Nov 2024

Our next meeting is to be a hybrid meeting on Tuesday, November 19. We will be meeting in person at the Mount Vernon Inn at 6 p.m. (social hour) and 6:40 p.m. (dinner). For those who want to attend remotely, the Zoom meeting will start at 7 p.m. or a little later.  If you have not done so already, please let me know by responding to this email if you would like to attend the meeting in-person (which we much prefer) or by Zoom.
 
If you would like to attend, please fill out the attached reservation form and mail it to Richard Rankin.  You can also let Richard or me know if you would like to attend and pay at the door (cash or check to ARRT).  Please indicate if you want meat or salmon for dinner.
 
If you can only attend by Zoom, I will email you a Zoom link to the meeting the day of the meeting.  Feel free to share this email with a friend who or family member whom you think may be interested.
 
Our next speaker will be our own Glenn Williams, who will be speaking on “The Burning of the Brig Peggy Stewart: The Annapolis Tea Party.”  On October 14, 1774, eleven months after the Boston Sons of Liberty protested the Tea Act by dumping  British East India Company tea into Boston harbor on December 13, 1773, Maryland Patriots held their own “tea party.” This lecture describes how Maryland patriot leaders took control of provincial governance in July and eventually convinced Annapolis merchant Anthony Stewart to destroy his own ship, the brig PEGGY STEWART, in Annapolis harbor to prevent landing its cargo of tea. The burning of PEGGY STEWART demonstrated that resistance to British colonial policies was not confined to New England, and had some surprising results. As these events transpired in Annapolis in October, delegates to the First Continental Congress meeting in Philadelphia adopted the Continental Association. Maryland patriots joined the movement for the unified colonial action to resist the British Parliament's unconstitutional laws while seeking redress of the king's American subjects' grievances. At the end of the lecture, participants will learn why and how Patriots took the decisions to burn the ship and tea, as well as the surprising aftermath of the event, as the colonies moved closer to revolution and independence.
 
Glenn F. Williams is a retired Army officer who entered public history as a second career. He recently retired from federal civilian service as a Senior Historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, Fort McNair, DC, where he facilitated staff ride exercises at historic battlefields for military units, developed and posted This Day in Army History features on CMH’s social media platforms, and served as project officer for the Army 250th Birthday and Semiquincenttial of the Revolutionary War commemorations. He is the author or co-author of three monographs in the Campaigns of the Revolutionary War series: Opening Shots in the Colonies 1775-1776, Northern Campaigns 1778-1781, and War on the Revolutionary Frontier 1775-1783, to be released starting in 2024. His other positions at CMH included Historian of the National Museum of the U.S. Army and Historian / Operations Officer of the Army Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commemoration. Glenn also served as Historian of the American Battlefield Protection Program of the National Park Service, Curator / Historian of the USS Constellation Museum, and Assistant Curator of the Baltimore Civil War Museum – President Street Station. Outside of CMH, he is the author of several books, including Year of the Hangman: George Washington’s Campaign Against the Iroquois (Westholme 2005), recipient of the Thomas J. Fleming Award for the Outstanding Revolutionary War Book of 2005 and named among “The 100 Best American Revolution Books of All Time” by the Journal of the American Revolution in the spring 2017 issue. His book Dunmore’s War: The Last Conflict of America’s Colonial Era (Westholme 2017) earned Glenn recognition for contributions to the study of 18th Century American military history with the Shelby Cullom Davis Award of the Ohio Society of Colonial Wars and the Judge Robert K. Woltz Award of the French and Indian War Foundation. In addition, Glenn is the author of several journal and magazine articles, a contributor to Battles of the Revolutionary War and War of 1812: Two Interpretive Maps (National Geographic 2012), and the essay “Let It Begin Here: the battle of Lexington and Concord” in The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution (Regnery History 2020). In retirement he continues to research and author books, present lectures, advise filmmakers, and lead staff rides for military units and tours of battlefields and historic sites for general audiences. He holds a B.S. in History from Loyola University, a M.A. in History and Certificate in Public History from University of Maryland Baltimore County, and a Ph.D. in History from the University of Maryland, College Park.  
 
FYI, this is our last in-person meeting until March 2025.
 
Have a great rest of the week!
 
Christian McBurney
President, George Washington American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia