Author: Chris Mackowski

250 Years Ago: The Staten Island Peace Conference

On By Chris MackowskiIn Adams, John and Abigail, New York Campaign, PoliticsLeave a comment

Admiral Lord Richard Howe, 50 years old, found himself in an awkward position.

Admiral Lord Richard Howe, 1789, painted by John Singleton Copley

Howe commanded the Royal fleet even then investing Manhattan Island following the defeat of the Continental Army at Brooklyn Heights earlier in September. Nearly 400 ships of various sizes sailed under his command—the largest fleet England had thus far assembled.

Yet despite that military might, Howe had an additional role to fulfill. His Majesty, King George III, had appointed him as one of two “peace commissioners” charged with negotiating terms with the Americans. The other peace commissioner was Howe’s brother, General William Howe, commander of the Royal army. The makers of war were tasked with negotiating a peace.

Complicating matters even more, the brothers were not empowered to do much actual negotiating. Colonists first had to renounce their independence before any terms for a restored peace could be discussed. Pardons could then be liberally granted, although Howe did have a blacklist, a list of “Rebell[s] expressly excepted from Pardon.”

Lord Howe generally felt sympathetic toward the former colonies, and when he dispatched the paroled American general John Sullivan to Philadelphia with an overture for peace, Howe genuinely hoped for reconciliation.

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Strange Bedfellows: Adams and Franklin

On By Chris MackowskiIn Adams, John and Abigail, Politics2 Comments
Ben Franklin (left) and John Adams

War and politics can both necessitate some strange bedfellows, and that was certainly the case 250 years ago today when two of the Revolution’s leading figures found themselves literally sharing a bed.

During the battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, the British captured Gen. John Sullivan of New Hampshire. They then paroled Sullivan and sent him to Philadelphia bearing a message from the British Peace Commissioners, Admiral Lord Richard Howe and his brother, General William Howe. The Howes invited the Continental Congress to discuss terms for peace.

Most in Congress considered the overture disingenuous, and some even bore ill-will toward Sullivan for bringing such an odious message. However, delegates also understood that if they rebuffed the overture out of hand, it would look as though they, not Great Britain, were to blame for continued war. On September 6, Congress decided to appoint a three-man delegation to travel to the British headquarters on Staten Island, New York, to hear what the British had to say.

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If ERW were one of the Founders. . . .

On By Chris MackowskiIn America 250, Emerging Revolutionary War, Personalities, Revolutionary War1 Comment

This week, during a conference call, someone asked Rob Orrison, Neil Chatelain, and me, “Which figure from the Revolution is ERW most like?”

Stephen Hopkins

The first person who jumped to mind was Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island. Although none of us wears a cool hat like Hopkins does, it was easy to think of ERW as the guy in the back of the room, drinking a mug of rum or beer or grog and offering commentary on events. Hopkins had served several stints as Rhode Island’s colonial governor and served as chief justice of the colonial court during the infamous Gaspée affair. He was good natured and earnest, and John Adams said, “He kept us alive” with his energy. “Hopkins never drank to excess,” Adams said, “but all he drank was immediately not only converted into Wit, Sense, Knowledge and good humor, but inspired Us all with similar qualities.”

Or how about John Adams, as Rob suggested? (He knew I’d love that one!) Not only was Adams a writer, he was also a workhorse, like most of the regular contributors who keep ERW going—a small cadre of folks who each do a lot of work. Adams was also prickly, Rob pointed out, just as many of ERW’s folks are (a bit of self-revealing honesty there!). Adams preferred beer to cider, so I thought we’d have to swap that out, but Rob reminded me that few of us would turn down free cider.

I suggested Ben Franklin. Franklin had a background in printing and writing—something central to ERW—and was also generally good humored. He liked to have a good time—“Perhaps too good of a time,” someone in the conversation piped in—and always situated himself at the social center of any scene. ERW is, if nothing else, social. Rob did point out that Franklin was a genius in many, many areas, while ERW is pretty focused in its work, but personality wise, it’s a good match.

The question put us on the spot, so those were our initial answers. What do YOU think? If ERW was a figure from the Revolution, who would ERW be most like?

Adams and Jefferson and the 200th Anniversary of America’s 50th Birthday

On By Chris MackowskiIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

July 4, 2026 is not only the 250th anniversary of America’s birth, it’s also the 200th anniversary of the near-simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. It’s one of the greatest coincidences in American history: the two Founders most responsible for independence died on the 50th anniversary of Independence Day.

John Adams, 1816

Jefferson was 83; Adams 90. 

Nearly toothless, nearly blind, Adams could hardly get around. He lacked the vigor that had once let him walk miles a day for exercise. Jefferson had been slowly wearing down from an aggravated prostate problem and, by 1826, was taking large daily doses of laudanum as treatment.

Both knew they were well into their twilights. When asked to appear at commemoration ceremonies for the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, both declined. Aware their respective conditions prohibited robust orations, let alone travel to get anywhere. Adams cited his “feeble state” while Jefferson his “ill health.”

Jefferson did muster a beautiful message to be read aloud in his absence. He knew it was likely his last public message and so summoned all his powers of eloquent penmanship. 

“[T]he mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favor, few booted and spurred, ready to ride the legitimately, by the grace of God.”
Adams, true to form, kept things blunt in his written message: “Independence forever. Not one word more.”

On July 4, 1826, Jefferson went first. He had been in declining health for days and by July 3, had been fading in and out of consciousness, barely hanging on. Late in the day, he woke to ask his granddaughter, “Is it the fourth yet?” Jefferson understood the symbolic power his death would have if it came on such an auspicious occasion. He had no way of knowing that his revolutionary partner/rival/friend in Quincy, Massachusetts was also on death’s door. Adams had collapsed quite suddenly on the morning of the fourth—apparently a heart attack—deteriorating throughout the day.

Thomas Jefferson, 1821

Jefferson lingered into July 4 and died at 12:50 p.m.—a bust of Adams watching over him from across his study. Adams died at 6:00 that evening, unaware that his old friend had preceded him by just a few hours. He was pleased to think that Jefferson, his junior, would outlast him. “Thomas Jefferson survives,” he said.

The statement had a powerful, dramatic flare, that makes such a perfect, tidy ending to the story. Although not literally accurate, Adams knew, even then, that Jefferson’s optimistic, aspirational vision of American history had triumphed over his own more realistic take on events. Adams hated the romanticized version of the American founding that had sprung up. How ironic that his death and Jefferson’s and the Declaration 50th anniversary all coincided—as romantic a flourish as possible for the end of the Revolutionary Era.

Chris Mackowski is the author of Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution, part of the Emerging Revolutionary War Series from Savas Beatie.

The Anticipation of Late June 1776

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, Adams, John and Abigail, PoliticsLeave a comment

Do you remember those 1970s-era TV commercials for Heinz ketchup? A young boy, with his glass ketchup bottle turned upside down over a hamburger, waits for the ketchup to flow. In the background, Carly Simon sang, “Anticipation”: “It’s making me wait. It’s keeping me way-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yayting.”

Had Carly Simon been alive 250 years ago, I have no doubt her song would have been playing in the background for Thomas Jefferson on June 29, 1776. The day before, June 28, he and his four colleagues on the “Committee of Five” had formally submitted their draft of the Declaration of Independence. Congress accepted the draft, but delegates were not yet ready to take up the document as a piece of business. They would not do so until July 1.

What might those days of limbo have felt like?

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Congress Establishes the Board of War and Ordnance

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, America 250, Continental Congress, Continental Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

The United States Army traces its birthday back to June 14, 1775—the date the Second Congressional Congress voted to adopt the New England army then encircling the British in Boston.

Almost a year later to the day—June 12, 1776—the Congress voted to establish the Board of war and Ordnance, the precursor to today’s Department of Defense.[1] One could therefore make the argument that June 12, 2026, is the 250th birthday of the department. At the very least, one could directly trace the department’s ancestry back that far.

Congress voted to establish the board in response to pressure from Gen. George Washington, who desperately needed help managing the logistics of feeding, clothing, arming, equipping, and otherwise supplying the army. He spent at least as much time begging (in a dignified but humble way) various colonies for support as he did planning and executing military strategy and tactics. Supply worries were never far from his mind. “The reflection upon my Situation, & that of this Army, produces many an uneasy hour when all around me are wrapped in Sleep . . .” he wrote a confidant.[2]

But because everything about the Continental government was voluntary, that meant colonies—soon to be states—did not have to comply with Washington’s requests, let alone any Congressional resolutions. Colonies chronically undershot troop quotas and financial contributions.

Naivety ran high in those heady, early days of the war. Colonies believed militia, rather than a trained professional army, could somehow win the war. Their “patriotic spirit” would be enough to overcome the discipline and experience of the British army and its hired mercenaries. Even members of Congress, tied more regularly to military affairs through Washington’s correspondence, bought into the idea.

“You think the present army assisted by the militia is sufficient to oppose the force of Great Britain, formidable as it appears on paper,” one of Washington’s key confidents, Gen. Nathaniel Greene, told Congress in early June. He assured them they were “greatly deceived.”[3]

The creation of the Board of War did much to make the scales fall from Congressional eyes. It did so by bringing key members of Congress more directly into the management of the war.

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250 Years Ago Today: Drafting the Declaration’s Drafting Committee

On By Chris MackowskiIn Uncategorized1 Comment

“You do it.”

“No, you do it.”

“No, you do it.”

“No. YOU do it. You’re a Virginian, and you write ten times better than me.”

“Okay.”

To read John Adams’s telling of the tale, that’s basically how he, as chair of the drafting committee, drafted Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence.[1] Jefferson’s version, of course, sounds a little different: “[T]hey unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it. . . .”[2]

While we may never know the details of the discussion, we do know that the drafting committee first met 250 years ago today, on June 11, 1776. Along with Adams and Jefferson—representing Massachusetts and Virginia—the committee included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.

Livingston and Sherman tend to end up as footnotes to the story of the committee. Livingston, an ally of John Dickinson, was added to the committee as a concession to those cool, conservative men. Sherman, meanwhile, had a knack for footnote-ism. Aside from serving as an asterisk on the drafting committee, he’s also famous as a trivia answer for being the only person to sign all four Founding documents: the charter of the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution.

Franklin’s presence on the committee surprised no one. As the most famous man in America—and, by extension, in the Congress—his celebrity would provide a useful boost to the committee’s final work. It helped, too, that much of his fame came from his pen, which made him a natural fit for the committee.

Adams had the legal mind and the deepest knowledge of government and politics. He was not slouch as a writer, either. But Jefferson had earned his very place in Congress because of his felicity of expression with a pen. His Summary View of the Rights of British Americans (1774) earned him wide recognition in his native Virginia and appointment to the Second Continental Congress. The ideas he expressed also clearly marked him as a radical aligned with the independence movement. Adams admired Jefferson for being “prompt, frank, explicit and decisive” even if he was also notoriously silent for most of his time in Congress.

Jefferson didn’t want to be in Philadelphia to begin with, and in fact, he absented himself from August 1, 1775 until May 14, 1776, citing his wife’s ill health and obligations at home. When he returned to Congress, he did so only from a begrudging sense of obligation. “I am here in the same uneasy, anxious state in which I was in the fall without Mrs. Jefferson, who could not come with me,” he wrote.[3]

Yet Jefferson and his “masterly Pen,” as Adams called it, returned to Philadelphia just in time to put that pen to use. On the drafting committee. Jefferson really wanted to be putting that pen to use writing the constitution for the state of Virginia. He would even go so far as to draft a Constitution of his own and send it to Williamsburg since he couldn’t be there himself, but the document never received consideration. George Mason would end up leading that effort.

By all accounts, the members of the drafting committee saw the task as a throwaway assignment. When Congress eventually voted in favor of independence on July 2, John Adams thought that would be the day the nation would forever commemorate; no one thought of the first public reading of the Declaration on July 4 as being much more than a formality.

Only later, once the document assumed a position in American myth, did the members begin to attach significance to their participation in the drafting process—ergo the dueling versions Adams and Jefferson recalled in their (much) later years. Adams laid out his version in 1822; Jefferson in 1823.

Jefferson took about two weeks to write the first draft, then showed it to Franklin and Adams, “requesting their corrections; because they were the two members of whose judgments and amendments I wished most to have the benefit before presenting it to the Committee. . . .”[4] (Apparently, this established the practice of treating Livingston and Sherman as footnotes.) Adams and Franklin suggested a few important refinements. For instance, Franklin deftly turned “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” into the subtler but more powerful “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Adams’s handwriting on the original document shows him adding a reference to “their Creator” in an astute instance of knowing his audience. Overall, though, Adams “was delighted with its high tone, and the flights of Oratory with which it abounded,” he later wrote.[5] (Walter Isaacson’s recent The Greatest Sentence Ever Written offers a wonderful exploration of the writing and editing process.)

On June 28, Jefferson would submit his final draft, which Congress would take up for discussion and approval on July 3 (after a painful editing-by-committee process that made Jefferson nearly despondent).

Like all great myths, the details of the committee’s work—from its origins to its final revisions—are brilliantly gauzy enough that we can see what we want to if we squint just right. The real story never quite comes into focus. That’s the frustrating reality for historians but the bewitching charm for everyone else.

And it’s a perfect metaphor for the entire Founding, isn’t it: Adams and Jefferson, both there at the beginning, both explaining a different interpretation of events. Their visions continue to duel today—and if we’re wise, we’ll listen to what both of them have to say.

Chris Mackowski is the author of Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution, part of the Emerging Revolutionary War Series from Savas Beatie.

[1] Adams’s full account can be found here: “From John Adams to Timothy Pickering, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

[2] Jefferson’s account can be found here: “From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 August 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3728. 

[3] “From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Nelson, 16 May 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0153. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 292–293.]

[4] “Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 August 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-03-02-0113. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Retirement Series, vol. 3, 1 March 1823 – 24 February 1826, ed. David B. Mattern, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, and Katherine E. Harbury. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, pp. 114–116.]

[5] “From John Adams to Timothy Pickering, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

The Post Office Disses Sam Adams for America’s 250

On By Chris MackowskiIn America 250, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory1 Comment

“Without the character of Samuel Adams, the true history of the American Revolution can never be written,” John Adams once said of his cousin.

Well, someone better tell the United States Postal Service!

On April 10, the USPS issued a new set of stamps, “Figures of the American Revolution,” as part of its ongoing initiative to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. (See the USPS’s full press release below.) The set features 25 of the most important people related to the American Founding.

Sam Adams, apparently, isn’t one of them.

Never mind Sam’s instrumental role as an organizer in Boston’s Sons of Liberty or his role in managing public opinion. Never mind the Committees of Correspondence he helped organize throughout Massachusetts and across the colonies. Never mind his masterful use of propaganda to implant events like the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party in American imagination—let alone the effective use of those events as tools of protest. Never mind the central leadership role he played at the First Continental Congress. Never mind Boston’s centrality in the start of open hostilities with Great Britain.  

And yet, somehow, Sam didn’t leave enough of a stamp on the American Revolution!

In fairness to the Postal Service, a collection like the Figures of the American Revolution is like a retrospective “greatest hits” collection from a band: decisions have to be made about what gets included and what gets left off.

So, if you were to add Sam Adams to the collection, who’s currently on the sheet that you would remove to make room for him?

The figures appear in alphabetical order. Here’s the full list:

  • Abigail Adams
  • John Adams
  • Agwalongdongwas
  • James Armistead
  • Cornplanter
  • John Dickinson
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Elizabeth Freeman
  • Bernardo de Gálvez
  • Nathanael Greene
  • Alexander Hamilton
  • Lemuel Haynes
  • Patrick Henry
  • John Jay
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Thaddeus Kosciuszko
  • Marquis de Lafayette
  • James Madison
  • Thomas Paine
  • Esther De Berdt Reed
  • Paul Revere
  • Deborah Sampson
  • Baron von Steuben
  • Mercy Otis Warren
  • George Washington

Here’s the USPS’s press release:

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The Greatest Sentence Ever Written?

On By Chris MackowskiIn Book ReviewLeave a comment

Is the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence the greatest sentence ever written?

That’s the contention of historian Walter Isaacson in his slim new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. As a refresher:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“[E]ach of its words and concepts bears scrutiny and appreciation,” Isaacson says, and then goes about in short chapter-length essays to do just that.[1]

Or almost so. His execution doesn’t go off with quite that kind of exactness. For instance, “hold” doesn’t get any particular attention. The verbs is always the most important word in a sentence because it’s the engine that drives the action. One could spend a little time on “hold” and its specific meaning and the perils inherent in it (anything held can be dropped!). Isaacson may or may not have missed opportunities by skipping some of the words that he apparently deemed unimportant.

But where he does parse out parts of the sentence, he shines. He explores the common ground of “We,” what made “truths” “self-evident,” and the restrictiveness behind the seemingly inclusive “all men.” What is “equality” in the context of the rest of the sentence? What did the Founders mean by any of these things?

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Thoughts on “Thoughts on Government”

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, America 250, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Politics, Rev War RevelryLeave a comment

For weeks, colleagues in the Continental Congress had been asking John Adams for advice. If the colonies were to break away from Great Britain and established governments of their own, what should those governments look like?

The first request came from North Carolinians William Hooper and John Penn in late March. The duo had been recalled from Philadelphia so they could join in conversations about a new government for their home state. Before departing, they each asked Adams for his thoughts. Adams “wrote with his own Hand, a Sketch,” and gave copies to both delegates.[1] The ensuing discussions in North Carolina led to the April 12, 1776 passage of the Halifax Resolves, which authorized the colony’s Congressional delegation to vote in favor of independence—the first colony to formally grant such authorization. 

Next came a request from George Wythe of Virginia and then one from John Dickinson Sergeant of New Jersey. Finally, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia asked for a copy.

Adams had already given the topic considerable thought. He had touched on it in early 1775 in a series of newspaper articles that he’d signed “Novanglus,” and during a trip home in late 1775, he had addressed it for the Massachusetts colonial assembly. “The Happiness of the People is the sole End of Government, so the Consent of the People is the only Foundation of it,” he had written.[2] “Happiness,” in Adams’s vocabulary, meant “ease, comfort, security.”[3]

As Adams sketched out his ideas for his colleagues, he took the same approach, and each letter allowed him to develop and refine his ideas even further. By the time he wrote out his thoughts for Wythe, those ideas had become so clear and well articulated that the impressed Lee asked if he could have the letter published. Adams agreed. Using Wythe’s letter as the basis, Lee threw it into shape and “put it under the Types.”[4]

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