A Leap in the Dark by John Ferling

A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic by John Ferling.
Oxford University Press, 2003
488 pages, plus abbreviations, Notes, and Index. A handful of illustrations scattered throughout the book.
Library: 973.3 FER

Description
In A Leap in the Dark, John Ferling offers ...(library put a barcode over it!) from the first rumblings of colonial protest to the volcanic election of 1800, Ferling's swift-moving narrative teems with fascinating details. We see Benjamin Franklin trying to decide if his loyalty was to Great Britain or to America, we meet GEorge WAshington when he was a shrewd planter-businessman who discovered personal economic advantages in American iddependence. Here, too, is all the erratic brilliance of Hamilton and Jefferson battling to shape the new ntion. John Ferling has shown himself to be an insightful historian of our Revolution, and an unusually skilful writer. A Leap in the Dark is his masterpiece, a work that provokes, enlightens and entertains in full measure.

Table of Contents
List of illustrations and maps
Preface
1. 1754-1763: "Join or Die"
2. 1763-1766: "A loss of respect and affection"
3. 1766-1770: "To crush the spirit of the colonies"
4. 1770-1774: "The Cause of Boston is now the cause of America"
5. 1775 - 1777: "To Die Freemen Rather than to live slaves"
6. 1776-1777: "A leap in the dark"
7. 1778-1782: "This wilderness of darkness and dangers"
8. 1783-1787: "The present paroxysm of our affairs"
9. 1787-1789: "So much unanimity and good will"
10. 1790-1793: "Prosperous at home, respectable abroad"
11. 1793-1796: "A colossus to the Anti-Republican Party"
12. 1797-1801: "The gigg is up"
14. 1801: "An age of revolution and reformation"
Abbreviations
Notes
Index

American Scripture, by Pauline Maier

American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence, by Pauline Maier
Alfred A Knopf, 1997
215 pages plus appendices, notes to pages, acknowledgments and index. No illustrations
Library: 973.3 MAO


Description

From one of today's foremost authorities on the era of the American Revolution, the most important book on the Declaration of Independence since Carl Becker's classic study published seventy-five years ago.

Pauline Maier sows us the Declaration as both the defining statement of our national identity and the moral standard by which we live as a nation. Ot is truly "American Scripture" and Maier tells us how it came to be-from the Declaration's birth in the hard and tortuous struggle by which Americans arrived at Independence to the ways in which, in the nineteenth century, the document itself became sanctified.

Maier describes the transformation of the Second Continental Congress into a national government, unlike anything that preceded or followed it, and with more authority than the colonists would have conceded to the British Parliament; the great difficulty in making the decision for independence, the influence of Paine's Common Sense,which shifted the terms of debate, and the political maneuvers that allowed Congress to make the momentous decision.

In Maier's hands, the Declaration of Independence is brought close to us. She lets us hear the voice of the people as revealed in the other "declarations" of 1776: the local resolutions - most of which have gone unnoticed over the past two centuries-that explained, advocated, and justified Independence and undergirded Congress' work. Detective-like, she discloses the origins of key ideas and phrases in the Declaration and unravels the complex story of its drafting and of the group-editing job which angered Thomas Jefferson.

Maier also reveals what happened to the Declaration after the signing and celebration: how it was largely forgotten and then revived to buttress political arguments of the nineteenth century and most important, how Abraham Lincoln ensured its persistence as a living force in American society.

Finally, she shows how by the very act of venerating the Declaration as we fo-by holding it as sacrosanct;akin to Holy Writ-we may actually be betraying its purpose and its power.

Table of Contents
Introduction: Gathering at the Shrine
Chapter I: Independence
1. Congress
2. Idependence?
3. Common Sense
4. A Republic?
5. Decision
Chapter 2: The "Other" Declarations of Idndependence
1. In English Ways
2. Mobilizing the People
3. Declaring Independence
4.Founding a Republic
Chapter 3: Mr Jefferson and his Editors
1. The Drafting Committee
2. Jefferson's Draft: the Charges against the King
3. Jefferson's Draft: A Revolutionary manifesto
4. Congress's Declaration
Chapter 4: American Scripture
1. Spreading the News
2. An All-but-Forgotten Testament
3. A Partisan Document
4. Sacred Text
5. Equality and Rights
Epilogue: Reflecting at the Memrials
Appendixes:
A: State and local declarations of independence, A log: April-July 1776
B. Local resolutions on independence: some examples
c. The Declaration of Independence: The Jefferson draft with Congress' Editorial Changes
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

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A book is added every Monday and Thursday. On other days, news reports, if any, regarding any aspect of the war will be shared.

Mass. archives retrieves Revolutionary War letter

Wall Street Journal: Mass. archives retrieves Revolutionary War letter
BOSTON — A 1775 letter announcing the victory at Fort Ticonderoga was spotted in an auction catalog and returned to the Massachusetts state archives six decades after it disappeared.

State archivists spotted the letter from Joseph Warren in a Sotheby's catalog of Revolutionary War manuscripts, and the state negotiated its return, Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said.

At the time he wrote it, Warren was a doctor and president of the Provincial Congress that sat in Watertown, Mass.

In the letter, he wrote that he had just learned that Col. Benedict Arnold, along with Ethan Allen, had captured Fort Ticonderoga, N.Y., and forts at Crown Point and St. John's in the Lake Champlain area, which reduced the threat of British attack from Canada.

In a postscript, Warren asks that his letter be shared with Gen. Henry Knox.

Three weeks after writing the letter, Warren joined the provincial army and was killed in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The following winter, Knox would transport the Ticonderoga cannons across Massachusetts and install them on Boston's Dorchester Heights to pressure the British to depart from Boston on March 17, 1776.

Galvin said he was glad to have the letter back in the public archive.

"This letter is a contemporary account of a key struggle in the Revolution as it affected Massachusetts written by a Revolutionary War hero," he said.

Library receives book on Revolutionary War

DaltonNow.com (Georgia): Library receives book on Revolutionary War
Recently, Vice Regent Dr. Dorothy T. Weathersby and Regent Virgelia Meek of the Robert Loughridge chapter of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR), presented a copy of “Revolutionary War Patriots” to Joe Forsee, director of the Northwest Georgia Regional Library. The book will be maintained in the Local History and Genealogy Room of the library in Dalton.

Revolutionary War Patriots contains 43 short biographies of patriots whose descendants currently live in and around Whitfield and Murray counties.

Members of the chapter submitted these short biographies that detail the lives and contributions made by citizen-soldiers during the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783). Compiled and edited by Weathersby, these stories show the variety of contributions made by these patriots to the American cause. Some of these men provided military service in the Continental Army or local militia. Others served in local or state government offices, while others served as members of legislative bodies, signed declarations, or provided supplies and services to the Continental forces.

Appendices in the book include patriots’ contributions to the war, writers of the patriot biographies and overviews of both the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Gov. John Milledge chapter and National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution Robert Loughridge chapter.

The Robert Loughridge chapter is currently selling these books. Anyone interested in purchasing a copy should contact Bitsy McFarland at (706) 278-5277.

George Washington and Benedict Arnold, by Dave R. Palmer

George Washington and Benedict Arnold: A Tale of Two Patriots, by Dave R. Palmer
Regnery Publishing, 2006
396 pages plus Suggested Reading, Maps, List of Illustrations (paintings and engravings), Acknowledgments and Index, and 10 pages of color photos of paintings


Description
In this enthralling new dual biography, one of the very few to deal with Benedict Arnold-military historian and former superintendent of West Point Dave R. Palmer shows how and why George Washington became the father of our country while Benedict Arnold became a man without a country.

It was a surprising turn of events. No man was more ardent for the patriot cause and more recklessly brave on the battlefield than Benedict Arnold. After the first three years of the Revolutionary War, every patriot recognized as our two greatest warriors George Washington, commander of the Continental Army, and twice battle-wounded Benedict Arnold, captor of Fort Ticonderoga, invader of Canada, and victor at the Battle of Saratoga.

Washington and Arnold admired each other. Washington saw Arnold as a true fighting soldier whose merits were unjustly neglected by his superiors and the Continental Congress. Arnold respected Washington as a worthy commander in chief. They even shared enemies-both men were subject to jealous conspiracies against them from plotting generals and petty politicians (including, in Washiington's case, John Adams.)

But while Washington rose above his enemies, Arnold became embittered by them. With a character less stoic than Washington's, in pain from his battlefield wounds, and with slow twists of mind, heart, character, and decision, Arnold, in charge of Fortress West Point, finally committed himself to betraying the cause that he had previously served so well.

In dramatic fashion, George Washington and Benedict Arnold: A Tale of Two Patriots, unveils a chapter of American history that rivals any novel or film for action, intrigue and romance. It is a story that few Americans know, but that every American should.

Contents
1. Philadelphia
2. Family
3. Childhood
4. Self-made men
5. Radicals
6. War Clouds
7. To War
8. Taking the Offensive
9. Winning Indepence
10. Defending the United States, 1776
11. "Like Apes for Nuts"
12. Defending the United States. 1777
13. Arnold Crippled
14. Washington Challenged
15. Different Roads
16. Stillness Before the Storm
17. The Black Year
18. On the Edge
19. Setting the Stage
20. "Arnold Has Betrayed Us!"
21. "Erase from the Register"
22. New London and Yorktown
23. Legacy
24. Character
Suggested Rwadings
Maps
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Index

New Daughters of the American Revolution

PostStarNews: New Daughters of the American Revolution
The Wiltwyck Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution welcomed six new members during their annual George Washington Tea in Kingston. The new members are Sally Hrbek of Florida, her daughter Jennifer Gallagher of Olive Bridge, Kathryn Parker of Hurley, Nancy Chando of Hurley, and Selina Guendel of Boiceville.
Another new member, Jean Gardeski from New Jersey, could not attend due to road conditions. We are happy to welcome them all

Who are the Daughters of the Revolution
The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) is a lineage-based membership organization of women[1] DAR has chapters in all fifty of the U.S. states as well as in the District of Columbia. There are also DAR chapters in Australia, Austria, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom. DAR's motto is "God, Home, and Country." Some state chapters of DAR date from as early as October 11, 1890, and the National Society of DAR was incorporated by Congressional charter in 1896.

Eligibility
The National Society of DAR is the final arbiter of the acceptability of all applications for membership. Membership in DAR is open to women who can prove lineal bloodline descent from an ancestor who aided in achieving United States independence. Acceptable ancestors include various related categories of known historical figures, including:

Signers of the United States Declaration of Independence;
Military veterans of the American Revolutionary War, including State navies and militias, local militias, privateers, and French or Spanish soldiers and sailors who fought in the American theater of war;
Civil servants of provisional or State governments;
Continental Congress and State conventions and assemblies;

Signers of Oaths of Allegiance or Oath of Fidelity and Support;
Participants in the Boston Tea Party;
Prisoners of war, refugees, and defenders of fortresses and frontiers; doctors and nurses who aided Revolutionary casualties; and ministers, petitioners;
Others who gave material or patriotic support to the Revolutionary cause.

The DAR does not discriminate on race or religion [any more]. Women with a provable blood line to revolutionary ancestors are eligible for membership.

Educational outreach
DAR schools
The DAR gives over $1 million annually to support six schools that provide for a variety of very special needs. Supported schools include:

Kate Duncan Smith DAR School, Grant, Alabama
Tamassee DAR School, Tamassee, South Carolina
Crossnore School, Crossnore, North Carolina
Hillside School, Marlborough, Massachusetts
Hindman Settlement School, Hindman, Kentucky
Berry College, Mount Berry, Georgia

In addition, the DAR provides $70,000 to $100,000 in scholarships and funds to American Indian youth at Chemawa Indian School, Salem, Oregon; Bacone College, Muskogee, Oklahoma; and the Indian Youth of America Summer Camp Program.

American History Essay Contest
Each year, the DAR conducts a national American history essay contest among students in grades 5 through 8. A topic is selected for use during the academic year, and essays are judged "for historical accuracy, adherence to topic, organization of materials, interest, originality, spelling, grammar, punctuation, and neatness." The contest is conducted locally by the DAR chapters, and chapter winners are judged regionally and nationally, with national winners receiving a monetary award.

Scholarships
The DAR awards $150,000 per year in scholarships to high school graduate, music, law, nursing, and medical school students. Only two of the 20 scholarships offered are restricted to DAR members or their descendants.

Literacy promotion
In 1989, the DAR established the NSDAR Literacy Promotion Committee, which coordinates the efforts of DAR volunteers to promote child and adult literacy. Volunteers teach English, tutor reading, prepare students for GED examinations, raise funds for literacy programs, and participate in many other ways.

Marian Anderson Opera Performance
Although the DAR now forbids discrimination in membership based on race or creed, some members held segregationist views when segregation was still public policy in much of the United States. In 1932, Washington, D.C. was a segregated southern city. The DAR adopted a rule excluding African-American artists from the stage at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., built in 1929 by the DAR, following protests over "mixed seating"—blacks and whites seated together at concerts of black artists(the District of Columbia retained official segregation until after World War II). In 1936, Sol Hurok, manager of African-American contralto Marian Anderson since 1935, attempted to book Anderson at Constitution Hall. Owing to the "white performers only" policy, the booking was refused. Instead, Anderson performed at a Washington area black high school, and was also invited by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to perform for her and President Roosevelt. During this time, Anderson came under considerable pressure from the NAACP not to perform for segregated audiences.

In 1939, Hurok, along with the NAACP and Howard University, petitioned the DAR to make an exception to the "white performers only" policy for a new booking, which was declined by the DAR. Hurok attempted to find a local high school for the performance, but the only suitable venue was an auditorium at a white high school. The school board, which was indirectly under the authority of the DAR President, refused to allow Anderson to perform there. Eleanor Roosevelt immediately resigned her membership of the DAR.

The DAR later apologized and welcomed Anderson to Constitution Hall on a number of occasions after 1939, including a benefit concert for war relief in 1942. However, they did not officially reverse their "whites only" policy until 1952. Anderson chose Constitution Hall as the place where she would launch her farewell American tour in 1964. On January 27, 2005, the DAR co-hosted the first day of issue dedication ceremony of the Marian Anderson commemorative stamp with the U.S. Postal Service and Anderson's family.

First Known African American Member of DAR
In October, 1977, Karen Batchelor Farmer (now Karen Batchelor) of Detroit, Michigan was admitted as the first known African American member of DAR. Batchelor started her genealogical research in 1976 as a young mother who wanted to commemorate the American bicentennial year in a way that had special meaning for her family. Within 26 months, she had traced her family history back to the American Revolution - a completely unexpected result.

Batchelor traced her ancestry to a patriot, William Hood, who served in the colonial militia in Pennsylvania during the Revolution. Hood was under the command of Captain Hawkins Boone who valiantly rushed his unit to the relief of embattled colonists at Fort Freeland on July 21, 1779 after they were attacked by hundreds of Indians and British soldiers.[14] One hundred and eight settlers were killed or taken prisoner by the Indians during this battle. The destruction of Fort Freeland, a strategic point on the Pennsylvania frontier, made this a definitive battle of the Revolutionary War.[15]

With the help of the late James Dent Walker, esteemed head of Genealogical Services at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., Batchelor was subsequently contacted by the Ezra Parker Chapter in Royal Oak, Michigan who invited her into their chapter and she officially became DAR member #623,128. In December, 1977, Batchelor's admission as the first known African American member of DAR sparked international interest after a feature story on page one of the New York Times[16] and an appearance on Good Morning America where she was interviewed by regular guest host, John Lindsay.

Since becoming the first known Black member of DAR, Batchelor co-founded the Fred Hart Williams Genealogical Society in 1979, an organization for African American family research in Detroit, Michigan. She continues to research her own family history and inspire others to do the same.

Ferguson controversy
In March 1984, a new controversy erupted when Lena Lorraine Santos Ferguson said she had been denied membership in a Washington, D.C. chapter of the DAR because she was black.

In a March 12, 1984 Washington Post story, reporter Ronald Kessler quoted Ferguson's two white sponsors, Margaret M. Johnston and Elizabeth E. Thompson, as saying that although Ferguson met the lineage requirements and could trace her ancestry to Jonah Gay, who helped the Revolutionary War effort as a member of a Friendship, Maine, town committee, fellow DAR members told them that Ferguson was not wanted because she was black.

What caused a sensation was a quote from Sarah M. King, the president general of the DAR. King told Kessler that each of the DAR's more than 3,000 local chapters decides if it wishes to accept members. Asked if the DAR considers discrimination against blacks by its local chapters to be acceptable, she said, "If you give a dinner party, and someone insisted on coming and you didn't want them, what would you do?" King continued, "Being black is not the only reason why some people have not been accepted into chapters. There are other reasons: divorce, spite, neighbors' dislike. I would say being black is very far down the line ... There are a lot of people who are troublemakers. You wouldn't want them in there because they could cause some problems."

After those comments ran in a page one story and ignited a firestorm, the D.C. City Council threatened to revoke the DAR's real estate tax exemption. As more publicity erupted, King acknowledged that Ferguson should have been admitted and said her application to join the DAR was handled "inappropriately".

Representing Ferguson free of charge, lawyers from the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson began working with King to develop positive ways of ensuring that blacks will not be discriminated against when applying for membership.

The DAR changed its bylaws to bar discrimination "on the basis of race or creed". King announced a resolution to recognize "the heroic contributions of black patriots in the American Revolution".

As a result of the Washington Post story, not only was Ferguson, a retired school secretary, admitted to the DAR, she became chairman and founder of the D.C. DAR Scholarship Committee. She died in March 2004 at the age of 75.

"I wanted to honor my mother and father as well as my black and white heritage," Ferguson told Kessler after being admitted. "And I want to encourage other black women to embrace their own rich history, because we're all Americans."

Book review: Liberty's exiles by Maya Jasanoff

NewsScotsman.com: Book review: Liberty's exiles by Maya Jasanoff, By John MacKenzie
Liberty's Exiles
by Maya Jasanoff
Harper Press, 416pp, £30
Revolutions and rebellions, reprisals and refugees all come as a package. Eighteenth-century Scotland had good reasons to know this with two Jacobite revolts tearing at the social and cultural, political and physical fabric of the country. Jacobite r
ADVERTISEMENT efugees were scattered across Europe and the rest of the world. A few of them were indeed caught up in the American revolutionary upheavals of the 1770s and 1780s featured in this book. As is well known, for example, the celebrated Flora MacDonald backed the wrong side twice.

Liberty's Exiles is the first work to take a comprehensive look at the loyalists who hoped to overturn the ambitions of the so-called American patriots and keep the 13 colonies within the British Empire. For some time they had every reason to hope for success, with a mighty empire pitted against colonial tax dodgers, but they reckoned without the fervour of the rebels, the involvement of the French and the Spanish, and the incompetence of the British generals. As the war wound to its conclusion, the last redoubts of the British, the cities of Savannah, Charleston, and New York were filled with loyalists seeking to escape the mayhem and reprisals that would follow the withdrawal of the Hanoverian forces.

Most of them were white, but many were black, former slaves lured by offers of freedom in exchange for their adherence to the imperial cause. Surprisingly, perhaps, neither whites nor blacks were abandoned. Peace negotiators looked to their interests. Major evacuations were organised and the loyalists streamed out, to be dispersed to Nova Scotia and other Canadian colonies, the West Indies, the Bahamas, other parts of the British Empire and Britain itself. Some were victims of dispossession and dislocation twice over. They moved to East Florida, still a British colony, only to find it handed back to Spain as part of the peace. Many were soon on the move again.

History tends to be the record of the victors. The great American myth has always portrayed the revolutionary war as the triumph of liberty over tyranny, of a forward-looking idealism over an atavistic imperialism, of republican constitutionalism over monarchical cronyism. That myth has long been exploded and it is one of the many virtues of Jasanoff's book that she has no truck with it. Using a vast range of sources, she seeks a sympathetic understanding of the predicament of loyalists, who were interested in different sorts of freedoms, rival ideals, and often had a genuine commitment to a sense of British identity.

They often did so at huge personal loss.

Thus Jasanoff surveys the war itself as a war of ordeals as well as of ideals (as she neatly puts it). Using a technique in which she interleaves personal and family experiences with the grander narratives,
ADVERTISEMENTshe follows the loyalists through the period of genuine hope into their time of despair. Vividly describing both individual and collective predicaments, she follows them to England, Scotland, Canada, East Florida and the Bahamas, Jamaica, Sierra Leone in the case of many blacks, and even India as a professional destination for some members of elite families. .A few even fetched up in the recently founded New South Wales. Finally, she examines the American war of 1812 as, in some respects, a time of revenge for the loyalists. And she neatly sums up the varied fortunes of both white and black personalities caught up in the dangerous business of imperial loyalism.

Indeed, she often seems surprised at the liberality of the empire. Not only were about 60,000 loyalists evacuated and, to a certain extent, looked after, the London parliament appointed a compensation commission to examine the losses incurred by their flight. Appointed in July 1783, this commission sat for the next few years, ultimately awarding more than £3 million against claims of more than £10 million.

Awards ranged from a few paltry pounds to a princely £25,000 (though even the recipient of that sum was not satisfied). Many, lacking the receipts, legal documents, or the capacity to reach London, missed out. Yet even a few blacks received small amounts.

Such compensation often set loyalists on the move again, searching for new imperial roosts. Elizabeth and William Johnston, both from loyalist families in the colonies, resettled in Edinburgh, where William pursued his medical training. Later they moved to Jamaica, which proved highly damaging to the health of their children and to William himself. Ultimately, Elizabeth moved to Nova Scotia where she found, somewhat to her surprise, some peace. A more prominent Scot was the Earl of Dunmore, son of a notable Jacobite, who was in turn governor of New York, Virginia and later the Bahamas. An unpopular autocrat, he was a firm supporter of loyalist causes.

After her spirited accounts of all these striking events and the personalities caught up in them, Jasanoff's conclusions are not wholly new, but they are powerfully endorsed. The American revolutionary war created two new imperial systems. One was a republican empire which spread across a continent with very little in the way of the metropolitan restraints (which ultimately became democratic restraints) imposed from London upon British rule across the world. The American empire constituted one of the great acts of dispossession of world history, pushing aside native Americans, the so-called Indians, destroying their cultures and economies within a century

Indeed, some of those Indians, like the Mohawks and the Creeks, had themselves been loyalists of a sort, recognising - or at least imagining - that a future in a British empire might be marginally less dangerous than being subjected to the uninhibit
ADVERTISEMENT ed depredations of American settlers.

Many Mohawks moved to Canada. Many Creeks attempted relocation - or even the creation of an independent buffer state - but with little success. Meanwhile, the British Empire was transformed by the loyalist presence. Loyalists often carried with them a spirit of political dissidence which caused governors in Canada and the West Indies many problems. Faced with the memory of 1776 and its aftermath, the British sought the safety valve of legislative councils and ultimately the grander concept of the Durham report which would grant significant forms of self-government to Canada and other territories of settlement in the Empire.

With the American colonies lost, Canada, Australasia and southern Africa became more important to the British, while the imperial centre of gravity moved eastwards to India and elsewhere (although the loss of the colonies had little effect upon transatlantic trading).

In her first book, Edge of Empire, Jasanoff charted the connections between imperial conquest and the buying and looting of antiquities and works of art, which turned Britain into a global treasure trove. This book does not quite have the revelatory power and sheer panache of that remarkable debut, but it nonetheless offers strikingly extensive research, cool analysis, and elegant prose.

Winter Haven DAR chapter displays historic clothes at library

NewsChief.com: Winter Haven DAR chapter displays historic clothes at library
WINTER HAVEN -- This month, a period of history is being shared with Winter Haven. The Ponce de Leon Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution has taken over a display case at the Winter Haven Public Library. Members of the chapter have filled the case with vintage clothing, antique items and black and white photographs of individuals depicting prominent times in history.


Click to enlarge
Display of women's clothing from the early 1900s. Wednesday, February 09, 2011.

Paul Crate / News Chief


Click to enlarge
Cindi Mason looks at the detail of one of the beaded purses. Wednesday, February 09, 2011.

Paul Crate / News Chief


Click to enlarge
Photos of early 1900's clothing. Wednesday, February 09, 2011.

Paul Crate / News Chief
On loan to the library by Cindi Mason of Grafton, West Virginia, are fashions not seen in present-day society. Included in the exhibit is a 120-year-old a black "mourning" skirt that was traditionally worn during the sorrowful times after the death of a loved one. In today's millennium kitchen, the average chef isn't wearing a white, thin, laced-trimmed apron, but visitors to this display can see two of those aprons once worn by the farming residents of rural West Virginia.

This lighted glass window acts as a visual, educational tool. Visitors to this exhibit will learn how different times were nearly 200 years ago. Most hurried households of today likely don't own an iron, but instead use products like liquid spray wrinkle releasers for their clothes. This display features a solid, black iron once used in combination with its twin that warmed on the pot-bellied, wood-burning stove waiting to be traded out for the other cooled one.

Photographs of women in history are featured as a critical part of this indoor, library landscape, because each of them had an historical issue. They overcame an obstacle.

Elijah Clarke and Nancy Hart visit, describe the Battle of Kettle Creek

The News Reporter: Elijah Clarke and Nancy Hart visit, describe the Battle of Kettle Creek

Wilkes County, Washington, Georgia: Local Revolutionary War figures Elijah Clarke and Nancy Hart, portrayed by Sara Lesseur and Charlie Newcomer, spoke to the eighth grade students February 2 about what they did during the Battle of Kettle Creek. The Battle of Kettle Creek, fought on February 14, 1779, in Wilkes County, was one of the most important battles of the American Revolutionary War.

Revolutionary War historian to speak for Black History Month

NorthJersey.com: Revolutionary War historian to speak for Black History Month
Sunday, February 13, 2011: To honor Black History Month, the Bergen County Historical Society presents noted Revolutionary War historian and re-enactor Todd Braisted, who will discuss the 1782 murder of Loyalist Cornelius Nefie by a group of African-American woodcutters and soldiers under Major Thomas Ward, commander of the Refugee corps entrenched at Bergen Point. Was it simply a case of outlaw highwaymen seeking ill-gotten gain or is there more to the story?

Braisted will speak in the Revolutionary War landmark Steuben House at Historic New Bridge Landing, 1209 Main St., River Edge at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 13. The suggested donation is $7 adult, $5 children, and BCHS members are admitted for free. For more information, call 201-343-9492 or visit bergencountyhistory.org.

From 1 to 4 p.m., visitors are welcome to view the museum collections of the Bergen County Historical Society, displayed in the 1752 Zabriskie-Steuben House, to partake of refreshments served à la carte in a restored 18th century tavern in the Campbell-Christie House, browse the gift shop, and visit the historically furnished 1794 Demarest House Museum and working Jersey Dutch Out Kitchen. The Bergen County Historical Society is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) volunteer organization, founded in 1902. Membership is welcome.

To honor Black History Month, the Bergen County Historical Society presents noted Revolutionary War historian and re-enactor Todd Braisted, who will discuss the 1782 murder of Loyalist Cornelius Nefie by a group of African-American woodcutters and soldiers under Major Thomas Ward, commander of the Refugee corps entrenched at Bergen Point. Was it simply a case of outlaw highwaymen seeking ill-gotten gain or is there more to the story?

Braisted will speak in the Revolutionary War landmark Steuben House at Historic New Bridge Landing, 1209 Main St., River Edge at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 13. The suggested donation is $7 adult, $5 children, and BCHS members are admitted for free. For more information, call 201-343-9492 or visit bergencountyhistory.org.

From 1 to 4 p.m., visitors are welcome to view the museum collections of the Bergen County Historical Society, displayed in the 1752 Zabriskie-Steuben House, to partake of refreshments served à la carte in a restored 18th century tavern in the Campbell-Christie House, browse the gift shop, and visit the historically furnished 1794 Demarest House Museum and working Jersey Dutch Out Kitchen. The Bergen County Historical Society is a non-profit, 501(c)(3) volunteer organization, founded in 1902. Membership is welcome.

Was the American Revolutionary War a "Just War"?

Patheos: Confessing History: Was the American Revolutionary War a "Just War"?
Suggesting that the American Revolution was unjust seems almost sacrilegious. There have been periods in American history when promoting such a view could lead to charges of treason. But in the 1770s, cases for war against England failed to conform to classic Christian arguments used to support what we commonly refer to today as a "just war." In fact, just war arguments, often associated with historic church leaders such as Augustine and Aquinas, were rarely if ever employed by Revolutionary-era Protestant ministers and were certainly not employed by the founding fathers.

The just war tradition affirms that government is ordained by God to preserve peace and maintain justice. War is to be avoided whenever possible, but at times the desire for peace might make war necessary. War is thus justified only as a last resort. It must be declared by a legitimate government and have an attainable goal, namely the restoration of peace. It must protect the lives of noncombatants.

The closest any patriotic clergyman came to arguing on behalf of traditional just war theory was John Carmichael, a Presbyterian minister in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who published a sermon in 1775 entitled "A Self-Defensive War Lawful." In this sermon, he laid out what he perceived to be the parameters of a "lawful war."

Confessing History
Was the American Revolutionary War a "Just War"?The Founding Fathers Were Not DeistsThe Faithful ScholarTwo Presidents, Two Tragedies, Two Appeals for ReconciliationAn Evangelical Pastor Gets a History LessonAuthor Bio »First, he argued that a lawful war required that any combatant believe he was "called by God" to fight and that "with good conscience and courage, he may rely on God for strength and protection." Second, Carmichael believed that every soldier should make sure that "his peace is made with God, by believing in his Son Jesus Christ for salvation," before entering battle. Third, Christian soldiers engaged in war "must set out in the fear of God" and rely on the "justice and righteousness of the superintendency of Jehovah, over all the fates." Fourth, soldiers were to avoid doing violence to those who are unable to defend themselves. Fifth, they are not to accuse others falsely.

With the exception of Carmichael's fourth point, which conforms to just war teaching that noncombatants must always be protected during battle, none of his points defending a "lawful war" complies with the classic Christian doctrine about what makes a war "just."

While many ministers believed that the American Revolutionary War was clearly ordained by God, others were not so sure. The American colonies were part of Great Britain, which was then the freest and most liberty-loving nation on the face of the earth. As citizens of the empire the colonists enjoyed a great deal of economic prosperity and political freedom. John Wesley, the famed 18th-century English evangelical, could not understand why the colonists demanded more liberty than they already possessed as members of the British Empire. The colonists, he wrote, "enjoyed their liberty in as full manner as I do, or any reasonable man can desire."

Wesley ticked off a litany of colonial sins: they refused to pay their taxes, they had destroyed property ("Ship-loads of tea"), and most importantly, they held African slaves even as they cried for their own freedom from English tyranny. For Wesley, the cry of "no taxation without representation" was absurd: "I reply, they are now taxed by themselves, in the very same sense that nine-tenths of us are. We have not only no vote in parliament, but none in electing the members." Lack of representation in Parliament did not mean that the colonists were exempted from "subjection to the government and laws." Wesley, needless to say, did not think the American Revolutionary War was justified.

Christians today who want to argue that the Revolutionary War was "just" must offer concrete evidence to suggest that this war was indeed a "last resort." They must also make a compelling case that the colonists' grievances against the Crown merited military resistance. Here are few questions that one might ask in this regard:

Do high taxes justify a military rebellion against the government, even if such rebellion is in direct violation of passages such as Romans 13 that command Christians to pay their taxes?

Was the English government as "tyrannical" as the colonies claimed? And if it was, did the level of tyranny justify armed conflict? After all, Great Britain offered more freedom to the inhabitants of their empire than any other nation in the world.

Did the revolutionaries have a moral case to make for their own freedom when many had denied freedom to slaves in their midst? Or, as historian Mark Noll has argued, perhaps it was only the enslaved African Americans who could legitimately "justify taking up arms to defend themselves."

These are tough questions. But they are definitely questions worth thinking about.

City OKs donations for 2 war memorials

The Wichita Eagle: City OKs donations for 2 war memorials
The Wichita City Council on Tuesday approved donations by a number of groups to build two war memorials at Veterans Park, 339 N. Greenway Blvd.

The Sons of the American Revolution, Daughters of the American Revolution and other community groups are making the donations to build an American Revolution monument. World War II veterans are doing the same for a World War II memorial.

The groups are responsible for all costs.

The American Revolution monument is estimated to cost $100,000, said Becky Hunter, secretary for American Revolutionary Memorial Corp.

This would be the first American Revolution monument in Wichita, she said.

Anyone interested in more information or in making donations for the American Revolution memorial can go to www.amrevwichita.com or e-mail info@amrevwichita.com.

Plans call for the memorial to be dedicated on July 4, 2013, Hunter said.

Organizers for the World War II memorial, which is estimated to cost $60,000, hope to have its dedication on Dec. 7, 2011.

The city's design council still must review the plans for both memorials.