Two Revolutionary Conferences in Central New York

Two Revolutionary history conferences are coming up in central New York this spring, both put together by experienced organizers and featuring expert speakers.

Saturday, 14 May, 9:00 A.M.–4:00 P.M.
Women in War: The Revolutionary Experience
Saratoga Town Hall, 12 Spring Street, Schuylerville

The presentations at this symposium will be:

• Dr. Holly Mayer, Professor Emerita at Duquesne University, “Women Warriors”
• Todd Braisted, “The Loyalist Women”
• Jenna Schnitzer, “The Army’s Essential Support—‘Camp Followers’”
• Jonathon House, “The Baroness Frederika Riedesel, a Revolutionary Sojourn and the Marshall House, Saratoga”
• Lois Huey, “Molly Brant, Native American Leader in Colonial America”

This event will benefit the historic Marshall House in Schuylerville, New York. The Saratoga County 250th American Revolution Commission and the Saratoga County History Center are co-sponsors.

Attendees must register in advance. Registration is $50 per person and includes a luncheon and refreshments. Attendees can visit the Marshall House following the event. To register, follow this link.

Thursday through Sunday, 9–12 June
2022 American Revolution Conference in the Mohawk Valley
Fulton-Montgomery Community College, Johnstown

The Fort Plain Museum’s annual conference will start with an optional “Drums Along the Mohawk” bus tour of the region on 9 June, including visits to the Fort Plain Museum, Fort Stanwix National Monument, Oriskany Battlefield, and more.

Presentations are scheduled to begin on Friday afternoon, with a speaker schedule too long and packed to reproduce entirely here. Topics include the war on the New York frontier, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the Valley Forge winter, the southern campaigns to Yorktown, Washington and the “Newburgh conspiracy,” Continental officers’ ideas of honor, and an American privateer’s attack on British slaving vessels.

For the full schedule, visit this page (and check back since the lineup may change).

Fort Plain Museum Conference, 11-14 June

The Fort Plain Museum has announced the speakers at its annual American Revolution Mohawk Valley Conference, scheduled for 11-14 June 2020.

I’ve attended this event in the past and enjoyed not only the speakers but the dedication of the organizers and attendees.

The scheduled presenters are:

• Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, “The Architect of the British War for America: Lord George Germain”
• Craig Bruce Smith, “The Interests of Our Dearest Country: Honor and the Continental Army”
• James Kirby Martin, “A Contagion of Violence: The Human Slaughter in Frontier New York: 1775-1783”
• Mark Edward Lender, “John Brown’s Raid on Fort Ticonderoga in September 1777”
• Lindsay M. Chervinsky, “Councils of War and the Cabinet: How the Revolutionary War Shaped the Presidency”
• David Head, “George Washington and a Very Mysterious Business: Tracking Down the Newburgh Conspiracy”
• Eric H. Schnitzer, “The Value of Revisionism: Don Troiani’s Campaign to Saratoga—1777”
• Todd W. Braisted, “In Reduced Circumstances: Loyalist Women and British Government Assistance, 1779-1783”
• Katie Turner Getty, “Women Aiding American Prisoners of War and Escapees in New York”
• James E. Richmond, “War on the Middleline: The Founding of a Community in the Kayaderosseras Patent in the Midst of the American Revolution”
• Wayne Lenig, “Fort Plain, Fort Plank and Fort Rensselaer: the Revolutionary War Fortifications at Canajohary”

The Saturday dinner will be enlivened by Robert A. Selig speaking on “Battlefield Preservation Efforts in the Mohawk Valley.”

This conference usually also offers bus tours of the historic sites in the region on the first days with presentations on the weekend. Information about those opportunities, the conference facility, the fundraiser dinner, and other registration details will be available shortly. Watch this page.

ADDENDUM: Because of the pandemic, this event has been rescheduled until 10-13 September 2020.

Lectures on Washington in Washington, 19 and 23 Feb.

The American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati is sponsoring a couple of free programs at the Anderson House library and museum in Washington, D.C.

Friday, 19 February, 12:30 P.M.
Ellen Clark, “Washington’s February 1783 Letter to Rittenhouse”

The Society of the Cincinnati Library Director presents George Washington’s letter to David Rittenhouse, written from Newburgh, New York, on February 16, 1783, thanking the Philadelphia inventor and instrument maker for a set of spectacles. Just three weeks later, General Washington would famously pull out his newly acquired reading glasses during a speech to a group of officers, effectively quelling their threatened mutiny.

In his recent talk at the Lexington Historical Society, Bill Fowler described how Washington had written out his prepared remarks to the restive officers at Newburgh in his large round hand; the Massachusetts Historical Society has preserved that document. But when on the fly the general chose to read another document as well, he had to pull out those spectacles.

Tuesday, 23 February, 6:00 P.M.
Wendy Wick Reaves, “Washington’s Face: What Did the Average Citizen See?”

At the start of the Revolutionary War, almost any fictitious image could pass as a portrait of an American hero, but George Washington as commander-in-chief warranted extra efforts. From the start of the Revolution, American printmakers searched for an accurate likeness of the Washington. So what did the average farmer, frontiersman, housewife, or child see of his countenance? Reaves, curator emerita of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery, discusses these amateur print images of Washington that circulated around the country in the late eighteenth century.

The image above is an equally fictitious portrait made for the French market. The Philadelphia Print Shop offers it and others.

These talks are, of course, linked to the anniversary of Washington’s birth on 22 February.

Fowler on the Crises after Yorktown in Lexington, Jan. 29

On Friday, 29 January, the Lexington Historical Society will host a free talk by William Fowler, Jr., on the topic of his book American Crisis: George Washington and the Dangerous Two Years After Yorktown, 1781-1783.

The publisher’s description:

Most people believe the American Revolution ended in October, 1781, after the battle of Yorktown; in fact the war continued for two more traumatic years. During that time, the Revolution came closer to being lost than at any time in the previous half dozen.

The British still held New York, Savannah, Wilmington, and Charleston; the Royal Navy controlled the seas; the states—despite having signed the Articles of Confederation earlier that year—retained their individual sovereignty and, largely bankrupt themselves, refused to send any money in the new nation's interest; members of Congress were in constant disagreement; and the Continental army was on the verge of mutiny.

William Fowler’s An American Crisis chronicles these tumultuous and dramatic two years, from Yorktown until the British left New York in November 1783. At their heart was the remarkable speech Gen. George Washington gave to his troops encamped north of New York in Newburgh, quelling a brewing rebellion that could have overturned the nascent government.

Fowler is a a professor at Northeastern University and a former director of the Massachusetts Historical Society. His short biography of Samuel Adams was the spur that got me into studying Revolutionary history intently about eighteen years ago, so he might have a lot to answer for.

This talk is in the historical society’s Cronin Lecture series. It will take place at the Lexington Depot starting at 8:00 P.M. It is free and open to the public.

4th Conference on the American Revolution, 20-22 Mar.

On 20-22 March, America’s History, L.L.C., will host its fourth annual Conference on the American Revolution in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Scheduled speakers include:

• Edward G. Lengel, Head of Faculty: “Enigmatic Warrior: Light-Horse Harry Lee [shown here] at the Battle of Eutaw Springs”
• Rick Atkinson: “Bringing Back the Dead: History, Memory, and Writing About War”
• John “Jack” Buchanan: “‘A Great and Good Man’: Nathanael Greene and the Road to Charleston”
• Don N. Hagist: “The Revolution’s Last Men: The Soldiers Behind the Photographs”
• James Kirby Martin: “The Man Who Wouldn’t Be King: George Washington and the Newburgh Conspiracy”
• Holly Mayer: “Command and Control of Congress’s Own: Hazen’s 2nd Canadian Regiment”
• Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy: “Hot Weather and Heavy Casualties: The Revolutionary War in the Caribbean”
• Julia Anne Osman: “From Greatest Enemies to Greatest Allies: France and America in the War for Independence”

There are two panel discussions planned:

• What are the most overrated and underrated battles or campaigns of the Revolutionary War?
• Who is the most underrated or overlooked individual (on either side) who had an impact on the American Revolution?

The conference package, including lunch and refreshments, costs $225. The conference has arranged for a block of rooms at the Colonial Williamsburg Woodlands Hotel and discounted tickets to the Colonial Williamsburg Historic Area. For more information, call America’s History at 703-785-4373 or check its website. Featured sponsors include Westholme Publishing Company and Tim Sampson’s Battlemaps.us.

William Fowler on the Newburgh Crisis, 3 Feb.

On Wednesday, 3 February, Prof. William Fowler speaks on “An American Crisis: The Newburgh Address” as part of the Friends of Minute Man’s lecture series. Bill is former editor of the New England Quarterly and president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and is working on a book about Gen. George Washington in the closing years of the Revolution.

The more I read about the “Conway cabal” and the “Newburgh conspiracy,” the more I think that Washington was either:

• really good at spotting conspiracies before they grew, or
• a little paranoid, at least in perceiving such conspiracies as bigger and more threatening than they were.

Or maybe both. Regardless of whether there was danger of a military coup against Congress when the commander made his Newburgh Address, Washington did manage to keep the Continental Army out of direct involvement in political matters, and that was important.

Bill Fowler will speak at the Trinity Episcopal Church in Concord, 81 Elm Street, starting at 8:00 P.M., and all are welcome.

Remembering the Newburgh Address

On Saturday, 15 March 2008, the Massachusetts Historical Society will host an open house celebrating the 225th anniversary of Gen. George Washington’s “Newburgh Address.” The society is displaying its copy of that speech, in Washington’s own hand, which can also be viewed online along with a full transcription.

This address was Washington’s response to what’s become known as the “Newburgh Conspiracy,” after the location of the Continental Army’s headquarters in Newburgh, New York. At the time, the Congress under the Articles of Confederation was having difficulty with raising revenue, and thus with paying or supplying the army as promised. Some politicians and officers supported the idea of a “national impost,” or tariff. Some states resisted this idea, however, and the different levels of government were at an impasse.

An anonymous letter to army officers at Newburgh, composed by Maj. John Armstrong, urged them to be more forceful with Congress:

I would advise you, therefore, to come to some final opinion, upon what you can bear, and what you will suffer. If your determination be in any proportion to your wrongs, carry your appeal from the justice to the fears of government—change the milk and water style of your last memorial; assume a bolder tone—decent, but lively—spirited and determined; and suspect the man who would advise to more moderation and longer forbearance.

Let two or three men, who can feel as well as write, be appointed to draw up your last remonstrance; for I would no longer give it the sueing, soft, unsuccessful epithet of memorial. Let it be represented (in language that will neither dishonour you by its rudeness, nor betray you by its fears) what has been promised by Congress, and what has been performed; how long and how patiently you have suffered; how little you have asked, and how much of that little has been denied.

Tell them that though you were the first, and would wish to be the last, to encounter danger; though despair itself can never drive you into dishonour, it may drive you from the field; that the wound often irritated, and never healed, may at length become incurable; and that the slightest mark of indignity from Congress now, must operate like the grave, and part you for ever; that in any political event, the army has its alternative.

If peace, that nothing shall separate you from your arms but death; if war, that courting the auspices and inviting the directions of your illustrious leader, you will retire to some unsettled country, smile in your turn, and “mock when their fear cometh on.”

Washington’s address responded to this letter, characterizing its message in part like this: “If Peace takes place, never sheath your Swords says he untill you have obtained full and ample Justice.” Nothing like those words appears in the letter to officers, at least in the versions that have survived. That letter seems more like a threat to resign en masse and leave the Congress undefended rather than a threat to overthrow that Congress. But Washington reacted as if he saw the threat of a military coup, and most historians have taken up that interpretation.

The M.H.S.’s open house runs from 1:00 to 4:00 P.M. Former director William M. Fowler, Jr., will speak about the address at 2:00 P.M. There will also be tours of the building and of the exhibition of original documents tied to “John Adams: A Life in Letters,” the H.B.O. miniseries that begins airing the following evening. The society is at 1154 Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay.