American Revolution Podcast: 1776

Showing posts with label 1776. Show all posts

Sunday, July 4, 2021

AR-SP11 Live Show - Independence Day 2021

In this special episode recorded live on Independence Day, I discuss the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence. Because this was a live and unscripted episode, I just have some notes I used to prepare for the talk. The notes may differ at points from exactly what I discussed.

In the years leading up to the war, there was virtually no talk of independence.

The colonies recognized the need for British military protection and benefitted from the British markets for trade. The policy of "salutary neglect" gave colonies the freedom to develop as they wished.

Even in the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, attitudes about independence changed little. The Stamp Tax and its repeal, the Townshend Acts, and the Tea Act all provoked protests, petitions, and trade boycotts, but not calls for independence.

Colonists wanted a restoration of rights, not independence. They wanted things to go back to the way they were before the French and Indian War. Britain had some trade rules in place, which were often ignored, kept a governor in most colonies who worked with elected legislators, and Britain provided the backup support needed in case of military threat from other countries or natives.

What was the big deal over the tea tax? It was a minimal tax, and British changes to import laws made tea much cheaper for colonists even with the tax. But then, that was the idea. British leaders wanted to make it as attractive as possible to pay the tax. Once the colonists paid, it, the principle was established. After that, the British could raise the taxes higher and higher and higher until they were sucking all the excess wealth out of the colonies, much like they already did in places like Ireland and Bengal. Once colonists accepted even a nominal tax, there was no fighting over a principle, only haggling over price. That is why activists would not allow anyone to pay the tax. That is why it got dumped in Boston Harbor.

The Boston Tea Party is what really drew the wrath of Britain, primarily on the Massachusetts Bay colony alone. Britain’s retaliatory coercive acts, aka intolerable acts, stripped Massachusetts of most political power to run its own colony.

First Continental Congress

The First Continental Congress met to discuss how to respond as a united group. Talk was over political compromise and use of trade restrictions with Britain “boycotts” of British goods. However, there was no talk of independence. One delegate who surveyed other delegates on the question sent his conclusions home in a letter to a friend:

I was involuntarily led into a short discussion of this subject by your remarks on the conduct of the Boston people, and your opinion of their wishes to set up for independency. I am as well satisfied as I can be of my existence that no such thing is desired by any thinking man in all North America; on the contrary, that it is the ardent wish of the warmest advocates for liberty, that peace and tranquility, upon constitutional grounds, may be restored, and the horrors of civil discord prevented.

- George Washington to Robert Mackenzie, October 9, 1774

The Congress sent petitions to the King and Parliament requesting protection of their traditional rights and they way things had worked in the past so well for so long, ending with :

We therefore most earnestly beseech your majesty, that your royal authority and interposition may be used for our relief, that a gracious answer may be given to this petition.
That your majesty may enjoy every felicity, through a long and glorious reign over loyal and happy subjects and that your descendants may inherit your prosperity and dominions till time shall be no more; is, and always will be, our sincere and fervent prayer.

With that, the First Continental Congress disbanded, with plans to meet again the following spring in case further measures were needed.

Second Continental Congress

By the time the second Continental Congress met in May 1775, Lexington and Concord had already put the continent at war. Near the end of the year, Thomas Paine released Common Sense. It introduce the idea that a tiny island should not rule large continent. It also attacked the idea of monarchy - -Why do you get to make the rules just because your Dad got to make the rules before you? These events had a big impact, but even war did not move the vast majority of the population to favor independence.

Who really was pivotal to moving colonists to favor independence? It was King George III. His open rejection of the petitions and calls on Parliament to suppress the rebellion with military force ended any hope of reconciliation.

John Adams later said that it was King George who had the greatest impact on colonial opinion favoring independence. Patriots hoped that would see the contention caused by Parliament’s new policies and would broker a settlement agreeable to all. Even if they knew the King generally backed Parliament’s actions in private, turning to him gave him the opportunity to back the government out of what was becoming a big problem and providing a face saving way for the government to back down. When the King came out squarely against compromise. the choice became complete submission, or independence.

Even so, the Second Continental Congress was not ready to declare independence, even though they agreed to take over the war and send George Washington to command the new Continental Army.

By early 1776, most of the conservatives had left Congress. Most of them joined loyalist groups. Many moderates, however, remained. They wanted to continue to resist, but were not ready for Independence.

The debate there was largely between radicals who wanted independence now, and those who thought we should wait and see if we could work out another solution.

There was still a hope that once London realized that this had become a shooting war, they might still be willing to come to a political settlement. Olive Branch Petition was that final effort to work out a deal. Of course, many were by this time ready to declare Independence. But they knew they had to be united on this matter. No one wanted to be the Divided States of America. Without a united front, Britain would easily put down a regional rebellion then turn the screws on everyone else later.

Historians generally credit John Adams with leading the pro-independence fight in Congress, but that may be largely because Adams wrote the first history of what happened and we all tend to make ourselves the heroes of our own stories.

In May, 1776, Adams attempted to push through an independence resolution in an underhanded way. introduced a resolution in the Continental Congress calling on the colonies,

where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs have been hitherto established, to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.

That did not seem to raise too much fuss. After all, where government had broken down due to problems, it made sense to create something to make it work. A few days later, Adams attempted to add a preamble to the resolution:

Whereas his Britannic Majesty, in conjunction with the lords and commons of Great Britain, has, by a late act of Parliament, excluded the inhabitants of these United Colonies from the protection of his crown; And whereas, no answer, whatever, to the humble petitions of the colonies for redress of grievances and reconciliation with Great Britain, has been or is likely to be given; but, the whole force of that kingdom, aided by foreign mercenaries, is to be exerted for the destruction of the good people of these colonies; And whereas, it appears absolutely irreconcilable to reason and good Conscience, for the people of these colonies now to take the oaths and affirmations necessary for the support of any government under the crown of Great Britain, and it is necessary that the exercise of every kind of authority under the said crown should be totally suppressed, and all the powers of government exerted, under the authority of the people of the colonies, for the preservation of internal peace, virtue, and good order, as well as for the defence of their lives, liberties, and properties, against the hostile invasions and cruel depredations of their enemies; therefore, resolved, &c.

Essentially, this preamble made clear that recent events required new government because a series of abuses made it impossible to have a government that was not independent of the King. This caused great dissention and even caused the Maryland delegation to walk out.

It was not until a few weeks later when Congress decided to address the question of independence directly. On May 15, the same day Adams tried to introduce his controversial preamble in Philadelphia, the Virginia Convention passed a resolution for Congress to consider. On June 7, Richard Henry Lee offered the resolution to Congress:

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.
That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.

In May 1776, Adams wrote a letter to James Warren, President of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, assessing where each of the colonies stood. He thought that New England, - Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island - would support independence. The southern colonies, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia were also all likely supporters. The middle colonies, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, at the time still had instructions to oppose independence.

After Lee made his resolution, Congress tabled it for three weeks so that delegates could confer with their local leaders back home and decide whether to change their instructions. In the meantime, a drafting committee began work on a declaration in case a vote for independence passed.

I want to take a look at each of those middle states, and how they got to voting for Independence by the beginning of July.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania was a proprietary colony. There was no Provincial Congress, only radical committees. Committee of 100 which had no real legal basis for existing, represented the radical elements who supported the war and independence. The colonial Assembly was dominated by Quakers: Pacifists who supported King.

Radicals like Charles Thomson were pushing for Independence, In May 1776 they attempted to vote in a pro-independence slate into the legislature, but lost. High Quaker turnout, and many patriots had already left to serve in the Continental Army. No absentee ballots.

By the way, Thomson kept amazingly detailed notes about all the political machinations that went on in Congress, not only at this time but throughout the entire time Congress met before the implementation of the Constitution. Near the end of his life, he took these notes and tossed them into his fireplace. He decided that it would be better for history to remember Congress as idealistic heroes rather than wheeler-dealers and that his insider information would destroy that view. So Thomson, great radical patriot, not so much a friend to historians.

Quakers were not shrinking violets. They saw the support of their King and ministers as a religious duty. On January 20, 1776, the Society’s Elders issued a public declaration which said in part

the setting up and putting down kings and governments, is God’s peculiar prerogative; for causes best known to himself: And it is not our business to have any hand or contrivance therein: . . . but to pray for our king, and the safety of our nation, and good of all men: That we may live a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty; under government which God is pleased to set over us.

Despite losing the election, the radicals were not deterred. Responding to a resolution from the Continental Congress that colonies without “government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs” should establish new ones. A few days after this May 15 resolution, a group of 4000 radicals met in front of Independence Hall (then, the State House).

The radical mob, which listened to speeches by some radical delegates, including Thomas McKean wanted, not only independence, but a completely new government for Pennsylvania. They called for a constitutional convention to replace the Assembly. The Committee of 100 then called for an election of delegates to a convention. What legal basis did the committee have for this? Well none really. They were simply counting on the people to support it and for the government to have no power to obstruct it.

Although momentum seemed to be in favor of the radicals, the leaders set up the convention to ensure the result. First, they gave equal representation to each county. This gave far more power to the less populated western counties where radical sentiment was far more popular. Second, they required all delegates to forswear allegiance to the king and to support whatever government the people chose. So Quakers or Tories unwilling to consider the possibility of ditching the King could not participate. Third, opened up voting to any male over the age of 21 who had been assessed for taxes. With no minimum property requirement, this increased the adult male voter pool from 50% to 90% across the State.

Seeing the radicals make a move toward ending the Assembly, many representatives began to move toward the radical camp. Pennsylvania formally withdrew its instructions to its Continental Congress to oppose independence, but did not issue new instructions either. A majority of the delegation still opposed independence 4-3. In the end, two of the opponents, John Dickinson and Robert Morris, left before the vote, allowing the delegation to support independence by a vote of 3-2. Both men realized the change was going to happen soon. Even if they were not ready to cast a vote, they saw the value in allowing Pennsylvania to join the other colonies in backing Independence.

New Jersey

New Jersey was in a period of transition. The colony had a strong loyalist population and could really go either way. Royal Governor William Franklin had ended the legislative session in January. The Provincial Congress in the state simply took over the functions of government.

When the governor attempted to call the Assembly into session again in June 1776, the Provincial Congress finally reacted by replacing the royal government in June and supporting independence. They sent the governor to be imprisoned in Connecticut and called for the creation of a new Constitution. This was a power play by the patriots. It was not clear that the colony’s population would go along. However, it was enough to get the New Jersey delegation to support independence.

Delaware

Delaware appeared to be most in favor of independence among the middle colonies. Delaware’s status as its own colony was under question since they were still technically considered part of Pennsylvania. Delaware had long had its own separate assembly, but were owned by the Penn family and under the control of Pennsylvania’s proprietary governor.

Northern Delaware tended to support independence while southern Delaware leaned loyalist. On June 15, the Assembly declared itself independent of both Britain and Pennsylvania, but did not instruct delegates on how to vote.

At the July 1 vote, the Delaware delegation split, with Thomas McKean voting for independence and George Read voting against. McKean had to send for the third delegate, Caesar Rodney who was also serving as a militia officer in lower Delaware putting down a loyalist revolt. Rodney made a famous midnight ride through a thunderstorm to tip the Delaware delegation in favor of Independence in the July 2 vote. His arrival was celebrated as delegates broke into song and dance at his arrival. At least that is how it is portrayed in the Musical 1776. Actual events may have been less dramatic.

Both Rodney and McKean were from southern Delaware. As a result of voting for independence, both men lost their seats in the next election.

Maryland

The Maryland delegation walked out of Congress on May 15 when Congress debated the controversial preamble that had smacked of supporting independence. The Maryland Convention received Congress’ resolution. It then unanimously voted not to create a new government and reaffirmed its loyalty to the King.

The planter class in Maryland were more strongly loyalist. The patriots mostly came from merchants in the port cities. Samuel Chase became the biggest advocate to get the convention to change its views.

On June 21, the Provincial Convention in Maryland recalled its delegates to discuss the matter, but wanted an assurance that Congress would not vote on independence while they were away. Since Congress planned to begin debate on July 1, this was a problem. In the end, the convention approved independence after learning that Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware would support it. The need for unanimity was a strong one in many of the reluctant colonies.

New York

Unlike most other colonies, loyalists had also participated in the Provincial Congress as well. This gave them more influence in selecting delegates to the Continental Congress who opposed independence, as well as keeping the Provincial Congress itself from going too far.

New York was also facing an imminent invasion. A leader even open to the idea of independence might have second thoughts if he believed that the British army would reassert control over the colony a month later and begin looking for leading traitors to arrest and hang.

Conservatives in New York tried to slow the momentum toward independence. After receiving word that the Continental Congress would debate the matter. The Provincial Congress voted that it could not support independence until it took a vote of the people in its colony, and that it could not take a vote, because, well that British invasion that is about to happen. The Congress ended its session on June 30 without changing its instructions to delegates to vote against independence.

New York was the only colony to abstain from the July 2 vote for independence. When the New York Congress learned that all twelve other colonies had voted in favor, it reconvened on July 9 to approve of independence. This allowed the final version of the declaration to add the word “unanimous.”

July 4

So if independence was supported on July 2, what happened on July 4. Well, during the whole debate over independence, Congress had created a committee to draft a declaration in case the Congress voted in favor of independence.

John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, and Thomas Jefferson. As the junior member of the committee, Jefferson got stuck writing the first draft. On July 4, the committee presented the declaration for final approval.

The committee had finished with its draft by late June and presented it to Congress after the July 2 vote for independence. Congress took a couple of days to debate the final wording, which it agreed to on July 4.

John Dunlap produced the first written copy on July 5 and other newspapers began printing it over the next few days. there was no official version to be sent to London. This was a declaration to the world, not a petition. British officers in American obtained copies from local papers in the days following its general distribution.

The signed copy that we consider the “original” was not laid before Congress until August 2 for signatures. By that time, New York had gotten on board, so the final version included the word “unanimous”. Most members signed it on Aug. 2, but some did not get around to signing it until much later.

Because July 4 was the date written on the Declaration itself, it became the date when Americans celebrated independence ever since. 245 years later, we still celebrate that important moment.

Guests:

Jason Mandresh and I discuss Founder of the Day, which looks at the various men and women who worked to win the Revolution. We also discuss William Franklin, Benedict Arnold, and interesting American Revolution tours.

Lee Wright and I discuss History Camp, which will hold the virtual History Camp - American next week.

Links to Discussion Items

Culper Tri-Spy Tours http://www.culper.com
Kyle Jenks - Join Kyle and Dana as James and Dolley Madison for this leisurely stroll around their Society Hill neighborhood. The couple will share their experiences during the 1790’s when the country was still finding its footing while simultaneously expressing a lively social scene. The tour will pass by homes of prominent Philadelphians who were known to the Madisons as well as their own Spruce Street home. (Not open to the public.)

Tour length: Approximately 120 minutes.
We will gather at City Tavern at the corner of 2nd and Walnut Street, stroll the neighborhood and circle back to end at City Tavern.
For pricing, scheduling and other questions e-mail: Kyle Jenks at Jaktar773@aol.com

Fort Stanwix https://www.nps.gov/fost/index.htm
Fort Plain Conference American Revolution Mohawk Valley Conference Aug. 6-8, 2021 https://fortplainmuseum.org/conference
Boston 1775 blog with J.L. Bell http://boston1775.blogspot.com
History Camp America on July 10, including . . .

Tour of Fort Ticonderoga—video preview
Tour of Buckman Tavern and Lexington Green—video preview
The History and Architecture of Marblehead, Massachusetts—video preview
Washington in Cambridge and the Siege of Boston, with J.L. Bell—video preview
Full schedule
Note: Registration closes at midnight (Eastern) July 8

History Camp weekly discussions with noted history authors, every Thursday night at 8 pm (Eastern). Includes archive of 50+ discussions
The Pursuit of History, the non-profit organization that puts on History Camp

Fort Ticonderoga limited edition print, signed and numbered — Only 200 printed. Proceeds support the mission of The Pursuit of History

The History List Store

57 notable people from the Revolution, as nominated via social media, each with a bio from John Bell, to be in our next group of five “Revolutionary Superheroes"
Historic prints, including the Binns engraving of the Declaration and the Boston broadside printed by hand.

- - -

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Thursday, May 13, 2021

AR-SP09 Jack Kelly - Valcour

Hello, and thank you for joining this special edition of the American Revolution. I had the opportunity to speak with Jack Kelly, author of the new book Valcour: The 1776 Campaign that Saved the Cause of Liberty.

Kelly’s earlier works include Band of Giants, which is a more general look at the Revolutionary War, as well as another on the history of gunpowder.

His latest work on Valcour, just released in April 2021, looks at the effort to prevent a British invasion of New York from Quebec after the British had pushed the Americans out of Canada and back into New York.

I spoke with Mr. Kelly over a remote call.

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Michael J. Troy (MJT) Jack Kelly, welcome to the American Revolution Podcast.

Jack Kelly (JK) Thank you, Mike. It's great to talk to you.

MJT So we're here today to talk about your new book Valcour, which, of course is about the Battle of Valcour Island, the battle that Benedict Arnold fought with the British - naval battle in 1776.

JK Yeah, and Mike I always emphasize, it's really about the campaign, beginning from July until November was the entire campaign, all parts of it, or significant the battle's obviously, the high point.

MJT So what drew you to the topic of Valcour to begin with? I know you've written on a wide variety of things, what stood out about Valcour?

JK A number of years ago, I wrote a book called Band of Giants. And I tried to give a overview of the Revolutionary War and sort of an intro to the war, focusing on different personalities. And I came across the battle of Valcour Island, and sort of I'd heard of it. And I began to think like, why is it so often neglected in so many histories of the Revolutionary War? The more I looked into it, the more puzzling it became that it wasn't covered more, that it wasn't featured more as part of the effort in that year of 1776. And I usually cite David McCullough's book 1776, which was about the war in that year. Of course, David McCullough was a great historian, a great narrative historian. And he never mentioned the Battle of Valcour Island. He never mentioned the northern campaign. He didn't slight it or neglect it, he just didn't mention it. I found that puzzling, and I just thought it was a aspect of the war that needed more attention.

MJT My suspicion has always been that one of the reasons was that it was one of General Benedict Arnold's greatest moments and of course, because of his later, bad acts, shall we say, a lot of his early heroism in the war tends to get erased by historians and others. In this campaign. Benedict Arnold, who is an army officer came to command the naval fleet on Lake Champlain,

JK The situation in 1776, coming into July, was that the northern army had been fighting in Canada since the previous fall, and were badly defeated and had retreated all the way from Quebec City all the way down to where they started, in Fort Ticonderoga. The British were focused on this corridor, that water corridor from Quebec City down the lakes, down the Hudson River. They sent an army to each end of that corridor. The army in New York was about 40,000 men. The army in Canada was almost 10,000 men. And they planned to make that the focus of their strategy and to invade from the north and to essentially eliminate Washington's army down in New York City.

So to stop them, they didn't feel that Ticonderoga, at that time, was strong enough and that the army was prepared to really meet the British if they came down the lakes. And they thought that maybe if they were to fight them on the lake, it would have a chance of stopping the invasion. And so Benedict Arnold, who, as you mentioned, was an army officer. And the whole operation was really run by the army since there was no navy at the time. Arnold had been a sea captain before the war, and he knew about sailing, he knew about boats, and he was familiar with the area. He traded a lot in Canada and had gone down Lake Champlain as part of his business before the war. So he's familiar with the area. So he was a logical person to take over this building of a small fleet and then confronting the British on the lake.

MJT Arnold had famously seized Fort Ticonderoga back in 1775, along with Ethan Allen, and almost immediately after the seizure of the Fort, he jumped on a boat and began seizing several ships along Lake Champlain. He went up to the edge of Canada where there was a British shipbuilding area, and also in Skenesboro, where he seized a ship, I think that made up the bulk of at least the larger ships in this fleet. Correct?

JK Correct, at the beginning of the summer of '76, they had taken a slope from the British, actually in Canada. They had captured what was really just a schooner from a guy named Philip Skene in Skenesboro and put guns on it. So neither of those boats were very formidable. They were better than nothing. And the British really, at that point that had no ships on the lake, mounted with cannon, and so it began, especially an arms race, to see who could build the biggest fleet quickest.

MJT Arnold as commander of the fleet during that year or so did have quite a few internal problems. One, of course, was the beginning of what would become a very large dispute between General Horatio Gates and General Philip Schuyler. As you noted, the Americans had invaded Canada and then they were pushed back out of it. General Gates had been given command of the forces in Canada about the time that they were forced out of Canada. And so he kind of thought he should be able to take command of those Canadian troops that were in New York and Philip Schuyler thought, No, I'm the commander of troops in New York, and there was a good bit of battling between the two men over command. Benedict Arnold was not known for his political skills in the army. How did he handle this dispute and make his way through it?

JK I think we, a lot of times, underplay that divisions within the patriot movement, and particularly regional divisions. The really early avid promoters of the revolution where in New England. People in New York were much cooler towards the idea of breaking with England. Gates was a radical himself and he identified with the New England faction. General Schuyler is not a very well known general actually n the whole scope of the war. But he was one of the first, I think there were four major generals appointed immediately when they formed the Continental Army. And he was one of them. Of course, a lot of it had to do with his influence and wealth, living in Albany and being familiar with the north.

Gates always had an overblown view of his own ability. So when he came in, having been appointed, as you mentioned, the head of army in Canada, that kind of needed clarifying. And once they were out of Canada, then he was back under Schuyler. But he thought, he wanted to interpret it differently.

Arnold was really was caught in the middle between the two of them. His inclination was, he admired Schuyler, more than Gates because Schuyler, Schuyler was very much like Benedict Arnold in the sense that he was a very wealthy businessman, somewhat conservative. And I think that just that the aura of one of the featured families of Albany captivated Benedict Arnold, even though Arnold was a notoriously prickly character, difficult to get along with. He made an effort to straddle the rivalry between Gates and Schuyler. It really came up and sort of came and went for the two years that's both 1776 and 1777, of him trying to juggle this relationship between Gates and Schuyler, somewhat successfully, even in spite of his reputation as not having political tact. He was fairly successful in getting along with both of them, and particularly in 1776, when he was such an essential part of the war effort. They both somewhat deferred to him. Gates particularly, said that I know nothing about nautical l affairs. And so he depended on him, Benedict Arnold to handle that aspect of the campaign.

MJT Many of our listeners are familiar with the Gates-Arnold divisions that had existed by the time of Saratoga, where they most certainly did not get along. But, in this time, Gates, it seemed, actually was rather helpful to, and protective of, General Arnold, especially during the incident involving the court martial of Moses Hazen. In that case, Benedict Arnold sought the court martial of Hazen for the loss of some property during the Quebec campaign. The men who made up the court martial, pretty much absolved Hazen of any wrongdoing. And Arnold was very upset about this and essentially attack the court martial as being somehow illegitimate or biased or whatever. And then the court martial went after Arnold and tried to strip him of command. And at that point, Arnold really had to rely on Gates to bail him out of the mess.

JK Arnold almost literally challenged the entire court martial to a duel. I don't know if he was going to face them all at once. That was a very clear manifestation of Arnold's lack of tact and his tendency to get involved in what we're really relatively petty disputes. He would always be drawn into it as a matter of honor. And it got him into trouble repeatedly. He made enemies from the first day that he started operating as a soldier when, as you mentioned, the takeover of Fort Ticonderoga that led to a lot of animosity for different people there.

He was up in Canada. He started out seeming to be friendly with Hazen, but Hazen, he was a grasping type. He was one of the Americans who had gone up and tried to take advantage of the British presence in Canada. He bought several estates that came with their own peasants, laborers, and, and just largely a grasping the type of person. Arnold came into conflict with him and those animosities went on for the entire part of Arnold's participation of the war, repeatedly kept coming up. He always took the bait and entered into the dispute when it could have just ignored them. But that was not his character.

MJT Arnold, despite all these internal divisions and fighting amongst themselves, was working to build a fleet because as you said, Fort Ticonderoga was not particularly defensible, and they really hoped to keep the British off Lake Champlain entirely if they could. Although Arnold did face one other challenge his command, I believe Schuyler appointed a man named Jacobus Wynkoop, who was commanding the fleet, and Arnold tried to take command of it from him and Jacobus refused?

JK Yeah, that was a little contratemp during the summer. Arnold was an extremely energetic person. He was not only overseeing to a certain extent the construction of the fleet, but he was also leading patrols up the lake, trying to get supplies. just constantly busy. During this time, this Wynkoop, who had been the commander of the fleet in the period before the Canadian Army came back from Canada, and was a friend of Schuyler. Interesting thing that I came across in doing research is Schuyler spoke Dutch at home. Almost everybody in Albany spoke Dutch, and you would rarely hear English. And the same was true in Kingston, where Wynkoop was from. It was totally a Dutch speaking community. And so they had this connection. And it was part of the sort of the network that Schuyler had with these Dutch merchants and people that had various skills. Wynkoop had been a sea captain himself. And so Schuyler appointed him as what Wynkoop called the "Commodore of the Lake."

I think it was just largely a fault of Arnold that he tended to ignore other people's feelings, let's put it that way. And so he ordered boats to go out and look into what they thought was maybe a raid up the lake. Wynkoop fired a cannon across the bow of one of his own ships to stop them. And then Arnold had to be rolled out to Wynkoop's flag ship, and tell him off and threatened to arrest him, and actually, I think did arrest them. But the interesting thing was that later, when this reached Horatio Gates, who really had to make the decision on what to do with Wynkoop, Arnold suggested that he be lenient with him. By that point he had cooled off, and he probably saw that he was wrong. He didn't say he was wrong, but he was more temperate for this action.

MJT So as divided as the Americans were, it seems like the British also had their own divisions. We have General Carlton, Guy Carlton, as the commander in Quebec, and his second is General Johnny Burgoyne, gentlemen Johnny, as he was called. And those two did not get along particularly well, either.

JK Yeah, I think that Burgoyne, in a way, was like Horatio Gates. He had a very high opinion of his own abilities. And he had ideas about how things should be run when he came over there. And he didn't take into consideration the totality of the conditions in Canada. Carlton had been there for years. He had been the governor of Canada. He came up with what was really an effective policy for how the British should rule Canada: Be lenient with the French, who were the preponderance of the population with French Catholics. How do we handle these people and maintain a stable rule of Canada? He had then faced the American invasion the year before, and been pushed all the way back to Quebec City until he that was his only territory that he controlled, was that small fortified city.

Fortunately for him, the arrival of the British fleet in the spring, which Burgoyne was the leader of that army faction, saved him but he tended to be cautious. You know, he knew he wanted to use a lot of Burgoyne's to army to occupy Canada and secure Canada, not to throw the whole army into the invasion. Burgoyne had different ideas about strategy. I think that caution won out, just because Carlton was the man in charge, and he was commander and he had the final say. Many people have criticized Carlton for being overly cautious. And I think it's a very valid criticism.

MJT I think we see that a lot in the British Army, the top commanders tend to be the most cautious. They want to go in when they have almost 100% assurance of winning the battle overwhelmingly. Their lower officers tend to want to be more aggressive risk takers. Johnny Burgoyne is known as kind of a gambler always wanted to take such risks. I think that's part of the way you got ahead in the army. You were always saying, I could do a better job, we just worked a little harder, we'd gain so much more than the commander on top of me wants.

Burgoyne was very good at that. He was also a very good politician. The reason he brought the fleet back to Quebec was because he had gone to London the year before, and basically tried to convince Germain, Secretary of State of American Affairs, George Germain, and others that he could do this job and he could do it better. He was very good, the politician. Of course, Germain and Carlton really hated each other, too. So that whole dynamic really didn't work well.

JK Yeah that was an obscure, had some obscure cause to it. But it was a very, very hot feud between the two of them.

MJT Yeah, the French and Indian War and the Battle of Minden or something. Carlton had criticized his performance there. Well, everybody criticized Germain's performance. He got kicked out of the army for it. So it's kind of a hot topic for him. So yeah, there's a whole lot of politics going on on both sides that we see. It's quite apart from the war and has a lot more to do with egos and who should be in charge and who should be running things.

So during this time, when the Americans are controlling the lake and the British are controlling the area around Quebec and effectively push the Americans out of Canada, Carlton's trying to build up a fleet so that he can take the offensive and go after the lake and eventually get Fort Ticonderoga back.

JK As soon as the army got there, they were ready to move down the lake. The transports - the boats they would use for transporting the troops - they already had a lot of them and they could've hammered them together in a matter of days. But the danger was that it would be totally vulnerable while they're on the water. And if the Americans had ships with cannons on them, even if they were relatively small cannons, that would prevent that army from going out down the lake. So they wanted to build some more ships. And they prepared for it. They had brought over with the fleet that brought the British Army over, they had about a dozen gun boats. And then they were essentially kits they were easily put together. These were like the American gunboats they were, essentially, oversized row boats. And they had one sail in the British had one good sized cannon, some of them were actually 24 pounder cannons, in the bow of these gunboats, and they built another eight or nine gunboats from scratch there.

They also had schooners that they thought that they could just sail up the Richelieu River. But there are rapids, in the section of the Richelieu river between the St. Lawrence and St. John's, which is pretty much at the level of Lake Champlain. And the water was low enough that they couldn't get these boats up there, even dismantling, taking the cannon off, taking a lot of equipment off that they weren't able to drag them up. So they had almost totally dismantle them to get them up, and then put them back together. All that was completed fairly quickly, though.

It was Carlton's caution that you mentioned, that Carlton wanted more, he wanted to make sure that he was had overwhelming advantage. The main manifestation of that was that in September, they dismantled a frigate, that had been under construction up at Quebec City, all the parts down and reconstructed it at St. John's. This was vastly bigger than anything that the Americans had, anything that had ever been seen on Lake Champlain. It had a powerful broadside, 12 pounder canon, three mastered square rig, really an ocean going ship.

And the problem was it took time to do it. And even though they work day and night, they completed the whole thing in a month. That was a month lost. And I think the difference if you look at compare Carlton and Benedict Arnold is the sense of time that Arnold had was always very keen. It's like you want to get the initiative. Waiting until you're totally ready is likely to be a disadvantage. And he saw that. He moved up in the northern part of Lake Champlain in August with incomplete fleet. He had, I think, six gunboats, and a schooner and a couple other small boats, but he wanted to take that initiative and to jump on the enemy, whereas Carlton it was, wait and give me more, give me more until I'm sure. And as it turned out, in the battle itself, that frigate was pretty much useless, and it was just time wasted was far more important than what he gained from it.

The Thunderer

MJT Your talking about the Thunderer right?

JK No, this was the Invincible. The Thunderer was, again, the Thunderer was more with the idea - that was like a barge with a lot of heavy guns on it. That was, the idea I think of that was that once I got down to Ticonderoga, they would use that to bombard the fort. They had mortars, large mortars and a lot of 24 pounders.

MJT Yeah, I got the feeling that wasn't very maneuverable that it was really designed for use against Fort Ticonderoga.

JK Yeah, I'm not really a sailor. But I understand that in the age of sail, and when you're talking about sailboats, and keel is very important. You have to have the balance the sail versus the keel. The American gunboats had no keels, they were totally flat bottom. The Thunderer was also essentially flat bottom too. So if the wind is from behind you and sails fine, if you're trying to go sort of angle to the wind, it becomes very difficult to maneuver.

MJT The British did have this massive fleet, but you're right, it took them until the fall essentially to get it onto the lake and ready for use, and they did lose a lot of valuable time there. Once they did though, it really looked like defeat was inevitable for the Americans, not only for the fleet, but for Fort Ticonderoga as well. My understanding was that General Gates instructed Arnold to stay between the British fleet and Fort Ticonderoga and just slowly retreat back as best he could to the fort. Arnold decided those orders were stupid and wanted to do, well, what he wanted to do.

JK Gates's orders were ambivalent. He really didn't know what to tell him. Arnold was the expert. Arnold was up there. Gates knew very little about the terrain and the lake. And so he gave him orders that were, stay and meet the enemy, but don't risk too much, things like that, that you could interpret either way, which was fine with Arnold because he really wanted to make all the decisions himself.

As a strategy, which for somebody who had almost no military training, I think it's quite remarkable that Arnold came up with this idea just on his own, that he would hide the fleet in this protected bay behind Valcour Island, between Valcour Island and the New York shore. And then when the British came down the lake, he would let them go by. He assumed correctly, that they wouldn't sail down without the wind coming from the north, so it would be at their back. He, I think intuited, this was a mysterious aspect of the battle, he intuited that Carlton would assume that he had left because the logical thing for him to do was to do what you just described, start pulling back down the lake, get closer to Ticonderoga, not meet the fleet head on, particularly that far north.

I think Carlton probably did have that idea. He had plenty of long boats, he had canoes. You could have had a lot of scouts out, a cloud of scouts in front of his fleet, looking into these bays looking into the inlets. There were a lot of places to hide and that part of Lake Champlain, many, many islands and coves and inlets and so forth. I think Carlton felt that Arnold's running, I've got to catch up with them, and they were in a big hurry. And so they came down. They went right past Valcour Island, Arnold then sent out some ships to essentially provoke them, and lure them back up, going northward into the bay between Valcour Island and the mainland. That's where the battle is fought.

MJT Right. And it worked out very well, at least for the first day. Because Arnold basically had all his ships chained together in a defensive line. The British could only really enter the area, one ship at a time and against the wind. So Arnold could defeat each ship as it came in. And that's what most of the first day was.

JK Well, yeah, the British had 22 gunboats. Each of them had one cannon. Americans had eight gunboats, and he had three cannons. So they're pretty even in terms of firepower from these gunboats. And on both sides, the boats were maneuverable, didn't matter so much, you just put your sail down and row. So it didn't matter which way the wind was blowing for the gunboats.

Of the British larger ships, they had two schooners, the Thunderer that you mentioned, and the Invincible frigate, they never got into the battle. They essentially were spectators for the battle, except for one schooner was able was just sort of a fluke of when to get up into the bay, and being unsupported, then all the American gunboats focus their fire on that schooner, and that took a very bad meeting. And so otherwise, the British main ships were outside the bay, just watching what was going on. The main battle is between the gunboat on both sides,

MJT The battle went reasonably well for the Americans, given how outmatched they were by the fleet. The next day was going to be a major problem for Arnold though. The Native Americans who were friendly with the British had occupied the land around the Valcour Bay, so they couldn't really just jump off the boats and run away without being captured by Indians.

They were out of gunpowder. One of the consistent problems, especially for the Continentals earlier in the war was they never had enough powder to fight a war. And artillery more than anything takes a lot of gunpowder. They didn't really have enough to fight an entire battle over the course of another day. So Arnold had really to come up with a plan to get out of there.

JK When the battle of first day was over, when it got dark about 5:30. Arnold called a council of war on his flagship. It looked like their option was either to destroy the ships so the British couldn't get hold of them and make a run for it on land, which, as you say, was the British had light infantry on the New York shore. The Indians were on the island side.

They could have just surrendered the fleet. It was unlikely they were going to be able to successfully resume the fight. Even if the wind held from the north, and there was some indication that it might be shifting around. It was certainly very possible it would shift around which, in fact, it did. And so with a wind from the south, the British could have taken that frigate in and destroyed the American fleet.

He came up with this idea of escaping. During the time that Arnold had been in the northern part of Champlain, he had insisted, he himself and the captains of the gunboats, spent a lot of time learning the lake and taking soundings of different bays and different inlets, and knowing the terrain of the lake. So that paid off that night, because they were able to go along in New York shore. They knew exactly how close to get to the shore, whereas the British were unfamiliar with the area. And they wanted to stay well off the shore in order to avoid running aground. So the Americans were very quietly, single file lines, sneak out, even though the British fleet was between them and Ticonderoga, and they were supposedly on the alert for them.

But I'd have to say that another attribute that Benedict Arnold had was, he had an imagination. General Carlton was a competent soldier, but not very imaginative. So he didn't think there was another option. He thought, either they'll surrender or will blast them to pieces. He didn't think well, there's a third option. So they essentially let their guard down. And when the sun came up and the bay was empty, the British were flabbergasted. Just couldn't believe it. And Carlton went into a rage and then they spotted the American fleet well down the lake and started the next phase of the battle.

MJT The idea of being able to sail past the entire fleet unnoticed was a pretty unexpected thing. And actually, I believe Carlton the next morning initially thought that the American fleet must have escaped to the north. He actually turned his fleet or at least part of the fleet around and started sailing north in pursuit of the Americans before they finally realized that, no, they were way down to the south already had gotten past him. So that begins the end phase of this campaign, which is that now the British really do know where the American fleet is. The American fleet's badly damaged, almost out of ammunition. And General Carlton wants to come in for the kill.

JK Yeah, and the Americans had a head start, but the British ships were much faster than the Americans. So the next day and all the next night they rowed, heading south on the lake in the morning of the 13th. October 11, was the original battle. October 13. The British caught up with Americans, well down the lake, began another battle, captured one of the Americans larger ships with about 100 men, took 100 men prisoner. A few of the American ships did make it down to Ticonderoga.

Arnold took a stand with four gunboats, and one of these larger sailing ships, and essentially fought the British for two and a half hours with what he had left of gunpowder and ammunition. Finally ordered the fleet into a small cove called Ferris Bay. They ran their boats around, set them on fire, so the British couldn't get ahold of them, and were able to walk out. So he saved his men that, you know, they didn't have to be taken prisoner. A number were killed, but he saved most of his crews.

One interesting thing about that was that Ferris Bay where they landed those ships was later renamed Arnold Bay. As far as I know, it's the only place in the United States that's named in honor of Benedict Arnold.

MJT Yeah, again, that was Arnold. really knowing the territory well, and knowing where he enter were the British couldn't pursue and able to get out of there.

I really feel bad for Captain Hawley. He commanded the Royal Savage on the first day, which of course sank, and then they gave him command of the Washington, which was first large ship that the British managed to capture on the second day. So he actually managed to lose two ships during the battle. But it really wasn't his fault. I mean, the British targeted the Royal Savage in the first day and there wasn't much you could do about that. And the second the Washington was almost sinking and having problems escaping anyway, that's why it was moving so slowly, and it was being attacked by ships that have far larger range than he did. So poor Captain Hawley's ship gets captured.

Most of the fleet itself is destroyed, but the men get away. As you say, Arnold is able to beach the ships, to get the men off before any British land troops can get down to where they are, and march them quickly back to, first Crown Point and then Ticonderoga.

There was one incident that happened during the landing of the ship that I guess Arnold took some criticism for later, there was one wounded lieutenant aboard a ship, I believe his name was was Lieutenant Goldsmith, who was supposed to be taken off the ship, but in the confusion wasn't. And when the ship blew up, everybody watched his corpse fly into the air and then collapse. And Arnold was criticized for abandoning his officer on the ship. And I think that was a bit unfair. But that was something that came back to bite him later.

JK I looked into that incident. I didn't mention it in my book, because it just - the sources were a little dubious. And there were so many of those stories about Arnold that were cooked up after he went over to the enemy, to make him look bad. Or they would either put an interpretation on the events or just invent them from whole cloth. There were reports of exactly what you said. But it was hard to come to a conclusion whether it had happened or not. So I just left it out. He certainly wasn't the type to - he wasn't callous about his manner at all. And he never was during his career.

MJT No and Arnold said at the time, he had actually ordered that the man be taken off and somebody had disobeyed his orders. So it more than likely wasn't Arnold fault. But you're right, Arnold had a lot of enemies at the time. And so they would say anything horrible about him. And then of course, after Arnold betrayed his country, everybody was looking for anything horrible to say about anything he ever did.

So Arnold and his men finally do make it back to Fort Ticonderoga and they're waiting the final assault and you know, this giant Thunderer is going to come down and blow them all away. And they kind of wait and wait and wait for days, and then a couple of weeks, and then nothing happens.

JK The Americans were mystified. They figured that this was going to be it. A big battle is about to take place. And as you say, they just waited and nothing happened. The British were at Crown Point, which is about 12 miles north of Ticonderoga. Carlton decided that it was too late in the season. How much the effect of the fighting, what effect the fighting had on his mind as to the shock of these seemed like fanatical Americans standing up for the Royal Navy. The loss of time from the battles as people always point out, it's only two or three days that they spent fighting on the lake.

But the cold in Canada was something that Carlton was very familiar with. And he was afraid that if he invested Fort Ticonderoga and laid it under siege, that the lake would freeze behind him. Somebody pointed out to me that this is still in what they call the "Little Ice Age." So the winters that we imagine - Lake Champlain occasionally freezes over but not as often now. Back then it always froze over solid in the winter. And that would have been disastrous for the British.

Again, his caution won out and he decided to go back. Burgoyne was pretty disgusted by it and General Phillips, who was the artillery commander for the British also felt they should at least try to do something around Ticonderoga, and Carlton overruled him and took the fleet and the army and went home.

MJT I think Carlton feared that if he went and put up a fight and the Americans resisted, then he left it would have looked more like a loss than if he didn't try it all.

JK Yeah, and I think that it's important to keep in mind that from the beginning of in the spring, when Carlton controlled one city in Canada - to win back all of Canada, which is a huge area, and then to defeat the Americans and wipe their fleet off the Lake Champlain, he thought that was a great accomplishment. It was like, Oh, I succeeded beyond my hopes. And so why risk pushing it a little farther?

MJT And this was the same thing that General Howe was doing in the south. They didn't want to risk even a small loss. They wanted to prove that the British Army was invincible. And whenever they went into a battle, they won a battle and they won it overwhelmingly and without question, and I think he was hoping to keep up those appearances. So you're right. Carlton reported back to London that he had won a great victory, that he defeated the fleet, and that Lake Champlain was now open, and that for Ticonderoga would be an easy hit in the spring.

But a lot of, as you say, his own officers, including Burgoyne, disagreed with that, thought it was not ambitious enough. And of course, we're going went back to London that winter to lobby again for a command of his own and, of course, famously got it and we get into the Saratoga Campaign at that point. I can't help but think that Carlton was kind of laughing a bit and Quebec saying yes, see when you're a little aggressive, take risks, see what happens?

JK A lot of people mentioned that, and it's obvious, leading from Valcour. Island, to Saratoga Campaign for the next year. I always try to direct attention to the New York Campaign of that year. To me the real significance of Valcour Island had to do with Washington's losses down in New York. That Washington, in December, I think he wrote to his brother and he said, "I think the game is pretty near up." This was it. If they had not prevailed on Lake Champlain, it's very possible that that would have happened. The war would have been over that season, as the British had hoped and planned for.

Once the British went back to Canada, the American Horatio Gates and Arnold took 600 men down to join Washington's army in Pennsylvania. Washington, while he was trying to decide what to do there, and there's no record of what factors he considered, but he knew the threat from the north was now neutralized. He had these 600 additional men, and then he made the decision to cross Delaware and attack the Hessians in Trenton. That, I think, is an important contribution that the northern campaign made. Maybe he would have gone anyway. But, certainly, it reassured him that he wasn't going to have the British taking Albany or coming at him from behind.

MJT I said before on my podcast, and I think you make the argument in your book as well, that the actual fighting between the ships was not what the victory was. The victory was that just building the fleet in the first place and delaying a British attack until winter of that year is what saved the Continental Army. Again, it was all timing. They managed to force the British Army to spend months trying to build this fleet to defeat them overwhelmingly, and that wasted the entire fighting season.

JK Yeah, and as you know, that was true in so many campaigns and battles in the Revolutionary War. Americans had very few big victories, but they had many holding campaigns, delaying campaigns, General Greene's campaign in the south, he didn't have many victories, but he just wore the British out. And this was the beginning of that strategy, really, in 1776. It hadn't really become the strategy for the American army yet. George Washington certainly didn't have the impulse to fight a defensive battle, but he saw that he had no choice.

MJT So Arnold's reputation coming out of this battle, I guess, is mixed. A lot of people saw it as very impressive, but a lot of others were critical of the fact that he essentially fought the British and lost, and lost a huge fleet to the British. Do you think this was more a matter of political spin for people who hated Arnold anyway? Or do you think it was more people just didn't understand the larger strategy of war in this case?

JK I think it was probably a combination of both. Maybe some of the people were sincere that criticized them but George Washington, Horatio Gates, people who understood the war really didn't. And it wasn't just Benedict Arnold. Without Schuyler having the wide business connections he had in order to get the supplies up and build the fleet, and without Horatio Gates rebuilding the army at Ticonderoga. I think all three of those components came together. Strangely enough, because none of those generals are considered to be brilliant generals among the patriots. But at that time, they came together and succeeded. I think that the people in the know really understood that was the case.

MJT Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, obviously later the word Arnold for obvious reasons, lost a lot of respect and Gates of course because of his involvement in the Conway Cabal and later and in the south created a mess. He kind of killed his reputation too. Schuyler I always thought it was, as you said, a brilliant logistics officer. But let's face it, logistics never gets respect from the leadership, right?

JK Yes, exactly. And Schuyler's had the bad fortune now of his daughters have become more famous than he is because they were starring in the musical Hamilton the Schuyler sisters were in. He didn't even get into the play.

MJT Right. But I guess as a strategist, he married his daughters off very strategically well for future fame. Of course, Schuyler wasn't present at Fort Ticonderoga when it finally fell to the British the next year, but he was the overall command of the region. And he ended up getting court martialed, and resigning as a result the following year. So that pretty much ended his military career, although he did go on to serve in the Continental Congress and did a lot of great work there as a politician.

JK And one thing I would mention, Mike, is that another thing that Schuyler accomplished during that summer was that he spent a month out in German Flatts negotiating with the Iroquois. And he was very concerned that the Iroquois maybe combined with loyalists and some British troops, would attack Fort Ticonderoga from the rear. They would be cut off in the north. And so it was a very delicate negotiation, took a lot of time. And he put in the time and effort to do that, while he was doing everything else. He was spending time doing that. So another aspect of his career, he was an Indian commissioner, accomplished that as well,

MJT Right, absolutely. The Iroquois Confederacy generally sided with the British and the fact that he was able to convince at least the Oneida and Tuscarora to join the Continentals and for a great many others to at least remain neutral was a huge accomplishment and really turn the tables there.

JK Exactly

MJT What do you think, really is the legacy of what happened at Valcour, the Valcour Campaign?

JK The main thing that it accomplished, and I think most historians would agree, 1776 was the best opportunity they had to win the war outright. The Americans were least prepared. The British had the preponderance of force. The Americans had no allies. You know, the French wouldn't come in for another year. And if they were going to do it, that was really the best chance they had of the entire war. The fact that this campaign on Lake Champlain delayed that, and prevented that from happening that year. People say, well, they came down the next year. But that year, it gave the patriots that breathing room, and events unfolded in a way that favored patriots as time went on. So I think that that delay, and largely it was a delay, not a victory, was the real legacy of Valcour Island Campaign.

MJT Yeah, I think that's right. The British, as you noted, had maybe 50,000 men in America in 1776. Today, we don't think of that as a huge number. I mean, by the Napoleonic Wars, we're talking about armies in the millions. But in America, and in the pre-Napoleonic era, where we mostly had very expensive professional soldiers, mounting that sort of army was not an easy thing to do. The entire size of the British Army, throughout the entire British Empire wasn't even 50,000 people just before the war began. So the British really did mount a huge effort to come in and shock and awe the Americans into immediate submission. They really wanted to end this rebellion very quickly.

And as I said, I guess the Americans were neither shocked, nor awed. They pushed back. They held on as best they could. And they waited for French assistance when they could finally get it. And certainly the Valcour Campaign was a big part of that. This is, I think, an important part of the war. And it's just a really interesting adventure story, to me, at least. I agree with you it has been less covered than it probably deserves. I really appreciate you putting out this book to make it better known to people who are interested in the war.

JK Yeah, I would point out that one of them gunboats from the campaign sat at the bottom of Valcour Bay for 159 years, was raised in the 1930s. The Philadelphia is now in the Smithsonian Institute. You can actually go there and see that gunboat, see the guns fired at the British. It's one of the most poignant artifacts of revolutionary war, the oldest American naval vessel existence.

MJT Yeah, I've seen that. It's really impressive. Alright, well Jack, I thank you for joining us today. Thanks for telling us about Valcour.

JK Well, thank you, Mike. I appreciate the job you're doing with the podcast. You know, I try to attract people to get interested in the war. And I think you've had a similar mission of podcasts. The more people we can draw into this, the better.

MJT Thanks. I think so too. All right, Jack Kelly of Valcour. Thank you for joining us on the American Revolution Podcast.

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Sunday, January 12, 2020

Episode 131 Continental Congress - Baltimore Edition

The last few weeks, we have covered some of the most pivotal events of the Revolution. The massive British Army under General Howe invaded New York and New Jersey, sending the Continental Army fleeing before it. The Continental Army then countered to retake New Jersey. Last week we looked at events in the south over the same period as Tories in Florida with their Creek and Seminole allies seemed to have no trouble pushing into patriot-controlled Georgia. Today we look at what the Continental Congress was doing as all these events unfolded.

Relocating Congress

As the British army moved toward Philadelphia in December 1776, the Continental Army was not able to mount much of any defense. Many on both sides assumed the British would take Philadelphia before ending the year’s offensive. Members of Congress, not eager to become prisoners of war, decided to leave Philadelphia. On December 12, the Congress voted to adjourn and reconvene in Baltimore, Maryland the following week.

Fite House (from US Capitols)

In Baltimore, locals first offered Congress the Courthouse, but it was too small. Instead Congress rented the Henry Fite House, which was actually a hotel and tavern on the western edge of town. The three story, 14 room brick building had several rooms large enough for committee meetings. At the time, it was the largest building in Baltimore. Congress rented the building from Fite for three months for £60.

Overall members were not happy with Baltimore. It was not the charming modern city that exists today. As one member put it “the town was exceedingly expensive, and exceedingly dirty, that at times members could make their way to the assembly hall only on horseback, through deep mud." In his diary, John Adams called it “the dirtiest place in the world.” There was also a 107 year wait for Orioles tickets.

Washington Gets More Power

Putting aside the conditions in Baltimore, Congress got to work. Remember mid-December was the low point of the patriot movement. Everyone expected the British to take Philadelphia. The Continental Army might be captured in the process. If not, officers and soldiers were already deserting what they saw as a lost cause. Congress had been reluctant to turn over much power to General Washington and the rest of the military leadership for fear of losing civilian control of the army. Since there was no executive branch, Congress itself had to act as a department of war, trying to run everything through committees.

Washington at Trenton

Congress voted on December 27 to give Washington special powers for six months to raise his own army from the states, appoint officers, and take appropriate action against uncooperative civilians. This was the day after Washington’s victory at Trenton, but the timing was purely coincidental. It is not clear whether word of the victory had even reached Congress by the time of the vote. The matter had been under debate for days prior.

This was not about handing out power to a victorious general. Congress was effectively admitting that it was not capable of making the necessary executive decisions that had to be made decisively and quickly by the Commander in Chief. It put a six month time limit on the powers to make sure Washington did not become a dictator. With the army on the verge of collapse, and the only serious replacement for Washington, General Charles Lee, now a British prisoner, Congress decided it had to go all in, depending on Washington to run the army as best he saw fit.

Congress expressed concern about some recent prisoners. Congress directed Washington to investigate and protest General Howe’s treatment of Richard Stockton, who I discussed back in Episode 118. Treatment of a captured member of the Continental Congress was an issue near and dear to the hearts of the rest of the members. Congress also denounced British treatment of Charles Lee. When initially captured, there were rumors that Lee would be shipped back to England and hanged as a deserter or traitor. Congress affirmed Washington’s position that if the British hanged an American general, the Americans would hang a British officer of the same rank.

By the time Congress passed this resolution though, the British were treating Lee quite well. They allowed Lee to send for his dogs and servants. General Howe met personally with Lee during this time. Howe eventually got Lee to send a letter to Congress asking them to send a delegation to New York to discuss peace terms. By mid-February though, it appeared that the Americans were back on the offensive. Congress rejected Lee’s proposal.

Foreign Policy

Congress was not ready to consider any peace proposal if Britain did not recognize American Independence. That position required military victory. Washington’s minor victories in New Jersey had been a huge boost for morale, but they did not change the thinking on either side that Britain would eventually crush the rebellion unless the Americans could get a few more countries involved.

I mentioned back in Episode 115 that Congress had appointed Benjamin Franklin and Arthur Lee to work as Commissioners along with Silas Deane in France. They needed to pull France into the war with Britain.

Franklin in Paris
(from U. Penn)

Congress, however, did not want to rely on France alone. Franklin had only arrived in France in late December. Before Franklin could do much of anything, let alone get any reports back to Congress, the delegates added to Franklin’s duties by appointing him to serve as a Commissioner to the Court of Spain. Both France and Spain had lost colonies to Britain during the Seven Years War. Congress hoped that both countries might find this an opportune time to reclaim lost real estate while Britain was tied up in America. Entry of any other European power into war against Britain would force London to spread its resources more thinly, and give America a better chance of holding onto its independence.

I’m going to get into Franklin’s exploits in Paris in a future episode, but for now, I want to point out that Congress was already expanding his role and attempting to get whatever European powers into a war that would improve the American odds of winning.

Congress also was not convinced that anyone could convince France to start a new war with Britain. If they could not get France into the war, Congress at least hoped to receive more covert assistance in the form of munitions and other supplies needed to help the war effort.

Vermont Independence, Not Now

As if there was not enough going on, political leaders in the New Hampshire Grants met in a convention in the town of Westminster. There, they drafted their own declaration of independence, calling themselves the Republic of New Connecticut. A few months later, they would change the name to Vermont.

The declaration was especially controversial because New York still considered this territory to be part of New York. Anxious not to annoy the New York delegation, Congress opted to ignore the declaration entirely, not approving or criticizing it. It would not receive a delegation from the new self-proclaimed republic nor do anything else to recognize its status. The people of Vermont would have to wait more than a decade to get any recognition. For this reason, I’m only mentioning this in passing for now. I will talk more about the politics of Vermont independence in a future episode.

Money Problems

A much more immediate problem for Congress was money. Congress had been pumping out millions of dollars in paper money, which promised the bearer some day would receive hard currency. But especially when it looked like the British might win, no one wanted to accept the Continental currency since a British victory meant there would be no entity around to make good on that paper. Even when the Americans looked like they had a chance of victory though, continental paper continually suffered from hyper-inflation. Congress had no plan in place to receive any hard money (gold and silver) to pay off the paper. States would not give it the power to collect taxes. It could only get anything from the states if the states unanimously agreed to such a plan. Congress never seemed capable of doing that.

1st Ed. Adam Smith "Wealth of Nations"
published in 1776 but did not influence
Congress' monetary policies.
(from Great Thinkers)

On January 14th, Congress passed some recommendations for states to come up with tax money. But for a people fighting a war over a foreign government trying to collect taxes from the states, there was a strong inclination for many states to oppose this. Anyone ever getting anything of value in exchange for their paper currency continued to look like quite a gamble.

Congress’ only response to this was to order people to accept the money at face value in exchange for their goods. The only time that really worked was when soldiers pointed a gun at merchants and ordered them to turn over their goods in exchange for paper, or go to jail. As a result, few people were willing to supply the government with much of anything.

During this session, Congress approved borrowing another $13 million through the sale of loan certificates. It also increased the interest rates from 4% to 6%. Even with these changes, the risks were too high for most speculators.

In December and January, New England leaders met at a conference in Providence, Rhode Island to discuss the growing problems of government credit and currency acceptance. Although over in Britain, Adam Smith had published his new book, The Wealth of Nations, no one in America seemed interested in the invisible hand of the market. Instead, delegates recommended the establishment of mandatory prices on a wide range of commonly needed goods, and forcing merchants to accept paper money at those prices. The Continental Congress endorsed the New England Conference’s recommendations, and also recommended that the middle and southern states hold similar conferences.

This, of course, only continued devalue the Continental dollar and created even more economic chaos across the continent. But to be fair to Congress, they really had no choice. Congress had no power to raise money through taxes, and little chance of obtaining that power in the foreseeable future. States would not come up with the necessary funds to prosecute the war. As a result, delegates saw no option other than to continue printing paper money and force people to accept it for goods and services.

Changing the Medical Corps

In addition to building a diplomatic corps and creating an economic system out of nothing, Congress also spent considerable time running military affairs. Although they had just given Washington a great deal of authority over such things, Congress could not help but meddle in disputes that came to its attention.

Congress had appointed John Morgan as Physician-in-Chief of the Army back in October 1775. This was right after it removed Benjamin Church on suspicion of espionage. Dr. Morgan had been a Quaker physician in Philadelphia before the war, but had served in the French and Indian War and left his Quaker upbringing behind many years before the war even started. He became a committed patriot and by most accounts served reasonably well as Physician-in-Chief for well over a year. The big complaint against him was that he was unable to make medical supplies available to regimental surgeons. But the problem there was not administrative competence. It was that the Continental Army had no supplies, and no money to buy them.

John Morgan
(from Wikimedia)

Dr. William Shippen, also from Philadelphia, and Dr. Samuel Stringer of Albany both tried to undermine Morgan and replace him. In the fall of 1776, Congress had decided to divide medical authority, limiting Morgan’s authority to New England and giving Shippen administrative control over the mid-Atlantic region where the Continental Army was now centered. Stringer, put in charge of the Northern army medical staff, simply refused to obey any of Morgan’s orders. Morgan visited Congress in an attempt to figure out why they had done this, but could not get a hearing.

Finally in January 1777, Congress decided it had had enough. Without consulting Washington and without any hearings, Congress simply dismissed Morgan and Stringer from the army and put Shippen in charge. Morgan, unhappy with his dismissal and unable to get a hearing, published a book over 200 pages long trying to vindicate himself and his reputation.

Morgan made it his goal in life to take down Shippen. In late 1778, Morgan working with Dr. Benjamin Rush, a member of Congress and also a Philadelphia physician, had Shippen brought up on charges of fraud and speculation. Among other things, they accused Shippen of speculating in the sale of goods needed by the wounded and personally profiting from their sale. Shippen avoided conviction by one vote and continued to serve until he resigned in 1781.

Congress later exonerated Morgan of any wrongdoing, but did not reinstate him. His army career was over for good.

Congress also made another important medical decision during this session. It recommended that all Continental soldiers receive smallpox inoculations. This was controversial. A safe vaccination would not be discovered until years later. The inoculation as it existed at the time often left the soldiers sick with a mild version of the disease for a couple of months, rendering them incapable of fighting or marching. It also killed a small percentage of those inoculated. For this reason, Washington at one point had banned inoculations and even jailed some private doctors who inoculated soldiers.

At the same time though, smallpox could ravage armies. It had killed thousands of soldiers, especially in the northern army during the Quebec campaign, where I think it was decisive in the failure to secure Canada for the patriots. Smallpox had already claimed the life of Major General John Thomas as well as the Army’s first foreign General, Frederick William, Baron de Woedtke, both of whom had succumbed to the disease months earlier. John Adams called smallpox “ten times more terrible than Britons, Canadians and Indians, together." The decision to inoculate soldiers, with which Washington also had come to agree, would end up saving thousands of desperately needed soldiers.

Congress also created a Commissary General of American Prisoners whose job would be to provide necessities for the American POWs that the British held in New York. The thousands of prisoners, mostly captured during the New York campaign and the surrender of Fort Washington were literally starving to death aboard prison ships. After Congress approved the position, Washington appointed Elias Boudinot to serve as Commissary General. I plan to discuss his activities in a future episode.

Promoting Generals

Congress also took the opportunity to use the session to appoint more generals. Although Congress had granted Washington authority to commission field officers, Congress retained for itself the authority to commission new general officers. Early in the session, it has appointed Henry Knox as a new brigadier general and chief of artillery. It also appointed Francis Nash general to assist with the organization and defense of the Carolinas.

Major General Lord Stirling
(from find a grave)

Toward the end of the session though, Congress decided to make some larger promotion decisions. On February 19th, it promoted five men to major general: William Alexander (Lord Stirling), Thomas Mifflin, Arthur St. Clair, Adam Stephen, and Benjamin Lincoln. Two days later, it promoted nine others to brigadier general.

All promotions can be controversial in the sense of who gets it and who does not. But these appointments had a particular impact on one man: Benedict Arnold. General Arnold had seniority over all five of the appointees to major general. Arnold was already ticked that he had not received promotion in an earlier round back in August 1776. But at least in that round, all those who did get promoted were senior to him, even if their service was not particularly distinguished. Arnold, who had almost single-handedly held off a British invasion from Canada that fall, and who was one of the most senior brigadier generals in service, seemed a lock for promotion in this round.

When you got passed over for officers with less seniority, that usually was taken that the leadership did not respect you and that you should resign. Arnold wrote to Washington, inquiring about this and indicated that he would resign. He only held off because Washington said there must have been some mistake and that he should wait until Washington could make inquiries into what happened.

As it turned out, there was no mistake. Congress had considered and rejected Arnold. The main reason given was that Congress already had two major generals from Connecticut, and that before this, no State had three major generals. Of course it did not seem to bother anyone that Virginia got its third major general in this round, in addition to the Commander in Chief. General Adam Stephen who just got bumped up was particularly undistinguished and someone who General Washington despised.

Thomas Mifflin
(from Wikimedia)

The reality was that despite Arnold’s impressive fighting record, he did not have friends in Congress to advocate for him. Members knew his record of fighting with superiors and with the officers under his command. Arnold wrote out several resignations but ended up remaining at his post, mostly because Washington pleaded with him to do so and promised to work things out.

Arnold wrote back to Washington to say that he could interpret this action in no way other than Congress had lost faith in Arnold as a leader and was politely asking him to resign. The only things that kept him from doing so immediately was that he expected Congress to send another leader to take over his command, and his desire to go to Philadelphia and seek a court martial prior to resigning. With that he would have the opportunity to hear the criticisms against him and defend his reputation before submitting his resignation.

This dispute would linger for a few months. In May, following Arnold’s noted leadership at the Danbury Raid, which I’ll discuss in a future episode, Congress finally decided to give him the promotion. However, going from the most senior brigadier general to the most junior major general meant that the promotion changed nothing in terms of who could give him orders and who he could order. So the same five men who had been promoted over him were still his senior. So, Arnold’s grudge against Congress for being denied proper respect for his services would continue.

Return to Philadelphia

By the end of February delegates decided the Continental Army’s counter offensive in New Jersey had made Philadelphia apparently secure for the time being. On February 27th, the delegates adjourned their Baltimore session and resumed work in Philadelphia on March 5th.

Next Week, I will look at how the British military and political leadership debated strategic war plans and prepared for the 1777 fighting season.

- - -

Next Episode 132 Britain Adjusts its War Plans

Previous Episode 130 Fort McIntosh, Ga

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Further Reading

Websites

Rush, Benjamin “Historical Notes of Dr. Benjamin Rush, 1777” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 27, No. 2, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania; University of Pennsylvania Press, 1903, pp. 129-150: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20086080

John Morgan: http://history.amedd.army.mil/surgeongenerals/J_Morgan.html

John Morgan: https://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/morgan_john.html

William Shippen: https://www.archives.upenn.edu/people/1700s/shippen_wm_jr.html

Samuel Stringer: https://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/s/sastringer5046.html

Smallpox during the Revolutionary War: https://www.armyheritage.org/75-information/soldier-stories/209-smallpox

Elias Boudinot: http://theforgottenfounders.com/the-forgotten-fathers/elias-boudinot

Letter, Washington to Arnold, March 3, 1777: http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-08-02-0514

Letter, Arnold to Washington March 11, 1777: http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-08-02-0584

Procknow, Gene “Personal Honor and Promotion Among Revolutionary Generals and Congress” Journal of the American Revolution, 2018: https://allthingsliberty.com/2018/01/personal-honor-promotion-among-revolutionary-generals-congress

Free eBooks
(from archive.org unless noted)

Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. 6 (Oct. 9 - Dec. 31, 1776) Washington: Government Printing Office 1906.

Journals of the Continental Congress, Vol. 7 (Jan. 1 - May 21, 1777) Washington: Government Printing Office 1907.

Morgan, John A vindication of his public character in the station of director-general of the military hospitals and physician in chief to the American army, anno 1776, Boston: Powers and Willis, 1777.

Books Worth Buying
(links to Amazon.com unless otherwise noted)*

Mello, Robert A. Moses Robinson and the Founding of Vermont, Vermont Historical Society, 2014.

Montross, Lynn The Reluctant Rebels, The Story of the Continental Congress 1774-1789, Harper & Bros. 1950.

Smith, Page John Adams, Doubleday and Co. 1962.

Steffen, Charles G. The Mechanics of Baltimore: Workers and Politics in the Age of Revolution, 1763-1812, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1984.

* As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Sunday, July 4, 2021

AR-SP11 Live Show - Independence Day 2021

First Continental Congress

Second Continental Congress

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

Delaware

Maryland

New York

July 4

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Thursday, May 13, 2021

AR-SP09 Jack Kelly - Valcour

Further Reading

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Sunday, January 12, 2020

Episode 131 Continental Congress - Baltimore Edition