A British Perspective of the American Revolution

Hello, dear readers! Today we welcome my final guest for 2024. Can you believe another year has gone by? I'll be introducing some changes in the new year, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, enjoy this post from Avellina Balestri about writing a British perspective of the American Revolution for her latest novel, All Ye That Pass By: Gone for a Soldier.

Welcome, Avellina!

~ Samantha

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Remembered with Honor: Writing a British Perspective of the American Revolution

Guest Post by Avellina Balestri

This past July, I finally published first book of a projected trilogy set during the American Revolution. It is entitled All Ye That Pass By: Gone for a Soldier. I am already hard at work on the subsequent volumes, Kingdom of Wolves and Blood of the Martyrs.

This story has been a long time coming. It first began to take shape when I was twelve and found myself simultaneously reading The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest by Father John Gerard, SJ, and An Original and Authentic Journal of Occurrences during the Late American War by Sergeant Roger Lamb. The 16th-century English priest who suffered torture and imprisonment for his Catholic Faith inspired me in one way; the 18th-century Anglo-Irish soldier who suffered privations and imprisonment for his King and Country inspired me in another. 

Their stories of survival against the odds spoke to me down through the centuries and made me feel as if I had come to know both men intimately. Their hopes and fears bled through the pages, and their personalities burned brightly from the hearth of history. My youthful high spirits and intense emotions assured that their stories would overlap in my imagination to create a singular spiritual vision, dealing with the dichotomy of what it might mean to be, in the words of St. Thomas More, the King’s good servant but God’s first. 

In terms of my chosen focus and setting for this narrative, I have always found the British and Loyalist experience of the American Revolution particularly compelling because of my lifelong love of Britain and her multifaceted heritage. When I was in my tweens and early teens, before my family owned a computer or printer, I would save up loose change and go to my local library branches to pay for print-outs about historical figures who struck my interest. Most of them were “redcoats”, British soldiers from the Age of Horse and Musket, clad in their tell-tale scarlet tunics. I would compile whole folders of their biographies, then file them into volumes, and read through them regularly for story ideas to expand upon in my notebooks. I would become invested in the ups and downs of each character’s journey, and see them not solely as a part of Britain’s legacy, but of America’s as well, for we once were all one people, and perhaps on a level deeper than most of us are willing to admit, still are. On both sides of the sea, we remain the children of Lady Britannia.

The cultural roots of America, based in the original thirteen colonies, produced an out-growth of Albion in the New World. This fundamental fact put the historical framework into perspective for me, especially as a native of Maryland, the only colony established by English Catholics. The more I researched the Revolutionary Era, the more the division of the Anglosphere and cessation of America’s ties to kingship seemed tinged by tragedy and drenched in kindred blood, a reality rarely addressed with the solemnity it deserves. Brother slew brother, but unlike in the case of the American Civil War, in which the Union won, we are taught to downplay this aspect when it comes to the American Revolution because separatists triumphed and the split is celebrated. 

I, for one, could never help but grieve for the lost dual identity of British Americans, once proudly held and defended by so many before and during the war, and came fairly early to consider myself as a latter-day Loyalist at heart. I am an American, by birth and upbringing, shaped by my native land in countless ways, and yet I have always felt a spiritual tie to the kings and queens of Britain far more than any president because monarchy appeals to a transcendent authority, an incarnational sacredness, and a historical continuity that stretches back beyond the year 1776 or ‘83. I do celebrate the 4th of July, but not so much out of an enthusiasm for the Declaration of Independence as out of a general appreciation of America and all the good she has to offer.

Beyond this background, the reason I wanted to write a story focusing on the British experience of the Revolution was due to the very fact that they lost. In the great turning point of the war, the Saratoga Campaign, I cannot help but see a classical tragedy of fallen knights and broken tables, in which all the best and worst aspects of the British character are on full display. This little apocalypse, brought on by pride and passion, is pregnant with the potential to explore correlating topics and profound truths that were important to me as a Catholic author. If the Revolution resulted in a political schism, it reflected an earlier religious schism, when England severed herself from the See of Rome. The arguments made for both forms of separation could eerily parallel each other, and in some ways, they feel like a mirror being held up to one another. I imagine Catholics inhabiting the British Empire at the time would have seen the pattern and reacted to it in different ways. This story explores one such possible reaction through the pilgrimage of the protagonist. 

In some aspects, this tale retells the life of the famous Jesuit martyr St. Edmund Campion, if it were put forward from the 16th to the 18th century, switching out a priest for a layman and altering his career trajectory from that of a scholar to that of a soldier. As such, the premise is both quite original and quite familiar. St. Arsenios of Paros said, “The Church in the British Isles will only begin to grow when she begins again to venerate her own saints.” This story pays homage to the tradition of hagiography, for the saint is the only true revolutionary in the world. Christ was creating the universe while dying on the Cross, and the martyr recapitulates all things in Christ through the witness of blood.

In other parts of this story, I strove to go back even farther than Campion’s Elizabethan influence, touching upon the earliest consciousness of English identity and mythic history that permeates my Robin Hood series, The Telling of the Beads. I wanted Britannia to feel both thoroughly real and also more than real, with poetry infused into the mundane, for without a soul, the land is nothing. And if Britannia is nothing, America is nothing. This realization is something sadly lacking in most fiction dealing with the American Revolution, which reduces the Mother Country to a cartoonish landscape generated by revolutionary propaganda as opposed to our very womb, where we gained our first understanding of liberty and loyalty. 

When it comes to the process of writing characters, I believe that every person is “an allegory,” as J.R.R. Tolkien once said, “each embodying in a particular tale and clothed in the garments of time and place, universal truth and everlasting life.” We can never completely de-mythologize history any more than we can fully de-spiritualize mankind, though our increasingly secular society may work its woe. I take this principle equally seriously when writing stories set during the Early Modern Period as I do with stories set during the Middle Ages. It is fundamental for us as human beings to believe that our stories are worth telling, for all their bitter glory, and through Christian eyes, I see each passing generation as another act of a Mystery Play, unfolding the secrets of salvation in manifold ways.

This, boiled down to creedal basics, is the power of Christ’s dying and rising, which shall never be emptied. It is the foundational concept behind this trilogy and all those who pass by within it. Each man and woman finds themselves fighting the long defeat, living as crucibles of a fallen world, and to greater or lesser extents, being drawn into the drama of the Cross. When all earthly goods are despoiled, and death itself beckons the soul, they must confront the Absolute, that relentless Hound of Heaven from whom they can no longer escape, for He draws all men to Himself from the height of Golgotha.        

Get your copy of All Ye That Pass By: Gone for a Soldier

As my dear readers know, women of the American Revolution era have a big place in my heart, so I am pleased to have Salina Baker join us on the blog today with some brilliant insight into the life of Catharine Littlefield Greene, wife of General Nathanael Greene. Like Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and countless others, Catharine saw her life and her marriage transformed by war.

Welcome, Salina! Thanks for celebrating Women's History Month with us!

~ Samantha

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Catharine Littlefield Greene: A Revolutionary Life

Guest Post by Salina Baker

Catharine Littlefield Greene was a product of the feminine sphere of women during the colonial period. Marriage was considered a critical event in the life of the early American woman. It raised her status socially but it also moved her from dependency on her family to dependency on her husband. When she married Nathanael Greene, a former Quaker and iron forage owner with a limp, asthma, a smallpox scar on his right eye and who hailed from a fairly well-to-do family, she believed that she would be settling down to a life of domestic tranquility. But as we shall see, things were different for Caty. An American Revolution was on the horizon and her husband’s direct and important influence in that revolution changed her domestic circumstances.

Convivial and beautiful with few women friends, poorly trained in domestic skills, and without her own home to settle down in, Caty found her own path that often led to history’s criticisms of her that may have been based in jealousies, misunderstandings, and Caty’s own struggle to be a part of the social whirl that accompanied the officers’ corps during the Revolutionary War. Caty Greene, unlike many of her colonial sisters, was not freed by the American Revolution. Only a personal tragedy could free a woman who defied the narrow perception of acceptable behavior.

Note: Caty burned all her letters to Nathanael therefore their relationship was interpreted through Nathanael’s letters and responses to her.

Catharine Littlefield Greene (Miller) circa 1809 artist unknown. Caty was mortified when she saw this painting of her.

May 1761, six-year-old Caty Littlefield watched her mother’s burial on Block Island off the coast of Rhode Island, an isolated place where her ancestors had lived since the 1660’s free from Massachusetts dogma, formal social rules, a hurried sense of time, and organized religion and schooling. Two years later, Caty was taken in by her namesake, her mother’s sister Catharine Ray Greene, a dark-haired violet-eyed beauty who Caty resembled. Aunt Catharine had once had a relationship with Benjamin Franklin who wanted more than the platonic handholding she was willing to offer. Now, she was married to William Greene, Jr. a Rhode Island politician who was distantly related to Nathanael Greene.

General Nathanael Greene. Painted by Charles Willson Peale 1783

Nathanael was a frequent visitor to the house in East Greenwich. Lacking a formal education as she did, the Caty he met there was comfortable in the society of men and her “power of fascination was absolutely irresistible.”  She was born on February 17, 1755, thirteen years younger than her future husband. Nathanael and Caty wed on July 20, 1774. They settled into Spell Hall his home in Coventry, Rhode Island, but those early days of tranquility were short lived.

Spell Hall, the Greene family homestead in Coventry, Rhode Island today.

The events in Massachusetts on April 19, 1775 when the British fired on civilians in Lexington and Concord changed all that. Nathanael, a private in the Kentish Guards a Rhode Island militia company, left to attend the siege of Boston. His militia company was sent home initially. Rhode Island then formed the Army of Observation. Nathanael had previously been denied officer status due to his limp that “was a blemish to the company.” Suddenly, the man the Kentish Guards considered to be a blemish incapable of cutting a physically shining figure was a brigadier general. He went home and showed Caty his commission. He and his men were sent to Roxbury, Massachusetts where they settled in with the Provincial Army.

General George Washington arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts on July 2, 1775. The Continental Congress had appointed him commander-in-chief of the newly formed Continental Army of which the Provincial Army became a part. Washington saw in Nathanael Greene a man who loved his country, cared about his troops, was a strict disciplinarian, and an active soldier. Within the year, Nathanael was a major general in the Continental Army.  Caty was suddenly thrust into the role of a major general’s wife.

A whimsical drawing of Nathanael and Catharine Greene. Artist unknown.

She was determined to spend time with her husband at camp no matter where that was. Pregnant with their first child a son they named George Washington Greene, she initially traveled to Nathanael’s headquarters west of Boston in 1775. When she returned to Coventry, her lack of domestic skills, fear for Nathanael’s safety and pregnancy led to personal anxieties. She squabbled with her female in-laws who lived in her household in Coventry and those living in Nathanael’s childhood home in Potowomut.

Caty visited her husband at his headquarters as often as possible, with or without her children. As a general’s wife, she was naturally made the center of attention. She became close friends with Martha Washington and Lucy Knox. Her vivacious behavior elicited a spontaneous response from admiring gentlemen. She listened with genuine interest to stories told by men like General Israel Putnam. Young aides became smitten with her looks and playfulness, and Nathanael was delighted by their admiration. Even General Washington asked that she come to camp for her convivial nature brightened the hardest of winters. During an officers’ party in February 1780 at the Morristown, New Jersey encampment, Caty danced with General Washington for three hours straight without sitting down. Nathanael commented that they had “a pretty little frisk.”

In late spring 1776, whispers about Caty’s behavior circulated among her family members. In the winter of 1777, although they were very much in love, jealousies and insecurities surfaced between Caty and Nathanael. His admiration for Lady Stirling and Kitty, General Lord Alexander Stirling’s wife and daughter, and his reminder to watch her spelling when writing to the scholarly Lucy Knox lured Caty’s doubts about how much Nathanael loved her. His subsequent letters were an oxymoron of adoration or designed to make her jealous especially after he heard about the many parties Caty attended in Rhode Island:

“In the neighborhood of my quarters there are several sweet pretty Quaker girls. If the spirit should move and love invite who can be accountable for the consequences?” 

Yet many times he soothed her fears:

“Let me ask you soberly whether you estimate yourself below either of these ladies. You will answer me no, if you speak as you think. I declare upon my sacred honor I think they possess far less accomplishments than you, and as much as I respect them as friends, I should never be with them in a more intimate connection. I will venture to say there is no mortal more happy in a wife than myself.” 

Leaving her children with in-laws, Caty arrived in Valley Forge in 1778 where she met men like the Marquis de Lafayette, Baron von Steuben, and Alexander Hamilton while her jealousy simmered over the Stirling ladies. It was here she met General Anthony Wayne. An incurable ladies man, his wife never came to camp. Caty was stimulated by the company of this charming man. The whispered gossip began yet Nathanael remained unconcerned.

General Anthony Wayne

By the summer of 1780, she was back in Coventry. Nathanael’s new post was uncertain. Then, he was sent off to command the Southern Army to replace the disgraced General Horatio Gates. The Greene’s had no cash; only land in Rhode Island. While Nathanael bore the horrors of the Southern Campaign, forbidding Caty to join him, she was enjoying the social life in Newport among French soldiers.

After the British surrender in Yorktown, Virginia in October 1781, she traveled to South Carolina to join Nathanael at his headquarters near Charleston. She witnessed the devastation Nathanael had warned her of. After a twenty-three month separation, she found her husband much changed and worn down from the war and debt. Only land grants for his service in the Southern campaign stood between their family and utter financial ruin—Mulberry Grove plantation and holdings on Cumberland Island off the coast of Georgia. Anthony Wayne was granted the plantation adjacent to Mulberry Grove.

In 1785, Caty gave birth to their sixth child, Catharine. The infant died of whooping cough. Caty lay despondent for weeks. Nathanael hired a tutor for the children, a twenty-one year old graduate of Yale, Phineas Miller. The family moved to Mulberry Grove in November. Caty was pregnant again. Tragically in April 1786, she fell and gave birth to a premature daughter who died soon after.

By then, the Mulberry Grove plantation was thriving. The Greenes had a promising new start which came to an abrupt end on June 19, 1786, when Nathanael died of sunstroke at age 43. Caty soon learned the worst. Her husband died before he had made the barest beginning toward paying off the huge debts he owed to his creditors after borrowing money to equip his Southern Army. She would have to make a claim of indemnity to the government for reimbursement.

She poured her heart out to Jeremiah Wadsworth, one of Nathanael’s business partners and a man she had been attracted to for years. Wadsworth was married and had past indiscretions. Jealousy ignited between Miller and Wadsworth for Caty’s affections and Wadsworth’s support in settling her estate in Congress began to wane.

Jeremiah Wadsworth and his son Daniel. Painted by John Trumbull 1784.

In 1791, she stood before Congress with her indemnity claim that Alexander Hamilton had helped her prepare. Anthony Wayne held a seat in Congress and fought furiously for her settlement. On April 27, she was awarded $47,000 and for the first time since the war, her family was solvent. Soon after, Wayne disappeared from her life. He went west to join the military there. He died of complications from gout on December 15, 1796 during a return trip to Pennsylvania from a military post in Detroit.

By this time, Caty and Phineas Miller had drawn up a legal agreement concerning their relationship and prospective marriage. All five of her children were living at Mulberry Grove, but her oldest child, George, drowned in 1793 soon after coming home from France where he was attending school. In his late teens, George’s body was found on the banks of the Savannah River near Mulberry Grove. His body was taken down the river to the colonial cemetery in Savannah and was placed in the vault beside that of his father’s.

Enter Eli Whitney, a graduate of Yale who came south to accept a teaching position. Caty invited Eli to live in her home so he could read law and work on his new cotton gin invention. Phineas and Eli formed a business partnership with Caty as a silent backer to finance Whitney’s cotton gin invention.  However, the venture needed more capital than Caty could provide. Caty and Phineas invested in a land scheme—the Yazoo Company. The company collapsed and Caty once again faced poverty. She married Phineas later that year much to Eli’s chagrin for he was in love with her.

Eli Whitney

In 1800, Mulberry Grove was sold and the family moved to Cumberland Island at Dungeness where Nathanael, fourteen years before, had begun construction of his family’s future home. The island yielded everything the family needed to survive. Three years later at age thirty-nine, the gentle and faithful Phineas died of blood poisoning after pricking his finger on a thorn.

Caty was faced with selling Phineas’ part of the Miller estate which was tied up in his company with Whitney. There were also the settlements against her estate for legal fees, loans, etc. For a time, she sold live oaks to a lumber company in an effort to salvage the cotton gin company.

Eli Whitney returned to his home in New Haven, Connecticut yet he was tormented by his love for Caty. She was now past childbearing age and he wanted a family. She wrote him letters, cajoling him to come to her side, offering her sentiments on his health and his aloofness. She made a failed attempt at matching him with her youngest daughter, Louisa. On a trip to New York to endeavor to settle her final legal affairs with Nathanael’s and Phineas’ estates, she begged him to visit her. When he came at last, she recognized the final hopelessness of her dream of marriage with this man she badgered, pitied, worried over, and loved with all her heart. She often asked him to come back to Georgia to visit her, but he never returned.

On July 5, 1814, Caty wrote her last letter to Eli Whitney:

“We have a party of eighteen to eat Turtle with us tomorrow. I wish you were the nineteenth. Our fruit begins to flow in upon us—to partake of which I long for you… ”

She had grown and found as Nathanael once suggested, that self-pity made a sad companion. In the last week of August, Caty was struck with a fever. The same week the capital city of Washington lay in ruins, burned by the British. Caty never knew. She died on September 2, 1814.

Greene-Miller Cemetery on Cumberland Island at Dungeness

Despite history’s proverbial finger pointing about what she may have done during her marriage to Nathanael, Caty was a women whose strengths and weaknesses allowed her to face the consequences of war and meet them head on the rest of her life.

Resources:

Stegeman, John F. and Janet A. Caty A Biography of Catharine Littlefield Greene Athens, Georgia University of Georgia Press, 1977. Print.

Carbone, Gerald M. Nathanael Greene A Biography of the American Revolution, 2008. Print.

Thayer, Theodore. Nathanael Greene Strategist Of The American Revolution New York: Twayne Publishers, 1960. Print.

https://www.eliwhitney.org/7/museum/about-eli-whitney/inventor

Read more about Caty in Salina's novel, The Line of Splendor!

Connect with Salina Baker on her website to learn more about her writing and read more fascinating articles about the American Revolution!

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At Yale with Nathan Hale

 

Nathan Hale is remembered today as the quintessential patriot who proclaimed that his only regret was that he had but one life to give for his country. We don’t actually know for sure if Hale said those words, but we do know that he gave his life on 22 September 1776 when he was hanged as a rebel spy. He was only twenty-one years old and had graduated from Yale College three years earlier. He had been at school through the rise of revolution and conflict, undoubtedly discussing with his erudite peers the events that led to the Declaration of Independence and Hale’s ultimate sacrifice.

Two months after turning fourteen, Nathan began his collegiate life at Yale alongside his brother, Enoch, who was nineteen months his senior. The brothers were close friends and roommates, distinguished by their peers as Primus and Secundus. Even the Yale billing records refer to Nathan as ‘Hale 2.’ The brothers seem to have been rarely separated until after their graduation in 1773.

They shared several friends who also played their part in the American Revolution. Of these young men, Benjamin Tallmadge would eventually become the best known, with the possible exception of Nathan himself. Tallmadge became a highly successful officer and spymaster in the Continental Army, but at Yale he was just another student, if a particularly intelligent and overachieving one. In his memoirs, Tallmadge admitted that his preparation for Yale meant that ‘I had not much occasion to study during the first two years of my collegiate life, which I have always thought had a tendency to make me idle.’ 

One evening in 1771, this idleness led to troublemaking when Tallmadge, the Hale brothers, and some other students broke several windows on campus. One can imagine that Enoch, who was studying to be a minister, must have felt particularly repentant when the bill was sent to their father. Benjamin’s father was also a minister, who might have sent his son a strongly worded reprimand when he was informed of the extra charges.

The boys were not generally troublemakers, however, and a great deal of their free time was spent in intellectual debate as part of the Linonia Society. This fraternity, dedicated to ‘the promotion of friendship and useful knowledge’ gave the young men the opportunity to discuss, debate, and inquire on topics from mathematics and astronomy to religion and philosophy. They undoubtedly had lively talks about the current events of the day and the path to revolution, possibly even discussing Joseph Addison’s Cato from which Nathan’s alleged last words were paraphrased.

In 1771, Nathan served as scribe for the Linonia Society, and his name appears at the end of the surviving meeting minutes. He recorded event participants, questions presented, and topics discussed. One of the items he records is the creation of the society’s library. Since Yale made books available only on-site, the Linonians decided to supply their own library with books that could be checked out by members. The Hale brothers and other members each made contributions of a varied collection of books, including the works of Shakespeare, The Vicar of Wakefield, Rollins Ancient History, Paradise Lost, and The Art of Speaking. 

When the Hale brothers graduated in 1773, Nathan participated in a debate on the education of women. The transcript of this debate has not survived, but the fact that Nathan later opened lessons to young women at the school he managed gives us insight to the strength of his feelings on this topic. During his brief time as a schoolmaster before entering the army, Nathan taught girls from 5-7am before his male students arrived for the day.

Through his experience at Yale, we can see the development of Nathan Hale into an intelligent, loyal patriot who was willing to sacrifice all, even his life, for his ideals and for his country.

This article was originally published at the blog of Author Salina B Baker as part of the But One Life Blog Tour in June 2022.

Read more about the life of Nathan Hale in But One Life, available on Kindle and in paperback. Read it FREE with Kindle Unlimited!

Failed Spies: Nathan Hale and John Andre

 

Espionage played an important role during the American Revolution, with both sides in the conflict experiencing some victories and tragic defeats in this area. British spymasters had the advantages of experience and expertise, while Americans benefited from working in their native land with a better idea of who could be trusted and who could not. Very early in the conflict, General George Washington stated his desperate need for knowledge of the enemy. 

‘I do most earnestly entreat you and General Clinton to exert yourselves to accomplish this most desirable end. Leave no stone unturned, nor do not stick at expense, to bring this to pass, as I was never more uneasy than on account of my want of knowledge on this score,’ Washington wrote to General William Heath seventeen days before Captain Nathan Hale was hanged as a rebel spy on 22 September 1776.

Today, Nathan Hale is remembered as the quintessential patriot. He was recently graduated from Yale when he joined the Continental Army with many other young men of his acquaintance. When he learned that a volunteer was needed to discover the information needed by Washington, he did not hesitate, despite the advice of many friends who insisted he was not well-suited to the mission. 

It was not only because of his open, honest personality that they attempted to dissuade him. Spywork was considered a low, dishonorable duty. One friend, who tried to talk Hale out of his mission, reported later that Hale had insisted, ‘I wish to be useful, and every kind of service, necessary to the public good, becomes honorable by being necessary.’

Whether due to pride or excessive patriotism, Hale set forth upon a mission to Long Island, New York, his Yale diploma in hand to support his disguise as a Latin tutor. Hale had briefly served as a schoolmaster between graduation and army service, so his ruse should have come naturally to him. However, he was a trusting and friendly man, unlike the clever spy-catchers employed by the British. Within days of leaving his regiment, Hale was captured and executed, possibly with a paraphrase of Cato on his lips that his only regret was that he had but one life to give for his country. His body was left hanging for days to warn other would-be spies.

In the meantime, Major John André was making a name for himself in the British ranks as one who had connections and could get information. He was, like Hale, young, erudite, and eager to serve his country. André believed he had found the key to securing his future when he received correspondence from American General Benedict Arnold. The hero of Saratoga was willing to turn his coat for the right price.

Arnold had married Peggy Shippen a month earlier, and she was friends, or possibly more, with André. Together, they convinced the general that the British would show him greater appreciation and compensation, and they were bound to win the war anyway. In the spring of 1780, Arnold informed André that he was expecting to gain command of West Point, an important series of forts that controlled traffic on the Hudson River. He was willing to turn it over to the British in return for cash and a position in British command.

On 21 September 1780, almost precisely four years after the death of Nathan Hale, John André was captured after a secret meeting with General Benedict Arnold to finalize their plan. He begged that Washington treat him as an officer rather than a spy. 

‘Let me hope, Sir, that if aught in my character impresses you with esteem towards me, if aught in my misfortune marks me as the victim of policy and not resentment, I shall experience the operation of these feelings in your breast by being informed that I am not to die on a gibbet.’ Washington refused his request, and André was hanged on 2 October 1780.

Other American espionage efforts were more successful than Hale’s, most notably the Culper Spy Ring, managed by Hale’s good friend and Yale classmate, Benjamin Tallmadge. The names of those involved in this successful ring were not revealed until over a century after the war had ended. Tallmadge also played a part in John André’s capture. One can imagine he had a sense of justice served as Hale’s British counterpart shared his fate.

This article was originally published at History, the Interesting Bits on 6 June 2022 as part of the But One Life Blog Tour. 

Read Nathan Hale's story on Kindle or in paperback.

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Deborah Sampson: A Woman at War

 

An excerpt from Women of the American Revolution:

A soldier’s life was dangerous. If one was not injured or killed in combat, they still had the unsanitary camp conditions to deal with. High casualties can be attributed to disease, cold, and heat rather than any British weapon. Reasons women might disguise themselves in order to fight were numerous, despite the risks. Those who were enslaved or indentured servants might see it as a path to freedom, especially if they were light complexioned enough to claim Caucasian ancestry once away from those who knew of their origins. Women might attempt to leave behind a shameful past or hide a premarital pregnancy. Like Deborah, they might hope to escape poverty or the insecurity of being a single woman in a nation at war. Some fled abusive husbands or parents, and, just as their male counterparts did, some women wanted to join the war effort due to passionate patriotism. 

Whatever was Deborah’s inspiration, in April 1782 she enlisted in the army, claiming to be Timothy Thayer. Discovered and in fear of prosecution, she fled her native Middleborough, Massachusetts. Whether she had intended to honor her enlistment or whether she, like many others, was hoping to slip away with her signing bounty in hand, is unknown. But when she enlisted a second time on 20 May 1782, this time as Robert Shurtliff, a name common enough in the area to allow Deborah to remain anonymous, she accepted a bounty of £60 and joined new recruits at Worcester for muster.  The American victory at Yorktown had taken place the previous October, but three-year recruits were still being signed on in the case that a treaty did not follow as expected. After all, it was not the first American victory of the war and news took weeks to cross the Atlantic. The Continental Army could not yet rest.

Read more about Deborah and her life after the war in Women of the American Revolution! It is available at Pen & Sword, Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. 

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Mercy Otis Warren: Historian of the American Revolution

 As a wife and mother, Mercy Otis Warren serves as an example of what women were forced to sacrifice during the American Revolution. Since she was also an accomplished writer and historian, she provides us with a unique view of the era. At a time when women were not expected to understand, let alone comment on politics, Mercy wrote poems, plays, commentaries, and eventually a three volume history of the United States. Besides her well-known brother, James Otis, Mercy corresponded with many great names of the day and collected newspapers, diaries, and anything she could get her hands on to document the birth of a nation.

From Women of the American Revolution:

However, Mercy could not entirely devote herself to patriotic politics the way men like John Adams did. She was a wife with a household to maintain. More importantly, she was the mother to five sons. Much as she supported independence from an early point in the Revolution, Mercy was afraid of what might become of her boys if called upon to fight. She wrote to Abigail Adams, ‘not to mention my fears for him with whom I am most tenderly Connected: Methinks I see no Less than five sons who must Buckle on the Harness And perhaps fall a sacrifice to the Manes of Liberty Ere she again revives and spreads her Chearful Banner over this part of the Globe.’

Her fears were not assuaged when General Thomas Gage replaced Hutchinson as the governor of Massachusetts, placing the colony under martial law. His authority under the Coercive Acts, which had been passed in response to the destruction of the tea, left colonists feeling vulnerable and without a voice. Boston Harbor lay empty, relieving many of their livelihood, and tensions rose as many, including Mercy, wondered what would come next.

What came next was armed conflict. The Warrens were forced to flee their home.

James rushed home, and the Warrens set out for Rhode Island. Mercy later wrote in her History that ‘A scene like this had never before been exhibited on her peaceful plains; and the manner in which it was executed, will leave an indelible stain on a nation, long famed for their courage, humanity and honor.’

James and Mercy encountered many other travelers, some witnesses of the fighting at Lexington and Concord. One told them of a story so harrowing that Mercy included a retelling of it in a letter to a friend. ‘I saw yesterday a gentleman who conversed with the brother of a woman cut in pieces in her bed with her new born infant by her side.’ Accounts such as this must have caused internal struggle in the patriotic but fearful Mercy.

Mercy coped with fear and anxiety throughout the war, but she found refuge in her faith and her writing. In 1805, she published her History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution: Interspersed with Biographical, Political and Moral Observations. She was seventy-seven at the time. Mercy lived long enough to see war come again to the United States in a conflict known by many names, but she died before the conclusion of the War of 1812, never knowing if the young nation was victorious in its Second War of Independence.

If you would like to learn more about Mercy Otis Warren and other amazing 18th century ladies, please consider my newest book, Women of the American Revolution. It is available at Pen & Sword, Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. 

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Agent 355 or Just Some Lady?

 

An excerpt from Women of the American Revolution:

"Washington had begun intelligence efforts within a fortnight of gaining command of the Continental Army, writing, ‘There is nothing more necessary than good intelligence to frustrate a designing enemy, & nothing that requires greater pains to obtain.’ The Culper Ring was one of the most extensive spy networks of the American Revolution. It was composed of people that Tallmadge knew personally and trusted implicitly. Abraham Woodhull and Caleb Brewster had grown up in Setauket, New York with Tallmadge, and they formed the center of the ring. Initially, Woodhull went by the alias Samuel Culper. Later, Tallmadge assigned him the code number 722. Agent 355 was likely a woman known by Tallmadge or Woodhull in order to have been included in the Culper Spy Ring.

Was she the wife of a friend? Servant? Slave? Maybe she was not connected to Tallmadge and Woodhull at all but was brought into the ring by another agent. Morton Pennypacker, an early Culper Ring historian, first suggested in 1948 that she was the secret wife of Robert Townsend, an agent (designated by 723) living in New York City during the British occupation. This is the theory historian Corey Ford finds most compelling in his 1965 A Peculiar Service, which takes an in depth look at 1770s New York. This romantic possibility has been taken up by historical novelists, and it appeals to readers who love a tragic romance. But is it true?"  

We may never know the truth of Abraham Woodhull's Agent 355, and maybe that's alright. It certainly proves she was a better spy than many others have been! It also leaves a rich field for imagination and much historical fiction including a creative version of this mysterious historical lady.

Returning to Women of the American Revolution:

"Agent 355 may only be a figment of overactive imaginations, and many historians remain unconvinced of her existence beyond being just what Woodhull said, ‘a lady of my acquaintance.’ Female spies were uncommon but not nonexistent in the American Revolution. Some operated on their own, sending information to husbands or brothers in the army, and others were part of more organized networks. In many situations, women found themselves the holders of important information simply because men assumed they were not listening or could not understand the significance of what they were overhearing or observing." 

It wouldn't be the first or last time women have been underestimated, and female spies knew how to use that fact to their advantage! 

If you would like to learn more about Agent 355 and other amazing 18th century ladies, please consider my newest book, Women of the American Revolution. It is available at Pen & Sword, Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. Also available now at Audible and audiobooks.com!

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Freedom for Washington's Slaves

On New Year's Day 1801, Martha Washington granted freedom to a portion of Mount Vernon's enslaved population. An excerpt from Women of the American Revolution: 

"George had left Martha with a difficulty in his will. Over time, he had begun to struggle with the institution of slavery in a way that Martha never did, and he had granted his slaves their freedom upon Martha’s death. He might have meant for this to free Martha from the responsibility of coping with their emancipation, but it created a difficult situation where some of the Mount Vernon enslaved people knew their freedom was based on the elderly lady’s death. In addition to that awkward challenge, the enslaved populations of the Washington and Custis estates had become intermingled during George and Martha’s long marriage. Those that were a part of the Custis inheritance would legally transfer to Martha’s grandchildren upon her death, while those that had been George’s would be free. That not only seemed arbitrary and unfair but also left black families with some members anticipating freedom and others not.

Martha attempted to ease this tense situation by freeing George’s slaves on 1 January 1801. She was afraid that some of the enslaved people plotted her death in order to gain their freedom, so she gave it to them. Some eagerly took up their newfound liberty and left Mount Vernon, others stayed because of family who remained property or for the stability Mount Vernon offered. Her thoughts about this event are not recorded, but Martha had previously expressed shock and dismay when enslaved servants ran away. She did not understand why they would choose an uncertain freedom over the life offered at Mount Vernon. For a woman who had been part of a lengthy revolution based on liberty, it is an ironic blind spot."

Learn more about Martha Washington and other 18th century ladies in Women of the American Revolution. Available at Amazon, Pen & Sword, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, and other major book retailers. Also available now at Audible and audiobooks.com!

Enoch Hale's Search for his Brother

Detail of Nathan Hale's Signature
from letter to Benjamin Tallmadge

When Nathan Hale was executed by the British on 22 September 1776, the news crossed enemy lines quickly. Captain Montresor met with American officers, including Alexander Hamilton according to at least one source, that very day and informed them that a spy had been hanged. Nathan had spent a few moments with Montresor, who said Nathan had been allowed to write letters to his commanding officer and his brother Enoch. Those letters and Nathan's Yale diploma were destroyed by a less sympathetic officer. Captain William Hull, a friend of Nathan's, wrote that Montresor assured them that Nathan 'was calm, and bore himself with gentle dignity, in the consciousness of rectitude and high intentions. . . . His dying words were remembered. He said, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."'

The news, however, took longer to reach Nathan's family. Throughout their lives, Nathan had been closest to his brother, Enoch. They had attended Yale together at ages 14 & 15 and separated for the first time when Nathan took a position as schoolmaster, first in East Haddam then New London. Enoch returned to their childhood home in Coventry, Connecticut, where he continued studies to become a preacher.

Letter from Nathan to Enoch
dated 20 Aug 1776

Enoch's diary, which includes notes to 'write Brother Captain' on multiple dates in 1775 & 1776, records his concern about Nathan for the first time on September 30. 'Hear a rumour that Capt Hale belonging the east side College was seen to hang on the enemies lines at N York being taken as a spy - or reconnoitring their Camp - hope it is without foundation - something troubled at it sleep not very well.'

Two days later, Enoch wrote, 'Hear some further rumours of the Capt - not altogether agreeing with the former!'

One's heart breaks for Enoch almost 250 years later, reading his words and knowing his hope is in vain. He did not realize - or at least not fully accept - the truth until October 14, when he wrote, 'Accounts from my brother the Capt are indeed melancholly! That about the 2nd week of Sept. he went to Stanford crossed to long Island & Had finished his plan but before he could get off was betrayed and taken & hanged without ceremony!'

Increasing his grief, Enoch recorded the same day that rumor also named the betrayer. 'Tis said by his cousin Sam Hale.' This line was crossed out by one of Enoch's descendants, so perhaps Sam's name had been cleared. At least at the time he wrote it, Enoch believed it might have been true. Nathan and Enoch had visited Samuel Hale and his father of the same name in Portsmouth following their commencement at Yale. They had enjoyed the time in New Hampshire, as Nathan had written to the elder Samuel afterward that the trip 'served only to increase the nearness of your family and make me the more desirous of seeing them again.'

Enoch also wrote on October 14 about his determination 'to go visit the Camp next week.' He hoped, at least, to recover his brother's body and belongings. Perhaps he also prayed his brother would be in camp and the rumors all false. If so, his optimism was not rewarded.

Nathan Hale's Army Trunk
Image (& trunk) property of
Nathan Hale Homestead

The 26 October 1776 entry in Enoch's diary records his visit to camp and the confirmation of his brother's execution. 'When at the Gallows he spoke & told that he was a Capt in the Cont Army by name Nathan Hale!' With several people in camp adding details to the story of Nathan's capture, Enoch was forced to accept that his brother was gone. At least Nathan's friend and fellow soldier, Asher Wright, had kept Nathan's trunk.

On what would have been Nathan's 22nd birthday, 6 June 1777, Enoch wrote, 'busy myself a little looking over some paper &c of Brother Nathan's.' Then on the 28th, 'Make in part a distribution of Brother Nathan's Cloathing.' By that time, there was no doubt of his death, though Enoch was never able to recover Nathan's body and his burial place remains unknown. Enoch quietly remembered his closest brother by sorting through his meager belongings and passing some along to those who could put them to use.

It was the Essex Journal that reported Nathan's final words as 'among other things . . .. that if he had ten thousand lives, he would lay them all down.' By all reports, Nathan went to his death with dignity, despite the poor treatment he received, undergoing no trial and being denied even a Bible for comfort. One hopes that these reports helped soothe the pain of his grieving brother.

Enoch Hale went on to become a reverend, and he was called to serve the new Westhampton Congregational Church in Massachusetts in September 1779. He married Octavia Throop in 1781 and named his first son Nathan in 1784. Enoch served the Westhampton congregation for 50 years before he died on 19 January 1837 at age 83. His papers, including diaries, letters, and sermons, are kept in a special collection at Yale University.

(No contemporary images of Nathan or Enoch Hale exist.)

Before She Was Mrs Madison

Dolley Payne was born 20 May 1768 in the small Quaker settlement of New Garden (modern day Guilford County, North Carolina). The family did not remain there long enough for little Dolley to retain memories of the place, and she always thought of herself as a Virginian, even after moving to Philadelphia in 1783 at age fifteen. Anthony Morris, who became a lifelong friend of Dolley's, wrote, 'She came upon our comparatively cold hearts in Philadelphia, suddenly and unexpectedly with all the delightful influences of a summer sun, from the Sweet South . . . .and she soon raised the mercury there in the thermometers of the Heart to fever heat.'

Quaker she may have been, but quiet and modest she was not. Dolley was obsessed with many fashions that she was not permitted to wear, and she would document what she saw around the city in her diary. She wore the plain clothes required by her mother but still gained attention with her dark hair, blue eyes, and friendly demeanor. This charm would serve her well decades later when she became First Lady.

Dolley's father had manumitted his slaves before moving to Philadelphia. Not able to farm successfully without their labor but devoted to Quaker beliefs that it was wrong to own another human being, John Payne hoped that the city would offer other opportunities for supporting his family. Unfortunately, tragedy made frequent visits upon the Paynes. A baby, named Philadelphia for their new home, died shortly after birth, and oldest son, Walter, was lost at sea. When Payne's starch business went bankrupt, he looked for suitors to take Dolley off his hands.

Todd House, Philadelphia

Among Dolley's many admirers, her father thought John Todd Jr the best choice. A lawyer six years Dolley's senior, Todd had shown interest in her for some time. Whether he was Dolley's first choice is unknown, but letters between them indicate love during their marriage if it was not present before. They were married 7 January 1790. The young couple moved into a home that still exists at the corner of Fourth and Walnut Streets in Philadelphia.

A son was welcomed on 29 February 1792 and named John Payne Todd to honor both his father and grandfather. Little could Dolley have imagined then that this little boy would cause her much trouble in the coming years, but her love for him never wavered.

In the summer of 1793, another son, William Temple Todd, was born. Then Yellow Fever struck Philadelphia, killing about 5000 people or approximately 10% of the city's population. The young Todd family did not escape the epidemic, and Dolley lost both her husband and infant son on 24 October 1793. Dolley went to her mother, who had opened the family home as a boarding house, while she grieved and attempted to settle the estate of her husband and his parents, who had also died of the fever.

At her mother's boardinghouse, Dolley was introduced to Aaron Burr, attorney and senator, who assisted her with her legal battle and became godfather to Payne, as Dolley's remaining son was called. Burr also introduced Dolley to a man who many expected to remain a lifelong bachelor. When forty-three-year-old James Madison met the young widow, he fell hard and fast.

Statue of the Madisons
at Montpelier

By marrying outside the faith and within a year of her late husband's death, Dolley knew she was relinquishing her place in the Quaker church. From 15 September 1794 when she wed the Great Little Madison, she never expressed any regret. In fact, they were happily married until James's death forty-two years later, and Dolley embraced the fashion and society that she had longed for but been denied a place in. 

When James Madison was elected the fourth president of the United States in 1809, Dolley was well prepared to define the role of First Lady in a way her predecessors had not, opening up the White House to any who wished to visit and charming political rivals into civility - at least long enough for dinner. In fact, the term First Lady may have been used for the first time at her funeral in 1849. Sometimes called the Queen of America, Dolley Payne Todd Madison had left behind her Quaker roots and forged a unique path of her own.

If you would like to learn more about Dolley Madison and other amazing 18th century ladies, please consider my newest book, Women of the American Revolution. It is available at Pen & Sword, Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. I appreciate your interest and support!

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Mary Katharine Goddard and the Declaration of Independence

Did you know that a woman's name appears on some copies of the Declaration of Independence? Mary Katharine Goddard was a Baltimore printer hired to publish a broadside of the Declaration including for the first time the names of all the signers. Below them, in tiny print, one can also find the text, 'Baltimore, in Maryland: Printed by Mary Katharine Goddard.' Who was this woman whose name appears alongside America's famous Founding Fathers?

Born in 1738, Mary was middle-aged but unmarried at the beginning of the Revolutionary War. She had been well educated, especially for a woman of the 18th century, and her father, Giles Goddard, served as postmaster before his death in 1755. Mary and her mother, Sarah, served as the steady business minds behind the business fronts of Mary's younger brother, William, and he eventually left Mary completely in charge of the Maryland Journal.

Independently operating the newspaper, Mary published updates on the British blockade of Boston, encouraged Marylanders in the boycott of British goods, and printed copies of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Mary also printed articles regarding concerns of those who remained loyal to Great Britain. Some attacked her for this, but Mary was firm in her stance for freedom of speech and the need for civil discourse. She also served as Baltimore's postmaster, possibly making her the first female US employee. When Congress needed a patriotic printer, they needed to look no further.

The Declaration was printed by Mary in January 1777. Adding her own name boldly to the broadside put Mary in the same danger as the men who had signed. (Her standard imprint was MK Goddard, rather than her full name.) Each was declaring themselves traitors to the British crown - or American patriots - depending upon your point-of-view. There could be no turning back once the list was distributed in bold, black ink.

In 1784, William Goddard returned to take back the Maryland Journal that his sister had run so effectively throughout the Revolutionary War in his absence. Not one to fade away quietly, Mary printed publications to compete with him and continued in business on her own. The siblings became estranged and possibly never spoke again.

Another blow struck when Mary was removed from her position as postmaster, supposedly because the job was too arduous for a fifty-year-old woman. She petitioned the Senate and President Washington for the post to be returned to her in 1790. Many citizens of Baltimore wrote in support of her as well, but she received no response from the Senate while Washington responded that he would not intervene in the decision.

Knocked down but not defeated, Mary continued successfully selling books and dry goods at a Baltimore shop for two more decades, well into what was considered old age for that era. 

Mary Katharine Goddard died at age 78 in 1816, having witnessed the birth of the United States and the War of 1812. In her will, Mary manumitted her enslaved servant, Belinda Starling, and 'also give and bequeath unto said Belinda Starling all the property of which I may did posessed; all which I do to recompense the faithful performance of duties to me.' Despite her accomplishments as printer and one of America's first female employees, Mary Katharine Goddard's name has been largely forgotten.

Learn more about the lives of Women of the American Revolution - available at Pen & Sword, Amazon, Book Depository, Barnes & Noble, or your favorite book retailer. Also available now at Audible and audiobooks.com!

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