melee and grabbing two ringleaders by the throat and supposedly lifting them off the ground.

We also discussed his luck in getting his troops off Long Island, after placing them in such an untenable position in the summer of 1776. He was, however, a leader who set a good example, and was up for 48 hours without rest, making sure his troops were ready to sneak off the island in the dark and fog.

My classes seemed intrigued to think that had that retreat failed, Washington would likely have gone down in history as a failure or have been almost unknown.

He was personally brave, once charging after retreating Redcoats on his horse, shouting, “It’s a fine fox chase, boys!”

Washington was also lucky to be facing Lord Howe, a British commander, who dallied while the Continental Army suffered through the winter at Valley Forge, devoting his attentions to a “flashing blonde,” as one historian put it.

I thought it was important to note that he did not punish the losers in Revolution, those Americans who supported the British; he let the loyalists escape at Yorktown.

His troops grew restless after Yorktown. Pay was often late. In March 1783 Washington called in his officers, for what one historian described as “probably the most important single gathering ever held in the United States.” There was talk of placing George on a throne, since Congress was seen to be failing the army. Washington pulls out a letter from a congressman, can’t seem to understand what he's looking at, and finally says, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”

It is said he shamed the men who had even thought to ask him to elevate himself.

1776

2026-07-11T06:58:40.482-04:00

__________

“The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army…. We have, therefore, resolved to conquer or die.”

George Washington in a proclamation to his troops

__________

January 10: In Common Sense Thomas Paine denounces the idea that the Colonies should not break from the control of the Mother Country. “This new world hath been the asylum for the persecuted lovers of civil and religious liberty from every part of Europe. Hither have they fled, not from the tender embraces of the mother, but from the cruelty of a monster.”

February: Eight U.S. warships are assembled at Philadelphia. When Esek Hopkins, the commander, comes aboard, Lt. John Paul Jones hoists a yellow silk flag “on which was the device of a pine tree and a coiled rattlesnake and the motto, ‘Don’t tread on me.’”

McMaster lays out the mismatch we faced at sea: a fleet of 24 vessels for our side, mounting 422 guns.

For the British: 112 warships, carrying 3,714 guns, and 78 of these vessels stationed near American coasts. (97/177)

February 7: The first volume of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is published. As Gibbon puts it, history is “little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.”

ALICE MORSE EARLE reports that in the meeting house at Dorchester on Sunday, “the boys were so turbulent, the spirit of independence was so rife and riotous, that six men had to be appointed to keep order, and they had authority to ‘give proper discipline’ if necessary.” (226/246)

ONE NEW ENGLAND CUSTOM, meant to advance courtship, was called “bundling.” A young man and young woman, “fully clothed, lay down in bed, crawled under the blankets and exchanged confidences and, insofar as possible, endearments.” (300/193)

Lt. Francis Anbury, an English soldier, recalled his close call with bundling during the war. When bad weather delayed his travel he found lodging for the night at the home of a family living in a log cabin. But what to do? There were only two beds.

The wife agreed that she and her husband would sleep in one, “and our Jemima and you shall sleep in that.”

Anbury explained:

“Oh la! Mr. Ensign, you won’t be the first man our Jemima has bundled with, will it Jemima?” when little Jemima, who, by the bye, was a very pretty, black-eyed girl, of about sixteen or seventeen, archly reply, “No, father, not by many, but it will be with the first Britisher.” (The name they gave to Englishmen). In this dilemma, what could I do? The smiling invitation of pretty Jemima – the eye, the lip, the – Lord ha’ mercy, where am I going to? But wherever I may be going now, I did not go to bundle with her – in the same room with her father and mother, my kind host and hostess too! I thought of that – I thought of more besides – to struggle with the passions of nature; to clasp Jemima in my arms – to – do what? you’ll ask – why, to do – nothing! for if amid all these temptations, the lovely Jemima had melted into kindness, she had been outcast from rule – treated with contempt, abused by violence, and left perhaps to perish! No, Jemima; I could have endured all this to have been blessed with you, but it was too vast a sacrifice, when you were to be the victim! Suppose how great the test of virtue must, or how cold the American constitution, when this unaccountable custom is in hospitable repute, and perpetual practice.

Around this time, clergymen began to take disapproving notice of the practice in sermons. What had once been considered a harmless way of courting was “stigmatized as a sin.”

The construction of larger and better heated houses in New England weakened the case for bundling. (300/193-195)

“A noble train of artillery.”

March 5: British forces holding Boston awake to the fact that Dorchester Heights, bare at sunset the day before, are now fortified, and those fortified lines filled with heavy artillery. Their positions in the city are now untenable. How this occurred, Lancaster and Plumb explain – with the greatest credit going to the former book seller, Henry Knox, all 280 pounds of the man. He had taken it upon himself weeks earlier to go to Fort Ticonderoga and retrieve the artillery pieces captured by Ethan Allen and his men.

Then it had been his job to transport them south, through “a nearly roadless wilderness,” to Boston.

At Ticonderoga, Knox had valuable help from General Philip Schuyler, the area commander, but soon he was on his own. Teamsters and oxen had to be hired, sledges rented or, in some cases, built on the spot. Once underway, the long column sought out what roads there were. Day by slow day, through heavy snows, through maddening thaws, the Ticonderoga guns lurched east, across the Taconics, along the very eaves of the Berkshire Hills into Great Barrington in Massachusetts. From dawn till sunset, day in and day out, hoofs churned and runners hissed over the snow until, at Farmingham, Knox was able to write to the commander in chief that 59 pieces of ordinance of all calibers, large and small – “a noble train of artillery” – were ready to be turned over to the American army. It had been a stupendous feat, and it is largely a forgotten one. When the last sledge came to a halt at its destination, the fate of Boston, its garrison, and its Loyalists was settled.

Lord Howe exclaimed, of the Americans, “these fellows have done more work in one night than I could make my army do in three months.”

At first, he prepared for an attack that likely would have proved even more costly, and with even less chance of success, than his attack on Bunker Hill the previous summer. But a monster storm, described by some locals as a “Hurrycane,” ruined his plan. Instead, he loaded his troops, and most of the Tory families of Boston, aboard his fleet and sailed for Halifax. When American troops finally entered the city, they were surprised to find “great caches of Royal stores, most oddly abandoned.” (48/117)

Knox and his men bring the guns to Boston.

March 9: Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is published.

Saint Patrick’s Day: 120 ships carry 9,000 British soldiers, 1,200 dependents, and 1,100 Loyalists out of Boston. On the deck of one ship, the merchant George Erving tells other Loyalists, “Gentlemen, not one of you will ever see that place again.”

March 18: General Washington enters the city of Boston.

“Remember the Ladies.”

March 31: Abigail Adams writes to her husband:

I long to hear that you have declared an independency – and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If perticuliar care and attention is not paid to the Laidies we are determined to foment a Rebelion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend. Why then, not put it out of the power of the vicious and the Lawless to use us with cruelty and indignity with impunity.

John replied:

We are obliged to go fair and softly, and, in practice, you know we are the subjects. We have only the name of masters, and rather than give up this, which would completely subject us to the despotism of the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all our brave heroes would fight. (45/67)

Abigail Adams.

Van Loon comments on Jefferson:

Jefferson, in contrast with Washington, had read widely. Few authors had made such a deep impression upon him as John Locke, the contemporary of Spinoza and one of the earliest champions in England of the new and startling principle than man was entitled to his own convictions. Where Locke first got this notion we do not know. But during the latter half of the seventeenth century he’d been an exile in Holland, just a century after the people of that country had declared their independence from Spain in a document which had stated that “all sovereigns have been appointed by God that they may rule their subjects as shepherds who watch over their flocks,” and furthermore, that “the subjects have not been created for the benefit of the king, but the king has been created for the benefit of the subjects.” (124/199)

King George III and his generals hoped to gain support from various Native American tribes. Van Loon is dismissive, and unaware of his own racism, when he writes:

As for their Indian friends, they did not prove of great value. Already the French had discovered that these poor savages were of very little use in actual battle. As long as everything went well, they murdered and plundered like lions, but as soon as there was the slightest sign of a panic, they disappeared and were swallowed up by the woods. (124/205)

“It has been said (with more or less truth) that the Gods are always on the side of the largest cannon,” Van Loon continues. (124/205)

The poor Hessians, on the other hand, engaged in this war at seven pounds, four shillings, four pence, half penny (which went into the pocketbook of their illustrious master), had absolutely nothing to gain but an occasional pot of ale and enough food to keep them alive.

And so they said to themselves, “Warum sollen wir uns da anstrengen?” [Why should we make an effort there?] And they went into action with one eye upon the enemy and the other upon the nearest exit.

Let those who never spent a couple of uncomfortable years under the shell-fire of a quarrel that did not interest him throw the first hand-grenade.

As far as I am concerned, those Hessians were very wise men. (124/206)

May: French and Spanish ambassadors agree to set up a dummy trading company, which will sell military supplies to the Americans. It is estimated that in the next two years, 80% of the gunpowder used by American forces is provided by this dummy company.

Still, Americans remain dubious:

It is highly doubtful if any member of the Congress looked upon developments that might come from these rumored negotiations as being in the nature of a helping hand stretched out to further American ideals. They knew that both powers had heavy colonial holdings themselves and hence could scarcely view with complacency the sight of any revolt against royalty. Nor would those powers be anxious to aid in setting up an independent nation that was largely Protestant. The idea was to nibble away at England while the chance presented itself and take care of any awkward by-products later. (48/136-137)

BRUCE CATTON says of this war:

[The Americans] knew very little about European methods of warfare (and despite all the tales about frontier riflemen fighting Indian-fashion from behind trees, most of the great Revolutionary battles were fought according to the European style) and they were poorly equipped, usually ill-fed, and almost constantly badly clothed; but fighting against the world’s greatest power they managed not only to hold off disaster but usually to give a little better than they got. (48/9)

This was not true, of course, in the battles around New York City, in the summer of 1776.

June 28: A British attack on Charleston, South Carolina, from land and sea, proves a miserable failure. An infantry attack along the shore is shot to pieces. The enemy fleet takes a pounding from the guns of Fort Sullivan, which protects the city.

Lancaster and Plumb explain:

The ships fared even worse…They ran aground, fouled one another’s ranges, and blundered into the wrong channels. When they were able to fire, the spongy palmetto logs of Fort Sullivan absorbed the heavy shot easily. Inside the blind, sweltering casements of the fort, raw gunners faced the awesome swoop and plunge of the attacking ships as coolly as the men on the crest of Breed’s Hill had met the weight of Howes’ battalions. They served the guns steadily, refused to panic when powder ran low, and kept up unhurried fire until fresh supplies were rushed over from the mainland. Few shots were wasted. Out in the slow-moving procession of ships, hulls showed ragged gaps; masts splintered and crashed overboard. Decks were swept by cannonballs and small arms fire; gun crews and their officers were struck down at their posts. “No slaughterhouse could present so bad a sight with blood and entrails lying about, as did our ship,” an officer of H.M.S. Bristol wrote. As for Admiral Sir Peter Parker, facing the stinging fire alongside his lowest ratings, he suffered the supreme humiliation of a splinter-wound that, said an eyewitness, “ruined his Britches … quite torn off, his backside laid bare, his thigh and knee wounded.” (48/130-131)

SIX PRINCES of Germany furnished 29,867 soldiers for the war in America, called generically, “Hessians.” Some 12,250 never returned, including 5,000 who deserted. (97/163)

Hessian grenadier.

John Dickinson spoke against the Declaration of Independence – and Lancaster and Plumb argue that his predictions of disaster should have proven correct.

However, “No man in his senses could have guessed the actual course of the years to come, but history is seldom sensible in the routes that it follows.” (48/145)

July 1: A vote on the question of declaring independence fails.

July 2: Absentees from the previous session arrive. “Staunch Caesar Rodney had ridden eighty miles through a rain-lashed night and took his place, still mud spattered, beside his colleague, Thomas McKean, to set Delaware on the affirmative side.”

By the close of the day’s session, the ayes “had carried the question, despite rifts within individual delegations.” (48/146)

July 4: We know that in the Declaration of Independence, George III was singled out for criticism, with Jefferson writing, “A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

After reading Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, the king also laid out a strong anti-slavery position:

“The pretexts used by the Spaniards for enslaving the New World were extremely curious,” George notes; “the propagation of the Christian religion was the first reason, the next was the [Indigenous] Americans differing from them in colour, manners and customs, all of which are too absurd to take the trouble of refuting.” As for the European practice of enslaving Africans, he wrote, “the very reasons urged for it will be perhaps sufficient to make us hold such practice in execration.”

By comparison, 41 of 56 signers of the Declaration, including Jefferson, of course, owned slaves.

(The blogger has covered the Declaration itself in detail, in a separate post, “Do You Know What the Declaration of Independence Means?” explaining how he and his students addressed the subject.)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I expected my students to memorize this portion of the Declaration and know the answers to those six questions.

I took this lesson very seriously. If a student failed to memorize, I invited them to come in at lunch and try again or catch me before or after school. I missed parts of many lunches, myself, but I could get all but a handful of students to get this passage by heart.

We also discussed Sally Hemings.

Smithsonian magazine also notes that even after Washington defeated his armies once and for all, George III could still refer to him as “the greatest character of the age.”

When John Adams visited the Court of St. James in June 1785, George III told him, “I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the separation; but the separation having been made, and having become inevitable, I have always said, and I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.”

According to Smithsonian, “leading medical experts have come to agree over the past decade that George III almost surely suffered from bipolar disorder.”

August 1: Fresh troops, 2,500 English, 8,000 Hessian, arrive in New York. “The effective British force was now about 25,000.” (2/76)

“You are freemen fighting for the blessings of liberty.”

August 22: The British and Hessians land 8,000 men on Long Island, equal in number to the American force there. Washington issues an appeal to his men:

The enemy have now landed on Long Island, and the hour is fast approaching on which the honor and success of this army and the safety of our bleeding country depend. Remember, officers and soldiers, that you are freemen fighting for the blessings of liberty – that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men. (109/53)

This mention, by a slave owner, of the curse of slavery is ironic.

Washington’s army – which lacks naval support – is now in a difficult position. Washington has divided his forces, placing some on Long Island, some on Manhattan Island, and others hold the Jersey shore.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: In discussing this fight, my students could always see the fatal blunder Washington made. The British fleet could cut off any retreat; and the divided American forces could not aid each other.

I could never draw worth beans.

One night enemy forces marched through Jamaica Pass, east of the end of American lines. Only a handful of our soldiers guarded the way, and they were surprised and captured. The next morning, Washington’s troops found the enemy behind them, and when British and Hessian forces attacked, the American line quickly collapsed.

[General] John Sullivan’s entire left wing was crushed and broken, rolled South in shattering defeat.

There was a signal gun from the lowlands by the British center and left, and Hessian jägers and grenadiers, British line companies, and kilted Scots roared into action. Everything gave way. Riflemen, on whose deadly aimed fire so many hopes had been built, found that their clumsy weapons took far too long to reload. Lacking bayonets, they were engulfed by yelling, stabbing swarms of Germans and British. American gunners abandoned their pieces in the face of scarlet and blue lines that poured toward them, bayonets aslant.

Sometime during the morning of the twenty-sixth Washington came over to Brooklyn, but there was nothing that he or any other commander could have done. And there was consolation for him in only two points. Adverse winds still kept the British fleet out of the East River. And down at the American far right where Lord Stirling commanded [Smallwood’s Marylanders and Haslet’s Delawares] were standing firm, taking the heavy assaults of fur-capped British grenadiers and kilted 42nd Black Watch. An English officer in one of the attacking waves particularly remembered the Delawares “their ranks full, their uniforms smart… their courage high.”

Disaster beckoned; but Stirling ordered most of him men to make an orderly retreat, holding back Major Mordecai Gist and “some 200 immortal Marylanders.” Lord Stirling then led them in a stunning counterattack.

Highlander, Grenadier, and Hessian recoiled from this unexpected onset. Their lines wavered, seemed about to break, then fresh troops raced up just as Stirling launched his sixth assault, and the Maryland survivors broke up into small groups, trying to fight their way back to their own lines. Of the 200, only Mordecai Gist and nine others succeeded.

Stirling himself was captured and surrendered his sword to a Hessian general. (48/160)

At noon, fighting died out, and the British commander, Lord Howe, sat down to write a “glittering report” to his superiors in London. But the Americans still held the Brooklyn Heights. Rather than attack, as he had at Breed’s Hill, he decided to dig in and advance his lines until they were closer to the American defenses.

Within the American lines there was chaos and deep, bitter disillusionment as men wandered about trying to find their outfits. It was clear to the dullest that they had no chance in the field unless American firepower could smash bayonet charges before the attackers could close. There was nothing else with which to counter that weapon. There were few bayonets in the American lines, and fewer men who knew how to use them. Yet some semblance of order crept back into the works, for George Washington was there – outwardly calm, imperturbable, and confident, whatever doubts may have gnawed at him in his first big test as commander in chief. Units were sorted out, guards posted, and by late afternoon parties of riflemen crept out a good hundred rods from the works to fire on enemy posts.

Washington still clung to his belief that Brooklyn could be held, and in a gesture that invited disaster, shifted more units from Manhattan, apparently forgetting that a turn of the wind could bring the British fleet between him and his base. On August 28 the weather broke in a howling, rain-lashing nor’easter, but Howe’s diggers kept on, drawing closer to the American lines. Appreciating the situation more clearly as hours went by, the Virginian concluded that after all he could not hold Brooklyn. With that conclusion the American army was placed in the greatest danger it had yet known. If the British received the slightest hint of evacuation, slaughter and mass capture must result. (48/160-161)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: At this point, I always stressed the idea that Washington was inexperienced – and that only luck here may have kept him from going down in history as a failure.

Fortunately, the wind continued to keep the British fleet away. Washington could also call on the soldiers of John Glover, who knew how to handle every kind of sailing vessel and small boat. All night, Glover’s troops ferried others to safety. At dusk, with blinding rain offering them cover, Glover’s own men prepared to make their escape. Hour after hour, with little food, they had rowed back and forth in the dark, making the two-mile round trip. One of the last to leave the island: General Washington himself.

(We will meet Glover and his men again, at the Battle of Trenton.)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It was interesting to ask students why it might have been important for Washington to leave last? I always felt that it was worthwhile to discuss the attributes that made for good leadership – including in my students’ own lives.

Finally, luck played a key role again. The contrary winds died down, and the British fleet might have sailed up the East River and cut off the American retreat. But a thick fog blanketed the water.

Joseph White, a young soldier in Washington’s army (he had re-enlisted by this time; see: 1775) admitted that the Americans had to “make haste” in evacuating the city.

I was just recovering from a dangerous sickness, went on board a row galley and sailed up the north river, 20 miles. Sailing up, I saw heaps of peaches, of the best kind, lying under the trees; I got the capt. to send a boat ashore and get some, which he did; I eat so many, was bad as ever, and went into a barn for the hospital. The owner of which was a quaker; after some time, went into his house to buy some milk. The quaker said, we can’t sell thee any. Then I told them I would milk the cows; the woman consented to let me have a pint every morning, by paying her three coppers. My health gained fast.

One morning I sat [set] off for camp, but was so weak, had to set down every few rods, and by sunset reached Fort Washington, after travaling about 10 miles.

I now got to my old company, capt. Perkins told me, that I looked so weak, was not able to fight; that they expected to be attacked every moment. I had better go to Fort Lee, to capt. Allen, so I went.

We encamped at Fort Lee a long time, and saw Fort Washington taken. The General seemed in an agony when he saw the fort surrended.

(White appears to be referring to George Washington.)

WASHINGTON is eventually forced to abandon New York City, marching his troops north, with British forces pursuing in desultory fashion. Overconfidence – the bane of all militaries.

McMaster writes that the American army was badly divided, and one force, under General Putnam was in danger of being cut off.

When [Lord William] Howe, marching across Manhattan island, reached Murray Hill, Mrs. Lindley Murray sent a servant to invite him to luncheon. The [British and Hessian] army was halted, and Mrs. Murray entertained Howe and his officers for two hours. It was this delay that enabled Putnam to escape. (97/170)

“Long Faces” and disgrace.

September 16: Kips Bay landing:

As soon as the British landed, the militia fled without firing once. Washington and his aides, attempting to rally the retreating militia, were left in such an exposed position that they had to flee ignominiously before the advancing redcoats. When the news of the militia’s “disgraceful and dastardly” behavior reached Monroe and the Virginians as they stood in battle formation, they furiously denounced those who had “shamefully abandoned their posts without exchanging fire.”

That day, the “the sound of British bugles rang out from the opposing heights. The call was not a military one, but the famous hunting call – the chase has ended and the fox is dead.”

This served to cap the army’s disgrace. (24/9)

According to Harry Ammon, deserters during the Revolution were dubbed “Long Faces.”

PLUMB AND LANCASTER also tell the story of Gen. Putnam’s narrow escape – without mentioning Mrs. Murray.

They do note that Washington decided to play upon the enemy’s overconfidence. Much of Manhattan Island was then wooded, and two parallel columns, one American, one British and Hessian, had raced north to new lines on Harlem Heights. Fortunately, Putnam’s force was screened by a line of hills, and, beaten and discouraged, entered the main Continental Army line.

With nightfall, the British halted just beyond McGowan’s. Morning, thought Howe, would be time enough for a good strong push against the Heights and the shattered, uncertain men who held them. Once more, he was presenting his enemies with the priceless commodity of time.

Up on the dark Heights a beaten force lay on its arms, apparently ready to fall to pieces at the lightest touch. Yet there was in that mass a hard, solid core, and its hardest, solidest part was represented by a tall, cloaked Virginian who sat with his subordinates, fully aware that the weight of the all-important decision – what to do next – rested on his shoulders alone. He had seen his troops break and panic that very morning. Would they be any more reliable now? George Washington made his decision.

September 17:

Before dawn Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton of Connecticut was on the move. A veteran of several battles, cool and courageous, Knowlton was a “favorite of his superiors, idol of his soldiers.”

Down into the Hollow Way he led about 100 Connecticut Rangers, all picked men, and on the south slope they collided with light infantry. Knowlton’s men stood firm, exchanging fire with the enemy until the sudden skirl of bagpipes brought on masses of the Black Watch. Then, carefully and in excellent order, Knowlton broke off and made a leisurely retreat.

Not unnaturally, this move was interpreted by the British as flight, and a general forward movement was almost contemptuously begun. Immediately Washington saw an opportunity to draw the enemy’s light infantry down into the Hollow Way.

Soldiers from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia moved forward to meet the enemy.

There was immediate contact. Jeering scarlet lines poured into the valley, were checked, and, incredibly to both sides, faltered. The Yankees were attacking, and in the open, not from behind walls! … [More American troops were committed to the fight.] Then, in a magnificent gesture, Washington committed the very militiamen who had fled so ingloriously just the day before at Kips Bay, saw them stand almost toe-to-toe with the very units which had slashed so hard over on Long Island.

Suddenly the British began to retreat! Through a field of buckwheat on the site of Barnard College, through an orchard went kilt and bearskin, with New Englanders and Marylanders and Virginians in pursuit. Through fringes of smoke to the south men could see the last of the British and Hessian reserves being hurried forward at the double. The little reconnaissance was developing into a general engagement which was more than Washington dared risk. Wisely and coolly he ordered a retirement which, said young Tench Tilghman of Pennsylvania, was greeted derisively, for “the pursuit of a flying enemy was so new a scene that it was with difficulty that our men could be brought to retire … they gave a Hurra! and left the field in good order.”

This startling American achievement was a national one, not sectional. Troops from many states had been committed to battle and there was nothing to choose between them. Washington’s force had been transformed by him and by its own efforts from a mob into an army, and every man on the Heights knew it. Joseph Reed, sensing this, wrote, “you can hardly conceive the change it has made. … The men … feel a confidence which before they had quite lost.” Such confidence, of course, could evaporate, as Reed realized when he added, “I hope the effects will be lasting.” (48/166-168)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Here, again, I thought it was useful to talk about the leadership shown by Washington.

“But one life to lose for my country.”

September 22: From Coe, in Makers of the Nation:

Nathan Hale was born on June 6th, 1755, in Coventry, Connecticut… [he] was admitted to Yale College, where he was an earnest student. He delighted his classmates by his success in athletics, for he broke the college record for jumping.

…His favorite motto was “A man ought never to lose a minute.”

In September 1773, Nathan Hale was graduated from Yale College with the highest honors. He taught school in Connecticut for the next year and a half. But when the stirring news of the battles of Lexington and Concord reached him, Hale could not remain at his desk. He was marching to Boston the following day with two Connecticut regiments. He took part in the siege of Boston and was made a captain in January 1776.

Later, General Washington needed a spy to give him information about the British in New York; Hale volunteered when no other officer would.

Hale was to enter the British lines as a schoolmaster who was disgusted with the American cause. He laid aside his American uniform and dressed himself in a plain brown suit, with a broad-brimmed, round hat. He carried his diploma, to serve as a kind of passport.

[Once inside enemy lines…] For the next six days he was busy indeed. He walked about from morning to night, taking mental notes of all that he saw. He talked and joked with sentries and officers, until his genial manners won their hearts and they grew confidential. Incredible was the amount of material garnered by Hale. His candle burned during many hours of the night as he toiled to record, with the utmost exactness, what he had learned through the day.

[Waiting for a boat to leave the city, he goes into a tavern.] It was too early for the boat, and so, grown bolder through success, he turned into the Tory tavern kept by Mother Chichester. Alas! Why did not his good angel warn him away?

In the tavern, several redcoats sat at breakfast. These Hale joined, in his usual happy way, and a brisk conversation ensued. The young man did not notice that one guest studied him carefully for one long minute, and then slipped from the room.

Nathan Hale is captured.

Hale had been recognized as a person who had been gathering information before, and suspicions were aroused. He was soon arrested, tried, and condemned as a spy. “Led to his execution in an orchard, before a few gathered to watch, he was asked if he had any last words, at age 21. ‘I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.’”

THE HISTORIAN, Benjamin Andrews describes the same incident: Hale “was soon caught, and soon swung from an apple tree in Colonel Rutger’s orchard, a corpse, Bible and religious ministrations denied him, his letters to his mother and sister destroyed, [and with] women standing by and sobbing, he met his fate without a tremor.”

“I only regret,” comes his voice from yon rude scaffold, “that I have but one life to give for my country.” (2/144)

November 16/20: Through the treason of Adjutant Demont, who had deserted to Lord Percy with complete information of their weakness, Forts Washington and Lee were captured, November 16 and 20, with the loss of 150 killed and wounded, and 2,634 prisoners, besides valuable stores, small arms, and forty-three pieces of artillery.”

“Charles Lee, with a considerable portion of the army, persistently refused to cross the Hudson.” (2/78)

YOUNG Joseph White and the rest of Washington’s soldiers are forced to retreat again, this time in haste.

White explains:

…early one morning an express arrived, screaming “turn out! turn out! we are all surrounded, leave every thing but your blankets – you must fight your way through, or be prisoners.” We were on the march in about 10 minutes, they let us march by them, leaving all the camp equipage.

As soon as we marched by them they followed us through the Jersey, to the river Delaware; here we crossed – after 2 or 3 weeks march. – The privations and sufferings we endured, is beyond description – no tent to cover us at night – exposed to cold and rains day and night – no food of any kind but a little raw flour.

After crossing the river, we were put into the back part of a tavern; the tavern-keeper refused to take rebel money, as he called it. I went to Gen. Putnam and told him that he had every thing we wanted, but he will not take paper money, he calls it rebel money. You go and tell him, from me, that if he refuses to take our money, take what you want, without any pay – I went and told the man what the General said. Your yankee Gen. dare not give such orders, said he. I placed two men at the cellar door, as centries; let nobody whatever go down, I said. I called for a light, and two men to go down cellar with me. – We found it full of good things, a large pile of cheeses, hams of bacon, a large tub of honey, barrels of cider, and 1 do. marked cider-royal, which was very strong; also, all kinds of spirit. The owner went to the Gen. to complain. The sergeant told me, said the Gen. that you refused to take paper money. So I did, said he, I do not like your rebel money. The Gen. flew round like a top, he called for a file of men; a corporal and four men came – take this tory rascal to the main guard house.

I sent a ham of bacon, one large cheese, and a bucket full of cider-royal, to general Putnam.

“These are the times that try men’s souls.”

December 18: Halleck writes,

In the latter part of 1776 Washington wrote, “If every nerve is not strained to recruit the new army with all possible expedition, I think the game is pretty nearly up.” In those gloomy days, sharing the privations of the army, Thomas Paine wrote the first number of an irregularly issued periodical, known as the Crisis, beginning:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” (30/67-68)

December 20: General Washington writes another gloomy letter, this to John Hancock and Congress.

“I rather think the design of General Howe is to possess himself of Philadelphia this winter, if possible; and in truth I do not see what is to prevent him, as ten days will put an end to the existence of our army.” (109/57)

Christmas: Once again, Lord Howe has given Washington a gift of time. He settles down in New York City for the winter, placing outposts at Princeton and Trenton. The Delaware River almost freezes over. Many American soldiers have already gone home. But on the American side, forty-foot-long Durham boats were being readied by John Glover’s Marblehead troops. Others, many in ragged uniforms, bent “into gale-driven sleet as they made for the river and the waiting boats, their course “tinged here and there with blood from the feet of men who wore broken shoes – or no shoes, at all.

“It will be a terrible night for the soldiers,” wrote an officer, “but I have not heard a man complain.”

“Country clowns.”

December 26: In the dark, Glover’s men continued to ferry troops across the river, fending off large chunks of floating ice. By 4 a.m., the Americans are across the river – but still nine miles from their objective: Trenton, where about a thousand Hessian soldiers are slowly recovering from Christmas celebrations.

“There was no smoking or talking or halting or straggling – surprise was essential on the road that led to sleeping Trenton,” Lancaster and Plumb explain.

Soaked muskets became useless, but Washington ordered: “Tell General Sullivan to use the bayonet. I am resolved to take Trenton.” And for once bayonets were available. Ice formed on the roads. Men fell in a clatter of equipment, were prized to their feet, went stumbling on. Overhead the eastern sky began to pale. The columns broke into what a soldier later called a “long trot.”

The 100-odd scattered houses of Trenton lay silent under the storm, and ice glinted on picket fences, orchards, and the hulking stone barracks built to house Royal troops during the old French wars. A few of Colonel Rall’s command were beginning to moan as they awakened to face thundering post-Christmas hangovers. Outposts were weak and unready.

Around 7:30 a.m. a Hessian outpost saw movement, and heard the first shots of battle, but American forces were soon striking the Hessians’ position from several directions. (48/175-176)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: The following is from a reading I prepared for my students on the American Revolution.

Washington suffered setback after setback. Most of his men lost hope and many of his officers and members of Congress doubted him. British confidence, by contrast, was high as the year ended. One British officer described Washington’s army as “almost naked, dying of cold, without blankets and very ill supplied with provisions.”

Colonel Johann Rall, who led Hessian forces, labeled the America soldiers “country clowns” and decided he had nothing to fear from such men. Besides, his forces at Trenton were protected by the wide, ice-choked Delaware River. He spent Christmas night in 1776 playing cards and drinking with fellow officers and went to bed late on the morning of December 26. There were reports of American movements but the Hessians laughed them all away.

My story continued:

Perhaps we should not blame them. Washington’s men had, after all, done the impossible. In the darkness they rowed across an ice-filled river. Sleet blew in their faces and cold winds sliced through tattered uniforms. In some places they had to walk across ice the last hundred yards, and it proved impossible to get most of their big guns across. Then they marched nine miles, in weather so terrible two men froze to death. By morning on December 26, American forces were in position. Without warning, General Washington’s men came charging out of the snow, like ice-coated ghosts. The sound of cannon fire roused the sleepy Hessian leader. Rall stumbled outside to rally his troops. One story has him in his long underwear, waving his sword, when the Americans shot him down. Taken completely by surprise, 1,000 Hessians were killed, wounded, or captured, along with their silk battle flags and six brass cannon. The fight itself cost Washington three wounded. One was a future president, Lieutenant James Monroe. (See: January 3, 1777.)

LT. MONROE helped lead a charge at Trenton that drove back the Hessians and led to capture of several field pieces. Monroe was badly wounded and had to be carried from the field. Fortunately, a doctor managed to “‘take up an artery’ severed by the bullet which entered his shoulder. Without this immediate medical assistance Monroe would have bled to death on the field.” For his gallantry, Monroe was promoted to the rank of captain. (24/13-14)

Among the other young aides serving with the army were John Marshall, Alexander Hamilton, and Aaron Burr. Monroe’s friendship with Lafayette and other French volunteers broadened his worldview.

Monroe no longer thought of the revolution in the narrow terms of a family quarrel between George III and his American subjects. He now viewed the conflict – and this was a widely shared attitude – as the first step in a worldwide struggle to liberate mankind from the baneful effects of despotism. He now had a sense of mission. (24/19)

A “BLUESTOCKING” was a woman having literary or intellectual interests.

JOSEPH WHITE would never forget the scenes of battle he witnessed at Trenton. It was by far the biggest fight he had taken part in. In a memoir he wrote in 1833, he described what happened.

On the afternoon of the 25th of December 1776, our whole army after marching several miles up the river Delaware, in a violent snow storm, crossed it, in order to attack a body of Hessians, posted at Trenton, under the command of Col. Rhol, who was killed in the battle. At day light, their out guard, posted about three or four miles off from their main body, turned out and gave us a fire. Our advanced guard opened from right to left, we gave them four or five cannisters of shot, following them to their main body, and displayed our columns.

The 3d shot we fired broke the axle-tree of the piece, – we stood there some time idle, they firing upon us. Col. [Henry] Knox rode up and said, My brave lads, go up and take those two held pieces sword in hand. – There is a party going, you must go & join them. Capt. A. said Sergeant W. you heard what the Col. said, – you must take the whole of those that belonged to that piece, and join them. This party was commanded by Capt. Washington and Lieut. Munroe, our late President of the U. States, both of which were wounded. The party inclined to the right. I hallowed as loud as I could scream, to the men to run for their lives right up to the pieces. I was the first that reach them. They had all left it, except one man tending vent – run you dog, cried I, holding my sword over his head, he looked up and saw it, then run. We put in a cannister of shot, (they had put in the cartridge before they left it,) and fired. The battle ceased.

I took a walk over the field of battle, and my blood chill’d to see such horror and distress, blood mingling together – the dying groans, and “garments rolled in blood.” The sight was too much to bear; I left it soon, and in returning I saw a field officer laying dead on the ground and his sword by him, I took it up and pulling the sheathe out of the belt, I carried it of. It was an elegant sword, and I wore it all the time I staid in the army, and part of the way home. At Hartford I met with a young officer, I sold to him for 8 dollars

Col. Knox told us to leave that piece with the broken axle-tree. This field piece was called the best in the regiment. I was determined to get it off. I hired 4 of our men and one of them had been a mate of a vessel; he contrived it and off we moved. The rear guard came on with a whole regiment. The Col. came to me and said, you had better leave that cannon, I will not take charge of it, said he. I told him I rather ran the resque [risk] of being taken, than to leave now, we had got so far. They marched on and left us. We kept marching on; here comes the enemy’s light horse, said they. I looked told them they were nothing but a party of old quakers; they had handkerchiefs tyed over their hats, for there had been a snow storm all the day.

Col. Knox rode up to me, and said, Sergeant what piece is that? I told him the piece that he ordered to be left, I wanted the victory complete. You are a good fellew, said he, I will remember you, and they happened to be all the Generals, and they rode on.

After getting back to the place where we crossed, I being weary, laid down upon the snow and took a knap; the heat of my body melted the snow, and I sunk down to the ground. …

This victory [at Trenton] raised the drooping spirits of the American army, and string anew every nerve for our Liberty and Independence.

The Hessians are caught completely by surprise.

PLUMB and Lancaster explain the impact of the battle on both the men of the army and the struggling young nation:

News of the Trenton victory ran through the army and the country like a bolt of electricity. It had been a real offensive, not a counterattack like the Hollow Way, and had been won largely by the bayonet, a weapon which the Americans were not supposed to understand – or even possess. …

Had Washington been able to keep his Trenton men as a nucleus about which to build an army for the rest of the war, he could have presented a formidable threat to the British, on land at least. But the commander in chief was never to have a veteran army. Days were flicking off the calendar, bringing mass expiration of enlistments nearer. (48/178)

1777

2026-07-11T05:13:07.001-04:00

__________

“John Burgoyne wagers Charles Fox one pony [fifty guineas] that he will be home victorious from America by Christmas Day, 1777.”

Wager in the betting book of London’s Brooks’s Club.

__________

January 1: Money to pay Washington’s soldiers has now run out. McMaster explains:

Washington now proposed to follow up this victory [at Trenton] with other attacks. But a new difficulty arose, for the time of service of many of the Eastern troops would expire on January 1. These men were therefore asked to serve six weeks longer, and were offered a bounty of ten dollars a man.

Many agreed to serve, but the paymaster had no money. Washington therefore pledged his own fortune, and appealed to Robert Morris at Philadelphia. “If it be possible, Sir,” he wrote, “to give us assistance, do it; borrow money while it can be done, we are doing it upon our private credit.” Morris responded at once, and on New Year’s morning, 1777, went from house to house, roused his friends from their beds to borrow money from them, and early in the day sent $50,000. (97/171)

George Washington is much more than a statue in a museum or park.

Slaves sold to pay gambling debts.

January 1 or 2: William Byrd III commits suicide. His

love of gaming became an overmastering passion: a contemporary described him as “never happy but when he has the box and Dices in his hand.” Byrd ran through the large estate he had inherited from his father (on one occasion, he was compelled to sell four hundred Negro slaves to pay his gambling debts) and committed suicide in 1777. (300/104)

January 3: My reading on George Washington and his army (see: December 26, 1776) picks up here, after he stuns the Hessians at Trenton:

Nor was Washington’s bag of tricks empty yet. A few days later he surprised and pounded British troops at Princeton. At one point the American commander rode to within thirty yards of enemy lines, encouraging his soldiers forward. Another American officer covered his face with his cloak rather than watch the general be shot down; but the British ranks crumbled and began to run.

Washington led the chase. Clapping spurs to his mount he shouted, “It’s a fine fox chase, boys!” and off he went.

Washington’s army soon went into winter camp at Morristown, New Jersey. Plumb and Lancaster note: “Since an idle force rots quickly, troops were set to work building a fort of sorts, about which there grew up a legend that it was planned simply to give them something to do. Most fittingly, it has been called Fort Nonsense.” (48/183)

FINANCIAL PROBLEMS only increased as the war progressed. States printed paper money, of questionable value.

At the start, most people accepted such fiat money willingly enough. As times grew darker, laws were passed forcing such acceptance, and where people prove reluctant, boycotts, imprisonment, or the rough work of city and town mobs were called quite effectively into play. … Commodity prices jumped alarmingly, and individuals and groups began to hoard against the next skyrocket ascent.

Speculators rushed into the field and paper fortunes were made, lost, made again. They cornered supplies of shoes, clothes, vital supplies, and sold them at huge profits while Washington’s troops wrapped rags about their feet or wound quilts around themselves in place of unobtainable breeches.

During the winter after the fights at Trenton and Princeton, hard money was so scarce that “a bonus of ten dollars in coin” induced many soldiers to stay beyond their enlistment terms. (48/267)

“The bridge looked red as blood.”

While searching for a copy of Joseph White’s Narrative, on his service during the Revolution (see: 1775), I came across an excellent description of events leading up to and including the Battle of Trenton. Most of the following comes from the story in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, written by Virginia Kays Creesy. In places, I have included material from White.

We pick up the story at Trenton, where Washington’s troops are still celebrating their stunning victory. Lord Cornwallis and his men have made a hard march, hoping to strike the rebels before they get away. Washington is outnumbered, although he has been joined by a force of Pennsylvania militia – but experience has shown that, facing British and Hessian veterans, militia forces often decide to run, rather than fight.

Cressy writes:

A frontal assault against the British soldiers now advancing on Trenton was therefore out of the question. Instead, Washington posted his militia in a defensive position on a hill behind the Assunpink Creek, overlooking the bridge to Trenton. Then he sent a detachment of Continental riflemen up the Trenton Princeton Road to harass the British advance.

Sniping from behind trees, destroying bridges, felling trees as roadblocks, the riflemen were so successful at buying time for Washington that it was dusk when Cornwallis’s advance guard finally reached Trenton. While Washington and his army watched from the hillside, the American marksmen dashed from house to house in the town, still contesting the British advance. After the riflemen retreated across the Assunpink bridge, Washington ordered his artillery to open up on their pursuers.

The bridge crossing was covered by American artillery, including a gun served by Sgt. Joseph White and his crew.

Here, we let him tell the story:

The night before, a large body of malitia joined our army, and they were sent out to meet the enemy, and fight upon their retreat. As soon as they had got over the bridge, we had all our cannon placed before it, consisting of 18 or 19 pieces. The enemy came on in solid columns; we let them come on some ways, then by a signal given, we all fired together. The enemy retreated off the bridge and formed again, and we were ready for them. Our whole artillery was again discharged at them. – They retreated again and formed; they came on the third time. We loaded with cannister shot, and let them come nearer. We fired altogether again, and such destruction it made, you cannot conceive. – The bridge looked red as blood, with their killed and wounded, and their red coats. The enemy beat a retreat, and it began to grow dark.

We were dismissed for an hour or two, to pull down all the fences we could find, to build fires with them – and get some refreshment. The fires were made to deceive the enemy; to make them suppose that we were there encamped.

“We’ve got the old fox safe now.”

With darkness falling, Cornwallis blunders. Believing he has Washington trapped, he is said to have told his top commanders, “We’ve got the old fox safe now. We’ll go over and bag him in the morning.”

Creesy picks up the thread here:

Over the creek in the American camp, the soldiers understood their dilemma, yet it did not depress their spirits, perhaps because so few of them had ever been in battle before. A young Rhode Island veteran, Stephen Olney, was deeply troubled by their “most desperate situation,” but he could not get his comrades to share his mood. When he asked a fellow lieutenant what he thought now of their chances for independence, the officer shrugged off Olney’s concern, answering cheerfully, “I don’t know; the Lord must help us.” Instead of worrying, most of the men went immediately to sleep, especially the exhausted militiamen who had been marching all the previous night.

Luck was with Washington. A cold north wind blew up, temperatures plunged, and muddy roads turned, Creesy writes, “as hard as pavement.” The American commander saw a chance to sneak away in the dark, and head for Princeton, where a smaller enemy force was position.

A detachment of 400 New Jersey militia was left behind to keep the campfires going and to deceive British pickets into believing the army was digging entrenchments against the next day’s attack. So great was the emphasis on secrecy that none of these men knew where their comrades had gone: their orders were simply to withdraw at daybreak and follow the army’s tracks. If they could not follow, they could return to their homes in nearby counties. Washington was taking no chance that any soldier captured by the British that night would be able to reveal his plans to the enemy.

The nighttime march was difficult – with poorly clothed and shod soldiers suffering greatly.

White explains,

About 9 or 10 o’clock, orders came by whispering, (not a loud word must be spoken), to form the line and march. We took such a circuitous rout, we were all night marching from Trenton to Princeton.

Capt. Benjamin Frothingham, came to me and said, you and I must march together; we marched some ways, I being exceeding sleepy, I pitched forward several times, and recovered myself. Said he, you are the first person I ever see, sleep while marching. Do you know that you are to command that left piece tomorrow morning? I expect we shall have some hard fighting; we are going to attack Princeton, the enemy’s head-quarters. I told him I could not; – I want to know where all the commissioned officers were? Whose orders is it? It is Col. Knox’s, said he. I do not think that I am capable – the responsibility is too great for me; – I cannot think why he should pitch upon me; why, he remembers what you did at Trenton, said he. I began to feel my pride arising, and I said no more.

This time, the suffering was worth it. At dawn on January 3, Washington’s men were only three miles from Princeton.

And Cornwallis was still unaware that the “fox” had fled.

Washington halted his forces and arranged them for the attack. A spy had provided a map, giving enemy positions – and alerting the general that a little-used track, the Saw Mill Road, branched off the main road into town and might allow him to strike the enemy from an unexpected direction. A portion of the American force, under General John Sullivan, was ordered to follow the Saw Mill Road. General Nathanael Greene led the rest of the American force up the main road. If all went according to plan, Greene’s force would strike first. Taken by surprise, the British would form a line of battle to face him. “Then,” Creesy explains, “Sullivan would throw his men in on its unprotected flank.”

But on this day, the British were not napping, as the Hessians had been at Trenton. Three crack Redcoat regiments, guarding Princeton, were not only wide awake, but under arms. “In the night Cornwallis had sent orders directing the 17th and 55th regiments to escort supplies to him at Trenton, while the 40th regiment remained in quarters at the college to hold the town.”

“A terrible squeaking noise.”

Much to everyone’s surprise, British and American forces collide, and the battle commences.

From the van of the British party Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Mawhood quickly decided to split his command, sending most of the 55th regiment back to town with the supply wagons while he led the 17th regiment in an attack on this unexpected group of rebels. Mawhood probably assumed he was confronting a small militia detachment – after all, Cornwallis was supposed to have the American army pinned down in Trenton – and he must have been confident that the 276 men he was keeping under his command could easily handle the situation. Within seconds the 17th regiment had left the Post Road and was racing to intercept Greene’s front guard before they could capture the nearest high ground.

Both forces met on a hill covered with the orchard, house, and barns of a Quaker farmer named William Clark. Kneeling behind a fence, Mawhood’s men opened fire first but their bullets went high, cutting limbs from trees in the orchard to drop in a harmless shower on the Americans’ heads. These Americans – Greene’s front guard – were regulars, some 350 men under the command of General Hugh Mercer. Not yet in formation, they wheeled about to face Mawhood’s position, taking perhaps their first casualty in the process: a corporal who, seeming to bend forward to receive the enemy’s ball, fell dead on the spot.

Supported by two artillery pieces, Mercer’s men advanced. So did the British. “The sun shone upon them and their arms glistened very bright [White noted], it seemed to strike an awe upon us.” Then both sides fired at once, and the smoke from the discharge of the two lines, mingling as it rose, “went up in one beautiful cloud.” The American artillery reloaded with cannister shot, which flew through the air with “a terrible squeaking noise.”

An 85-year-old farmer in a neighboring house watched the battle start from his doorstep, but he did not stay to see the finish. “The guns went of [sic] so quick and many together ... ” he reported, “we presently went down into the Cellar to keep out of the way of the Shot.” In the Clark farm house itself, Mrs. Clark lay recovering from a miscarriage, too weak to struggle to her feet. But when shot began coming through her window, her husband and her nurse managed to carry her down to the cellar, bed and all.

The American fire was the most destructive and Mercer’s force seemed to be on the verge of victory when the 11th regiment rose to its feet and charged the rebels with fixed bayonets. Unable to reload before the British were upon them and themselves unequipped with bayonets, the Americans went down before the British onslaught. In distress, General Mercer called “Retreat!” Another moment and he fell on the icy snow as the British slashed at him repeatedly. A wounded 18-year-old lieutenant from Virginia, begging for quarter, was shot deliberately through the chest and stabbed in 13 places. It was savage man-to-man combat, with bayonets against empty rifles and bare hands.

Mawhood’s men seized the American cannon and turned them on the remnants of Mercer’s brigade, now fleeing for their lives. At this point, however, the rest of General Greene’s force came up. This reinforcement consisted of several hundred Pennsylvania militiamen, part of the same group that had had only a few hours[’] sleep in the last 48 hours, accompanied by a battery of cannon manned by 82 boys recruited from the Philadelphia waterfront by Captain Joseph Moulder. The militia, who had never seen a battlefield before, looked with anguish at the blood on the ground and the mangled bodies of the dead and – just as militia had always done in this campaign under similar circumstances – broke away from their officers and ran for safety.

Nonetheless, the Philadelphia battery stood firm and, for a few crucial moments, offered the only resistance to the charging ranks of English soldiers. When one piece of grapeshot grazed his elbow tearing his coat, another carried away the inside edge of his sole, and a third nicked his hat, a Delaware volunteer trying to support the gunners was forced to withdraw. Yet Moulder’s young artillerymen, all under the age of 23, held the 17th regiment in check until help could arrive.

“It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!”

During the engagement in Clark’s orchard, most of the American army had halted on the Saw Mill Road. At first they had not paid much attention to the sounds of musketry and cannon, but as the firing continued Washington realized that Greene’s men were engaged in something more than a mere skirmish. Ordering two brigades of regulars to follow him –Hitchcock’s 253 New Englanders and Hand’s 200 Pennsylvania riflemen –Washington galloped into the battle. Taking in the situation at a glance, he rode toward the British line, trying to rally the terrified militia. “Parade with us, my brave fellows!” he cried out, as he rode between the American and British lines, exposing himself to fire from both sides. “There is but a handful of the enemy and we will have them directly!”

Many of the militia, enheartened by Washington’s example, did rally. Others, running into Hitchcock’s and Hand’s brigades, were dragged forcibly into formation by swearing officers. Once again the Americans advanced on the 17th regiment, which fired off musketry and field pieces loaded with grapeshot. To Stephen Olney it was “the most horrible music about our ears I had ever heard,” but again the English had aimed too high and the shot whistled harmlessly overhead. When the smoke cleared away, the Americans were still advancing and at their head General Washington rode calmly, waving the troops on.

The 17th regiment, after turning back two successive waves of Americans, could hold no longer. It had taken heavy casualties and lost most of its officers. Now Mawhood ordered the withdrawal. One last bayonet charge and the survivors of the 17th broke through the American line and fled down the Past Road away from Princeton. Intoxicated by the sight of redcoats in retreat, Washington himself led the pursuit, hallooing exuberantly, “It’s a fine fox chase, my boys!” as he galloped out of sight. So excited was he that many minutes passed before he recalled his duty as commander and turned about to rejoin his men.

Clark’s quiet orchard and wheat field, left in possession of the Americans, had been transformed within 45 minutes into a charnelhouse. More than 100 casualties, most of them British, lay “scattered about, groaning, dying and dead.” According to an eyewitness, “One officer who was shot from his horse, lay in a hollow place in the ground, rolling and writhing in his own blood, unconscious of anything around him. The ground was frozen, and all the blood which was shed remained on the surface, which added to the horror of this scene of carnage.” The survivors began the grim business of carrying the wounded into the farmhouses to be cared for by the local women and hauling the dead on sleds to mass graves and “heaping them in.”

Despite the horror, the soldiers rejoiced in their victory. The old farmer, welcoming them to his house, said some were “laughing out right, others smileing [sic], and not a man among them but showed Joy in his Countenance. It Really Animated my old blood with Love to those men that but a few minutes before had been Couragiously [sic] looking Death in the face....”

The Battle of Princeton was over for these soldiers, but not for the men attached to Sullivan’s column who had been halted all the while on the back road into town. From this position they had been keeping a wary eye on the 55th regiment as it moved back under orders toward the college, while the 55th regiment kept a no less cautious eye on them. Not knowing the other’s precise strength, neither force had taken action at all. Now, with the 17th regiment’s defeat, the 55th regiment moved into position to defend the town, while the 40th regiment marched out from the college to join it.

Led by Mawhood, who had escaped during the retreat, the 55th and 40th regiments made their stand on the edge of Frog Hollow (near today’s Princeton Inn College), it was a good position, but the British troops seemed to be shocked by the realization that they were confronting the entire American army and demoralized by the 17th regiment’s defeat. When Sullivan’s force began its attack, the British put up little resistance. Those who did not surrender within minutes were chased into town, where some took refuge within the strong stone walls of Nassau Hall, knocked out the windows with the butts of their rifles, and prepared to make a last-ditch stand.

Before the soldiers in Nassau Hall could organize, however, the Americans enveloped the building. While young Alexander Hamilton’s battery fired off round shot – one of which is supposed to have decapitated the portrait of King George II in the prayer hall – New Jersey militia, under the command of Princeton resident James Moore, broke in a door and charged into the building. A white flag appeared, and the British – “a haughty, crabbed set of men,” in the view of one American sergeant – surrendered.

The Battle of Princeton ended with this short cannonade. Killing 100 men and wounding or capturing 300 more, the Americans had virtually destroyed three of England’s finest regiments. Although they lost many irreplaceable officers, especially the greatly lamented Mercer, who died after nine pain-filled days, the Americans seem to have taken less than half as many casualties as the British. They also captured, obviously, a wagon train of supplies – a fact Washington did not choose to emphasize in his report to Congress lest that body use it as an excuse for not providing his soldiers with much-needed equipment.

After the battle, the triumphant but tired Americans fell to exploring the town, which they thought a pretty little place, despite the ravages of the enemy. Princeton’s elegant brick buildings, especially the college, were duly admired, but the roaming soldiers were mainly interested in what the town could offer in the way of plunder. A fortunate few sat down to the breakfast that the 40th regiment had been about to enjoy an hour before.

“Every thing handy for breakfast.”

White himself described the turning point in the fight, a charge led by General Mercer (he spells the name “Merser”), which he said broke the back of the British defense. Still firing his own big gun, he saw American reinforcements coming up fast to attack:

I never saw men looked so furious as they did, when running by us with their bayonets charged. The British lines were broken, and our troops followed them so close, that they could not form again. A party of them ran into the colleges, which is built of stone. After firing some cannon, they surrendered.

After the battle was over, I went into a room in the college, and locked myself in; I saw a plate of toast, a tea pot, and every thing handy for breakfast. I sat down and helped myself well. – I was very hungry, marching all night, and fighting in the morning, I felt highly refreshed; after I was done, I looked round the room, and saw an officer’s coat – I went to it, and found it a new one; the paper never taken off the buttons, was plated or solid silver, I could not determine which, lined with white satin; there was a silk skirt, an elegeant one. and a pair of silk shoes, and small a gilt bible; all of which, I took.

Orders came for all the men to throw away their dirty old blankets, and take new ones. – The barrels of flour were great indeed, after filling all the waggons, they knocked the heads out of the remainder and strewed it about the ground. The women came and looked at it, but seemed afraid to meddle with it. I being nigh, told them to scoupe it up by aprons full, before the enemy come.

I had rolled a barrel to the ammunition waggon, and told the captain that I was only going to that house, pointing to it, should be back in a few minutes. I engaged a woman to bake me some cakes.

I asked the woman if she had any daughters? what do you want to know that for? said she. I told her that I was steady as a pious old deacon. How many have you? she replied two. I have got presents for both, said I, when I come again, will bring them.

I went to see how the cakes come on, and carried my presents, here mother, said I, are the presents, call your daughters. She went to the stairs and called Sally, come down, but she come part way and stopt; I went to the bottom of the stairs and said, Sally come down, here is a present for you. She came, here try this peticoat on, and if it fits you keep it. Tell your sister to come, I have got something for her. She came, I told her to take the shoes and try them on, if they fitted her, to keep them.

I went to the company and stayed some time, orders came to get ready to form the line and march in half an hour. I ran to see if the caks were done. The woman said the oven was heating, I could have some in an hours time.

The coat I sold to an officer of an rifle regiment. (The uniform answered to his all but the buttons. It belonged to the 40th regiment faced with white,) for 18$. That regiment all the commissioned officers wore red coats, faced with white.

The Death of General Mercer - John Trumbull.

“The minds of the people are much altered.”

Creesy picks up the story again:

By about 10 a.m., shots from the direction of Stony Brook, where a work party was tearing up the bridge, alerted the soldiers in town that Cornwallis, having woken up to Washington’s ruse, was coming up on their rear. The Americans had time to finish swapping their lice-ridden blankets for British issue before they got orders to pull out. The militia straggled as always, but the whole army was away by 11 a.m.

Although the American soldiers would never capture [all?] the British supplies, they had already captured something far more important: the imagination of their countrymen. As the news of the Battle of Princeton spread through the former colonies, it brought new hope and new adherents to the American cause. Only three days after the victory a visitor in Virginia was writing that “the minds of the people are much altered. Their late successes have turned the scale and now they are liberty mad again.” In New Jersey – that state which a month earlier had supinely awaited British occupation, to Washington’s outrage and disgust – men flocked to join the militia and small units wandered the countryside hunting down loyalists and King’s soldiers in “a sort of continual hunting party.”

Within a month the British had to contract their forces in New Jersey until they occupied only New Brunswick and Perth Amboy. Even those garrisons were so harassed that it became unsafe for small foraging parties to venture far in search of food or firewood. As a result, the large British army in New York, which had expected to feast on the stores of New Jersey’s granaries, lived out the winter on “salt and ship provisions.” By summer New Jersey was entirely back in American hands.

Officially, the British treated the Battle of Princeton as a minor affair. In fact, the New York Gazette and Weekly Mercury, the chief loyalist organ, presented it at first as a victory for the 17th regiment. After all, the 276 men of the 17th had stood off successive attacks by more than 1,500 rebels and, when surrounded, had still managed to break through the American lines and effect a reasonably orderly withdrawal. On future recruiting posters the 17th regiment would bill itself, with ample cause, as “the Heroes of Prince Town.”

Nonetheless, the American side was not without its heroes – the gallant General Mercer, the steady men of Hitchcock’s and Hand’s brigades, the brave youngsters in Moulder’s battery – and it had needed those heroes much more than the British needed theirs. Even the Pennsylvania militia came in for a large share of adulation: for the American public the important point was not that their soldiers had run away, but that for once they had rallied and fought again. The news that the armed yeomanry had put professional soldiers to flight dispelled the widespread belief in the invincibility of the British army…

Furthermore, the Battle of Princeton made a hero of Washington, establishing the public’s confidence in him both as a brilliant tactician and as a fearless leader in the field. His reputation rose to a height that, to the immense benefit of the nation over the coming years, virtually ensured that he would remain as commander-in-chief.

Creesy also provides information about several homes and places, as well as individuals who had a role in the battle:

Thomas Clark house. Following the battle, soldiers carried the wounded Mercer to this Quaker farmhouse to be nursed by Miss Sarah Clark and her black maidservant. That afternoon British soldiers are said to have invaded the sick room, ripped the cravat from the general’s neck, and insulted him as he lay unable to resist. He died there on January 12.

Worth’s Mills. During the battle an errant cannonball, probably from an American fieldpiece, entered a house near the mills and hit a woman, severing her leg at the ankle.

The Stockton family: Princeton’s most notable Tory [was] Joseph Stockton. A cousin of Richard Stockton, the signer of the Declaration of Independence, Joseph joined a Loyalist regiment in August 1776. He escorted Colonel Mawhood to New Brunswick after his defeat at Princeton and was killed a few months later while guiding a foraging party. Joseph’s brother Richard Witham Stockton also fought in the Loyalist cause.

Home of Jonathan Dickinson Sergeant. Sergeant built a house for his bride Margaret Spencer in 1775. [At the time of the battle he was away in Philadelphia, serving as a member of the Continental Congress]. Sergeant’s young wife delayed leaving their home until finally her husband’s Tory classmate, Dr. Absalom Bainbridge, took her firmly in hand and sent her off with her baby and sister to safety in Pennsylvania. In their absence, the house burned down and, rather than rebuild it, the family chose to settle in Philadelphia.

Presbyterian Church. A two-story brick structure with 57 pews, the Church was the spiritual home for many of the town’s leading patriots … When Cornwallis’s troops were quartered here, they stripped the interior. … The Church remained a hollow shell until after the war.

(It is said by others that the Redcoats chopped up the pews for firewood.)

President’s House. On January 3 [the house of the college president] was occupied by officers of the 40th regiment, who were preparing for breakfast when they were called away by sounds of gunfire. Their breakfast was eaten with great relish an hour later by victorious American officers.

Nassau Hall. [British] troops were quartered here, and even their horses found places inside the college building.]

Prospect Farm. Jonathan Baldwin, the owner of Prospect Farm, was also steward of the college and, if undergraduate complaints are to be believed, he was responsible for some of the worst meals ever served up at Old Nassau.

Hudibras Tavern. [Owned by Colonel Jacob Hyer], he kept a horse in his barn for the use of express riders carrying messages between the Continental Congress and General Washington. Hyer fought at the Battle of Princeton at the head of his militia unit, whose ranks included his older son, a veteran of the siege of Boston and the Canadian campaign of 1776. Although the British drank up Hyer’s wines, whiskey, and gin without payment, and stole or damaged his tableware and 11 of his featherbeds, he was open for business again on January 9, hosting a meeting of the Committee of Safety. The tavern proprietor posted bond for several of his Quaker neighbors when they refused to swear allegiance to the American cause.

Castle Howard. Although a retired British officer, Captain William Howard was a good patriot who painted on his mantelpiece “No Tory Talk Here” as a warning to his ardently Loyal wife. But as soon as Sarah Howard’s gouty husband died in 1776, she married Lieutenant Ibbetson Hamer, an English soldier who shared her views, and she frequently entertained his fellow officers during the occupation. As a result, she and her new husband had to leave Princeton; their property was confiscated and eventually sold to John Witherspoon.

AS FOR Joseph White, he never tells us if he got the cakes he was hoping would be ready before the army had to leave.

Soon after the battle of Princeton, White’s term of enlistment ran out. He remembers General Knox coming to address “the artillery [men] in pathetic manner to stay two months longer. Most of our regiment did. – The Capt. said to me, do perswade the men to stay two months, until the new recruits learn how to handle the cannon.”

White recalled that the next few weeks of cold and suffering he would have liked to have missed. Finally, he told his captain he would be going home the next day, the first day of March 1777. His captain tried to convince him to stay, explaining that Knox was going to command two new regiments, and promote all his sergeants, and make them officers. White might even make “full captain.” The thought of a promotion failed to move Sgt. White.

“I told him that I should go home; did not care about a commission.”

“All our officers met that evening, and gave me a very flattering discharge.

I left the army and in about two weeks time marched home safe and sound.

(White eventually applied for a soldier’s pension in 1833, after Congress set up a program. He was described as, “A decrepit soldier 63 years old can not do much at any labor.” The pension was awarded.)

“The mortal enemies of the Indian.”

THESE YEARS of Revolution are also “hideous ones” for settlers on the frontier, and for the Native Americans intent on holding them back.

Writing in 1958, Plumb and Lancaster give the following assessment. First, many of the tribes now saw the British as natural allies.

The red man could live with the trapper, the voyageur, the coureur de bois, with the landless man whose quest was for pelts, but the whites who built a cabin and owned a plow, the people who felled the forests, who built roads and brought in wheeled vehicles, who launched craft of great carrying-power on the rivers – these were the mortal enemies of the Indian, no matter how friendly the cabin builder, the road maker, or the boatman might be by nature or how pacific his intentions. … All in all, these settlers were a hard, driving lot, intent on owning and clearing land, and possessed of a callous disregard for the tribes they encountered. Shawnese, Delawares, Miamis, Ottawas, Cherokees, Chippewas, Foxes struck at them sharply, were struck with equal ferocity. And with the advent of war, these Indians found a strong ally in the British along the eastern Great Lakes. (48/273)

Entries in the diary of George Rogers Clark tell one side of the story (and no doubt a Native American diary would have entries that were much the same.) Spelling and punctuation modernized:

Glen & Laird arrived from Cumberland[,] Daniel Lyons who parted with them on Green River and we suppose was killed going into Logan’s Fort.

Jonathan Peters & Elijah Bathy we expect were killed coming home from Cumberland.

Burr Harrison died of his wound received the 30th of May.

Ben Lynn and Samuel Moore arrived from Illinois. Barney Stagner senior killed beheaded 1/2 mile from the Fort.” (48/274)

June 2: At age nine, John Quincy Adams feels bad about his focus, writing to his father about problems in school: “I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is much too fickle, my thoughts are running after bird’s eggs, play, and trifles till I get vexed with myself.” (226/157)

A letter writer of this period offered this suggestion to his little daughter: “In letter writing as in conversation it will be found that those who substitute the design of distinguishing themselves for that of giving pleasure to those whom they address must ever fail.” (226/159)

June 13: Lafayette, the young French nobleman, 19, is “fired by accounts of the war in America.” His full name: Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. He fits out a vessel, despite orders of the king and escapes to come to Philadelphia and offer his services to Congress. With him are De Kalb and eleven other officers. (97/174)

The young French noble offers his services to Gen. Washington.

July 27: The use of Native American allies, by the British, introduces an added dimension of cruelty to the Revolution, and causes Gen. Burgoyne serious problems. According to Lancaster and Plumb,

Drunken Indians brought into camp a scalp whose luxuriant tresses were quickly identified as those of young Jane McCrea. She could have been written off as just another frontier girl, victim of a deplorable misunderstanding; but she happened to be the fiancée of Lieutenant David Jones of Colonel John Peters’ little band of Tories. Worse, she had been staying with an elderly widowed cousin of General Simon Fraser of the Advanced Corps. Yet Burgoyne’s hands were tied, for when he attempted to arrest the culprit Indian, he was faced with a mass walkout of braves which he could not afford. The whole McCrea affair had wide publicity and produced deep repercussions on Rebel and Tory alike. More, it provided Americans with a rare propaganda item. (48/224)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: We should note, of course, that numerous Native Americans of all ages and sexes were massacred prior to the American Revolution, during the Revolution, and that the massacring continued for another century.

July 31: Lafayette, Van Loon notes, was an orphan at 13, but “so rich that he did not know what to do with all his money.”

As for Jean Rosseau, he had been an orphan, too. “But he had obtained his first glimpses of life as an engraver’s apprentice, a footman and a tramp, and until he was well past fifty he was never quite certain about his next meal.” (124/224)

Lafayette came to America as a volunteer and would not accept a penny for his services. On July 31, Congress made the Marquis a major general “in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connections.”

At first the commander-in-chief [Washington] was somewhat puzzled what to do with a major-general of nineteen. He could not very well ask his roughneck mountaineers to take this child seriously. But he soon came to appreciate the very fine qualities of this young French nobleman and began to understand that a man who leaves his wife and his child and his country and a couple of million a year for the sake of an ideal is not a common every-day character.

It would have been absurd to expect that a second lieutenant of dragoons, trained in a small garrison in Europe, should overnight be changed into a great strategist, capable of conducting a campaign in the wilderness. But that was not necessary. The great value of Lafayette lay in the field of the morale. His presence made the cause of America fashionable. In the eyes of the European aristocracy (still the most valuable element in every state of the old continent) the revolution had “arrived.” (124/226-227)

“Twenty-four days in going twenty-six miles.”

BENJAMIN ANDREWS, writing in 1925, and Lancaster and Plumb, writing in 1958, tell the same basic story.

Burgoyne, Andrews says, was moving slowly. “[Gen. Philip] Schuyler had destroyed the bridges and obstructed the roads, so that the invading army was twenty-four days in going twenty-six miles.” “…difficulties now began to surround him like a net.” (2/91)

Lancaster and Plumb note that the invaders’ advance was slowed for several reasons. First, Burgoyne insisted on hauling along 138 pieces of artillery, including heavy 24-pounders.

There were also thirty carts, crammed with the kind of supplies needed for a “gentleman” like Burgoyne to campaign in style. (48/216, 233)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: A comparison of Burgoyne with Washington here seemed relevant to me. The latter lived out of a large camp chest during most of the war, and usually in tents like his troops.

I always enjoyed talking to my classes about the keys to leadership, and hearing what they thought.

“Or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow.”

August 16: General Burgoyne’s advance down the Hudson River Valley continues to bog in the face of gathering enemy forces. In need of fresh horses and supplies, he sends a force of British, Hessian, Tory and Native American allies toward Bennington, Vermont. Lt. Colonel Friedrich Baum is in command. When Baum hears that militia might be waiting, he sends a message, asking for reinforcements, but assuring Burgoyne that he faces only “uncouth militia.”

The Americans are led by Gen. John Stark, hero at both Bunker Hill and Trenton. He assures his men that they have Baum’s forces in a vice. “They are ours,” he promises on the eve of battle, “or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow.”

Molly won’t need to.

Her husband’s troops shatter Baum’s units, lose only 70 men, and kill, wound or capture 907 of the enemy.

September 11: The British plan for 1777 has gone completely awry. Three forces were to converge, north of New York City, with General John Burgoyne coming south, and split the Colonies in half. Gen. Barry St. Leger, with a smaller force, supported by native allies, would be coming from the west, but in a savage little fight at Oriskany, his force was turned back. Hearing that a large American force, led by Benedict Arnold might be approaching, St. Leger decided to abandon his artillery, ammunition, and supplies, only to be “cruelly harassed on the march by his former Indian allies.” (48/227)

Lord Howe – never known for moving with speed – was supposed to march north to meet them, but decided instead, without informing Burgoyne, to sail away and capture Philadelphia.

Washington’s forces take up a line behind Brandywine Creek, believing they have blocked all fords, and the way to the city. On September 11, however, Howe’s men find a way across and strike American lines. Washington’s soldiers fight well, but victory goes to the British and Hessians, which sounds good when Howe sends dispatches home. “Off parchment, it did not look so impressive. He had wasted weeks of fighting weather by keeping his formidable army wallowing at sea, out of action and powerless to influence the progress of Burgoyne’s invasion from the north,” Plumb and Lancaster explain.

“And once again he had missed his main objective. Washington’s army was still very much in being.”

Doubts, regarding the abilities of the American commander, however, are growing. Adjutant Gen. Timothy Pickering, meeting Gen. Nathanael Greene, offers a harsh assessment. “Before I came to the army, I entertained an exalted opinion of General Washington’s military talents, but I have since seen nothing to enhance it.” (48/191)

September 19: The “first battle” of Saratoga, or the Battle of Freeman’s Farm, makes one fact plain. Burgoyne’s invading army is in growing danger. Gen. Daniel Morgan’s riflemen open fire from heavy woods, as the British try to advance across cleared fields, and every British officer in the front lines is shot down. Morgan and his men communicate, in part, by means of an “eerie, nerve-twanging gobble wailed in gibberish among the trees.”

A signal gun is fired, and the British and Hessians launch a general attack. For three hours, the battle rages back and forth across cleared fields. To his credit, Burgoyne is a brave man. He can be seen, in a fresh scarlet and white uniform, riding “among his men as bullets ripped his coat. His hat was pierced, but he only laughed and waved it above his head as his men cheered him hoarsely.”

Sergeant Roger Lamb wrote later that Burgoyne “shunned no danger; his presence animated his troops for they greatly loved the General.”

“It’s only a scouting party!”

October 4: Farther south, Washington strikes at enemy forces in the Battle of Germantown. Eight thousand Continentals and three thousand militiamen face a force of nine thousand British and Hessians. At first, surprise is with the Americans, and a force of 120 British soldiers is forced to take refuge in the big stone home of Tory Benjamin Chew.

Lord Howe hears the beat of drums and rides out from Philadelphia, to find his troops in retreat.

He found himself caught up in a recoiling swirl of scarlet coats and beat about him with his sword, roaring, “For shame, Light Infantry! … It’s only a scouting party.” Then masses of Americans, gunners manhandling field pieces out in front, loomed through the smoke and fog, and blasted off a hot hail of grapeshot. A British officer remembered that cannonade as well as Howe’s “For shame,” and wrote, “I never saw people enjoy a charge of grape before, but we really all felt pleased … to hear the grape rattle about the commander in chief’s ears after he had accused the battalion of running away from a scouting party.” (48/193)

Much effort is wasted in an attempt to capture the Chew mansion, and the American attack begins to lose momentum.

For once, General Henry Knox blunders, telling other commanders, “It would be unmilitary to leave a castle in our rear.” Extra infantry are called upon to attack the house.

Field pieces were brought up and maintained a useless fire that might have turned the scales had it been employed in another part of the field. In the southern meadows American ammunition was beginning to run low. Militia units fired on each other in the persistent fog and fled, their panic spreading to other units. Commands falling back to draw more ammunition found their movement to the rear an irresistible impulse, began to break and run.

The American attack stalls as efforts to take the Chew House fail.

One American soldier remembered that day. “Here,” said Enoch Anderson, “we old soldiers had marched forty miles. We eat nothing and drank nothing but water on our tour.”

Washington’s attacks failed in the end, and Germantown went down as another defeat, with a loss of 1,000 men.

Yet, as the Iron Duke was to say of Waterloo, “It was a damned close-run thing.” All ranks knew that they had come close to victory. On a far larger scale than at the Hollow Way, they had smashed hard into highly capable, seasoned British and German formations, had seen them break into flight or throw down their arms, beaten for the moment. Soldiers’ tales of the day drifted back into the various states, and soon civilians, too, were saying, “Maybe next time…” (48/194-195)

MEANWHILE, the trap around Burgoyne tightened. His army’s forward progress stalled, and more and more American troops gathered to thwart escape. The British and Germans fortified their lines but faced “constant sniping” and had to deal with nightly raids. A messenger sent by Sir Henry Clinton arrived – offering faint hope of aid.

General Howe and his troops were nowhere to be seen.

“The soldiers greeted him with cheers.”

October 7: In what is sometimes called the “Second Battle of Saratoga,” Burgoyne pushed out a force of 1,500 men, in hopes of discerning the true strength of enemy forces. An American counterattack quickly smashed British and Hessian formations, striking both front and rear. Burgoyne’s hat was again pierced by a bullet, and one of Gen. Morgan’s crack shots knocked Gen. Simon Fraser from his horse and left him dead. Burgoyne’s battle line completely collapsed.

“The rout became complete, and the survivors reeled back into fortifications that had been hacked out during Burgoyne’s weeks of hopeful waiting.” Gen. Benedict Arnold helped cap the victory, leading his men forward to batter enemy fortifications – and catching a bullet in the same leg that had been smashed in the fight at Quebec on New Year’s Day in 1776.

Benjamin Andrews tells the same basic story, calling the fight on October 7, the Battle of Bemis Heights. The nature of the contest is clear, in that the “British artillery was taken and retaken again and again. Thirty-six of the forty-eight British gunners were either killed or wounded.” (2/94)

At first, Burgoyne,

advanced a picked body of 1,500 men to reconnoitre the American lines. Morgan’s riflemen were sent out to “begin the game.” The fighting soon became even hotter than in the previous battle. In an hour the whole British line was retreating toward camp. At this point, Arnold, whom, because of his preference for Schuyler, Gates had deprived of his command, filled with the fury of battle, dashed upon the field and assumed his old command. The soldiers greeted him with cheers, and he led them on in one impetuous charge after another. The enemy everywhere gave way in confusion, and at dusk the Germans were even drive from their entrenched camp. The British loss was fully 600.

The next day Burgoyne retreated to Saratoga, followed by Gates. The fine army, which had set out with such high hopes only four months before, was now almost a wreck. Eight hundred were in the hospital.

October 12: Burgoyne’s troops are down to five days’ rations. He finds he can neither advance nor retreat.

October 17: Burgoyne has no choice but to surrender. He and his men are granted “free passage to England on condition that they would not re-engage in the war. The Americans capture “35 superb cannon and 4,000 muskets.” (2/97-98)

Andrews offers a less than glowing review of the American commander:

Gates deserved little credit… but reaped the results of the labors of Herkimer at Oriskany, of Stark at Bennington, and of Schuyler in obstructing Burgoyne’s advance and in raising a sufficient army. Even in the two battles of Stillwater, Gates did next to nothing, not even appearing on the field. Arnold and Morgan were the soul of the army both days. (2/98)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: While Arnold’s name is synonymous with treachery, he was a brave fighter. At the Saratoga National Historical Park, there is a monument of a “boot,” in honor of his wounded leg.

Lancaster and Plumb add a vivid portrait of that day. The British and Hessian troops are allowed to march out and stack their “muskets, drums, and flags.” Gates agrees that no Americans are present to witness and compound the defeated enemy’s shame. (48/234-240)

Drama reasserted itself when Gates and Burgoyne, the former gravely unobtrusive in plain blue and the latter gleaming in scarlet and white under a wildly plumed hat, watched the weaponless men of the invasion force pass in review. First came the British, sullen, silent, and by no means convinced that they had been beaten. They have never, in all their long history, made good prisoners of war, and throughout the captivity which they were now entering proved as cantankerous and exasperating to their captors as the most arrant Yankee could have been. Panache could hardly have been expected from the Germans, who, sent off to a war in which they had no interest, accepted defeat as stolidly as they would have met victory, for, barring the chance of individual loot, defeat or victory merely meant the end of campaigning. So these lost, homesick thousands marched docilely on, taking with them unnumbered forest pets. Young deer minced along, and bear cubs padded clumsily by gaitered legs. Leashed foxes moved sleekly with their owners, and raccoons chittered and clowned as they perched on knapsacks. These were the Germans[’] spolia opima, the pitiful rewards of hard campaigning.

These prisoners came out of the haze of war to face a real shock – the site of the ordered ranks of Gate’s army, of Morgan’s and John Glover’s men, of Abraham Ten Broeck’s Albany militia. They had seen their foes before, but rarely en masse, and some marchers wrote that they felt they were seeing a new race of men. There were oddly clothed young boys and old men in the militia ranks, and Negroes presented arms as free men along with free men. Faces, several Germans noted, were lean, the men’s bodies rangy. Paunches were few and tall men seemed the rule rather than the exception. (48/240-241)

They further note:

General George Washington learned of the wreck of the invasion only by accident, a good two weeks after Burgoyne’s capitulation. The relative stature of the two men may be gauged by the fact that Washington wrote Gates at once, warmly congratulating him on his “signal success.”

…It is a further measure of Gates that he did all he could to prevent and then delay the dispatch of his now idle forces to the main army, recovering from its near miss at Germantown.

COE gives us this description of General Daniel Morgan’s life and career:

He was the son of a poor laborer; he received very little schooling; and at seventeen he left home. At first he hired out by the day, toiling to clear land in Virginia. Later he became a wagoner.

Morgan accompanied the army of Braddock on its ill-fated expedition against Fort Duquesne. After the troops had been surprised and defeated by the Indians, a large number of waggoners whipped up their horses and fled. But Daniel Morgan, as Fiske says, was “faithful in every fiber.” He waited to take up the wounded and carry them, in his wagon, to a place of safety.

At twenty-three Daniel Morgan was a giant. He was over six feet and four inches in height, and weighed nearly two hundred pounds.

[Once, while delivering messages between forts, Morgan and a few others ran into an Indian ambush.] Then began a flying battle. A ball entered Morgan’s neck at the back and passed out his mouth. Faint with loss of blood, and believing that the wound was mortal, he had but one aim – to save his body from the Indian tomahawk. Throwing his arms tightly about the neck of his fleet steed, he spurred away into the wilderness. The Indians followed, but Morgan outstripped all but one. This one ran beside his horse, expecting him every moment to fall, but Morgan outrode the Indian. With a howl of rage, the redman flung his tomahawk after Morgan and gave up the chase.

The good horse took his master back to the fort. Morgan was unconscious when he arrived, and it was fully six months before he was again a well man. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would have died.

[When the Revolution began] He raised ninety-six backwoodsmen in Virginia, put himself at their head, and marched 600 miles in twenty days to join Washington in Boston.

…Washington, Greene, and all the able American generals knew that, once Burgoyne was on the march, the only right move for Howe was to the northward. So they were much puzzled when he went south toward Philadelphia. Washington wrote, “Howe’s in a manner abandoning Burgoyne is so unaccountable a matter that, till I am fully assured of it, I cannot help casting my eyes continually behind me.” By the battles of Brandywine and Germantown, Washington kept Howe so occupied in Pennsylvania that the autumn came without his having joined Burgoyne.

[At Freeman’s Farm] Both Morgan and Arnold fought most brilliantly. The fighting was desperate on both sides, one fourth of those engaged were either killed or wounded. The British outnumbered the Americans, as they were 4500, while the Americans numbered but 3000.

[Arnold called for help.] The foolish Gates turned a deaf ear to his requests, and 11,000 Americans sat on the hills watching … The British plan of attack was foiled by the dash of Arnold and Morgan.

[Gates and Arnold] … quarreled fiercely. Gates relieved Arnold of his command and sent him his passports.

[October 7; next fight] … Arnold was watching the battle from the heights. As the troops swayed to and fro, he suddenly saw how a furious charge might win the day. He threw himself upon a horse and galloped down the hill. The American troops hailed their “fighting general” with joy. As he was the senior officer on the field, his orders were instantly obeyed. He led three brilliant charges, scattering two columns of the British. As a detachment of German troops was flying like chaff before him a ball passed through his leg. His horse was killed at the same time, and he fell helpless to the ground. An American soldier was about to bayonet the German who had wounded Arnold, but the suffering general stayed his hand with the words: “Don’t kill him. He is a brave fellow!” If only Benedict Arnold might have died at that moment with these generous words upon his lips, our country would have been spared a dark and painful chapter.

Two of the nation’s first integrated military units.

October 27: The Battle of Red Bank ends in slaughter of Hessian troops attacking Fort Mercer.

The story gets new life in the summer of 2022, when archaeologists digging in what used to be the old trench around the fort find human remains. The New York Times tells the story of the battle, and its aftermath:

On the day of the attack in 1777, the Hessians surely thought the same. The force of 2,300 mercenaries was led by Col. Carl Emil Ulrich von Donop, a courageous leader with a fiery temper, according to letters written by his officers. The fort was defended by only 534 soldiers, including members of the Sixth Virginia Regiment and the New Jersey militia, as well as members of the First and Second Rhode Island Regiments, two of the nation’s first integrated military units. Forty-eight of the American soldiers were Black; the regiments also included Native Americans of the Narragansett people.

Colonel von Donop was confident of victory. Fort Mercer “will be Fort Donop or I shall be dead,” he wrote to Gen. William Howe, commander of the British military forces. When the Hessians arrived at the fort, Colonel von Donop sent an officer to call for the Americans to surrender. “The King of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down their arms,” the demand stated. “If they stand battle, no quarter whatever will be given.”

The American commander, Col. Christopher Greene, soon replied: The Americans accepted the challenge, and no quarter should be taken on either side. Fighting commenced at 4 p.m. From the river, 13 galleys of the Pennsylvania Navy immediately bombarded the Hessians with cannon fire, and the soldiers inside Fort Mercer opened up with muskets and 14 cannons of their own. Two battalions and one regiment of Hessian soldiers advanced through the barrage. Their assault was slowed by trees that had been cut down; branches had been sharpened and stacked in a line around the fort. The battle lasted just 75 minutes; when it was over, 377 Hessian soldiers – and just 14 Americans – were dead.

While digging, archaeologists found chain shot, fourteen skulls, a row of buttons from a coat long since rotted away, and even a gold coin, which had probably been sewn into a seam and overlooked after the battle.

“It is painful for me to lose so many good people, I can’t describe it and I have not recovered from it,” Lt. Col. Ludwig Johann Adolph von Wurmb, who took part in the assault, wrote a few days later. “The tragedy of our poor wounded here in America is not describable without shedding tears, and those left behind with the enemy have no aid.”

That night, a group of American soldiers ventured out to repair some of the defenses. A voice called out from the battlefield: “Whoever you are, take me out of here.” It was Colonel von Donop, who had been shot in the hip.

According to Capt. Thomas Antoine Mauduit du Plessis, the French engineer leading the group, an American soldier shouted out, “Well now, is it agreed that no quarter will be given?” The colonel replied, “I am in your hands. You may take your revenge.” The Americans brought him into the fort and cared for him until he died a week later.

November 15: The “Articles of Confederation,” framed by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, are adopted by Congress. According to the historian Benjamin Andrews, a “firm league of friendship” was created. “Each State retained its ‘sovereignty’ and ‘independence,’ as well as every power not ‘expressly delegated’ to the central Government.” Taxation and the regulation of trade were reserved to the states.

“The faults of the Confederation were numerous and great. Three outshadowed the rest: Congress could not enforce its will, could not collect a revenue, could not regulate commerce.” (Failed to note page.)

Thanksgiving: As was so often true during the war, questions of supply made life for the American soldiers a misery.

Henry Dearborn writes, “This is Thanksgiving Day. … but God knows we have very little to keep it with, this being the third day we have been without flour or bread … Upon the whole I think all we have to be thankful for is that we ... are not in the grave with many of our friends.” (48/198)

“Less than nothing seemed to have been accomplished.”

December 19: Washington’s army makes camp at Valley Forge. “The war had been waged now for more than two years and less than nothing seemed to have been accomplished.” (2/83)

It would take the tired Americans a week to cover thirteen miles to reach their new camp, with Washington writing, “you might have tracked the army … to Valley Forge by the blood of their feet.”

Winter could not be passed in tents, and on the very first day orders went out to build huts to a prescribed pattern. Short of tools and nails, weakened men forced themselves into the woods, felled trees, split out boards, kneaded clay to plug up wall-chunks. Street by street a hut-city slowly rose, until at last the commander in chief felt free to quit his own leaky tent and move into the gray field-stone Isaac Potts house close by the junction of creek and river, a step which he had sternly refused to take as long as his men were under canvas.

Food began to trickle into Valley Forge. The flow dried up, appeared again, stopped, in a frightening pattern that was a nightmare for every man in authority. Soap was as rare as meat and flour, and bruised feet and chapped hands festered. Dirty rags brought on an itch that only soap and water could cure. Drafty huts, sunless and damp inside, were powerful allies of sickness and infection. Surgeon Albigence Waldo of the 1st Connecticut, who had been in the field since ’75, was shocked by what he saw. “There comes a Soldier, his bare feet are seen thro’ his worn-out shoes, his legs nearly naked from the tattered remains of an only pair of stockings, his Breeches not sufficient to cover his nakedness … his whole appearance pictures a person forsaken & discouraged. He … crys ... I am Sick, my feet lame, my legs are sore, my body covered with this tormenting Itch.”

Colonel John Laurens’ saw his last pair of breeches disintegrate. A guard was seen standing on his hat at his post, to keep his feet out of the snow.

“Yet the army still held together,” Lancaster and Plumb explain, “to the utter astonishment of the numerous foreign officers now attached to our serving in it. No troops that they had known, they declared, could or would have kept the field under such conditions.”

Benedict Arnold arrived, still recuperating from his wound, fighting against Burgoyne. Almost immediately, he drew “a terse rebuke from Washington for attempting a rather lavish banquet, drawn from army stores, for a selected guest-list of twenty.”

In Major General Arnold’s wake stalked gaunt, ugly Charles Lee, recently exchanged after his ’76 capture. Lee was unchanged. Disregarding the visible results of von Steuben’s training, he disparaged everything he saw and produced plans for “The Formation of the American Army,” since “I understand it better than almost any man living.” He hoped, too, that he should stand “well with general Washington … I am persuaded … that he cannot do without me.” On top of this he broached the rather startling theory that American troops could never defeat British troops, no matter what the circumstances, and in a final flourish, confided to Elias Boudinot that Washington was not fit to command a sergeant’s guard. (48/199-201, 203-204)

1778

2026-07-09T23:50:57.837-04:00

__________

“The moment I heard of America, I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom, I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest one of my life.”

Marquis de Lafayette

__________

January 1: Washington’s army has been camped at Valley Forge for two weeks. Conditions are miserable. Time-Life adds a few notes.

The American commander warns Congress that short of supplies, the army “must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things. Starve, dissolve, or disperse….” Typhus killed hundreds.

General Nathanael Greene wrote, “God grant we may never be brought to such a wretched condition again!”

Of our soldiers: “the marvel is that they fought so bravely, endured so much, and complained so little.” (2/142)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I wrote a good piece for my classes on Valley Forge, but left the next section out, in order to reduce length. It might come in handy in other ways.

As always, I put words I doubted most students would know in bold and we discussed those before reading.

ARE THE REDCOATS EVER COMING???

All that winter, the British and Hessians had a force of 19,000 men stationed in and around Philadelphia. Yet, they failed to strike at Washington’s position when his army was weakest. Indeed, it has been said that Lord William Howe, the British commander, was more interested in his mistress (described by witnesses as “a flashing blonde”) than going after rebel forces.

Occasionally, opposing patrols had minor scrapes, often while out looking for supplies. Captain Henry Lee and a half-dozen Americans once found themselves surrounded in a farmhouse. Outside 200 British troops blocked escape. Lee kept his head, ordering his men to move from window to window, shooting as if many more were inside. “Fire away, my good fellows!” he shouted at one point. “Here comes the infantry!” he added loudly. “We will have them all, God d--- them!” Panicked by Lee’s clever bluff, the attackers scampered for safety.

Another day, John McCasland, a Pennsylvania rifleman, was part of a sixteen-man patrol when they surprised a Hessian force looking for food. In the yard of an American house, a lone German stood watch. Unaware, he could not know McCasland was preparing to fire from hiding. As the rifleman made ready, he balked at what seemed to him like murder. “I did not like to shoot a man down in cold blood,” McCasland later explained. So, aiming for the enemy’s hip, he dropped him with one shot. A dozen men inside gave up immediately, waving full bottles of rum from the windows like “flags of truce.”

A third incident was not so bloody. An American officer, riding out alone on some errand, spied several “Redcoats” along the edge of a large field. Racing back to camp, he sounded the alarm. U.S. forces marched to investigate. Ready to storm into battle, they discovered some farmer’s wife had hung her red petticoats (underwear) over a rail fence.

Once more the enemy gave up without a shot.

AFTER THE WAR, Baron Von Steuben was granted a farm of 16,000 acres near Ft. Stanwix. New York. He died there in 1794 (97/175)

PAGE SMITH notes that many women “raised money for the Continental Army by soliciting door to door, and others sewed shirts for the soldiers.” Often, they embroidered their initials on them.

A French officer was shown a room in Philadelphia with 2,200 shirts made for the troops. (45/66)

Van Loon notes of Washington and his men,

By this time they had suffered so much through the inefficiency and indifference of Congress, that the callousness of a few Pennsylvania farmers, who sold all their produce directly to the British (whose pockets were filled with golden sovereigns) and let their own countrymen starve (because they could not pay cash) was merely an unpleasant experience to be forgotten as soon as the actual fighting was resumed. (124/208-209)

He describes Franklin’s career:

He invented a new sort of type. He experimented with the ink used on the press of his Pennsylvania Gazette. He taught himself Latin, Spanish, French and Italian. He helped found the American Philosophical Society. He was postmaster-general for the colonies and speeded up the mail service until New York had three Philadelphia deliveries every week. He was the first successful rebel against the Puritan Sabbath and spent his Sundays perusing his own studies instead of listening to the secondhand wisdom of someone else. He studied the cause of earthquakes, perfected the well-known Franklin stove and gave his native city an adequate system of street lighting. He received the Copley medal of the Royal Society in London for his new-fangled invention known as the Franklin-rod and since introduced into all parts of the world as the lightning-rod. Under the pseudonym of Richard Saunders he printed an annual little book which became known as Poor Richard’s Almanac and which was on every Christmas table in America during the latter half of the eighteenth century. He opened and operated the first public lending library. He was a member of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania for thirteen years. He was colonial agent in London for his own state, for Georgia, for New Jersey, and for Massachusetts. And when at home he used to cart the paper necessary for his many publications by his own hand from the warehouse to the print shop so that his neighbors might see but that he did not consider himself too good for this job and intended to remain plain old Ben Franklin, the printer. (124/215-216)

How did Franklin coax the French into an alliance?

By the simplest of expedient, by absolutely remaining himself.

The immensely bored courtiers of King Louis, accustomed to the dull formality and the affectations of their own little Versailles, suddenly found themselves face to face with a pleasant old man in a beaver cap and a coat of the vintage of the year 1730, who talked to them as if they had been his own grandchildren and who, if they were very good, might give them a hickory nut or an apple, “grown in his own garden.”

Thank heaven, here at last was something new.

France went wild about this philosopher from the backwoods.

In less than a month, everyone in the whole country knew the old man at least by sight. Peddlers carried his engraved portraits and plaster-cast busts from the Pyrenees to the Meuse. Every snuff-box and shaving-mug, in order to be up-to-date, must show the benign countenance of the “Apostle of Liberty.” Lovely ladies wore Franklin bracelets and rings. The populace at large went Franklin mad and only a man with the iron constitution of the old printer could hope to eat his way through the endless official banquets, luncheons and suppers that were arranged in honor of this most distinguished guest and live. (124/219-220)

Until Franklin began to work his magic, the French viewed Philadelphia as if “it was the last station before the planet Mars.” (124/225)

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS says that it was a rule in school, from 1778 to 1786, that every hoop, sled, and boyhood possession should in some way bear thirteen marks, for the Thirteen Colonies. (226/172)

February 6: France recognizes the United States, and the two nations agree to a formal alliance. (According to Lancaster and Plumb, the French had been impressed not only by the American victory at Saratoga, but the “display of strength and moral at Germantown.”

SIR HENRY CLINTON, who has taken over command from Lord Howe is ordered, on news that France has joined the war, to send 5,000 of his troops to the West Indies, for attacks on St. Lucia, and 3,000 more to St. Augustine.

Clinton also decides to move his army out of Philadelphia, and head for New York City – opening up his strung out troops and wagon train to attack. Washington called a council of war, which he often did. (Hamilton compared these meetings to gaggles of midwives.) Gen. Charles Lee was “passionately opposed” to any strike at Clinton’s force. (48/204-206)

June 28: The Battle of Monmouth again shows that the Continental Army can stand up to the best British and German professionals – but Charles Lee helps ruin American chances when he orders an untimely retreat. Washington’s army suffered 500 casualties, the enemy 600, and Clinton stole away in the darkness and kept on toward New York.

July 5: Warfare in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania takes a bloody turn. Ridpath describes events:

[The Tory] major John Butler, commanding sixteen hundred loyalists, Canadians and Indians marched into the valley of Wyoming, Pennsylvania. The settlement was defenceless. On the approach of the of the Tories and savages, a few militia, old men and boys, rallied to protect their homes. A battle was fought, and the patriots without discipline or efficient command were routed. The fugitives fled into a rude fort which they had erected and which was soon crowded not only with the militia, but with the women and children of the settlement. Honorable terms were promised by Butler, and the garrison capitulated. On the 5th of July the gates were opened and the Canadians entered followed by the Indians. The latter and some of the former immediately began to plunder and kill. The passion of butchery rose with the work and nearly all the prisoners fell under the hatchet and the scalping knife.

September 17: Article V of a treaty signed with the Delaware Indians states:

The United States do engage to guarantee to the aforesaid nation of Delawares, and their heirs, all their territorial rights in the fullest and most ample manner as it hath been bound by former treaties, as long as they the said Delaware nation shall abide by and hold fast the chain of friendship now entered into. And it is further agreed on between the contracting parties should it for the future be found conducive for the mutual interest of both parties to invite any other tribes who have been friends to the interest of the United States, to join the present confederation, and to form a state whereof the Delaware nation shall be the head, and have a representation in Congress: Provided, nothing contained in this article to be considered as conclusive until it meets with the approbation of Congress. (125/131)

September 23: General Washington served without pay during the war. Lafayette (Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette) did likewise.

In hopes of landing a commission, the young Frenchman wrote to Henry Laurens, a congressman, “The moment I heard of America, I loved her; the moment I knew she was fighting for freedom, I burnt with a desire of bleeding for her; and the moment I shall be able to serve her at any time, or in any part of the world, will be the happiest one of my life.”

After the French Revolution, with Lafayette in prison, his son, George Washington Lafayette, was “cherished and fathered at Mount Vernon as one of the family.” (109/69)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: It might be interesting to ask students what their families did after the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 – that is, what share in defending the country they played.

My own family played no role.

At some point, I read of a man killed on his thirteenth combat tour in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is this the way it should be?

Perhaps a better question to ask students today would be: “If the United States was attacked, and assuming you were old enough to serve, what would you do?”

Not all students will realize you can enlist at age 17, with parental permission. Few will know how a draft works.

November 11: Ridpath notes that a similar massacre occurred at Cherry Valley, New York. In this instance, Joseph Brandt and Walter Butler, son of John, led the invaders. “The people of Cherry Valley were driven from their homes without mercy. Women and children were tomahawked and scalped, and forty prisoners carried into captivity by the Indians.” (1219/221)

Ridpath has a different way of describing what followed:

To avenge these outrages, an expedition was organized and sent against the villages in the Onondaga Valley. The commanders were Colonels Gansevoort and Van Schaick. The Americans made their way unexpectedly into the Indian country. It chanced that a fog concealed the approach of the Whites until they were already in the Indian villages. Three of these were destroyed. A number of warriors were killed, and thirty-three taken prisoners. Most of the savage inhabitants fled away. The horses and cattle were slaughtered, and in six days the exhibition returned to Fort Schuyler without having lost a man. Thus in their turn the Red men were made to feel the terrors of lawless war. (1219/221)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I might copy the section above and ask students for their reactions. How would a resident of the three villages burned by American troops describe what had occurred?

It strikes me as quite telling that the American expedition did not lose a man. You wonder what kind of defense the natives could have mounted – and wonder if the prisoners were women and children – which Ridpath does not specify.

“The redemption of America from barbarism.”

In this depiction, a later artist captures Jane Wells, pleading for her life, as a “savage” prepares to tomahawk her. Wells was one of thirty non-combatants killed in Cherry Valley. The engraving is by Thomas Phillibrown, from an original painting by Alonzo Chappel.

Ridpath continues:

The year was marked by more than a score of thrilling episodes in which brave frontiersmen either perished in defense of their homes or exhibited extraordinary courage in successful efforts to beat back the savages. Among the more distinguished heroes of this. Were the Bradys and Wetzels, whose valorous deeds have served to perpetuate their names until the annals that describe the redemption of America from barbarism are no longer printed. The Bradys were singularly marked as victims of Indian savagery. Captain John Brady, a brave pioneer was assassinated by three Indians as he was riding along a highway. James, the son of John Brady, with three companions, was set upon by a company of Indians; his comrades deserted at the first signs of danger, but he stood his ground and disdaining all overtures for surrender, fought with his back to a tree until ten bullets from guns of his enemies extinguished his brave life.

An elder brother, named Samuel, swore to avenge the death of James and thereafter devoted many years to satisfying his vengeance, in which service he rose to the very pinnacle of fame as a scout of unexampled daring, who passed through perils greater and more numerous perhaps than beset any other pioneer.

Equally famous as the Bradys were the Wetzel brothers, whose dashing daring has been made the subject of many a thrilling tale of adventure with Indians. The father, John Wetzel, built a cabin in the Ohio Valley, but he had scarcely become settled and begun clearing some of his ground when one day while working in the woods he was pitilessly murdered by lurking savages. Though a man indisposed to strife himself he was father of five sons who became desperados in their unappeasable thirst for a bloody vengeance. The eldest of these, named Martin, was soon after made captive by a band of Indians to whose life he adapted himself in order the more effectually to satisfy his desire for vengeance. While thus living on apparently amiable terms with the tribe into which he was adopted he contrived to kill no less than twenty before his criminal intents were discovered, and by this time he had retreated and was a leader of the settlers. Each of the brothers in turn became a sleuth-hound upon the tracks of the Indians, slaying at every opportunity and ever demanding the blood of atonement for their father’s slaughter.

The youngest of the Wetzels was Lewis and he was the most implacable of the five. So great was his thirst for vengeance that when in 1787-88 efforts were made by General Harmar to make a treaty of peace with Indians, Lewis opposed such temporizing measures and with many other settlers preferred to have the war go on until the savages were exterminated. When, therefore, a council was called at Fort Harmar, Wetzel waylaid and shot an Indian who on the way to the treaty ground. This act created such intense indignation that General Harmar set a price upon Wetzel’s head, which incentive prompted a company of soldiers to set out upon his tracks and after a week’s pursuit they arrested him while he was sleeping in the house of a friend. Securing him with heavy manacles they carried the desperate Indian hunter back to the fort, where he was kept under a close guard for some weeks. At length relaxing somewhat his severity under specious promises of the prisoner General Harmar permitted Lewis to exercise about the fort, but always under strict surveillance of two or more guards and never without handcuffs upon his wrist. On one occasion, however, Wetzel seized the small opportunity offered for his escape and made his surprising dash for liberty. The guards were quick to detect his bold maneuver and each fired at the fugitive but without effect. Running like a deer Wetzel plunged into a thicket, baffled all pursuit and managed to cross the Ohio, where he met a friend who relieved him of his fetters and he returned to his old vocation of killing Indians. Subsequently he was again arrested, but the settlers rallied to his defence and threatened an insurrection if he was not released. Under this pressure the court granted a writ of habeas corpus and again he was free. He was the hero of many escapades thereafter which were by no means creditable to his reputation as an Indian fighter, but desperado as he was, Lewis Wetzel died a natural death at Wheeling in the summer of 1808. (1219/221-223)

1779

2026-07-09T23:31:19.373-04:00

__________

“I have not yet begun to fight!”

John Paul Jones

__________

THE SONG “Amazing Grace” is written by an Anglican clergyman and slave trader who believes God will grant forgiveness for his sins.

The battle between Bonhomme Richard and HMS Serapis.

The owners would be compensated.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON burned to lead men in battle, as did James Monroe. Hamilton suggested that if other routes were closed, Monroe might join Henry Laurens, who was,

planning to raise a Negro regiment by offering freedom to slave volunteers. Although Henry Laurens’ father John had persuaded Congress to approve this scheme with the recommendation that the owners of the slaves be compensated, it was summarily rejected by the state legislature. (24/27)

February 23: George Rogers Clark and his force of 170 soldiers reach Vincennes, after an arduous winter march, as described by Lancaster and Plumb:

Men hung back, their horse voices croaking of inability or unwillingness to go farther. Clark merely took to the water once more, shouting “Follow me!” while Captain Joseph Bowman skirted the rear with 25 riflemen who had orders to shoot any stragglers. This seems to have been the worst part of the march, with water still shoulder-high. More and more men had to be towed in canoes. Those on their feet tripped and fell in deep water, then clung to a rotten log or sodden tree until stronger hands rescued them… (48/280)

For a time, Vincennes had been in American hands, captured by Clark, then retaken by the British, under Gov. Henry Hamilton, sometimes known as the “Hair-Buyer,” for his policy of paying native allies for enemy scalps.

Clark now sends Hamilton, who commands the fort at Vincennes, warning:

SIR: In order to save yourself from the impending storm that now threatens you, I order you immediately to surrender yourself with all your garrison, stores, etc., etc., for, if I am obliged to storm, you may depend on such treatment as is justly due a murderer. Beware of destroying stores of any kind, or any papers or letters that are in your possession, or hurting one house in town, for, by heavens! if you do there shall be no mercy shown you. G.R. Clark.

To Governor Hamilton. (91/74-75)

Clark later described the short, sharp fight that followed:

. . . about eight o’clock gained the heights back of the town. …

Lieutenant Bailey was ordered, with fourteen men, to march and fire on the fort. The main body … took possession of the strongest part of the town. The firing now commenced on the fort. … Reinforcements were sent to the attack of the garrison. … We now found that the garrison had known nothing of us. …

Ammunition was scarce with us, as the most of our stores had been put on board of the galley … [Several gentlemen of Vincennes] had buried … their powder and ball. This was immediately produced, and we found ourselves well supplied.

February 25: The fort falls to the Americans. Hamilton is sent, a prisoner, to Virginia, where he is kept in chains.

General George Washington later urges that he be set free, and Hamilton returns to Canada, where he continues to serve at Lt. Governor.

As Plumb and Lancaster explain:

Except in exertion expended and territory covered, the campaign had been a small one, but it nailed down the whole Illinois territory for Virginia, and hence the United States, for the rest of the war.

…To George Rogers Clark goes most of the credit for those provisions in the Treaty of Paris that gave Kentucky and all the Old Northwest Territory to the United States. (48/284)

“Bridge of gold.”

Spring: Major John Andre is pondering ways he might approach top American commanders, across a “bridge of gold,” and turn them into assets of the Crown.

Benedict Arnold, now married to the beautiful Peggy Shippen, a Tory sympathizer, seems interested in crossing that bridge. (48/260)

June 21: Spain joins “the allies in hopes of getting back Gibraltar and her island possessions in the Mediterranean.” (124/231)

According to Van Loon, Washington also has the aid of old man Distance:

…no matter how hard the English tried, no matter how bravely they fought, they found themselves out marched and outdistanced on every field of battle. Thus far, in all their wars, they had been able to depend on their navy, but ships were of little use in the Allegheny Mountains and no men of war could safely hope to sail across the “drowned lands” of Illinois. Footwork was to be the decisive factor in this encounter and footwork, after two or three years, has a tendency to become somewhat monotonous and undermine the discipline of the best regulated troops. (124/231-232)

“I did not improve my time well.”

July 8: Mary Osgood Sumner begins a diary, including a “Black Leaf,” indicating her sins and mistakes, and a “White Leaf,” indicating her better moments. The year here is unclear, but she writes, under “Black,”

July 8. I left my staise on the bed.

9. Misplaced Sister’s sash.

10. Spoke in haste to my little Sister, spilt the cream on the floor in the closet.

12. I left Sister Cynthia’s frock on the bed.

16. I left the brush on the chair; was not diligent in learning at school.

17. I left my fan on the bed.

19. I got vexed because Sister was a-going to cut my frock.

22. Part of this day I did not improve my time well.

30. I was careless and lost my needle.

Aug. 5. I spilt some coffee on the table.

Entries in her “White Leaf” include:

July 8. I went and said my Catechism to-day. Came home and wrote down the questions and answers, then dressed and went to the dance, endeavoured to behave myself decent.

12. I went to meeting and paid good attention to the sermon, came home and wrote down as much of it as I could remember.

27. I did everything this morning same as usual, went to school and endeavored to be diligent; came home and washed the butter and assisted in getting coffee.

Aug. 1. I got some peaches for to stew after I was done washing up the things and got my work and was midlin Diligent.

4. I did everything before breakfast and after breakfast got some peaches for Aunt Mell and then got my work and stuck pretty close to it and at night sat up with Sister and nursed her as good as I could.

9. I endeavored to improve my time to-day in reading and attending to what Brother read and most of the evening I was singing. (167/169)

SUMMER: General Washington has ordered Gen. John Sullivan and others to march against the Iroquois nation.

The country of the Six Nations was to be invaded with “the total destruction … of their settlements and the capture of as many prisoners … as possible.” Prisoners of all ages and sexes were to be held as hostages, being “the only kind of security to be depended on” for the future good behavior of the Indians, in the commander in chief’s opinion.

Settlements, which Washington had marked down for destruction, were no huddles of wigwams. The tribes had actual towns studded with good houses, sometimes of stone with glazed windows, and the adjoining orchard tracts showed years of careful husbandry. Politically, the Six Nations had kept step with their architecture and cultivation. They had a sort of constitution and a code of law, the whole forming a pattern of life that might have survived peaceably with the ever-oncoming white settlers. Unfortunately, tribal life had lagged in development. The women – and only the women – tended the fine farms and orchards. Men were above such sordid tasks. War – which may be translated as indiscriminate bloody raiding – and hunting alone were worthy of masculine attention. Such a tribal frame of mind made peace a mere breathing spell between raids and forays, an unthinkable, unattainable end.

The first Iroquois village to go up in flames was the village of Chemung.

Here was something new for the troops, at least those from the eastern states. There were “between 30 & 40 Houses, some of them large and neatly finish’d; particularly a Chapel and Council House.” There was no resistance, and Chemung flamed up in a “glorious Bonfire and wide fields of grain and vegetables were ruin’d.” If this seemed a ghastly desolation, the troops could recall that out of such villages came Indians who had been burning and killing and torturing through the Mohawk Valley and the Susquehanna. …

Another town, deserted like Chemung, was surrounded and burned: “one of the Neatest of the Indian towns … with good Log houses with Stone Chimneys and glass windows.” …

[Soldiers laid waste to] fields whose richness showed every sign of husbandry as fine as anything the white man knew. Here were acres of “Cucombars, Squashes, Turnips, Pompions.” Cornfields showed ears an awesome two feet in length. Squaw-labor had ranged neat rows of “beans … Simblens [sometimes called pattypans or summer squash] watermelons and pumpkins such as cannot be equalled in Jersey.” It seems odd that in the midst of such lavishness the ration problem existed for any man, but Henry Dearborn one day “eat part of a fryed Rattle Snake… which would have tasted very well, had it not been Snake.”

The savagery of this type of border warfare was shown after Indians and Tories tried to ambush the American army. The ambush failed, and the Americans chased their foes into the woods. Lt. William Barton’s men found several dead Iroquois after the fight. As Barton admitted, he “skinned two of them from their hips down for boot legs; one pair for the Major [Daniel Piatt] the other for myself.” (48/285-286, 288-291)

September 23: John Paul Jones defeats the Serapis in battle and takes the battered prize into the harbor of Texel. The Dutch made

Jones into a national hero and wherever he and his strange crew had shown themselves (out of the two hundred and twenty-seven sailors under his command only seventy-nine were Americans) they had been received with loud expressions of popular approval. (124/228-229)

Around this same time, as Van Loon notes,

Gold transports from Holland, addressed directly to General George Washington, Esq. (and sent not to Congress), found their way across the ocean and upon several occasions prevented a recurrence of those outbreaks of near-mutiny [among the soldiers] which had become only too common during the last four years of Congressional neglect and indifference and which sometimes made Washington fear that he would have to fight the war for independence single-handed. (124/230)

“Thunders shook the mighty deep.”

The Youth’s History of the United States by Ellis, gives this description of Jones and his career:

No history of the revolution would be complete without an account of the exploits of Paul Jones, one of the most daring sea rovers that ever lived. France had sent a squadron to America, as you have already learned, but it was a long time before it rendered any real service to the cause of independence. Meanwhile, privateers were fitted out all along our coast. Though unable to meet the regular men-of-war of the enemy, they struck many effectual blows. None of the privateersmen, however, could compare with John Paul Jones, who was a Scotchman by birth, and not quite thirty years of age when the Revolution broke out.

While only a boy he became a sailor in the merchant service and went to America. He visited an elderly brother, who had married and settled in Virginia, and soon formed such a liking for the new country that he adopted it as his own. Congress having determined to fit out a naval force, Jones was appointed first lieutenant of the Alfred, whereon he hoisted with his own hands the first national flag ever unfurled on an American ship.

There has been much question as to the identity of this flag. There died in the city of Trenton, New Jersey, a few years ago, Miss Sarah Smith Stafford, an old lady whose patriotism had made her known throughout the Union. Her mother witnessed the battle of Lexington, and her father, while serving under Paul Jones, was wounded during the battle with the Serapis. He lived, however, to be more than ninety years old.

This old lady had, among her numerous valuable relics, a flag which she insisted was the one that Paul Jones first raised on the Alfred and afterward on the Bon Homme Richard. The flag has been exhibited in different parts of the country, and possibly you may have seen it. If so, you have noticed that while it resembles our national banner, it has only twelve instead of thirteen stripes. Miss Stafford informed me that the flag was made by the lady members of the old Swedish church in Philadelphia, and was presented by them to Paul Jones. As he was rowed down the river to his ship, Jones stood up in the boat and waved the flag to and fro, amid the cheers of those on shore…

The foreign commerce of America was ruined by the ravages of the British cruisers, and capital and men sought reward in privateering. In the year 1777 nearly five hundred prizes were taken by American privateers. For his skill and courage Paul Jones was soon advanced to the rank of captain, and he sailed for Europe in 1778 resolved to retaliate in kind upon those who had ravaged the American coast.

Jones cruised off Solway Firth, close to his birth-place. One night with thirty-one volunteers he rowed out in two boats to the coast of Scotland, and in the harbor of Whitehaven set fire to three vessels and spiked a large number of cannon in the guard-room of the fort. All England was alarmed when the following year he put to sea in the Bon Homme Richard, an old Indiaman given to him by the king of France. He now had the rank of commodore, and was accompanied by two consorts, the Alliance and Pallas. He first sailed to the Firth of Forth and threw Edinburgh and Leith into consternation. Afterward, when off Scarborough, he sighted the homeward-bound Baltic fleet of merchantmen escorted by the frigates Countess of Scarborough and Serapis, the latter a ship of fifty guns and the former of twenty-two.

Two-thirds of the men with Jones were prisoners of war [Americans, I believe], and his regular crews had been weakened in order to take charge of his many prizes, but he signaled to his consorts to join in pursuit, his own ship Richard crowding all sail. The latter carried forty-four guns, and the entire number of men in Jones’s fleet was about three hundred and seventy-five.

The sea fight that followed was one of the bloodiest ever known. The sun had set and the full moon was in the sky when the captain of the Serapis twice hailed Paul Jones, whose only answer was to open fire, to which the enemy instantly replied. The battle had hardly begun when two of the guns on the lower deck of the Bon Homme Richard burst. Several of the men were killed, the rest ran up to the main deck, the guns which they left not being worked again during the battle.

Jones was always fiercely in earnest and his wish was to fight at close quarters. After a little maneuvering he closed with Serapis, but finding he could not bring his guns to bear, let her fall off again. Captain Pearson of the latter shouted,

“Have you struck?”

“Struck!” called back Jones: “I haven’t begun to fight yet!”

As the Serapis swung round, her jib-boom caught in the mizzen-rigging of the Richard. Jones himself lashed the boom to his mast. The lurching of the vessels broke the hold, but one of the enemy’s anchors caught his quarter and held fast. Thenceforward, as may be said, the two foes fought locked in each other’s arms.

When the Serapis attempted to fire through from the starboard side, she found she could not open the ports because the Richard was too close; so the cannon were first discharged with the ports closed, the port-lids being blown away in order to open a passage. The main deck of the Richard was so high that the broadsides from the main deck of Serapis did not hurt any one, for you will remember that the Americans had deserted the lower deck of the Richard. The firing, however, did great damage to the ship.

The fighting went on for two hours. The Serapis and Richard delivered their terrible broadsides as often as the cannon could be loaded and discharged. The moon lit up the strange scene, and the smoke from the guns drifted off through the spars and rigging and settled into a cloud above. Their “thunders shook the mighty deep,” and never did men fight with greater bravery.

It was at this time that Paul Jones made the maddening discovery that his colleague Captain Landais, commanding the Alliance, was firing into him. Sometimes Landais would discharge his broadside at the Scarborough, and then deliberately aim at the Bon Homme Richard. Many of the Americans believed she had fallen into English hands.

Commodore Jones, however, had no time to inquire into the astounding behavior of his captain, but gave his whole attention to the Serapis, whose tars were fighting like heroes. In the rigging of the Richard were perched a number of sailors, who flung hand grenades upon the deck of the Serapis. One of the seamen made his way out to the end of the main-yard, carrying with him a bucket of the deadly missiles. These he carefully lighted and dropped down the hatchway of the Serapis. He was so cool that he hit the mark every time.

Unfortunately for the Serapis a row of eighteen-pound cartridges had been left on the deck by the powder-boys, and they now stretched the whole length of the ship. The American sailor up aloft dropped one of his flaming grenades into this row, and the explosion that instantly followed blew a score of men to pieces and severely burned others.

Captain Pearson again called out to Jones to know whether he had struck, but Jones, who was at the other end of his ship directing the fire of his nine-pounders, did not hear him. Then Pearson summoned his boarders and made a dash for the deck of the Richard, but Jones caught up a pike and, leading the charge, drove them back. A half hour later Pearson struck. His ship had been fired a dozen times, but it was the explosion caused by the hand-grenade dropped from the rigging of the Richard that decided the battle against him. It had silenced his main battery, and that was his chief reliance.

Amid the awful din and smoke and uproar, half the people on the Serapis believed it was the Richard that had surrendered. Pearson himself hauled down his flag. Half his men were disabled and the others were terrified by the murderous fire from the rigging of the Richard.

When morning broke the Richard was seen to be a complete wreck. She was still on fire, and the broadsides of the Serapis had riddled her as though she were made of card-board. She was fast sinking, and Jones had only time to remove his wounded and then his crew to the Serapis when his own vessel went to the bottom. Four-fifths of his men were killed or wounded. He took his prizes into Holland and turned them over to the French government. To save the Dutch from diplomatic trouble the commodore assumed command of the Alliance and put to sea. Landais sailed for home, and on his arrival was deposed from his command on the ground of insanity, and was afterward expelled from the navy.

The king of France, through his ambassador at the Hague, complimented Jones for his exploit, and presented him with a sword. The commodore’s victory enabled him to effect the release of the American prisoners in England, who were exchanged for the officers and seamen he had captured.

Jones was absent from home for about three years, during which time his exploits were numerous and of the most astonishing character. He was denounced as a pirate by the English, who became so alarmed by his achievements that many people did not feel safe even in London. Some of the timid ones looked out on the Thames, half expecting to see the terrible fellow lay their city under tribute. At one time he landed on the coast of Scotland, and, appearing at the residence of the Earl of Selkirk, captured a large amount of silver plate and booty. But he treated the earl’s household with great courtesy, and the plate that was seized at the time is now in the possession of the members of the Selkirk family.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I felt the story of John Paul Jones offered a chance to look at the nature of courage and success – this time in battle. When Jones spotted enemy vessels in the distance. He steered immediately for the largest British target, Serapis, a warship of 50 guns.

Each year I tried to tell the story the same way, giving it a drama it deserved. At first the British pounded Jones. Serapis had heavier guns and more of them and hammered the American ship. Two of Jones’s largest guns blew up as soon as he fired them. So he had to order his biggest cannon to remain silent, and fought one-handed, as it were.

Serapis poured in fire and Jones maneuvered closer – hoping to allow his men to board the enemy ship and take it that way. A shot carried away the American flag and Captain Pearson on Serapis called out for the American commander to surrender. Jones responded firmly: “I have not yet begun to fight.”

Eventually, Jones rammed against the side of Pearson’s ship and grappling hooks and ropes were used to tie the ships together, until they were as “snug as two logs in a woodpile.”

Jones’ move had been so sudden that he caught the British with some of their gun doors closed. Now they were so tight together the doors could not swing open. Pearson ordered his crews to shoot them off and keep pouring fire into the American vessel’s sides. The two ships were as close as cars in a parking lot. Sailors could stab at enemy gunners through the ports. The slaughter was fearsome. Cannonballs tore men apart, shattered guns and sent jagged metal fragments flying in all directions. Wooden planks were blown to bits, and whizzing splinters increased the terror. The dead lay in heaps and blood ran in streams across the decks.

Bonhomme Richard was soon so full of holes that enemy fire passed in one side, out the other, and splashed in the ocean beyond.

YEAH - I COULD NEVER DRAW.

How, then, does Jones win? That was the question I wanted to pose and wanted my students to consider. I explained that there were marines in the tops of the sails. Now one of the Americans saw an open hatch on the deck of the enemy ship. He lit his match, and heaved his bomb. I drew another dumb little picture to show what happened next. The bomb bounced once or twice on the deck and then fell through the opening, landing near a stack of gunpowder bags. The explosion tore the heart out of the British warship. Twenty enemy sailors were killed and many wounded by the explosion; then Jones and his three remaining guns began aiming at the main mast of Serapis and broke it off.

Preston had no choice but to surrender.

The details didn’t matter in any cosmic sense – but made for a good story. Captured prisoners, taken in earlier clashes, were forced to keep manning pumps below desks as Jones’ vessel kept up the fight and continued slowly sinking. An American sailor had begged Jones to surrender – till Jones hurled a pistol at his head and knocked him cold.

What then matters about a sea battle long ago? Do we test on dates: 1779? Or names of ships? Or should students recognize names? In this case, with Jones’ name, I felt the answer was yes.

What else? To me the answer was clear. THREE. That was the key. THREE.

Jones had continued to fight when only three guns remained – and it was that perseverance that mattered. I wanted students to think. Were they like Jones? Or were they prone to quit in the face of difficulty?

I was watching a seventh grade basketball practice one day, and saw a kid skid on the floor and burn his knee. A trickle of blood began (this was long before the fear of AIDS led to a rule change, and bleeding players had to come out). So, he came over to Coach H. and asked to be taken out.

I told my classes that if they were playing, they should never want to come out. In basketball and soccer, especially, perpetual movement, running hard at all times, made a difference. Even if you weren’t the fastest or best player, I explained, you had to keep firing your “three guns.” You had to refuse to quit.

HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE DID ATTITUDE MAKE? WAS IT LUCK – THE GRENADE TOSS – THAT WON THE BATTLE?

1780

2026-07-09T22:44:55.283-04:00

__________

“DeKalb was an American too – by adoption.”

Benjamin Andrews

__________

General Greene bedevils stronger British forces.

“To strike and get away.”

May: In the spring of this year, Francis Marion launches his career as a guerrilla fighter. Fanny E. Coe, provides this description in Makers of the Nation (1914):

The partisan method of warfare was unusual. With numbers so small that they could not fight in the open field, the leaders sought at all times the sudden surprise. A sleeping camp, a small detachment of British escorting American prisoners, an isolated post – these were what they fell upon like a bolt from the blue. Such was the suddenness of these appearances and the fierceness of their attack that they were almost always successful. Ten or a dozen of the foe killed, American prisoners set free, needed stores secured – these were the results obtained. They were not large in themselves, but what was of importance was that the British were never at ease.

[Marion and his band] were seldom more than seventy in number, and sometimes their ranks fell as low as sixteen.

The food was plain and often scanty. Hominy, rice, and sweet potatoes were the staples. Marion and his men could live very well on such far. The story is told of a British officer who came to their camp under truce. Great was his astonishment when he found that the dinner consisted of nothing but roasted sweet potatoes, and that they were served on pieces of bark. But, as Marion said, “Hunger is the best sauce.”

…They rode the finest and fleetest horses, and this was wise, for their lives often depended upon the swiftness of the steeds they rode. To strike and to get away was Marion’s policy.

Every month the enemy was harassed by some daredevil deed of Marion’s In August, 1780, an English party with one hundred and fifty prisoners taken at Camden, were near Nelson’s Ferry on the Santee River. At daybreak Marion’s men swooped down upon them, freed the American prisoners, captured twenty-six of the escort, and then sped off.

Another time the brigade actually entered Georgetown and carried away the commander of the post from the midst of his men. The very insolence of the deeds infuriated the enemy.

Scores of stories might be told of the daring of individuals in the band. One man was closely pursuing a British officer through the forest. He had far outdistanced his comrades, so that he was now alone. Suddenly he found himself riding directly upon a company of Tories. With enemies all around him, he played the game of bluff. Turning in his saddle, he waved his arm and shouted: “Here they are, boys. Come on!” The Tories thought the whole band was at his heels, and turned and fled.

May 12: Ten thousand British troops have Charleston, South Carolina surrounded by land and cut off by a enemy fleet.

[Gen. Benjamin] Lincoln was forced into an unconditional surrender that turned his 5,000-odd Continentals and militia into prisoners of war. Huge quantities of supplies were lost, and nearly all the patriot leaders of South Carolina, political and military, were seized, leaving the whole Charleston Revolutionary movement headless, save for Governor John Rutledge and one or two others whom Lincoln had contrived to slip out of the city. The American cause had suffered the severest disaster of the entire conflict. (48/300)

June: Massachusetts voters ratify the new state constitution. A list of thirty different rights is included.

Still, as Benjamin Andrews would later write,

All the States still had Sunday laws; most of them had religious tests. In South Carolina only members of a church could vote. In New Jersey an office-holder must profess belief in the faith of some Protestant sect. Pennsylvania required members of the legislature to avow faith in God, a future state, and the inspiration of the Scriptures. The new Massachusetts constitution provided that laws against plays, extravagance in dress, diet, etc., should be passed. Property qualifications continued to limit suffrage. (2/66)

July: A French fleet arrives off Newport, Rhode Island, and General Comte Donatien de Rochambeau is rowed ashore. Rochambeau informs Gen. Washington that he has 5,000 French regulars on transports, and that they are assigned to help him “for the duration.”

They are also to be under Washington’s orders. (48/327)

THE BRITISH had 7,000 men in S.C. and Ga. So, Washington “detached from his scanty army 2,000 Maryland troops and the Delaware regiment – all veterans – and sent them south under [Gen. Johann] DeKalb, a brave officer of German blood, who had seen long service in France.”

August 15: [Gen. Horatio Gates]:

made a night march to secure a more favorable position near Camden. Cornwallis happened to have chosen the same night for an attack upon Gates. The two armies unexpectedly met in the woods, nine miles from Camden.

The American position was strong, a swamp protecting both flanks, but at the first bayonet charge of the British veterans the raw militia threw away their guns and “ran like a torrent.” The Maryland and Delaware Continentals stood their ground bravely, but were finally obliged to retreat. DeKalb fell, with eleven wounds.

The whole army was pursued for miles and completely scattered. Arms, knapsacks, broken wagons, dead horses strewed the line of retreat. The Americans lost 900 killed and wounded, and as many more prisoners. The British loss was less than 500. Gates, who had been literally borne off the field by the panic-stricken militia, rode in all haste two hundred miles north to Hillsborough, N. C., where he tried to organize a new army.

There was now no organized American force in the Carolinas, and Cornwallis began a triumphant march northward.

ANDREWS adds this story: “DeKalb was an American too – by adoption.” It is said he warned Gates about fighting unprepared at Camden. Gates “intimated cowardice.” The old fellow replied, “To-morrow will tell, sir, who is the coward.”

Like a “bull” the German held the field the following day.

A monster British grenadier rushed on him, bayonet fixed. DeKalb parried, at the same time burying his sword in the grenadier’s breast so deep that he was unable to extract it. Then seizing the dead man’s weapon he fought on, thrusting right and left, till at last, overpowered by numbers, he slipped and fell, mortally hurt. (2/155-156)

LANCASTER AND PLUMB present an equally negative view of Gates, noting that he marched south, “piling blunder onto blunder.”

At one point, he was shown returns that indicated his army numbered only 3,000 men, not the 7,000 he thought. Gates exclaimed dramatically, “Sir, there are enough for our purpose.”

With Gate’s army wrecked, Washington dispatched Gen. Nathaneal Greene to take charge of the campaign against Cornwallis and his victorious redcoats. His subordinates were soon impressed. Colonel William Polk of North Carolina, for one, found that by the morning after his arrival on the scene, Green “understood [supply problems] better than Gates had done in the whole period of his command!”

Greene found only 800 men fit for duty, when he arrived, out of 2,300. “Morale was very low, the camps were filthy and badly sighted; yet Greene senses something might be made of this command.” The army was bolstered by the arrival of Gen. Daniel Morgan, who had been in “retirement,” miffed after having been passed over by Congress for promotion. He was also joined by Colonel Henry Lee, soon to become famous as “Light-Horse Harry,” and his green-jacketed, helmeted Legion of 300 finely trained men. (48/303, 308-309)

October 7:

The brave mountaineers of North Carolina and Virginia rose in arms. [A thousand] riflemen fell upon a detachment of 1,100 British, strongly posted on King’s Mountain, N.C., and after a sharp struggle killed and wounded about 400, and took the rest prisoners. … The King’s Mountain victory filled the patriots with new hope and zeal, and kept the loyalists from rising to support the British. Cornwallis marched south again. (2/104-109)

1781

2026-07-09T22:33:03.404-04:00

__________

“I have the Honor to inform Congress, that a reduction of the British Army under the Command of Lord Cornwallis, is most happily affected.”

General George Washington

__________

AS THE CALENDAR TURNS, we find General Washington tormented by lack of funds to supply his army.

He cannot know that by fall, the tables will have turned.

Rochambeau and French troops helped pin the British in at Yorktown.

January 1: The failure of Congress to come up with money to supply the needs of the troops is chronic.

On this night, “the whole Pennsylvania Line, comprising 2400 men, over one-fourth of the entire army, broke out in open mutiny as a protest against Congress’ failure to provide them with food, clothing or pay.” This mutiny was only suppressed by careful negotiations.

“To request from the individual states such funds.”

In their history of the war, Lancaster and Plumb explain:

To be sure, Congress was authorized to request from the individual states such funds as were needed for the common good, but it had not the least semblance of power to enforce compliance. The states considered each request and were free under law to meet them fully, in grudging part, or to ignore them with bland irresponsibility. A good share of the trouble lay in the fact that each state was apt to think of itself as being in temporary wartime alliance with its twelve fellow states.

…

States tended to conduct private wars with England, maintaining what amounted to their own navies and armies, like the New Hampshire force that smashed Baum and Breymann at Bennington. They even sent their own agents abroad to compete with national appointees such as Franklin, Deane, John Adams, and Arthur Lee, much to the embarrassment and harassment of the latter group. And every step taken by a state on its own drew away urgently needed strength from the central government. (48/266)

Some financial help could be had from the hands of Haym Salomon, who landed in New York City in 1772, and built a reputation as a money broker whose word was always good. When Washington evacuated the city, he stayed behind. People

who envied him muttered back of their hands that it was quite in character, that to him money was money and there was an end of it. When Salomon was suddenly arrested by the British on a charge of spying, held in close confinement, and then grudgingly released, it led to talk of bribery, of money passed in high British circles. The year 1778 again found Salomon in jail, but this time hints of golden keys to jail doors died as a court-martial pronounced the death sentence on him, once again for spying for the Americans.

Somehow Salomon managed to escape, fled to Philadelphia, and, quietly resumed his brokerage business, rapidly recouping his fortunes. Many people were surprised when inquiries from members of Congress brought a quick, unstinting response from Salomon coffers and sound money flowed out in time of great need. Individuals in tight places sought him and were given relief, and the Salomon ledgers carried the names of Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Thomas Randolph. Never showy, Haym Salomon built a reputation for deep integrity as well as financial shrewdness. When Dutch and French subsidies began to flow into America, they passed through Salomon’s [hands] and he was also formally appointed paymaster to Rochambeau’s French Expeditionary force in 1781. (48/269-270)

WITH HORATIO GATES disgraced in the wake of his disastrous defeat and retreat at Camden, Washington sent Gen. Nathaniel Greene to the Carolinas, to see if he could recoup the situation. Says Andrews, “he had long been Washington’s right-hand man.”

Son of a Rhode Island Quaker, bred a blacksmith, ill-educated save by private study, which in mathematics, history, and law he had carried far, he was in 1770 elected to the legislature of his colony. Zeal to fight England for colonial liberty lost him his place in the Friends’ Society. (2/110)

January 17: The Battle of Cowpens proves critical: Here Gen. Daniel Morgan has placed his American forces in three lines. The first line of sharpshooters picked off British officers and many of the feared dragoons. The second line of militia got off one or two shots, as Morgan had directed, and then retreated. The British pressed forward, confident of victory; but Morgan had his militia regroup behind his third line of Continental veterans – and then he launched his own charge. According to Andrews,

The British, riddled by a terrible cross-fire from Morgan’s unerring riflemen, followed up by a bayonet charge, fled, and were for twenty-four miles pursued by cavalry. The American loss was trifling. Tarleton lost 300 in killed and wounded, and 500 prisoners, besides 100 horses, 35 wagons, and 800 muskets.

Plumb and Lancaster add one extra detail, I think important: Morgan’s personal touch with his troops.

The militia fired, fired again, and fell back, a move that was interpreted both by the watching Continentals and the British as the start of panic. Actually it was a prearranged movement, planned and explained by Morgan to every militia officer and man. Almost casually they peeled off, retiring in good order behind the hill where the Continentals were posted. (48/311)

The National Park Service also notes that Morgan did everything he could to boost the confidence of his troops. At one point he suggested a contest of courage between units from Georgia and South Carolina. By the time he was through, one soldier said the men were “in good spirits and very willing to fight”. As for Gen. Morgan, he hardly slept at all that night.

January 21: The New Jersey Line mutinied in the same way, as the Pennsylvania line earlier that month.

March 9: General Washington receives word that a large French fleet, carrying several thousand troops, is on the way to help.

Killing with “mechanical impartiality.”

March 15: Cornwallis moves north. “Green’s force was too weak to risk a battle. His soldiers were poorly clad, and most of them were without tents or shoes. He therefore skillfully retreated.”

But on March 15, re-enforced to about 4,000, the Quaker general offered battle to Cornwallis at Guilford Court-House, N.C. He drew up his forces on a wooded hill in three lines one behind the other. The first line, consisting of raw North Carolina militia, fled before the British bayonet charge, hardly firing a shot. The Virginia brigade constituting the second line made a brave resistance, but was soon driven back. On swept the British columns, flushed with victory, against the third line. Here Greek met Greek. The Continentals stood their ground like the veterans they were. After a long and bloody fight the British were driven back. (2/113-114)

At one point, the soldiers battled in a confused mass, and redcoat lines began to fray. Lord Cornwallis realized his troops might be swept from the field. Then, “seeing his own sudden peril, [he] took the hard but militarily justifiable course of turning his artillery on the confused struggle, killing Briton and American with mechanical impartiality. Gradually, the two swaying masses drew apart. (48/317 sing)

“Cornwallis, with his ‘victorious but ruined army,’ retreated to the south. Then, in April, he marched for Virginia.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Writing in 1958, a little more than a decade after the end of World War II, Plumb and Lancaster paint a colorful picture of the fighting in this war. But the color of blood is lacking.

The ghastly damage to the human form is never mentioned. I believe teachers should always describe warfare in realistic fashion.

Meanwhile: “A ceaseless guerilla warfare was kept up, attended with many barbarities. Slave-stealing was a favorite pursuit on both sides. It is noteworthy that the followers of [Gen. Thomas] Sumter, fighting in the cause of freedom, were paid largely in slaves.” (2/116)

We should also note that “slave-stealing” wasn’t much required of the British. Slaves often flocked to “enemy” lines, knowing that with the British, their days of servitude would be ended.

May: British forces occupy the home of Rebecca Motte and fortify it on the Congaree River in South Carolina. American troops surround the “Fort Motte” but are unable to dislodge the enemy – until a decision is made.

Command of the sea.

June 26: Lafayette, and Gen. Anthony Wayne move their 4,500 men closer to Williamsburg, Virginia. There is fighting when British troops move to capture an American supply dump nearby.

In his camps about Williamsburg and its mellow Georgian brick buildings, Cornwallis was apparently content to let time slip by. After all, he had very few worries. He had done great damage to Virginia, in addition to what [Gen. Benedict] Arnold and [William] Phillips had accomplished. He had a great advantage in numbers over Lafayette and Wayne, and even if they should be miraculously reinforced to a dangerous strength he had only to whistle up the Royal Navy, embark for some other theater, and leave his enemies wasting away in empty terrain, their services lost to the country for an indefinite period. That, Cornwallis could tell himself complacently, was what having command of the sea meant to a soldier skillful enough to take advantage of it. (48/338)

“Intended for action and not for show.”

August 14: Washington is pondering an attack on New York City, to drive Sir Henry Clinton and his troops away. Then comes exciting news! Comte Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse has left the French Indies with 28 ships of the line and transports full of fresh French troops.

Washington and Rochambeau tear up their plans and start over. They will march south with speed and attack Cornwallis instead. A rigid march schedule would be kept. Early on, a French officer noted that there were no stragglers, save for “ten love-sick” men from his regiment, “who wanted to return to see their sweethearts in Newport.” Sizing up their American colleagues, the French were also struck by the lack of a regulation uniform and by the great number of fringed hunting shirts, which they described as casaques avec des franges. They concluded that these “troops are intended for action and not for show.”

Another French officer found in American tents, “where three or four men live, not over forty pounds of baggage.” (48/343)

LATE SUMMER finds Washington and his troops marching south, in a column that stretched two miles.

By September 2nd, when the army arrived at Philadelphia, the soldiers, up to now in the dark, began to suspect where they were bound. The Americans marched right in, grimy and dirty from their long journey. An enthusiastic crowd greeted them, headed by Congress, who knew their destination and their plans.

On the following day the French arrived. With true Old World fastidiousness they had camped without the city to freshen up, to polish their arms and the harness of their horses. They marched into Philadelphia with bands playing and flags flying as though they had come fresh from their garrison. The contrast was striking.

The city had detained Rochambeau and his men overnight, that they might be properly welcomed and entertained. The Continental army had gone on to Chester where Washington learned that de Grasse and the French fleet were already in the Chesapeake. The news was too good and too important to keep, so the Commander himself rode back to Philadelphia to acquaint Congress and de Rochambeau with the favorable developments. Their plans were working as they had hoped. The combined armies, with the assistance of the fleet, might now be able to crush Cornwallis before Clinton in New York could come to his assistance.

Five days later the armies reached the head of the Chesapeake. Here they were placed aboard transports and set sail for Yorktown.

Washington, himself, decided to go by land. Homesick after an absence of six years, he set aside three days in which to visit his beloved Mount Vernon. With de Rochambeau he rode across Virginia, making sixty miles a day, and for three days he was able to slip back into his old role of Country Squire – the role he preferred above all others. (109/103)

“Control of the seas.”

September 5: DeGrasse enters Chesapeake Bay, with 28 warships and six frigates bearing 3,200 soldiers and 19,000 sailors, having chased away the fleet of Admiral Graves. Lafayette was already on the scene with 4,000 men, watching Cornwallis, with 7,600.

In the Battle of the Chesapeake, de Grasse’s fleet, with 24 ships in action, defeated a British fleet made up of 19 ships of the line. Two French warships were damaged, five British, with one scuttled. Rear Admiral Sir Thomas Graves drew off the British fleet from the fight.

He headed back to New York, to organize a greater relief effort, but did not head south again until two days after Cornwallis had surrendered.

Cornwallis himself wouldn’t know it for several days, but he was now effectively trapped.

That one sea action … unseen save by the relatively few participants, was actually the one decisive engagement of the war. It is ironic that not a single American soldier had taken part in the sudden climax of six years of bitter fighting. Yet there the record stands. The French had seized that one all important factor that America had lacked from the start, control of the seas, and had been able to hold it just long enough. (48/349)

September 8: In South Carolina, Greene strikes at British forces again in the Battle of Eutaw Springs. Although the enemy held the field, Greene “inflicted far more damage than he had suffered.”

The Rhode Islander had, between January and September, 1781, won a tremendous campaign, while never winning a battle. Always short of men, money, and supplies, he had calmly done what he could with what he had, utilizing resources to which many other generals would have been blind. The local forces of [Francis] Marion and others had been developed to the utmost, in the knowledge that he could not have existed without them or they without him. (48/325-326)

October 9: The earthworks of the allies are “completed, the guns mounted, and at three o’clock in the afternoon Washington touched the match to the first gun. For eight days Cornwallis’ crumbling defenses were subjected to a continuous cannonade.”

October 14: Allied forces capture the advanced earthworks of the British.

October 16: Allied troops break a second enemy line, 200 yards nearer to the town. “Washington,” say Bacheller and Kates, “was always in the advanced lines, recklessly exposing himself to the enemy’s fire.”

Cornwallis planned to have his men escape by night, using a fleet of barges; but “a terrific storm scattered the boats” and the trap remained closed. (109/105)

The Americans and French capture British and Hessian defenses.

October 18: Cornwallis and his troops withstood siege for 21 days. Now a drummer appeared on the ramparts, waving a white flag, and “beating a parley.” There was jubilation in the American and French lines. Cornwallis signs articles of surrender.

October 19: The terms of surrender,

gave to the Americans the land forces of between eight and nine thousand men with their guns and baggage, and to the French, the British craft with their supplies and about 800 seamen.

On October 19th, at twelve noon, thousands of spectators gathered to watch the formal ceremonies of surrender. The American troops with Washington at their head were drawn up on one side of the road. On the other side were the French, led by de Rochambeau. At two o’clock the British appeared. Up this road, lined for a mile with the troops of the victors, they marched in slow step, their colors cased, their feelings expressed by their band which played, “The World Turned Upside Down.” Cornwallis did not lead this march. The parley had been too much for his aristocratic stomach, and he was now ill in his tent. In his stead, gallant General O’Hara bore his Commander’s sword.

General Lincoln, who not so long before had experienced the chagrin of tendering his sword to Clinton at Charleston, was chosen by Washington to receive the surrender. After this each British soldier advanced to the center of a large field and placed his musket on a rapidly growing pile of weapons. No longer an army, but prisoners of war, the Redcoats marched back to Yorktown under guard. (109/107)

Jackie Custis, Washington’s stepson, died of camp fever in the trenches.

Washington then drafted a report to send to Philadelphia:

I have the Honor to inform Congress, that a reduction of the British Army under the Command of Lord Cornwallis, is most happily affected. The unremitting Ardor which actuated every Officer and Soldier in the combined Army in this Occasion, has principally led to this Important Event, at an earlier period than my most sanguine Hope had induced me to expect. (48/357)

He does not mention his own role.

McMaster writes of the surrender:

Swift couriers carried the news to Philadelphia [a few days later], where, at the dead of night, the people were roused from sleep by the watchman crying in the street, “Past two o’clock and Cornwallis is taken.” In the morning Congress received the dispatches and went in solemn procession to a church to give thanks to God. (97/191)

When the British Prime Minister, Lord North, heard the news, he exclaimed, “All is over; all is over!” the king alone remained stubborn, and for a while insisted on holding Georgia, Charleston, and New York. (97/191-192)

Andrews says the American army at Yorktown was 16,000, including 7,000 French. When Cornwallis surrendered, he had 7,247 men.

The news of Cornwallis’s surrender flew like wild-fire over the country. Everywhere the victory was hailed as virtually ending the war. Bonfires and booming cannon told of the joy of the people. Congress assembled, and marching to church in a body, not as a mere form, we may well believe, gave thanks to the God of battles so propitious at last. (2/122)

As for the failure of the two key British commanders to coordinate with each other, Andrews explains: “Clinton and Cornwallis hated each other.” (2/123)

Our enemies had now surrendered two entire armies, one at Saratoga, the other at Yorktown. “Practical men [in Britain] figured out that each year of hostilities cost more than the proposed tax [on tea, etc.] would have yielded in a century.” (2/124)

Had the Americans failed in this war, the future would have been dramatically altered. According to Andrews, “There still exists a map on which Spain’s minister had indicated what he wished to make our western bound. The line follows nearly the meridian of Pittsburgh.” (2/132)

Van Loon sums up the problem of the British, after six years of war: The Americans had proven much better fighters than their foes had expected. “French soldiers and German drill-masters and Polish volunteers and Dutch money, aided and abetted by our old friend General Distance, were gradually wearing out the veteran regiments of His Majesty, King George. (124/234)

Site Index - Updated December 31, 2024

2024-12-31T15:14:00.003-05:00

BLOGGER’S NOTE: If you are new to this blog, and interested in the topic of immigration, I recommend you go right to the massive new post: “How Immigration Made America.” If you’re a teacher, the topic is timely.

If you’re just interested in the subject, try to see if your ancestors were vilified as unworthy of becoming Americans.

Chances are good that they were.

If you’re just interested in the topic, try to see if your ancestors were vilified as unworthy of becoming Americans.

Chances are good that they were.

When I was teaching,
I got tired of hearing how bad American educators were.

My Promise

WHEN I STARTED BLOGGING IN 2011, I said I planned to speak up for good teachers. I would not defend bad ones.

I began by trying to debunk the myth that something was wrong with America’s teachers as a group.

See: Numbers Don’t Lie: Our Teachers (And Doctors) Are Failing.

I mocked the idea that U. S. teachers were stupid again in: America’s Teachers! We’re Dumb! And We Suck!

***

Recently, I’ve shifted more towards posts that teachers might find useful. I’m retired. So I have plenty of free time to bang away on my keyboard.

Best Seating Chart Ever! I read about this setup in an article long ago. The arrangement helped with discipline and students loved it.

“Stupid Essays” as a Creative Punishment and Creative Discipline: Angie Collects Belly Button Lint: I found that humor and discipline were not mutually exclusive. This worked great for me.

First Day Plans from a Veteran Educator: My third year I stopped going over rules the first day and dove right into lessons I considered critical

A Reading List for American History: This list of hundreds of books was created for students in my class, but should be of value to teachers.

SITE INDEX

I am currently posting what I think are interesting stories from American history, divided by years and topics. These appear in the most recent posts. I am saving the post-World War II years for last, and hope to get back to 1607 someday.

I also have:

Maps and Pictures for History Teachers, all of which you can use if you like. I either took the pictures myself, or scanned them out of old sources, now out of copyright (some way out of copyright.)

Also: Maps and Pictures for History Teachers, Part II (same).

And: Maps and Pictures for History Teachers, Part III (same).

So far, I have posted all the years, working backward to 1782, on up to and including 1950. I will continue to add to entries as time allows – as I retired from teaching in 2008, and only later thought of doing this material in this way.

Typically, in one day I posted what I had, so far, for 1858, 1859, and 1860. The Lincoln-Douglas debates are featured in 1858, and questions revolving around race abound.

In 1859, a good deal of the focus is on the discovery of gold in the Pike’s Peak Region, in Nevada, and in the mountains of California, where the town of Bodie grew up and then died out, and became a ghost town.

(I have a number of good pictures I took during a 2022 visit to Bodie, and teachers may use them if they like.)

For 1860, I have included excerpts from Beloved, by Toni Morrison, a novel about slavery based in part on the true story of Margaret Garner. I used to read parts of her work to my seventh and eighth graders.

Not sure you could even do that today. (Good luck, young teachers!)

The South Carolina Declaration of Secession is also clear: The war will be about the protection of slavery.

Why do people explore: Columbus, Mountain Men or astronauts?
Scene near Leadville, Colorado.

Teachers make a difference in countless ways.
Note to a teacher and former student of mine.

Early American Civilizations: A Few Interesting Pictures: This post didn’t get much interest; but I’m listing in chronological order.

The Chachapoya of Peru (A.D. 650-1470): Never heard of these people till I stumbled upon their story in National Geographic. A discussion of burial customs—and other cultural customs—is always worth having.

A Simple Lesson on Cultural Differences: Naming customs captured the interest of my classes, including their own names.

The Battle for Freedom in England and America: I created this document after I retired. It might be of use in your classes. I believe the examples would be useful for teachers to incorporate into lessons.

Do You Know what the Declaration of Independence Means? Six Questions: Like Abraham Lincoln, I considered an understanding of the Declaration of Independence central to understanding who we are as a people (flaws and all).

Remember the Ladies: Women in the American Revolution: My students liked this reading and we used it as a basis for skits. My seventh and eighth graders loved doing skits; and we set them up to last the entire period.

(See: How I Worked Skits in My History Class, below.)

Founding Father vs. Founding Father: The idea that the Founding Fathers had all the answers is badly flawed, as the Founding Fathers liked to point out to each other.

Two “N” Words and a “D” Word: This was probably my favorite lesson plan every year. (I’m not sure you could do this today in an era when only standardized learning seems to “count.”)

Thomas Jefferson’s Slave Son, Madison Hemings, Tells His Story: Found this online; it’s very interesting.

Teaching about Slavery: A Novel Approach: If you’ve never read Gone with the Wind, it’s beautifully written—and full of racist tropes.

Currier & Ives: There are all kinds of possibilities open to teachers who might want to use a print from the company to start a discussion.

The California Gold Rush, A Few Ideas for Class: This topic always interested students, whether we were talking about events in 1849, a Brazilian gold rush in the 1980s, including a “nugget” the size of a briefcase, and the recovery of tons of gold from the wreck of the SS Central America, which sank in 1857.

Mr. Lincoln’s Army, The Army of the Potomac, Part I: I grew up on Bruce Catton’s writings (okay, I’m old); but his stories about the Civil War would resonate with students.

Glory Road, The Army of the Potomac, Part II: Same as above; these two posts are quite lengthy; so pick and choose what you can use.

Retired Teachers Never Quit: Teaching about Gettysburg: Here are a few ideas and pictures from Gettysburg you might use.

Scars from the Civil War and Scars Today: The soldiers from every war could share their stories of pain and suffering.

A Rebel Soldier’s War: Sam Watkins of the First Tennessee: I used this essay in class for years; my students always liked it. Watkins saw tremendous bloodshed, but his humanity and humor come through. (See next listing, below.)

How I Worked Skits in My History Class: This was one of my favorite moments in more than three decades of teaching.

A Former Slave Writes to His Master: This letter is a classic, if you’ve never seen it.

A Selection of Works by Native American Painter Bret Learned: His work is beautiful, and you could easily use examples to start a discussion on almost any topic related to indigenous peoples.

Notes on Sitting Bull and the Sioux Culture: Again, these notes are quite long; but if you want evidence of the humanity of the people we once considered “savage,” here it is; and Sitting Bull is a great leader.

Notes from the Book, With Custer at the Little Big Horn: An interesting point of view from a cavalryman who survived the fight—and also realized the Native Americans had reason to go to war.

A Bride Goes West: A Woman’s View of Frontier Montana: If you’re looking for the female perspective, Nannie Alderson’s story of raising a family in Montana in the 1880s and after is great. My students really liked her story.

World War I Cartoons and Pictures: I thought some of these would be useful to teachers.

What a Difference a Century Makes: 1915-2015: I wrote this the year my father would have turned 100; the differences might amaze students. If I was still teaching, I might do a discussion of changes kids think have been for the better, for the worse, and what they think will change in their lifetimes.

A Few Useful Notes on Hitler and the Nazis: If you teach about the Holocaust, this may help.

Holocaust Ideas for Teachers: Same with this.

I Read Mein Kampf, So You Don’t Have To: Hitler is quite clear about what he plans to do if he takes power. His ideas are grotesque; and (if you’ve never read this) his prose is often tedious. Here are his main ideas.

“Why Not 13?” Stories from the Holocaust: I have been collecting examples of close calls and heartbreak recently.

The Story of Pearl Harbor: My feeling has always been that descriptions in textbooks are brief and superficial. I tried to present stories in greater detail for my classes.

A Particular Tragedy at Pearl Harbor: This story is meant to make clear: war is rarely glamorous, often horrible.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Students today have almost no knowledge of what nuclear war is really like.

The Moore’s Ford Bridge Lynching: Four Victims out of 4,400: I only recently read about this incident. It’s a shock to realize how recently lynching was still occurring.

In Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: 100 Examples of Jim Crow Days

My students could always name four or five examples of Jim Crow laws: separate seat on buses, separate drinking fountains, separate schools, separated in sports and in restaurants. This reading gave them a “few” more examples—including bans on interracial checkers playing.

The Emperor of A, B, C, D (Auxiliary Post): More examples of racism and material you probably have to ignore due to standardized testing.

(I loathed standardized testing and called it educational malpractice.)

A Watergate Refresher: Students found the story of Watergate to be like a crime show investigation.

The Veterans Come to Loveland Middle School: I grew up thinking it would be cool to go to war, joined the Marines, myself, in 1968, and volunteered to go to Vietnam. (I was dumb.) I lucked out—didn’t get sent—but always believed students should have a realistic view regarding warfare. We found we could get plenty of veterans to come in and talk, including about their worst memories.

Useful Links for American History Teachers: Self-explanatory.

Who Were Those People Who Died on 9/11: I wrote this after I retired: but I’d use it in class today, if I were still teaching. It would probably make some students cry. It makes me cry.

A Few Good Ideas (I Think) for American History: If any of these ideas help you, I’ll be glad I bothered to post them.

A Few Good Ideas (I Think) for American History, Part II: Same as above.

“Snowballs” Fly in History Class, and Other Mistakes: Nothing like having real blood in the classroom…and a few of my other blunders.

History Shows: Kids Never Change: I recently hit 70; I tell my wife all the time, “If I ever start grumbling about ‘kids today,’ smack me upside the head.” She seemed to agree rather quickly that that was a good idea.

***

I loved life in the classroom, loved working with teens, and taught for more than three decades. Today, I’m worried about what might happen to young teachers. When I look at current education reforms it appears to me that self-appointed experts (who never teach) are pushing disastrous policies.

Since I retired, I haven't been writing much about education policies; but Betsy DeVos is always good for a few laughs (or groans). See, for example,

Besty Devos: The Amway Secretary of Education

Heroes Who Never Fight: U.S. Secretaries of Education (Betsy DeVos Edition)

Betsy Devos: The Midas Touch in Education

The For-Profit Model in Education: You Get Strippers

My most successful posts, and some of my personal favorites:

1) A Perfect Mesh of Common Core and New Technology.

2) An Education Expert Goes to the Doctor.

3) Are Poor Public Schools Killing the U. S. Economy?

4) Corporate Public Schools! It’s Going to be Great! This one is new; but every ridiculous example is true.

5) Does Arne Duncan Realize that Teachers and Students Are Dying?

6) Do Recent School Reforms Help or Hinder Real Learning.

7) ExxonMobile Announces Commitment to Fixing U. S. Education.

8) Hiking in Glacier National Park. This one has nothing to do with education. I just love the park; and if I was still teaching, I would try to convince students to go there someday. Not standardized education, of course.

9) How Many Reformers Does it Really Take to Fix a School? If you’re a real teacher you already know the answer to this question.

10) Michelle Rhee’s Perfect Ponzi Scheme. Speaking of reformers, the lady is a fraud.

11) N.F.L Adopts Common Core Playbook.

12) Privatizing Public Schools and the Loch Ness Monster Bonus.

13) R.I.P. No Child Left Behind. Ten years of reforms and SAT, ACT and PISA scores have all declined. Even NAEP reading scores are flat. (If you’re a real teacher you start to wonder: Do the experts who keep telling us what to do have a clue?)

14) Sham Standards: Governor Kasich and the Standardized Testing Fetish. What happens if we line up fourteen veterans from five different wars to talk to 700 Loveland Middle School students. Is that good education? How do we measure what students learned???

15) Why Teaching Matters—Part Four (Books).

16) Why Teaching Matters: What’s the Square Root of Inspiration?

17) Yellow Brick Road to Nowhere: Teachers and the Tea Party Movement. This is probably my personal favorite, of all my posts. I like the story of the boy who earned a standing ovation from peers in my class.

18) Confessions of a Bad Teacher: Okay, I admit it. I was a no good, rotten, terrible teacher. I didn’t believe standardized testing did much good. Seven thousand teachers seemed to agree when I put up this post.

19) Teachers Anonymous: A 12-Step Program for Bad Teachers: Follow up post to the post above. I explain how bad teachers can recover from their delusions and embrace the virtues of standardized tests.

20) 2014: The Year Teachers Became the Enemy: When did school reformers decide teachers were the biggest problem in U. S. education? And were they right?

Now Available: Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching

I KNOW GOOD TEACHING IS extremely hard. I know even the best teachers face victory and defeat in the classroom, oftentimes the same day. I am currently putting the final touches on a book titled Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching.

The title relates, in part, to two bicycle rides across America, one at age 58, the second four years later.

***

If you’re interested in reading about my first ride go to viall4diabetes2011.com. I transfered the story of my first ride, in 2007, to that blog not long ago. So that story now shows up at the start. (My youngest daughter is a type-1 diabetic and I pedaled to raise money for the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. Students helped raise more than $13,500 for that great cause.)

My second ride—including my temporary arrest as a bank robbery suspect—is documented next, at the same site: viall4diabetes2011. I was able to prove my innocence and pedaled 4,615 miles in 58 days, again raising more than $10,000 for JDRF.

(Send me an email at vilejjv@yahoo.com if you are interested in a copy.)

Wyoming: near Jeffrey City: photo from a bicycle ride across the USA.
Students were amazed to learn that the state has only six people per square mile.

ARMING TEACHERS

(This category keeps growing; but I have not updates in years.)

Arming Teachers: A Stupid Idea.

Another Teacher Killed in Danvers, Massachusetts.

Colleen Ritzer: Find Something Good in Every Day.

Problem Solved? Arm all the Teachers.

Shooting at Chardon High.

Will Bulletproof Whiteboards Be the Answer?

Bibliography for History Posts - Numbering System Explained

2024-12-17T18:11:00.005-05:00

I remember when school reformers insisted the biggest problem
in education was that teachers didn't come from the best colleges.

Bibliography

VERY EARLY in the process of taking down information, and dividing it by year in American history – on or about December 7, 2021, I managed to erase my bibliography. Since I throw most paperbacks away, after taking notes, I am unable to supply sources for every quote.

Otherwise, if I follow a quote or section of material with the notation: (10/21-23), it means the material is from BOOK 10, pp. 21-23. Books are numbered with no rhyme nor reason, as I finished with them.

I also supply links to all newspaper and magazine articles, and old books, which can be found online.

In some rare cases, I have clippings or parts of stories I saved long ago, and cannot identify the source. I mark those accordingly.

Finally, where you see:

NOTE TO TEACHERS: I have suggested ideas I believe might work in a classroom. Many I used myself, during 33 years in teaching. For example, I realized, the last time I visited California, that the tallest redwood trees – which reach 360 feet – are exactly as tall as a football field, including both endzones, stood up on end. So, you could use this picture in your classroom, to make that point. Almost all pictures included in my posts are out of copyright, or I took them myself.

Feel free to use any you want.

My wife with the redwood.

Ammon, Harry, James Monroe: The Quest for American Identity (McGraw-Hill, New York, N.Y.: 1971) BOOK 24

Andrews, E. Benjamin, History of the United States, Vol. II, Vol. IV (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, N.Y.: 1925) BOOK 2 (II) and BOOK 4 (IV)

Andrews, E. Benjamin, The History of the Last Quarter-Century om the United States, 1870-1895 Vol. I (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, N.Y.: 1896) BOOK 11

Bosworth, Allan R., America’ Concentration Camps (W.W. Norton & Company, New York, N.Y.: 1967) BOOK 500

Bowen, Ezra, ed. This Fabulous Century, 1930 to 1940 (Time-Life Books, New York, N.Y.: 1969) BOOK 1129

Bowers, Claude G., The Tragic Era: The Revolution after Lincoln (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Massachusetts: 1929, 1957) BOOK 105

(Bowers’ book is execrable: Racism masquerading as history.)

Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, New York: 1970) BOOK 107

Cain, Ella M., The Story of Bodie (Fearon Publishers, San Francisco, California: 1956) BOOK 59

Carson, W.E., Mexico: The Wonderland of the South (Macmillan Company, New York, New York: 1914) BOOK 16

Bodie, California - ghost town.

Carter, Paul A., editor, The Uncertain World of Normalcy: The 1920s (Jerome S. Ozer, Publisher Inc., New York, New York: 1971) BOOK 155

Catton, Bruce, A Stillness at Appomattox BOOK 1122

Catton, Bruce, Mr. Lincoln’s Army (Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York: 1951) BOOK 62

Catton, Bruce, Glory Road (Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York: 1952) BOOK 63

Museum at Gettysburg.

Coffin, Charles, Building a Nation (1882) BOOK 72

Coe, Fanny E., Makers of the Nation (1914) BOOK 73

Daniels, Roger, Concentration Camps USA: Japanese Americans and World War II (The Dryden Press, Hinsdale, Illinois: 1971) BOOK 104

The copyright to Daniels’ book was held by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Depew, Chauncey M., My Memories of Eighty Years (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, N.Y.: 1923) BOOK 123

DeVoto, Bernard, The Year of Decision: 1846 (Boston, Little, Brown and Company: 1943) BOOK 5

Douglas, Henry Kyd, I Rode With Stonewall (Fawcett Publications, Inc., Greenwich, Conn.: 1961) BOOK 20

Earle, Alice Morse, Child Life in Colonial Days (The Macmillan Company, New York, N.Y.: 1915) BOOK 226

Ellis, Edward, The Youth’s History of the United States (1893) BOOK 32

Ellis, Edward S., Library of American History (The Charles Barrett Co.: 1905) Last copyright listed is for The Jones Brothers, Publishing Co. BOOK 33

Empey, Guy, First Call: Guide Posts to Berlin (G.P. Putnam’s Sons: New York, N.Y.: 1918) BOOK 18

Finley, Ruth E., The Lady of Godey’s: Sarah Joseph Hale (J.B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia, Pa.: 1931) BOOK 113

Franklin, Penelope, Private Pages: Diaries of American Women 1830s – 1970s (Ballantine Books, New York, New York 1986) BOOK 25

Freeman, Douglas Southall, Lee, abridged by Richard Harwell, (Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, New York: 1961, 1991) BOOK 22

Friendly, Fred, Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control (Random House, New York, N.Y.: 1967) BOOK 34

Goldman, Eric F., The Crucial Decade – And After: America, 1946-1960, (notes from my old paperback edition; will have to look for the copyright information) BOOK 1

Halberstam, David, The Best and the Brightest (Random House, New York, N.Y.: 1969, 1971) BOOK 491

Halle, Louis J., The Cold War as History (Harper & Row, New York, N.Y.: 1975) BOOK 75

Halleck, Reuben Post, History of American Literature (American Book Company, Cincinnati, Ohio: 1911) BOOK 30

Handlin, Oscar, Boston’s Immigrants: A Study in Acculturations (Atheneum, New York, N.Y.: 1974) BOOK 21

Hartwell, E.C., Story Hour Readings: Fourth Year (American Book Company, Cincinnati, Ohio: 1921) BOOK 35

The Irish with their Catholic faith were seen as a threat.
Picture not in blogger's possession.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, The Scarlett Letter and Selected Tales, edited by Thomas E. Connolly (Penguin Books, New York, New York: 1970) BOOK 7

Hendricks, Mrs. Thomas A., A Popular History of Indiana (The Indianapolis Sentinel Co., Indianapolis, Indiana: 1891) BOOK 91

Holley, Marietta, Samantha Among the Brethren (Funk & Wagnalls, New York, New York: 1890) BOOK 15

Keesing’s Research Report, Race Relations in the USA, 1954-1968 (Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, New York: 1970) BOOK 27

Lancaster, Bruce and Plumb, J. H., The American Heritage Book of the Revolution (Dell Publishing, New York, N.Y.: 1958) BOOK 48

Least Heat Moon, William, Blue Highways (Little, Brown and Company: Boston, 1982) BOOK 101

Least Heat Moon, William, PrairyErth (Houghton Mifflin: Boston, Massachusetts, 1991) BOOK 100

Lief, Alfred, Harvey Firestone: Free Man of Enterprise (McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York, New York: 1951) BOOK 23

Madison, James, Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787 (W.W. Norton and Company, New York, N.Y.: 1987) BOOK 87

Madison and the others had a good plan for government.

McCullough, David, Mornings on Horseback (Simon and Schuster, New York, New York: 1981) BOOK 112

McMaster, John Bach, A Brief History of the United States (American Book Company, New York, New York: 1907) BOOK 97

McLaughlin, Andrew; A History of the American Nation (1911) BOOK 56

Mencken, H. L., The Vintage Mencken (gathered by Alistair Cooke) (Vintage Books, New York, New York: 1956) BOOK 49

Miller, John C., The First Frontier: Life in Colonial America (Dell Publishing, Laurel Edition: New York, N.Y.: 1975) BOOK 300

Morris, Charles, The Greater Republic (John C. Winston & Co.: Philadelphia, 1899) BOOK 99

Morrison, Toni, Beloved (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, New York: 1987) BOOK 57

Murphy, Elizabeth Taft (editor: Maryjane Hooper Tonn). I Remember. Do You? A Nostalgic Look at Yesterday: From the Twenties – to the Fifties (Ideals Publishing, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: 1973) BOOK 301

Northrup, Henry Davenport, Life and Deeds of General Sherman: Including the Story of His March to the Sea (J. H. Moore & Co., Philadelphia, Pa.: 1891) BOOK 36

Norton, Mary Beth, Founding Mothers and Fathers (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, N.Y.: 1996) BOOK 47

O’Brien, Tim, The Things They Carried (Penguin Books, New York, New York: 1990) BOOK 46

O’Rourke, P.J., Parliament of Whores (Vintage Books, New York, New York: 1991) BOOK 88

Post, C. C., Driven from Sea to Sea: Just a Campin’ (J.E. Downey & Co., Chicago, Ill.: 1884) BOOK 37

Ridpath, John Clark, various books, somewhat jumbled in my notes, including Ridpath’s History of the World, Vol. I, Vol. VII, Vol. VIII, Vol. IX (Jones Brothers, Cincinnati, Ohio: 1907); The Great Races of Mankind (not sure of volume or date of publication), With the World’s People (Jones Brothers, Cincinnati, Ohio: 1912) BOOK 38

Ridpath, John Clark, People’s History of the United States (Historical Publishing Company, Philadelphia, 1895) BOOK 1219

Sadlier, Sadlier’s Excelsior Studies in the History of the United States for Schools (New York, New York: William H. Sadlier: 1879 and 1896 by William H. Sadlier; 1907 and 1910 by Annie M. Sadlier) BOOK 19

Singletary, Otis A., The Mexican War (University of Chicago Press: Chicago, London: 1960) BOOK 111

Smith, Paige, Daughters of the Promised Land (Little, Brown and Company, Boston, Mass.: 1970) BOOK 45

Spofford, Harriet Prescott, Stepping-Stones to Happiness (The Christian Herald, New York, N.Y.: 1897) BOOK 39

Standing Bear, Luther, My People the Sioux (University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London: 1928 edition, copied) BOOK 110

Stone, I. F., The Truman Era (Random House, New York, New York: 1953) BOOK 114

Sullivan, Robert (managing editor), The 1960s (Life Books, New York, New York: 2014) BOOK 60

A little 60's style.

Tarkington, Booth, Seventeen (Grosset & Dunlap, New York, New York: 1915, 1916) BOOK 17

Taylor, James Wickes, The Diary of James Wickes Taylor, ed. James Taylor Dunn (The Ohio State Archeological and Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio: 1950) BOOK 102

Taylor, William O., With Custer on the Little Big Horn (Penguin Books USA: New York, New York, 1996) BOOK 76

Terkel, Studs, The Good War ( New York, New York, Pantheon Books:1984) BOOK 103

Thayer, William M., Marvels of the New West (Henry Bill, Norwich, Connecticut: 1890) BOOK 6

Trollope, Anthony, North America (Penguin Classics, paperback: 1992) BOOK 106

(This book can also be found online.)

Van Loon, Hendrik, America (Tudor Publishing Co.: 1927) BOOK 124

Walworth, Arthur, Woodrow Wilson (Penguin Books or Pelican Books, Baltimore, Maryland, 1969) BOOK 10

Whitlock, Brand, Her Infinite Variety (The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Indiana: 1904) BOOK 9

Whittier, John Greenleaf, The Complete Poetical Works (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Cambridge, Mass: 1892) BOOK 31

Wolfskill, George, Happy Days Are Here Again! (Dryden Press, Hinsdale, Illinois: 1974) BOOK 1127

1782

2024-12-17T18:08:00.010-05:00

__________

“A faithful study of the liberal arts humanizes character and permits it not to be cruel.”

Ovid.

__________

(Picture from blogger's collection. Feel free to use.)

NOTE TO TEACHERS: Will students understand what happens to paper money, if a government collapses?

SIR HENRY CLINTON and British forces continue to occupy New York City, all during the year.

Enlistments in the American army run out, and the number of men under arms gradually declines.

January 23: According to the diary of Abner Weston, recently recovered, Deborah Sampson attempts to enlists in the Continental Army, not earlier, as she would later claim. Weston himself had served in the Massachusetts militia and in his diaries (he created three) talks about being sent to Rhode Island to help defend that state in 1780.

On this date, he wrote: “Their hapend a uncommon affair at this time, for Deborah Samson of this town dress her self in men’s cloths and hired her self to Israel Wood to go into the three years Servis. But being found out returnd the hire and paid the Damages.”

Caught once, in May she tried again, shifting her plan to Bellingham, forty miles away. This time, in a town where no one knew her, she succeeded, enlisting under the name of Robert Shurtleff.

The New York Times notes:

Dressing as a man was considered a crime in Massachusetts at the time, and Sampson’s audacity later invited the wrath of the Baptist church. In September 1782, while she, long gone, served with her unit under an assumed name, church elders, still reeling from her earlier attempt to enlist, excommunicated her, citing her for “dressing in men’s cloths and inlisting” and other conduct they considered “loose and unChristian like.”

After the war, Sampson fought to get a veteran’s pension, a partially successful battle in which she had the aid of Paul Revere and John Hancock

As The New York Times explains, his third diary, just found, “is a hand-stitched, 68-page account of the period between March 28, 1781 and August 16, 1782, which Weston updated while back home in Middleborough, Mass., where Sampson also lived.”

Step forward, if “inclined toward mercy.”

March 8: The Lenni Lenape (or Delaware Indians) living in Ohio face a difficult decision. They have already moved west once, to remove themselves from the path of the settlers, and also to put distance between themselves and their bitter enemies, the Iroquois.

With the outbreak of the Revolution, they must decide whether to throw in their lot with the British or the Americans.

Like the Americans, themselves, who split, Patriot, Tory, and neutral, the Lenni Lenape divided. A Christian group, having learned pacifism from Moravian missionaries, like David Zeisberger (who had been working with the natives since 1771) settled at Gnadenhutten. Many Lenape living near Coshocton joined the fighting against the settlers; but a punishing raid against the Ohio tribes in 1781 did not molest the Indians at Gnadenhutten, largely due to the refusal of Col. Daniel Brodhead to allow his troops to destroy the Christian Indian towns.

The missionaries continued to worry about being dragged into the war. Passing warriors from other tribes and even some Lenni Lenape, who had decided to join the British side, tried to convince men at Gnadenhutten to give up the path of Christianity and join them in battle.

As Zeisberger put it,

Satan rages … not only from without, but also from within. For in the church there were people who upheld them [the warlike natives] in their false dispositions and applauded them, who wished to establish by force that wicked life of his and heathenism. If we oppose them they become angry and set on the wild Indians against us … Such a change has now come in the Indian church that the bad, wicked people can not be cast out, but they wish to be there and to cause harm in the church, for they in the wild towns have occasion enough therefor and no one would say any thing to them about their sinful life.”

Suspecting that Zeisberger was secretly supplying the Americans with information, the British forced the Christian Indians to move north to what became known as “Captives Town.” They were not fed well, and in February 1782 returned to Gnadenhutten to harvest crops and gather food stored there. A native raiding party that had attacked settlements in Pennsylvania passed by on their way home, telling the Christian Indians that they had impaled two prisoners, a woman and child, on the western bank of the Ohio River. Soon after, the Moravian community was surprised by a force of frontier militia, led by Lt. Col. David Williamson. The soldiers gathered together 96 Lenni Lenape, and argued about what should be done with them. Williamson lined his men up, told any of more than a hundred men present to step forward if “inclined to mercy.”

Only 16 or 18 stepped forward and it was decided: All the prisoners would be killed.

The prisoners were divided in two buildings, one for men, one for women and children. After they were told of the vote, they spent the night praying and singing hymns.

Several of the militia men refused to take part in any killing. One who voted against it was Obadiah Holmes Jr. He described what happened the next day:

one Nathan Rollins & brother [who] had had a father & uncle killed took the lead in murdering the Indians, ...& Nathan Rollins had tomahawked nineteen of the poor Moravians, & after it was over he sat down & cried, & said it was no satisfaction for the loss of his father & uncle after all.

The toll included 28 men, 29 women and 39 children, most victims having been scalped. At least one boy, some say two, escaped to tell the story. One survivor was supposedly scalped, but lived.

Another account says 34 victims were children.

Ben Franklin heard news of the massacre in faraway France. In a letter to a friend in England, he wrote:

the abominable Murders committed by some of the frontier People on the poor Moravian Indians, has given me infinite Pain and Vexation. The Dispensations of Providence in this World puzzle my weak Reason. I cannot comprehend why cruel Men should have been permitted thus to destroy their Fellow Creatures.

Three decades later, Tecumseh could still remind General William Henry Harrison of the heartless murder of the Moravian Indians. “You recall the time when the Jesus Indians of the Delawares lived near the Americans,” he said in 1810, “and had confidence in their promises of friendship, and thought they were secure, yet the Americans murdered all the men, women, and children, even as they prayed to Jesus?”

In 1889, Theodore Roosevelt could call the massacre “a stain on frontier character that the lapse of time cannot wash away.”

(Picture in the public domain.)

COL. WILLIAM CRAWFORD, a friend of George Washington, was captured by Lenape warriors a few months later. He had had no hand in the attack at Gnadenhutten.

A friend of Crawford’s, Dr. Knight, also taken prisoner at that time, told the writer James B. Finley what happened. The unfortunate Crawford was tied to a pole in the middle of their village and preparations made for torture.

a loud whoop burst from the Indians, and they all rushed at once upon the unfortunate Crawford. For several seconds the crowd was so great around him that Knight could not see what they were doing. But in a short time they had spread out, and he had a view of Colonel Crawford.

His ears had been cut off, and the blood was streaming down each side of his face. A terrible scene of torture now began. The warriors shot charges of gunpowder into his naked body, starting at the calves of his legs, and continuing to his neck. The boys snatched burning hickory poles and stuck them on his flesh. As fast as he ran around the stake [where he was tied by a 15-foot rope] to avoid one group...he was met...by another party. They used burning poles, red-hot irons, and rifles loaded with powder only. In a few minutes nearly one hundred shots of powder had been fired into his body, which had become black and blistered in a dreadful manner. The squaws would take up quantities of coals and hot ashes and throw them upon his body, so that in a few moments he had nothing to walk on but fire.

[After two hours]...Crawford had become much exhausted. He walked slowly around the stake, speaking in a low tone. He [begged] God to look with pity upon him, and pardon his sins. His nerves had lost much of their feeling, and he no longer shrunk [away] from the fire-brands with which he was constantly touched. At last he sunk in a fainting fit upon his face and lay motionless. Instantly an Indian sprung upon his back, kneeled lightly on one knee, and made a circular cut with his knife upon the top of Crawford’s head. Clapping his knife between his teeth, he tore the scalp off with both hands. Hardly had this been done when an old woman approached with a board full of burning embers, and poured them upon the crown of his head, now laid bare to the bone. The Colonel groaned deeply, arose, and again walked slowly around the stake. But why continue a description so horrible? Nature at length could stand no more, and at a late hour in the night Crawford was released by death from the hands of his tormentors.

“What then is an American, this new man?”

“He is either an European, or the descendant of an European, hence that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country. I could point out to you a family whose grandfather was an Englishman, whose wife was Dutch, whose son married a Frenchwoman, and whose present four sons have now four wives of different nations.”

Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer

1783

2024-12-17T17:29:00.010-05:00

_________

“A thin ghost of a government.”

Benjamin Andrews.

__________

Newspaper printing.

(Picture from blogger's collection. Feel free to use.)

January: In October 1781, Congress asked the states for $8,000,000 to fund the national government; in January 1783, it had received less than half a million.

“The war had cost about $150,000,000. In 1783 the debt was $42,000,000 – $8,000,000 owed to France and Holland, and the rest at home. … Five millions were owing to the army.” (2/162-173)

June: “A handful of Pennsylvania troops, clamoring for their pay, besieged the doors of Congress, and that august body had to take refuge in precipitate flight.” (2/162-173)

The problem of pay was solved, in part, by issuing land warrants to state militia and Continental veterans, “instruments which the holder could either convert into acres of his own or sell for spot cash. In most states, this redistribution of land made the status of “freeholder” available to almost everyone.

Speculators did snap up many of these warrants. Still, by the end of the year, more than 25,000 settlers were living west of the Allegheny Mountains. (48/365)

September 3: Once peace was agreed to, the Americans had to adapt from a revolutionary mindset, which is “negative,” that is fighting against that which they did not like, and build something better.

Says Van Loon,

Thus far the American rebels had been held together by a common ideal which consisted mostly of things they did not want to do. For example, they did not want to pay taxes to the British government. They did not want to have bishops of the official British church appointed for America . They did not want the King to tell them they must keep out of certain western lands which were supposed to be reserved for the Indians. They did not want Parliament to put a duty on their tea and on their glass and on their paint. They did not want to do this and they did not want to do that.

But now the period of the “don’ts” had come to an end.

The much less exciting era of the “do’s” had begun.

He compares what they had done to “a surgical operation,” say, to remove a tumor, “or the destruction of an old building that has outlived its usefulness.”(124/237)

It was time to build a nation.

AFTER THE WAR: James Monroe “declined all recompense for his services, as he had done throughout most of the Revolution. His fortune was small, he told Jefferson, but he looked upon it as his duty to make this contribution to the common cause.” Monroe did receive a land bounty of 5,333 1/3 acres in Kentucky. In all he succeeded in patenting more than 100,000 acres. (24/33, 38)

November: Attendance in Congress dwindled. “Less than twenty delegates were present, representing but seven States…” “The Government was an engine without steam.”

It was “a thin ghost of a government set in charge over a lot of lusty flesh-and-blood States.” (2/162-173)

IT HAS BEEN “estimated that the reading-matter in all the forty-three papers which existed at the close of the Revolution would not fill ten pages of the New York Herald now.” (2/26)

December 3: In an address to the Volunteer Association and Other Inhabitants, General Washington offers this assurance: “The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions.”

1784

2024-12-17T17:15:00.002-05:00

__________

“You have submitted to him as your head and superior.”

Elias Boudinot – advice to a niece on marriage.

__________

Control of this area is yet to be determined.

IN 1784 the U.S. Navy included one ship, the Alliance. Congress sold the vessel in 1785. (2/212)

Cost-cutting was the name of the game.

JOHN C. MILLER notes that in this era, “Thomas Jefferson operated on his plantation at Monticello a small nail factory in which the ‘hands’ were Negro slave children, and George Washington used slave girls to manufacture woolen, cotton and linen cloth.” (300/147)

THE BARBARY PIRATES are a problem, according to the historian Benjamin Andrews. They had begun to “annoy our commerce” soon after we became an independent nation.

The Betsy was captured in 1784, next year the Maria, of Boston, and the Dauphin, of Philadelphia, and their crews of twenty-one men carried to a long and disgraceful captivity in Algiers.

The Dey’s bill for these captives, held by him as slaves, was:

3 Captains at $6,000………………….$18,000

2 Mates at $4,000……………………....8,000

2 Passengers at $4,000…………………..8,000

14 Seamen at $1,400… …..……....……..19,600

_________

$53,600

For custom, eleven per cent……………..5,896

_________

$59,496

Later, as Andrews puts it, a single cruise lost us ten vessels to “these half-civilized peoples.” (2/328-329)

ELIAS BOUDINOT offers his niece the following advice in a letter:

Your duty to man, depends in the performance of it, on the fulfillment of your duty to God. Your domestic connections will call for your particular attention. Here you must not forget that your husband should be the first object of it. By your union, you have submitted to him as your head and superior. I know that it is a favorable observation with many, that husband and wife are equal and there should be no superiority. This is not true, but a dangerous error, from whence many disagreeable consequences flow.

It is true, neither in theory or practice. In point of merit, perhaps it may be strictly true, but in point of order, God has thought proper to make it otherwise, and that for the punishment of sin…

CALEB BINGHAM comes to Boston, and opens a school for girls., advertising that they will be taught writing, arithmetic, reading, spelling, and English grammar. He wrote the famous Young Lady’s Accidence, for his pupils, and explained to parents that “newspapers were to be introduced in the school at the discretion of the master.” (226/97)

WITH the British slow to give up old posts in the Northwest, in 1784, James Monroe put forth a proposal to bolster the U.S. Army.

Monroe did everything he could to promote the adoption of a measure calling for a force of 450 men enlisted for three years, which David Howell of Rhode Island had introduced. This modest scheme was so alarming that only three states approved and even the Virginia delegation was inimical. (24/44)

When Monroe heard he might face danger from the Indians if he went to Oswego, he remarked that he would escape by either “a little fighting or a great deal of running.” (24/46)

At the opening of Congress, for the 1784-1785 session, “three weeks elapsed before a quorum was present; not a delegate appeared from New England during the first two weeks of the session. Understandably an atmosphere of melancholy settled over Congress.” (24/48)

When Monroe visited the Northwest, he learned that the settlers believed “the eastern states were not just indifferent but were in fact actively hostile” to their interests. Monroe deemed “a great part of the territory…miserably poor, especially that near Lakes Michigan & Erie & upon the Mississippi & the Illinois [which] consists of extensive plains which have not had from appearances & will not have a single bush on them for ages[.]” (24/53)

Rufus King remarked to Elbridge Gerry, that every immigrant to the West was a resident lost forever to the East.

Native Americans were decimated by smallpox and other European diseases.

Most Native Americans were happy to trade for European goods,
including steel hatchets.

Iroquois war club - wooden.

Letchworth State Park, New York.
Land long controlled by the Iroquois.

(Pictures from blogger's collection, unless noted otherwise.)

1785

2024-12-17T16:55:00.006-05:00

__________

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia.

__________

JEFFERSON has no illusions about the curse of slavery. He knows it’s unjust. He doesn’t know what to do about it.

JOHN ADAMS is presented at the court of St. James. George III tells him:

I wish you to believe (and I want what I say to be repeated to your compatriots in America) that I have done nothing during the late contest but what I thought myself indispensably bound to do by the duty which I owed my people. I will be very frank with you. I was the last to consent to the separation. But a separation having been made and having become unavoidable, I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power. (Van Loon, 124/234-235)

(Picture from blogger's collection. Feel free to use.)

1786

2024-12-17T16:46:00.005-05:00

__________

“The farmers swore that the incidence of taxes upon them was excessive, and upon the merchants too light.”

Benjamin E. Andrews, historian

__________

A disagreement between a supporter of Shay and an opponent.

(Picture from blogger's collection. Feel free to use.)

THERE WAS DISCUSSION in 1786, with the French minister, about agreement to close the Mississippi to American trade for thirty years, in return for trade concessions elsewhere. The Northern states generally favored the idea, Southern states opposing. “As tension mounted some New England delegates began to discuss forming a northern confederation. Vague rumors of these conferences disturbed Monroe, who would have been truly alarmed had he known that a few had even talked of creating a monarchy.” (24/56)

Ammon describes Monroe’s wife, Elizabeth Kortright, as “a remarkably beautiful woman,” “a devoted wife and doting mother.”

As for Monroe, lacking an estate, he turned to law – although the work did not greatly interest him. Ammon notes, without comment, that when Monroe’s brother Andrew faced bankruptcy, James “had to sell several slaves to meet his brother’s needs.” Meanwhile, he adds that Mr. and Mrs. Monroe had to wait anxiously for new furniture to be shipped from New York. (24/61, 62, 65)

Shay’s Rebellion: “The farmers swore that the incidence of taxes upon them was excessive, and upon the merchants too light.” “At this period men were imprisoned for debt, and all prisons were frightful holes.” (2/175)

After several minor engagements, in which the insurgents were worsted, the decisive action took place at Petersham, where, in February, 1787, the rebels were surprised by [General] Lincoln. A large number were captured, many more fled to their homes, and the rest withdrew into neighboring States. (2/176-177)

1787

2024-12-17T16:41:00.009-05:00

__________

“There are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money.”

Benjamin Franklin

__________

Franklin speaks during the Constitutional Convention.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON expressed a similar concern: “When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall. How shocking is it to discover among ourselves, even at this early period, the strongest symptoms of this fatal disease.”

John Adams simply warned of the “gangrene of avarice.”

NOTE TO TEACHERS: This is a description of how we addressed the topic of “The American Dream” in my history class. Sometimes I covered it here. Sometimes I waited until we got to the post-Civil War era. I thought it was an important topic to cover – and were I teaching today, I might focus on the death of the dream.

First, a couple of quotes on the topic that I like:

In the original American community of farmers 200 years ago, when rich and fertile lands spread unplowed beyond the Alleghenies, it was considered a matter of gumption and go, of thrift and diligence and planning, whether a man made it or did not. (Breach of Faith, p. 329.)

In 1787 was enacted the famous ordinance for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio. This provided for the organization of government. The first officials were to be a governor, secretary, and three judges appointed by Congress; but as the population increased, the people were to be allowed a representation in the Government. Not less than three nor more than five States might be formed from the Territory and admitted to “a share in the Federal councils.” Sound doctrines of civil liberty were announced. No person was to be molested on account of his mode of worship or religious sentiments. Each citizen was entitled to the writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, was permitted; and the Territory and the Sates which might be formed from it were to remain forever “a part of this Confederacy of the United States of America.” It announced in telling phrase that “religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” This is one of the wisest documents ever issued by a deliberative assembly. It had great weight in shaping later territorial organization. It kept the dark tide of slavery from inundating the Northwest… “‘I doubt,” said Webster, “whether one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the ordinance of 1787.” (56/222)

July 13: The Northwest Ordinance is passed. “The [Ohio] Company, composed mostly of Massachusetts men, strongly desired their future home to be upon free soil.”

Even Southern members of Congress agreed to the idea. (2/162-173)

It is agreed that land shall be divided into townships.
Sections equal to one square mile shall be sold.

VANESSA FRIEDMAN, in the NYT of 7-2-17, refers to the “bedtime story of the American dream.”

IN THE DAYS before standardized tests I used my best professional judgment and covered some topics in a perfunctory manner. I never spent much time on the Articles of Confederation. I did want students to know that the first U.S. government failed because it was weak.

Other than that, I used to tell my classes, “I’ve never heard a single adult in my life, outside of college classes, talk about the U.S. government under the Articles of Confederation. I don’t think you’ll ever need to know much about it.”

Instead, I wrote up general information on the Confederation and mixed it with readings from the textbook:

The United States army was puny. Congress was unwilling to spend money for defense. So, in 1787 (under the Articles of Confederation), the army included only 762 officers and men.

Our navy was no better. Pirates operating out of North African ports attacked our merchant ships. Those that fought back were blasted. Those that surrendered were robbed. Officers and crew were often sold into slavery. Neither the flag nor name of the United States was respected.

Clearly at some point every year it seemed worth discussing: How much military strength does our nation need today? What does it cost to defend the United States? Are we willing to pay the higher taxes that result?

If you’ve never asked students this question, I know my kids were always way off: “How much do you think the United States spends on defense every year?” The young people I taught rarely had any idea.

In March 2018 the U.S. Senate agreed to spend $700 billion in 2018 and increase that figure to $716 billion in 2019.

You can “amaze” your students by noting these figures: In 2018 we spent almost two billion dollars every day ($1,917,808,219) to defend our interests round the world. That would break down to $79,908, 676 per hour.

Or, if you like: it means we spend $1,331,811 per minute.

More generally, in any discussion involving the Articles of Confederation—if you discuss the topic at all—the real question is: “Do we want a weaker or stronger government today? It’s the same question that divided Hamilton and Jefferson more than two hundred years ago.

In the 90s, the State of Ohio instituted its Ninth Grade Proficiency Test, including the first standardized test in social studies our students would ever take. We were expected to focus on the Northwest Ordinance. First, we were told to make sure students knew that new states would be equal to old. Second, we were expected to teach that all new states would have republican forms of government. Third, students were to know that freedom of religion and trial by jury were guaranteed. Finally, we were expected to teach that slavery was banned north of the Ohio River.

I had no problem with any of that: protection of our rights being one of the central tenets of American thought. I felt it was only right, however, to go a bit farther and include these details:

Ohio law required free blacks to post a high bond if they wanted to live in the state.

Ohio law taxed free blacks – but the state provided no schools for black children.

Ohio did not allow free blacks to vote (and only registered voters served on juries).

Ohio did not allow free blacks to own property.

I thought we needed to look at the whole picture, the freedoms we cherish and must protect in America, and the denial of such freedom to various subgroups of the American people.

For years, my classes seemed interested when we talked about the price of land in Ohio, under the Northwest Ordinance. My focus was on how the availability of cheap land shaped American thought. This allowed us to look at several important ideas and concepts. First, students had to know the terms “pioneer” and “frontier,” which they would hear again and again in life. I wrote on the board:

PIONEER: A PERSON WHO GOES WHERE NO ONE HAS GONE BEFORE.

FRONTIER: THE EDGE OF SETTLEMENT, THE EDGE OF THE UNKNOWN.

In the early part of my career, there was always some student who quoted the opening lines of Star Trek: “Space: the final frontier.” It was no trouble getting a discussion going. We had pioneers in sports. Baseball fans mentioned Jackie Robinson. One of the girls said that there were frontiers for women still to be crossed. Another wondered if there weren’t “frontiers” in medicine.

Eventually, I developed my own comically bad drawing to illustrate the point.

I asked students to tell me where the fellow in the hat would have to go to be a pioneer, and where the frontier would be, and they told me. Sometimes, I drew little arrows sticking in the pioneer and said the Indian didn’t like him.

It was all very sad.

I liked to ask students to name the most famous pioneer in American history. You always got the same names: Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett. Which man died at the Alamo, I asked next. Most students (and frankly my own wife when I asked) weren’t sure.

Still, most adults hear about these men. They hear about the Alamo, usually as an example (as when soldiers in the movie Black Hawk Down, surrounded and badly outnumbered in Mogadishu, compare their situation to the Alamo). Other students, for several years running, pointed out that the Alamo appeared as backdrop in Peewee Herman’s Big Adventure. So we spent time on discussion. After I read more about the lives of Boone and Crockett, I turned their stories into special readings.

You want to interest students in history, not kill brain cells with facts of little value. Call to Freedom, the last textbook I ever used (I retired in 2008), included the following descriptions of Boone and Crockett:

“As explorers like Daniel Boone led people west of the Appalachians, colonial settlement expanded.” One sentence.

Davy fared no better: “Volunteers like Juan Seguin and frontiersman Davy Crockett joined the Alamo defenders.”

That’s it: these men got the same space as Andre-Marie Ampere: “About twenty years later Andre-Marie Ampere of France determined some of the rules governing the relationship between electricity and magnetism.”

On my part, when I taught in the years before standardized tests, I tried to capture the humanity of Boone and Crockett and those who settled Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, and later Texas and the West.

Certainly, education was lacking on the frontier. So I liked to point out that Dan’s spelling was never as steady as his aim. Indians he called “Indans.” A good hunt was “awl wright.”

As for the natives, I liked students to try to see their point of view. I included this in one of our readings:

A native once told Dan that when whites set foot on native lands and shot deer and buffalo it was the same as trespassing. It was, he said, no different than if he and his friends came onto a white man’s farm and shot cows.

There were several good stories about female pioneers. I included those in the readings, as well. One involved Dan’s wife Rebecca:

One old tale has her climbing a tree near their cabin to hunt deer. She shoots seven. Then she fires one shot too many. She mistakes her horse for a buck – and brings it down too. The story may or may not be true. But Rebecca was a sturdy woman.

Another time natives raid the settlements and capture Jemima Boone, Dan and Rebecca’s daughter, and two of her friends, Betsy and Frances Callaway. The girls proved plenty tough themselves:

The Indians made a lightning getaway with their prisoners. But the settlers were just as fast to react. Samuel Henderson, engaged to 16-year-old Betsy, was half-shaved when the alarm was given. Sparing not one moment to finish, he grabbed his rifle and set out. Boone was barefoot and undressed when he heard the news. Hopping into a pair of pants, he quickly gathered his men. The natives had a sizable head start – and probably no man but Dan could catch them.

While the rescue party was forming the girls did what they could to make their trail clear. The captives ripped bits of cloth from dresses and broke branches to mark their path. Placed on an Indian pony, they fell off at every chance. They pinched the animal so often (to make it act up) it finally bit Betsy. During one stop, a warrior admired Jemima’s hair. So she let him comb it for a long time.

Another Shawnee took an interest in Betsy and playfully tugged at her hair as she knelt beside a campfire. The young girl reacted with fury. Scooping up a load of hot coals on a piece of bark, she poured them over his moccasins! His friends whooped to see him hopping about in pain.

In every year except my last, when we reached this point in the curriculum, I did a lesson on the “American Dream.”

I believed the “American Dream” was of paramount importance – a topic that would come up again and again in students’ lives. One might say today, for example, that the “Dream” is dying.

That idea, alone, would merit discussion.

In my class, we began by looking at the rules for land sales under provisions of the Northwest Ordinance. Land, I told the kids, was surveyed into townships, laid out in a grid pattern, sold in sections, each section equal to one square mile, 640 acres, at a price of $1 per acre.

Rules for land sales changed over time. Here, I gave notes, not “for test” notes, but to help kids see the progression. I explained that in 1787 you had to buy at least 640 acres and had to pay the total cost up front. You had to be sure to ask someone in class to explain what a “down payment” was. Then I pointed out that few pioneers ever had that much cash, when $1 per day was good pay.

We talked about how Congress kept making the deal better, giving more Americans a chance to buy land.

I put this on the board next:

1800: You could purchase 320 acres, and needed only $160 down, the rest to be paid on credit.

1820: The government allowed you to buy 80 acres; but the price went up. (I always used an ominous tone.) “Yes. The price was raised to….…$1.25!”

A student once gasped, “Oh no, not a dollar…and TWENTY-FIVE CENTS!”

“Shocking, I know,” I replied. You had to pay it all as a down payment but now a pioneer could have a farm for $100.

1862: The Homestead Act is passed. I would tell my classes that this was one of the great laws in American history. The government went back to 160 acres. What did students think it cost?

Someone always guessed $1 per acre. No. Fifty cents? Too high. Twenty-five cents? Too high. Surprise in the classroom. I smile. This part of the lesson never failed to spark real interest.

A penny? “Too high,” I repeated.

“Free!” a boy finally blurts out. I ignore the fact the answer is obvious. I smile and say yes. “Land was given away free.”

One year, when I noted that the “American Dream” was rooted in land, a student piped up, “The Indians got a piece of land – the cemetery!” Other times, I threw in the Irish, who, back home, had an average of three acres to plant in the years before the potato famine. Or you could ask, what about African Americans? What about Langston Hughes and the poem “A Dream Deferred.” What happens, Hughes asked, when a dream dries up “like a raisin in the sun?”

Next, we talked about how the existence of the frontier and the chance to get land shaped American thought. It meant if you failed in one place, you could head west and start over. I liked to point out that the natives got run over by “a red, white and blue bus.” But this was not our focus for the day. This frontier, this chance to start anew, made Americans optimistic.

I found early on that my students were not always sure what that term meant. Even fewer could define “pessimism.”

We put both words on the board and included them on our next test.

We talked about the idea that in this country you always had a chance. It used to be said, for example, that a “boy born in a log cabin” could become president. Someone always threw out Abraham Lincoln’s name. You might ask students today if the feel that’s still true. You could ask if there were parallels in the life of Barack Obama.

I let the log cabin concept sink in and turned to the story, The Big Bear of Arkansas, written in 1841. I summarized as follows: We meet a fellow nicknamed the “Big Bear” on a riverboat headed down the Mississippi. Other passengers have crowded round. He is bragging about a new farm he has purchased.

The Big Bear goes on and on. At least one member of a captive audience finds himself hoping that the boiler on the vessel will explode and put them all out of their misery.

The Bear claims to have the best rifle, best dog, best wife, and best land in the world. He explains that he was mad, at first, when he finally saw the land he’d purchased. He bought it, sight unseen, on the word of the seller. The seller claimed it was cleared and ready to farm. He got there and found it full of Indian burial mounds. Or so he thought. Turned out they were “tater” hills.

In fact, the Bear tells his audience, the soil was so rich corn planted in the ground exploded out of the earth so suddenly it killed one of his pigs.

On another occasion, I explained, a pioneer farmer claimed his soil was so rich he could plant ten-penny nails in the morning and have railroad spikes by nightfall. That was American optimism.

(I always brought in nails and spikes.)

I passed around various examples to make the point. These are badly dated; but you can easily find examples of your own. I had a newspaper article headlined: VANNA’S AMERICAN DREAM, the story of Vanna White’s rise to fame and fortune, via the television show, Wheel of Fortune. A 1992 cover of Sports Illustrated showed Kristi Yamaguchi with her Olympic gold medal in figure skating, under the banner AMERICAN DREAM. A Jump Start cartoon used the phrase. So did an insurance ad: INSURING THE AMERICAN DREAM.

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The "Dream" attracted millions of immigrants.

Students could discuss factors that are killing the dream today.
Bottom two of three images, above, from internet.

(All others in this post from author's collection. Feel free to use.)

On one occasion, a few days after we covered this lesson, a young man came to class with one of those fliers that appear under windshield wipers at the mall. This was in the days when we still had malls. It read: “Only $50.00 for 500 names and addresses – get started on your own mail-order business: THE AMERICAN DREAM MAILING LIST!”

Now we turned to the “American Dream,” itself. What were its elements? Most kids had heard the term and were happy to fill in details:

1. If you work hard you will be a success.

(In the 80s students brought up movies like Rocky and Flashdance which they realized were based on the “American Dream.”)

2. You will have a nice home.

3. Your family will be happy.

4. Life in America gets better and better.

We would then describe the “Dream” in more detail: nice car, perfect house, perfect family, two kids, boy and girl. (One of my students added one year, “Don’t forget the perfect dog.” We added it to the list.)

“What kind of fence?” I would ask. Someone always piped up, “a white picket fence.” Two or three responded, “Oh, I’ve heard that before.”

In my final years I noted that experts were warning the next generation – my listeners – might have it worse than preceding generations, something that had never happened in America before.

Perhaps the American Dream was dying. This could lead to discussion of causes: rising college costs, widespread divorce, children on drugs, no health insurance and foreign competition. More than once, a student said, “Come on, Mr. Viall, now you’re scaring us.”

(I assume they’d be even more worried if you discussed this topic today.)

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young put out a good album in 1988, titled: American Dream. One song, This Old House, captures the dying of the dream:

Midnight, that old clock keeps ticking
The kids are all asleep and I’m walking the floor
Darlin’ I can see that you’re dreaming
And I don’t wanna wake you up when I close the door

This old house of ours is built on dreams
And a businessman don’t know what that means
There’s a garden outside she works in every day
And tomorrow morning a man from the bank’s
Gonna come and take it all away

Lately, I’ve been thinking ‘bout daddy
And how he always made things work
When the chips were down
And I know I’ve got something inside me
There’s always a light there to guide me
To what can’t be found

This old house of ours is built on dreams
And a businessman don’t know what that means
There’s a swing outside the kids play on every day
And tomorrow morning a man from the bank’s
Gonna come and take it all away

Take it all away, take it all away, take it all away
Take it all away, take it all away, take it all away

(There’s a little more to the song; but one line is not fit for young people. Not that a parent would ever complain! Ha, ha. Teacher sarcasm.)

I finished our discussion of the American Dream by asking students to draw their own versions. I didn’t care exactly what they included. I wanted them to focus on their future and their own dreams. I wanted them to think about what it was going to take to get them where they wanted to go. I had students who drew mansions with swimming pools in the shape of dollar signs. Theresa drew a graduate in cap and gown, college degree in one hand, fistfuls of cash in the other. One student drew himself sitting in his office. He was a psychiatrist and had the pipe and beard. Another boy showed himself sitting atop a huge pile of money, lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill. There were baseball fields and ballet slippers and horse farms, all representing individual aspirations. Boys who loved cars and could draw put Porsches and Corvettes in their driveways. A girl showed herself draped with Olympic medals.

Another drew a smiling family in front of a big white house, yard enclosed by the white picket fence. In front of the fence you had the smiling parents and the smiling children, one girl and one boy.

Even the family dog wore a sappy grin.

POSTSCRIPT: I grew up in the country myself and my suburban students always thought it would have been fun to have as much land as my family did. I would regale them with tales of my childhood, and all the interesting activities we were able to pursue with wide open spaces.

You could get a discussion going about whether or not kids would be better off today if they got outside more and did some of the silly crap we did in the “good old days.” Gathering apples in an orchard – and then drilling your buddies during an apple fight – great fun! That included the joys of cutting holes in apples with a pocket knife, inserting a fire cracker, and hurling those too.

Don’t try this at home, kids.

LIFE on the frontier shaped a different kind of society:

Such a society was in theory and often in practice a leveling one, denying the existence of “the squire in the big house on the hill” with humbler folk touching a respectful forelock to him. It a premium on labor, for who would hire out when he could stand his own master on his own land? It also made it almost impossible to create a labor pool of any size or stability. (48/45)

ROBERT FULTON goes to England to study portrait painting under Benjamin West, but according to Van Loon, he still turns out to be “a pretty bad one.” A poor Irishman, he had previously tried his hand as a jewelry salesman. (124-343)

VAN LOON notes of the Founding Fathers: “At present they lie buried underneath tons and tons of sentimental nonsense.” (124-213)

He is hesitant even to tackle the subject of the U.S. Constitution,

Since that memorable day so much has been written and spoken upon this subject by such very learned people that I feel like a little boy who is going to tell Fritz Kreisler how to play the violin. And yet one cannot undertake to print a book about America without devoting a few words to the subject.

The Constitution, as I see it, is one of those documents (like Goethe’s Faust or Dante’s Divine Comedy or Milton’s Paradise Lost) which are praised in proportion to the amount that they are not read. (124-243)

And yet, Van Loon had no doubt the Founding Fathers had done great work:

Just when it seemed that this recently launched Ship of State was bound to be thrown up on the rocks of partisanship and was going to perish miserably amidst the turbulent waves of anarchy, Madison and his colleagues came to the rescue, corrected the compass and presented the crew with such an excellent set of charts and sailing instructions that the little vessel was saved from destruction and it was able to continue its voyage towards the limitless sea of the future with every assurance of a successful voyage. (124-244)

He also notes that, “In several states it seems that not less than half of all available real estate changed hands during the period between 1775 and 1787.” Generally, he believes, the ordinary farmer gained most. (124-233)

Ben Franklin explained the two forces that most shaped human affairs, and government: “There are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power and the love of money.”

Alexander Hamilton said, “Aristocracy means a government by the wise, the wealthy and the good.” (124-246)

As for the Founding Fathers, he writes, “Furthermore they had been careful lest the people whom they loved in theory but whom they distrusted and hated in practice should be able to exercise any direct influence upon the choice of the executive.” (124-248)

Constitutional Convention

(May 25-September 17)

Andrews says Madison earned the title of “Father of the Constitution.” (2/180)

Andrews notes that from July 5 to August 13, New York was not represented at the convention in Philadelphia. The youngest member, Gillman of New Hampshire was 25. Eight members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Declaration of Independence. Six signed the Articles of Confederation.

THE NEW YORK TIMES notes in an article (9/19/05) that the Lycian League served as a model of sorts for the Founding Fathers. Both Hamilton and Madison mentioned the League in the Federalist Papers. The actual parliament building where representatives met was in the process of being excavated. The “throne-like perch” where they Lyciarch sat had been revealed. The league had 23 members and cities sent one, two or three representatives, depending on population. Inscriptions show the names of various Lyciarchs. The site is on the southern coast of modern Turkey.

“THE NEW-BORN republic narrowly missed dying in its cradle.” McLauglin quoting someone; loose page.

“We are one today and thirteen to-morrow.” George Washington. He had also predicted “the worst consequences from a half-starved, limping government, always moving upon crutches and tottering at every step.” (56/217)

John Adams believed “the rich, the well-born and the able” were qualified to rule. (56/loose page)

“The country, to use Hamilton’s words, presented an ‘awful spectacle;’ there was a ‘nation without a national government.’” (56/223)

Religious freedom was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution mainly to protect members of one religion against members of another.

These are notes from Madison:

May 14: only a few assemble; business delayed

Del. Reps have credentials that tell them NOT to change 1 vote per state rule under Articles.

Randolph states one purpose, to create a new system to act, “against dissentions between members of the Union, or seditions in particular states.” (Check…25)

Members of Senate to be elected by HR (out of a list from state leg’s) Congress “to negative all laws passed by the seversl States, contravening in the opinion of the National Legislature the articles of the Union; and to call forth the force of the Union ag^st any member of the Union failing to fulfill its duty under the articles thereof…” (87/31)

Republican government “ought to be guaranteed by the United States to each State.” (87/32)

Charles Pinckney laid a plan before the house; apparently it was little used.

May 30: Madison proposes straight voting representation in Congress, by population, motion seconded, “and being generally relished, would have been agree to, when” Mr. Reed pointed out Delaware’s instructions.

Gov. Morris had no desire to lose Delaware, but “the change proposed was however so fundamental an article in a national Gov^tthat it could not be dispensed with.” (87/37)

Sherman opposed election of HR by the people. “They want information and are constantly liable to be misled.”

Gerry immediately adds: “The evils we experience flow from an excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots.” (87/39)

Mason, strongest for people to elect HR; “He was for raising the federal pyramid to a considerable altitude, and for that reason wished to give it as broad a basis as possible.” (87/40) Vote 6-2-1 for election by people (NC/SC no)

Randolph—need to cure ills “that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” (87/42)

Madison: “What his opinion might ultimately be he could not yet tell,” but he would work for the “safety, liberty and happiness of the community.” (87/44)

Sherman wanted executive “to be appointed by and accountable to the Legislature only, which was the depository of the supreme will of Society.” (87/46)

Randolph wanted to elect three executives, not one.

Wilson was for electing the executive by popular vote – it had worked in NY and Mass.

Sherman said no, elect the executive by the legislature, “and for making him depend on on that body…independence of executive was “the very essence of tyranny in there was such a thing.” (87/48)

Wilson wanted the president elected every three years, and eligible to run again. Pinckney said elect one for seven. Bedford (rarely heard) said elect for three, three times max. On June 1, by a 5-4-1 vote, “seven” passes.

Mr. Rutledge then “suggests an election of the Executive by the second branch only of the national Legislature.”

Gerry opposes Rutledge, saying “there would be constant intrigue kept up for the appointment,” legislature and candidates would bargain and cut deals. The Founding Fathers knew man was fallible under any system. On June 2, the FF agree to elect the president by the legislature, for seven years, vote 8-2, Pa. and NY, no.

Franklin: “Sir, there are two passions which have a powerful influence on the affairs of men. These are ambition and avarice; the love of power, and the love of money. Separately each of these has great force in prompting men to action; but when united in view of the same object, they have in many minds the most violent effects. Place before the eyes of such men, a post of honour that shall be at the same time a place of profit, and they will move heaven and earth to obtain it.” (87/52)

Dickenson wanted the executive to be made removable by the National Legislature on the request of a majority of the legislatures of the individual states. “The happiness of this Country in his opinion required considerable powers to be left in the hands of the states.” (87/55)

Ben Franklin argued that the president should not be paid.

Dickenson: “A limited Monarchy he considered as one of the best Governments in the world.” It was not suited to “the spirit of the times.” (87/57)

Randolph was set against a single executive: “He felt an opposition to it which he believed he should continue to feel as long as he live.” (87/58) He preferred three, all from different parts of the country. Wilson pointed out that all the states had a single executive. Gerry: “It would be a general with three heads.”

Wilson and Hamilton favor an executive given “an absolute negative on the laws.” (87/61)

Butler: “It had been observed that in all countries the Executive power is in a constant course of increase.” (87/63)

Franklin speaks of “experience, the best of all tests…” (87/64)

Also BF: “Notwithstanding the oppressions and injustices experienced among us from democracy; the genius of the people is for it, and the genius of the people must be consulted.” (87/64)

June 4: It was agreed the veto of the executive could be overridden by 2/3rds of both houses.

Rutlidge wanted only one federal court, the Supreme.

Madison: a government without an executive or judicial branch would be like a body without arms or legs “to act or move.”

Gerry fears widespread franchise – ignorant rule superior men – but also fears aristocracy; in 2016 we have an aristocracy of wealth.

Sherman listed four purposes of a national government:

Defense

To stand against internal disputes and resorts to force

Treaties

Regulating trade – revenue from (87/74)

Madison adds: “providing for the security of private rights and the steady dispensation of Justice.” (87/76)

“In all cases where a majority are united by a common interest or passion, the rights of the minority are in danger…Besides, Religion itself may become a motive to persecution & oppression.—These observations are verified by the Histories of every country antient [sic] and modern.” (87/76) “We have seen the mere distinction of colour made in the most enlightened period of time, a ground of the most oppressive dominion ever exercised by man over man.” (87/78)

Read is not for fixing the Articles.

Mason: “The purse & the sword ought never to get into the same hands whether Legislative or Executive.” (87/81)

(I need to finish taking notes on the Convention.)

An important figure at the Convention,
Wilson is forgotten today.

A few of the obvious terms and concepts I wanted students to learn:

Early U.S. government – an experiment; based on fear of government power.

Daniel Shays and his followers were trying to keep their farms (and avoid going to debtors’ prison). Noah Webster said he was ready for a king; George Washington truly hoped to retire.

Va. Plan, states get more votes, pop. NJ Plan, each state 1 vote

Compromise: each side gives a little to get a little.

Great Compromise

3/5th’s Compromise

The U.S. Constitution is “the supreme law of the land.” The hierarchy is:

U.S. Constitution

U.S. law

State constitution

State law

Local law

The Federalists preferred a republican form of government vs. a democracy. They did not trust the people to pick the president. So, we have the Electoral College, which no longer serves any purpose, since the Electors simply reflect the will of the people.

Federal system: powers are divided, some left to the states, others assigned to the U.S. or “federal” government. (Students seemed not to remember that the U.S. government is the “federal government.)

Congress, “necessary and proper” clause, also called the “elastic clause.”

Vice President Mike Pence.
A thankless job.
(Also dangerous?)
Official photograph; not in the blogger's possession.

The office of the vice president serves mainly as a safety device, a sort of “Break Glass in Case of Fire” box, in case the president is lost to natural causes, assassination or the rare impeachment.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: This example always worked with my students: John Nance Garner called it, “…a _____.” (“pitcher of warm spit;” some say he used a more earthy liquid to make his point). I compared the VP to the ___ on the automobile of government…” (spare tire)

Not the best job: Vice President.

A few comments on the office and some of the men: Lincoln once referred to Schulyer Colfax as “a friendly rascal” (he was convicted near end of his term, under Grant, in the Credit Mobilier scandal).

Truman was a veritable unknown in 1944, favored for the job by only 2% of the people in a Gallup poll. He was “just dropped into the slot.”

John Adams referred to the post as “…the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived…”

“The vice presidency is not a stepping-stone to anything but oblivion,” said Teddy Roosevelt.

Thomas R. Marshall described the vice president as “a man in a cataleptic state; he cannot speak, he cannot move, he suffers no pain; and yet he is perfectly conscious of everything that is going on about him.” He served in his post for eight years under Woodrow Wilson. Marshall once joked that he didn’t need a guard. No one was interested enough to shoot him. He liked to sum up his position this way: “Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea, the other was elected Vice President, and nothing was ever heard of either of them again.”

Charles Curtis was Herbert Hoover’s second-in-command (of very little). A Kansan by birth, he was once described as, “1/8th Kaw Indian and 7/8th’s incompetent.” He was five years old when the Civil War ended, and his life spanned almost to World War II. He died in 1936, having lived long enough to see the rise of Adolf Hitler. Typically, I had to look him up to see when he served.

In the 1931 musical, Of Thee I Sing, Alexander Throttlebottom is the vice president, but no one even remembers his name. He admits he didn’t want the nomination because his mother might find out. He spends time in office feeding pigeons and trying to find two references to get a library card.

ANOTHER TIME I tried to capture student interest by writing a selection called “Congress: The Soap Opera.” It worked well for several years – but then lost some of its punch when the cultural references started going out of date. The ideas that really mattered were in bold. The rest was stupid humor.

First, I included the definition of a constitution – a written plan of government. (It was then necessary to make it clear to students that a constitution tells the government what it can and cannot do. It DID NOT tell them what they could or could not do.)

I also made it clear that James Madison was “Father of the Constitution.” Then I introduced the romance. Madison is in love with Pamela Anderson. We pick the story up there:

... As you also recall, the romance was doomed.

Madison was from a.....big state.

Pamela was from a small state.

We last saw Pamela Lee weeping and blowing her nose on a copy of the Virginia Plan. This conversation had touched off the trouble:

Madison: “Oh, Pamela, how can I be known as ‘Father of the Constitution’ if the small states and big states cannot get along?”

Pamela (who has the acting ability of a can of Crisco): “Duh. How do I look in this bathing suit?”

James: “Pamela, Pamela, is there no hope for compromise?”

Suddenly, Britney Spears and Darth Vader walked in. Madison was amazed. What were they doing in this story?

Darth Vader spoke: “James, I am your father!”

Pamela stared blankly at Darth. “Duh!” was all she said.

Madison was amazed. Suddenly, he realized it was time to dump his stupid, yet stunning, girlfriend. “Pamela,” he explained, “you are history!!!”

It was a cheap joke and even the Father of the Constitution was embarrassed. “Duh,” said poor Pamela.

James Madison was broken-hearted, but forced himself to sit down with his friend, Roger Sherman. They began working on the “Great Compromise.” Under this agreement the new government would have a Congress which included two houses. One would be the Senate. The other would be called the House of Pancakes. Whenever one member wanted to raise taxes another would pour syrup over the first man’s head.

Madison and Sherman realized that was stupid. Maybe it would be better to call the second house the House of Representatives.

It was a good idea. Even Pamela would have approved.

So it was done. Members of the House of Representatives would be elected every two years. These men would have the power to raise taxes--which would also be called the “power of the purse.” “This is a really cool idea,” said Roger. “No one else in government will be able to control a dime unless the representatives of the people give them money.”

Britney Spears takes offense when Madison insults her singing and her wig (this was in the days of the shaved head). So she beat him up. The second scene is in the hospital.

The nurse placed ice over the swollen lump on Madison’s head. The battered Founding Father groaned. He began to mumble. “Pamela....Pamela...the Senate...oh… Pamela.”

Suddenly, he shot up straight in bed. “Nurse! Nurse! You must help me. We have to make sure everyone understands! In the Senate each state will have two votes! The littlest state would have two votes – even if only two people lived there!!! And the biggest states would have only two!”

“You mean power will be balanced between the states?” gasped the nurse.

“Yes,” said James Madison. Then he passed out and was in a coma for the rest of 1787. (He forgot to mention that Senators would be elected for six years and would have no power to raise taxes. But it is too late now.)

On New Year’s Eve, 1787 Dr. George Clooney (played by George Clooney) was standing by Madison’s bed. Suddenly, Pamela Lee Anderson entered the room in a bathing suit. She had finally realized she loved James Madison. She looked sadly at her lost love, lying in a coma.

“Duh,” she said with deep emotion.

The sound of her stupid acting snapped Madison out of his coma. He began to explain how the new Congress would work. Pamela quickly remembered why she broke up with him – and began wondering if George was dating anyone.

Madison could not stop talking. “Congress will make laws for the United States. But the lawmakers will have power only in matters where people in two or more states are involved. That will be their job. Ha! George Washington won’t make any laws as long as he lives! Neither will President Fillmore or President Clinton. And Clinton will get dizzy, chasing young women round his desk!”

“Both the House and Senate will vote on all bills. They will vote separately,” added Madison. “If one house votes a bill down, the other house won’t be able to pass it. It will require both houses – so that the interests of big states and little states will be protected.”

Pamela could not resist joining in: “This will also be known as a bicameral legislature.”

Everyone else in the room stared at her in amazement. Anderson had said something that made sense!

Eventually the Titanic sailed into the story and sank suddenly – with George Washington aboard; but the soggy first president was saved. Leonardo, however, was not so fortunate.

I included several questions, some because I felt they were important, some because I believed they could be on the Ohio citizenship test. Notice that all the answers are in bold!

1. Who is known today as the “Father of the Constitution?”

2. What is a constitution?

3. The ____ set up a Congress with two separate houses.

4. What is the “power of the purse?”

5. States with ____ have more votes in the House of Representatives.

6. Each state has ___ votes in the U. S. Senate, and members are elected every ___ years.

7. Congress can make new laws only if the ___ and ___ both pass them.

8. How many laws can a president make?

I still had the same problems any teacher had. Sometimes we read the selection in class. Other years I had the kids start it in class and told them to finish it for homework. (The whole thing was only five pages.) But if we did it as homework I still had a significant number come in next day and say they couldn’t FIND some of the answers.

Occasionally, I would hold a blindness test. How many fingers am I holding up? I would raise two or three or four. Someone in class would say there were two or three or four.

“Well, unless you can’t SEE, I think you could find the answers,” I would explain.

Generally speaking, students enjoyed the humor. And I think they tended to learn the basics. Then again, on the test ten or twenty percent couldn’t tell you who the Father of the U. S. Constitution was.

NOTE TO TEACHERS: The last two or three years I taught, almost all our meetings focused on raising eighth grade standardized test scores. We gave the social studies test in 2008, the year I retired.

The next year, the State of Ohio folks decided the social studies test was flawed; and it was tossed.

There is today still no social studies test for eighth graders.

It’s almost as if the “school reformers” don’t know what they’re doing. But that couldn’t be, could it?

ON A MORE serious note, in The Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton discussed the powers of the three branches, as he saw them, if the new constitution drafted in Philadelphia were adopted.

The New York Times summed up his thinking: “While the executive ‘holds the sword’ and the legislature ‘commands the purse,’ the judiciary ‘will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them.’”

December 20: In a letter to Madison, Thomas Jefferson mentions some of his concerns regarding the structure of the proposed new government. He does not like, for example, the fact that the president can be reelected.

If once elected, and at a second or third election outvoted by one or two votes, he will pretend false votes, foul play, hold possession of the reins of government, be supported by the states voting for him, especially if they are the central ones lying in a compact body themselves and separating their opponents: and they will be aided by one nation of Europe, while the majority are aided by another. The election of a President of America some years hence will be much more interesting to certain nations of Europe than ever the election of a king of Poland was.

1788

2024-12-17T15:23:00.003-05:00

__________

“Return, Jonathan!”

Cry of a frontier maiden.

__________

April 7: Settlers land at the site of Marietta and set to work. Return Jonathan Meigs is their leader.

His mother named him Return Jonathan, because when she was a maiden in Connecticut, and Jonathan Meigs came to ask her to be his wife, she said, “No,” but the next moment was sorry, ran after him, and cried, “Return, Jonathan!” and he went back and she became Mrs. Meigs, and was so glad that she married him she named her first baby Return Jonathan. He had been to Yale College, was a lawyer, and now Governor of this new settlement.

Early Marietta.

Settlers celebrate July Fourth.

(Images from author's collection.)

August: William Least Heat-Moon describes an incident related to the story of the Lady Washington, a merchant vessel out of Boston, that helped to open the fur trade with the tribes of the Northwest Pacific coast.

In 1788, the Lady Washington, the first American ship to visit the Northwest coast, anchored inside Tillamook Bay so that the party could go ashore to gather fresh fruit for a crew suffering from scurvy. During the mission a Negro sailor attempted to recover a cutlass stolen by Indians. The mate, Robert Haswell, recorded the incident:

[There] was a very large group of the natives among the midst of which was the poor black with the thief by the collar loudly calling for assistance, saying he had caught the thief; when we were observed by the main body of the natives to hastily approach them, they instantly drenched their knives and spears with savage fury in the body of the unfortunate youth. He quitted his hold and stumbled but rose again and staggered towards us but having a flight of arrows thrown into his back and he fell within fifteen yards of me and instantly expired while they mangled his lifeless corpse.