Category: Uncategorized

George Mason’s Gunston Hall

On By Eric SternerIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Continental Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Personalities, Revolutionary War, Uncategorized2 Comments
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Gunston Hall River Entrance (Author Photo)

Gunston Hall’s River Entrance (Author Photo)

George Washington’s estate on the Potomac River is one of the most-visited places in the greater Washington, DC area, as befits the home of the Father of his Country.  Just twelve miles south (by road), however, sits an equally impressive 18th century plantation home.  Gunston Hall was the estate of George Mason IV (1725-1792).  Best known as one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention who in the end opposed the Constitution’s ratification, Mason doesn’t always get his due in the stories of America’s founding fathers.  But, he was a critical and thoughtful voice in forming the early United States government and enshrining its first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights.  Fortunately, his home is open to the public and easily accessible from the metropolitan Washington area.

Continue reading “George Mason’s Gunston Hall” →

THE AUTHORS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN CONCORD

On By Rob OrrisonIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Civilian, Memory, Personalities, Slavery, Uncategorized1 Comment

In honor of April being National Poetry Month, we share the connection of the literary icons of Concord (MA) and its American Revolution heritage. Concord historian Jayne Gordon wrote about these connections in an appendix in our recent release “A Single Blow.” Below is part of that text.

None of the eighteenth-century Concord authors lived through the American Revolution, yet reminders of that eighteenth-century war abounded in Concord in their lifetimes. Their neighbors were the grandchildren of the minutemen; veterans of the war were still among the townsfolk. Buildings, gravestones, old roads, and other landmarks evoked that part of the past, and they were surrounded by the stories of the fateful day of April 19, 1775. They each drew on their interpretations of the Revolution’s symbolic meaning, and incorporated those ideas into both their private and public writings.

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The “Old Manse” next to the North Bridge in Concord

In the case of RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1803-1882), there was a direct historical link to a grandfather who had played a significant role in the beginnings of the Revolution. Sixty years after colonial militiamen confronted the British troops at the North Bridge within sight of the Old Manse, the grandson of patriot minister Reverend William Emerson would come to his ancestral home to stay, writing in his journal, “Hail to the quiet fields of my fathers! . . . Henceforth I design not to utter any speech, poem, or book that is not entirely & peculiarly my work.” Continue reading “THE AUTHORS AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN CONCORD” →

Chief Cornstalk’s American Revolution (part two)

On By Eric SternerIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Emerging Revolutionary War, Personalities, Uncategorized2 Comments

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Modern Replica of Fort Randolph in Point Pleasant, WV (Wikimedia Commons)

At Fort Randolph, erected on the old Point Pleasant battlefield, Captain Matthew Arbuckle decided to take matters with the Shawnee into his own hands.  He was already suspicious of the Shawnee in general, and Cornstalk in particular.  In 1776, he reported that Cornstalk had traveled to Detroit and was “Treating with the English.”[i]  Of course, this was William Wilson’s attempt to preserve the neutrality of tribes nearer Detroit by inviting them to a pace conference.  Cornstalk had gone on the mission to lend weight to Wilson’s voice with those tribes.  Arbuckle did not know that.  Continue reading “Chief Cornstalk’s American Revolution (part two)” →

Chief Cornstalk’s American Revolution (part one)

On By Eric SternerIn Emerging Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Uncategorized1 Comment

Chief Cornstalk (Wikimedia Commons).jpg

Chief Cornstalk after an 1870 rendering (Wikimedia Commons)

The American Revolution on the frontier was brutal.  Neutrality was difficult position to maintain, but some Native American tribes attempted it.  In the Ohio River Valley, it was particularly challenging.  But, for a time the Shawnee and Delaware tribes in modern-day Ohio sought to navigate their way between British power in Detroit and the Americans in Pittsburgh.  Chief Hokoleskwa, known as Cornstalk among the whites, was a leader of the pro-peace factions of the Shawnee.  Unfortunately, it got him killed. Continue reading “Chief Cornstalk’s American Revolution (part one)” →

Winning the Battles and Losing the War: A Review of Whispers Across the Atlantick: General William Howe and the American Revolution, by David Smith

On By Eric SternerIn Book Review, British Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Personalities, Revolutionary War, Uncategorized2 Comments

General William Howe Color (Wikimedia Commons).jpeg

(William Howe, Wikimedia Commons)

David Smith, Whispers Across the Atlantick: General William Howe and the American Revolution, (NY: Osprey Publishing, 2017).

If it’s true that George Washington lost all his battles, but won the war, then it’s equally true that Sir William Howe won all his battles and lost the war.  Of course, neither premise is accurate, but they pithily sum up the conventional interpretation of each commander’s accomplishments on the battlefield, wrong as they may be.  Washington’s role as Commander-in-Chief has come under increased scrutiny as Americans revisit their history.  His chief adversary, however, Sir William Howe, has largely escaped focused study.  David Smith set out to rectify that shortfall in his doctoral dissertation, which became the basis of Whispers Across the Atlantick.  Historians should thank him for it.  Continue reading “Winning the Battles and Losing the War: A Review of Whispers Across the Atlantick: General William Howe and the American Revolution, by David Smith” →

Hugh Mercer’s Last Companion

On By Mark MaloyIn Uncategorized2 Comments

While walking through the Willis cemetery, located at the top of Marye’s Heights in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I encountered the grave of an American patriot from the Revolutionary War, George Washington Lewis.  Lewis, as it turns out was George Washington’s nephew and played a role in the Trenton-Princeton campaign in 1776 and 1777.

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A relatively modern stone marks the location of George Lewis’ grave in the Willis cemetery on Marye’s Heights. (Author photo)

Continue reading “Hugh Mercer’s Last Companion” →

“Acts of a Rude Rabble…” General Gage, Lord Dartmouth and Ignorant Orders

On By Rob OrrisonIn Battlefields & Historic Places, British Leadership, Monuments, Patriots Day, Politics, Revolutionary War, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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General Thomas Gage

When one studies British General Thomas Gage and his performance leading up to Lexington and Concord you must step back and put yourself in Gage’s position. A man that believed not only in Royal authority over the American colonies, but also in the basic rules of law. Gage was not anti-American by any means.

 

In November 1763, Gage was placed in overall command of British forces in the American colonies and settles in New York. At this time Gage was well respected by most American colonists. Of course, this all changed in 1774 when Gage was sent north to Boston to become the Royal-appointed Governor of Massachusetts and enforce the highly unpopular Port Bill that closed the port of Boston among other harsh actions. He was walking into a situation that most historians today argue was a no-win situation. Continue reading ““Acts of a Rude Rabble…” General Gage, Lord Dartmouth and Ignorant Orders” →

ERW at Patriots Day Weekend 2018!

On By Rob OrrisonIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
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Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, MA

We look forward to our time in Lexington, Concord and Boston on Patriots Day Weekend 2018! We will be at the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington on Sunday, April 15th at 1:30pm. We will also be posting FB live videos throughout the weekend…stay tuned!

 

Meet the Author event

​Sunday April 15th, 1:30 PM
Cary Memorial Library

Historians Phillip Greenwalt and Robert Orrison launch their new book “A Single Blow: The Battles of Lexington and Concord and the Beginning of the American Revolution, April 19, 1775” with a presentation, Q & A, and book signing event. This book, the first in a new Revolutionary War series, uncovers the amazing history that this pivotal spring day ushered in for the fate of Massachusetts and thirteen of Great Britain’s North American colonies. The event is co-sponsored by the Lexington Visitors Center, Cary Memorial Library, and Lexington Historical Society28468420_10155304839444327_325033352871924612_n

Two Riders….Gage Gathers Information

On By Rob OrrisonIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, British Leadership, Campaigns, Civilian, Militia (Patriot) Leadership, Minute Men, Revolutionary War, UncategorizedLeave a comment

As British General Thomas Gage and his American Whig (or Patriot) antagonists squared off in Boston and the surrounding towns, information gathering became the key to success. Both sides had created networks of spies, but the advantage was clearly in favor of the Whigs. During the winter 1774-1775, groups such as the Sons of Liberty had established a complex spy network within Boston comprised of a system of riders that spread information and “alarms’ quickly. The Committee of Safety and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress relied on this network to stay informed of what was going on in Boston and the British intentions. Continue reading “Two Riders….Gage Gathers Information” →

Seeing Jefferson Anew: A Review of Jefferson’s Body: A Corporeal Biography, by Maurizio Valsania

On By Derek MaxfieldIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

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Maurizio Valsania, Jefferson’s Body: A Corporeal Biography

University of Virginia Press, 2017.

265 pages, endnotes, bibliography, index.

 

After reading about Thomas Jefferson for over thirty years, I was beginning to wonder if anything new could be said about the man from Monticello.  That query has been answered in the affirmative by University of Torino, Italy, Professor Maurizio Valsania, who gives us an earthy and unique biography of Jefferson focused on his body.

Valsania’s fascinating work is an interdisciplinary study which borrows from physical and cultural anthropology, anatomy and psychology, which measures Jefferson’s corporality as a way of understanding his life.  Broken into two main parts: the self and the other, the author examines how Jefferson was constructed, biologically, and how he constructed  himself before moving on to consider how the sage of Monticello used these to make sense of the other – most notably Native Americans, African Americans and women.

In Valsania’s book we find a “mild, harmonious, flexible, engaging, maybe also “feminine” [man;]…Jefferson had an unconventional corporeality.”[i]  Described as refined, retiring, soft and mild mannered, Jefferson exhibited a natural simplicity.  But, as Valsania explained, “Jefferson, like many others who sought to perform “simplicity,” relied heavily on the worship of naturalness.  Impossible to hide is the fact that “natural” in the period could simultaneously mean something good and something bad; nature had to be emulated and defeated as the same time.”[ii] Continue reading “Seeing Jefferson Anew: A Review of Jefferson’s Body: A Corporeal Biography, by Maurizio Valsania” →