George Washington, Namesake of our Round Table

Jan 2023

 

Greetings! We are back for a new year. Our next meeting is to be an online Zoom meeting only scheduled for Wednesday, January 18 at 7 p.m.  Please let me (Christian) know if you would like to attend the online Zoom meeting. If you do, I will email you a Zoom link to the meeting the day of the meeting.

Our next speaker will be Mark Edward Lender, who will be speaking on his latest book, Fort Ticonderoga, The Last Campaigns, The War in the North, 1777-1783 (Westholme, 2022). During the War for Independence, Fort Ticonderoga’s guns, sited critically between Lakes Champlain and George, dominated north-south communications in upstate New York that were vital to both the British and American war efforts. In the public mind Ticonderoga was the “American Gibraltar” or the “Key to the Continent,” and patriots considered holding the fort essential to the success of the Revolutionary cause. Ticonderoga was a primary target in British Lieutenant General John Burgoyne’s 1777 campaign to crush American resistance in the north and end the rebellion in a decisive stroke. American efforts to defend the fort in June against overwhelming odds entailed political and military intrigue, bungling, heroism, and ultimately a narrow escape for the Continental and provincial forces under Major General Arthur St. Clair. The loss of Ticonderoga stunned patriot morale and ignited one of the greatest political firestorms of the war. But the fortunes of war turned. Two months later, the rebels mounted a sensational—if little known—counter-attack on Ticonderoga that had major implications for Burgoyne’s eventual defeat at Saratoga in October. Yet Saratoga brought no peace, and Ticonderoga would be central to additional military and political maneuverings—many of them known only to specialist historians—that would keep the region on edge until the end of the war in 1783. 

Mark Edward Lender, Professor Emeritus of History at Kean University, is the author or co-author of twelve books and many articles on early American military, social, and institutional history, including Cabal! The Plot Against George Washington, Fatal Sunday: George Washington, The Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle, with Garry Wheeler Stone, and A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763–1789, with James Kirby Martin. He lives in Richmond, Virginia.

I have three announcements.

First, I learned that Claire Wamsley recently passed away. She frequently attended our meetings for a number of years, usually with her son, Patrick Wamsley. She will be missed.  On behalf of the George Washington American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia, I extend our condolences to Patrick for his loss.

Second, I learned that Ellen Clark will be retiring at the end of January as the longtime library director at the Society of the Cincinnati headquarters at Anderson House in Washington, D.C. She has developed the library at the Society into what I believe is the best and most complete special collection on the American Revolution in the world. She has also led the Society in increasing its collection of original manuscripts. Thank you Ellen and best of luck!

Third, the schedule for the 10th Annual Conference of the America Revolution has been released. The Conference is from Friday, March 17 to Sunday, March 19, 2023, to be held at Williamsburg.

G. Lengel—Head of Faculty – Chief Historian, National Medal of Honor Museum

Maj. Gen. Jason Bohm, USMC – “George Washington’s Marines: The Origin of the Corps and the American Revolution”

John “Jack” Buchanan – “Picked Men, Well Mounted’: The Battle of Musgrove’s Mill, 1780”

Benjamin Carp – “’Many Circumstances Lead to Conjecture That Mr. Washington Was Privy to This Villainous Act’: George Washington and the Great New York City Fire of 1776”

Kaitlin Fergeson—Emerging Scholar – “Thompson’s Black Dragoons – A Study in Loyalist Cavalry in the American Revolution”

Kylie Hulbert – “America’s Revolutionary War Privateers: The Untold War at Sea”

Cole Jones – “Captives of Liberty: British, German and Loyalist Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance”

Mark Lender – “Fighting for the Key to the Continent: Fort Ticonderoga, 1777”  

Margaret Sankey – “Oh the Things They Said: The Yorke Family’s Opinions of British Generals”

Eric Schnitzer – “In Memoriam: Rediscovering the Stories of Americans Who Died in the Battles of Saratoga”

David O. Stewart – “The Real Miracle at Valley Forge: George Washington’s Political Mastery.

To register for the conference, click on this link:  10th Annual Conference of the American Revolution – March 17-19, 2023 (americashistoryllc.com)

Best,

Christian McBurney

Author of Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade: McBurney, Christian M.: 9781594163821: Amazon.com: Books