When you have seven ships and you encounter a single ship belonging to the enemy, the Battle of Block Island teaches us that it’s still possible to be overconfident.
Some people tried to frame the Battle of Block Island as a draw, but those people really weren’t paying attention. The HMS Glasgow took some damage, but far more damage was done to the ships that engaged her: The Cabot had its steering disabled and mostly just got in the way, the Alfred lost its tiller as well and also served as an obstacle. Providence held back and was undamaged; Columbus came in late and her fire was ineffective; likewise the Andrew Doria, which got stuck behind the Alfred. And the Glasgow got away, besides.
Between Esek Hopkins’ earlier disobeying of his orders and now this debacle, among other transgressions, he was formally censured. By 1778 he had been dismissed altogether from the Navy.
One of the things I really appreciate about reading documents from this era is just how polite they were; George Washington’s letter to the NY Committee of Safety, when you read between the lines is an admonition wondering if that august body had lost their damn minds.
One of the best examples of this is the Declaration of Independence itself. As Aaron Sorkin describes it in an episode of The West Wing:
[N]ever has a war been so courteously declared. It was on parchment with calligraphy, and “Your Highness, we beseech you on this day in Philadelphia to bite me, if you please.”
However, we’re getting ahead of ourselves; that doesn’t happen for another couple of months (and not when you think!).
At any rate, Washington was correct in his assessment that it didn’t make a ton of sense for New York to supply the British while at the same time opposing them. At the same time he didn’t accuse them directly; he played it very cool and suggested that the NY Committee of Safety could get a lot of credit if they’d do as he suggested.
Mercy Otis Warren doesn’t get nearly enough love in our history books, and barely enough of it here, besides. Having said that, our episode a little over a year ago was a fun little tribute.
Mercy Otis Warren was a playwright, a pamphleteer and a poet before, during and after the Revolution. Some of her plays were thinly veiled attacks on the British. She was self-taught and pretty brilliant at it, considering that she was one of the first to advocate for a Bill of Rights (though nobody knew she’d written the piece advocating one until her great-great-grandson found a document tying the pamphlet to her).
And while this episode focuses on correspondence between her and John Adams, she frequently exchanged letters with George Washington, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. But her best relationship was with John Adams, who she looked to as a wiritng mentor. It was at his suggestion that she began writing a history of the Revolution while it was still being fought. She didn’t need primary sources to write her history, she was the primary source. At worst, she was getting it second-hand from the members of the Continental Congress and local leaders.
Mercy was married to James Warren, and I mention that here because oftentimes she’s thought to be the widow of Dr. Joseph Warren, who died at Bunker Hill. In fact, despite having the same name, Joseph was not related to James, nor to Mercy.
Incidentally, Mike gives a shout-out to the Massachusetts Historical Society, which is a fascinating repository of documents and items related to the history of the state, but which has a special lens on the Revolution, especially this year. So I figured I’d do the same here, along with a link. If you’re in town, it’s not to be missed. And it’s free, though donations are encouraged. Go check them out and from there it’s a short walk to Fenway Park, where you can catch a Red Sox game. (Alas, they were playing away games while we were in town.)
The Fourth North Carolina Regiment got into some interesting battles, but in retrospect it feels as though they didn’t get a ton of love from the Army in general.
(My delaying the show notes probably doesn’t do anything for their ego either, but I was so tired that I was practically hallucinating. But I didn’t want to delay the episode drop, and I didn’t want to do meaningless show notes. And I do thank you for your patience.)
Not long after they organized, they were moved to the Northern Department of the Continental Army, then after a couple of years they were switched back to the Southern Department. Thomas Polk was removed from command without being told about it. They were absorbed by another regiment at one point and then dissolved altogether when the enlistments ran out, so the leaders had to go and recruit more men, meaning they weren’t around when the British took Charleston, SC.
Today’s cover art is the grave of Thomas Polk. That small plate reading “129” is the lot number; there used to be a lovely plaque there identifying Polk as one of the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration, but it was reportedly stolen. See? No respect.
We’ll hear from them later this year when we talk about the Battle of Fort Moultrie.
When Abigail Adams wrote her “remember the ladies” letter on March 31, she wasn’t just filling the page with anything that came into her head. Abigail Adams was quite intelligent and John treated her as an intellectual equal, seeking out her counsel on many matters. This in an era in which such things are rare. (And shame on us for giving it short shrift.)
This also means that John’s reply, which Mike talks about today, was in earnest, if it was a little naïve in retrospect.
Mike also mentions that he and I were at the Massachusetts Historical Society last week, which is true, and we hope to have some material to share with you over the next few weeks. In addition, we shot a bunch of video which will need some editing, after which we’ll give you our tour of Old Boston. Or maybe Mike’s tour; I don’t appear on camera at all. Try to live with that disappointment.
When George Washington arrives in New York, things aren’t quite the way he’d like them to be, but he doesn’t really have time to worry about that.
Construction of Fort Defiance had already begun, and before long the building of Fort Stirling would commence. Even though they were outmanned and outgunned, Washington was going to make sure that if a British victory were to happen in New York, it was going to be a Pyrrhic victory.
About Fort Stirling: like Fort Defiance, nothing remains of the original structure. When the British evacuated the city in 1783, the locals destroyed whatever remained of the fort. It was originally named Fort Half-Moon because of its shape but it was renamed in honor of William Alexander, who was also known as Lord Stirling.
There remains a historical marker in the ground for this fort, at the intersection of Clark Street and Columbia Heights; when traveling west on Clark Street it will be on your right, protected by an iron fence (it’s right behind the fence and easy to see). When the park was created and dedicated in 1925, the Fort Greene Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution donated the granite tablet that marks the fort’s site.
The Halifax Resolves was the first official action in which Independence from Great Britain was actually called for and approved.
I have to admit that in earlier years, when driving up and down Interstate 95, when I got to Halifax County in North Carolina, I’d see a sign saying that this county is “Where the Spirit of Independence Was Born.”
And this didn’t make a lot of sense to me: Most of the action early on was in Boston. Philadelphia is where the Declaration was written and signed. Richard Henry Lee, who proposed Independence, was from Virginia. How does Halifax County get to make this claim?
While there were a lot of smaller things going on on this day in 1776, there are typically multiple things going on for any given day. We often have to make choices regarding what we’re going to concentrate on, and don’t think we don’t feel a twinge of regret when we spot something else that happened on thus-and-such a date and had a moment of “Man, I wish we’d done that one.”
So today we were fortunate in that there were several smaller items going on, but we didn’t have to use up a lot of audio real estate to cover all of them. It’s nice to have the luxury of telling all the stories you’ve got for a day.
Incidentally: Mike and I are in Boston this week, absorbing history, interviewing people and shooting video for you to enjoy in a few weeks when we’ve finished editing it. It’s an extra dimension to the show that we hope you’ll enjoy.
The construction of Fort Defiance in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn made perfect sense. That part of the peninsula sticks out into New York Harbor and provides an excellent view of anything that might be sailing in or out.
Red Hook comes from the Dutch Roode Hoek, “hoek” translating to “point”, which can still be seen in modern-day maps. The whole area, what we now call Red Hook and Gowanus, was settled by the Dutch in the 1630s.
Red Hook was some swampy land when the Dutch moved in. But the Dutch know something about swampy land, and they got straight to work, filling in lakes and re-channeling waterways. They began farming the land, including orchards of fruit trees.
After the war broke out and the Continental Army drove the British from Boston, George Washington sent Brigadier General William Alexander to Brooklyn to see what could be done defensively. A plan was developed to build two forts along the Brooklyn Heights, about a mile and a half apart. Fort Greene would be the furthest east, Fort Defiance would be the furthest west. Across the channel on Governor’s Island, another fort would be built, so that British ships could be fired on from both sides.
Now, when we say “fort,” we’re not talking about something made of wood or stone. Plenty of those did exist, but not here. This was more like a breastworks built of earth and stone, which had a few cannons near the top. There were three of these breastworks connected by trenches, and they took up most of the island on which they stood. (Incidentally, Mike was correct about the island not existing anymore; the space was filled in and is now part of the larger land.) This took only a few days to put together; the fort at Governor’s Island was more like what one would expect to see.
By the time the British arrived, the Continental Army was quite ready from a defensive standpoint. But the British were much larger in number and had a Navy besides. Stay tuned; it’s going to be an exciting summer.
We need your love! Don’t forget to share this show with your friends. Likewise, share it with your enemies; maybe they’ll become your friends as a result.
The Lees were a very prominent family in Virginia, connected to most major events in that era of American History. So it makes sense that Francis Lightfoot Lee sees American Independence on the horizon, and that it was Richard Henry Lee who first put the question (or, as the Founding Fathers wrote it, “The Question”) before Congress.
Incidentally, it’s worth noting that Francis and Richard were the only brothers to sign the Declaration of Indepenence.
