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!
So we’re here once again: the battle ended with the British retreating into the city of Boston, and holding siege there for the better part of a year, until Washington was given several cannons brought down from Fort Ticonderoga, which vastly improved his shooting range.
A year later, Reverend Jonas Clark marked the day with a sermon that is nearly 40 pages long in its published version. He used a lot of harsh rhetoric in his sermon, casting the British as though they were Satan’s owm minions:
They approach with the morning’s light; and more like murderers and cut-throats, than the troops of a christian king, without provocation, without warning, when no war was proclaimed, they draw the sword of violence, upon the inhabitants of this town, and with a cruelty and barbarity, which would have made the most hardened savage blush, they shed INNOCENT BLOOD!
The sermon does come back around to God, noting that:
And from the nineteenth of April, 1775, we may venture to predict, will be dated, in future history, THE LIBERTY or SLAVERY of the AMERICAN WORLD, according as a sovereign God shall see fit to smile, or frown upon the interesting cause, in which we are engaged.
So…God picks favorites, so long as we humble ourselves before Him and trust in His name.
Incidentally, I first heard about the children walking from Acton to Concord on the Julie Mason Show, on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel. she had very fond memories of this, so I dug around a little to discover whether this activity was still going on all these years later. If anything, it’s grown!
Nathanael Greene (you’ll also see it alteratively spelled as “Nathaniel”) was one of Washington’s trusted generals, largely because he had a keen mind for military tactics, but also because he had high expectations for his soldiers.
In addition to drilling them regularly, he also insisted that they keep as clean as possible, including things like maintaining a clean-shaven face. Card-playing and swearing were also prohibited.
As a result, his men stood out among the others when George Washington arrived at Cambridge, and he decided that he needed a little more of that in the Continental Army. Greene followed Washington to New York but afterward he began to take charge of military matters in the south.
When Washington’s troops moved to the Valley Forge area in the winter of 1776, the disciplinary problems Greene had helped solve began to arise again, and Washington had to turn to another man to get his troops back in order. We’ll look at that as we get into that time of the year.
The image in today’s cover art is an engraving of Citadel Hill, around 1780.
Citadel Hill is a very popular historic site in Halifax, and while four forts have been built on this site, none of them have ever had to withstand a direct attack. In a couple of instances, structures near the Citadel were attacked, but never the building itself. It’s possible that the forts that were erected on the site served as deterrents.
The first Citadel was built in 1749. Fortifications were constructed on this hill to protect against raids by the French, colonial Akadians, and local tribes, especially the Mi’kmaq (pronounce it “MicMac”). By 1761 the fort was in ruins and a second, larger Citadel was built in 1776. This is the one in the artwork. While the garrison was always on alert, again it was never attacked, and by 1784 it was again in ruins. The third Citadel was built starting in 1796, when the old one was dismantled. This one was larger still and looked much like the current model, except it had more earthworks. During the War of 1812 some quick renovations were made in case the Americans attacked, but again the whole thing fell to ruin by 1825.
Construction for the current Citadel began in 1828. It was a huge masonry-construction star-shaped fort that took 28 years to finish. An incident in the nearby waters nearly dragged the Citadel into the American Civil War but again there were no attacks on the fort. Eventually it was restored by historians and in 1956 it opened as a historic site and home to the Halifax Army Museum. In the 1990s it was restored again to its 1869 appearance and is maintained as such.
The grounds of the Halifax Citadel are open year round. From spring to fall, a living history program features re-enactors portraying the 78th Highland Regiment (stationed at Halifax between 1869 and 1871), the 78th Highlanders (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band, the Third Brigade of the Royal Artillery, soldiers’ wives, and civilian tradespeople. Parks Canada also hosts several re-enactment events each year by volunteers of the Brigade of the American Revolution and the two living history associations.
The Citadel’s role in the history of Halifax and North America is communicated through guided and self-guided tours, audio-visual presentations, and various exhibits. On average, the citadel sees over 200,000 visitors annually. A ceremonial firing of the noon gun is conducted daily by staff, and continues year-round, even when the site is closed to visitors. The artillery is also used for formal occasions such as 21-gun salutes.
The “Army Museum”, located in the Citadel’s Cavalier Block, displays a rare collection of weapons, medals, and uniforms exploring Nova Scotia’s army history. It is an independent non-profit museum, and staff work in close partnership with the Citadel staff and Parks Canada.
In July 2006, the Halifax Citadel celebrated the 100th anniversary of the withdrawal of the last British military forces from Canada. The Citadel hosted over 1,000 re-enactors from around the world. Approaching the Christmas season, Citadel Hill annually hosts a “Victorian Christmas”. Visitors are treated to crafts, carolers, and games, as well as a visit from Santa Claus.
Ghost tours are held at the fort in the weeks leading up to Halloween. Ghost tours! Nobody ever died in battle there, but we’re doing ghost tours. Fantastic.
Mike had a little fun busting on George Washington’s spelling in today’s episode, but we do have to offer a little grace here, because in 1776 efforts to standardize spelling in the English language were only just beginning to catch on.
About a hundred years earlier, some of the language was simplified; thus, sinne became sin; logique became logic; toune to town, etc. Not long afterward, some words were tied to their Greek or Latin roots, e.g. det became debt (Latin, “debitum”) and dout became doubt (Latin, “dubitare”), and so on.
It really wasn’t until the 19th Century that more serious efforts to standarize some English took place, as the science of phonetics began to rise. In the 1870s, societies actually began springing up that were dedicated to reforming the English language’s spelling. One such group had the editor of the Chicago Tribune as a member, so whenever his group had something they thought was good, he’d be the first one using it in print.
In 1903 a group called the Simplified Spelling Board was formed, backed by Andrew Carnegie. Their recommendations were immediately relayed to all government agencies by President Teddy Roosevelt.
And then between the 1930s and 1975, the Chicago Tribune (again) was at the forefront of changes to standardized spelling, thus giving the new language a huge platform on which to rest.
In the aftermath of the siege of Boston, it was incumbent upon George Washington and his men to re-enter the city and take stock of its condition.
Mike brings up Artemas Ward in today’s episode, and I’m pretty sure that was the first time his name has come up in the course of this podcast. Ward was a major general during the Revolutionary War, among others, and an effective political leader when he wasn’t being a soldier. It was Ward who sounded the alarm on Bunker Hill, and who took command of the New England area once Washington led most of the troops down to New York City. ‘
The statue in today’s cover art can be found in the center of a traffic circle in Washington, DC, where Massachusetts and Nebraska Avenues cross one another. Ward’s great-grandson donated four million dollars to Harvard on the condition that they build a statue of Artamis, and maintain his Shrewsbury home. Harvard apparently chose to purchase a statue but did not provide enough money to provide the general with a horse. Oddly enough, because it’s a traffic circle and therefore has no obvious way for a pedestrian to get to the center (i.e., no crosswalk), it’s quite difficult to get close enough to the pedestal to read the inscription:
ARTEMAS WARD 1727–1800 SON OF MASSACHUSETTS GRADUATE OF HARVARD COLLEGE JUDGE AND LEGISLATOR DELEGATE 1780–1781 TO THE CONTINENTAL CONGRESS SOLDIER OF THREE WARS FIRST COMMANDER OF THE PATRIOT FORCES
It’s been 333 days since Lexington and Concord, when the British were forced to retreat to Boston and were bottled up there by Colonial forces.
It’s been a week since the British said “enough” and decided to effect their departure from the city as soon as the weather cooperated.
But today, the day finally came.
It took about five hours to launch over a hundred ships, carrying thousands of soldiers, women and children from the city.
It was Washington’s first major win and the last time the British did anything of importance in New England. The war began to move south, to New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Virginia and the Carolinas also had their share of action, as we’ll see in the coming months.
First: let me apologize for the slight change in sound quality for today’s episode. I’m not in my usual recording space and I’m not especially happy with the equipment I brought. At worst you’ll have to put up with it just one more time.
Next: George Washington was a gentleman through and through, so the fact that his general orders sometimes focused on the Continental soldier behavior shouldn’t be a surprise. In today’s episode he concerns himself specifically with that, but for two reasons. One is for the health and safety of the troops, but the other is because the Bostonians have been through enough, and he doesn’t want the Continental Army–the people supposedly on their side–to look like villains.
In the meantime he’s already standing down a big chunk of soldiers and sending them to New York, where the next big battle is going to be, he thinks. (Again, he’s right, but he didn’t realize it at the time.)
The focus today up in Cambridge, while waiting for the British to hightail it out of Boston, was getting the men ready to move to New York, and putting together Washington’s personal guard.
Washington didn’t really need a personal guard in Cambridge, at least not much of one, because he was in the driver’s seat while he was there. The British were bottled up, and he was the stopper. But to move to New York and then defend that territory? Well, that was another project entirely. New York had more access points, more deepwater harbor, and more territory overall to defend. This wasn’t like keeping the British locked up on the peninsula that was the entirety of Boston. And while Washington probably considered it a bit of vanity at first (that’s a guess on my part) to even have a group of men dedicated to being “Washington’s personal guard”, he likely began to understand the inevitability of needing the guard as the Continental Army’s Commander-in-Chief.
For a guy who’s technically on the wrong side of history, Crean Brush was a pretty interesting character.
Mike mentions in the episode that Brush was jailed for some time during the Revolution, but time didn’t allow him to tell you how Brush managed to get out of jail. I’m not going to spoil it, but the truly fascinating story can be found in this article by Eric Weiser. This article was one of those serendipitous finds that turned up when I went looking for a picture of Crean Brush. It’ll take you about twenty minutes to read, but I guarantee it’s worth your time, and I’ll give you your money back if you disagree.
General Howe’s demand that people turn their linen and wool goods over to Brush sounds a little weird on its surface, but once you look a little closer you’ll see that it’s more petty than anything else. That said, there was a pragmatic angle to it as well: the material could be used to keep their troops warm and/or bandage any wounded British.
