Mike: Welcome everyone to the American Revolution podcast roundtable. Our special guest is Steven Bier, author of Facing Washington's Crossing: The Hessians and the Battle of Trenton. The book looks at Washington’s crossing from the Hessian perspective and dives into the background of Hesse-Cassel and the Landgrave who ruled it. Steven, what inspired you to write this?
Steven Bier: I originally set out to write about Washington’s crossing, but I couldn't find any new primary material—it had been beat to death. Then the computer almost took over as I discovered documents about the Hessians that were underused or never used. It was an interesting idea, and I decided to write it.
The "Business" of Hesse-Cassel
Mike: I found it fascinating to learn about Landgrave Frederick II. Most only know he rented his army to King George.
Steven Bier: Hesse-Cassel was a tiny principality about the size of Connecticut with 300,000 subjects. It ended up at a focal point in history because the land was not fertile and money was hard to come by. Even the upper class would have been considered middle class in the colonies. Frederick's great-grandfather began renting out soldiers to make money, and over a hundred years, the "commodity" of Hesse-Cassel became its male citizens.
Mike: It makes sense because maintaining an army was expensive, and renting them out was an interesting way to deal with that conundrum.
Steven Bier: Frederick II was actually an Enlightenment leader who wanted to reform his country. The great irony is that he brought Enlightenment and liberties to his people by selling them off as soldiers to raise the money for it. He was personally involved in every little regulation, much like Winston Churchill. He taxed everything from dogs to butchers and even required newlyweds to plant a certain amount of flowers and trees. He also established social programs, such as a home where pregnant women could leave babies anonymously.
Mike: Life at home seemed miserable—the people were poor, illiterate, and heavily taxed. Were they used to being shipped off to war?
Steven Bier: They were used to it. It was like gravity—it wasn't changing. But this was big money; hundreds of millions in today’s dollars passed from the British to Frederick.
Terminology and Perspective
Mike: We call them "mercenaries," but you note they referred to themselves as "auxiliaries." Is that accurate?
Steven Bier: Legally, they were auxiliaries under defense pacts. From Frederick’s perspective, it was a business (mercenary), but for the common soldier, they were just doing their job for a regular paycheck. They often had no idea what the fight was about and were shocked when they reached America. They landed in Staten Island and saw walnut trees, wild berries, and farms so prosperous the farmers owned their own carriages and had wallpaper in their homes. They couldn't understand why people in "paradise" would fight against their prince.
The Atlantic Crossing
Mike: You describe the crossing as a horrific experience.
Steven Bier: It was "miserable with a capital M." These were landlocked farmers who had never seen the ocean; some even thought they could just march to Spain and then to America. They were crammed six to a bunk, and the weather was brutal. During storms, they were battened down in total darkness for days, with everyone vomiting and things flying about. There were even duels on board; one British officer killed a German officer in a duel after an insult.
Key Figures and RecordsMike: You focus on individuals like private Johannes Reuber and officers Andreas Wiederhold and Jacob Piel.
Steven Bier: Yes. Wiederhold left extensive writings that I found digitized in German. I used my iPhone to translate them. It’s a perspective from low-level officers and men that has not gotten its due.
Propaganda and Campaigns
Mike: Once in New York, did they understand the conflict?
Steven Bier: They were manipulated by both sides. British propaganda convinced them the rebels were ungrateful, while American propaganda—starting with the Declaration of Independence—called the Hessians "barbarians". Despite this, the Hessians fought effectively. At Fort Washington, they climbed a steep hillside under heavy fire while Americans threw boulders over the edge. They took the fort so quickly that both armies were literally running for the entrance at the same time.
Mike: You mention that British leadership, like General Howe, often held them back.
Steven Bier: Howe moved at a glacial pace. After capturing Fort Washington, the British did nothing for a week. They chased Washington out of Newark and then sat for two days.
The Road to Trenton
Mike: At Trenton, Washington famously collected all the boats to freeze the British Empire on the other side of the river.
Steven Bier: Yes, he snatched anything that could float. The British didn't have the "killer instinct" to just build rowboats and cross. Instead, the Hessians were left in miserable outposts while the British officers went back to New York to have parties and plays. The Hessians were exhausted by constant guerrilla attacks, sleeping in their clothes for a week before the battle even started.
The Battle and Its Aftermath
Mike: And then the storm happened during the Battle of Trenton.
Steven Bier: The storm decided everything. It snowed, hailed, and rained, which "overwhelmed the technology of the age". Andreas Wiederhold stepped out of his picket house and saw movement in the snow; he was standing at the most vulnerable point of the British Empire as the world was about to change.
Mike: Many were taken prisoner and eventually worked on American farms.
Steven Bier: It was a "gentleman’s war" then; Washington even invited captured officers to dinner. Congress sent them to work on farms in German-speaking areas of Pennsylvania and Virginia, hoping they would stay. Surprisingly, about 80% eventually returned to Germany.
The Rothschild Connection
Mike: You also discovered an interesting connection to the Rothschilds.
Steven Bier: The Rothschild banking empire was partially built on managing the money King George paid to Hesse-Cassel. Mayer Amschel Rothschild gained the trust of Frederick’s son, William, by purposely selling him rare coins at a loss. This relationship allowed Rothschild to eventually manage the state's massive wealth.
Conclusion
Mike: This book gives a whole new perspective on the New York and New Jersey campaigns.
Steven Bier: Thank you. It was a pleasure discussing this with your group.
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During the Revolutionary War, the Continentals never had much of a navy. They managed to launch thirteen relatively small frigates, which were converted merchant vessels armed with a few cannons. Most of the naval power came from privateers. Even many state navies were larger than the Continental Navy.
No Navy
Despite its small size, Congress could not even afford that handful of ships. The few ships that had not been captured or destroyed during the war were sold off at the war's end. One ship that was not quite finished, and which the government could not afford to finish, was given to France as a gift. France ended up decommissioning the ship and trashing it as it was not considered sea worthy. The Continentals held onto a single 36 gun frigate after the war, the Alliance. John Paul Jones had captained it for a time. John Barry commanded her when she fought the last naval battle of the Revolutionary War off the coast of Havana on March 10, 1783. Even the cost of that single ship was too much expense for Congress. They auctioned off the Alliance in 1785 to a Philadelphia merchant.
Officers in the Continental Navy petitioned Congress to give them half-pay, which was the normal procedure in Britain for officers who were not on active duty. Congress declined, arguing that there was no more navy. It had been dissolved. There were no ships, no officers, no sailors, nothing. A few states maintained their own small state navies, but these were nothing that could take on foreign powers.
After establishing the Constitution, the Congress began reestablishing an army, but no navy. The army was needed to deal with Indians. There was no immediate naval threat, and what threats did exist could not be confronted with any pitiably small navy that Congress could afford. So, for several years, Congress ignored the issue of having no navy. The Treasury Department under Hamilton formed what would later be called the Coast Guard, building a few small ships that would be on the lookout for smugglers trying to avoid import duties. But there was nothing that could challenge an enemy warship.
Merchant shipping got off to a slow start after the war. In 1783, following the peace treaty, Britain banned US merchant ships for entering any port in the British West Indies. Before the war, colonists made most of their trade income carrying food to the West Indies to feed the large slave populations on islands that did not want to waste space growing their own food for the slaves instead of valuable cash crops like sugar.
The cut off of British ports caused American trade to suffer in the post war years Some trade continued when British officials were willing to look the other way. But by 1788, US trade with the British West Indies was about half what it had been before the Revolution. Prices for exports fell Many New England fishermen moved to Nova Scotia so that they could continue to trade with the British colonies in the West Indies. Before the war, New England also had a strong ship building business, building ships for British merchants. Britain also forbade British merchants from buying ships from America. Economic depression hit the port cities, especially in New England. The weak economy created higher unemployment and led to the foreclosures that had resulted in revolts like Shays Rebellion.
American merchants began looking for other markets. In 1785, a ship out of New York sailed all the way to China, bringing back a profitable cargo. Many other ships followed, opening up a growing trade with China. Others found new opportunities in Bengal, where the East India Company was still willing to trade with American merchants. They also found new markets in the Baltic and in Mediterranean ports. Others sailed for West African ports to continue the slave trade.
France was also considered an important new trading partner. When Jefferson became the French Ambassador in 1784, one of his first priorities was to establish more commercial treaties, both with France and with the French West Indies.
Trade picked up over time. When most of Europe went to war with Revolutionary France, European ports were willing to pay top dollar for American products. Many of the products made in America could be sold for two or three times the cost in foreign ports.
As American merchant vessels began to spread across the globe, the lack of a navy to support them became more and more of an issue. Many Americans had naively thought that since they were not at war with anyone, their vessels would be largely safe sailing the high seas. This was not the case.
Barbary Pirates
The need for a navy became more pressing over the years. When the new war in Europe began, it became downright urgent. Washington had declared neutrality, primarily to protect US shipping. That did not work. As Alexander Hamilton warned in one of his Federalist papers: "A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.”
In 1793, Britain ordered the seizure of all neutral vessels headed to France or the French West Indies. Any cargos were seized as contraband. Britain had embarked on a policy of starving out the French. After the Revolutionaries had executed so many land owners, they found the peasants were incapable of managing the farms. French agricultural productivity plummeted and the famine stricken nation was dependent on imports. The British wanted to deny any relief to the enemy.
Frequently, the British Navy would take captured American crew members and impress them into British service. During wartime especially the Royal Navy was in desperate need of capable sailors. English speaking sailors were especially in demand.
France also became a threat to American shipping. French authorities found it easier to seize American merchant ships at sea. They kept the ships, confiscated the cargo and threw crews into prison where they were held for ransom. That proved much more profitable than actually buying the cargoes.
US authorities protested these actions, but neither Britain nor France cared. What could the US do other than protest? It had no navy to threaten any sort of retaliation.
It wasn’t just major powers that picked on easy American prizes at sea. In 1785, the same year that Congress sold off its last warship, ships from the Barbary states captured American merchant ships in the Mediterranean. They kept the ships and cargo and put the crews to work as slaves. US negotiators had to provide ransoms to get their return. Attacks continued, and some American sailors remained held as slaves for years. In 1792, the Dey of Algiers demanded a ransom of $60,000 for the return of one hundred Americans and a dozen ships.
The Mediterranean became off limits to American shipping. In 1793, the situation worsened. Portugal had been blockading the strait of Gibraltar, keeping Barbary ships bottled up in the Mediterranean. Portugal and Algiers negotiated a truce, ending the blockade. Algerian cruisers sailed into the Atlantic, capturing ten American merchant ships in October of that year, the first month that they could get into the open seas. American merchant ships were easy prey, and there was no danger of retaliation of an American Navy that did not exist.
Naval Act of 1794
Congress had been debating establishing a Navy for years. The Constitution had explicitly authorized Congress to provide for and maintain a navy. The administration had recommended this. In 1790, Secretary of War Henry Knox submitted estimates for the construction of several frigates. Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson also recommended the construction of a small fleet based on his prior diplomatic dealings with the Barbary states.
Congress dithered. The country was still trying to get its debt under control, and the people would not tolerate higher taxes. In 1793, the Senate endorsed the idea of a navy, but only “as soon as the state of the public finances will admit.”
The expansion of Barbary attacks on American shipping in the Atlantic finally focused Congress’ attention. Word of the October attacks reached Philadelphia by the end of the year. On January, 2, 1794 the House of Representatives enacted a resolution that the government needed “a naval force adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States, against the Algerine corsairs”. Even then, the vote was pretty closely divided. The matter was referred to a committee to study the matter.
The committee was largely made up of New Englanders who supported a navy. Several committee members owned ships themselves After less than three weeks, the committee recommended building four large 44 gun frigates and two smaller 20 gun ships. The committee estimated the cost for the fleet would be $600,000. This may not sound like much today, but this was close to 15% of the entire federal budget. In 1793, the government spent a total of $4.5 million including debt retirement. The committee's estimate would also prove to be a rather low estimate of the actual cost.
Opposition to a navy remained strong in Congress. Leading the opposition was none other than Congressman James Madison. He and other Republicans viewed a permanent navy as that one opponent called a “self-feeding organism.” It would result in higher taxes, and more debt. Opposition was particularly strong in southern and western states. They viewed a navy as yet another subsidy to New England merchants. Wealthy ship owners in large northeastern towns were essentially trying to use the tax dollars of southern and western farmers to get free security for their assets.
Beyond the cost of a navy, some also voiced ideological opposition. Like a standing army in peacetime, a standing navy was a symbol of a military autocracy. Even worse, a standing navy cost much more than a standing army. It was something meant for the projection of power abroad. America only needed a military to defend its land. A navy contributed little to that. One opponent characterized all navies as “the playthings of kings and tyrants.”
In response, pro-navy advocates argued that a navy was necessary for the US economy. Marine insurance premiums had increased to 25% of the value of a ship and its cargo. This imposed a $2 million burden on the cost of trade, which impacted everyone who purchased imported goods or who had their crops or other products sold abroad. These costs far exceeded the cost of building and maintaining a navy and would fall considerably if the Navy deterred attacks on American shipping. Supporters also raised the issue of national pride. America had to have a navy if it expected foreign powers to treat it as a sovereign power.
Debate raged in the House for over a month. This was really controversial. In the end, the issue of the Barbary pirates kidnapping and enslaving American sailors seemed to push the majority in favor of building the ships. To get to the majority, those in favor had to accept a Republican amendment that if the US reached a truce with Algiers, that construction of the ships would halt immediately.
The final House bill included six ships as proposed by the committee. There would be four 44 gun frigates. The two smaller 20 gun frigates were upgraded to 36 guns each.
The bill gave the president the authority to appoint six captains who would each supervise the construction of their frigate. The bill also got into the details for all the officers, pay, and details over rations for the crew, even though it would be years before the ships would be ready to sail.
The House passed the bill on March 10, by a vote of 50 to 39. Voting was pretty strongly divided by region. Northern representatives voted for the bill. Representatives from southern and western states voted no. The Senate did not seem to find the bill nearly as controversial. After minimal debate, the Senate passed the bill with a voice vote. President Washington signed the bill on March 29, 1794. The final appropriation for the project in that bill was $688,888.
Naval Appointments
Oversight for building the new navy fell to Henry Knox, the Secretary of War. Congress would not create a separate Secretary of the Navy until 1798, after several of the ships were completed. Even before Congress passed the naval bill, Knox began looking for a ship designer. He selected Joshua Humphreys, considered the most talented ship builder in America.
Humphreys had been building ships since he was apprenticed to a Philadelphia ship builder at age 14. By age 20, he was a master shipwright with his own yard. Despite his Quaker upbringing, Humphreys supported the patriots during the revolution. He built several warships and outfitted more privateers. By 1794 he had designed, built, or repaired hundreds of ships
Humphreys recommended a radical new design for the proposed frigates. The ships would be longer and wider than most ships of similar ratings at the time. They would carry large 24 pound canons at a time when most ships maxed out at 18 pounders. This would give the ships greater firing range and could inflict more damage per shot. They were designed with the purpose of intimidating the smaller Barbary ships, but Humphreys could see them being a real threat to British ships as well.
A 44 gun ship would be only a 5th rate ship in the British Navy. They had plenty that were larger and with more guns. But the size and speed of the new American frigates, along with greater range and firepower, would be able to surprise the enemy with the greater firepower in such a smaller ship.
His new designs drew criticism that they would not be as stable or structurally sound as European ships. They also had a heavier draw, meaning they could not follow enemies into shallower waters. In the end, the government accepted his designs for the ships, and building commenced.
Washington and Knox worked together to come up with the names for each of the ships and determine where they would be built. The President wanted each ship built in a separate town, in part to spread out the economic benefits of the project, but also to prevent any single town from becoming the exclusive expert in building ships for the navy.
President Washington also appointed navy captains within a few months of passage. The most senior captain appointed was John Barry, who would oversee the building of the ship named the United States in Philadelphia. Barry would also have input on the other appointments.
Barry was the only captain who had appeared on the original captain’s list of the Continental Navy back in 1775. I won’t get into all of his commands during the Revolution but he ended the war as one of its naval heroes. Following the war, he returned to the command of merchant vessels. By 1794, he was nearly 50 years old, but had a great war reputation and was still ready for action. Washington would later appoint him commodore of the entire fleet.
Second in seniority was Samuel Nicholson, tasked with overseeing the construction of the Constitution in Boston. Nicolson had served as a lieutenant under Lambert Wickes and later under John Paul Jones during the war. He commanded one of the smaller ships alongside the Bonhomme Richard during its famous battle with the Serapis. Later in the war he captained the 32 gun frigate the Deane. He spent many years after the war trying to get paid prize money for ships he had captured during the war.
The third appointment went to Richard Dale, who oversaw construction of the Chesapeake in Norfolk. Dale’s war service during the Revolution began as a lieutenant of a ship commissioned by Virginia. His ship was quickly captured by the British and impressed into British service. Later, his ship was captured by John Barry in command of the Lexington at the time. Dale happily volunteered for service and became a midshipman. The British captured him again, holding him as a prisoner until he returned to the Lexington. Captured a third time, Dale was imprisoned in England. After his escape, he joined John Paul Jones on the Bonhomme Richard. Dale was captured again, imprisoned in British occupied New York City. After his exchange, he went to work on a privateer ship. He never served as a captain during the war, but became a merchant captain after the war, and also married a relative of John Barry.
The fourth appointment went to James Sever, who oversaw the Congress being built in Portsmouth. Sever had been in the army during the war, joining late at age 20 in 1781 after graduating from Harvard. He had no naval experience, prior to his appointment but had been a merchant captain after the war.
Silas Talbot got the fifth appointment, building the President in New York. Talbot had served in the Continental Army, but volunteered for the navy when the Continental Congress established one. Although he commanded several small ships in the navy, he retained his army commission, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Although he received a naval commission as a captain in 1779, Congress did not have any ships available, so he took command of a privateer ship. The British captured that ship and he remained a prisoner until 1781. After the war, Talbot served as a ship’s captain in the slave trade. He settled in New York where he got elected to the state assembly. He was serving in the US Congress when the president appointed him to be the captain of the President.
The sixth and final appointment went to Thomas Truxtun to supervise construction of the ship Constellation in Baltimore. Truxton had been born in New York but went to sea at age 12. When the Revolutionary War began, he was impressed into the British Navy. While he had no choice in serving, he declined an appointment as midshipman. After being wounded, he escaped and commanded several privateer ships under a Continental letter of marque. After the war he was a successful merchant captain, making one of the first trips to China from the United States.
Work on the project began almost immediately. Washington approved the ship designs on April 16, less than three weeks after the bill was signed into law. Over the summer, the government began establishing federal navy yards in each of the six towns that would build the ships. By fall, teams were already harvesting oak timber from St. Simon’s Island in Georgia to build the ships. By the end of the year, the first keel was already laid in Philadelphia. The project would take years to complete, but was already well underway.
Next week: The government faces another internal rebellion over the tax on whiskey.
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A few weeks ago, I mentioned that Congress had made some changes to the patent law in 1793, making it easier to register new patents. In 1794 a new patent would be registered that would change the south forever.
Mulberry Grove
It all started at the Mulberry Grove Plantation. Before the war, Royal Lieutenant Governor John Graham owned Mulberry Grove, which sits along the Savannah River, just northwest of the city of Savannah. Graham fled back to Britain in 1776, abandoning his property. The patriot government seized the property at the end of the war in 1783.
State officials gifted the plantation to General Nathanael Greene, for his services in defending the state during the Revolutionary War. They gifted the neighboring Richmond Plantation to Anthony Wayne.
General Greene had been from Rhode Island. He had incurred massive debts during the war, most of which were to help pay for the military campaigns that he had headed in his defense of the south. Congress, as they were doing with everyone at the time, either denied or delayed his claims for reimbursement. His creditors were not as patient. He ended up selling his home in Rhode Island as part of the effort to pay down his debts, and opted to settle on Mulberry Grove in Georgia.
Mulberry Grove had been a profitable rice plantation before the war. Greene believed he could make it profitable again. In addition to the land, he would need some startup capital. Greene was able to obtain loans, including one from Robert Morris, the Philadelphia merchant who had also helped to finance the war.
Around this time, Greene, who had been raised a Quaker, told a friend that he believed there was no defense of slavery. Despite those moral objections, his desire to support himself and his family caused him to take ownership of more than a hundred slaves. Some had come with the plantation. Others he purchased at auction in Charleston and St. Augustine.
While trying to get his plantation up and running, Greene had to fend off lawsuits from creditors. In June, 1786, Greene travelled with his wife Caty to Savannah in an attempt to convince a creditor to delay his collection efforts. He returned home in an open carriage without a hat. The Georgia sun took its toll and gave him a headache. He went straight to bed, but woke the next morning feeling even worse. They called for a doctor, who bled him, but that did not seem to help. After a few more days in bed, he died on June 19, 1786. Cause of death was heatstroke.
This left his wife, Caty Greene in control of Mulberry Grove. Caty was now a 31 year-old widow with five children. She also inherited all of her husband’s debts. Greene’s first instinct was to move back to Rhode Island to be with her family. But several men, including Anthony Wayne, and her family’s tutor Phineas Miller, convinced her to stay. Her only chance of getting out of debt would be to continue to grow and sell rice on the plantation. Miller agreed to take over management of the plantation.
This change also meant that Greene’s children would need a new tutor. In 1792, they asked Yale President Ezra Stiles if he could recommend anyone. Stiles recommended an older student in his late twenties named Ely Whitney. He had recently graduated and planned to study law, but could not afford law school. Instead, Whitney accepted the tutoring position and moved to Georgia.
On his arrival in 1792, Whitney reported to several friends that Caty Greene and Phineas Miller were essentially living as husband and wife. The two had not married since Greene was still trying to get Congress to pay off her husband’s debts, and they agreed her status as the widow of General Greene would carry more weight with Congress than if she became Mrs. Miller.
Ginning Cotton
At that time, the primary cash crops in the south were rice and indigo. Further north, tobacco still dominated. Cotton grew well in the region but could not be produced profitably. The hard part was removing the seeds from the cotton. It was a slow and tedious process. One person had a hard time extracting seeds from just one pound of cotton in a day. Even with slave labor, that simply wasn’t a profitable use of time. Whitney listened to discussions of locals who had a discussion about the problem at Mulberry Grove.
Whitney didn’t know anything about cotton production until he arrived in Georgia. He had grown up in Massachusetts, where his father had run a mill. As a boy, he saw how machines could accomplish tasks that would be much harder to do by hand. As a teenager, he produced and sold things like nails, hatpins, and walking sticks.
Over the winter of 1792-93, in his spare time, Whitney began working on a machine that could separate cotton from seeds automatically. He came up with a device that passed raw cotton through a rotating wooden cylinder with rows of wire hooks that pulled out the raw cotton fibers and caused the seeds to fall away as the cotton passed through a narrow grate that was smaller than the cotton seeds.
He still needed a way to get the cotton off of the hooks. Caty suggested a second cylinder with brush bristles that would sweep against the teeth and brush the cotton fibers into a separate bin. All of this work could be done by a single person who dumped raw cotton into the top, and then turned a hand crank that did all the work.
By spring of 1793, Whitney had a working model that allowed a single person to produce over fifty pounds of cotton per day. He dubbed it the Cotton Gin. Realizing how revolutionary this would be, he applied for and received a patent signed by President Washington in March 1794.
He also formed a partnership with Caty Greene and Phineas Miller. Greene provided him with startup capital to begin production. Whitney’s first problem was that the south simply wasn’t set up for industrial production. He could not find trained workmen or easily get the materials to produce cotton gins. Instead, he established his factory in New Haven, Connecticut. He had become familiar with the area while attending Yale, knew he could find men who could do the job, and had access to materials through imports from New York City.
He had the factory operational by early 1794, even before he received his patent. By early 1795, he had produced 26 cotton gins. Greene began to advertise their availability in the Savannah Gazette.
The next problem was that farmers didn’t have any money to buy the cotton gins. Farmers were notoriously cash poor and could not afford a large up-front investment. Instead, Whitney would give away the cotton gins, subject to an agreement that the farmer would give 40% of the processed cotton back to the company as compensation. This was a great deal for the farmers. Instead of producing only one pound of cotton per worker per day, they could keep 30 of the 50 pounds that they could produce with the gin.
Things seemed to be moving along well when disaster struck in March 1795 on a day when Whitney was in New York. The workmen left the workshop for breakfast, when a fire broke out and consumed the workshop very quickly. It destroyed the building, all of the specialized tools that Whitney had constructed, as well as twenty nearly completed gins. It also burned all of his drawings and papers regarding his creation of the manufacturing process.
Miller and Greene provided him with additional credit, Greene even put up Mulberry Grove as collateral for a business loan. Whitney was able to rebuild all of his machinery from memory. The rebuilding went remarkably fast. Seven months after the fire, Whitney’s new factory completed twenty-six finished machines to ship to Georgia.
The cotton gin proved wildly popular. Farmers began planting much more cotton. It became an extremely lucrative cash crop.
In May of 1796, Caty Greene travelled with Phineas Miller where they visited the Washingtons. Greene had gotten to know George and Martha Washington during the war, when she spent years with her husband General Nathanael Greene. Washington had visited Mulberry Grove during his 1791 southern tour, and in 1796, Caty returned the visit, calling on the Washingtons at the presidential mansion in Philadelphia. The Washingtons were happy to see her, but expressed concerns that she and Phineas had not married, that it could be problematic for their reputation. Caty and Phineas decided to marry, right there and then. They held a private ceremony in the presidential mansion in Philadelphia, with George and Martha as witnesses..
Unfortunately, Whitney, Greene, and Miller never personally benefitted from the invention as much as the should have. Within a few years, copycat gins began showing up all over Georgia. Farmers did not like having to give 40% of their yield to the inventor. It was much cheaper to buy a pirated gin and keep everything.
Farmers quickly grew resentful of this Yankee who was taking nearly half of their hard earned crop. When Whitney sued for patent violations, most Georgia juries refused to find in his favor. Even when he won cases, Whitney often had to spend more in legal fees than he could collect in damages. Georgia Governor James Jackson, in response to appeals by farmers, even tried to have the state legislature suppress Whitney’s patent.
Despite these legal fights, the Cotton Gin changed southern agriculture, creating a while new cash crop in what became known as King Cotton.
Madison Gets Married
Another marriage took place in Philadelphia around the same time as the one between Greene and Miller. James Madison had been a major player in the establishment of the federal government, but he never seemed particularly lucky in love. He was small in stature, reportedly only 5’ 4” tall and only a little over 100 pounds. He was also rather shy, especially around women. He had courted several of them when he was younger, but never managed to get a yes.
By 1794, Madison was a 43 year old bachelor. Dolley was only 26 years old. She was considered a great beauty, and had a very outgoing personality, something that caused her to struggle with as a young Quaker. She had been born in Virginia, but her family moved to Philadelphia when she was just 15 years old. Her father arranged for Dolley to marry John Todd when she was 21 years old. The following year, 1792, her father died and her mother opened a boarding house to support herself.
Dolley seemed to be doing pretty well. She and her husband quickly produced two sons. Then came the yellow fever epidemic of 1793. Dolley’s husband, John, sent her with the two children to a small village outside of Philadelphia while he stayed and worked to help victims in the city as well as attend to his business. Most of the family got sick. Dolley remained in bed for weeks suffering from fever and the other brutal effects. As she was getting better, she learned that both her husband and her baby William both died on the same day, October 14.
Dolley, a 25 year old widow with a two year old son Payne, had a total of $19 dollars to support the family. Her mother had fled Philadelphia to go stay with her other daughter Lucy, who had married George Steptoe Washington, a nephew of the president, who lived on a plantation in Virginia. Dolley was on her own in Philadelphia.
She should have had her husband’s estate to support her but her brother in law, James Todd decided to keep her rightful inheritance from her and left her with nothing. Her husband had not named an executor in his will. Dolley, because she was a woman, could not sue on her own in court. She began barraging James with daily letters, demanding her money, but he refused. Finally, Dolley was able to retain an attorney to represent her in court. After several months, she finally received access to her husband’s estate.
Following a period of mourning, Dolley began to be out and about around town. She attracted the attention of many men, including James Madison. As I said, the two were an unlikely pair. He was 17 years older, and four inches shorter than Dolley. She was considered a fun, attractive, outgoing woman, while Madison had a reputation of being rather dour, dreary, and a bit of a hypochondriac.
Madison asked Senator Aaron Burr to introduce him to Dolley. Burr was living in Dolley’s mother’s boarding house and knew her well. In fact, Burr had become the temporary male guardian of Dolley’s living son Payne.
At this time Burr was still married to Theodosia. She was the wife of a British officer who had lived with Burr for many years before her husband died and they were finally married. He and Theodosia had a daughter who was around ten years old at this time. His wife was ten years older than Burr and had been sick for many years. She remained in New York while Burr lived in Philadelphia doing his work as a US Senator. During this time, Burr fathered two other children with an Indian servant named Mary Emmons. There are stories that Burr had his own interest in Dolley. But in this case, he appeared to act as a gentleman and introduced her to a very interested Madison.
Dolley and Jemmy, as she soon began calling him, hit it off almost immediately. Madison was clearly smitten. She also found Madison to be a delight. While Madison appeared very formal, even somber, in public, he apparently had a good wit and loved telling funny stories in private to those close to him. The two were seen all over town, attending concerts, plays, and going to lunch and dinner together.
They also began writing love letters to one another. Well, Madison actually got someone else to write many letters for him. He asked Dolley’s cousin, Catherine Coles, to write the letters on his behalf because the author of the Constitution and President Washington’s speech writer did not consider himself up to the task of writing a good love letter. In one letter Coles wrote to Dolley, “he thinks so much of you in the day that he has Lost his Tongue, at Night he Dreames of you & Starts in his Sleep a Calling on you to relieve his Flame for he Burns to such an excess that he will be shortly consumed.”
While they were clearly in love, marriage raised other concerns. In addition to the age difference, Dolley was a Quaker, James was Anglican. If they got married, Dolley would be expelled from her meeting. She would also likely have to give up living in the city for more time on Madison’s plantation back in Virginia. She would also have to get used to the idea of owning slaves.
Dolley spent some time researching her suitor, reaching out to some of his friends to get their candid views about him. One of them was the attorney who helped her get her estate, William Wilkins, who happened also to be a good friend of Madison’s.
Support for the marriage also came from another source. During the summer of 1794, Dolley received an invitation to the Presidential Mansion. Martha Washington assured Dolley that Madison, who had been a close friend of her husband’s for years, would make a wonderful husband.
In one of the letters that he wrote himself, Madison asked Dolley to marry him. He spent several weeks awaiting the reply. When it finally came, the answer was yes. The two married on September 15, 1794 on Dolley’s sister’s plantation near what is today Charlestown West Virginia.
The honeymoon was probably not much of one. For starters, Dolley’s two sisters, Anna and Lucy accompanied them. They visited friends and relatives, but the trip was cut short when Dolley became ill with the flu. They then had to return to Philadelphia when Madison had to be back in Congress. As expected, Dolley was forced to leave her Quaker Meeting.
Madison moved out of his boarding house and rented a house on Spruce Street, recently occupied by James Monroe. Madison’s old friend and rival had been appointed to replace Gouverneur Morris as Ambassador to France, and had left Philadelphia. Dolley’s youngest sister Anna, age 14, also moved in with them. Her two year old son Payne also rejoined the household after returning from Lucy’s Virginia plantation, where he stayed during the honeymoon trip.
Monroe, when he arrived in France, was happy to help purchase French furniture, carpets, and china for the Madisons. The Madisons also began attending more social gatherings in Philadelphia. Even John Adams, who rarely had anything good to say about anyone, wrote to his wife that “Mrs. Madison is a fine woman.”
Madison seemed to adapt happily to his new life as a husband and father. He would later tell friends that his marriage to Dolley was the most fortunate event of his life.
Next week: Congress decides it is finally time for the government to have a navy
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Next Episode 384 Rebirth of the US Navy (coming soon)
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Further Reading
Websites
“Correspondence of Eli Whitney Relative to the Invention of the Cotton Gin.” The American Historical Review, vol. 3, no. 1, 1897, pp. 90–127. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1832812
Federico, P. J. “Records of Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin Patent.” Technology and Culture 1, no. 2 (1960): 168–76. https://doi.org/10.2307/3101059
Woodbury, Robert S. “The Legend of Eli Whitney and Interchangeable Parts.” Technology and Culture, vol. 1, no. 3, 1960, pp. 235–53. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3101392
