Meeting Notes: May 21, 2008

Presentation: "The Founding of the Continental Navy," John F. Millar

The May 21, 2008 meeting of the American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond, Virginia was held at 6:00 p.m. in the Westhampton Room of the University of Richmond. The speaker was John F. Millar, who was ably introduced by Jerry Rudd in Lynn Simms' absence. Mr. Millar graduated from Harvard in 1966, was born in New York City and has lived in Rhode Island and the UK. He currently resides in Williamsburg and operates a bed and breakfast there.

Mr. Millar was responsible for building a full sized operational copy of the 1756 24 Gun British Frigate “Rose” and the circa 1770 12-gun Continental Navy Sloop "Providence" to help celebrate the Bicentennial. He's not currently connected with either ship and in fact the "Rose" was used in the movie Master and Commander and is now docked in San Diego with the name "Surprise" which was its cinematic name.

Mr. Millar came dressed as a captain in the Continental Navy with red and blue colors. These uniforms turned out to be not exactly the best choice as far as colors are concerned because the British Navy finally decided on blue and white and it would have been better had the Americans dressed in the same colors. Then, upon being spotted in spyglasses by the British, perhaps they would not have been fired upon so readily. Mr. Millar also passed around "Johnny cakes" which were cornmeal pancakes of the day with the "secret ingredient" that was a main topic of his talk ("rum").

Back then, it was very difficult to preserve food. One of the ways was to preserve flour with rum. Molasses is used to make rum but in those days, by virtue of the "Sugar Act," by law Americans could only export molasses to another English colony (in order to preserve English trade). It so happened that Haiti, one of the French islands, had oceans of molasses, but the French did not want molasses exported to France for fear of adversely affecting brandy - the holy grail in France! So Haiti offered free molasses to the American colonies. However, the English colonies (except for Rhode Island as referenced below) had English governors appointed by the Crown. Thus those English governors said "no" to this offer because of its potentially bad effects on English trade.

However, Rhode Island had originally been established with an elected governor and elected public officials as an experiment in religious toleration. It was pointed out to the King that if in fact the governor were not elected by the people, then this experiment in religious toleration would certainly fail. Thus, the king went along and the governor was elected along with the other officials.

This set the stage for the governor of Rhode Island, who was beholden to the electorate as opposed to the King, to go ahead and take Haiti up on its offer of free molasses. As a side note, Mr. Millar pointed out that it seemed strange that Virginia imported so much rum from Rhode Island. Of course Rhode Island didn't grow sugar cane and also it seemed that Virginia would have been filled with alcoholics to have imported so much rum. The answer, of course, was it was first of all because of the offer of free molasses from Haiti but also because rum, having been converted from molasses, was the food preservative of choice. Thus, it would be nothing for lots and lots of rum to be found in Virginia kitchens.

In 1763 the French and Indian War came to an end and the Sugar Act was abolished. This was again the law which had prohibited all of the English colonies (i.e., American colonies) from exporting molasses to any colony other than an English colony. However, as a result, a big duty was imposed. Thus, Rhode Island, which had been the unintended beneficiary of this law, had to resort to smuggling.

What happened then was that the British Navy would send small ships to Rhode Island to try to stop this smuggling. Also, the British forces would try to conscript American sailors and press them into service on their own ships. However, the law in England which granted this right, exempted Americans.

Well, Stephen Hopkins, who was the governor of Rhode Island at the time, went aboard the first British ship that came in and basically told the 19-year-old lieutenant who was the commander to "buzz off" and stop conscripting Americans. The 19 year old commander said "buzz off yourself" and gave him five minutes to leave his ship, whereupon Hopkins went to the fort there in the harbor and told the gunner to sink that schooner. This was the schooner "St. John."

On July 9, 1764 the gunner went ahead and trained his guns onto St. John. (In fact, as Mr. Millar pointed out, these shots on St. John were really the first of the American resistance.) The St. John didn't know what else to do, so it cut anchor and sailed away.

The British sent three more ships, which were in turn burned and whenever a letter would to come to inquire as to what in the world was going on, the Americans would finally send a letter back saying they didn't know exactly what happened but they would form a commission to look into it. In each case a commission was formed and their reply back to the crown was that as far as they knew, the people involved in burning these ships were "persons unknown from Connecticut!" Thereupon the English offered quite a large reward which at the time amounted to over a million dollars. It's quite interesting that no Rhode Islander would come forward to collect that reward although virtually everyone in the state knew at least someone who had been involved in the burning of these ships.

Stephen Hopkins then had the idea to write letters all over the colonies and to set up these "committees of correspondence." (Anyway this is the very first of the setting up of these "committees of correspondence.")

The committees didn't work so Hopkins said "let's meet in Philadelphia and talk about it" and that was of course the First Continental Congress which really met even before the Boston Tea Party. However, as Mr. Millar pointed out, these actions by Rhode Island have been lost in history. No one remembers that Rhode Island really led the way in these early acts of resistance against the Crown.

Finally, in 1774 the English sent the "Rose" which was a 24 gun British frigate. (Remember the copy that Mr. Millar built above.) That of course stopped the smuggling as it was a much larger and deadlier ship. It was about that time that four brothers in Rhode Island would become quite wealthy with all the molasses and rum and founded Brown University. (Another Millar sidenote: their wealth came approximately 90% from rum and molasses and 10% from the slave trade. Thus, it really is not true that Brown University was founded on the "backs of slavery").

Mr. Hopkins had Congress form an American Navy and the first ship was a sloop called "Providence" (Again, remember the other ship built above). Thus, the American Navy was formed with only one ship.

Hopkins got Congress to approve ships on a piecemeal basis so by January, 1776 they had eight more ships. One of the questions was where was the crew going to come from to man these ships? It turned out that there were so many unemployed seafaring citizens in Rhode Island, that that's where the crew came from. These citizens had been formerly of the smuggling trade.

The way the Navy was set up is that the head of the Navy would have no power and the various captains of the ships would vote to decide what to do. Governor Hopkins' brother became head of the Navy and the first mission, instead of heading north to Providence, was to go down to Nassau to try to get some gun powder from the British which hadn’t been guarded very carefully. Unfortunately for the expedition, the British got wind of this expedition and sent their gunpowder to Florida. The Americans did grab some cannons which frankly were not that great.

In any event, after this expedition the Navy did go up to Rhode Island to try to get rid of the Rose. They arrived on April 8, 1776 but the Rose had left voluntarily on April 7 not knowing that the Americans were headed their way. And, of course the Americans didn't know that the Rose had left a day earlier.

In any event, on May 4, 1776 Rhode Island declared independence from England which again, was two months earlier than the rest of the colonies. So, Rhode Island was really the first to declare independence even though it was one of the last to ratify the Constitution after the war!

Another footnote about the Continental Navy: frankly it was hard to get sailors because so many of them really wanted to work as privateers where they could get more "booty" and not be subject to imprisonment by the British Navy.

After the war, Benedict Arnold, then in London, felt that it would be in Britain's interest to have the American maritime commerce thrive. The trouble was that there were so many Arab pirates around that the Americans really could not protect their own ships. So it came to pass with the British ships guarded the American ships. King George III informed John Adams, who was America's first ambassador in London at that time and he hightailed it down to the docks and sent a letter off to Congress about the King's decision (to protect American shipping) and so our Navy was dissolved because the British Navy was guarding our ships. However it came to pass later that the British Navy was needed to guard its own shores and thus the Continental Navy was started up again sometime later.

Finally, Mr. Millar pointed out that Stephen Hopkins, who was frankly one of John Adams' main mentors, really founded the post office even though credit is often given to Benjamin Franklin instead. Apparently Hopkins actually introduced the resolution about the post office and merely suggested that his friend Benjamin Franklin take charge. That's how Benjamin Franklin apparently was given credit for having founded the post office even though he really was only asked to come in at the behest of Mr. Hopkins.

Suffice it to say that Mr. Millar's talk was quite informative and interesting and was made more so by some of his tales of how he went about to build the copies of the two ships, the “Rose” and the “Providence”. From all of this we can be assured that Rhode Island certainly figured quite prominently in the formation of the Continental Navy!

Meeting Notes: March 19, 2008

Presentation: "Irregular Warfare on the Frontier," Glenn F. Williams

The March 19, 2008 meeting of the American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond, Virginia was held at 6:30 p.m. in the Westhampton Room of the University of Richmond. The speaker was Glenn F. Williams, who was as usual ably introduced by Lynn Simms, the first Vice President for programs. Mr. Williams is working on his Ph.D. from University of Maryland, and, like our last speaker, is with the U.S. Army Center for Military History in D.C. He is the author of The Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign Against the Iroquois.

Mr. Williams also brought greetings to us from the American Revolution Roundtable of D.C. where he is not only a member but also is the program chairman.

Mr. Williams’ topic was General Sullivan’s expedition campaign against the Indians in the frontier and he started off with a series of questions that he hoped to answer having to do with what was actually the result of this campaign.

The background of all this is that the Six Nations of the Iroquois were almost like an empire because they presumed to conquer other Indian tribes. They also had tribes, at least to the west, who were very much dependent upon them. They, especially the Seneca Nation, were most aggressive and for the most part the British had been able to use them in various ways against the Americans.

There was of course some divergent views among the British as to how to use the Indians. Colonel Guy Johnson wanted to unleash the Indians but Governor Guy Carlton who was the royal governor of Canada, wanted to use the Indians more as auxiliary forces and as backup forces. One of the problems, according to some British thought, was that if the Indians were really “unleashed,” then they wouldn’t really know the difference between Whigs and the Tories, which would of course have had disastrous results for the British.

Around 1777 all of this changed when Lord Germain who was really conducting the war from London sent a letter to General Carlton in the Northern Department to use the Indians in a more aggressive manner. Thus during 1777 and 1778 the British more or less had their way in the frontier because the Indians took the British side. Mr. Williams provided numerous examples of all of these campaigns but with specific emphasis on the Wyoming Valley Massacre which occurred on July 3 and 4 in 1778.

The British plan, so to speak, was to have the Indians cause so much havoc in the frontier that the Americans would have trouble first of all getting the frontiersmen to leave their homes and join militias to fight against the British for fear that their home fires would be stamped out by the Indians and their families would be massacred. Also, the plan was to have so much Indian activity in the frontier that the Americans would have to detach various forces to help protect the frontier.

In the fall of 1778, George Washington ordered two regiments into the frontier. This was really a small effort but at least it made people feel that the Continental Congress was doing something to help the settlers.

Finally, we’re back to the Sullivan Campaign which really took place in 1779. The idea here was to reduce these so-called Six Nations into submission and on the other hand try to cultivate Indian friendships. One of the goals was to bring a lot of pressure to bear on the Indians. Another goal was to destroy their crops so that they would have no food for the winter of 1779-1780. The Americans knew that the British had used certain enticements to get the Indians to join them, one of which was that the British told the Indians that if they would come and fight for them that they would protect them, support them and feed them. Thus, by the Americans destroying the Indians’ crops, this made the British have to support the Indians which they were really unable to do. In fact, it became clear from certain correspondence that the British really were completely unable to feed and clothe these Indians.

Thus, we went back to answer some of Mr. Williams’ initial questions. This campaign was really not an “ethnic cleansing” which is of course a more modern term but really was a strategy on one hand to get the Indians to be friendly with the Americans but also on the other to take away the Indians’ ability to feed themselves which would put substantial pressure on the British. In fact, this really was a successful strategy!

At the conclusion of the talk Mr. Williams took questions. For one thing, the question was asked whether or not the Indians and settlers traveled mostly by water or on land. Mr. Williams indicated that frankly most of the transportation and moving around in those days was by water with canoes and so forth. The Indian paths were only one man wide, the trapper paths were a little bit wider to accommodate pack mules, and the fewer trails for armies were really only wide enough to accommodate cannon.

The question was also asked as to why Washington chose General Sullivan for this campaign. Mr. Williams thought that was a very good question because in fact General Sullivan really had only “two good days during the Revolution:” one was during this campaign and the other was at Trenton.

Mr. Williams also mentioned that at the conclusion of this campaign, so many of the Indians really did migrate up to Canada.

In conclusion, Mr. Williams’ presentation was very good, very interesting, and he used lots of slides which were most helpful.

Meeting Notes: January 16, 2008

Presentation: "Tarleton's Charlottesville Raid and the British Invasion of Virginia," John Maass.

The January 16, 2008 meeting of the American Revolution Roundtable of Richmond, Virginia was held at 6:30 p.m. in the Westhampton Room at the University of Richmond. The speaker was John Maass, a graduate of that great institution in Lexington, Virginia known as Washington & Lee University. He was introduced to the 54 member gathering by Lynn Simms, the first Vice President for programs.

Dr. Maass, who earned his PhD from Ohio State University in history, is with the U.S. Army Center for Military History and his topic was Tarleton’s Charlottesville Raid and the British Invasion of Virginia.

The action took place beginning around April of 1781. General Cornwalis had been in the Carolinas and decided for many reasons to try to invade Virginia. Lt. Col. Tarleton was 26 years old at the time, a redhead, and even though he had quite a reputation in the Carolinas for brutality, he behaved himself relatively well in Virginia, all things considered. He had been from a wealthy merchant family and had purchased his way into the service. He rapidly rose through the ranks and led the daring raid to try to capture Virginia’s General Assembly which had moved to Charlottesville.

Opposing Tarleton was Lafayette who was 23 at the time and who was serving under General Nathaniel Greene.

Of course a famous incident took place relating to this raid when Tarleton stopped in Cuckoo, Virginia at a tavern. There it was reported that Jack Jouett overheard some of Tarleton’s men or officers talking about their plans to go after the General Assembly in Charlottesville. Jack Jouett thus got on his horse and rode the approximately six miles to Charlottesville and thus “saved the day.”

As part of this incident, Jouett rode up and awakened Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and there had a little wine before heading into Charlottesville itself.

The British did capture Daniel Boone in this raid, and even though he and others were kept in a “coalhouse,” Tarleton had boasted that he had treated everyone pretty well.

As part of this affair, Jefferson was portrayed as somewhat cowardly because he fled just minutes before the British got there. Instead of following the General Assembly to Staunton, he went first to Blenham, another plantation in Albemarle County, and then onto Poplar Forest just outside of Lynchburg. Dr. Maass reported that there really wasn’t much that Jefferson could do but it just didn’t “look right” for Jefferson to be heading to Poplar Forest instead of to Staunton. Jefferson’s term as governor of Virginia was over on June 1, but the thinking was, particularly with Patrick Henry and his supporters, that Jefferson was really just “invisible” and a “coward.” A number of the delegates tried to censure Jefferson for his actions in this matter, although the General Assembly cleared him.
So in the end the raid failed because Tarleton was unable to capture Jefferson and of course was unable to capture the General Assembly because thanks to Jouett, Jefferson got away and the General Assembly escaped to Staunton. Tarlteton decided, due to his supply lines, not to venture over the Blue Ridge to Staunton.

However, the raid into Virginia did cause quite a bit of consternation and concern among the residents. In any event, it was the quick thinking and heroic efforts of Jack Jouett which caused the British to fail. As a result the General Assembly awarded Jouett French-made pistols for his efforts although he didn’t really get to receive them until 1803!

Dr. Maass’ presentation was very well-received, and he certainly spiced up the event with pictures of a number of the players in the story as well as some handouts. Unfortunately, we only have one likeness of Jack Jouett - a silhouette.