“Remember the Ladies”

On March 11, 2015 By Phill GreenwaltIn Revolutionary War2 Comments

March is Women’s History Month, a time to reflect on the many contributions women have contributed in our country. At George Washington Birthplace National Monument, our social media policy for the month has been to highlight important women to the history of the National Park Service and/or to George Washington’s life.

By writing the history text and developing what images to use for these posts, I thought I would take this example and expand it to include two other women that played integral parts in the American Revolutionary movement.

Abigail Adams and Mercy Otis Warren. Continue reading ““Remember the Ladies”” →

George Washington Remembers

On February 18, 2015 By Phill GreenwaltIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, Campaigns, Revolutionary War2 Comments

Today, we are pleased to welcome guest author Bert Dunkerly.

General George Washington looks back at us from marble statues or stiff paintings with a grim-faced and determined look. Known for his dignity, resolve, and sound leadership, he seems cold and reserved. Yet he was also quite sentimental. In the midst of a campaign, with a massive British invasion force set to descend on him at New York City in July, 1776, Washington paused to pen these words: “I did not let the Anniversary of the 3rd or 9th of this Inst pas[s] of[f] without a grateful remembrance of the escape we had at the Meadows and on the Banks of the Monogahela. [T]he same Providence that protected us upon those occasions will, I hope, continue his Mercies, and make us happy instruments in restoring Peace & liberty to this once favour’d, but now distressed Country”.

Continue reading “George Washington Remembers” →

Revolutionary Memory

On February 11, 2015 By Phill GreenwaltIn Armies, Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, Campaigns, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

Today, we are pleased to welcome guest authors Drew and Kate Gruber.

Fort Moultrie, Charleston Harbor by A. Vizitelly c.1861. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

“There appears to be a romantic desire urging the South Carolinians to have possession of this work, which was so nobly defended by their ancestors in 1776…” wrote Major Robert Anderson from Fort Moultrie on November 28, 1860, less than five months before the first shots of the American Civil War. Many historians of American history have looked upon the Civil War as a continuation of the American Revolution. Looking back today, the similarities are not hard to see. According to historian Peter S. Carmichael, confederates “proclaimed their nation to be the keeper of America’s revolutionary heritage.”[1] Similarly, James McPherson notes that “Union volunteers invoked the legacy of the Founding Fathers…if disunion destroyed this nation, the generation of 1861 would prove unworthy of the heritage of republican liberty.”[2] This idea was not lost on Civil War soldiers, and their own connection to the ideals of the American Revolution grew even stronger when their marches and battles brought them close to, and even directly on, the landscapes and landmarks sacred to the memory of the American Revolution—soldiers were quick to identify the cause of the Revolution as their own. As soldiers converged on Mount Vernon, Williamsburg, and Yorktown, the connections they made to the revolutionary past of these locations strengthened their own resolve.

Continue reading “Revolutionary Memory” →

Committees of Correspondence = 18th Century Social Media?

On February 4, 2015 By Phill GreenwaltIn Emerging Civil War, Revolutionary War3 Comments

Information. Communication. Solidarity. Linkage. Friendship. Point-of-view. Identity. Current Events.

These words describe reasons in the 20th century why people joined and continue to join social media platforms, especially Facebook.

Approximately 240 years before Facebook was launched in February 2004, the first major attempt at achieving all the proponents above was the job function of the various Committees of Correspondence established in the thirteen American Colonies. Continue reading “Committees of Correspondence = 18th Century Social Media?” →

Announcing Revolutionary War Wednesdays!

On January 28, 2015 By Phill GreenwaltIn Emerging Civil War, Revolutionary War3 Comments

The Battle of Breed's Hill — The Battle of Breed’s Hill

History can resemble the peeling of an onion. There are multiple layers, each one resting on top of each other and, when peeled back, can provoke an emotion—anger, happiness, empathy, or a score of others. Like an onion, that can often provoke tears.
ECW’s Phillip Greenwalt offers an example. “On a recent trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—a place steeped in American Civil War history—I stumbled upon some early 20th century history in a place I would have never expected,” he says. “A short distance down the Emmitsburg Pike from the spot where Major General George Pickett’s Confederate division charged across on its way to Cemetery Ridge, I stood reading about Camp Colt, a military installation used for tank training prior to deployment of tank corps soldiers in World War I.”

And, of course, President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s post-presidential farm sits just a mile or so to the southwest of that same spot.

Just as there are multiple layers of history at Gettysburg, Emerging Civil War is about to embark on another onion-peeling adventure. After much thought and discussion, we are excited to announce the launch of “Revolutionary War Wednesdays.”

Continue reading “Announcing Revolutionary War Wednesdays!” →

Emerging Revolutionary War Era

Author: Phill Greenwalt