James Winthrop Lays Out the Battle of Bunker Hill

Here’s another account of the Battle of Bunker Hill from an American participant. In early 1818 the Analectic Magazine published the map of the battle shown above (image courtesy of Maps of Antiquity). Before publication that magazine’s editors had run it by, among others, James Winthrop (1752-1821), librarian at Harvard College from 1772 to 1787 and later a Massachusetts judge.

The next issue of the magazine published a letter from Winthrop commenting on that map. Apparently, after it was published, he’d found he had more to say:

As far as I can recollect, I believe the plan to be generally correct. The railed fence was, I think, as far as a quarter of a mile from the curtain belonging to the redoubt. There was room for a body of troops to enter that way, which was one circumstance that discomfited our men. There was no such grove as is represented on the plan. There were two or three trees near the fences, and, I believe, not more than that number. I remember two field pieces at the rail fence which covered our left.

When I first got there, generals [Joseph] Warren and [Israel] Putnam were standing by the pieces and consulting together. Very few men were at that part of the lines. I went forward to the redoubt, and tarried there a little while. Mr. James Swan [1754-1830] and myself were in company. Finding that a column of the enemy were advancing toward our left, and not far from Mystic river, we pointed them out to the people without the redoubt, and proposed that some measure should be taken to man the fence, which, when we passed, we had considered as slightly guarded. We two, in the style of the times, were appointed a committee for that purpose. We went directly to the rail fence, and found a body of men had arrived since we had left it. Possibly three hundred would not be an estimate far from the truth.

As soon as we had got to the middle of the line, the firing commenced from the redoubt and continued through our left. The field pieces stood there, and nobody appeared to have the care of them. After an obstinate dispute, our people were driven from the redoubt, and the retreat was rapid from our whole line. I saw one or two young men, in uniform, try to muster a party to bring off the field pieces, but they could not succeed.

In coming down Bunker’s Hill, at the place where the British [later] built their fort, I met a regiment going up, and joined company, still in hopes of repelling the invaders. I have since learned that it was Col. [Thomas] Gardner’s regiment. He being badly wounded was removed, and his regiment was not deployed.

When the firing commenced from the redoubt, the smoke rose from the lower part of the street. A man near me pointed to it as “the smoke from the guns.” This shows that the fire was in a line with the redoubt and the middle of the rail fence. By laying a ruler from the middle of the rail fence, as marked upon the plan, and over that side of the fort next the main street, it will cross the northern side of the square where the court-house stood. After the destruction of the town, the places of the court-house and meeting-house were cleared of the ruins to form the present square. An irregular mass of buildings was also removed in front of the present hotel, and extended that corner of the square to its present magnitude. As well as I can conclude from this statement, I am inclined to believe the plan nearly correct.

Not the most dramatic account, is it? All the actual fighting got subsumed into the phrase “obstinate dispute.” Later reference books said Winthrop was wounded in that battle, but, if he was, he wrote nothing about that.

However, Winthrop wrote a little more a couple of months later.

TOMORROW: Let’s try this again, Judge Winthrop.

Capt. Bancroft’s “severe struggle to escape out of the fort”

I’ve been quoting the account of the Bunker Hill battle set down by a grandson of Capt. Ebenezer Bancroft reportedly around 1826. When we last left the captain and his Dunstable men, the British had made their third advance on the Breed’s Hill redoubt and had flanked it on the west side, overwhelming the provincial defenses.

Capt. Bancroft is quoted as saying:

As I was loading my gun the last time, and just withdrawing the ramrod, an officer sprang over the breastwork in front of me and presented his piece. I threw away the rammer which was in my hand, and instantly placed the muzzle of my gun against his right shoulder, a little below the collar-bone, and fired, and he fell into the trench. This was my twenty-second fire that day. The wound it gave was in the same place as that by which Pitcairn died, and as near as I can recollect the person I shot answered the description of that officer who was found mortally wounded in our trench.

Bancroft thus became yet another claimant for the honor of having killed Maj. John Pitcairn as he entered the redoubt. In an article published in the first Journal of the American Revolution collection, I argue that British sources show that Pitcairn was mortally wounded before he reached the redoubt, and none of those American stories is likely to be accurate. Bancroft may have killed another, less notable officer.

Whomever he shot at, Bancroft now had an unloaded gun with enemy soldiers swarming in from all sides.

I had then a severe struggle to escape out of the fort, the gateway of which was completely filled with British soldiers. I held my gun broadwise before my face and rushed upon them, and at first bore some of them down, but I soon lost my gun, a remarkably long one, which I had taken from the French at Chamblee, in the old French war.

I leaped upon the heads of the throng in the gateway and fortunately struck my breast upon the head of a soldier, who settled down under me so that I came with my feet to the ground. Directly as I came to the ground a blow was aimed at me, with the butt of a gun, which missed my head but gave me a severe contusion on the right shoulder.

Numbers were trying to seize me by the arms but I broke from them, and with my elbows and knees cleared the way so that at length I got through the fort. The last man I passed stood alone, and the thought struck me that he might kill me after I had passed him. As I ran by him I struck him a blow across the throat with the side of my hand. I saw his mouth open, and I have not seen him since.

A shower of shot was falling all around me as I ran down the hill. One struck my hat, several marked my clothes, one struck me in the left hand, and served off the forefinger. Our men were all in advance of me, and I was almost, if not entirely, alone, from the time I left the fort till I came to Charlestown Neck, on which there was not a man to be seen.

I thought it might be some protection from the fire of the floating batteries, to go behind the buildings, but on turning the corner I found Col. [Samuel] Gerrish with a body of men posted there. I said to him, “Colonel Gerrish, are you here? I hope to God you will be killed, but I will not stay to die with you,” and took the street again.

By this time I grew very faint with fatigue and loss of blood. There was a horse tied by the side of the common, and I made towards him. Colonel James Varnum saw me and came to me. He took me by the arm and led me to the horse. While he was with me, the ball of the last cannon I heard that day passed within a foot or two of me and struck the ground, at a short distance before me. We found the owner of the horse by him, and he cheerfully offered him to me to ride to Cambridge.

Many people criticized Col. Gerrish for his behavior on 17 June 1775, but he remained in the army until August, when he was court-martialed and cashiered for how he behaved in a lesser confrontation with the enemy.

Though Bancroft lived and died in Massachusetts, his grave (shown above, courtesy of Find a Grave) is located in New Hampshire. That’s because the sliver of Dunstable containing the cemetery where he was interred was later found to be across the state border.

Capt. Bancroft and the Sight of the Enemy

Yesterday I started quoting from the reminiscence of the Battle of Bunker Hill credited to Ebenezer Bancroft, captain of a company from Dunstable, Massachusetts.

According to Bancroft, Col. William Prescott had given him charge of two cannon left in the redoubt on Breed’s Hill by the artillery company of Capt. Samuel Gridley. Bancroft had fired a couple of times, causing no damage but, he later claimed, nonetheless affecting the battle:

By this time the British had landed. They learned that we had cannon on the right or most westwardly part of the fort, which was probably the reason they did not attempt to flank us on that quarter till the close of the action. We were not able to use these cannon in the action because the enemy advanced and the firing commenced before we had time to dig down the bank far enough to use them against the enemy. Still as the few shots that were fired gave the enemy notice that we had artillery and prevented their attempting to turn our right flank, it must be regarded as a very important circumstance, for had they attempted it, they would have succeeded, and we should not have had more than a shot or two at them. I was fully persuaded that the moment they attempted this point, we could no longer maintain our fort, and the event showed that I was not mistaken, for it was not more than four minutes after they turned this flank before we were obliged to retreat.

The British troops had begun their march. They were steadily and confidently advancing directly in our front. Our men turned their heads every minute to look on the one side for their fellow soldiers who had gone off with the tools and for the reinforcements, which were expected, and on the other to see a sight to most of them new, a veteran enemy marching on firmly to the attack, directly in their front. It was an awful moment.

The enemy had advanced perhaps half the way from their station toward us, and our men seeing no reinforcements began by a simultaneous movement to draw off from the east side of the redoubt. This in my opinion was the very crisis of the day, the moment on which every thing depended. Col. Prescott hastened to them, and I followed him. We represented with earnestness that they must not go off, that if they did all would go; that it would disgrace us to leave, at the bare sight of the enemy, the work we had been all night throwing up; that we had no expectation of being able to hold our ground, but we wanted to give them a warm reception, and retreat. It is but justice to these men to say that they cheerfully took their places again, and maintained them as bravely as any that fought on that day.

As the enemy were advancing within gunshot, Col. Prescott and the officers gave orders to the men to take particular notice of the fine coats [of the officers and sergeants], and aim as low as the waistband, and not to fire till ordered. A firing of eight or ten guns commenced before orders, at the left of the redoubt, but was immediately stopped. We wished the fire to be held till the enemy were within six rods.

Our first fire was shockingly fatal. There was scarcely a shot but told. The enemy were thrown into confusion and retreated a short distance. Their lines were broken, and it was some minutes before they had conveyed their dead and wounded into their rear. A scattering fire was still kept up by our men.

They formed again and advanced, and were a second time driven back in the same confusion. They formed a third time and flanked us. A body of reinforcements which had come up in the rear of the redoubt, gave them a fire. At this moment, as I understood, Gen. [Joseph] Warren fell. Our ammunition was now nearly expended, which the enemy probably learned by those who had fired away all their powder, throwing stones, which were abundant in the trench. We were soon surrounded on all sides. The enemy had advanced on each side of the point of the redoubt, and were pouring into the gateway. The day was over, and we had nothing more but to retreat as well as we could.

Did Bancroft survive? (Well, of course he did since we have this recollection. But how?)

TOMORROW: Out of the redoubt.

Capt. Ebenezer Bancroft and the Embrasures

With the anniversary of Bunker Hill coming up, I’m going to share some accounts of that battle, said to be from eyewitnesses. And in most cases I’m sure they really are from eyewitnesses.

The first comes from Ebenezer Bancroft (1738-1827) of Dunstable, Massachusetts, who was a captain in the provincial army. It was reportedly “written from dictation in 1826” by Bancroft’s grandson John B. Hill of Mason, New Hampshire, and printed for the first time in The Granite Monthly in 1878.

That magazine said it had taken the text from proofs of Hill’s Sketches of Old Dunstable, which was never published as a stand-alone book. Instead, Hill’s material was appended to a much shorter address that nevertheless gets top bibliographic billing: Bi-Centennial of Old Dunstable, by S. T. Worcester.

Here’s the start of Bancroft’s account:

On the night of the 16th of June, 1775, my company was ordered out with the detachment to take possession of the heights of Charlestown. This detachment consisted of three regiments commanded by Col’s [William] Prescott, [Ebenezer] Bridge and [James] Frye, and amounted in all to between 1000 and 1200 men. These regiments were principally from Middlesex county, Col. Prescott from Pepperell, Col. Bridge from Chelmsford, Col. Frye from Andover. I was that evening on a court-martial and could not get liberty to go with my company, but in the morning of the 17th General [Artemas] Ward granted me permission to join my company, though the court-martial was not through.

Soon after I reached the hill our men left work and piled their intrenching tools in our rear, and waited in expectation of reinforcements and refreshments, but neither reached us, if any were sent. The reinforcements halted at Charlestown Neck. Whilst I was standing by the redoubt before the action began, a ball from the Somerset passed within a few inches of my head, which seriously affected my left eye so that it finally became totally blind.

When the works were planned no calculation was made for the use of cannon, and of course no embrasures were left for them. But on the morning of the 17th two ship cannon were sent up and a platform with them. About ten o’clock the British troops began to make their appearance at the wharves in Boston.

General [Israel] Putnam, who had been incessant in his exertions through the morning to bring reinforcements, now rode up to us at the fort and says: “My lads, these tools must be carried back,” and turned and rode away. An order was never obeyed with more readiness. From every part of the line volunteers ran and some picked up one, some two shovels, mattocks, etc., and hurried over the hill.

When the pile of tools was thus removed I went through the lines to form an estimate of the number of men in the redoubt, at the same time stating that those who had gone with the tools would come back, though I was by no means confident that they would. I estimated the number then left in the redoubt at 150, but was afterward informed by one of the captains of Col. Frye’s regiment that he counted them, and the whole number, including officers, was 163. I was not certain that any reinforcements after this time came into the redoubt; thus the number of our effective force was very materially reduced. General Putnam had given his orders and gone, and nobody seemed to think it belonged to him to stop the men and execute the order in a proper way.

The artillery-men had all gone with the tools, and Col. Prescott came to me and said, “If you can do anything with the cannon I wish you would. I give you the charge of them.” I directed the men to dig down the bank in order to form an embrasure, which they were forced to do with their hands, for the party that had carried off the intrenching tools had not left us a single shovel or mattock. Men never worked with more zeal. Many of them dug till their fingers bled. To loosen the earth I loaded the cannon and fired into the gap, and they dug again, and I fired a second time. Both these balls fell in Boston, one near the meeting-house in Brattle square, the other on Cornhill, as I was afterward informed by Boston gentlemen.

The first time I read a retelling of that anecdote, it sounded like the provincials fired point-blank into the earthen wall to create the embrasures, and I recall at least one author expressing doubt that anyone would ever do that. Bancroft’s (or Hill’s) words suggest that the men started the excavate the openings by hand, and he fired the cannon through the narrow hole they opened in order to make it easier for them to widen. As to whether those shots reached all the way into central Boston, that still seems dubious.

TOMORROW: What effect did those cannon have on the battle?

The Jersey Prison Ship Records on Ebenezer Fox

As I wrote yesterday, on 5 May 1781 two Royal Navy ships captured the pride of the Massachusetts navy, the Protector, and its crew, including young Ebenezer Fox of Roxbury. (The picture here shows him over fifty years later.)

The National Archives in London holds three volumes of bound muster rolls from the Jersey prison ship, then in New York harbor, and those confirm that men from the Protector began arriving on that hulk on 8 May. Even more were listed on 9 May. Those prisoners were credited to the two vessels that had captured the Massachusetts ship, H.M.S. Roebuck and Medea (which Fox recalled in his memoir as the Mayday).

In all, the Jersey rolls list 127 prisoners from the Protector. Only Capt. John Foster Williams is identified by rank. Junior officers like Lt. George Little and Midn. Edward Preble don’t have any special designation; they appear in the midst of the ordinary seamen—including Ebenezer Fox, signed in on 8 May.

And almost immediately those muster rolls show the Protector’s men being transferred off the prison ship, and thus off its books. The first to go were two sailors discharged to the Falmouth on 11 May, possibly having enlisted in the Royal Navy.

Williams and Little were put aboard the Rainbow on 9 June, prisoners bound for England. It’s not clear how many other men listed as discharged to the Rainbow were prisoners and how many had been drafted or enlisted as sailors. In early 1782, Williams was exchanged from the Mill Prison in Britain.

In all, men from the Protector were discharged to eight different British vessels, mostly in small numbers. In addition, one was identified as a British deserter and sent back to his army regiment, and four are listed as, I believe, “Esc[aped].” (At first I’d wondered if that notation might be “Ex[changed],” but Fox’s mention of men disappearing in the night confirms there were escapes.) By the end of June 1781, only 27 of the original 127 were still listed as receiving rations aboard the Jersey.

Ebenezer Fox was not one of those remaining names. On 30 June, the Jersey’s commander had discharged him to the 88th Regiment of the British army. Two other men enlisted in that regiment the same day; five others had already signed up, the earliest on 28 May.

Thus, Fox’s experience of the Jersey prison ship, which took up almost a quarter of his 1838 memoir of the war, lasted less than two months. To be sure, he was on that ship for more days than most of his comrades from the Protector, but he didn’t hold out for a very long time. Furthermore, while he dwelled on the unhealthy conditions in that prison, during those two months none of the Protector men is listed as dying.

Clearly Fox played up the horrors of the Jersey to justify his eventual decision to join the enemy army. In Forgotten Patriots, Edwin G. Burrows showed that some of the anecdotes Fox told in those chapters occurred after he had left the ship and must have been borrowed from other men’s memoirs.

Thus, while the Jersey’s muster rolls confirm that Ebenezer Fox was held captive aboard that notorious ship before enlisting in the 88th Regiment and heading for Jamaica, they also reveal that Fox glossed over one very important detail.

Ebenezer Fox on the Jersey

Ebenezer Fox was a teenaged sailor aboard the Massachusetts warship Protector when two Royal Navy vessels captured it off the coast of New Jersey on 5 May 1781.

In his 1838 memoir Fox told this story of what happened next:

About a third part of our ship’s crew were taken on board of their vessels, to serve in the capacity of sailors, without regarding their remonstrances; while the remainder of us were put on board of a wood coaster, to be conveyed on board the noted prison ship called the “Jersey.” The idea of being incarcerated in this floating Pandemonium filled us with horror; but the idea we had formed of its horrors fell far short of the realities which we afterwards experienced.

The next few chapters of Fox’s memoir describe life aboard the Jersey, an old hulk anchored in New York harbor. In fact, that topic takes up almost a quarter of the book (excluding appendixes). Citing other reminiscences for support, Fox painted a horrible experience for the prisoners of war confined there:

The miseries of our condition were continually increasing: the pestilence on board spread rapidly, and every day added to our bill of mortality. The young, in a particular manner, were its most frequent victims. The number of the prisoners was continually increasing, notwithstanding the frequent and successful attempts to escape: and when we were mustered and called upon to answer to our names, and it was ascertained that nearly two hundred had mysteriously disappeared without leaving any information of their departure, the officers of the ship endeavored to make amends for their past remissness by increasing the rigor of our confinement…

The British authorities kept offering a way out: enlisting in the royal military forces. Fox wrote of how he and his comrades resisted that enticement at first, but their conditions made it more appealing:

To remain an indefinite time as prisoners, enduring sufferings and privations beyond what human nature could sustain, or to make a virtue of necessity, and with apparent willingness to enlist into a service, into which we were satisfied that we should soon be impressed, seemed to be the only alternatives. . . .

…a recruiting officer came on board to enlist men for the eighty-eighth regiment, to be stationed at Kingston, in the island of Jamaica. We had just been trying to satisfy our hunger upon a piece of beef, which was so tough that no teeth could make an impression on it, when the officer descended between decks, and represented to us the immense improvement that we should experience in our condition, if we were in his Majesty’s service: an abundance of good food, comfortable clothing, service easy, and in the finest climate in the world, were temptations too great to be resisted by a set of miserable, half-starved, and almost naked wretches as we were. . . .

The recruiting officer presented his papers for our signature. We hesitated, we stared at each other, and felt that we were about to do a deed of which we were ashamed, and which we might regret. Again we heard the tempting offers, and again the assurance that we should not be called upon to fight against our government or country; and, with the hope that we should find an opportunity to desert, of which it was our firm intention to avail ourselves when offered—with such hopes, expectations, and motives, we signed the papers, and became soldiers in his Majesty’s service.

One goal for my trip to London earlier this month was to find out more about Ebenezer Fox’s experience. That included going to the British National Archives to examine the muster rolls of the Jersey, which I’d learned about from Todd Braisted’s Facebook feed.

TOMORROW: What the Jersey rolls say about Ebenezer Fox.

James Madison in Virginia

In February the Colonial Williamsburg podcast featured an interview with the actor now portraying James Madison, Bryan Austin. He portrays the future fourth President as a young lawyer.

In other news, this Charlottesville article cheekily titled “The Full Montpelier,” about the ongoing work to restore that Virginia estate, including “filling out the inside of the Madisons’ former mansion and erecting replica structures of the former slave quarters,” as well as establishing events.

And surprises are still lurking under the ground:

[Matt] Reeves is ecstatic because his team of 11 full-time archaeologists and 17 students from James Madison University has been excavating the foundation of an 18th century brick building a stone’s throw away from the palatial columned mansion that most of us think of when we imagine Montpelier.

No doubt, the wall in the front yard is a striking find in its own right, but something even more unexpected occurred around 2:30pm the previous day as the archaeologists dug out a layer of Virginia dirt to reveal the structure. Instead of taking a 90-degree turn as they had predicted—and which would have been typical of a structural foundation—the wall turned at a 45-degree angle.

“It’s totally different than anything else. It’s not square, and we have no idea what it is,” said Reeves. “It’s going to be cool, that’s all we know.” And so, they keep digging.

The article quotes Montpelier director Kat Imhoff as saying, “There’s this feeling that Madison is the Robin to Jefferson’s Batman, but it’s so not true.” To which I can only reply, what would be wrong with that?

A Season of Turn

The A.M.C. television series Turn reached the end of its first season Sunday, and I filed my review of that episode at Den of Geek. Earlier in the week the website published my article on Maj. Richard Hewlett, which I wrote before guessing that the Battle of Setauket, New York, would provide the climax for the season.

My whole collection of writing about the show is linked from here. I tried to avoid spoiling the big revelations in each episode in case you’re still catching up. Also, check out Rachel Smith’s Turn to a Historian blog for excellent analysis of the historical facts behind—in many cases, almost invisible in the distance behind—the show.

Early on in the show’s run I had to reconcile myself to the many historical liberties the show’s creators had taken, from launching the Culper Ring in 1776 to giving two principal characters anachronistic bushy beards as a way to signal they stood outside ordinary norms and differentiate them from the other men. There are so many deviations from the historical record or historiographical questions to point out that those essays could fill a season unto themselves.

But I realized that simply noting those changes was not unlike pointing out that Bucky Barnes died while trying to stop Baron Zemo’s rocket, and not by falling off a train as in the new Captain America movies. That may be true—hey, it is true—but not in the “Marvel movie continuity.”

Similarly, it seemed wiser to consider the Turn continuity to reflect a different universe from the real one. The same characters were playing the same basic roles in the same basic storylines, but they looked different, the timeline was changed, and knowledge about one world didn’t necessarily apply in the other. Given the cast-limiting budget, the show’s production values, use of period music, and generally strong performances kept it generally entertaining.

My biggest disappointment with Turn, therefore, wasn’t with the historical accuracy but with the way some characters’ motivations seemed to shift as the plot demanded. The character at the center, Abe Woodhull, is obviously torn in several directions—politically, romantically, familially. But his choices remained so opaque that, for instance, his getting involved in a duel seemed to be driven more by the producers’ thought that a duel would be dramatic than by anything we’d seen Abe do up to that point. Secondary characters worked better since they could be “flat,” in E. M. Forster’s formulation, and maintain their motivation.

It’s not clear whether there will be a second season of Turn. Certainly there’s plenty of inspiration available: Gen. Benedict Arnold’s name keeps coming up, and we haven’t yet seen the spy inside New York City who operated as “Samuel Culper, Jr.” The show could also shift its focus to Philadelphia in 1777-78 with another set of spies; Benjamin Tallmadge and John André were there, too. But to get to do any of that Turn has to satisfy viewers with good character-driven drama.

Touring Revolutionary Worcester, 21 June

Preservation Worcester is offering a ninety-minute bus tour of the city’s Revolutionary sites on the afternoon of Saturday, 21 June. This is part of Worcester’s commemoration of the role it played in breaking down royal rule in Massachusetts in 1774, months before the Revolutionary War began (though after the similar closing of courts in western counties and shortly after the Powder Alarm).

The event’s description says:

In September of 1774, when the closing of the Worcester County Court House ousted British rule forever, Worcester looked nothing like it does today. Let this tour introduce you to historical sites and figures of the period (both famous and little known) and recreate in your mind’s eye the spirit of that long-ago era.

Visit the monument to Revolutionary Patriot Timothy Bigelow on Worcester Common [shown here]. See the site of the 1774 ousting of Crown-appointed officials from the Worcester County Court House. View the reconstructed building where those historic events took place. Visit the Georgian style home of Patriot Stephen Salisbury. View the ample Paine farmhouse, “The Oaks,” which Loyalist Judge Timothy Paine was building at the time of the 1774 closing of the courts. Enjoy lemonade and cookies served by the Daughters of the American Revolution while visiting its gardens and grounds. Finally, at Rural Cemetery, view the Paine and Salisbury family plots and the tomb of Patriot printer Isaiah Thomas.

This tour is recommended for adults only. Tickets are $10 apiece, and reservations are required. The bus will begin at 2:30 P.M. at Preservation Worcester at 10 Cedar Street; there is parking available nearby. Contact the organization for more information.

Talk on Philip Ashton, Castaway, in Boston, 19 June

On Thursday, 19 June, Gregory N. Flemming will speak at the Massachusetts Historical Society about his new book At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Philip Ashton.

In an essay for the M.H.S. blog, Flemming wrote about his main source:

Tucked away in the archives of the Massachusetts Historical Society Library are two small, leather-bound volumes printed nearly 300 years ago. These small tracts, titled Ashton’s Memorial, reveal an incredible story—the first-hand account of a Massachusetts fisherman named Philip Ashton who was captured by pirates in 1722 and then escaped and lived as a castaway on an uninhabited Caribbean island for nearly two years. Ashton’s Memorial is a rare description of a voyage aboard a pirate ship during the peak of Atlantic piracy and it reveals rich new details about the crew, captures, and nearly-fatal mishaps.

The Society may hold the only surviving copy of the original 1725 printing of Ashton’s Memorial in Boston. There are original editions from a second printing of Ashton’s Memorial, published in London in 1726, at both the Massachusetts Historical Society and the British Library. The second printing is nearly identical to the first, except the title page uses the descriptor “An Authentick Account” instead of “An History” and includes three lines of text that were omitted from the Boston printing, apparently due to a typesetting error.

Ashton’s narrative was compiled by his minister, John Barnard of the First Church in Marblehead, Massachusetts. The fact that the book was published in London a year after it was printed in Boston speaks to the popularity of the story at the time. In fact, Ashton’s Memorial may have been read in London by Daniel Defoe, who had a lifelong interest in piracy, castaways, and the maritime world. A leading scholar of Defoe’s work, Manual Schonhorn, has compared Defoe’s writings before and after Ashton’s Memorial was published and concludes that Defoe incorporated new details from Ashton’s story—never published anywhere else—in his next novel.

That last part confused me, so I went hunting for buried bibliography. Defoe published the first edition of Robinson Crusoe in 1719, before Ashton’s misadventures. By 1720 Defoe had published the last two Crusoe adventures and his pirate novel Captain Singleton. So in what book did he draw on Ashton’s account?

Two possibilities are The Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts (1726) and the second volume of A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1728). Both books, published under different names, have been attributed to Defoe. In 1972 Manuel Schonhorn prepared an edition of Pyrates that credits Defoe as pseudonymous author.

However, other scholars dispute those attributions. In Republic of Pirates, the Maine author Colin Woodard reports that more recent researchers have argued that journalist Nathaniel Mist most likely wrote Pyrates. And the British Dictionary of National Biography deemed The Four Years Voyages as likely the product of “some humble and incompetent imitator of Defoe.” Still, Ashton’s details could have shown up in those books.

Flemming’s lecture will start at noon, and is free and open to the public.

“‘Illuminati Morse’ as he is now called”

New England Federalists were happy to link Jeffersonians with the democratic, anti-religious, and French Illuminati (no matter that the order was actually Bavarian). At the end of his article on the birth of the Illuminati myth, Mike Jay writes:

In an overheated political milieu where accusations of treason were hurled from both sides, [John Robison’s] Proofs of a Conspiracy was seized on eagerly by the Federalists as evidence of the hidden agenda that lurked behind fine-sounding slogans such as democracy, the abolition of slavery and the rights of man. Robison’s words were repeated endlessly in New England pulpits and pamphlets through 1798 and 1799, and [Thomas] Jefferson was publicly accused of being a member of [Adam] Weishaupt’s Order.

One of the loudest voices promoting this idea was the Rev. Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826, shown above) of Charlestown, who was also a leading textbook author. A strong Federalist and Congregationalist, he seized on Robison’s book as proof of a worldwide conspiracy against traditional politics and religion.

On the national fast day of 9 May 1798, Morse preached a sermon based on Robison’s book. He returned to that topic for Thanksgiving on 29 November and for the next national fast on 29 Apr 1799, publishing all three sermons for wider consumption. (It’s notable that Morse didn’t deliver these messages during his regular church services. It’s also notable that in between those dates, on 25 June 1798, he spoke to the Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Freemasons, not mentioning the Illuminati, at least overtly.)

Other speakers pushed back against Morse’s charges, particularly men already in the Jeffersonian camp, such as the Rev. William Bentley of Salem. But the most effective response to Morse came from John Cosens Ogden (1751-1800), an itinerant Episcopal priest with the zeal of a convert (from Presbyterianism).

In 1799 Ogden published a pamphlet titled A View of the New-England Illuminati; Who are Indefatigably Engaged in Destroying the Religion and Government of the United States, under a feigned regard for their safety, and under an impious abuse of true religion. It wasn’t the Jeffersonians who were secretly Illuminati, Ogden wrote—it was the New England Federalists who were pointing fingers at other people.

On 31 Jan 1800, Vice President Jefferson wrote to James Madison—not his political ally but the Episcopal bishop of Virginia with the same name—about the conspiracy theories:

I have lately by accident got a sight of a single volume, (the 3d.) of the Abbé [Augustin] Barruel’s ‘Antisocial conspiracy,’ which gives me the first idea I have ever had of what is meant by the Illuminatism, against which ‘illuminati Morse’ as he is now called, and his ecclesiastical & monarchical associates have been making such a hue & cry.

Barruel’s own parts of the book are perfectly the ravings of a Bedlamite. but he quotes largely from Wishaupt whom he considers as the founder of what he calls the order. . . . Wishaupt seems to be an enthusiastic Philanthropist. he is among those (as you know the excellent [Richard] Price and [Joseph] Priestly also are) who believe in the indefinite perfectibility of man. he thinks he may in time be rendered so perfect that he will be able to govern himself in every circumstance so as to injure none, to do all the good he can, to leave government no occasion to exercise their powers over him, & of course to render political government useless. this, you know is Godwin’s doctrine, and this is what Robinson, Barruel & Morse have called a conspiracy against all government

With both sides of the political divide using the term “Illuminati” to tar the other, it became part of the American political lexicon. It survives in many conspiracy theories, still reading like the ravings of Bedlamites.

George Washington Encounters the Illuminati

Yesterday I quoted from Mike Jay’s article on the birth of the Illuminati conspiracy in an overheated jeremiad by the Scottish professor John Robison. His 1797 book Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe also found readers in the young U.S. of A., with local editions published the following year.

On 22 Aug 1798, a German-born minister in Maryland named George William Snyder (sometimes spelled Schneyder or Schneider) sent a copy of Robison’s book to retired President George Washington. Snyder, who himself had just published The Age of Reason Unreasonable to counter Thomas Paine, offered this explanation:

It was some Time since that a Book fell into my Hands entituled “Proofs of a Conspiracy &c. by John Robison,” which gives a full Account of a Society of Freemasons, that distinguishes itself by the Name “of Illuminati,” whose Plan is to overturn all Government and all Religion, even natural; and who endeavour to eradicate every Idea of a Supreme Being, and distinguish Man from Beast by his Shape only. A Thought suggested itself to me, that some of the Lodges in the United States might have caught the Infection, and might cooperate with the Illuminati or the Jacobine Club in France. Fauchet is mentioned by Robison as a zealous Member: and who can doubt of Genet and Adet? Have not these their Confidants in this Country? They use the same Expressions and are generally Men of no Religion. Upon serious Reflection I was led to think that it might be within your Power to prevent the horrid Plan from corrupting the Brethren of the English Lodge over which you preside.

I send you the “Proof of a Conspiracy &c.” which, I doubt not, will give you Satisfaction and afford you Matter for a Train of Ideas, that may operate to our national Felicity. If, however, you have already perused the Book, it will not, I trust, be disagreeable to you that I have presumed to address you with this Letter and the Book accompanying it. It proceeded from the Sincerity of my Heart and my ardent Wishes for the common Good.

Washington replied on 25 September, saying:

I have heard much of the nefarious, & dangerous plan, & doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the Book until you were pleased to send it to me. The same causes which have prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your letter, have prevented my reading the Book, hitherto; namely—the multiplicity of matters which pressed upon me before, & the debilitated state in which I was left after, a severe fever had been removed. And which allows me to add little more now, than thanks for your kind wishes and favourable sentiments, except to correct an error you have run into, of my Presiding over the English lodges in this Country. The fact is, I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice, within the last thirty years. I believe notwithstandings, that none of the Lodges in this Country are contaminated with the principles ascribed to the Society of the Illuminati.

While awaiting that reply, the eager Snyder sent another warning on 1 October:

…the Democratic-Societies…appeared to me to be a Branch of that Order, though many Members may be entirely ignorant of the Plan. Those Men who are so much attached to French Principles, have all the Marks of Jacobinism. They first cast off all religious Restraints, and then became fit for perpetrating every Act of Inhumanity.

Snyder also told Washington that he’d had extracts from Robison’s book published in Maryland newspapers. Washington put an end to the exchange on 24 October:

It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Iluminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more fully satisfied of this fact than I am.

The idea I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or the pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of seperation). That Individuals of them may have done it, and that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects—and actually had a seperation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned.

Washington had already denounced the Democratic Societies in 1794 after the Whiskey Rebellion, which he saw as instigated by such groups. (I’m not sure whom he saw as “the founder, or instrument employed to found,” of those organizations.)

Nevertheless, though Washington hadn’t been an active member of Freemasons’ lodges for decades, he defended them. It’s always easier to believe paranoid conspiracy theories about your opponents than about your friends, after all.

TOMORROW: The Illuminati in American politics.

Illuminating the Illuminati Myth

I quite enjoyed Mike Jay’s recent article at Public Domain Review on the birth of our understanding of the Illuminati. The crucial text was the subtly titled Proofs of a Conspiracy against all the Religions and Governments of Europe, published in 1797 by Prof. John Robison of Edinburgh (shown here).

Jay, also author of A Visionary Madness: The Case of James Tilly Matthews and the Influencing Machine, writes:

Robison’s vast conspiracy needed an imposing figurehead, a role for which Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati, seemed on the surface to be an unpromising candidate. Obsessive and domineering, Weishaupt had from the beginning found difficulty in attracting members to his secret society, where they were expected to adopt mystical pseudonyms chosen by him, jump through the hoops of his strict initiatic grades – Novice and Minerval, Illuminatus Minor and Major, Dirigens and Magus – and take up subservient roles in his grandiose but unfocused crusade for world domination. After 1784, when the Order had been exposed and banned by the Elector of Bavaria, Weishaupt had exiled himself to Gotha in central Germany, since when he appeared to have done little beyond producing a series of morose and self-justifying memoirs of his adventures.

As for Robison himself:

In 1785 he had begun to suffer from a mysterious medical condition, a severe and painful spasm of the groin: it seemed to emanate from beneath his testicles, but its precise origin baffled the most distinguished doctors of Edinburgh and London. Racked with pain and frequently bed-ridden, by the late 1790s he had become a withdrawn and isolated figure; he was using opium frequently, a regime which according to some of his acquaintances made him vulnerable to melancholy, confusion and paranoia. As the successive crises of the French Revolution shook Britain, the panic was particularly intense in Scotland, where ministers and judges whipped up constant rumours of fifth columnists and secret Jacobin cells. . . .

The physical sciences were in the grip of another French revolution, led by Antoine Lavoisier. During the 1780s Lavoisier had overthrown the chemistry of the previous century with his discovery of oxygen, from which he had been able to establish new theories of combustion and to begin the process of reducing all material substances to a basic table of elements. Lavoisier’s revolution had split British chemistry: some recognised that his technically brilliant experiments had transformed the science of matter, but for others his new and foreign terminology was, like the French metric system and the revolutionary Year Zero, an arrogant attempt to wipe away the accumulated wisdom of the ages and to eliminate the role of God. The old system of chemistry, with its mysterious forms of energy and its languages of essences and principles, had readily contained the idea of a life-force and the mysterious breath of the divine; but in Lavoisier’s cold new world, matter was reduced to inert building-blocks manipulated by the measurable forces of pressure and temperature.

Robison had never accepted the French theories, and by 1797 had worked the new chemistry deep into his Illuminatist plot. For him, Lavoisier – along with Britain’s most famous experimental chemist, the dissenting minister Joseph Priestley – was a master Illuminist, working in concert with infiltrated Masonic lodges to spread the doctrine of materialism that would underlie the new atheist world order. Madame Lavoisier’s famous salons, at which the leading Continental philosophes met, were now revealed by Robison to have been the venues for sacreligious rites where the hostess, dressed in the ceremonial robes of an occult priestess, ritually burned the texts of the old chemistry.

I can’t resist noting that after Lavoisier’s death during the Terror, his widow went on to marry Woburn’s own Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford. (That marriage couldn’t be saved.)

TOMORROW: Warnings about the Illuminati come to America.

Washington “discovered to be of the Female Sex”

On 25 Jan 1783 both the London Daily Advertiser and the Whitehall Evening Post printed an item they said had come from the 11 November Pennsylvania Gazette by way of the Dublin Register. It told readers:

A Discovery has lately been made on this Continent that will astonish the whole World. Our great and excellent General Washington is actually discovered to be of the Female Sex. This important secret was revealed by the Lady who lived with the General as a Wife these 30 years, and died the 6th instant at the General’s seat in Virginia, to the Clergyman who attended her. What is extraordinary, the Lady knew the Circumstance previous to the Ceremony of Marriage, and both agreed to live together from Motives of the most refined Friendship.

Perhaps there are fewer Instances in Female Nature of such rigid Chastity than of manly Fortitude. The famous Hannah Snell served as a private Soldier in the British Army and was present at many Battles and Sieges in the late War. The Chevalier d’Eon was a Captain of Dragoons, Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, and Ambassador from tho Most Christian King to his Britannick Majesty, and made herself celebrated by her repeated Challenges to the Compte de Guerchy, her Successor in the Employ. In more antient Times France nearly recovered her Empire from the Hands of the British Regency by the astonishing Bravery of the Maid of Orleans; and now the Rights of America have been asserted and her Independence established through the amazing Fortitude of a Woman. Perhaps it is fortunate that this Circumstance was not known at a more early Period of the Contest.

In fact, there’s no record of an eighteenth-century Irish newspaper called the Dublin Register. The Pennsylvania Gazette didn’t publish on 11 Nov 1782. No article like this has been found in any American newspaper. And of course Martha Washington (shown above) hadn’t died.

The Whitehall Evening Post had probably copied the article from the Daily Advertiser, which may have originated the story or may have been duped. The far less reputable Rambler’s Magazine picked up the tidbit for its March issue, adding the cartoon of “Mrs. General Washington” that I shared here.

After that, the story faded, but the Chevalier d’Eon clipped a copy and kept it in a scrapbook along with other items mentioning him, favorably or unfavorably.

(Thanks to commenter John Johnson for the pointer.)

Benjamin Russell Saved from Lightning

Benjamin Russell (1761-1845) was the publisher of the Columbian Centinel, Boston’s most powerful Federalist newspaper, and an employer or mentor of many printers in the early republic. He had great influence in state politics and even held political office himself.

In shifting from the printing press, where a man literally got his hands dirty, to offices traditionally reserved for gentlemen, Russell followed in the path of Benjamin Franklin. In fact, Russell might have owed not only his career but his life to Franklin.

The Printer Boy, or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark, authored by William Makepeace Thayer (1820-1898) in 1864, includes this anecdote about Russell as a lad:

A very little knowledge of electricity once saved the life of Benjamin Russell in his youth. He was an eminent citizen of Boston, born in the year 1761, and in his younger years he had learned from the writings of Franklin, who had become a philosopher, that it was dangerous to take shelter, during a thunder-shower, under a tree, or in a building not protected with lightning-rods.

One day, in company with several associates, he was overtaken by a tempest, and some of the number proposed that they should take shelter under a large tree near by, while others advised to enter a neighbouring barn. But young Russell opposed both plans, and counselled going under a large projecting rock as the safest place.

The result showed that a little knowledge of electricity was of great service to him; for both the barn and the tree were struck by lightning.

Obviously, Thayer or someone he spoke to had heard this tale from Russell. Alas, the surviving story doesn’t say how old Benjamin and his friends were when they had this experience.

Bosse on Massachusetts Maps in Lexington, 7 June

On Saturday, 7 June, the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library in Lexington will host a lecture by David Bosse, Librarian and Curator of Maps at Historic Deerfield, on “Map and Chart Publishing in Boston in the Eighteenth Century.”

For most of the century, Boston’s market for maps wasn’t big enough to support full-time professionals. Men from other fields tried their hand at making, updating, and publishing local maps.

After the Revolution, military veteran Osgood Carleton established himself as a leading American geographer. The description of this talk says, “From his shop on Oliver’s Dock in Boston, he published navigation and mathematics textbooks as well as maps of Boston, Massachusetts, the District of Maine, New Hampshire, the United States, nautical charts, and a marine atlas, in addition to running a school for navigation, mathematics, and cartography.”

In 1794 Carleton got the Massachusetts legislature’s approval for an “Accurate Map of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” shown above. Not that that approval came up with all the cash he needed. Carleton had to raise most of his financing from private subscriptions. Then, the lecture description says, “The complex undertaking became frought with problems when not all Massachusetts towns were able to complete accurate new surveys of the lands within their bounds.” Eventually Carleton did publish a map, of course. But how accurate was it?

Bosse is Librarian of Historic Deerfield and the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, and curator of maps at Historic Deerfield. He was previously a curator at the Clements Library and Newberry Library, and he published articles in Mapping Boston (M.I.T. Press, 1999), the journal Cartographica, and the online journal Coordinates.

This lecture is scheduled to start at 2:00 P.M. It’s free and open to the public.

“Building a Handsome Church” in Essex County, 7 June

On 7 June, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem will host a symposium titled “Building A Handsome Church”: St. Michael’s, Marblehead, 1714. It will bring together “historians, architects, architectural historians, ecclesiastical scholars, and the general public” to discuss the 300-year-old Anglican church and its place in Marblehead history. St. Michael’s is the oldest Episcopal congregation in New England holding services in its original building.

The chair of the symposium is Donald R. Friary, President of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts and historian of religion and architecture in colonial America. Speakers include:

• Robert L. Howie, Jr., St. Michael’s Church Historian emeritus and Chair of the Tercentenary Committee.
• Stuart P. Feld, President, Hirschl & Galleries, Inc., on “St. Michael’s Marblehead—From Widener Library at Harvard to London and Amsterdam and Back.”
• Christopher P. Magra, Associate Professor of History, University of Tennessee, on “‘Extravagance, Intemperance, Negligence in Religion, and Disorderliness’: Marblehead, the Early Years.”
• David D. Hall, Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History, Harvard Divinity School, on “Reliving the Past or Fashioning a Different Future?: Anglicanism and Puritanism in Eighteenth-Century New England.”
• Carl Lounsbury, Senior Architectural Historian, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and College of William and Mary, discussing “The Church of England’s First Colonial Buildings: Virginia, 1608-1714.”
• Louis P. Nelson, Associate Professor of Architectural History and Associate Dean for Research and International Programs, University of Virginia, who will speak about “St. Michael's, Marblehead: A Case Study in Atlantic Anglicanism.”

A panel of three local historians—Howie, social and cultural historian Judy Anderson, and town historian Bette Hunt—will help place the St. Michael’s experience in the context of the Church of England throughout colonial America.

This symposium will run from 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. The $75.00 registration fee includes a box lunch and afternoon tours of the church, including access to its crypt, belfry, and archives. There will be a reception at the end of the day. There’s limited space, but registrations might still be available through the St. Michael’s Church Tercentenary year website, which also has information on concerts, lectures, community events, and special religious services.

Talk on German Prisoners in Washington, D.C., 4 June

On Wednesday, 4 June, the Society of the Cincinnati’s Anderson House museum and library in Washington, D.C., will host a talk by Daniel Krebs on “German Prisoners During the American Revolution.” Out of about 37,000 Crown soldiers hired from German states, about 5,400 became prisoners of war in America.

The event description says:

Drawing primarily on research in German military records, Dr. Krebs brings to life the soldiers’ experiences in captivity by discussing prison conditions in detail and addressing both the American approach to war prisoners and the prisoners’ responses. The talk will last approximately 45 minutes, with time for questions at the end.

Krebs is an associate professor of history at the University of Louisville. After his talk he’ll sign copies of his book, A Generous and Merciful Enemy: Life for German Prisoners of War During the American Revolution.

This HistoryNet review of his book says:

Krebs’ principal conclusion is that the German prisoners of war came to play a significant role in the American hinterland. For one thing they continued to receive pay from their units, and their dependence on purchasing sustenance from outside sources, access to which their captors made readily available, fueled the local economies. Over the course of the conflict German prisoners were hired to work on farms in Pennsylvania, at saltworks in Maryland and ironworks in New Jersey.

They were also used as political instruments against communities reluctant to support the revolution, as happened in Lebanon, Pa., in 1777 and 1778, when an influx of hundreds of German prisoners prompted local Moravians to change their stance from pacifism or loyalty to the crown to dependence upon the militia and Continental Army guards for protection. Great numbers of those same captives married local women and ended up settling permanently in the States after the war.

This talk will start at 6:00 P.M., and is free and open to the public.

The Second Amendment’s Historic Moment

In considering the Second Amendment, I think it’s valuable to recognize the unusual historical moment in which it was enacted.

Whig political philosophy had long warned against a large “standing army”—i.e., the sort of military we now have—as likely to oppress people’s natural rights during peacetime. The Whig view of the world saw a broad-based militia–something we don’t have now—as the obviously superior alternative.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, it looked possible for the U.S. of A. to achieve that Whiggish vision. Spain and France were allies, and Britain had agreed to peace terms. Spurred by a lousy economy, the Congress disbanded its Continental Navy and sold off all its ships.

On 2 June 1784, the Congress also ordered the Continental Army to disband, stating (in language proposed by Elbridge Gerry) that:

standing armies in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of republican government, dangerous to the liberties of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism.

The next day, it established a single federal regiment consisting of “eight companies of infantry, and two of artillery,” under a lieutenant colonel. That was the entire military strength of the government of the U.S. of A. in the late 1780s.

The Constitutional Convention wrote a document to strengthen the central government, and state ratifying conventions responded with Whiggish warnings. Look at the clauses against standing armies in Virginia’s ratification, for example. And that’s when a national army barely existed. When Congress drafted the Second Amendment in 1789, the country truly was depending on “a well-regulated militia” for its defense and was confident that was almost all it needed.

But the country also wanted land. Americans moving west quickly came into conflict with the Native nations allied as the Western Confederacy. The U.S. regiment and hundreds of local militia moved against those communities, but in a series of fights in October 1790 that American army was soundly defeated.

The Congress was still committed to the idea of a small standing army, authorizing a second federal regiment but only at low pay and only for six months. Once again American regulars moved west, along with a larger militia force. And on 4 Nov 1791 they were wiped out. Out of about 1,000 fighting men, nearly 900 were killed, wounded, or captured. One-quarter of the small U.S. Army was gone overnight.

President George Washington was already skeptical about militia systems. During the Revolutionary War he had argued long and hard for a stronger federal army and longer enlistment periods—i.e., a standing army. In 1792 the Congress started to expand the U.S. Army and also passed laws exercising more control over the state militias. America’s full Whiggish experiment was over. But the Second Amendment (and the rest of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights) are products of that brief period.

[The image above appears in George Ironstrack’s recent essay on the 4 Nov 1791 battle from the Myaamia (Miami) perspective.]

William Hogeland on the Second Amendment

With the American public once again focused for a time on how our policies enable crazy men to easily obtain guns, William Hogeland, author of The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty, wrote a thought-provoking editorial for Alternet arguing that debates over the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment are bound to end in a muddle:

The realpolitik in which the Second Amendment was framed, during the first U.S. Congress of 1789, involves some unedifying but illuminating features. The amendment was a response to the federal government's power over state and local militias, as set out in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution. That provision had been among the most hard-fought at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Delegates committed to state sovereignty feared—rightly enough—that if the federal government were empowered to control the state militias, states would lose sovereignty.

In that elemental debate lay the beginning of a perennial American disingenuousness regarding arms and rights. Delegates led by James Madison wanted to create a national government, directly acting on and protecting all citizens, throughout all states. To achieve it, they had to play down how entirely they wanted it, how nearly utter the states’ loss of power would be. Madison’s convention notes show Madison himself, along with other nationalists, minimizing the impact of the federal militia power in order to soothe certain delegates’ fears of losing state sovereignty.

As we know, the nationalists got what they wanted. Despite concessions to their opponents’ ideas about state sovereignty, we became a nation. And critical to that achievement was the constitutional provision giving the federal government control of states’ military institutions.

So when amending the Constitution, Madison continued to prevaricate. Former antifederalists in Congress and the state legislatures still resented the federal power to control militias; they were hoping to use the amendment process to regain some military control and thus retain some sovereignty. In the Second Amendment, Madison tried to defeat those hopes by placating them without really addressing them. The amendment gestures vaguely at state sovereignty in a way intended to make little practical sense. . . .

We argue fiercely today about the intended relationship between the famous opening phrase (“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,”) and the famous main clause (“the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”). But it’s fruitless to try to nail down that relationship, to hope to prove for good and all that the opening phrase is or is not a preamble, or that a preamble does or does not determine the meaning of a main text, or that a “being” phrase means something different from or identical to a “whereas” clause.

The sentence is weak. The weakness is deliberate.

Madison was, after all, one of the republic’s smartest politicians. He steered the amendment-writing process as much as he could so the results didn’t impede too greatly on his vision for the federal government at that time. It’s striking how little resemblance there is between the amendments proposed by state ratifying conventions in 1787-88 and those that came out of the first federal Congress. (Here, for instance, are the assurances New York wanted.)

TOMORROW: The Second Amendment’s historic moment.