White Plains Anniversary

October 28 marks the anniversary of the Battle of White Plains in 1776; I posted on this battle last year around this time.  At that time I posted a picture of Chatterton Hill and focused on the Hessians.  Here is a picture of a different part of the battlefield, the eastern limit of the Patriot defenses, marked by a cannon.

On Merritt Hill itself, Colonel William Malcolm and the American 2nd New York County Battalion held position.  Before the war, Malcolm was a Scottish businessman who came to New York in 1763.  There are a few signs around Merritt Hill indicating its part of the battle of White Plains, but most evocative to me was this cannon set on a rock towards the bottom of the hill.  This plaque indicates it marks "the eastern limit of the Patriot defenses . . . The high ground to the south of this spot was occupied by the New York Regiment of Colonel William Malcolm. The hill to the north was occupied by the regiments under Major General William Heath.  On October 28, and again on November 1, attempted enemy attacks upon these positions were turned back." 

Lord Nelson and the Revolution

     Admiral Horatio Nelson, honored in Trafalgar Square, is perhaps most famous for his victory in that eponymous battle during the Napoleonic Wars.

     Lord Nelson also saw action during the American Revolution, serving on board the HMS Lowestoffe and then the Little Lucy in the Caribbean.  Serving with Jamaica's commander in chief, Sir Parker Peter aboard the HMS Bristol after the French entered the war, he was given command of his own ship, the HMS Badger, and continued his activity in seeking to capture prizes.  Later he served on other ships and was involved in the British defense of the Caribbean and activity in Central America, an aspect of the Revolution that does not get much attention.  To that extent, Nelson is emblematic of the broader world war of which the American battle of independence was one part.

Boston, Dorchester Heights and Geography

On an extended business trip to Boston last week, I had occasion to take in the view from the top of the Prudential Tower.  Here is a view of Boston today, looking seaward, with Dorchester Heights just visible next to the tall building toward the right of the image, jutting into the water.  The small white monument just to the left of that building is at the top of the Heights.

It is hard to appreciate the strategic importance today, perhaps, in looking at the built-up nature of the city.  Nonetheless, we see a view that neither Washington nor Howe could see in assessing their options.

George Washington, Cincinnatus and the Presidency

     A couple of months ago I was in DC and made time to wander through the Smithsonian American Art Museum.  I came upon Washington Resigning His Commission, the 1841 sculpture by Ferdinand Pettrich.

     Framed by a bright light in the afternoon, the statue takes on an otherwordly aspect.  More prosaically, the gallery label notes that Washington turned down the powers offered him by the Congress.  His model was Cincinnatus, the Roman political leader who held dictatorial powers to defeat outside invaders, and relinquished all such powers to return to civilian life after his success.  He resigned the commission on December 23, 1783, in the Maryland State House in Annapolis.  A portrait of the event by John Trumbull hands in the Capitol Rotunda.

     The Smithsonian gallery label says in part: "Ferdinand Pettrich created this work when political power in the United States was being consolidated around the federal government. He may have felt that this historic moment in Washington’s life would remind a new generation of the nation's founding ideals, and of the dangers of too much power given to too few."

     The statue was made in 1841, barely 60 years since the Constitution was adopted.  Today the Imperial Presidency and those who continue to push that office to satisfy ego and narcissism would do well to stand in front of this statue and think about the gallery's suppositions.

Charles Lee and the Widow White

On December 13, 1776, following the loss of New York and the retreat by Washington's army across New Jersey, General Charles Lee indulged himself at the Widow White's Tavern in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, and was captured that day by a British patrol led by Colonel William Harcourt; the advance guard of that patrol was commanded by a young Banastre Tarleton.  They had extorted the information as to Lee's whereabouts from captured American sentries.  Here is the spot in Basking Ridge, indicated by the blue sign on the corner in the lower right.

There is a fair amount of commentary that contrary to being a severe blow to the Continental Army, the removal of Charles Lee at this time as a thorn in Washington's side was a good thing.  Lee and his approximately 2,000 men were in the vicinity of Basking Ridge; General John Sullivan took command of them after Lee's capture and added them to Washington's force.

What was interesting to me is that on this otherwise unremarkable corner in the New Jersey suburbs, two of the main characters of the Revolution--Lee and Tarleton--were present in a rather intimate setting.  If we listen, we might just catch Tarleton proclaiming, as the tavern was surrounded, "If the general does not surrender in five minutes, I will set fire to the house." Lee surrendered in his nightclothes, and the Americans suffered two killed, two wounded and five in all captured.

Black Point and the Loyalists

On June 10, 1779 Loyalist Lieutenant James Moody of the New Jersey Volunteers led the successful force in a raid on weapons and supplies at Tinton Falls, New Jersey, as well as the capture of several important militia officers in Monmouth County, New Jersey.  As he was making his way back to Sandy Hook and British lines, further fighting ensued, and two of the American officers were killed.  Here is where the marker stands indicating the Battle of Black Point, in present-day Rumson, New Jersey:

Moody was a sincere Loyalist, contrasted with some of the rogues in New Jersey at the time (on either side) that used the cloak of partisanship for personal gain.  Extolled by the contemporary British press and excoriated by the contemporary American press, he survived the war, emigrated to Nova Scotia and became a political leader there.

Black Point and Moody are reminders that even long into the war--by 1778 and the Battle of Monmouth, the focus of the war in the middle colonies had essentially ended--the fighting among Patriot and Loyalist militia remained vicious and deadly.

Savannah and the Multicultural American Revolution

The siege of Savannah lasted from September 16 to October 18, 1779, and essentially ended on October 9 when a joint French-American assault on a fortified British position ended in disaster, claiming among others, the Polish general Casimir Pulaski.  The French forces included some 500 Haitian volunteers from Saint-Domingue.  A monument in Savannah memorializes this contribution.

Though still under French authority at this time, the Les Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint Domingue were free men who fought on the American side.  It provides a contrast to the ambivalence, if not original hostility, of Washington to allowing slaves or freed slaves to fight in the Continental Army.l