Emerging Revolutionary War’s next revelry will turn to the War of 1812, specifically its end. Turning their attention south, the British army focused on capturing the city of New Orleans from American forces led by Andrew Jackson. The long and large campaign culminated with the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. The battle was a great American success and made Jackson a national hero.
Historians Kevin Pawlak, Sean Michael Chick, and George Best will examine the campaign that brought American and British armies to the Crescent City. We look forward to you joining us, at 7 p.m. EDT on our Facebook page for the next historian happy hour.
The Battle Of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. Final Battle Of The War Of 1812, Resulting In Victory For The American Forces Against The British. After A 19Th Century Work. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Kevin Pawlak
On October 15, 1781, British General Charles Cornwallis penned a note to his superior officer General Sir Henry Clinton. Cornwallis told Clinton that American and French forces seized two redoubts, 9 and 10, along the York River the previous night. “My Situation now becomes very critical,” he glumly said. Before his army, entrenched outside of Yorktown, “shall soon be exposed to an Assault in ruined Works,” Cornwallis desperately sought to break the Allied stranglehold slowly bleeding his army. The general turned to Lt. Col. Robert Abercrombie to break the Allied lines anyway he could.
Map of the Allies’ Second Parallel and Abercrombie’s Sortie (from Jerome Greene, The Guns of Independence)
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Kevin Pawlak
New York state has a rich American Revolution history. Battlefields at Saratoga, Oriskany, Fort Ticonderoga, Long Island, and more dot the state’s connection to our nation’s founding. But growing up in the western part of the state, those sites were at least a few hours’ drive.
Recently, I discovered a neat story related to the American Revolution that was in my own home county—Orleans County. It is not a battlefield, though it is about a man who stood on those battlefields with George Washington’s Continental Army. Lemuel Cook, who died at the age of 107, spent the last thirty years of his life in the next town over from my hometown and died there. While he was not the last surviving veteran of the war for America’s independence, he was the last to claim a pension for his service.
Lemuel Cook
Ninety-one years prior to his death in 1866, the sixteen-year-old Connecticut native enlisted with the 2nd Continental Light Dragoons. He saw service with the dragoons at Brandywine and Yorktown.
Cook moved frequently after his service expired until he settled in Clarendon, New York in 1832. Cook’s devotion to the nation he helped create never waned until his dying days. He regularly attended town hall meetings and elections until a few years before his death. Souvenir seekers continually asked for the old veteran’s autograph, which he obliged. In 1861, a photographer captured this national treasure in a photograph.
Unfortunately, even Cook could not defeat Father Time. As he aged, his speech became “very fragmentary,” according to one newspaper. “He recalls the past slowly, and with difficulty, but when he has his mind fixed upon it, all seems to come up clear.” Despite his weariness, Cook’s spunk occasionally showed, “the old determination still manifesting itself in his look and words.” Specifically, during an interview in the midst of the American Civil War, Cook pounded his cane on the floor and proclaimed, “It is terrible, but terrible as it is the rebellion must be put down.” Incredibly, he lived to see the rebellion “put down” and died on May 20, 1866.
Cook’s grave, located in the Cook Cemetery on Munger Road in Clarendon, suffered damage in a windstorm in 2017 but was quickly fixed. In the same year, descendants and local historians unveiled a state historic marker alerting passersby to this unique niche of Revolutionary War history in a place far from the famous battlefields that achieved our nation’s independence.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Kevin Pawlak
Every quest for liberty has its first martyr. Two-hundred and fifty years ago this evening, the cause of American liberty gained its first five when British soldiers fired on a crowd of Bostonians in an event immortalized as the Boston Massacre.
Boston Massacre depiction
The first to fall at the end of the British muskets was Crispus Attucks, a mariner of mixed African and Native American heritage. Bostonians paraded Attucks’ remains alongside the four other victims to a common grave but Attucks’ popularity did not grow until the next century when abolitionists used him as a symbol of patriotism. Abolitionists emphasized and stretched Attucks’ role. To supporters of abolition, Attucks was a household name.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Kevin Pawlak. A short bio follows the post below.
On May 25, 1775, the 62nd Regiment of Foot stood for review. The line of men, clad in their redcoats with buff facings, did not impress the reviewing officer. He called the regiment “very much drafted” and “very indifferent.” Despite the disparaging grade, in just over two years, the 62nd Foot commendably fought in one of the fiercest actions of the War for Independence.
John Anstruther courtesy of 62ndregiment.org
Scottish military man Lt. Col. John Anstruther led the 62nd Foot in the campaign of 1777. Anstruther faced no easy task; the 62nd was the junior British regiment in John Burgoyne’s army and most of its men were inexperienced in campaigning and battle. To make the situation even worse, roughly one-quarter of the 62nd Foot’s soldiers were German. Language barriers likely prevented complete cohesion within the unit. However, with a war on, nothing could be done to rectify the regiment’s defects as it marched south into New York.
Anstruther’s regiment was present for the operations around Fort Ticonderoga in early July 1777. After American forces abandoned the fort, the conglomerate and inexperienced 62nd remained behind to man Mount Independence overlooking Lake Champlain. As the rest of Burgoyne’s army continued campaigning, the men of the 62nd Foot spent time guarding themselves against rattlesnakes rather than the enemy. Their time came to rejoin the main army before the Battle of Saratoga commenced.
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