Back on Track Wednesday

My mom's having some health issues, which I have to take care of. Will be back to blogging on Wednesday.

Revolutionary War subject of lectures at David Library

From the Philly Burbs: Revolutionary War subject of lectures at David Library
Want to learn more about the Revolutionary War?

The David Library of the American Revolution is hosting a free, five-lecture series on the war beginning Feb. 12.

The lectures will take place at Stone Hall of the Feinstone Conference Center, which is adjacent to the library at 1201 River Road in Washington Crossing. The first begins at 3 p.m. The next four lectures are scheduled for 3 p.m. March 4; 7:30 p.m. March 22 and April 25; and 3 p.m. April 29.

Receptions will follow at the Rose Gallery, which is next to the library. Reservations are necessary and can be made at 215-493-2233, ext. 100.

Speakers include Andrew Shankman, associate professor of history at Rutgers University (Camden campus); Susan Klepp, professor of Colonial America and American women's history at Temple University; Michael W. Zuckerman, emeritus professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania; Brendan J. McConville, author of "The King's Three Faces: The Rise and Fall of Royal America," and David Silverman, history professor at George Washington University.

St. Augustine: British ruled city during 'Madness'

From the St. Augustine River: British ruled city during 'Madness'; free program Jan. 25
St. Augustine’s role during the American Revolution was not, as is commonly believed, a backwater Tory town known only for accepting British loyalist refugees from northern states.

Newly uncovered research shows that it served as the center of the British Empire in the New World.

The “Madness of King George” presentation on Wednesday night — third of the five-part Discover First America! series — explains the city’s important role.

Roger Smith, a University of Florida historian specializing in Early American History and Atlantic World Studies, has just completed 6 1/2 years of academic research in the British National Archives and at P.K. Yonge National Library in Gainesville.

“I found brand new twists on the American Revolution,” he said. “We think of the 13 colonies as the center of the British Empire. But from the British perspective, the empire stretched from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Grenada in the Caribbean. St. Augustine was the epicenter of British interests.”

Smith said the British were deathly afraid of losing their Caribbean holdings, because that is where they manufactured sugar, the oil of the 1700s.

“Sixty percent of the British Army was stationed there,” he said. “St. Augustine became central to their efforts to reclaim the American South. The American Revolution did not move south. It had never left the south.”

Smith, assisted by Sam Turner and Gary Bruce, will be illustrating the story through use of a play, written and directed by Bruce but including local re-enactors as British citizens and Redcoats.

The program is hosted by First Light Maritime Society (St. Augustine Lighthouse & Museum and the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program), with support from the Maritime Heritage Foundation.

Also, the persuasive and slightly shady British broker — some would say rogue — Jesse Fish, played by the Fountain of Youth’s John Stavely, will appear. Watch your wallet.

Smith said that when the war started to turn against Great Britain, loyalists streamed south to East Florida.

From December 1782 to March 1783, St. Augustine was home to 21,000 to 22,000 people.

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If You Go

Doors to the Flagler College Auditorium — across from City Hall on Granada Street — open at 6 p.m. for lobby displays, demonstrations and book signings.

The program begins at 7 p.m.

Seating is on a first-come, first-serve basis.

For information call 904.825.1053 or visit www.staugustine-450.com.

My Scrabble Books Took Precedence

Hello, all my faithful readers out there in computer land.

I've missed several days of posting and I apologize for it. I've been working on two Scrabble books (Eve Le QiNu's Flashwords) which help people to learn the 2 and 3 letter Scrabble words.

I won't provide links here since this is an apology not a sales pitch - but if you do like to play Scrabble, go to the Kindle Store (or the Nook Store) and type in Eve Le QiNu and my two books will be brought up. (Eve Le QiNu is an anagram.... see if you can unscramble it. Bear in mind my publishing name is Magic Mirror Press)

Anyway, I finished volume 2 yesterday, and today I'm chilling out...so regular posting resumes tomorrow.

Thanks again for your patience.

Flags Over America: Navy of Massachusetts

From: http://www.americanrevolution.org/flags.html
This flag was used as a symbol of New England in general and Massachusetts in particular. Once war broke out, it was swiftly adapted by the Americans in various forms, and in April of 1776, it became the official flag of the Massachusetts Navy. The Navy did not survive the battle of Penobscot Bay.

From Wikipedia
The Penobscot Expedition was the largest American naval expedition of the American Revolutionary War and the United States' worst naval defeat until Pearl Harbor. The fighting took place both on land and on sea, in what is today Maine.

In June 1779, British Army forces established a series of fortifications centered on a fort located on the Bagaduce Peninsula in Penobscot Bay, with the goals of establishing a military presence on that part of the coast and beginning a new colony to be known as New Ireland. In response, the state of Massachusetts, with some support from the Continental Congress, raised an expedition to drive the British out.

The Americans landed troops in late July and attempted to establish a siege of the British fort in a series of actions seriously hampered by disagreements over control of the expedition between Commodore Dudley Saltonstall and General Solomon Lovell. The operation ended in disaster when a British fleet under the command of Sir George Collier arrived on August 13th, driving the American fleet to total self-destruction up the Penobscot River. The survivors of the American expedition were forced to make an overland journey back to more-populated parts of Massachusetts with minimal food and armament.

Background
Following the partially successful raid of Machias in 1777, as well as General John Burgoyne's failed Saratoga campaign, British war planners looked for other ways to gain control over the rebellious New England colonies, while most of their effort was directed at another campaign targeted at the southern colonies. Lord Germain, the Secretary of State responsible for the war effort, and his under-secretary, William Knox, wanted to establish a base on the coast of the District of Maine (which was then a part of Massachusetts) that could be used to protect Nova Scotia's shipping and communities from American privateers and raiders.

Opportunity arrived when John Nutting, a Loyalist who had piloted Sir George Collier's expedition against Machias, came to London with the idea of establishing a British military presence in Maine. In September 1778, Nutting left for New York carrying orders for Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton to assist with the establishment of "a province between the Penobscot and St. Croix rivers. Post to be taken on Penobscot River." It was Knox's idea to call this province New Ireland. Unfortunately for the British, Nutting's ship was captured by an American privateer, and he was forced to dump his dispatches, putting an end to execution of the idea in 1778.

British forces arrive
Nutting reached New York in January 1779, but General Clinton had received copies of the orders from other messengers. Clinton had already assigned the expedition to General Francis McLean, who was based in Halifax, so he sent Nutting there with Germain's detailed instructions.

McLean's expedition set sail from Halifax on May 30, 1779, and arrived in Penobscot Bay on June 12. The next day McLean and Andrew Barkley, the captain of the naval convoy, identified a suitable site at which they could establish a post. On June 16, his forces began landing on a peninsula that was then called Majabigwaduce (now Castine), between the mouth of the Bagaduce River and a finger of the bay leading to the Penobscot River. The troops numbered approximately 700: 50 men of the Royal Artillery and engineers, 450 of the 74th Regiment of (Highland) Foot and 200 of the 82nd (Duke of Hamilton's) Regiment. These began to build a fortification on the peninsula, which jutted into the bay and commanded the principal passage into the inner harbor.

The principal works, called Fort George, was in the center of the small peninsula, with two batteries outside the fort to provide cover for the Albany, which was the only ship expected to stay in the area. A third battery was constructed on an island south of the bay in which Albany was harbored, near the mouth of the Bagaduce River. Construction of the works occupied the troops for the next month, until rumors came that an American expedition was being raised to oppose them, following which efforts were redoubled to have works suitable for defense against the Americans prepared before they arrived.

Albany's captain, Henry Mowat, who was familiar with Massachusetts politics, took the rumors (which were followed by reports that a fleet had left Boston) quite seriously, and convinced General McLean to leave additional ships that had been part of the initial convoy as further defense. Some of the convoy ships had already left; orders for armed sloops North and Nautilus were countermanded before they were able to leave.

American reaction
When news of this reached the American authorities in Boston, they hurriedly made plans to drive the British from the area. The Penobscot River was the gateway to lands controlled by the Penobscot Indians, who generally favored the British. Congress feared that if a fort were successfully constructed at the mouth of the river, all chance of enlisting the Penobscots as allies would be lost. Massachusetts was also motivated by the fear of losing their claim over the territory to rival states in any post-war settlement.

To spearhead the expedition, Massachusetts petitioned Congress for the use of three Continental Navy warships—the 12-gun sloop Providence, 14-gun brig Diligent, and 32-gun frigate Warren—while the rest of over 40 ships were made up of ships of the Massachusetts State Navy and private vessels under the command of Commodore Dudley Saltonstall. The Massachusetts authorities mobilised more than 1,000 militia, acquired six small field cannons, and placed Brigadier General Solomon Lovell in command of the land forces. The expedition departed from Boston on July 24 and arrived off Penobscot Bay that same day.

Landing
On July 25, nine of the larger vessels in the American flotilla exchanged fire with the Royal Navy ships from 3.30 p.m to 7.00 p.m. While this was going on, seven American boats approached the shore for a landing but turned back when enemy fire killed an American-allied Native warrior in one of the boats.

On July 26, Lovell sent a force of Continental Marines to capture the British battery on Nautilus Island (also known as Banks Island), while the militia were to land at Bagaduce. The marines achieved their objective but the militia turned back when British shot overturned the leading boat, drowning Major Daniel Littlefield and two of his men. Meanwhile, 750 men under Lovell landed and began construction of siege works under constant fire. On July 27, the American artillery bombarded the British fleet for three hours, wounding four men aboard HMS Albany.

Assault
On July 28, under heavy covering fire from the Tyrannicide, the Hunter and the Sky Rocket, Brigadier General Peleg Wadsworth led an assault force of 400 (200 marines and 200 militia) ashore with orders to capture the British fort. They landed on the beach and advanced up the bluff leading to the fort. The British pickets, who included Lieutenant John Moore, put up a determined resistance but received no reinforcement from the fort and were forced to retire, leaving the Americans in possession of the heights. 8 British troops were captured.

At this point, Lovell ordered the attackers to halt and entrench where they were. Instead of assaulting the fort, Lovell had decided to build a battery within "a hundred rods" of the British lines and bombard them into surrender. The American casualties in the assault had been severe: "one hundred out of four hundred men on the shore and bank", with the Continental Marines suffering more heavily than the militia. Commodore Saltonstall was so appalled by the losses incurred by his marines that he refused to land any more and even threatened to recall those already on shore.

Siege
On July 29, 1 American was killed.

On July 30, both sides cannonaded each other all day.

On July 31, 2 American sailors belonging to the Active were wounded by a shell.

On August 1, Lovell ordered a night assault on the Half-Moon Battery, next to Fort George, whose guns posed a danger to the American shipping. The Americans opened fire at 2.00 a.m. Colonel Samuel McCobb's center column, comprising his own Lincoln County Regiment, broke and fled as soon as the British returned fire. The left column comprising Captain Thomas Carnes and a detachment of marines, and the right column comprising sailors from the fleet, both kept going and stormed the Battery. As dawn broke, the Fort’s guns opened up on the captured battery and a detachment of redcoats charged out and recaptured the Half-Moon, routing the Americans, who took 18 prisoners with them. Their own casualties were 4 men missing (who were killed) and 12 wounded.

The siege continued with minor skirmishing. On August 2, militiaman Wheeler Riggs, of Falmouth, was killed by an enemy cannon shot that bounced off a tree before hitting him. On August 4, Surgeon John Calef recorded in his journal that several men were wounded in exchanges of fire. On August 5, one American-allied Indian was killed and another man captured. On August 7, 100 Americans engaged 80 British but the only casualties were 1 killed and 1 wounded on the American side and 2 wounded among the British.

During this time, the British had been able to send word of their condition, and request reinforcements. On August 3, a fleet of 10 warships left New York under the command of Commodore Collier.

On August 11, about 250 American militia advanced from their fortified camp and occupied a recently abandoned battery about a quarter mile (400 m) from the British fort. As expected, a sortie of about 55 British troops advanced from the fort to engage: but the poorly trained American troops fired only one volley at the attacking British troops and fled back to their fort, leaving behind all of their arms and equipment.

The next day, Saltonstall finally decided to launch a naval attack against the British fort, but the British relief fleet arrived and attacked the American ships. Over the next two days, the American fleet fled upstream on the Penobscot River, pursued by the British. On August 13, an American officer was wounded by enemy fire. Several vessels were scuttled or burned along the way with the rest destroyed at Bangor. In the 18th century there were rapids at Bangor at the approximate location of the old Water Works. The surviving crews then fled overland back to Boston with virtually no food or ammunition.

Casualties
Over the course of the siege, Colonel David Stewart claims the British garrison suffered 25 killed and 34 wounded. Stewart gives no figures for captured or missing but 26 prisoners are known to have been taken by the Americans.

Apart from the 100 men killed and wounded during the assault of July 28, the known American casualties throughout the siege came to 12 killed, 16 wounded and 1 captured, in addition to "several wounded" on August 4. This adds up to at least 130 killed and wounded. The History of Penobscot says that "our whole loss of men was probably not less than 150". The chaotic retreat however, brought the American loss up to 474 killed, wounded, captured or missing.

Aftermath
A committee of inquiry blamed the American failure on poor coordination between land and sea forces and on Commodore Saltonstall's failure to engage the British naval forces. Saltonstall was declared to be primarily responsible for the debacle, and he was court-martialed, found guilty, and dismissed from military service. Paul Revere, who commanded the artillery in the expedition, was accused of disobedience and cowardice. This resulted in his dismissal from the militia, even though he was later cleared of the charges. Peleg Wadsworth, who mitigated the damage by organizing a retreat, was not charged in the court martial.

The British evacuated the area pursuant to the terms of the 1783 Peace of Paris, abandoning their attempts to establish New Ireland. During the War of 1812 the British again occupied the area they called New Ireland, and used it as a naval base before withdrawing again with the arrival of peace. Full ownership of present-day Maine (principally the northeastern borders with New Brunswick) remained disputed until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842. Maine was a part of Massachusetts until 1820, when it was admitted into the Union as the 23rd state.

Legacy
In 1972 the Maine Maritime Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology searched for and found the wreck of the Defence, a privateer that was part of the American fleet. Evidence of scuttled ships has also found under the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge in Bangor and under the Bangor town dock, and several artifacts were recovered. Cannonballs were also reported to have been recovered during the construction of the concrete casements for the I-395 bridge in 1986.

The earthworks of Fort George still stand at the mouth of the Penobscot River in Castine, accompanied by concrete work added later by the Americans in the 19th century. Archaeological evidence of the expedition, including cannonballs and cannon, was located during an archaeological project in 2000–2001.

American Revolution: Battle of Eutaw Springs

From About.com Military History : American Revolution: Battle of Eutaw Springs
Fought on September 8, 1781, the Battle of Eutaw Springs was the last major battle to take place in the Carolinas during the American Revolution. Having been forced to abandon the Siege of Ninety-Six in June 1781, Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene (right) largely suspended operations for the summer. Resuming in August, he moved against Lt. Col. Alexander Stewart's force at Eutaw Springs, SC. Clashing on September 8, the Americans were initially pushed back until a determined counterattack saw them storm forward and capture the British camp. As the Americans elected to pause to loot his former camp, Stewart was able to rally his men and launch a counterstrike against the disorganized enemy. Mustering a rear guard, Greene was able to retreat from the field in good order. Though a tactical defeat for Greene, the aftermath of Eutaw Springs saw British forces continue retreating to enclaves on the coast and effectively surrender the interior to the Americans.

The Beaver Wars - book review

From the Wall Street Journal: The Beaver Wars
By STEPHEN BRUMWELL

In 1661, the celebrated English diarist Samuel Pepys spent £4.25, more than 1% of his annual income, on a hat. This was no ordinary piece of headgear but a prized and prestigious "beaver."

From Pepys's day until the early 19th century, hats made from processed beaver fur were the crowning glory of Europe's kings, generals and men of fashion, coveted as status symbols. These were boom years for hatters and trappers, although, as Alan Axelrod points out in "A Savage Empire," they were less auspicious for North America's largest rodent. By the time of the American Revolution, the buck-toothed beaver had been hunted to near-extinction in its eastern habitat. And it was not just wildlife that suffered to satisfy the insatiable consumer demand; as rival groups of incoming colonists and Native Americans alike fought over the trade and its profits, the human cost was also high.

From medieval times, Europeans had obtained furs from Russia and Scandinavia. American pelts began coming on the market during the 16th century—decades before the French, English and Dutch established permanent settlements and trading posts on the continent—after Basque fishermen chasing cod off Newfoundland's Grand Banks bartered with local Indians for beaver robes to help fend off the numbing Atlantic chill. Back home, these second-hand garments were eagerly bought by hat makers who knew that the simple act of wearing them had already begun the process by which fur could be transformed into high-quality hats—human sweat helps to break down the tough fibers. A market was born.

While nothing like as arduous or dangerous as trapping beavers, hat making was not without its own hazards. Before it could be formed into impressively brimmed and crowned hats, the soft "beaver fluff" scraped from the pelts had to be steeped in highly toxic salts of mercury. Prolonged exposure to the fumes released when the material was steamed for final shaping had dire effects on the nervous system, hence the expression "mad as a hatter."

Such snippets suggest that "A Savage Empire" is a book along the lines of Mark Kurlansky's best seller "Cod," with historical and ecological strands woven into a full portrait of the North American fur trade. But the focus is instead on human conflict. Mr. Axelrod contends that the enmities and alliances fostered as settlers, trappers and their Indian contacts struggled to dominate the lucrative business during the mid-17th century set in motion the course of war that ultimately led to an independent American republic.

The book's early chapters certainly demonstrate fur's role in fomenting strife. By the time that Pepys acquired his pricey hat, competition for pelts had triggered a ferocious sequence of "Beaver Wars" in which the Mohawks—one of the original Five Nations of the Iroquois League spread across modern upstate New York—ruthlessly plundered their tribal neighbors, hijacking furs to swap for prized European goods like spun cloth, iron hatchets and liquor.

This "blitzkrieg," as Mr. Axelrod terms it, was all the more devastating because the Mohawks had been armed with guns by their Dutch trading partners in Albany. Their victims included the Hurons, fur trade "middlemen" who supplied the French in Canada with the thicker—and therefore more valuable—pelts from the colder north. Escalating tribal warfare generated a nightmarish cycle of violence in which those not slain outright or spared for adoption were ritually tortured to death and communally cannibalized—the flesh consumed for reasons that baffle anthropologists (the best guess is that it was a means of absorbing an enemy's courage).

A Savage Empire
By Alan Axelrod

Thomas Dunne Books, 336 pages, $25.99
When the story moves forward into the 18th century, and the fur trade further and further west as stocks are depleted, a direct link between fur trading and widespread frontier warfare becomes much harder to establish. Far more was increasingly at stake—for Indians and colonists alike. France had traditionally used the fur trade to cultivate militarily useful tribal allies, yet its "invasion" of the Ohio Valley in the 1750s was not about monopolizing supplies of beaver pelts but about penning English colonists east of the Appalachians: Imperial territorial friction, not competition for furs, kindled the pivotal French and Indian War that eliminated France as a power broker in North America. "A Savage Empire's" central thesis, that fur fueled nation-shaping conflict, becomes weaker with subsequent wars. The American colonists who defied the British Empire and the Indian tribes that struggled to stem white settlement beyond the Ohio River were fighting for nothing less than independence.

Mr. Axelrod makes some more specific factual errors as well. The 400 firearms that the Dutch supplied to the Mohawks in 1648 with undeniably bloody consequences were not "rifles" but smoothbore muskets: It would be another century before rifles became common among either whites or Indians on the frontier. Maj. James Grant was not killed when the French and their Indian allies defeated his raiding party outside Fort Duquesne (modern Pittsburgh) in 1758: Grant survived to boast in 1775 that he could march the length of the rebellious American colonies with just 5,000 redcoats, a statement that proved optimistic to say the least.

And even though Mr. Axelrod's emphasis upon recounting successive wars dictates an overwhelmingly narrative approach, he sometimes becomes sidetracked. He gives over four chapters, for example, to the efforts of the young George Washington to counter French expansion in 1753-54. Such digressions over much-trodden ground leave scant space to explore more interesting facets of this specific story—for instance, how the demand for furs prompted Indians to replace traditional hunting, where prey was afforded a spiritual respect, with indiscriminate slaughter; or how the vagaries of European fashion granted the hard-pressed beaver a belated reprieve in the first decades of the 19th century.

Likewise, more might have been said about the lifestyles of the tough, independent voyageurs and coureurs de bois (literally "woods runners") of French Canada. Their feats of endurance and exploration anticipated the trappers who ranged the Rockies during the fur trade's Far West phase of the 1830s and '40s. These trappers are mentioned in a brief coda to Mr. Axelrod's chronicle of colonial and revolutionary warfare. Yet in their quest for increasingly elusive pelts, the semi-legendary "Mountain Men" blazed the westward trails for wagon trains that surely shaped America as profoundly as any frontier war.

—Mr. Brumwell's books include "White Devil: A True Story of War, Savagery and Vengeance in Colonial America."