From Christian McBurney’s Emails to the The George Washington American
Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia
April 2019
Was There a Secret Plot
to Assassinate George Washington?
It is gratifying to see on the nonfiction bestseller lists a
Rev War book, The First Conspiracy: The
Secret Plot to Kill George Washington, by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch
(Flatiron Books, 2019). Of course, Brad
Meltzer, a famous writer, has an amazing marketing machine. There was even a short article in the
Washington Post on it! Bill Clinton
wrote a squib on the back! The book is
unusual, as it has short chapters of about three pages each, but lot of them. I
thought it was well researched and well written. There was breathless tone in
discussing the conspiracy, which was a bit jarring, as were the short chapters,
but that the detail of the ordinary conspirators was very good, and I enjoyed
the detail on William Tryon too. It is an interesting collaboration. The
respected historian Barnet Schechter (author of Battle of New York) and Josh
Mensch did excellent research, while it appears Josh wrote the first draft and
Brad Meltzer put his novelist’s flair on it. I think it works. However, as with
many Rev War books these days about narrow topics, the narrative covers a lot
of ground–in this case from June 1775 to June 1776.
I attended a book lecture by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch at
the great Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, DC. It was taped by
C-SPAN (so you can see it online at its website or Politics and Prose website)
and I asked the first question. Here is how my exchange went with him (not
word-for-word).
Me: How do you know that the plot was to kill Washington and
not to kidnap him? Full disclosure: In your footnotes, you cite my book, Abductions in the American Revolution,
for the proposition that some authors believe the plot was probably a
kidnapping one. I myself admit it is not clear one way or another. But I do
note that the title of your book says “to kill” and that it is marketed as
such.
Brad: It is a good question. We considered the matter
closely. We concede in the book that it is not certain whether the plot was to
assassinate or to kidnap. The original manuscript title was “The Plot Against
Washington”, but our publisher said, “can’t we say to kill?” In our view, the
two were not that different. If he had been kidnapped, he would no longer have
been the commander of the Continental Army. And, as we say in the book, if he
had been captured, as the highest ranking “rebel,” he likely would have been
hanged. So based on that, we were comfortable using “to kill” in the book’s
title.
Me: I will say that in my quick review of the book I found
the discussion of the particular issue (kidnapping plot or assassination plot)
in the text very balanced. And I think it is a good point that he may have been
hanged, and wish I would have thought of it myself.
[End of questions]
I would add that my Abductions book covers more than 30
abductions plots. The Manhattan 1776 plot was the only one that some said
intended an assassination. So given those odds, I concluded kidnapping was more
likely. But who knows?
Another interesting point. My favorite kidnapping attempt in
my Abductions book (and which was a
cover article in a MHQ magazine
edition) was the attempt to kidnap Washington when he was at Morristown in
1780. Lieutenant John Graves Simcoe thought of the idea (he is the same guy on
the TURN cable TV show that is shown to be a nut case, but he was anything
but). I wrote “Simcoe decided he would not kill Washington, but he worried how
he could prevent the death of the American commander-in-chief should he
‘personally resist.”’ The point here is that during a kidnapping attempt,
anything could have happened—maybe Washington would have resisted and he would
have been killed. Anyway, more food for thought.
March and February
2019
Michael J. Crawford’s
U.S. Naval History Book is Free!
The newest member of our Round Table is the respected
historian, Dr. Michael J. Crawford! He
joined the Naval Historical Center in 1982 specifically to work on the book
Naval Documents of the American Revolution.
From 1990 to 2008 he served as head of the Early History Branch. In 2008
the Naval Historical Center became the Naval History and Heritage Command and
Dr. Crawford became Senior Historian, a post he held until his retirement in
2017. During his 35-year tenure with the
Naval History and Heritage Command, Dr. Crawford wrote or co-authored 17 books
including Against All Odds: U.S. Sailors
in the War of 1812 (2004), Naval
Documents of the American Revolution, Volumes 9-12 (1964-2015), The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History
(1985-2002), and The Reestablishment of
the Navy, 1787-1801: Historical Overview and Select Bibliography (1995). He
also wrote or assisted with 60 other items including book reviews, articles and
encyclopedia chapters. He was also the
editor of Autobiography of a Yankee
Mariner: Christopher Prince and the American Revolution (Potomac Books,
2002), one of the best narratives of a sailor on an American privateer.
Michael wrote to me:
Members of the Round Table might be interested in my collection of
essays, Sea Stories: Forays into U.S. Naval History in the Age of Sail,
recently published on the website of the Naval History and Heritage Command at https://www.history.navy.mil/content/dam/nhhc/homepage/December%202018/Sea%20Stories_final-2.pdf Five of the eight essays deal with the War of
Independence. Enjoy!
January 2019
Bonhomme Richard
Discovered?
In the week of November 9, 2018, British satellite
historians announced that they have discovered the true location of an iconic
American revolutionary ship which defeated the Royal Navy off the Yorkshire
coast. The famous vessel, the
Continental ship Bonhomme Richard,
was the first U.S. ship to beat the Royal Navy in British waters before she
sank on September 24, 1779. The location
of the wreck has long been a mystery, but now a British satellite historian
from Harrogate claims to have found it.
Tim Akers, 60, used pioneering satellite radar techniques alongside
British satellite firm Merlin Burrows to track down the buried vessel, he
claimed. It is arguably the most
important wreck in U.S. naval history.
This from the Express
Mail in the UK (full link is below):
Maritime historian Tim Akers, 60, has pioneered satellite
radar techniques. Mr. Akers, along with
business partner CEO Bruce Blackburn, believes they have discovered the precise
location of the wreck. Dives have
recovered timbers which they claim show evidence of the fire. Mr. Akers said: “I had long thought this
wreck was the remains of the Bonhomme
Richard (BHR) but many marked down the site as belonging to the HMS Nautilus, a ship which sank in
1799. After researching the Nautilus and
her loss, I found it could not be her because the description of her loss
differed from this location. “On our
very first dive we knew we had found the BHR. From the finds and identifiable
evidence, combined with the descriptions of the battle and both ships logs, we
are convinced this is indeed the famous ship.”
Previous diving expeditions discovered a wrecked wooden
ship, but it was never confirmed as the Bonhomme. Mr. Akers added: “There are only two wooden
warship wrecks in the bay, one is the HMS Nautilus,
the other is the BHR. “The Nautilus broke up in a storm with no
loss of life and the Royal Navy stripped the wreck of everything. Our wreck is littered with objects which can
be identified in relation to the battle and burning. Our underwater filming
clearly shows the burst guns, multiple artefacts and cannon balls. Ship stern
decoration, ships bells, a figure head of a rampant lion and rigging are also
all visible.”
The Yorkshire Post
reported: “Previously believed to be
some six miles out to sea, explorers now say the site is walkable from the
beach and visible from the cliffs above. . . .
You can walk out on to the wreck from the shore. You can literally go to
the beach and look in the water and see where it is. And you can go on the
cliffs and look down on it and see the shadow’s outline. . . . It’s not where
everyone thought it was going to be. We have made a brand spanking new
determination of where the wreck is actually located.”
A wrinkle to this story is that the U.S. federal government
could claim the wreckage, as it does to any U.S. naval ship discovered as
wreckage anywhere in the world (The British do the same). Back in 1779, of
course, the British government did not recognize the United States.
John Bell, in his excellent Boston 1775 web posts, reported
the claim, but the next day noted that our own Peter Ansoff had left a comment
about similar claims from 2010 that turned out to be weak. Bell wrote, “It looks to me like there are at
least two rival groups of searchers. The Filey Bay Research Group, including
Tony Green and Don Shomette, made the earlier claim. I don’t see any overlap
with the men behind this month’s announcement, Tim Akers and the Merlin Burrows
research firm.” Bell continues, “The Express and Daily Mail reports suggest
the wreckage they’re looking at is the same that has long been identified as
the Nautilus. In other words, this month’s development isn’t a new
archeological find but a new interpretation of an established find. And who
knows? It might be correct. Or might not.”
Stay tuned!
Thanks for Patrick Wamsley for collecting the following
links, which include images of some of the wreckage brought to shore:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1039412/shipwreck-found-usa-yorkshire-uss-bonhomme-richard-john-paul-jones-american-revolutionary
John Bell’s website is at:
http://boston1775.blogspot.com/
After the above alert was released, our own Tim Duskin to
the head of the Underwater Archaeology Branch (UA) of the Naval History and
Heritage Command, which deals with these things. This was his reply.
Good Morning Timothy,
We are aware of this claim and don't give it much credit.
All of our historical evidence indicates a loss 20 miles or more offshore. If
BHR had been lost in shallow water on the coast it would certainly have been
reported in historical records. Over 1500 ships have wrecked off that coast,
but off course when a wooden ship is found it is thought to be the most famous
loss--BHR.
If you would like to discuss in more detail, please come
visit and we can talk. We are in the process of planning a new BHR survey using
a French Navy ship and UA and USN personnel.
Best
Bob
Robert S. Neyland, Ph.D.
Branch Head
Underwater Archaeology Branch
Naval History and Heritage Command
