250 and Counting

Category: Continental Army

  • Congress Does Some War Business–June 5, 1776

    Cover art for June 5, 1776: "American Uniforms, 1775-1783" by H.A. Ogden, 1889, as part of a larger series documenting the evolution of American uniforms.

    Using the input of George Washington from just a few days earlier, the Second Continental Congress wasted little time putting together some Continental Army protocols to ensure that this relatively ragtag group of men would adhere to some kind of formalized behavior.

    But the Continental Army protocols they worked on also helped to establish better pay for some personnel, or set up protocol ranks for some otherwise non-officer personnel.

    And, of course, getting everyone paid was important so they talked about that as well.

    And as we creep closer to a formal declaration announcing the break with Britain, more Congressional delegates are convinced that reconciliation was always on the table, at least until quite recently. Robert Morris wrote as much to Silas Deane of Connecticut, and likewise Oliver Wolcott wrote to Roger Newberry, a Connecticut military officer, that he was of the opinion that the army is undertaking a Mighty Cause, and that as far as he could tell, the people support it.

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  • RIP John Thomas–June 2, 1776

    Cover art for June 2, 1776: Portrait of John Thomas. Stipple engraving based on a 1775 pastel portrait by Benjamin Blyth. By Scan by NYPL - https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47db-92db-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52899662

    John Thomas was a doctor and a soldier from Massachusetts who was in Quebec during the attempted invasion and was in charge of the withdrawal until he got smallpox and died on this day in 1776.

    Thomas discovered he liked military service about as much as he liked being a surgeon, so in 1747 he became a lieutenant in the British army. A few years later he served as a surgeon for a different regiment.

    In the early days of the Revolution, Thomas nearly quit the Continental Army because he wasn’t named as a major general. At the time, Congress was trying to avoid having all its generals come from the same place, and Artemis Ward got the nod instead. It was only because both George Washington and Charles Lee both talked him into staying that he remained in the army and returned to service. Shortly thereafter he was assured that he would get top priority for advancement.

    It was that which led directly to his being assigned to command in Canada when Richard Montgomery was killed. Unfortunately for him, what he found when he arrived in Quebec was a mess: the army was far outnumbered (plus the city had walls), about a third of the Continental soldiers were due—or overdue—for discharge, and smallpox was making its way through the camp.

    Also unfortunately, as the smallpox moved through the camp, it made a stop at Roberts’ tent, and he died just a few weeks after arriving in Canada.

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  • Meet The New Boss–March 20, 1776

    Cover art for March 20, 1776: portrait of Nathaniel Greene "painted from memory" by John Trumbull, 1792. via Yale University Art Gallery.

    While preparing to depart Boston for New York, George Washington appointed Nathaniel Greene to run things for awhile until everything was back in order.

    Fortunately for both Greene and Washington, matters straightened out rather quickly, because Greene was called to join Washington just a few weeks later.

    Nathaniel Greene was tasked with fortifying Brooklyn while Washington prepared to defend Manhattan. As a military leader, Greene had a bit of a mixed record, but more often than not it appears that he was the victim of poor timing when things didn’t go well for him.

    Later on in the war, he took on the position of Quartermaster General, which on its surface looks like a demotion, but Washington still considered him “inner circle” and Greene would sit in on War Council meetings, even though he was considered a staff officer.

    Later on, when things started looking gloomy in South Carolina and Georgia, Nathaniel Greene was put in charge of the Southern Department of the Continental Army, where he embarked on a campaign of guerilla warfare rather than pitched battles. His unconventional approach wasn’t always successful, but if the British won a battle it was at a much greater cost than it should have been.

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  • From John To George–January 29, 1776

    A letter written by John Hancock.

    Letters from John Hancock to George Washington weren’t especially scarce, nor were letters going the other way. However, today’s letter takes on a few important topics for Washington that one hopes came greatly appreciated.

    There was commendation that Washington had the foresight to send troops to New York, there was some good financial news, there was also good news in the realm of troop recruitment, and there was a warning about likely military action coming fairly soon.

    All in all, it was a letter packed with information, and if we had to guess (because we don’t know), it was likely conveyed by courier rather than the postal system, which was still prone to interception by the British.

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  • September 5, 1775: Setback in Canada

    Cover art for September 5, 1775: Painting of the Schooner Hannah by John F. Leavitt, date unknown

    American forces began to move on Fort St. Jean in Canada. Unfortunately they ran into a couple of unexpected obstacles on the way, so they had to adjust their approach. This led to a six-week siege of the fort.

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  • August 14, 1775: “Stolen” Goods From Bermuda

    Cover art for August 14, 1775: Map of Bermuda from 1778, origin not known to this writer.

    There’s an episode of The West Wing in which Leo McGarry explains how, several years earlier, the President wanted to meet the Dalai Lama. The problem was that China was strongly opposed to such a meeting, so they arranged for an “accidental” meeting between the two:

    Set up a low-level meeting with someone else and leave the door open. The President wanders by, “Hey, how ya doing, Dalai Lama?”

    The point is, diplomacy can be weird. And when the Continental Army, needed gunpowder from Bermuda, it was arranged to have the gunpowder be “stolen” from their armory and somehow make its way into American hands.

    Who knew!

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  • August 11, 1775: Washington Gets Serious About POWs

    Cover art for August 11, 1775: A sample of George Washington's handwriting in a letter. It's NOT the letter described in today's episode (hence the blurring).

    While today is perhaps the earliest documented instance of George Washington expressing concern for his captured troops, it certainly wouldn’t be the last. For years he worried about this, largely because the British didn’t always consider the Continental Army to be a genuine army, nor did they consider themselves to be “at war” with America; instead this was some kind of petty grievance that needed to be put down.

    As a result, Washington was in frequent communication with his counterparts on the British side, and several people on the Colonial side, expressing his worry that his men were being treated poorly…or worse.

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  • July 4, 1775: Washington’s First Orders

    Cover art for July 4, 1775: the first page of George Washington's first set of general orders to the Continental Army.

    As mentioned yesterday, when George Washington came to Cambridge, he found a bit of a mess there: several disorganized groups of men, with more on the way, along with supplies still in transit.

    The first thing he needed to do was to get the fighting force organized, so he began a log book of his official orders. His first set, which came out on this day in 1775, took up about five pages of manuscript. But Washington wasn’t done, not by a long shot. Every few days he’d come up with something new, but it was all reasonable and made sense in the bigger picture. It’s not as though Washington had grabbed power with no intention of relinquishing it later on; he just wasn’t wired that way.

    Eventually his book of orders grew to over 500 pages over the next couple of years.

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    P.S. Happy Independence Day! Our 250th anniversary is exactly one year away, but there’s a lot of stuff before, and after, that date that we’ll need to look at in order to get the entire story.