George Washington, Namesake of our Round Table

Dec 2020

Greetings! I hope you are each well in these strange times.

Our next scheduled meeting will again be on online meeting, on Wednesday, January 6, at 7 p.m. Our speaker will be the distinguished historian Edward Lengel. He will speak on his new book, The Battles of Connecticut Farms and Springfield, 1780 (Small Battles) (Westholme, April 2020). This lecture was rescheduled from November 4, but will still be Ed’s first lecture on this book! If you are interested in attending, please email me. I will then send you the Zoom link to the meeting on the day of the meeting. (If you recall that you previously emailed me about Ed’s presentation, which I postponed from November 4, it is not necessary to email me again; you are on my list).

Here is a write-up on it: By the spring of 1780, American fortunes were at a low point. Charleston, South Carolina, fell to British forces on May 12. At Morristown, New Jersey, George Washington’s army struggled to recover from the worst winter of the entire war. In New York City, German General Wilhelm von Knyphausen sensed opportunity. Commanding there in the absence of British General Henry Clinton, who was on his way back from Charleston, Knyphausen hoped that a quick strike into New Jersey could deliver a staggering blow to Washington’s weakened army. The June 7–8 Battle of Connecticut Farms, however, found American militia and Continentals—mostly soldiers of General William Maxwell’s New Jersey Brigade—to be shockingly stalwart. In a series of sharp engagements, fought hard on both sides, the Americans convinced Knyphausen to turn back. Clinton, fresh from his victory in the South, tried again on June 23 to end the war. His advance into New Jersey, intended to draw Washington into the open and perhaps capture Morristown, culminated in the Battle of Springfield. Once again, though, Washington’s hardened soldiers, led by men like Colonel Israel Angell, Colonel Elias Dayton, and Major “Light Horse Harry” Lee, fought Clinton’s forces to a standstill. The Battles of Connecticut Farms and Springfield, 1780, by distinguished historian Edward G. Lengel, chronicles these two important battles that marked a turning of the tide in the Revolutionary War.

 Liz Maurer on Martha Washington

We had a very fine presentation by Liz Maurer on Martha Washington at our last Zoom meeting on December 2; the meeting was also well attended, and a number of excellent questions were asked. After the presentation, I received several emails asking for Liz’s contact information.

Gary Ecelbarger Article on JAR:

Here is a link to an article by our own Gary Ecelbarger in the online Journal of the American Revolution, “The Feint That Never Happened: Unheralded Turning Point of the Philadelphia Campaign.” Congrats Gary! https://allthingsliberty.com/2020/11/the-feint-that-never-happened-unheralded-turning-point-of-the-philadelphia-campaign/ 

Short Video on the 1619 Project:
 

Tim Duskin brought to my attention a five minute video by a professor criticizing the conclusions in the 1619 Project. It is only five minutes long and so cannot address all sides. While I wish it was a bit more balanced, some good points are made. You can watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the next two sentences: In August of 2019, the New York Times published the 1619 Project. Its goal is to redefine the American experiment as rooted not in liberty, but in slavery. In this video, Wilfred Reilly, associate professor of political science at Kentucky State University, responds to the 1619 Project’s major claims. Watch now.

Guerrilla War at the Jersey Shore: Pine Robber Phenomenon Zoom Meeting

There are many excellent Zoom meetings going on, but I don’t want to be in the business of advertising all of them (though that would be a worthy service). Here is one that I promised I would let you know about:
Dear Fellow Revolutionary War Enthusiast,

The Washington Crossing Revolutionary War Round Table will meet virtually on Saturday, December 19th, from 1:00 to 3:00 PM.
Topic: Guerrilla War at the Jersey Shore: The Pine Robber Phenomenon, led by Joseph Wroblewski
Due to the Coronavirus, we will not meet in person at this time. This meeting will take place on Zoom; please use the meeting link below.
Robert Fanelli is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: Washington Crossing American Revolution Round Table Time: Dec 19, 2020 01:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84031339717?pwd=cHNWdTR4V3JpWGdRR21VSGk0NXQyQT09

Meeting ID: 840 3133 9717 Passcode: 450545

This meeting will be recorded and posted on YouTube. Zoom is simple and easy to use. If you have not used Zoom before, we recommend that you sign up for their free service beforehand, so that you can enter the meeting easily: https://zoom.us/signup

McBurney Recommendation: Ken Burns to Make Documentary on American Revolution . . . with a Catch   

The current time could be described as a golden age for books on the American Revolution. Nathaniel Philbrick did a three-part series of books on the Revolutionary War and is doing another on travel. Rick Atkinson finished this first of three books on the war. Dozens of books on the topic are appearing each year, many very fine efforts. Now legendary documentarian Ken Burns, who vaulted to fame with his multi-part “Civil War” documentary, has announced he is doing a five-part documentary series on the American Revolution.

Here is the summary on Burns’s website:
The American Revolution, our five-part, ten-hour series on America’s founding struggle, will present a true-to-life account of the men and women of the Revolutionary generation, their humanity in victory and defeat, and the crisis that tried their souls. By weaving top-down accounts of “Founding Fathers” and their loyalist and British counterparts with the perspectives of the so-called ordinary people who waged and witnessed war, The American Revolution will be an expansive, unvarnished look at the unassailable virtues and unavoidable contradictions of the fight for independence and the birth of the United States.

Directed and executive produced by Ken Burns, written by Geoffrey C. Ward, and produced by Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt, and Ken Burns, The American Revolution is slated for broadcast on PBS in 2025.

Yes, that is the one catch—you can’t watch it until 2025. That is planning ahead Ken, big time! Excellence takes time. But this is an exciting development.

Burns appeared on the “Finding Your Roots” genealogy show on PBS by Henry Louis Gates, whose team found that Burns had descendants on both sides of the Revolutionary War. He had a Massachusetts relative, Eldad Tupper, who was a Loyalist, served on a British war ship, reached the rank of lieutenant, and moved to British-held Canada (Nova Scotia) at war’s end. Ken claimed that as a true Patriot, he was very embarrassed about that. In any event, he remains an American jewel. (I recall Tupper in some of my research on southeastern Massachusetts. He served as a “pilot” guiding Royal Navy ships through treacherous shoals around Nantucket and may also have pointed out the homes of Patriots for raids).

- Christian McBurney
Author of General Washington’s Nemesis: The Outrageous Treason and Unfair Court Martial of Major General Charles Lee during the Revolutionary War (Savas Beatie, 2020)
and other American Revolutionary War books at www.christianmcburney.com