Americanism Redux

March 5, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1776

Cut through.

You want to cut through that gunk and junk that surrounds everything.

Cut through…the fog, the smoke, the clouds, the dust, the crap, and blank and blank and blank. Fill in the blank with the stuff preventing YOUR action, decision, understanding, and more.

Cut through.

250 years ago right now, anyone with one or more followers—in other words, a leader—wants to cut through it all.

* * * * * * *

(nine pounds of cut-through)

A nine-pound cannon ball flying through the air will cut through a lot of things.

Three days ago General George Washington gave the order to start the cannonading of the British inside Boston. From several heights surrounding the town, Continental Army artillery furnished by Colonel Henry Knox in his “drag-through-the-New York/New England-snow” mission of a few weeks ago is today bombarding Redcoat-held Boston.

Last night, again at Washington’s order, the siege ratcheted-up in intensity when 4000 Continental Army soldiers pulled cannon to the top of Dorchester Heights and began firing into Boston from this vitally important elevation. They were protected cold, wet turf cut and stuffed into bags and barrels by fellow soldiers. For the Redcoats in Boston, what had been a serious nuisance is now an existential threat that must be addressed. Cannon balls crash into homes, shops, barracks, streets, anywhere a human body wearing a red coat might be killed, hurt, or generally affected. They’ll either counterattack like at Breeds/Bunker Hill or evacuate via the Atlantic.

Washington is careful to remind Continental soldiers of the importance of the date: March 5 is the sixth anniversary of the “Boston Massacre”, a vital artery of meaning for each person and each fired shot, and a clear cut through the uncertainty.

* * * * * * *

Also flying through the air are rumors and deeply wrenching emotions. Some folks are saying that John Adams and John Hancock of the Continental Congress in Philadelphia have been seen boarding a ship bound for England.” A woman hears the sound of cannon fire—”the fatal Ideas which are connected with the sound”—and instantly recalls the horrific destruction of CharlesTown she and her child witnessed last spring in the Battle of Breeds/Bunker Hill.

* * * * * * *

(Prince Hall)

Guess who else hears them? Prince Hall, a free black man inside Boston who’s the leader of thirteen other black men in the Freemason’s Grand Lodge. Hall shares George Washington’s awareness of dates and anniversaries, except he’s about “one” more than “six”—it’s the one-year anniversary of the black men’s Grand Lodge, sponsored and encouraged twelve moons ago by a British Redcoat infantry unit, the 48^th Foot. Every cannon shot screams at Hall: what now and what next? Hall is a quiet supporter of the colonial cause, though some in the Lodge will rightly say it was the British Redcoats who helped them. Hall knows the stakes. Up in the air are the lives and liberties of these black Lodge members. In his case, the cannon balls don’t cut through so much as they cut at.

* * * * * * *

(Delia Jarvis)

Delia Jarvis is in Boston, terrified for her family, huddled in their home. On Delia’s mind is a thought no one should have the burden of thinking—is my chosen lover igniting the cannon that blast at us? Her lover is William Tudor, the chief legal advisor to George Washington in the Continental Army. That next explosion of splinters and chunks from wooden houses, or the next whistling shrapnel of brick, stone, and mortar, are they from shot and shells fired by William and cutting through the air?

* * * * * * *

(Delia’s future husband)

William Tudor loves his own home in Boston, though not as much as he loves Delia. He knows his property is likely destroyed but prays his lover Delia will accept him someday as her husband. In the meantime, amid the relationship doubts and cannon blasts, Tudor is gripped with a different kind of frenzy. He’s been reading Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense” and can’t stop his amazement at its effect on the world around him. He’s certain that of every hundred people who read it, ninety-nine of them become fervent supporters of American independence from England and its monarchy. The writer’s words “astonish, convince, and please us,” says Tudor. Words on the page cut through the noise and unknowns.

* * * * * * *

(Phillis Wheatley)

Phillis Wheatley wonders if now is the best time to meet George Washington. A black poet, twenty years old, newly freed from enslavement, and highly respected for her writing, Wheatley has on her desk an eloquent invitation from General Washington to meet him at his Cambridge headquarters the next time she’s in the town. She doesn’t know for sure but it could be the first time that Washington, an enslaver back at Mount Vernon on the Potomac River, will meet on an equal basis with a free black woman in public. But to meet now? Maybe not with all the ear-splitting noise they’d have to cut through in order to have a genuine conversation, which she very much wants to have with him.

* * * * * * *

(Richard Caswell)

Colonel Richard Caswell is near the Widow Moore’s Creek Bridge in southern North Carolina. A battle occurred almost a week ago now, supporters of the American Union against supporters of the British Empire and imperial government on the other. The experience differs sharply from that today outside Boston; no Redcoats, no siege, no constant artillery barrage; no organized town or seaport or coastal infrastructure. Just neighbor on neighbor, local on local.

Caswell and others are still sorting out how many fought on either side, who was on either side, and the number of dead and wounded on either side. Cutting through the confusion and uncertainty is a clear agreement: everyone regards it as an American Union victory and a British imperial defeat, and Caswell will have to account for what to do with Donald McDonald, commander of the enemy force and now his prisoner. If McDonald is left untended, Caswell knows one of two things will happen—the man will either be executed by people who hate him or he’ll re-organize a new military force from among the people who love him. As for Caswell, the battle and the days leading up to it have removed him from his family and from duties as one of the colony’s treasurers.

Cutting through the bogs, swamps, and soft creek banks, Caswell starts a long journey toward Halifax on the North Carolina-Virginia border and the imprisonment of the captive McDonald.

* * * * * * *

(modern Loudoun)

Three hundred fifty miles north of Caswell is James Cleveland in Loudoun County, Virginia. According to one observer, Cleveland “has turned Politician and is setting all Loudoun together by the Ears…he says the tenants should pay no Rents—the pay of officers and Soldiers should be the same, or what would be still better they should not be paid at all, there is no inducement for a poor Man to Fight, for he has nothing to defend…” Cleveland has organized followers into an armed force and is now determined to intimidate local judges into endorsing his economic-based cause against the authority of wealth and social prestige. Cleveland has cut through the issues irrelevant to him in the world he sees.

A battle seems likely between Cleveland’s force and the established pro-Union government of Virginia.

* * * * * * *

(Folsom Tavern)

This is the kind of impulse and chaos 64-year old Meshech Weare wants to avoid in New Hampshire. Over the course of several days in December 1775 and January 1776, he and fellow members of New Hampshire’s Committee of Safety had worked long hours to draft a constitution that would bridge the colony’s status from British Empire to American Union. They designed a governmental structure and legal system they believed would allow for life to unfold as peacefully and orderly as possible in the present times. Stopping at Folsom Tavern for a talk and a tankard with colleagues, Weare is wondering when they’ll hear from the Continental Congress as to whether their constitution is approved or not. Until that happens, they’ll cut through the unknowns as best they can.

* * * * * * *

(Josiah Bartlett)

Josiah Bartlett is one of Weare’s friends, though he’s not at Folsom Tavern. Instead, Bartlett is not far from City Tavern in Philadelphia. He’s a New Hampshire delegate at the Continental Congress in Philadelphia and right now, 250 years ago, he’s watching President John Hancock open and read the draft New Hampshire Constitution at the president’s desk in the front of the meeting room. Hancock reads for several minutes in silence. Raising his eyes, Hancock asks, “What is it the colony wants to know from the Congress?” No one, including Bartlett, offers a clear answer. So, the delegates in the meeting room discuss and reach agreement that delegates Benjamin Franklin, Carter Braxton, and George Wythe should review the constitution and report back to Congress. Inwardly, Bartlett thinks: “what or when they will report is uncertain, but for the honor of the Province I wish it had been kept at home.”

The act of cutting-through will have to wait.

* * * * * * *

(the fog you can’t see)

The atmosphere in the Continental Congress adds to the fog. In addition to Hancock’s posing of the unanswerable question for New Hampshire, a greater source of thickening exists. Delegates are in deep division over Lord Drummond, who is currently in New York from England and depending on your viewpoint, is either an envoy to negotiate a settlement to the war or a secret agent sent to undermine the Union’s cohesion. Delegates argue for hours about him. Also, internal animosity among delegates is a rapidly growing problem; delegates have split into two factions over a pair of Virginians in the group, one supportive of Richard Henry Lee and hostile toward Benjamin Harrison, and supportive of Harrison and hostile toward Lee. Both men are seen as faces of approaches, one of a Drummond-be-damned, cut-through-to-independence (Lee) and the other of a Drummond-be-embraced, go-slower-from-dependence (Harrison).

Seeking their way to cutting-through, some delegates are driven to introspection. They explore their own minds and hearts. John Adams, for one, concludes that the resentment he feels in these meetings is justifiable because it motivates him to protect his place in, and understanding of, the world. Both a person and a community have the right to punish over resentments. Vaulting from inner voice to outer forms, Adams also notes with pride that the colonies have reached an unprecedented level of military power that will have trans-Atlantic effects.

Rather amazingly, out of the cauldron at Pennsylvania State House, three major outcomes boil to a froth. First, the delegates agree to promote nearly a dozen officers to the rank of brigadier generals. Each appointment represents an extension of power. Second, General Charles Lee is placed in command of a newly created adminstrative region, the Southern Command of the Continental Army. Again, by drawing a border around the colonies south of the Delaware River, the delegates have defined a new layer of power. Third, a special committee of delegates select Silas Deane to be a secret representative, envoy, and negotiator with the French imperial government. He will pose as a merchant and trader in France but will quickly move to make contact with senior officials in the French monarchy (the form of government denounced in Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”). The power of the Union and the Continental Congress cuts through ocean barriers in seeking foreign allies.

* * * * * * *

(Charles Lee, holder of new power)

For his part, Charles Lee observes that Congress has made a mistake. Well, kind of, but not really. They should send me to Canada to save the Union there, he believes, since he is the “only officer on the Continent” who speaks French. Oh well, never mind. To the south he will go, but not before jam-packing detail after detail, and rather backhandedly at that, in a letter to George Washington when he senses the Continental Army’s commander-in-chief is miffed at him for not getting enough information.

New powers, new man, new place—it’s the very formula for cutting-through.

* * * * * * *

From cannon balls flying through the air in Boston to new administrative and governmental lines to organize southern defenses, people are cutting through the things that hinder them, 250 years ago.

Also

(a Liverpool graveyard)

Death has come in a group to Charles Goore in Liverpool, England. In the past few days he’s learned that a mother and daughter have died, one immediately after the other. He’s also learned that an elderly couple married for sixty-one years have died within hours of each other.

Goore doesn’t know any of the deceased. It’s just that the sweeping reality of the news and the close-knit circle of relationships affect him. Death rides in.

* * * * * * *

(Dorothea Biehl)

A woman in Copenhagen, Denmark has come to the conclusion that this is exactly the right time. She is Dorothea Biehl, widely respected in the town for her skills in language and language translation. She’s also a playwright with a substantial following of theater-goers and stage actors. Biehl’s conclusion today is that it’s the right time to translate Cervantes’ “Don Quixote” into Dutch, and to publish the great work in a beautifully bound, multi-volume set. Biehl knows that the reading of classic literature is one of the purest joys of life.

For You Now

Cut through the gunk and get to the core. Whatever is extraneous or unnecessary, distracting or disturbing, you have decided to make the move and go straight toward the point you need. There are a hundred other things that are part of this, but the cut-through is a substantive leadership action.

When we look at the history of the American Revolution and American Founding 250 years ago, we see a cut-through by George Washington. He’s been in charge of the force semi-encircling the enemy in Boston since last summer. Now, finally, after swapping out one kind of massed group of armed people for a quasi-trained military force AND getting his much-needed artillery, Washington can let his cut-through commence. The cannon start firing, including from Dorchester Heights. In Boston, the Redcoats are now in peril.

In other words, Washington’s cut-through is the beginning of a new phase.

In leadership, we’re seeing cut-throughs in many forms. Besides Washington’s artillery, we see Washington taking another step: he cuts through the noise to remind soldiers of the anniversary of the Boston Massacre. A date is part of the cut-through.

We also see that when they take particular form, words act as a cut-through; Paine’s booklet continues to cut-through almost everything around it. Beyond written words, the drawing of administrative lines (the Southern Command), a decision to re-shape someone’s future (imprisoning McDonald), and projection of a new field of action (sending a secret agent to France) all are various versions of cutting-through the gunk to get to the core.

And then other stuff needs a cut-through but can’t get one—the draft constitution in New Hampshire, the conclusive analysis of Drummond’s presence, the clarity for Prince Hall’s Lodge, and the opportune timing for Phillis Wheatley.

They’ll be no or very little going-back on a cut-through. When the fog is gone, it’s gone (until the next fog). You’ll have to live with the consequences and repercussions. That’s okay. Perhaps you’ll find that a cut-through is not just an expenditure of energy but also a creator of energy, the momentum for the next thing revealed after the fog disappears.

Suggestion

Take a moment to consider: do you rate yourself as good at cut-throughs, and do you think the American nation needs more cut-throughs today?