Americanism Redux
December 4, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775
You’re holding tight but your grip is slipping.
You’re standing firm but your footing is slipping.
Through your hands and beneath your feet, something has started to slip away.
It’s today, 250 years ago.
* * * * * * *
(no one to drive)
“Anyone come in answer to your ad?,” she asks in the midst of the noise made by their fifteen children. Hers is a hopeful tone.
“No, dear, no one today.” His is an answer of dejection.
Hannah Goddard and her husband John are having a conversation. John Goddard is the wagonmaster of the Massachusetts militia and is now doing the same job for the Continental Army in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He’s issued a plea for “teamsters”, or drivers of wagon teams of oxen, mules, or horses. The Continental Army is in desperate need of these specialists. The newspaper, the Essex Gazette, printed at Harvard College in the Continental Army encampment, features Goddard’s ad for teamsters.
See those wagons over there? No one in the drivers’ seats. The Goddards wait for enlistees again today.
* * * * * * *
(on their way out of camp)
Lemuel Robinson can certainly understand the empty seats. He’s frustrated enough to leave the Continental Army and its “New Army” reorganization. Robinson was unaware that the “re-org” meant his native colony of Massachusetts would not have enough regiments to allow him to continue as a commanding officer. Looks like he’s out of a position. Worse yet is that invisible rumors are saying Robinson is incompetent. Robinson knows that’s false, knows he’s an effective unit leader. He’s talking to people with local influence to get an official statement by the Massachusetts Committee of Safety affirming his good conduct.
Meanwhile, Robinson realizes there’s a much bigger problem on the rise than his personal prospects. Soldiers from Connecticut are leaving by the dozens every day. They’re fed up with military service and don’t like the “New Army” rules and regulations. They refuse to hear any offers of re-enlistment. Hour by hour, the Continental Army seems to be melting away in the midst of a raw New England December. Robinson is witness to it.
* * * * * * *
(it’s flashing)
If 1775 had the technology of red flashing lights and loud sirens, they’d be going full-force. The dwindling size of the Continental Army is a crisis with a ticking clock, an emergency. General George Washington knows it and had in fact called an emergency meeting two days ago to stop the outflow of manpower. Despite bits of good news with recent captures of British cargo vessels and the supplies they carried, Washington knows the British can sit back and let the weaknesses of the American cause do their killing for them. By Christmas—and if combined with a deadly outbreak of smallpox appearing in the vicinity of Boston—it could all be over.
* * * * * * *
(Joseph Palmer)
59-year old Joseph Palmer, a one-time deacon at his Germantown church and an acquaintance of the Adams family, is a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Safety that will vouch for Lemuel Robinson. He’s also one of the attendees at Washington’s emergency meeting, along with other local representatives as well as Washington and his inner team of brigadier generals.
Palmer is a stalwart. He was there when the British marched on Concord and Old Bay Road back in the spring. He was there again at the Battles of Breeds/Bunker Hill and the Charlestown burning in the summer. And he’s here now, knowing that between smallpox, refusals to re-enlist, and recent enemy incursions, the British may have the upper hand. Morale for the Continental cause seems to be wavering.
Palmer and his local colleagues agree to urge the Massachusetts provincial assembly to call out 3000 militia for temporary duty on the siege lines surrounding British-held Boston. If the militia hear and heed the call, the gaps will be plugged, at least for a while.
* * * * * * *
(the aptly named Mineral Hills Trail near Northampton)
As morale wavers on the high wire, Palmer keeps an eye on economic opportunity for the future. He’s having extensive studies done on the low mountains around Southampton and Northampton, Massachusetts. Huge deposits of lead are there, he believes, so sizeable and profitable that it can enrich the colony’s coffers and secure a militarily important resource for the colony’s security. Palmer closes his eyes and see those beautiful mountains filled with lead.
He also sees visions of an important piece of paper. Palmer wants his friend John Adams and the “American Congress” to “publish a Manifesto to the world, Purporting, That in Such a Year, the British Ministry made such and such unconstitutional claims upon some one or other of these colonies, giving an Historical account of matters, up to the present day: then adducing these Facts as Sufficient reasons for Declaring themselves the United Colonies, absolutely independent of Great Britain.” Palmer perceives a follow-up of negotiations that, if rejected in London, would result in all colonial ports being open to the world and denied to the British. What’s more, the “Manifesto” would be one of two tracks—the other track would be a call from the “American Congress” for each colony to set up an entirely new government as a member of the “United Colonies.”
This is Palmer’s strategy to reinvigorate the cause, to tap new sources of optimism and enthusiasm. Go to the mountain and unearth independence in a written declaration and unleash the colonies for their own self-government.
* * * * * * *
(an important thing)
There’s another Joseph thinking big thoughts, too. He’s Joseph Ward, 38-years old, trying to focus his mind on something other than soldiers grumbling in the cold wind at his Continental Army camp in Roxbury, Massachusetts. His elderly dad, Artemus, had been gently nudged aside last summer to make way for George Washington’s selection as commander of all the forces around Boston. The younger Ward isn’t bitter about his father’s displacement. Like Joseph Palmer, Joseph Ward sees beyond the battlefield. But instead of mineral deposits and formal declarations, he’s looking at human interactions and seeing trouble.
Joseph Ward believes the most important thing now is “to preserve union and harmony among our American brethren from the different colonies”. He wishes for the days when colonists resisting British policies would sing “united we stand, divided we fall” from one of the most popular songs of the last decade. Ward finds appalling the degree to which people have devolved into narrow self-interest, “the mean regard to little self”. The only way ahead, in his view, is to avoid demonstrations of inequality and superiority. If so, it will “preserve the Union, being the highest point of Wisdom, (and) I hope every American whether in the Senate or the Field will steadily pursue it”.
Today, 250 years ago, Joseph Ward buttons his coat and walks out into camp. He’s seeking an opportunity to act on his words in his next conversation with someone from outside of Massachusetts. He’ll do his part in each relationship.
* * * * * * *
(what faced them at Quebec)
New face-to-face conversations are going on almost four hundred miles north of Ward. On the outskirts of British-held Quebec, the twin forces of Benedict Arnold and Richard Montgomery have finally converged and met. The two groups are at last outside the largest community in Canada, charged with the awkward objective of invading in order to persuade residents to become the fourteenth colony in the colonial union. Montgomery’s soldiers have fought skirmishes and conducted a siege on their way along the Richelieu and St. Lawrence River valleys. Arnold’s soldiers have endured indescribable physical suffering to cross rivers and bogs, ravines and pine forests. In addition to finalizing an ultimatum of surrender to the British inside Quebec, Arnold’s and Montgomery’s men, as well as Arnold and Montgomery themselves, get to know each other.
They are two sets of “Union” forces, fellow soldiers, on the same side, in the single cause, for as long as they believe.
* * * * * * *
(Rogers as a character in the series “Turn”)
Dartmouth College President Eleazer Wheelock finished a meeting yesterday that won’t stop gnawing at him. He’d met with a hero of those north woods and northern lakes and rivers, Major Robert Rogers, famed British irregular fighter from the French and Indian War.
Rogers had wedged his way onto Wheelock’s schedule. Dressed in the leather garb of a woodsman, Rogers spoke loudly to Wheelock about serving as a friendly go-between (called lobbyist, in a later era) to connect the College to lucrative land purchases, joint ventures, and investments. All of these amazing opportunities led, one way or another, back to England where Rogers could further smooth the way for imperial approval.
After the meeting, Wheelock learned that Rogers couldn’t pay the bill for his overnight stay. He promised the tavern-owner a chance at a great business deal.
Rogers saw the current imperial-colonial crisis as a blip at most, a minor irritant, a slow fly on a cold wall. To him, the key point was that money can be made. A mutually shared unit of value would overcome various differences.
* * * * * * *
(the flag you should know from 1775)
The Continental Congress in Philadelphia makes a decision that would have Robert Rogers salivating. They’re ordering the printing of another 3 million dollars’ worth of currency notes. In addition, and of vast interest to the Robert Rogers’s of the world, delegates vote in approval of formal rules and regulations for the Union’s new navy. Finally, aboard one of the vessels on the Union Navy, Lieutenant John Paul Jones hoists the first ever “Grand Union” flag. Today, 250 years ago, the “Grand Union” flies from the staff fixed to the Continental sloop, “Alfred”.
* * * * * * *
(it became this)
A five-person committee begins today as the Continental Congress’s mechanism for communicating with formal groups, entities, and leaders outside of the colonies (the forerunner of the subsequent State Department).
The opening statement of the committee to agents abroad expresses uncertainties and unknowns afflicting the Continental union:
“…we hope the spirit and virtue of a sensible nation (England) will soon be exerted to procure justice for the innocent oppressed colonies and to restore harmony and peace to the British Empire. There is nothing more ardently desired by North America than a lasting union with Great Britain on terms of just and equal liberty; but as men and as descendants of Britons the good people of these colonies will rely to the last on heaven, and their own virtuous efforts for security against the abusive system pressed by administration for the ruin of America and which if pursued must end in the destruction of a great Empire.”
The formations of human community packed into the statement almost boggle the mind: “Empire”, “America”, “North America”, “nation”, “colonies”, “Britons”, and “union”.
The path ahead gets squishier with each item on the list.
* * * * * * *
(war within war, capable of dominating the conflict)
250 years ago right now, the situation in Virginia illustrates the change in grip and footing.
Imperial Governor Lord Dunmore has collected more than three hundred men into his ranks after the declaration an exchange of freedom for military service to those volunteers who are restricted or held down in his labor. He’s formed the “Ethiopian” and the “Queen’s Own Loyal Virginians” units and, with them, proceeding to a potential clash with colonial-rights supporters at Great Bridge, Virginia.
At least twenty enslaved black men at an estate on the Potomac River are waiting for the chance to make their way to Dunmore. “Liberty is sweet”, admits the estate manager. Nevertheless, an enslaved black shoemaker makes a different decision, issuing his own personal declaration that he’ll never escape if his enslaver promises not to sell the shoemaker’s family.
With Dunmore’s declaration roaring through the countryside, John Page, a supporter of colonial rights, regards it as vital for the pro-rights Assembly to publicize a “proclamation” of its own to counteract Dunmore’s declaration. Page asserts that Dunmore’s exchange offer and encouragement of an enslaved uprising violate “human and divine laws”.
Dunmore had also succeeded in convincing Lenape Native leader Koquethagechton (White Eyes) to align with the British against the colonial resisters. However, as of early December, Koquethagechton fears he and the Lenape are too closely aligned with Dunmore. The Lenape leader wants to recalibrate and seek to organize a fourteen colony, populated by the Lenape, to enter the Continental Union.
Dunmore’s one-time tribal negotiator and alliance-maker for Virginia, Dr. John Connolly, sits in a jail in Frederick, Maryland. He’s been accused and indicted for stirring up Native warriors to attack settlers and settlements that oppose imperial power in the eastern Ohio River valley, in lands seized by Dunmore earlier in the year.
And Lund Washington spends every ounce of energy in keeping his cousin George’s massive holdings along the Potomac River and elsewhere in some form of workable operation, from enslaved laborers like the black shoemaker to sawmills, crop rotations, coastal trade, wage levels, and the production of items that the Continental Congress can trade for war materials. Lund Washington has set aside his own efforts to help his cousin in this tumultuous time.
At a moment’s notice, events in Virginia can tip into chaos.
* * * * * * *
(vessels in Charleston harbor)
Captain John Tollamache of the British vessel “Scorpion” watches as black men escaped from their enslavers gather on board his ship off the South Carolina coast. Informal reports have gone out into the interior that British officials will exchange service for freedom to runaway ex-slaves. Local residents near Charleston, South Carolina estimate that if the policy becomes aggressively promoted, as many as 20,000 black men would join the Redcoats. Some black men have already gotten to Sullivan’s Island and established a camp.
They’re waiting.
* * * * * * *
From north to south, the Union sways in strong December winds. You hold on to stop the tilt and dig in to stop the lean. But the wind won’t stop.
Also
* * * * * * *
(Kuopio today)
The Royal Society in London meets for an “anniversary” celebration. The topic for the occasion, led by Sir John Pringle, a friend of Benjamin Franklin’s, is the “attraction of mountains”. Meanwhile, across the North Sea and up the Baltic Sea, the village of Kuopio has been designated by King Gustav III of Sweden as a site of provincial government.
For You Now
What does it mean to “union”? I’m using the word “union” as a verb.
More than a year ago, in September 1774, delegates gathered in Philadelphia “to congress” together. It was a verb that became a noun. We know what that is. We’re seeing it now, in late 1775.
But we don’t know what it means to union together, and that’s a deeply important point. I emphasize this because, since the United States was a Union before it was a Nation—since Union is conception and gestation before the Nation’s birth—critical habits were already formed, womb-like, in the Union.
We now know, as a result of Americanism Redux, that Union emerges from different sources—Union House (Continental Congress in Philadelphia and various colonial governments); Union City (Continental Army encampment outside Boston and other locations); and Union Homes (those people who, where they live, choose to support the cause).
We know further from Redux that Union is one of two foundational decisions in action 250 years ago. One decision is to break, or not, from England. The other is to bond, or not, with other colonies who’ve decided to make the break. So, it’s vital that we know there are break-and-bond dynamics spinning, bouncing, and colliding in a universally tiny space you can’t see.
We learn in today’s entry that the strength of Union is subject to influences and ideas that quickly rise up from nothing. We learn, too, that ordinary people make contributions (see Joseph Palmer’s suggested Manifesto) far ahead of happenings that seem stale, packaged, and precooked to us. They are none of these, in fact—rapid turns and sharp decisions occur fresh, week to week. The taste we think we know differs from smoke, steam, and spice of first flavors.
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider: what do you think is a feature of “Union-ing” in light of today’s entry?
(Your River)
