250 and Counting

Category: Correspondence

  • Howe Checks In–July 7, 1776

    Cover art for July 7, 1776: color mezzotint print portrait of WIlliam Howe by John Morris, published in 1777.

    William Howe had already been in New York for a little over a week when he wrote to George Germain from his Staten Island headquarters.

    Not everyone had yet arrived from Halifax, of course; it was a long trip and the ships moved at different speeds. Howe took the time to detail what troops and ships had already arrived in New York, and what was still enroute, and that he was awaiting some more reinforcements before acting in full.

    I presume that he was as detailed as he was because he was dispatching the letter to George Germain immediately via a packet ship, and the American Navy wasn’t really in a position at that point to intercept anything; otherwise they would have had a lot of actionable information about troop movements and their plans.

    On the other hand, George Washington (and a few others) had already figured out what the British were up to, but at this point they were at a little bit of a loss regarding how they were going to counter it.

    Part of the problem was that the troops were still fighting more or less defensively. They didn’t have a specific cause to fight for. But in another couple of days, they would have that. It wouldn’t really help in the short run here, but it worked wonders in the end.

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  • News From All Over–June 9, 1776

    Cover art for June 9, 1776: Map of New York which the British published shortly after the Battle of Long Island.

    It was a busy day for corresponding with George Washington on this day, as three letters to Washington were sent.

    Each one had a bit of information that was negative at its worst and neutral at its best. But these letters were a bit of a problem, in that information took so long to get from one place to another: by the time Washington received warning that British troops were enroute, they were thisclose to actually being there.

    On the other hand, both sides are equally disadvantaged by the time lag, and Washington was shrewd enough to find a way to take advantage of that, as we’ll discover.

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  • Congressional Mail–June 3, 1776

    Cover art for June 3, 1776: portrait of Josiah Bartlett. Painted by Edwin Tryon Billings, mezzotint, after a portrait by John Trumbull. The original by Trumbull hangs in the State House in Concord, New Hampshire

    Josiah Bartlett was, in fact, the inspiration for the presidential character who appears in the TV show The West Wing. The modern day president, Jed Bartlet only spelled his name with a single T at the end, but it was only around this time that the spelling of English words was starting to standardize, so Bartlett gets a pass.

    Bartlett, of course, was involved in the creation of the state constitution, and while he declined the position of US Senator in 1789 despite the vote, he accepted the position of Chief Executive in 1790. When New Hanpshire adopted a constitution and became a state, Bartlett’s title changed to Governor. In 1794 he resigned because of his health, and in 175 he died.

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  • Henry Knox Wants To Get Tough–May 16, 1776

    Cover art for May 16, 1776: Portrait of Henry Knox by Gilbert Stuart, 1806.

    If the name Henry Knox sounds familiar to you, give yourself a prize. Knox was the man in charge of the Noble Train of Artillery, in which large amounts of ordinance were taken from Fort Ticonderoga and transferred to Boston. The presence of the new guns, with greater range than either side had at that point, led to the British finally evacuating the city a relatively short time later.

    But by this point Knox was back in New York, only he was in the city rather than the upstate area, and he could see that reconciliation was a pipe dream at best. So he wrote to John Adams to stress the importance of eventual independence.

    It is not recorded whether Adams replied “No duh,” since he’d been making the same arguments to the Second Continental Congress for some time.

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  • Words From Ward–May 9, 1776

    Cover art for May 9, 1776: Statue of Artemas Ward that stands in Washington DC, just a few blocks northwest of the National Cathedral.

    Artemas Ward was the man left in charge of things when Washington made his trek to New York, so you know that this was a man that Washington trusted. As a result they corresponded with one another frequently.

    So it only makes sense that once in a while, the two would write to one another on the same day, and this was one of those days. Washington wrote to Ward his concern that the British would return to Boston and therefore the city should be fortified to protect against such an event, and Ward wrote to Washington about a pair of ships that had been captured in the Bay just a couple of days earlier.

    In an astonishing coincidence that would stun even Robert Ripley, Abigail Adams’ letter to John Adams from May 7 addresses both of these issues.

    For what it’s worth: Ward Circle, where the statue from today’s cover art is located, is in the middle of a peculiar looking traffic circle on Massachusetts Ave NW. There are no pedestrian crossings that will get you close to it, so if you do choose to make that particular pilgrimage, stop off at the National Cathedral first and ask for divine intervention, ’cause the traffic can easily make that a nightmare to cross.

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  • Abigail, On Power–May 7, 1776

    Cover art for May 7, 1776: portrait of Abigail Adams, 1764, by Benjamin Blyth. Photographed by Claude Call at the Massachusetts Historical Society.

    Abigail Adams had some thoughts when it came to arbitrary power, and how fragile it is.

    But you get all that from the episode itself. Instead, here in the show notes, I’m going to point out that I’m the one who took the photo used for today’s cover art.

    The painting hangs at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and because they keep it relatively dim there, you can see the reflection of the stairwell leading down to the main entrance. The white spot over Abigail’s head is the reflection of a light across the gallery, which is maybe 15 feet across. I’m standing at a slight angle so I’m not part of the reflection. (It’s also partially cropped here; I’m not that bad a photographer.)

    The painting was donated to the Society by one of John and Abigail’s descendants, who is coincidentally also named John. The docent I spoke with didn’t know whether there was a family tradition of naming sons “John” as homage to our Founding Father, but he conceded it’s certainly likely.

    The letter cited in today’s episode is part of the MHS collection, though it wasn’t on display the day Mike and I visited. MHS has literally thousands of Adams Family documents, and there are people there who work only with those documents. That’s their only job!

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  • Samuel Adams Is Spoiling For A Fight–April 30, 1776

    Cover art for April 30, 1776: Portrait of Rev. Samuel Cooper by John Singleton Copley, ca. 1750.

    Reverend Samuel Cooper has an interesting item in his family history. His grandfather was Samuel Sewall, a judge in the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was involved with the Salem witch trials in 1692-3. Now, to be fair, Sewall did apologize for his part in that bit of foolishness, and he’s also known for writing an essay in 1700 criticizing slavery.

    As far as Cooper himself, he was an active Patriot of the Revolutionary Era, who was good friends with many of the Founding Fathers. According to our friends at the Massachusetts Historical Society, when letters written by Governor Thomas Hutchinson and Lt. Governor Andrew Oliver were stolen in 1773, they wound up in Benjamin Franklin’s hands.

    Franklin in turn sent them to Samuel Cooper, who gave them to Thomas Cushing, the speaker of the Massachusetts assembly. Samuel Adams was the clerk of the Assembly and got to see them. They all knew that the letters were a bit of a bombshell (essentially, Hutchinson and Oliver were misleading Britain regarding conditions in the colonies), but because they were under strict orders not to copy or publish them, their hands were tied.

    Samuel Adams, however, came up with the idea of leaking the contents by way of a propaganda campaign in the Assembly that didn’t actually disclose the letters themselves. That was enough to create a political firestorm in Massachusetts, which led to General Gage implementing the Coercive Acts.

    Who stole the letters in the first place? It’s still not clear.

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  • Gates Moves Up Quickly–April 27, 1776

    Cover art for April 27, 1776: Horatio Gates, by Gilbert Stuart, 1793. via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

    Horatio Gates did move up quickly through the ranks, and partially because he knew George Washington well, but it was also because he had a pretty good handle on getting things done.

    As an Adjutant General, Gates was the man who ran the administrative side of the Continental Army, and is now thought of as the US Army’s first Adjutant General. He handled a lot of the logistics of keeping records and ordering supplies, and offered Washington wise counsel when it came to the Siege of Boston. In that respect it appears that he prevented Washington from acting rashly now and then.

    But Gates was anxious to get a field position, and just a few weeks after this date, he was assigned to the Canadian Department with the new rank of Major General. Some intramural disputes followed as the Continental Army began to retreat from Canada, but were quickly settled.

    Unfortunately Gates’ ambition got the better of him, and as the year wore on, he left his troops to attempt to talk the Congress into having him replace Washington as Commander in Chief.

    Later, Horatio Gates was present when General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga. He tried to parlay this into political gain, but his status began to falter for the rest of the war, to the point where he was nearly court-martialed. Shortly thereafter he retired and lived in Virginia, and then New York City, until his death in 1806. He was buried in the Trinity Church graveyard in lower Manhattan, but the exact site of his grave is unknown.

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  • George Washington Has Concerns–April 26, 1776

    Cover art for April 26, ,1776: Portrait of Jonathan Trumbull and his wife Faith in 1783. This was painted by their son John. The original hangs in Yale University's Art Gallery.

    Jonathan Trumbull was first and—for a while—the only Colonial Governor to support the American Revolution. (Most of the other colony leaders either didn’t hold that title, or remained quiet, as if hedging their bets.)

    Througout the Revolution, Trumbull supported the troops in general and George Washington in particular, and was often a close advisor to Washington on military matters.

    So it was a little bit of a surprise when Washington wrote to Trumbull, noting some of the problems he’d had with Trumbull’s recent decision to move a bunch of soldiers northward.

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    On a side note: there aren’t a lot of portraits of Govenor Trumbull around. That’s one of the reason I’ve used this picture before. The other reason is that I just think it’s neat.

  • Thomas Stone Writes Home–April 25, 1775

    Cover art for April 25, 1776: portrait of Thomas Stone by Robert Edge Pine, 1785.

    Thomas Stone was a delegate to the Second Continental Congress who served with strict instuctions to “arrive at a happy settlement and lasting amity” with the Mother Country. What’s more, he and his fellow delegates were told not to vote for any proposition that declared independence.

    Fortunately, just a few days before Richard Henry Lee put forth the resolution for Independence in early June 1776, the Maryland government removed that restriction, so the delegates could vote however they wanted. And yes, they did vote.

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