Fort Ti American Revolution Seminar, 23–24 Sept.

Fort Ticonderoga has announced its 19th Annual Seminar on the American Revolution, to take place on the weekend of 23–24 September 2023. Unlike last year, this appears to be an in-person event only.

The seminar actually starts on the evening of Friday, 22 September, with a opening reception and Curator Matthew Keagle’s presentation of highlights from the Robert Nittolo Collection related to the War for American Independence.

The scheduled presentations on Saturday are:

• Justin B. Clement, “The Black Servants of Major-General Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette”
• Isabelle J. Courtney, “In the Wake of the British Retreat: Sir Guy Carleton’s Book of Negroes and the Enslaved Population of Rhode Island”
• Dr. Jen Janofsky and Wade P. Catts, “‘Naked and Torn by the Grapeshot’: Fort Mercer and the History, Archaeology, and Public Perceptions of a Mass Burial Space at Red Bank Battlefield Park
• Dr. Friederike Baer, “Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War”
• Dr. Armin Langer, “Alexander Zuntz in America: A Hessian Army Supplier Turned New York Jewish Community Leader and Businessman”
• Jack Weaver, “The Customs and Temper of Americans?: Germans and the Continental Coalition, 1775–1776”

And on Sunday morning:

• Dr. Timothy Leech, “Was There an Internal Patriot Coup in Massachusetts beginning April 20, 1775?”
• Dr. Stephen Brumwell, “Fighting Rebellion from America to Jamaica: The Experience of Alexander Lindsay, Lord Balcarres”
• Mark R. Anderson, “The Rise, Disgrace, and Recovery of Timothy Bedel”
• Don N. Hagist, “New Views of Fort Ticonderoga and Burgoyne’s Campaign”

In addition, for an additional cost on Friday there’s a bus tour of “Forts, Raids, Battles and Mayhem: The Schoharie Valley, 1775-1780,” led by Jeff O’Conner and Bruce Venter of America’s History L.L.C.

Basic registration is $150, but there are discounts for being a Fort Ti member, registering early, and registering online, so that if one checks all the boxes the cost goes down to $100. Registering early enough also signs one up for box lunches on both days and the informal group dinner on Saturday evening. Register starting here (but if you’re a Fort Ti member, sign into the website first).

“Snowballs covering stones” at the Massacre

In his 1789 History of the American Revolution, the South Carolina physician and historian David Ramsay (1749-1815, shown here) wrote that the crowd at the Boston Massacre was “armed with clubs, sticks, and snowballs covering stones.”

I believe that’s the first printed statement that Bostonians packed snow around rocks to throw at the soldiers. Earlier I’ve said that the earliest place I’d found that detail stated was in Sgt. Roger Lamb’s Journal, published twenty years later. It appears Lamb picked up the detail from Ramsay.

Or from intervening authors. The “snowballs covering stones” also appeared in Jedidiah Morse’s The American Geography (London: 1794), “History of the Rise and Fall of the British Empire in America” in The Britannic Magazine (1795), and William Winterbotham’s An Historical, Geographical, Commercial and Philosophical View of the American United States (London: 1795).

The snowballs with stony cores became a standard detail of descriptions of the Massacre in the nineteenth century. Even though that detail can’t be traced back to anyone who was at the event. Following the standards of his time, Ramsay didn’t specify his source, and the many authors who copied his language (at much greater length) didn’t even cite him.

A lot of eyewitnesses to the Massacre left testimony about it, and none described people packing snow around rocks. Lots of people said there was snow and ice on the ground, and in the air. Thomas Hall and Daniel Cornwall testified to seeing people throw oyster shells at the soldiers. An enslaved man named Andrew testified that people threw “pieces of sea coal” (i.e., coal imported from Cape Breton). So there’s better evidence that the locals didn’t even bother padding their stones with snow.

Schooling for Soldiers and Their Children

Yesterday I discussed the likelihood that the British military establishment in Boston included hundreds of children, and raised the question of where, if anyplace, those youngsters went to school.

I haven’t found evidence that soldiers’ sons were among the boys in Boston’s public schools. The Latin Schools were too genteel and impractical for enlisted men’s children (though Gov. Francis Bernard educated some of his sons by that route in the 1760s). The records of the Writing Schools are sparse, but I’ve kept my eyes open for protests in town meetings about the public expense of educating soldiers’ sons, or any anecdotes about local boys studying alongside such outsiders. And I’ve found nothing.

The most common form of schooling in Boston wasn’t public, however. Boys were expected to know how to read before they entered a Writing School or Latin School at around age seven, and New England’s Puritan heritage meant that region valued female literacy more than any other part of the British Empire. Hence, the town had many private reading schools for boys and girls, often kept by neighborhood women in their homes. (I suspect these doubled as what we’d call day-care centers.) We have practically no records on those businesses. Did soldiers’ children attend lessons like that?

I now suspect many did, but not in local homes. Rather, the British military community itself probably offered that sort of informal education. The rest of this posting is, as you’ll see, almost entirely indebted to author Don Hagist, who wrote about this topic last month on the 18cWoman list.

In A System for the Compleat Interior Management and Economy for a Battalion of Infantry, first published in London in 1768, Capt. Bennett Cuthbertson wrote:

From the common people (the English in particular) employing their children very early, in works of labour, their education becomes totally neglected, and as the Soldiery is in general from that class, many of them (although otherwise properly qualified for Non-commission-officers) can neither read nor write, which being absolutely necessary for those employed as such, it would be of infinite improvement, if (as is the case, in some of the Corps of Scotch Hollanders) every Regiment was to establish a school, under the management of an old Soldier qualified for such an undertaking, and to be supported by voluntary contributions from the Officers; by which means, not only the Soldiers, who were desirous of improvement, might be taught to read and write, but also the children of the Regiment, which institution, besides the advantage it must always be, to have a number of men so far well qualified for Non-commission-officers, would likewise be a real charity, by educating children, who from the poverty of their parents, must ever remain in a state of ignorance.

(I find it interesting that Cuthbertson thought Scottish units were ahead of “the English” in educating children.) With Mark Tully, Don has transcribed the complete text of Cuthbertson and three other military manuals from the period on a CD-ROM titled The Compleat Cuthbertson.

Cuthbertson’s recommendation was echoed in 1776 by Thomas Simes in A Military Guide for Young Officers:

A Serjeant, or Corporal, whose sobriety, honesty, and good conduct, can be depended upon, and who is capable to teach writing, reading, and arithmetic, should be employed to act in the capacity of school-master, by whom soldiers and their children may be carefully instructed: a room or tent should be appointed for that use; and it would be highly commendable if the Chaplain, or his deputy, would pay some attention to the conduct of the school.

This passage appears in Don’s article about “The Women of the British Army in America.”

Of course, it’s one thing for these writers to say it would be a good idea for the officers and chaplain of a regiment to establish schools for illiterate enlisted men and children. It’s another for the regiments actually to act on those ideas. I have a bunch of good ideas myself, but I haven’t heard from the capital about implementing them.

Don has found documentation that the 32nd Regiment of Foot, stationed in Ireland during the Revolutionary War, did establish a school “for instructing the younger Men in Writing & Arithematick.” In addition, during the British army’s occupation of Newport, Rhode Island, in 1777, a local schoolmaster named Joseph Rhodes kept accounts for “Schooling Soldiers Children.”

Finally, Don can quote Roger Lamb, whose books he’s edited into A British Soldier’s Story: Roger Lamb’s Narrative of the American Revolution. In 1774 Lamb was a young soldier in Ireland with valuable skills. He wrote:

Indeed it would almost have been impossible for me to have supported life with any degree of comfort, had it not been, that I was employed by a serjeant and his wife to teach their son writing and arithmetic. These people were very kind to me, frequently inviting me to their table; and paying me beside.

In addition, on the Revlist Steve Rayner quoted the British reform activist William Cobbett (1763-1835) describing how in the 1780s he tutored a Yorkshire solider named Smaller in his “ABC,” and the man “was promoted as soon as he could write and read; and he well deserved it, for he was more fit to command a regiment than any Colonel or Major that I ever saw.”

As Cobbett, Cuthbertson, and the sergeant who paid Lamb to tutor his son all knew, the army needed literate enlisted men to help keep records. Being able to read, write, and calculate well could thus allow a smart young man to rise above the rank of private. And that probably meant that soldiers and their wives did what they could afford to help their children learn the same valuable skills.

The Maguire Brothers Find Each Other

Last month I quoted a letter from a provincial officer describing how a deserter from the British garrison at Boston discovered his brother in the American camp.

Brendan Morrissey, who actually wrote the book called Boston 1775 from Osprey Publishing, as well as Saratoga 1777 (at left), reminded me of a similar incident from the end of Gen. John Burgoyne’s push down into New York from Canada.

This anecdote comes from Roger Lamb’s An Original and Authentic Journal of Occurrences during the Late American War, published in Dublin in 1809. At the time he described, Sgt. Lamb and a few thousand more British troops had just surrendered at Saratoga.

During the time of the cessation of arms, while the articles of capitulation were preparing, the soldiers of the two armies often saluted, and discoursed with each other from the opposite banks of the river, (which at Saratoga is about thirty yards wide, and not very deep,) a soldier in the 9th regiment, named Maguire, came down to the bank of the river, with a number of his companions, who engaged in conversation with a party of Americans on the opposite shore.

In a short time something was observed very forcibly to strike the mind of Maguire. He suddenly darted like lightning from his companions, and resolutely plunged into the stream. At the very same moment, one of the American soldiers, seized with a similar impulse, resolutely dashed into the water, from the opposite shore.

The wondering soldiers on both sides, beheld them eagerly swim towards the middle of the river, where they met; and hung on each others necks and wept; and the loud cries of “My brother! my dear brother!!!” which accompanied the transaction, soon cleared up the mystery, to the astonished spectators.

They were both brothers, the first had emigrated from this country, and the other had entered the army; one was in the British and the other in the American service, totally ignorant until that hour that they were engaged in hostile combat against each other’s life.

No other news on what happened to the Maguires.

Conspiracy theories of the Revolution

On 19 July 1775, the Rev. Dr. Ezra Stiles of Newport devoted a fair amount of his journal to recording a story that even he (who was a sucker for these sorts of tales) had deemed "incredible":

Capt. Jno. Hansen formerly of N York now of St. Crux a Danish Settlem’t where he has a Plantation, came to N York last Week. He says in settling some Accounts at Hispaniola on a Contract for supplying the Kings Timber stores he was obliged to go to Paris—where he became intimately acquainted with the Pretender’s Secretary.

Once while he was in his Office the Secr’y removed an unsealed packet which stepping out he left on the Table. Capt. Hanson read & found it from Ld North & the Earl of Bute [present and past First Ministers of Britain]—informing that the Plan was almost finished; that the Draught of Troops for America would soon leave Engld so defenceless that the Pretender with 20 Thousd Troops might land & march all over Engld &c &c &c.

Capt. Hansen instantly escaped & absconded carrying off the Packet—came to Engld & informed Ld North that he was possessed of this secret Correspondence. Ld North offered him a pension of £1000. for Secrecy. At length he persuaded him to take up with £500 per ann. with a promise of further Provision of £500 more. Having obtained this Hansen came home to St. Cruz.

But this Spring hearing of the Battle of Lexington & find’g America deluged in War he says his Conscience affected him, knowing he was possessed of a secret which would settle the whole & bring the Authors of all the Mischief to Punishment. He accordingly came to N York & opened the matter to the Congress there, which is said to credit the Informa. & have sent Capt. Hanson to lay it before the Continental Congress.

Mr. Ledyard &c received this Acco. from the mouth of Capt. Hanson himself at N York last Friday, & told it to Capt. Warner of Newp’t yesterday, Who told it me. The Thing is incredible. Or even if true, it will come to Noth’g—because Ld North doubtless retook the Packet—& the Ministry will wink away oral Testimony, as in the Burn’g of the Dockyard, & in the Proofs of the Princess Dowager receiv’g a Million, Earl of Bute half a Million, & 2 other Cronies a quarter Million each from France for the Peace of 1763. If Hanson was wise eno’ to retain the Letters—he has it in his Power to convince & open the Eyes of the King & the Nation, & restore Tranquillity.

By the end of his entry, Stiles was seriously considering that top ministers of the British government had provoked all the trouble in America so as to tie up the army, letting the Stuart Pretender sail from France and seize power. If only Capt. Hanson had kept his documentary proof, Stiles lamented, then the whole conspiracy could be exposed and the rift between Britain and America healed.

Stiles was far from the only man of the time entertaining what looks like an outlandish conspiracy theory. After the long war, Roger Lamb, who had served as a sergeant in the British Army, started his account of the conflict with this explanation:

The French, who have for many ages been the professed and natural enemies of Britain, had long viewed, with equal envy and apprehension, the flourishing state of the colonies in North America. No doubt at present subsists, that they began immediately after the peace of Paris to carry into execution the scheme they had formed for the separation of the British colonies from the mother country, conscious that, whilst a good understanding subsisted between Great Britain and her colonies the superiority must henceforth remain for ever on the side of Britain. It was only by their disunion that France could hope to regain the station and consequence she had formerly possessed in Europe.

The first step taken by France to secure this object was to employ her secret emissaries in spreading dissatisfaction among the British colonists; and the effects produced by her machinations were precisely such as she had intended and expected. The disposition of the inhabitants of North America began gradually to alter from that warmth of attachment to the mother country which had so particularly characterized them.

"Secret emissaries" of the French spreading dissatisfaction among the colonists! A devious plan indeed, considering how unpopular the French government was in the colonies until after the war had started. Lamb, writing in Dublin for a British audience, couldn't concede that the American colonists might have felt dissatisfied all on their own.

Both these passages are examples of the conspiracy theories that floated throughout eighteenth-century British-American politics. They also seem like examples of paranoid hoohah. Looking back now, we have to wonder how anyone could take them seriously.

But of course such theories are a steady presence in our history. In a 1964 essay, Richard Hofstader dubbed this the "Paranoid Style in American Politics," and traced it back to the Bavarian Illuminati scare of the 1790s. Gordon S. Wood went further back in his 1982 essay in the William & Mary Quarterly called "Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century." Hofstader was responding primarily to McCarthyist accusations. Wood, on the other hand, was looking at what created widespread "paranoid" thinking in the Revolutionary period, and I find his essay very useful in considering passages like the two above.

In a nutshell, Wood argues that gentlemen of the eighteenth century were Newtonians: they understood much of the world in terms of the laws of motion. If a ball suddenly started rolling, something must have pushed it. Similarly, if a political movement started rolling, someone must have pushed that to get it started. Gentlemen of the time had only a rudimentary understanding of how economic forces worked without people guiding them; Adam Smith didn't introduce the concept of the "invisible hand" in The Wealth of Nations until 1776.

Those gentlemen also had little experience in mass politics, thinking of governing as rich and educated men making decisions on behalf of the country. Most resisted thinking of "the mob" as having rational, economic desires underlying their angry or destructive actions. Only their fellow gentlemen thought in economic and political terms.

Finally, few men seem to have applied our concept of the "law of unintended consequences," which even now people like to invoke in regard to any initiative they oppose (and tend to neglect in regard to any initiative they support). The notion that an action could be well intended and yet produce poor and unexpected results didn't make sense in a Newtonian world.

Add all that together, and Revolutionary-era gentlemen came up with this picture:

• If there's trouble, someone must have started it.
• If crowds are angry, someone richer and smarter must be directing them.
• If policies are producing harm, someone must have planned that all along.

All that was left was to identify who someone was. The Pretender? The French? Corrupt governors? Mad incendiaries?