Bracketing the Month

I see that the last post was on the first day of October. Today is the last day of October, so we'll have neatly bracketed the month. Hey, it's getting done, right? At the end of the year we'll be better informed than we were in the beginning. Hurray for setting goals!

So. Just to recap. Boston has fallen and the British fled. The Continental Army got some sweet spoils from the deal: much of what they need, except for arms and gunpowder. I find it somewhat amazing that they were so very short on that stuff. I mean, I knew that Valley Forge was bad; I'd heard that they were short on gunpowder. I had No.Idea.Whatsoever that when they said they were short on these supplies it meant that Washington had so little to work with that he had to conceal their lack from even his own officers! Wow. That's a shortage.

So, on to chapter 4, right? Right.

Washington sounds a little bit like a dandy again, escorted by two regiments with instruction that none should turn out "except those dressed in uniforms," all "washed, both face and hands clean, their beards shaved, their hair combed and powdered." (Page 116) I suppose though, that this is still pretty much the same. Those who get to be escort to the important folks dress their best and are often also selected from the ranks of the best soldiers. Still, it seems odd to read the descriptions.

Spirits are high as the army moves with all possible speed to New York. There is a certain amount of overconfidence:

---

No one knew how many British there might be, yet few let that bother them. And enthusiastic new recruit from the Connecticut ranks, a farm boy named Joseph Plumb Martin, would recall, "I never spent a thought about numbers. The Americans were invincible in my opinion." As another soldier remembered, there was scarcely a militia man who did not think himself equal to two or three of the British. (Page 117)

---

I think it was the year that Grandpa died, so around Thanksgiving when I was in 4th grade... uh, 1988. I had just learned to play chess, and played our cousin David, who was only a year or two older than me, though I remember him being "much older." I beat him soundly. This puzzled me, because I regularly lost to my Dad and knew that I wasn't that good of a player. So I asked Dad why it was that I won. Dad said it was because David was overconfident, so he wasn't careful; he made foolish mistakes. I rather suspect that there is some of that going on with both the British and the Colonists at this point in the war. The British don't take the Colonists seriously, so they get beaten soundly and driven out of their cozy spot in Boston. The Colonists read too much into their victory and are all sorts of cocky as they head for New York. Reading about this, it seems clear that John Adams knew this war was going to drag out. Likely others did too, but in general both sides seem to think they can lick the other at their leisure and no big deal. This causes some tactical errors on both sides of the fight.

It also places the Continental Army at an even greater disadvantage than they were already:

---

New York was not at all like Boston, geographically, strategically, and in other ways. At Boston, Washington had known exactly where the enemy was, and who they were, and what was needed to contain them. At Boston the British had been largely at his mercy, and especially once winter set in. Here, with their overwhelming naval might and absolute control of the waters, they could strike at will and from almost any direction. The time and place of battle would be entirely their choice, and this was the worry overriding all others. (Page 117)

---

---

At Boston, where the comparatively few Loyalists of Massachusetts had either fled the country or were bottled up with the British, there had never been a serious threat from "internal foes" ... In New York the atmosphere was entirely different. The city remained divided and tense. Loyalist, or Tory, sentiment, while less conspicuous than it had been, was widespread... two-thirds of the property in New York belonged to Tories. (Page 118)

---

---

At Boston, washington had benefited greatly from a steady supply of valuable intelligence coming out of the besieged town, while Howe had known little or nothing of Washington's strengths or intentions. Here, with so much of the population still loyal to the king, the situation was the reverse. (Page 119)

---

This situation called for careful, cautious strategy in much the same way my chess game with an older cousin did. It looks like some of the leadership appreciated this, but the whole army? Not so much.

Dorchester Heights (Part 1)

Where Are We?



The first thing I did when I was looking at this chapter was try to figure out where they were talking about. I was surprised at how tricky that was! Of course, then I got distracted, and when I came back I googled again and it came right up this time. Go fig. Anyway, here's this map of Boston from 1775. And here's the map of present-day Boston. You'll have to zoom in about 3 times, plus recenter the map a bit in order to get the scale to be more or less the same. The countryside that the army was camped in is now part of the city. Dorchester Heights is now just another historic neighborhood in Boston, rather than a separate entity. My the difference a few hundred years can make! But it's nice to know where we are talking about.


View Larger Map

Englishmen

There is a striking difference between the relationship between England and the colonies then, and the relationship of England and America now. On page 77 McCullough talks about the men that England sent to command the troops sent to put down the rebellion.

---

Clinton, Howe's second-in-command, was the least impressive in appearance, a short, fat, colorless man who could be shy and petulant. But he had a keen military mind and the advantage of knowing Americans from boyhood. He had grown up in New York, where his father, Admiral George Clinton, served as governor from 1741 to 1751.

---

Quite a few of them had served in the French and Indian War, some owned land in "the Americas," and relations seem to be generally cozier then than they are now. This is, of course, to be expected. England was the seat of the colonies' government, the parent state, the people's homeland. But somehow I'd grown up with the impression that you were either in England or you were in America. (Think of Ever After, with it's "You are forthwith stripped of your titles and sentenced to be shipped to the Americas..." like so much baggage. And certainly not a round trip!) The book makes it sound like there was much more moving back and forth, at least among the well-connected and well-to-do, than I had previously been aware of. More like the way the various stories (and here I'm thinking Secret Garden) talk about English officers and their families going to India, but then coming back for school and marriage and whatever. England, the place, remained an important part of an Englishman's life, even if he did happen to be living in the colonies. It makes the Loyalists' position make more sense. Not that I agree, just that it makes more sense. They were Englishmen. Really, truly. It wasn't until they felt King George betrayed them that the colonists fought for independency. And even then, not all of them agreed; some remained loyal to the crown.


Fort Ticonderoga


Fort Ticonderoga was a fort built on a narrow section of Lake Champlaign in New York. It had been strategically important in previous conflicts between Britain and France, and now was the starting point of some very heroic action in the Revolutionary War. Originally it had been a French fort, but had been captured by the British in the French and Indian War. Americans then held it from shortly after the Battle of Lexington and Concord until 1777, including the time we are considering in our book, though at this time it was in some disrepair. The cannon and other armaments were transported to Boston by Henry Knox, in a move that proved decisive in ending the seige of Boston in the Americans' favor.

I was really impressed with Knox's achievement! Knox was not what you think of when you picture a military hero:

---

Colonel Henry Knox was hard not to notice. Six feet tall, he bulked large, weighing perhaps 250 pounds. He had a booming voice. He was gregarious, jovial, quick of mind, highly energetic - "very fat, but very active" - and all of twenty five. ... To further complicate life, Knox had taken up the patriot cause and fallen in love with the daughter of a prominent Tory. ... In the tense days following the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord, the young couple packed up what little they could carry and slipped out of Boston in disguise.

It was Henry Knox who first suggested the idea of going after the cannon at far-off Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, an undertaking so enormous, so fraught with certain difficulties, that many thought it impossible. ... When Knox told Washington he was confident the guns could be retrieved and hauled overland to Boston, Washington agreed at once, and put the young officer in charge of the expedition. (Page58-59)

---

So off Henry goes, taking his younger brother William with him and sending a letter to his wife with the encouraging news that he should not be facing any fighting on this assignment. But fighting is not the only difficulty to be considered in war time!

First, there's winter. They start this little trip in mid-November. Brrrr! Then, there's distance. On present-day highways the most direct route is 223 miles and 4 hours. But they didn't have highways and they did have snow, thaws, freezes, and more snow, boats, forty-two sleds, eighty yoke of oxen, and a need for stealth and speed. The book says the distance they actually covered was nearly 300 miles. What an undertaking! Here we see one of the advantages of the American army's willingness - necessity for - doing things unorthodoxly. In the English army a junior officer, of low birth and so young, would likely not have been able to get his scheme approved. Knox, however, was in the American army which was not in a position to be choosy about where their talent came from or looked like, so long as it was loyal. So he went. And his cannon were the decisive point which broke the stalemate at Boston.

To Be Continued...

Siege at Boston

I found this chapter a bit harder to get into, but I think I've finally made it.

There's a siege at Boston. George Washington was there, trying to whip the soldier into shape so they would not only be a useful fighting force, but also they'd stop getting so sick. Sounds like conditions were terrible in part because folks weren't being at all careful about where they went to the bathroom. Gross. Already folks are dieing, in large part because they are not keeping clean, as mostly they have enough food still at this point.

I think that the most interesting bit from the whole chapter was how King George, by saying the colonies were in rebellion, convinced them - the colonists - of that fact. Prior to that point, even General Washington himself was hoping for reconciliation and a quick end to the conflict. This was news to me, and I find it amazing. Take home lesson from this seems to be: watch what you say! It's still 7 years from the point that Britain recognizes America's independence, but that speech proved to be a turning point in that news of it caused the Americans to make up their minds, en masse.