Meeting Notes: November 18, 2009
"Phillp Vickers Fithian: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of an 18th Century Diarist," Dr. John Fea
A lot of people may be familiar with Fithian’s diary when he was working as a tutor in Virginia. However, there was much more, and in fact there are approximately seven volumes of his writings and other items.
Fithian was a chaplain in the Continental Army. He was present at the Battle of Long Island and attended the College of New Jersey at Princeton, now known, of course, as Princeton University.
Dr. Fea has written a book with this same title that can be read either as a biography or in a broader context as reflective of what was going on during these days in our country’s history.
Fithian was born in a small town about twenty-five miles southwest of Philadelphia. His life stretched out before him was to continue working on the farm as so many others did. But Fithian did not want to stay on the farm. He would perform his farm tasks but at night would read quite extensively from Cato’s Letters, Locke, Hobbs, Voltaire, etc. So he was not like the others his age.
He was most interested in political ideas about a decade before the American Revolution.
He often wrote letters to his father which seems kind of strange to us since his father lived right there, but apparently this was quite common in that time. Within these letters to his father, we find him begging to go to school and he finally convinced his father to let him go. Obviously, he saw his path differently from that of others.
When Fithian got to Princeton he saw that it was very strongly evangelical and John Witherspoon, who signed the Declaration of Independence, was the President at the time. The school was intensely religious and patriotic and they all understood that “God was on the side of America” and that England was the tyrant.
Madison was about a year ahead of him and Aaron Burr was in his actual class, so he was quite steeped in all of this revolutionary fervor.
One of the incidents mentioned was when he forgot his “robe” which of course the students in those days were wearing. He didn’t have the money to buy another. He felt excluded and so wrote his folks for the money to buy another robe.
In his senior thesis he wrote that political jealousy is a good passion.
Fithian joined fifty of his classmates in becoming a preacher and of course he went on to be a tutor at the Carter Plantation in the Northern Neck of Virginia. He was most concerned about loyalists but from there he went on to serve as a chaplain in the Revolutionary War.
There are three main ideas that Dr. Fea pointed out that were paramount in Fithian’s mind:
1. Religion was a motivating factor in politics. He felt that all Christians were patriots and if you fought with the British you were not being a Christian. The Presbyterians were of course Calvinists and felt that God was in control. In all of this thought really merged with the thinking of the Enlightenment.
They felt very strongly that they needed to rebel against England and that tyranny was a sin, that God hates sin and thus God was on the side of the Americans. He was what we would call a “Wig Providential.”
2. People had to have a conversion to the revolution and so the idea of becoming a patriot was more of a religious experience. He was willing to risk his life for this!
3. This is also sometimes known as “The Rural Enlightenment” when the American Revolution was coming to local places. It came to the New Jersey countryside where a lot of the young ones were getting together and debating the various issues of the day.
As far as the question and answer session was concerned, it was somewhat abbreviated for various reasons, but one related to the fact that Fithian as a chaplain did carry a musket but he never fired it. Also there was a story of how the British would support Anglican Churches and the American Revolutionaries would support the Presbyterian Churches. In fact there was one stand-off where the British were taking cover behind an Anglican Church while the Americans were taking cover behind a Presbyterian Church. The British prevailed and burned the Presbyterian Church to the ground. In other words, the British were very suspect of the Presbyterians and of any religious orders that were not Anglican. The loyalist were obviously mostly Anglican.
We certainly enjoyed Dr. Fea’s presentation and he gave us some very special insights into how the American Revolutionary fervor and the religious fervor were tied together in those days.
Meeting Notes: September 16, 2009
“Siege of Yorktown: Example of Formal 18th Century Siege Warfare,” Glenn F. Williams
The situation was that there were approximately 6500 Continentals surrounding New York City with Rochambeau and about 4500 French on Rhode Island. Greene was heavily engaged in North Carolina and, of course, the war on the frontier was continuing.
On July 28, 1781, deGrasse told Rochambeau that he would be going to the Chesapeake. Then on August 2nd Lafayette saw Cornwallis fortifying Yorktown. He informed Rochambeau and next, of course, on August 14th Rochambeau notified Washington. About three days later the first units began crossing the Hudson as they were heading very quickly down to Yorktown.
Approximately half of the main Continental Army was on the road to Yorktown with the others staying behind to try to convince Clinton that there was still a strong presence there in New York. There were approximately 2500 Americans and 4500 French heading down to Yorktown.
At the Head of Elk, there were approximately 80 vessels taking the soldiers down to Yorktown.
In the 1600’s Vauban described siege warfare and of course everyone was still copying him.
Mr. Williams then described at length how siege warfare operated with the Americans opening up their first parallel on October 6th. Thus on October 7th the British awakened to see the first trenches! The rainy weather helped with visibility, muffling the sound, of course making the digging so much easier. There were trench guards and what we call pioneers and there were, of course, the famous battles of redoubts 9 and 10 with the French attacking redoubt 9 and the Americans under Alexander Hamilton attacking redoubt No. 10. Once the French and Americans won they changed the orientation of the guns so that they could be firing on the British.
Mr. Williams noted that “point blank range” meant not so much that you were right next to the people in shooting, but that their guns were at ground level.
The goal of siege warfare was to open up a breach into the lines of the enemy and to avoid a frontal attack. The idea was to get the enemy to give up without much of a fight so that there wouldn’t be a lot of casualties.
The British tried to get out at Gloucester but that didn’t work, and so finally the surrendered around October 18th.
The surrender actually took place in what is known as the Surrender Field. There had been a lot of negotiations about what would happen, but George Washington insisted that the Surrendered Soldiers would be taken as prisoners of war and would not just be sent back to Europe.
It’s interesting to note that Cornwallis did not appear for the surrender and the British officer offered the sword first to Rochambeau, but Rochambeau pointed to Washington, but then Washington said that Lincoln should receive the surrender sword. Lincoln received it symbolically but then returned it and then they all had dinner together!
During the question and answer session, one of the questions was where the prisoners of war were sent? Mr. Williams explained that they had been sent to the Winchester area mostly.
Another question was why was Yorktown so significant, because of course the war did not end officially for several years thereafter. Was it really a political victory or maybe men and material victory? Mr. Williams indicated that it was really a combination of both. Factors: The Americans had won at Saratoga and now that they had won at Yorktown and so another British field army had been “taken off” the board. So really at this point there was only about one more field army left in New York, which was about 7000 strong, as well as some other British in Canada and on the frontier I believe. Frankly, according to Mr. Williams, everyone was just really “war weary”.
It’s interesting to note, as Mr. Williams pointed out earlier in the lecture, that the American Revolutionary War had become a minor theater of a more global world war and that’s the reason the French had to go back and forth, for example to the Caribbean because there was fighting going on in the Caribbean, in Asia, Europe, etc.
Another question was where or not the slaves did the digging and the answer was that even though there were a lot of slaves who helped especially with cutting trees and so forth, the actual digging of the trenches was an army job done by soldiers.
In conclusion, I would report that this was a very interesting presentation and it was made even more interesting by virtue of the numerous slides that were presented.
Meeting Notes: July 15, 2009
"Camp Followers of the Continental Army," Holly Mayer
Bruce Venter introduced our speaker, Dr. Holly Mayer, Chair of the History Department, Duquesne University, Pittsburg, whose subject was the women camp followers of the Revolution.
Dr. Mayer pointed out quickly that the name”campfollowers” did not have the same meaning as today. These often followed their soldier husbands and preformed valued services for the troops. They served as laundresses, cooks and nurses. They were required to carry their on their backs. Quite often these women were refuges as the area they lived had been taken over by British troops or partisans. The women lived in the same quarters as the men. Often when a husband was killed, a woman would live with another man to keep standing in the regiment, creating common law marriages until an official marriage could be preformed. Some of these women were paid for their services as housekeepers and sutlers. They crossed all social lines and ethic groups.
A good example of women working with the men was in the Canadian Regiment of the American Army.
Many women were use as spies for both armies.
After the war many of these camp followers were eligible for pensions.
Dr Mayer also stated that while there were prostitutes with both armies, it was more to the financial advantage to stay on the British side.
Meeting Notes: May 20, 2009
"The Military Leadership of George Washington," Dr. Edward Lengel
Dr. Lengel is currently at UVA where he is Associate Professor of History. He received his BA from George Mason and his MA and PHD from UVA.
He has been very much involved in the “Washington Papers Project” which has been in existence for the last forty years. The goal of this project is to gather together copies of every known Washington document in the entire world, transcribe it and publish it both in print and digital format.
So far the project has uncovered 135,000 documents, but there are huge gaps. Since 1969 sixty volumes have been published with about 500 to 700 pages each, but there are still about thirty volumes to go with about fifteen years left!
The one advantage of the digital versions is that they are fully searchable with one version being accessed by subscription and the other being accessed (if you can find it) at the Mount Vernon website.
As Dr. Lengel pointed out, this has been a tremendous challenge because George Washington left behind so many documents. He was very concerned about his place not only in history, but the importance of his place in history for the United States. He referred to his documents and so forth as a species of sacred property. It is interesting to note that on his deathbed one of his main concerns was that someone take care of preserving his papers. The trouble is that when he died, his legacy was ripped to pieces. For example, one of his descendants, Bushrod Washington, allowed a Harvard professor to take away for his use a lot of the documents. He sent back some of the documents, but many more he kept back and so when George Corbin Washington sold what was left to the Library of Congress, a whole box of documents just flatly disappeared.
When Flexner wrote his biography of Washington in the 1960’s, he didn’t think much of the Washington papers project, because he didn’t think there was much left to discover. However, much has since been accomplished.
For instance, they’re now up to approximately 1778 when Washington was encouraging the espionage network. Despite Washington’s reputation in some quarters, he loved to fight, but he also was quite a “micro-manager”, especially in terms of what he did for the espionage network. Up to that time the espionage activities were not really centralized. Just about every general had their own spies and so forth, including a “bizarre” collection of people. Washington tried to put all of this together what with his interest in invisible ink, double agents and the like.
We now get into Dr. Lengel’s main topic, having to do with Washington’s character as a leader and a manager. We generally look at the big battles as critical turning points. For example, Trenton, Princeton or perhaps Monnmouth or Yorktown or Greene’s Campaign in the South.
Dr. Lengel maintained that although these were important battles of course, they didn’t really represent the what, how and why they and George won the war and what Washington’s qualities were.
Who was Washington? People have said for many years that we need to humanize him. Since people want to humanize him, and since George was in some ways “dull and boring”, the temptation was to make things up, and to create stories out of “whole cloth”.
Dr. Lengel thinks that one of the ways to realize exactly who George Washington was, was to research George Washington’s involvement at Valley Forge. In the Fall of 1777, the US had gone through some disastrous and bleak periods. The British under Howell had sailed into the northern tip of the bay and landed at the head of Elkton Maryland. General Howell believed there were a great many loyalists in that area and that if he took Philadelphia, these loyalists would join in the cause.
Howell marched north and of course defeated Washington at the Battle of Brandywine in September of 1777. That battle was actually one of Washington’s worst efforts. For example, Howell faked him out with a feint in one direction and then an attack in the other and so in September of 1777, Howell was able to take Philadelphia.
In the Battle of Germantown, Washington had designed this effort for October of 1777. However, it was too complex and really just did not work out. Then Washington attempted to starve out Howell, but that of course also did not work.
In the meantime, Gates won his great battle at Saratoga, so Washington moved into Valley Forge.
It’s interesting to note that this was an unpopular move on Washington’s part and many people at the time thought him very stupid because they thought he was going in the wrong direction. Instead, Washington insisted that they go to Valley Forge and build huts which they had to build from scratch instead of other locations where they would have had better protection from the weather. There was also a lot of trouble because there was a supply crisis - the supply of flour was almost gone and frankly the only thing left was rotting meat and basically just misery. There was a lot of hissing and hooting and hollering and a lot of the officers were just quitting and going home. Some people felt that Washington exaggerated how bad it was in Valley Forge, but Dr. Lengel believes that Washington did not exaggerate and in fact it was really bad! The food was gone, the clothing was in tatters, people were barefoot, there were epidemics of typhus and cholera and if anyone were sent to the hospital, such amounted to a death sentence.
For example, at this time there were ten thousand to twelve thousand troops, and about two thousand of them died.
It’s interesting to note that it really wasn’t that cold in Valley Forge and the temperatures hovered around freezing. This meant that the rain and sleet and so forth turned the dirt roads to mud and that really was of course worse than if the roads had been frozen and if the roads had not turned to mud. A lot of fords and ferries were washed out. However, what did Washington do? This was a critical moment for a soldier and obviously if a soldier were to see officers faltering, then he would fall to pieces as well. That of course as I mentioned above began to happen at Valley Forge and there were a blizzard of letters from the lieutenants and colonels and so forth indicating that they had to leave for their farm, for their business and so forth and they wanted Washington to give them furloughs or if he failed to do so, they would just resign. For example one of Washington’s favorites was a William Woodford, and Washington almost had to beg him not to go. Woodford said sorry, too bad, see you later and off he went.
Of course there were people like Nathaniel Greene, who took over the quartermaster duties in March and General Von Steuben, who was great in drilling the soldiers and of course Knox.
But most of everything really was on George’s shoulders. He had created the Continental Army basically from scratch and this army really depended on one man, George Washington! It was frankly good that Washington was a micro-manager, because he took all of these duties on himself. He wrote lots of letters and orders, letters how to cut cloth when scarce, how to take care of sanitation, all about discipline, maintenance, hospitals, etc.
From all of this we begin to see what kind of mind he had. He was able to keep in his mind all of these facts and he had an extreme capacity for detail. He also was able to recognize good advice when he got it and that was helpful because he was getting all sorts of advice from so many people. Fortunately, he usually chose correctly.
It’s important that he had this critical understanding of not just what happened in battles, but he was always looking into supporting the army and how they were to survive and he dealt very often with so many people in the Congress and in states and the governors, county officials, farmers, etc. He understood that he needed to foster good relations with them all, because he really needed everyone and the whole country to support the army. Nobody was too small for him to get involved with.
It’s interesting to see what happened at the Battle of Monmouth in June of 1778. At that time the army was better equipped, and the morale was so much better. A lot of this was based on what Greene had done. Of course Charles Lee mis-managed the troops and so when Washington came up and appeared, he basically stopped the retreat single-handedly. There was electricity in the air and once they saw Washington come up, the soldiers stopped their retreat. Feelings towards all of this changed. He showed them that he cared very much for them at Valley Forge day after day. He was very visible and Dr. Lengel believes that his greatness really was the fact that he stayed so visible in so many small ways and that showed his soldiers that he really cared about them personally and about the army in particular.
The question and answer session was also quite helpful. The first question was if the men thought it was stupid for Washington to go Valley Forge, why did he insist on this? Dr. Lengel maintains that Washington understood the need to control the countryside. He wanted to be in the immediate area so that he could influence what was going on and to work constantly to cut off attempts for supplies to the British from the countryside. It’s interesting to know that he said that Washington learned a lot from the Hessians in Trenton. Lengel maintained that it’s not that the Hessians were so drunk at Trenton, but it was more that they were really isolated from the countryside and thus were vulnerable to a sudden attack.
We had to cut off the question/answer session fairly promptly because the students were away from University of Richmond and the cafeteria needed for us to be heading on. At any rate, Dr. Lengel provided a very interesting analysis of not only the Washington papers project, in which he is so very much involved, but also of course his views of George Washington and how his ability to micro-manage gave Washington a more visible and sympathic appearance to all of the solders of the Continental Army and frankly all of America.
Meeting Notes: March 18, 2009
"The Hurricane of Independence," Tony Williams
Williams compared the frenzy of the Revolution early in the war to the hurricane that struck the east coast in September of 1775. He states that more attention was being paid to the talk of taxation and the shots fired at Lexington and Concord than the weather. The hurricane came ashore in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, sweeping up the coastline and striking the cities of Norfolk, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston before going back to sea. It later struck Newfound. The hurricane clamed over four thousand lives. It indirectly began the shooting war in Virginia. A British ship had been grounded near Hampton. Some of the crew came ashore, ransacking some nearby dwellings. Some Americans fought with the remaining crew and a ship to shore action developed.
Three principles were born during this period:
One - Idea of liberty, both political and religious
Two - Idea of self government
Three- Idea of limited government
Meeting Notes: January 21, 2009
"Who Won the Battle of Camden?" Dr. John Maass
The Americans, led by Horatio Gates and Baron DeKalb, were a mixture of Continentals and militia from Virginia and North Carolina. Gates was new to the command and not used to milita. The movement of the troops from North Carolina took longer than planned and with the slow movement of supplies from Virginia to North Carolina all led to Gates frustration. Also the fall of Charleston in May, 1780 had deprived the Americans of approximately four thousand troops.
Camden was a British garrison town manned by twenty-two hundred troops. These troops were made up of 3rd and 23rd Regiments and the 71st Light Infantry. These troops were led by Lord Cornwallis, Lord Rawdon and Lt. Col. James Webster. In addition were Provincials, the British Legion under Tarlton,The Volunteers of Ireland The Royal Regiment of North Carolina.
First Issue:
How Gates moved to Camden?
What was his route?
Did it matter in the end?
Gates had no intention of attacking a garrison. He took a position north of the water course and waited for Sumter and Marion. He wanted the British to attack his army.
Second Issue:
Move to Saunders Creek.
Did his army consist of 3,052 or 7,000 rank and file?
There were enough men for the 10:00 P.M. march; however he had very few Calvary. He also expected no contact. The two forces met at 2:00 P.M.
Third Issue:
Did Gates handle his army as should have?
Should Gates have retreated?
Fourth Issue:
Did he flee the battlefield?
Did he attempt to rally the troops?
Did have a plan if defeated?
Reputation: He left his troops with the hope of reorganizing them at Hillsbourgh, North Carolina.