Americanism Redux
May 21, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1776
Totally human, that’s what it is, a totally human response.
When all of a sudden, every blood cell, every molecule, and every particle of matter seems dislodged, upended, and sailing through the air, it’s totally human to want some kind of framework, a set of principles and a plan for going forward.
That’s the time we’re in right now…
…250 years ago, this day and week.
Totally human.
* * * * * * *
(Saxe, the Great Reducer)
Amazing! You gotta know this guy! He’s the absolute best author to read because he’s taken experience and “reduced” it to “fixed principles” that another person can study, learn, and apply. And he did all that in the world of war, arguably the single most chaotic human activity on the planet. Read him now!
This is Continental Army Colonel Henry Knox’s opinion of a European general named Marshal Saxe and a book Saxe had published twenty years ago about war. Knox has essentially memorized the book and is now a devotee of the deceased Saxe. To strengthen their ability as fast as possible, Knox urges all his fellow Continental Army officers to read Saxe and anything else worthwhile they can find in military history. Knox feels a sense of relief that, finally, booksellers and printers in Philadelphia are producing some of these books for sale in their shops. It’s vital to the success of the Continental Army, in Knox’s view. “Fixed principles” based on real experience are the only way to go in this bewildering springtime. The fate of the Union depends upon it.
* * * * * * *
The stampede for plans is on.
Six days ago, Valentine Dandridge (George Washington’s brother-in-law) raised his hand and voice, shouting “yes!”. He and 111 other members of the Virginia special convention adopted a resolution calling for the Continental Congress to declare independence, form alliances, and craft a multi-entity confederation. Word of the deed spreads rapidly. This vote followed, without knowing it, the Continental Congress’s adoption of a resolution calling for new governments to be made colony-by-colony.
Richard Henry Lee, a Virginian in both the special convention and the Continental Congress, wonders if the latter group should offer a plan for a uniform confederation that everyone can embrace. He watches a few days ago as a formal ceremony occurs: the British flag is lowered at the Williamsburg capital building, a “Continental” (Grand Union) flag goes up in its place, and a military unit fires off cannon and muskets. A moment of deep worth.
Patrick Henry in Virginia suspects it’s better for the confederation to be formed first with independence to follow. That’s the route to getting the key piece for him: an alliance with France. Seeing a map in his mind’s eye, Henry recommends using the Mississippi River as the safest transport route for Union officials to travel south to French islands in the West Indies to begin negotiations.
Thomas Jefferson is of Virginia but now back in Philadelphia—a fate he detests because he wants to be in action at Williamsburg—and he’s done the next best thing to being there: plops into a chair, stacks blank papers on a desk alongside a quill pen and a bucket of ink, and as fast as he can starts writing drafts of a “plan of government” and “constitution” for his beloved Virginia to use in the Special Convention. It’s an action of nation-making that will serve him well again when spring turns to summer.
Remarking on the odiousness and inherent immorality of being ruled by a government a thousand miles away, John Adams sees that “Every Post and every Day rolls in upon Us, Independence like a Torrent.” He states, “A confederation must be now pursued with all the Address, Assiduity, Prudence, Caution, and yet Fortitude and Perseverance, which those who think it necessary are possessed of. It is the most intricate, the most important, the most dangerous and delicate Business of all.”
James Duane of New York complains that an Adams-authored “preamble” for the Continental Congress resolution is “a Machine for the fabrication of Independence”. Slow down, demands Duane. Likewise, a special convention in Maryland favors a go-slower approach and tosses a political version of a bomb into the mix: it resolves that any delegate in the Continental Congress voting on independence must not be a Continental Army officer or holder of a paid government office; they can’t be objective, is the understandable argument.
Oliver Wolcott, a Connecticut delegate in Philadelphia, sends his wife Laura Collins Wolcott a copy of the Continental Congress resolution for new governments to be formed colony-by-colony. “By the enclosed,” she’ll learn, “you will perceive that a Revolution in Government is recommended”.
Stephen Hopkins, a Rhode Island delegate in Philadelphia, scans the meeting room at Pennsylvania State House with Wolcott and the rest of their delegate-colleagues and their adoption of the “Revolution in Government” resolution. “One thing after another seem gradually to lead them to such a step,” observes Hopkins.
* * * * * * *
“Yes!” yells James Cannon, the 35-year old math professor from the College of Philadelphia. He was among the 4,000 people at yesterday’s special outdoor gathering of concerned citizens of Philadelphia and surrounding communities and one of the largest public meetings in recent years (smaller meetings like this were occurring in towns of many other colonies as well). Here in Philadelphia, Cannon’s, and the group’s, “Yes!” was their deafening response to a call to set aside a recent Provincial Assembly election in Pennsylvania. An avowedly “go-slower-on-independence” majority of winning representatives had emerged from that Assembly election. But with Cannon and these 3,999 other voters shoving the Assembly aside in their outdoor pronouncements, momentum shifts in the past twenty-four hours toward creating a new government and constitution in Pennsylvania, where plan and principles will perhaps come together. Standing off to the side of the 4,000 was a sort of “observer”—John Adams walked away from the scene impressed with the order, dignity, and seriousness of the crowd and the math professor befriended by Thomas Paine.
* * * * * * *
For Pennsylvania, Virginia, and most other colonies, it’s a challenge of mountain-climbing proportions to create something like a plan and principles of a new government. War, however, makes this task a thousand times more difficult. The chaos, mayhem, bloodshed, and destruction of organized violence steepens the trail and hardens the load. Of war’s traces and effects, no doubt exists. Of the point when war’s imprints become scars, no answer is known. While plans and principles are being scribbled on draft parchment as of today 250 years ago, you’re also looking at war and the burdens it brings.
* * * * * * *
In a single, unremarkable, off-handed letter, Continental Congress delegate Joseph Hewes, from North Carolina, touches on war-driven reality. A partial list: officer promotions, officer appointments, medicines, shoes, socks, gunpowder, drums, flags, blankets, wagons, barrels, cannon, horses, and men. Every item demands attention (how?), decision (whose?), funding (from what?), production (where?), use of power (by whom?), and allocation of authority (from whom?). And that’s one letter from one writer at one desk on one day.
* * * * * * *
Hewes and his fellow delegates in the Continental Congress determine that new enlistments in the Continental Army should be for three years. If the recruiting totals aren’t met, then it can be scaled back to one-year enlistments. John Adams worries that an army of nasty, mean-spirited, shiftless, and hopeless societal dregs will be gathered unless longer enlistments are used. More dregs, worse danger.
* * * * * * *
Don’t look now but as far as the people of New York City are concerned, that Continental Army of societal dregs is a lot more real than any other type. Commanding General George Washington is dumb-founded to realize that he has to order—yes, order—the stoppage of nude bathing next to homes and civilian families. Women are also reporting a high number of assaults near Continental encampments. Further, local oystermen complain that soldiers are stealing the catches of their oyster beds. Rail fences are missing, as are livestock on farms, fruit from orchards, and early spring plants in gardens. Washington hopes the Union-wide day of “fasting, prayer, and humiliation” on May 17 (a date named two months earlier) and extending to Sunday’s religious worship services resets personal conduct. The enemy hasn’t fired a single shot in New York City and already the local population is ready to be rid of Continentals.
* * * * * * *
Woven from war, an invisible net spreads across New York City and the surrounding area in the form of other orders by General George Washington. He identifies dozens of gathering points in case of enemy attacks on the area. Alarms are to be dispatched, alerting specific officers and units assigned to particular posts. For civilians, though, with next to no advanced notice, numbers of Continental soldiers—and all the behavior and conduct in which they engage—will rush in and take effective control of local life. Hundreds of homes over thousands of acres will be affected, including the house where Helena Rutgers Scott and her two children live; she won’t know if her husband’s unit will be arriving or not. The woods surrounding Helena’s house could be the next scene of gunfire, artillery explosions, and men locked in vicious hand-to-hand combat. All she’ll know is that booms shake the walls, smoke rolls in, and yells split the air.
* * * * * * *
Local pro-Union groups in the greater New York City and Long Island regions have gotten approval to gain secret authorization from Continental Army General Israel Putnam—and subsequently from Putnam’s colleague, General Nathaniel Greene, who’s upset about being passed over for promotion—for military support in rounding up and seizing people identified as enemies of the American cause. Putnam and Greene will be available to dispatch Continental units or special sub-unit squads to engage in these semi-covert operations. Surprise, speed, and adaptability will be premium qualities in these missions, much like the irregular warfare Putnam used as a younger irregular in the French and Indian War.
Regarding missions in the field, Colonel Samuel Holden Parsons, a Putnam protege and fellow native of Connecticut, resents new Continental policies on promotion. In addition to suggesting pay in peacetime, Parsons believes a new emphasis on “merit” doesn’t go far enough—he thinks that actual service on real missions in the field are the right source for knowing who should earn promotions. What’s more, Parsons states that “partisans”, like Putnam in his younger years and himself at this very moment, don’t have the chance to participate on high-risk, high-reward irregular operations. Maybe the counter-Loyalist campaign across the New York landscape will escalate access to partisan/irregular-like assignments.
* * * * * * *
(New England’s hero in this fight, Horatio Gates)
Bad feelings over Continental officer promotions have begun running in dangerous directions. A bitter divide slashes into in the Continental Congress, the Continental Army, and some of the homes, churches, meetinghouses, and other private spaces in New England and northern New York. General Philip Schuyler, the wealthy New Yorker from near Albany, has become the target of cut-throat criticism by various elected officials, local leaders, and Continental and militia unit officers from across New England. They despise Schuyler, blame him for what’s clearly going to be a significant loss in Canada, and pour into him all their assumptions and grievances about aloof, snobbish, out-of-touch aristocrats with European tone-deafness. Worse yet, they have an anti-Schuyler hero-figure: General Horatio Gates of Washington’s inner circle. Gates adopts a kind of pose that appeals to tavern-going, church-going, and town-green-going New England villager. The corrosive issue of Schuyler/Gates has eaten its way into the Continental Congress with the Massachusetts delegation as its epi-center. They want Schuyler out, Gates in, and as it happens, Gates gains a promotion to Major-General, 250 years ago now. If the Continental Congress isn’t arguing over independence, then they’re griping about the Gates/Schuyler clash. War is igniting political factions.
Incredibly, into this convulsive space and in obedience to a Washington order, Horatio Gates arrives today in Philadelphia to meet with Continental Congress delegates to discuss key war issues. Washington himself will leave New York City today to join Gates in Philadelphia. It’s a major convening of the American Union’s foremost people of governmental power and armed power, now of all times.
* * * * * * *
War is on the water, where a lot can change in two days.
Over a span of two days, William Tokely in New Kent, Virginia is wondering how he can recruit men to serve in his ship, the Fanny. He’s been sponsored by a secret committee of the Continental Congress to find a crew and get to sea as quickly as possible. Though details on pay and support are few, don’t worry, he’s told. Just assure the men it will all work out in their favor. Tokely is skeptical.
Over a span of two days, near Boston, Captain and Sailing Master James Mugford Jr goes from the highlight of his life in capturing a British vessels stuffed with military supplies to losing a hand in a sword fight with British and Loyalist “pirates”. Twenty enemy vessels surrounded Mugford’s ship, the Franklin. He killed five men, cutting off their hands, before he lost his own life in the violence. His name will stay on Boston’s lips for a short while longer.
Over the span of two days, Mrs. Darbage was aiding the back-and-forth water passage of her Loyalist friends of Amboy, New Jersey. Now she’s in a Union prison, and likely an upcoming victim of torture to see if she’ll give up information on her plots, her plans, and—who knows—her principles.
* * * * * * *
Get words on the page. Make a plan out of beliefs. Start now before the wind blows everything away.
Also
(a section of modern Kanpur)
In the upper Ganges River valley, in a region called Kanpur,
Lieutenant Colonel John Neville Parker and 4500 soldiers, most of whom are native, watch the movements of Mabub Khan and the 6000 men aligned with him. Parker’s mission is to assess Khan’s force, look for its weaknesses as well as those of the fort they occupy. Are they rebels? Is this an uprising? And if so, when can an attack be made in order to crush them? These are the questions Parker’s employer—the British East India Company—want answered. Parker has the approval to attack if warranted. This is why Parker is in the lush countryside and farmed lands of the Ganges River.
* * * * * * *
Parker’s mission and presence in Kanpur reflects a real-time change in the British East India Company. Fearful of losing its position, power, and influence in India, Company officials are reforming their military organization. Today, 250 years ago, Parker embodies a new way: bring native units led by British officers into direct Company management and deployment to maintain imperial control. This moment, while initiated as a new policy directive in the Company headquarters in London, is the result of actions decided and taken in Kolkata (Calcutta).
From London to Kolkata to Kanpur, this is the bone and artery of British Empire.
For You Now
This is Union separation—but separating for what? One group wants to separate in order to be apart, expanding, and free-standing. Another group wants to be separate in order to be distinct, contained, and still connected. That first group believes independence carries an extra burden: that separation’s success depends on a specific sequence. Many people in that first group want a particular pattern and argue over which is better—a confederation first?, or alliance first?, or declaration first? That’s why a blizzard of plans begins falling in the spring as debates start about how things should sequence up. Big questions, big answers, big decisions, they’re everywhere by the third week of May. And they’ll keep going, it’s nowhere near done.
The second group, by the way, essentially offers only one thing: delay, because somewhere out there is the chance to negotiate and reach a settlement. See last week’s Redux and the ghost ship. Give us time and the imagined ship carrying imagined negotiators will land. (Now play John Lennon’s song “Imagine.”)
We forget that all of this happens in one common and unequally shared reality—war. For better or worse, like it or not, it is the single most elemental and fundamental duty of government. And every hour it exists is another hour of effect on the Union and separation.
As a leader, I ask that you remember we’re seeing a massive course of change (Union) occurring inside and alongside a massive source of change (war). The course of change you want to pursue has to cope with a source of change you may not have embraced at other times.
Perhaps now we can understand Henry Knox’s desire to seek out “fixed principles.”
Suggestion
Take a moment to consider: how can you keep one hand on the course of change and the other hand on the source of change?
(Your River)
