Americanism Redux

January 29, Your Today, 250 Years Ago, In 1776

Some of us see it.

First, the change facing us is getting bigger, a lot bigger…

…and then, second, to keep doing what we’ve been doing isn’t enough—do we continue with the same but do it more?

Nope, we’ve got to match big change to big change.

Today and this week, 250 years ago, it looks like we’re going big to big.

* * * * * * *

(Knox)

See him? The big guy is back. Two people, among others, are thrilled, absolutely thrilled. One of the two loves him. The other of the two loves what he has with him.

29-year old Lucy Knox sees her husband for the first time in nine weeks. Henry Knox has been gone since mid-November, off to get much-needed artillery from Fort Ticonderoga in northern New York and then drag and haul 60 tons of cannon and equipment to the outskirts of Boston. The Continental Army is desperate for the artillery in order to advance and win their siege of the Redcoats in Boston. Lucy knows all about these facts.

Lucy knows, too, that gave up a lot when she married Henry, her pro-British family, her family’s money, her family’s upbringing and strong social bonds. She knows they’ll be in even greater danger inside Boston when the artillery brought by her husband begins to blast away at houses, buildings, streets, and enemy. Perhaps one of the cannon blasts will kill them, God forbid. But God in heaven, she’s thrilled, relieved, and grateful that her beloved Henry is now back.

General George Washington, the overall commander of the Continental Army, is ecstatic to see Knox and his entire collection of military hardware. For months, he’s overseen what is a quasi-siege, a half-siege, and on some days a fake-siege with a handful of rickety cannon and a bunch of well-meaning volunteers surrounding the British in a semi-circle. But no longer, with Knox’s remarkable ox-horse-mule-and-man train of artillery, it’s a new ballgame. Providence be praised, soon enough, it’ll be our big against their big.

* * * * * * *

(where big goes big on the same day)

Going big to match big is also the conscious decision by the forty-five or so delegates in the Continental Congress in Philadelphia.

And big means big, multiplied by three.

Big x One: five delegates, John Dickinson and James Wilson, foremost of them, have asked for and received the task of presenting the best case yet of the slow-path model of independence. Dickinson has already written a draft document he wants submitted to the public, maybe in his mind as an official counter to Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”. Dickinson’s language is respectful, yet passionate, detailed, yet cohesive. His terms apply concepts of political philosophy and civic study to descriptions of trending recent events. He addresses the new—the American, the rise of a Congress to embody all the colonies, the infusion of Union into the established right of petition, and the formal delegation of representation to the Union’s gathered body—all of it invoked to pull back and blunt “the Edge of the Sword.” Dickinson wants the slowest of slow-walks toward the cliff of independence.

Unknown to him, however, a new 1,000 copy print run of Paine’s booklet is almost finished and headed for Virginia’s readers, while another run is nearly sold out on local pre-order, and a German language edition in the works; Paine’s work is red-hot in demand. As Dickinson’s committee begins its revisions on the slow-walk, Paine’s readers sprint toward the bookshelves and buy up the fast-walks.

Big x Two: in knowledge that the twin invasion of Canada has failed and collapsed, another Continental Congress committee writes a formal letter to Canadian residents, reading in part, “We will never abandon you to the unrelenting fury of your and our enemies…we advise and exhort you to establish associations in your different parishes, of the same nature with those which have proved so salutary to the United Colonies; to elect deputies to form a provincial assembly; and that said assembly be instructed to appoint delegates to represent them in this Congress…”

Separately but not entirely so is the decision of Congress to vote money for the Union’s first formal military-historical monument—a statue of General Richard Montgomery, killed a month ago in the disastrous attack on Quebec.

Big x Three: “Resolved, That a committee of 7 be appointed–Thomas Lynch, Benjamin Franklin, Edward Rutledge, Benjamin Harrison, Samuel Ward, Samuel Adams, and Robert Morris—to consider the propriety of establishing a war office, and the powers with which the said office should be vested.” This was a conscious effort to adopt and adapt the British Imperial War Office currently coordinating the war effort against the colonies. They’re leaning on shared background and on what they think they know.

They’re going big in the meeting room of Pennsylvania State House.

* * * * * * *

(sees them in his head)

George Washington wants to go big as well. On one side of himself, he’s increasingly upbeat and enthusiastic now that Knox’s artillery train is in camp opposite British-held Boston—can’t wait to start the planning to make this siege real! But on the other side of himself, he’s weighed down by knowing each Continental soldier has only a dozen rounds of ammunition while a Redcoat has sixty; he’s got an inability to do anymore than state verbally we have to protect ourselves everywhere on the coast lines of each colony; and no clear choice exists on sending a new commander to Canada lead a turnaround effort and produce victory out of defeat.

Going big is hard when everything smacks of small and around you “the clouds”, he believes, “thicken fast.”

* * * * * * *

(the harbor war)

Getting bigger is the scale of the harbor war beyond the Boston encirclement.

From the coastal rocks of New England to the sandy beaches of the Carolinas, separate British naval squadrons are harassing, threatening, and attacking seaside communities. Colonial residents retaliate.

A British naval force strikes in Sandy Hook, New Jersey and at Cape Fear, North Carolina. Counterattacks by vessels from the infant Continental navy occur along Massachusetts shores. Private civilian plans for an invasion of pro-British Nova Scotia remain in play, and recruiting calls are out in Pennsylvania for the colony’s navy to gather at the Widow Casey’s, the Drum Head, or General Putnam’s tavern in Philadelphia. Nicholas Cooke, governor of Rhode Island, approves his Assembly’s vote that requires all residents to be fully armed and outfitted by April 20 or face stiff fines; the water-bounded colony expects more of the worst. And when Continental General Charles Lee sends a letter into New York City to announce his arrival to organize local defenses on Washington’s orders, residents of the city panic at the thought he would attack British naval vessels in the harbor and prompt counter-destruction.

Lee urges them to take a longer view of the harbor war: “I am convinced, and every man who considers a moment must be convinced, that the destruction of the seaport town, would, if possible, be a severe stroke to the (British) ministry and their instruments, than to the inhabitants themselves. The seaport towns are the only holds they have in America; they are considered as the pledges of servitude, the menacing destruction of them may indeed be of admirable use; but the real destruction of them must extinguish all hopes of success.”

Going big is growing the chess board, the squares that comprise it, and the pieces that make the watery game.

* * * * * * *

(a fire near here)

Virginia is one place of many where on-the-ground fighting and struggles now burn day-to-day. Three anti-British colonists are dead after a clash with British units, who lost fifteen in the fight. The colony’s collection of small boats keep in constant contact with ships controlled by exiled governor Lord Dunmore. A fire breaks out in Williamsburg and destroys a handful of buildings near the College of William and Mary. Requests for ads publicizing people who are leaving the colony flood into a printers; thus far, more than twenty people have decided to flee. The Assembly organizes a process to handle captured goods and cargo found in enemy or enemy-supporting vessels. It’s a point of pride for local officials, proof they can deal with the unique issues of the harbor-war.

* * * * * * *

Joseph Johnson, a Native Mohegan Christian evangelist, sees no prospects of funds for his work among Native villages in northern and western New York. He’s combining his calling as a Christian missionary with military and geo-political strategy. He has attempted to use his language, cultural, and spiritual skills to promote positive feelings among the Natives toward the Union and the anti-British cause. He’s almost out of food, however, has no home of his own because he’s constantly traveling, and the nature of his activity prevents any steady work in farming. He’s asking his closest ally, mentor, and sponsor, Dartmouth College President Eleazer Wheelock, for help.

At the same time, five hundred miles southwest of Johnson, the German immigrant Melcher Brobeck is in Frederick, Maryland. He’s decided to enlist in the 9^th company, commanded by Captain Ben Ford of the 1^st Maryland Continental Regiment. Brobeck regards himself as something apart from ordinary soldiers—he’s signing up as “light infantry” where he’ll be serving in an almost “irregular” or guerrilla capacity in contrast to other infantry units. If any of his buddies get their hands on the forthcoming German-language edition of Paine’s “Common Sense”, Brobeck will be happy to translate. For now, he’s simply wondering if his new unit will stay in Frederick or be transferred…somewhere else.

* * * * * * *

While in Philadelphia at the Continental Congress, John Adams, one of the Massachusetts delegates, opens a letter addressed to him. The author, writing in a clear hand, is “Humanity.” No other name is given. Interestingly, it is the only such word chosen and then spelled correctly in the entire document, a straight-arrow screed that aims to mock Adams and all the delegates who ignore black enslavement as they build the American Union.

An excerpt and flavor sample: “…whot has the negros the afracons don to us that we shuld tak tham from thar own land and mak tham sarve us to the da of thar deth.”

In style, tone, content, and recipient, Humanity went big.

* * * * * * *

250 years ago, this is the day and this is the week of putting big on big.

Also

(this sure isn’t tea)

In western India, a region of the British Empire, Richard Griffiths, a British East India Company board member, worries about the behavior of Dutch and French officials. They’re cutting in on the action at opium factories. They’re behaving with criminal intent and encroaching on my and our rightful British opium capacity, complains Griffiths. Tea, schmee, there’s profit-grade opium to be had and Griffiths demands a slice of the sterling.

* * * * * * *

(somewhere out there)

Three men from Tuscany float in a small wooden boat in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Egypt. They’ve been placed there as punishment by Captain John Eastman, the commander of the “Betsy”, a ship affiliated with the anti-British cause in America. Eastman regarded the men as a threat to the Betsy’s smuggling of guns and goods from the Mediterranean region to Philadelphia. The trio, subjects of the Habsburg Empire, become hungrier and thirstier by the hour as they drift in the salt water.

* * * * * * *

(“Two Female Combatants”)

An unknown British artist sketches and publishes a political cartoon illustrated in color. In the scene, two women fight each other, one from Imperial England with upturned hair and a long dress, and the other from Native America, bare-breasted and wearing carefully placed feathers.

It’s yours for six pence.

For You Now

(big, back in the day)

Matching big on big.

Likely you’ve seen or heard somewhere about the definition of insanity: it’s failing and then doing the same thing over and over in expectation of success. You’re meant to recoil at the dumbness, of course.

But let’s do it differently and see how it strikes you.

Effort, trying and trying, never giving up. You’ve seen or heard things designed to instill the lesson of constant effort. Keep at it and one day, you’ll succeed. Like Edison and his 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb.

See where I’m going? If it’s depicted as effort, don’t quit and that’s great. If it’s portrayed as rote repetition, stop it right now, otherwise you’re an idiot. Somehow, stacked like this, the line here seems thin and a bit of the eye of the beholder.

This is one of the most powerful aspects of today’s Redux. Washington thanks God for the change-up brought by Knox, from shooting off a few muskets to soon being able to blast cannon fire from artillery batteries. That’s going big on big. Continental Congress members believe they can’t keep waging a war without some type of coordination; they think about a version of a “war office.” Virginia’s government realizes the harbor-water war needs an administrative answer and sets up an “admiralty board” for the first time. All of this is realizing we can’t keep tossing pebbles and casting stones—it’s time to bring in the proverbial bigger guns.

Here’s where John Dickinson can teach us. He’s not moving off the mark. If he’s Washington, he would be saying “let’s hold off on the artillery for some period longer”. Dickinson still thinks intensifying the adverbs and adjectives to his unchanging position is what’s required. The problem is that the time for ever-flowering language has passed. Forget the descriptors, the enhancers, the amplifiers. Focus on the verbs and the vision.

Will they translate Dickinson’s writings into German? Will they get hundreds of pre-orders to buy his stuff? I doubt it.

Paine is the day. Big on big.

To meet the change, you have to make a change, and in a big way. As I read it, that’s a double-change. Yes, there are pitfalls. Yes, there are unexpected consequences. Yes, it’s time.

Suggestion

Take a moment to consider: for you as a leader, what absolutely has to be true for you to go big on big, to lead big on big?

(Your River)