Americanism Redux: August 28, Your Today, 250 Years Ago, In 1775

Look out there and tell me what you see. Out there, just look and say.

You’ve got two eyes and what else? A thought? A dozen thoughts? A hundred? Likely an assumption, an experience, an expectation. Other stuff, too.

So go ahead, look and say.

It’s 250 years ago today and they’re looking and saying.

* * * * * * *

(in her head, he’s already in marble)

She’s got a clear mental image of a person and all those other people.

Mercy Otis Warren of Plymouth, Massachusetts hasn’t actually looked at the man who’s been in command of the new Continental Army for the past two months. Doesn’t matter. She’s already got her view of him as of today. He hasn’t led the army in a single battle or even skirmish yet but she’s clear as crystal in her sense of him: “a gentleman of one of the first fortunes in American, a man whose Military Abilities and public and private Virtue place Him in the first Class of the Good and Brave and are Really of so High a Stamp as to do honor to Human Nature.”

As to everyone else in her assumption of his vicinity, she is a bit perplexed. Both armies—Continental and British—are, in her opinion, waiting for some outside force to “interpose” and somehow resolve the tensions engulfing Boston without more bloodshed.

For Mercy, Washington is god-like and the rest are frozen in place. That’s what she sees in her mind’s eye.

* * * * * * *

(he’s not a fan)

He’s got an eyeful of wet, naked men splashing about in the water. That’s what he sees.

General George Washington is disgusted by what he’s seeing. Some of his Continental Army soldiers have stripped off their clothes and are bathing nude in the Mystic River outside Boston. Local residents are appalled. They demand that whoever is supposed to be in command put a stop to this ridiculous conduct near their homesteads and barnyards.

Washington agrees with them and issues a scathing order to the soldiery. It’s one of many instances where a line separates a disciplined military force from a band of lawless hooligans. If this isn’t made right, none of the rest of it matters.

That’s what he sees.

* * * * * * *

They look out, see saltwater, and not much else. And that’s a massive problem.

Members of the Rhode Island Assembly, the colony’s legislature, vote to ask the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia to organize a “Continental Navy” to protect and defend colonial ports and ocean-going vessels from British attack. Since there is now a Continental Army with a commanding general and all the other features of a land-based force, their reasoning is that it’s time for its water-based counterpart.

And who knows—maybe they’ll find a Washington-like commander who inspires people like Mercy Otis Warren.

That would be nice to see.

* * * * * * *

(the circle is Winter Hill)

He looks at his shirt hanging on a stick.

He’s Tom Boynton, a soldier from Massachusetts who is in the Continental Army commanded by Washington. He and his fellow soldiers have been out the past couple of days in entrenchments dug in the high ground surrounding British-held Boston. First, Tom was in the dirt of Ploughed Hill and next, relocated, he was in the dirt of Winter Hill. On Ploughed, the British fired cannon into the hill, killing two of Tom’s comrades. On Winter, a fierce storm pounded the men. Rain water pooled in the trench as lightning flashing in the black above. Soaked and chilled, Tom and his unit marched out of the trench with orders to go back to camp.

Hours later, from the look of his shirt hanging on the stick, Tom thinks it’s dry enough to put on.

* * * * * * *

(looking at his side of the river)

He looks through the branches of the pine and birch trees and sees the other side of the river.

Pete Griffin stares across the Richelieu River at Fort Saint Jean, held by British forces near the Canada-New York border. In the water he sees British naval vessels at anchor. He counts them. He’ll go back to his commanding officer, John Brown, with his report of having seen the ships. Griffin and Brown and just about everyone else who learns of the report will reach the same conclusion: if these vessels get south to Lake Champlain, the British will control almost every inch of water transportation in this region and gain a vital advantage in the area. When Brown updates General Richard Montgomery with Griffin’s report, the colonial general will today order his 1200-man force to begin a northward march toward Fort Saint Jean.

What Pete saw triggered this immediate decision from Montgomery.

* * * * * * *

(the pikes)

He’s looking for something that’s just not there and it’s time to readjust.

Benjamin Franklin knows there aren’t enough muskets and other guns to go around. He and his fellow members of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety are now considering how to fill the weapons gap. He’s writing a memo that argues for the use of pikes—long, heavy, and sharp-tipped metal spears popular for centuries of warfare. Franklin emphasizes in his memo, though, that the widely respected military commentator, Marshal Saxe, has maintained that pikes continue to have unique advantages in modern warfare. And don’t forget, Franklin adds, when not used in combat the same metal spears can do double-duty as tent poles in camps.

He sees a win-win.

* * * * * * *

(where the Battery was)

He looks at the top of the Battery and sees the reason why he organized a group of college students to join his artillery unit.

John Lamb sees a set of twenty cannon atop the Battery on the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Together with a group of volunteers called the Heart of Oak militia, Lamb and his King’s College artillery unit wait until nightfall to sneak into the Battery and seize the cannon. However, they make enough noise to attract the attention of British sailors on night duty aboard the HMS Asia. The watchmen sound the alarm, the Asia moves in closer to the Battery, and unleashes a round of cannon fire at Lamb’s collection of raiders. Iron balls weighing eight, ten, and twelve pounds fly through the air and crash into local houses near the Battery, but Lamb and his men escape.

They see in their possession their prize of twenty stolen cannon.

* * * * * * *

(newlyweds by the end of today)

She looks at the eyes of her future.

“I take thee, John, to be my lawfully wedded husband…”

Today, at the home of Thaddeus Burr in Fairfield, Connecticut, Dorothy Quincy marries John Hancock. The Burr house is where John had been hidden after the violence of Concord and Lexington more than four months ago, on a night when Hancock was supposed to be arrested for trial and execution.

She sees a ring slipped onto her finger.

* * * * * * *

(now it’s political, too)

Look at the newspaper. Everything in it is political.

In Virginia, an unnamed reader of the Virginia Gazette scans the recent edition. He or she—it’s not clear which—has come to a point in time where politics, political disputes, and political meaning are everywhere. Nothing is outside the realm of politics. That is the view of this reader.

In this week’s edition, while again reading article after article about the imperial-colonial crisis, he or she sees an advertisement. Someone is opening a dance school in Williamsburg. The dance instructor encourages young women to sign up.

The reader reaches for a quill pen. Dipping the pen in ink, the reader scribbles a few words on the Gazette’s parchment paper. At the bottom of the ad is now this: “We are now engaged in a war dance.”

When life becomes all political, everything you see becomes political, too.

* * * * * * *

(where he learned)

He sees his tutor as a friend for the days ahead.

Caleb Watts’s tutor is the president of Dartmouth College, Eleazer Wheelock. Caleb feels lucky to know Wheelock, who has taken the time to teach him geometry, logic, rhetoric, and theology, topics Wheelock told him were “useful for his future.” This useful knowledge adds to Caleb’s ability to read some of the ancient classics in Greek. He acquired a working knowledge of Greek following his first achievement in literacy, gaining the fundamentals of reading from his exposure to the Bible. His first enslaver, when he wasn’t beating him, was, oddly, allowing him to study the Christian word and acquire an ability to read.

Now a free man, Caleb sees the signs of late summer, when the pasture grasses seem tired and weary by afternoon’s end. Brown marks the leaf edges on maple and oak. Crickets and katydids are heard, but not seen, in the chilling shadows.

* * * * * * *

The tutor sees potential in his student.

Eleazer Wheelock knows of Caleb’s biracial background, his Native mother and black father. Wheelock also knows of reports which claim British officials in southern colonies are trying to foment insurrections among the enslaved. The suspected motivation behind such intentions are that insurrections of the enslaved will weaken the anti-imperial cause. Wheelock wonders if Caleb might be convinced to go among the southern plantations and identify British plots and schemes. He could win over the loyalty of the enslaved and uncover key information before an uprising occurs. That’s the thought inside Wheelock’s head, a thought he shares with the governor of Connecticut, a major opponent of imperial power.

He sees freedom through a political lens.

* * * * * * *

They’re looking at a sight and seeing different things.

Also

(two items in this proclamation)

Within the past few days 250 years ago, British King George III has ordered written and pronounced to all British subjects the following decree:

First, the colonies in America are in a state of rebellion and will be dealt with as such. The rebellion will be put down.

Second, a group of people here in the British Isles have supported and encouraged the rebellious colonies. They have worked to turn protest into a full-scale rebellion. They will be found and treated in accordance with their conduct.

* * * * * * *

(this year’s product)

Jean Denis Janvier is in Paris, France today, 250 years ago. He’s 29 years-old and recognized across Europe as one of the most gifted and talented cartographers alive. His work in designing and drawing maps reaches that rare spot—the convergence of fact and art, of information and creativity.

Janvier’s most recent product this year, a map of Spain and Portugal and portions of northern Africa, is drawing extensive attention among buyers and collectors.

Janvier devotes every effort to depicting the latest changes in borders and boundaries. What he cannot depict is the depth of commitment to the lines that he draws.

You won’t see that on his spectacular maps.

For You Now

Look and say. Simple enough, right? Sure it is. You look at the thing and say what you see.

But I think one thing we’ve learned in ways that have hit deeper in recent years is this: it, facts, may not be all that simple.

We’ve been hearing for quite a while now about facts, so-called. Your facts, their facts, made-up facts, don’t-believe-your-lyin’-eyes-facts. About an inch away from this debate on facts is the debate about truth—mine, yours, and all the rest of it.

I’m not going to solve all this here. I won’t solve any of it here, to be honest. But I do want to re-inject reality into our thinking and our contentions with one another. Today’s Redux entry is your ticket back to 250 years ago in recovering a slice of real stories about real people in real time.

They’re all looking and saying.

Pete looks at ships and says they’re ships. Tom looks at a shirt and says it’s not wet anymore. Mercy looks at her mental image of a man and says he’s the perfect military leader. George looks at naked soldiers and says they’re a disaster. John looks at the top of a structure and says that’s our target. Dorothy looks at her partner and says he’s the future. Eleazer looks at a young man and says he’s a chess-piece. And we had others looking and saying, too.

I’m reading back over this previous paragraph and realizing that a line runs from the look to the say, from what you see to what you speak. You likely sense the line, too. Within that line is a smaller, living thread—that is, what you believe line means, what it conveys. And that meaning an conveyance are of vast importance to the unspoken part of this moment—who is hearing what you say? Who listens? Who has stopped listening?

I feel a leadership reality is embedded in the unspoken part, at the far, uncapped end of the smaller, living thread. You look, you say, and from there the world around you decides on responses to the nature of your thought.

Suggestion

Take a moment to consider: in this instance of late August 2025, you decide where to look and, when that’s done, what do you say?

(in late summer)