Americanism Redux
July 10, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775
(let’s poke around inside Jaws)
Good Lord, the changes right now are fast and furious. No end in sight. That’s the view of many, many people.
Some like it, some don’t.
In such a time, things reset, realign, reconstitute.
Let’s take a look at another time when this same feeling was true with total justification.
Use today, 250 years ago, to help you measure the feeling and decide what’s real and what’s not. Is this a deep and genuine reset? Or does the noise make it louder than it really is?
So, here we go.
* * * * * * *
(he’s in charge of the court)
The Massachusetts regiment led by Colonel William Prescott is holding a court martial. Prescott and a handful of officers have formed into a military court to decide who’s guilty and who’s not guilty of whatever infraction they’re charged with.
Yeah, a military court of law in Cambridge, Massachusetts—tasked with addressing misconduct among the American units—which are arrayed in a semi-circle around the Redcoats penned up in Boston.
Can you believe it? Who would have thought?
Prescott’s court judges one man accused of threatening physical harm during a recent stint in a makeshift military jail. Guilty, punished by wearing weights on his legs while he sits astride a “wooden horse” for fifteen minutes. They judge a second man accused of falling asleep while on guard duty. Not guilty, dismissed.
On to the rest of the day’s work: watching the British in Boston, keeping the lid on the American units’ behavior, waiting for supplies and something to happen.
* * * * * * *
(a recruiting scene–notice the man with uplifted arms, the recruiter)
Speaking of those American units, colonels commanding the regiments (roughly 10 companies per regiment) receive orders to pick one officer per company (roughly 60 men in a company) to go recruit men to join the new Continental Army. These recruiters must be officers who are “active and vigilant…(and) who are most in esteem with people in the District they are sent to recruit in.”
Every village, hamlet, town, and clump of houses at a crossroads will soon hear from someone they likely know and hopefully respect, talking about the crisis and coming war, talking about the fundamental reset that is sweeping through life in the colonies.
* * * * * * *
(a leave-behind)
Those recruiting officers will have the following goal: “engage men of courage and principle to take up arms”. So does that mean anyone?
Here are the guidelines: native-born in the colonies only, but exceptions will be allowed to non-native born if they have a wife and kids and have lived here a while; do not accept “any deserter from the Ministerial Army, nor any stroller, negro, or vagabond, or person suspected of being an enemy…or anyone under eighteen years of age.”
Is this a reset?
* * * * * * *
(their harbor)
In Baltimore, Maryland the “Committee of Safety” has voted to require any master of a naval vessel—size matters not—must, repeat must, report to the Committee and describe exactly what cargo his vessel is bringing to the town. Moreover, the Committee will be keeping a special eye out for any signs of gunpowder in the vessels. The substance will likely be in high demand and every last grain of it will be vital in a war.
It’s the new way, and vessel masters better get used to it.
* * * * * * *
(her gravestone)
Jerusha Kirkland is with her two twin 5-year old sons and her 1-year old daughter in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. They’re waiting at the Kirkland family home for husband and dad—Samuel—to return from his trip to Philadelphia.
Jerusha and Samuel are a wife-and-husband team of Christian evangelists, specializing in cross-cultural spiritual outreach to Native tribes in western Massachusetts and beyond the Berkshire Mountains. Samuel is meeting with members of the Second Continental Congress today in a grueling three-hour interrogation, investigation, and job interview. As it happens, at the three-hour plus one-minute mark, members of the Second Continental Congress vote to subsidize the Kirklands’ work for the foreseeable future. The idea is that the Kirklands will be not only spiritual ambassadors but diplomatic and military ambassadors as well. The Second Continental Congress wants as many Native tribes as possible to ally with the new Union or, at least, stay neutral in the imperial-colonial struggle.
Samuel leaves Pennsylvania State House with the full awareness that life is about to change again for him, his wife, and their children. He’s heading home to tell Jerusha.
* * * * * * *
(the lighthouse on Cockspur)
Far south of Kirkland, there is action on the salt water.
In Georgia, at Savannah, a new armed sloop has gone into the coastal waters as the colony’s first naval vessel. The captain and crew will keep close watch on any British naval activity along the Georgia coast. Meanwhile, at Cockspur Island off the coast of Georgia, three small vessels outfitted by the government of South Carolina have seized the British sloop, Phillippa, carrying 16,000 pounds of gunpowder.
A naval conflict has begun in southern waters.
* * * * * * *
(almost 5000 words)
Today, 250 years ago, George Washington is spending a considerable time drafting a lengthy letter to John Hancock, the Preside-ent of the Second Continental Congress. Washington knows Hancock will share the letter with the delegates in Philadelphia so, in essence, the letter will function as a report. It’s an official communication from the commander-in-chief to his superiors, the civilian delegates.
The letter-report will be nearly 5000 words long.
Washington opens with an extensive description of the defenses constructed thus far by the armed colonists (now Continental Army). He also details how shockingly close the defenses are to British positions. Washington reminds Hancock of a “council of war” he has conducted, consisting of seven participants who discuss, debate, and vote to decide on eight topics pertaining to the current situation.
Five additional points further pop out. First, he needs everything, from money to food. Second, he wants 10,000 “hunting shirts” provided, which he believes will help the soldiers feel more connected to each other and to the cause. Third, he can’t go much longer without a single point of contact on supplies and materials, and he has a recommendation for the right person. Fourth, officers are griping with each other over rank. And fifth, there’s a large number of “boys, deserters, and negroes” among the soldiers here, and that fact, he believes, weakens their effectiveness as a fighting force.
* * * * * * *
(Dickinson)
Hancock is presiding—hence Preside-ent—over a Second Continental Congress that has this week produced a pair of unusual official statements for distribution to King George III. One man is a collaborative author of one of the documents and is the solo author of the other document.
He is John Dickinson, one of Pennsylvania’s delegates.
44-years old, a remarkable attorney, mega-wealthy, and owner of a magnificent reputation as the most influential writer, thinker, and public commentator during the colonial protests of the 1760s, Dickinson is a natural choice for writing the “Second Petition From Congress To The King” and for co-writing “The Declaration of the Causes and Necessity For Taking Up Arms.” Both documents are already on board ship in the western Atlantic Ocean, bound for England.
Dickinson worked with a committee to write the “Declaration”, actually, with Thomas Jefferson more than anyone else. Dickinson and Jefferson went back and forth on some wording, a co-writing situation that verged on tense. Nevertheless, the final document was a strong blend of both men’s work, but Dickinson left the most powerful imprint with this quote in the final portion of the final document: “Our cause is just. Our union is perfect.” As the quote suggests, the “Declaration” document was assertive, confident, and on the scarcely concealed side of not-at-all-backing-down.
The “Petition” document was a bit different. It called for reconciliation, for reconnecting the British Empire back into what it once was before the 1760s. Dickinson urged the British monarch to “interpose” himself between the colonies’ oppressors and the oppressors themselves, which was the Parliament and imperial advisors.
The pair of documents were all the more off-step with each other in light of Dickinson’s dual authorship roles. How could they be explained to the 10,000 men Washington wanted to clad in hunting shirts? To the recruits soon to be sought across Massachusetts? To the Native tribes who would be listening to the words of the Kirklands?
Dickinson himself was of two minds—one to protect and defend the colonies, and one to exhaust every conceivable, imaginable, aspirational, and delusional option for avoiding civil war.
* * * * * * *
So much…noise, change, resetting, returning.
Also
(the Iron General)
They call him “Iron General.” He has one name—Agui.
He is a 57-year old Manchu nobleman, from a family of wealth, connections, and generational influence.
Agui is one of the best-known and seasoned military leaders in the army of Hongli, emperor of Qing dynasty in modern-day China. He’d fallen out of favor for a while in the 1760s with the failed Qing military incursion into the Burmese lands. When rumors of a revolt by the Jinchuan people arrived, the timing was perfect for Aqui. He could prove—or, re-prove—his value to Hongli as a wartime commander.
Thus, for the past four years, Agui has been the primary military leader in putting down the Jinchuan hill uprisings. Today, 250 years ago, Agui is showing the effectiveness of a new emphasis in the fighting—he is tough, severe, and unrelenting in compelling merchants to keep his army in constant supplies of food and materials. He’ll stop at next to nothing to bend the merchants to his will.
Agui is working hard to crush the rebels in Xinjiang.
* * * * * * *
For You Now
(the second voice)
A lot of times I have two voices in my head when I’m writing for you. One speaks of my desire to tell you 250 stories that you just won’t see or hear anywhere else. I do that for you to have a much deeper, broader, and more flexible understanding of the American Founding, and, to the extent that the conception and birth of something affects its subsequent life, our present and future state of America.
The other voice is a sort of measuring tool-maker. I’m crafting moments from the past for you to fashion into tools for today and tomorrow. My hope is that you can use those tools for measuring, sizing up, and generally benchmarking in knowing how your perception of the current moment fits with what others have experienced before now. It’s to say that we’ve been here before AND here is how you can use the before in building the context for right now. It’s to help you hear the Rhyme.
That’s the pair of voices speaking to you from my side of the keyboard and screen.
We’re hearing an awful lot about change in the form of upheaval, overturning, and more. I want you to look at this day 250 years ago and see the various ways in which they were living change. You can’t know how to measure if you don’t know what you’re measuring.
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider: how far are you seeing change (wanted and unwanted) go in your life and sense of life and, maybe most importantly of all, what are its sources?
(Your River)
