Americanism Redux

October 16, your today, on the journey to the American Founding, 250 years ago, in 1775

“Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink…”

Samuel Coleridge will write these words in one of his poems in 1798.

That was then, and this is now, 250 years ago today, in 1775, a generation before “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

Water, water everywhere…

* * * * * * *

250 years ago, today.

Look out there. Is it real?

Yep, all too real.

Along the distant edges of Falmouth Harbor, in the mid-afternoon today, 250 years ago, four large ships appear. The British flag waves among their tall masts, sails, and rigging. On the forward deck of the main ship, Canceaux, stands Captain Henry Mowatt, defiant of the bright sun. His orders are to destroy Falmouth.

Mowatt remembers clearly what happened to him at Falmouth back in the spring. In a dispute over supplies and the rules of the anti-imperial economic boycott, Mowatt had been seized and held for several hours, taunted and threatened. The entire episode was a slap in the face at British authority and, of the greatest sting, himself.

Well, it’s payback time, and now Mowatt has the authority of British Admiral Samuel Graves to wreck the place if his demands for community disarmament aren’t met. In a while, he’ll order his ships to cruise closer toward the town.

The wind blows fresh across the deck of the Canceaux. Ocean spray dampens the stern face of British Naval Captain Henry Mowatt. Aboard his squadron’s vessels, the cannon, swords, knives, muskets, pistol, and materials for igniting a fiery blaze, they all await. The navy’s sailors wait, too, looking for the signal to attack.

Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink…can it stop a conflagration?

* * * * * * *

Further out to sea is the British naval ship carrying General Thomas Gage and his wife Margaret to England. Gage has been relieved of command in British-held Boston, replaced by General William Howe. Gage’d had roughly seventeen months in charge of the Redcoats in Massachusetts. What to show for it? Pre-Gage, the anti-imperial colonists didn’t have an organized political entity. Now, with the First and Second Continental Congresses, they do. They didn’t have an organized union-based army. Now, with the Continental Army, they do. They didn’t have clear-cut proof of courage, steadiness, and sacrifice in combat. Now, with Concord-Lexington and Bunker Hill-CharlesTown, they do.

Gage doesn’t want to spend much time on poop deck, or back deck, of the ship. Indeed, nothing but poop for Gage looking back to the western Atlantic. He and Margaret’s future is all east of the water, water everywhere, on the Atlantic, bound for England.

* * * * * * *

And the American Union that is the heart and soul of the anti-imperial cause also has another new thing, a naval force, or at least, the adopted law to start a Continental Navy, a counterpart to the Continental Army. This week the Second Continental Congress has approved the creation of an American Navy. The core of the service will be the embrace of existing vessels operating with authority from legislatures in Connecticut and Rhode Island. The new Continental Congress law allows for formal construction, recruitment, outfitting, arming, payment, and rules and regulations for the Union’s naval operations on the water, water everywhere.

* * * * * * *

The Continental Army surrounding British-held Boston has been busy with some of these same plans for naval forces. General George Washington has already approved the use of other New England-based watercraft in a kind of naval service. Moreover, flat-bottomed boats are being built and men trained in rowing, paddling, landing, scaling rocky ledges and beaches, and reforming for battle—they’re the Marines. Washington knows it could be difficult to blend his naval service with that created by the Second Continental Congress, but he’s optimistic it can be done. They can’t afford to cede to the British the control and use of the water, water everywhere.

* * * * * * *

(Mercy Otis Warren)

Today, 250 years ago, Mercy Otis Warren and her husband have finished their social call on Mrs. Thomas Mifflin, whose husband is a member of General Washington’s staff. While at tea, the two women talk of the prevalent action they can easily see around them—everyone is abuzz about water, water everywhere and the need to create a navy as quickly as possible from among Washington’s army of 20,000 men. They’re also still lamenting last week’s news of the betrayal committed by Dr. Benjamin Church, a colonial-rights leader and, it turns, out, secret agent for the one-time British commander, General Thomas Gage.

Mercy Warren writes to her friend John Adams that it’s heartening to see so many strong indications of the tight connection between the Continental Army outside Boston and the Continental Congress inside Philadelphia. That’s the feeling she gets in hearing about letters from delegates. She remarks, “The Animated spirit which Reigns there seems to beat in unison with the sentiments in your Respectable Assembly.”

Going further in her enthusiasm, Mercy concludes, “We Expect Great projects are to open upon us, and that A system of politics will soon be disclosed that will do Honor to the Genius of America, and Equal to some of the Capital Characters which Compose the Grand Counsel of the Continent.”

Her expectations are Adams and his fellow delegates can walk on water, water everywhere.

* * * * * * *

(Benjamin Harrison IV, member of the 3-man committee)

Whether on water or dry land, it’s tough to walk on a miracle. In the week ending today, 250 years ago, the two centers of American Union—the Pennsylvania State House and the Continental Congress and the semi-circular outskirts of Boston and the Continental Army—are going back and forth in trying to understand power, authority, policy, and decisions.

Outside Boston, George Washington is listening to a three-person committee visiting him from the Continental Congress. He’s hearing that they want him to reconsider—strongly reconsider—the decision to NOT attack the British in Boston. He’s also having to delay final decisions on how to proceed in organizing the new army. Input from the three-person committee, he believes, is crucial to final outcomes. Is the Continental committee/delegation there simply to express opinions, nudge toward one direction or another, or essentially instruct on particular choices?

The question is hanging in the air over the issue of using black soldiers in the Continental Army. Last week, a South Carolina delegate in Philadelphia, Edward Rutledge, had pushed for their removal. Other southern delegates supported him. Northern delegates, however, succeeded in tabling the proposal. But this week, outside Boston in Washington’s headquarters, the general’s core team of other high-ranking officers agreed not to encourage the use of black men and boys in the new army that will be formed during the next several weeks. So who has the power and authority to decide it?

The answer isn’t clear in light of the Preside/nt of the Continental Congress’s recent letter to the New Jersey Convention. That’s because Preside/nt John Hancock—in the name of Congress, CONGRESS, as he states baldly—has communicated that the New Jersey Convention will immediately begin to organize military regiments for one year’s duty. Each enlistee will receive a hunting shirt and a blanket, courtesy of the Continental Congress. In addition, forty-eight blank officers’ commission will be sent by the Continental Congress for distribution to appropriate men in New Jersey. Again, all of this is an outreach to the colony by Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

In the Union, it appears, the Preside/nt is the spokesman for the Congress, though it further appears that the Army’s commanding general and his staff have a strong voice as well.

* * * * * * *

Disputes are becoming a fact of life within the Union and the cause of colonial rights. Two officers from the same unit outside Boston clash this week 250 years ago. Lieutenant Richard Woodward accuses Captain Samuel Gridley of misconduct. A court martial declares Gridley innocent. Two days later a court martial determines that it’s Woodward who’s guilty—of cowardice during the Battles of Bunker Hill/CharlesTown and of recently inciting mutiny. The officers of the court martial eject Woodward from the army. Gridley begins a slow burn of bad attitude over his treatment.

Meanwhile, had Gridley and Woodward’s dispute occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, different results likely would have ensued. An argument has broken out in Charleston between Henry Laurens and John Faucheraud Grimke. They’re insulting each other in public over the handling of private mail sent from London to imperial allies in Charleston. Though Laurens and Grimke share a deep opposition to British imperial power, today, 250 years ago, they prepare to meet at dawn in northern Charleston for a pistol duel. Honor is at stake and that overrides their mutual agreement on the colonial-imperial crisis. The cause of Union isn’t enough to calm this personal dispute.

* * * * * * *

(Dead River)

Far away from duels and courts martial, from the Union’s relationship between the Continental Congress and Continental Army, from the water, water everywhere of all things naval during this week, two small armies of men grapple with dark forests, raging rivers, insects, disease, and increasingly, starvation. They are the two military expeditions led by the Continental officers Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold, respectively, slogging their way toward Canada—the former toward Montreal along the Richelieu River and the latter toward Quebec along the chillingly named Dead River. Commanders outside Boston blithely refer to the “progress”—Washington is convinced everything is going well with them—but the truth is a million miles away. The water, water everywhere of their struggles run only a few feet deep, but they struggle every hour of every day in mid-October 1775.

 

* * * * * * *

From ocean to inlet to harbor to river, 250 years ago right now, water was the thread in many people’s stories.

 

Also

(inside the cabin)

A few days ago off the shore of Greenland, the crew of the Herald, a whaling ship, stared open-mouthed at a frozen, floating chunk of ice. Actually, the ice was packed around the rotting remains of a ship. A contingent of the Herald’s sailors boarded the ice-covered vessel and hacked their way into the main quarters of the ship’s commander. The ship of ice was empty, devoid of people, until, that is, they entered the cabin and saw four frozen corpses. One was the captain, seated at his desk. Another was a woman close by him, and naked child wrapped in a blanket. Next to the child was a sailor holding a tinderbox.

They also found in the cabin a log that contained the ship’s name, the Octavius, and a record of its run in the Arctic Ocean, with the last entry written thirteen years ago, in 1762.

The Herald’s crew dubbed it: The Ghost Ship.

* * * * * * *

The English shores of Essex, Sussex, and Norfolk are still seeing bodies and broken wooden planks washing up from the angry waves of the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Heavy winds and the waves they drove up and down smashed into several vessels that had almost reached port in England after long journeys from the West Indies.

* * * * * * *

(modern Halifax)

On London’s dry land, at least in appearance, British Prime Minister Lord North wrote to his ruler, King George III. North informed the British monarch that an ocean-going military expedition was being planned for the southern colonies in America. North also stated that foreign troops might need to be assigned to duty in Ireland assist with keeping law and order there, but that such a measure would require the “consent” of both the British and Irish Parliaments. Finally, North stated that ships already sailing for the American colonies had ample supplies of weapons and tools for the British military outpost in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

It’s the life and reality of the British Navy, vital resource in holding the British Empire together across the “water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.”

For You Now

You’ve read a lot in today’s Redux and I don’t want to tire you out. I do want to mention, however, that the decision to create an American Union Navy has some interesting implications.

There is very little military heritage in the American colonies for a navy. There’s plenty for an army. A navy is different. Its culture, practices, resources, and capacities will have to be developed from scratch. Even the maritime commercial life of the Atlantic coastal will need major shifts to make the leap from economic transactions to war-like duties.

In addition, a navy is built for more than protection. It’s also about projection. Without the British Navy, there’s no British Empire. None. Every British vessel represents physical space and armed power emanating from the center of British government and governance. The same POTENTIAL exists for the Union’s version of a navy. The immediate responsibility will be to protect coastal communities and transport military units from one location to another. But the definition of “location” can be quickly expanded.

We’re also learning that the navy has unique effects on the Union itself. In two separate places, in Philadelphia and outside Boston, the Union is dealing with the need for a navy but with distinctly removed entities—the political entity and the military entity. Notice also that there is no appointment of a George Washington-equivalent naval commander. There’s no one to shower praises of virtue on, as Mercy Otis Warren did with Washington several weeks ago. No one to hold up as a likely hero. As I said, interesting, don’t you think?

Water, water everywhere. And formally a Union navy will now sail, row, paddle, and float on top of it.

Suggestion

Take a moment to consider: is the US Space Force of October 2025 a Rhyme with the Union Navy of October 1775?

(Your River)