Americanism Redux

January 15, Your Today, 250 Years Ago, In 1776

Sometimes a thing is so big, so vast, it needs an extra word. A “The-Thing”.

A “The-Thing” consumes the life around it. People, groups, issues, resources, and maybe most of all, focus.

You, in mid-January of 2026, might know the The-Thing. The economy? The The-Thing. Or the environment? The The-Thing. Or the border? The The-Thing. You make the call but the The-Thing is more than your answer. It’s your reality, the reality in which your leadership exists.

And in mid-January of 1776?

The The-Thing is The War.

* * * * * * *

You came here to enjoy yourself and up until this very second, you were—laughing, smiling, grinning. All of a sudden, someone rushes into the room.

In a large room inside Boston, a group of British Redcoat officers and some local residents who support the imperial cause are taking a much-needed break to enjoy a comedic play on stage. It’s “The Blockade of Boston”, written by British General John Burgoyne.

Everyone stopped laughing when a man ran into the room and yelled in terror: “The Yankees are attacking Bunker Hill!!”

No, we’re not off-script and no, it’s not improv.

In a flash, the room empties out, panic on some faces, rage on others. A surprise attack by General George Washington’s Continental Army is underway.

Damn Yankees.

* * * * * * *

A full-scale attack? Not quite.

At roughly 9pm, a hundred picked men led by Connecticut Major Thomas Knowlton have sneaked behind British lines into burned-out CharlesTown next to Boston. They’ve set fire to eight houses, captured a few men, freed a few others, and scared the living hell out of every soldier and civilian on the British side. This is the raid that disrupts the actors on stage.

The raid is a stunning success, a major boost to mood and morale in an army that’s failed by fifty percent to meet its recruiting goal. The uplift from Knowlton’s raid earns a spot of recognition in the daily orders by General George Washington, and a private from Massachusetts, Solomon Nash, features it as the only recorded event the entire week.

* * * * * * *

A few days later, two men swing lifeless from the end of a rope. They were two British infantrymen accused and found guilty of stealing from a store inside Boston. The store was owned by a Loyalist, a supporter of the imperial cause. They’ve been hanged to send a message: military law will be upheld and military order will be kept inside British-occupied Boston, regardless of the vicious Yankee rabble that surrounds us.

* * * * * * *

I’ve got solid information on it now. A fleet is sailing and its destination is south of Boston, likely New York City.

That’s the message written two days ago by General George Washington at Cambridge, outside Boston, to the Continental Congress President John Hancock. Washington sends one of his core team members, General Charles Lee, to New York City to organize defenses and prepare to disrupt any invasive plans by the enemy. Washington tells Hancock that the situation is dire in New York City; with its large pro-British population, the Redcoats can take the region and geographically split the American cause in two. With New York City as its base of energy, the Redcoats could be unstoppable.

Washington ends his letter by stating and asking—all rolled into one—that he hopes the Continental Congress approves of his decision to send Lee to New York City.

* * * * * * *

If you live near a coast, your life can change in an instant.

Since practically all of Rhode Island is nothing but coastal, the people living there have learned yet again the harshness of this truth over the past several days. Almost the entire week local militia have turned out on three small islands in Narragansett Bay, including free and enslaved black men, to resist the prowling and pounding of a British naval force commanded by Captain James Wallace. When the 44-year old Wallace—newly married into a well-connected imperial family from Georgia—offers to not destroy homes if local people surrender their food, he hears “at the point of a bayonet!” as their reply.

The raids and counter-responses come in the wake of a series of oaths of allegiance forcibly taken by a handful of Loyalist leaders. These gestures were compelled by General Charles Lee as he traveled through Rhode Island on his way to New York City.

Rhode Island’s cycle of alarm/threat/defiance/attack and food/shelter/property repeats throughout the week. This is the life they’re leading in a mix of frigid salt water, gunpowder-tinged smoke, and screeching sea birds.

* * * * * * *

(a war center)

In Philadelphia this week, ahead of the arrival of George Washington’s letter to President John Hancock, delegates of the Continental Congress work nonstop on war. The entity’s economic-based work on 1774 and 1775 has slipped far into the background.

Now, as of today 250 years ago, the delegates are of the war, by the war, and for the war—nothing other than war as the topic of hourly, daily, and weekly work. One example of a day this week: they take up ten items of war on a single day—ordering ships to sail south; paying military claims; examining prisoner treatment; staffing a fort; dispensing money to the army; approving military appointments; allowing free mail to soldiers; overseeing a court martial; endorsing a plan to clear a military transport route; and selecting paymasters and deputy paymasters.

War also rumbles strangely through the entity. The question, for example, of whether Connecticut officer Benedict Arnold gets a promotion from colonel to brigadier general takes up hours of debate. A tangle exists: Arnold has offended people in Massachusetts and New York; Connecticut is at odds with Pennsylvania over land claims; New York’s general officers resent their treatment from New Englanders; rumors of Arnold’s harsh conduct have floated back from Canada; and on and on. Finally, more from a direction-less exhaustion than anything else, delegates approve Arnold’s promotion. The issue goes quiet.

War dominates the talk of delegates in between the issues and debates. New Jersey delegate Richard Smith hears several colleagues now say that if they learn of foreign mercenaries being used by the British, they’ll accept the decision to separate and become independent from Britain. As a Quaker in family background and education, Smith knows about using war as a pivot in public and civic decision-making.

War pushes the vision over horizons. Emmanuel de Pliarne and Pierre Penet have reached a verbal agreement with delegates serving on the Continental Congress’s Secret Committee to, in the French men’s words, “establish between America and France a branch of trade, sufficient to supply all the wants, of the New Empire.”

Neither Smith nor anyone else sits in a delegate’s chair at Pennsylvania State House for more than a minute without hearing about the war, reading about the war, thinking about the war, talking about the war, serving on a committee about the war, and voting yes or no on something that bears directly or indirectly on the war.

* * * * * * *

(Samuel Chase)

And some of the delegates, like Samuel Chase, are doing double-duty with the war that permeates levels of the Union.

Known to his friends as “Old Bacon-Face” (really? Lord knows what his adversaries call him!), Samuel Chase is a Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress who is ALSO doing double-duty as a delegate to Maryland’s own special convention held this week at the impressive State House in Annapolis.

To Chase’s disgust, members in the Convention vote to instruct Maryland’s delegates in Philadelphia to seek to join with Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey’s delegates in pursuing a reconciliation with England as the prime objective. Nothing else is the goal. Combined with George Washington’s assessment of New York’s pro-imperial tilt, a Hudson River-northern Chesapeake Bay corridor of British power is a big step toward the Union’s total defeat.

There’s more to know than simply the disgust felt by “Old Bacon-Face.” That’s because the consuming reality OF war has suddenly transformed Samuel Chase into an expert ON war. In a letter to John Adams, his fellow Continental Congress delegate in Philadelphia, Chase proffers a long list of “I would”s when it comes to troop placement (30,000 in Massachusetts, 10,000 in New York City, and 3,000 in the mid-Atlantic), strategy (Quebec “must at every Hazard be ours”), and a half-dozen other topics related to the war. As a member of Maryland’s convention and the Continental Congress, a man who has never served in war, led anyone in military service, or done more with a gun than shoot a duck is now an authority on all things war, Chase is now in a position to render judgments, wield power, and exert authority over the people who do the actual fighting.

War has shifted the orbits and loosened the gravity of daily life.

* * * * * * *

(Josiah Martin)

Josiah Martin is certainly seeing life in a different light. Once the accepted imperial governor of North Carolina and now the ejected imperial governor stuck on the British naval vessel “Scorpion”, Martin’s last act as he stepped foot into the boat that carried him to the ship was to demand pro-British North Carolinians to join him in resisting the resistance and reasserting British control. Today, 250 years ago, with a few hours to regain his sense of personal control, Martin predicts an outpouring volunteers eager to fight on behalf of King George III. How many? With a quick rub of his chin, Martin states, “20,000”, his answer a shadowed reflection of Lord Dunmore’s forlorn effort in Virginia. That’s how many will join with him to assist the British Redcoats’ invasion that will arrive within sight of his lonely place on “Scorpion”‘s deck.

Yeah, they’ll show up, any day now…

* * * * * * *

(Thomas Paine)

Available to buy for barely a week, the 1,000-copy print-run of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” has nearly sold out in Philadelphia by today, 250 years ago. Why the sell-out? It’s not Paine’s reputation; he has none. It’s not anything special about the design or graphics; same as all the others on the shelf. It’s not the intricacies of the philosophy or philosophical arguments; high-brow readers like John Adams criticize it.

The key is that Paine has struck just the right tone for the spirit and mood of people who oppose British rule.

Starting with descriptions from the Bible’s Old Testament, Paine dismantles the need for monarchy as a form of government. He argues for independence, which hints of standing up and standing tall. Perhaps more dangerously and audaciously, Paine declares for separation, which suggests going it alone and going it apart.

To Paine, the Union’s conception and gestation have proven the need for birth, in separation and independence alike: “Now is the seed-time of continental union, faith, and honor,” he writes. And the proving of it has been the war around it—his pamphlet could only have been written with war already underway, the American side showing it can field soldiers, win battles, and sustain campaigns. War is the pamphlet’s predicate.

These are the ideas felt by Paine’s readers as well as Paine’s listeners (who heard the booklet read aloud).

As war remakes the atmosphere, a new source of attractors pulls people toward them.

Also

This week’s edition of the Middlesex Journal in London, England, features an article written by “A Clerk”.

In the piece, Clerk lists fifteen people within the British ruling class (and what another era will call political elite) guilty of misleading British Prime Minister Lord North. Clerk believes these fifteen culprits—nearly all of whom are colonial in background and position—have delivered a consistent flow of inaccurate information and false reports to King George III’s closest advisor. They are responsible for the war that has begun and the peace so violently destroyed.

* * * * * * *

(Hugo O’Conor)

42-year old Hugo O’Conor, called “Captain Red” by those who serve with him, has started to collect his thoughts for a report he’ll be writing. It’s a success story, from his vantage point, a clear and easily understandable explanation of why his assignment has produced victory.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, O’Conor now serves as a colonel in the Spanish Army. Defeated by British forces in Ireland, he joined with the Spanish and soon arrived in the New World along the Rio Grande River valley. For the past several months he’s been hard at work completing and staffing a series of “presidios”, or small military-civil-religious outposts, along a 2,000-mile stretch of river through the northern provinces of New Spain. O’Conor credits an excellent core team of officers, the presidio network, and an emphasis on speed and mobility—known as “flying camps”—for defeating Native Apache resistance to Spanish imperial rule.

That’s his formula for quieting the group O’Conor calls “the Heathens”.

For You Now

Look up at a star-filled night and you’ll have difficulty understanding the vastness of it all. You might pick out a familiar planet or two from our solar system and try to grasp where we fit. You’ll quickly lose perspective when you realize that the limiting word here is “solar”. A million million other solars are out there twinkling back at you. And some of them have already vanished with empty light still arriving, while others have begun with new light yet to wave.

War is like that for you 250 years ago today.

It’s so vast that people can find their own space inside. They can say they see what other people can’t, define problems and proclaim solutions without anyone proving them wrong. Edges and boundaries are hard to find. Ties and connections can be made but often unravel or break loose at the first tug. A wind blows, invisible to the sight, and particles move in a row.

As a leader, the vast space around you offers a chance for confusion, for clarity, for isolation, for inclusion, for achievement, for danger. Information moves fast and rumors move faster. Shapes take on new shapes, some lasting and some fading.

This is the space where their war is living.

Someone burns a house and an audience shrieks of an attack. Someone is trying to protect their cattle and sheep on a remote island as generals and officials analyze which of the largest ports is the weakest link in the strategic chain. Someone is commanding a military unit while a self-appointed expert ponders and points to the next grand move. Someone is reading a pamphlet about the end of kings with two loyal men swinging from the end of a king’s rope.

Yet somehow, this war, challenging as it is to imagine, rests in an even greater vastness, the deepest space of self-government where a light flickers in the black.

Suggestion

Take a moment to consider: for you, does one issue subsume everything else, and as a leader, what’s your next step?

(Your River)