General, Sir Henry Clinton is born

On this day in history, April 16, 1730, General, Sir Henry Clinton is born. Clinton would be in charge of the British forces for North America through much of the Revolutionary War and would ultimately go down in defeat for losing the American Revolution.

Clinton was the son of Admiral George Clinton who was a Governor of New York in the 1740s. Consequently  young Henry spent much of his youth in America. His father eventually purchased him a captain’s commission and he rose in rank to lieutenant colonel by the time of the French and Indian War, during which he fought in several battles in Europe.

By 1775, Clinton was a major general and was informed he would be sent to Massachusetts to assist in putting down the rebellion. General Thomas Gage was then the commander of British troops in North America. Gage and Clinton did not get along from the start. Clinton often disagreed with Gage’s tactical and strategic choices and was not afraid to give his opinion, constantly offering  suggestions and criticisms and irritating Gage, who often disregarded him.

Clinton was part of the Battle of Bunker Hill that led to the slaughter of 1,000 British soldiers, leading him to famously write that it was, “A dear bought victory, another such would have ruined us.” In January, 1776, he was given command of an expedition to invade the Carolinas. Gage refused to give him the officers he wanted. When he arrived in North Carolina, Clinton decided not to make a base of operations there when he learned of a Tory defeat at Moore’s Bridge and made plans to attack Charleston, South Carolina, instead.

Assisted by Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis and Admiral, Sir Peter Parker, the attack on Charleston was a dismal failure and Clinton returned to help General William Howe, who had replaced General Gage, take New York City. Clinton’s plans were instrumental in taking Long Island, but again, his suggestions were continually rebuffed by Howe, who was generally more cautious than Clinton.

In 1777, plans were made to send an army under General John Burgoyne south from Quebec that would meet another army coming up from New York, to cut off the more rebellious New England from the rest of the colonies. General Howe, however, decided to take Philadelphia, instead of meeting up with Burgoyne. Gage left Clinton in charge in New York, frustrated and unable to help either group. Burgoyne’s army was captured and Howe’s nearly defeated at Germantown, causing him to resign. Henry Clinton was then appointed his replacement as Commander-in-Chief of North America.

Clinton returned the army to New York and oversaw the exodus of troops to the West Indies to defend British interests there. He tried to resign numerous times, but was refused by the King. In late 1779, he adopted a southern strategy intended to take the less rebellious southern colonies and personally led the capture of Charleston and Major General Benjamin Lincoln’s 5,000 man army in 1780. Clinton returned to New York after this and left Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in control. Cornwallis ultimately failed in recapturing the south and when he surrendered his army, Clinton received much of the blame.

Forced to resign, Clinton returned to England. He published a book placing the blame for the failure in America on Cornwallis and continued to serve in Parliament. In 1793, Clinton became a full-fledged general and was appointed Governor of Gibraltar, but he died in 1794 before taking the position.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." —John Adams (1797)

Congress Ratifies Peace with Great Britain

On April 15, 1783, the Continental Congress of the United States officially ratifies the preliminary peace treaty with Great Britain that was signed in November 1782. The congressional move brings the nascent nation one step closer to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.

Five months later, on September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed by representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain and France, officially bringing an end to the Revolutionary War. It also formalized Great Britain’s recognition of America’s independence.

The treaty established the Mississippi River as the western boundary of the new United States; allowed U.S. fishermen to troll the waters off Newfoundland, Canada; recognized the legitimacy of pre-war debts owed by Americans and Britons; and promised to reunite American Loyalists with property seized from them during the war. The American and Britons were satisfied with the agreement. However, western Indians who had allied themselves to Britain discovered that their land had been handed over by the British to the Americans without consultation or compensation. As they had neither lost their battles nor negotiated a treaty with the Americans, they continued to fight until 1795. Spain assisted southern Indians as they fought to protect their land from encroaching Georgians.

North of the Ohio Valley, the British maintained their forts at Niagara and Detroit, despite their promise to withdraw in the Treaty of Paris. They argued that Americans had breached the treaty by failing to return Loyalist property and pay British creditors as promised. American willingness to trade with revolutionary France further angered the British, and increased their promises of British aid to aggrieved Indians. The British only retreated from the Northwest Territory following the negotiation of the controversial Jay treat with Britain, which was ratified in 1795.

www.history.com/this-day-in-history

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so." —George Washington (1795)

George Washington learns he has been elected the first President

On this day in history, April 14, 1789, George Washington learns he has been elected the first President of the United States. The first presidential election under the new US Constitution was held from December 15, 1788 through January 10, 1789. At that time, each state set its own rules for conducting elections and choosing electors for the electoral college, who would then vote for president.

The electors had to be chosen by January 7, 1789. Each state was given a number of electors equal to its number of senators plus its number of representatives in the House of Representatives. Some states chose their electors by popular vote, others were chosen by their legislatures, or by a combination of the two. After the electors were chosen, they were to meet in their respective states on February 4 to cast their votes for president. These votes were then transmitted to New York City, where the federal government was then meeting, to be counted by Congress.

The first Congress began officially on March 4, 1789, but all the members were not yet present. A quorum of members did not exist in the House of Representatives until April 1st and in the Senate until April 6. Since this was the first day that both houses could meet in an official joint session, the electoral college votes were counted on this day.

John Langdon of New Hampshire had been elected President Pro Tempore of the Senate. This was the highest position in the Senate and the leader of the Senate in the absence of the Vice-President. Since there was no Vice-President yet, Langdon took the responsibility of tabulating the votes. He opened, counted and announced the votes to Congress. Once it was determined that George Washington had won and John Adams had come in second, Langdon dispatched a Certification of Election and a letter to each of them to inform them of their victories.

Washington’s letter was sent by the hand of Charles Thomson of Philadelphia, the longtime Secretary of the Continental Congress. Thomson served in this position from 1774 through July of 1789, helping the fledgling government in its first few months before he officially left the office.

Thomson arrived at Mount Vernon on April 14, 1789. He stood in the Large Dining Room in Mount Vernon where he announced to George Washington that he had been unanimously elected the first President of the United States. The humbled Washington immediately wrote a short letter to Senator Langdon that said:

Sir,

I had the honor to receive your Official Communication, by the hand of Mr. Secretary Thompson, about one o’clock this day. Having concluded to obey the important & flattering call of my Country, and having been impressed with an idea of the expediency of my being with Congress at as early a period as possible; I propose to commence my journey on Thursday morning which will be the day after tomorrow.

I have the honor to be    

with sentiments of estee

Sir             

Your most obedt. servt.

G. Washington      

Washington arrived in New York City to great fanfare on April 23rd and was sworn in as President on April 30 at Federal Hall.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

“I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love.”
George Washington

Thomas Jefferson is born

On this day in history, April 13, 1743, Thomas Jefferson is born. He would write the Declaration of Independence, be America’s Ambassador to France, be the first Secretary of State and the 3rd President of the United States.

Jefferson was born to a plantation owning family. He inherited a large amount of land and slaves when his father died when he was only 14 years old. He was educated by private tutors until he began attending the College of William and Mary where he met eminent lawyer George Wythe. Jefferson became a protégé of Wythe, who trained him to become a lawyer. Over the years, Jefferson learned 5 languages, studied architecture, religion and science and learned to play the violin.

Jefferson first became involved in politics when he was elected to Virginia’s House of Burgesses in 1769. As tensions increased with Great Britain, he wrote A Summary View of the Rights of British America, which detailed the grievances against England and the rights of the colonists, in 1774. Jefferson was sent to the Continental Congress from Virginia in 1775. When the time came to declare independence from Great Britain, the other members of Congress, who were impressed with A Summary View, asked Jefferson to write the first draft of the Declaration of Independence. Congress reworded portions of it, but the language is largely Jefferson’s.

During the war, Jefferson continued to serve in the Virginia legislature and as governor from 1779-1781. While governor, he was nearly captured by British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at Monticello. After the war, Jefferson served for a time in the Confederation Congress and was appointed Minister to France from 1785 to 1789. When the new US Constitution was adopted, Jefferson returned to the United States and accepted an appointment from George Washington as his first Secretary of State. He soon became aligned with James Madison and they formed the Democratic-Republican party to oppose Washington and the Federalist Party.

In 1796, Jefferson received the second highest number of votes for President and thus became Vice-President under John Adams, whom he opposed in most matters. In 1800, the unpopular Adams was not re-elected and Jefferson won the presidency, which he would hold for two terms. During his first term, Jefferson attempted to reduce tensions with the Barbary states of North Africa and made the famous Louisiana Purchase from Napoleon, which doubled the size of the United States. In 1804, he sent the famed Lewis & Clark Expedition to explore the new lands and find a path to the Pacific. During his second term, tensions increased with Great Britain, later breaking out into the War of 1812.

In his retirement, Jefferson founded the University of Virginia, which he had been planning for years. Though he inherited slaves when he was young, he was not able to release them by law. Jefferson advocated the abolition of slavery his entire life and was known to treat his slaves well. Jefferson wrote his own epitaph, which points out the three accomplishments he was most proud of: HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties." —Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms (1775)

North Carolina is the first state to call for independence

On this day in history, April 12, 1776, North Carolina is the first state to call for independence from Great Britain. Her Provincial Congress, meeting at Halifax, North Carolina, passed a resolution that has come to be known as the Halifax Resolves. In the document, the Congress instructs its representatives to the Continental Congress to vote for independence if the other colonies agree to do so. The resolution does not instruct them to introduce a resolution for independence to the Congress, but to vote in the affirmative if the other colonies agree to it.

North Carolina was a hotbed of rebellion against royal authority from the beginning of tensions with England. North Carolina was the site of the "War of the Regulation," a conflict that lasted from 1760 to 1771. This "war" was an effort of poor western farmers to remove corrupt officials in the more prosperous east who were oppressing them with high taxes. The movement was finally defeated at the Battle of Alamance in 1771.

After the Boston Tea Party, the women of Edenton, North Carolina joined in a compact to boycott tea, the first political resistance organized by women in the colonies. The first North Carolina Provincial Congress met in 1774 and elected members to attend the Continental Congress. The second Provincial Congress met the next year, causing Royal Governor Josiah Martin to dissolve the official assembly.

North Carolina was the site of an early invasion attempt by the British in 1776, but the attempt failed when a large group of Loyalists were defeated at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge. The Halifax Resolves were adopted less than a month later on April 12. In July, after Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed a formal vote for independence to the Continental Congress, North Carolina’s representatives, Joseph Hewes, William Hooper and Lyman Hall, voted for independence in accordance with their instructions in the Resolves. In the same month, Governor Martin fled with the attempted British invasion fleet, bringing royal rule to an end in North Carolina.

North Carolina remained free from fighting with the British for the next several years as the fighting was concentrated in the north. During this time, however, she was involved in numerous battles with Indian tribes allied with the British to the west. In the latter half of the war, the fighting moved south and North Carolina saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war. After the crucial Battle of Guilford Courthouse, British General Charles Cornwallis wrote, "I never saw such fighting… the Americans fought like demons."

Though the battle was won by the British, Cornwallis’ troops were worn out and ill-supplied after a year of chasing the Continental Army through the state. The Battle of Guilford Courthouse finally broke his strength and Cornwallis was forced to flee to the coast for reinforcements, where he was trapped at Yorktown, Virginia and forced to surrender, bringing about the end of the American Revolution.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate — look to his character." —Noah Webster (1789)

April 11 1775: "John Howe" Spies on Concord — or Not

On This Day…

      …in 1775, John Howe arrived in Concord to spy for British General Gage. He quickly gained the trust of the town’s leading patriots. They took him to a storehouse, showed him the weapons stockpiled there, and dined with him. Howe recorded every detail in his private journal. The journal was published in the 1820s, and for the next century and a half, historians considered it a true account. There is just one problem: John Howe’s journal was a hoax. In 1993 a skeptical scholar proved that if John Howe existed at all, he was not a spy for the British Army and that his journal was fabricated a half-century after the events it purports to describe.

Background

When New Hampshire printer Luther Roby published a 50-page booklet in 1827, he chose a title he thought sure to attract readers: The Journal Kept by Mr. John Howe While He Was Employed as a British Spy; Also, While He Was Engaged in the Smuggling Business. Roby explained in the introduction his belief that "Facts relative to the American Revolution, and to our late War [of 1812] will doubtless ever be interesting to the public." "Stories" would have been a better choice of words than "facts," since we now know that the journal is not authentic. We do not know the identity of the writer, but his motives seem clear: profit.

In February and March 1775, two British "spies" were out and about gathering information for their commander, General Thomas Gage. Ensign Henry De Berniere and a Captain Brown were studying the topography of Concord, the layout of the homes, streets, and bridges, as well as what supplies local Patriots were storing. The men had traveled first to Worcester, and met with Loyalists there, before going on to Marlborough. They were forced to leave when a hostile crowd threatened to attack the home where they were staying. Clearly disguise was not their strong suit.

Their next stop was Concord. Upon their arrival, the two asked for directions to the home of Daniel Bliss, a "friend of the government." (Subtlety was another skill they lacked.) Harvard-educated Bliss was a lawyer and a prominent citizen of the town. He believed that the Patriot cause was ill-conceived and doomed to fail, and he willingly provided De Berniere and Brown with as much information as he could.

The men returned to Boston and made a thorough report to General Gage. De Berniere accompanied the Regulars when they marched into Concord on April 19th and directed the soldiers to places where he had been told supplies were being stockpiled. He also kept a journal, which was discovered after the British Army left Boston a year later. The original journal does not make for exciting reading, so apparently someone — perhaps Luther Roby? — decided to give it a re-write: they used it as the basis for The Journal Kept by Mr. John Howe.

Unlike De Berniere, the fictitious Howe was an American working for General Gage. He was also a great deal smarter than De Berniere, using such clever disguises that townspeople told him anything he wanted to know. He, too, traveled to Worcester and Marlborough before arriving in Concord.

Although Howe was merely "a beardless boy of twenty-two," he claimed that General Gage sought his advice. In words bound to delight American readers, Howe told the general if he marched "ten thousand regulars . . . to Worcester . . . not one of them would get back alive." As for seizing the stores he had just been shown in Concord, "five hundred mounted men, might go . . . in the night . . . and return safe, but to go with one thousand foot . . . the greater part of them would get killed or taken."

The Journal includes a variation of Paul Revere’s famous ride. According to Howe, General Gage instructed him to "go on horseback . . . to carry letters to the tories," to inform them that Redcoats were about to march to Concord. He was then to "ride through adjacent towns" to see how he might help the Redcoats. Somehow the young Mr. Howe managed to be everywhere April 19th, and he witnessed all the fighting. The result was a change of heart: He switched sides — at least for the next few decades. When the fictitious hero wrote about the War of 1812, he tapped into New England’s fierce opposition to the war. He was no longer loyal to either side; he became a "freelance" smuggler, staging a series of increasingly outrageous escapades, described in The Journal.

Just as the characters in the narrative fell for John Howe’s ruses, so too readers, including a number of distinguished historians, long believed the journal to be authentic. In the early 1990s, a professor at Texas Christian University began to wonder if Howe’s work was not just "too cute a narrative." Then he read the journal De Berniere had written and found striking similarities.

As De Berniere makes clear, the British Army did send men out on reconnaissance trips, but most information came from the Loyalist inhabitants of every Massachusetts town. Historians estimate that 10 to 15 percent of the colonial population was sympathetic to the British government. Loyalists came from all walks of life and supported the king and parliament for a variety of reasons. Chief among them: to oppose the Crown was treason.

Some Loyalists tried to keep a low profile. For example, John Flint, a former Concord selectman, wrote, "I think I shall be neutral in these times." It didn’t work; Patriots had his name stricken from the jury list. Some Loyalists were ostracized; others were threatened with death, confined to house arrest, and, in the most extreme cases, tarred and feathered.

For Daniel Bliss, at whose home De Berniere and Brown stopped on March 20, 1775, the consequences of loyalty to the Crown were profound. When the townspeople saw that he was entertaining British spies, he was warned that he would not be allowed to "go out of town alive that morning." The British officers invited Bliss to leave with them. That night, he bid farewell to his family and left Concord never to return.

Like hundreds of Loyalists, Daniel Bliss and his family settled in Canada. In November 1780, he was tried in absentia and found guilty of "levying war and conspiring to levy war against the Government and People of this Province, Colony, and State." The Massachusetts legislature confiscated his estate and sold it at auction.

Links

The Museum of Hoaxes http://www.museumofhoaxes.com

If You Go

Concord Museum http://www.concordmuseum.org/  has an exhibit about the local Loyalists, including Daniel Bliss.

Minuteman National Historic Park http://www.nps.gov/mima

Sources

Concord: Stories To Be Told, by Liz Nelson (Commonwealth Editions, 2002).

History of the Town of Concord, by Lemuel Shattuck (Russell, Odiorne, and Co., 1835).

The Minutemen and Their World, by Robert A. Gross (Hill and Wang, 1976).

"Specious Spy: The Narrative Lives—and Lies—of Mr. John Howe," by Daniel E. Williams, The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 34, No.3, 1993.

http://www.massmoments.org  

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little." —George Washington (1796)

General Horatio Gates dies

On this day in history, April 10, 1806, General Horatio Gates dies. Gates was one of the most controversial military figures of the American Revolution due to his constant desire for promotion, his jealousy of George Washington and his tendency to be too cautious.

Gates joined the army and served in Germany and Nova Scotia. He was injured at the Battle of the Monongahela during the French and Indian War, the same battle from which a young Colonel George Washington led the survivors of Braddock’s Expedition to safety. After this, Gates, who was a strongly gifted administrator, became the chief of staff at Fort Pitt.

After the end of the French and Indian War, the army was downsized and Gates’ career stalled. He left the army and purchased a small plantation in Virginia. He re-established his friendship with George Washington and, when the American Revolution broke out, quickly volunteered his services.

When Washington was made Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, Gates was jealous, believing he should have received the position. Washington recommended Gates be made Adjutant General of the army, or chief administrative officer. Congress agreed and also made him a Brigadier General. Gates’ organizational skills were critical in the opening days of the conflict as he organized the army, set up a system of records and helped streamline the colonial forces.

Gates pressed Congress for a field position and soon found himself under Major General Philip Schuyler in New York, where he was credited with turning back a British invasion on Lake Champlain. He took forces to assist Washington in New Jersey and discouraged him from attacking the British at Trenton and Princeton. Instead of participating in these fights, Gates went to Baltimore to persuade Congress to give him Washington’s position, but this was denied after the victories at Trenton and Princeton.

In 1777, Gates replaced General Schuyler and subsequently led the army at the Battles of Saratoga when British General Burgoyne surrendered to the Americans. Gates received the credit, but most historians agree the victory was due to the actions of his subordinates. Shortly after this, Gates again pressed Congress to be made Commander-in-Chief. Some of his personal letters, in which he was critical of Washington, were exposed during an incident called the Conway Cabal, in which General Thomas Conway and others actively tried to replace Washington with Gates. Gates was embarrassed by the situation and forced to apologize.

After the loss of General Benjamin Lincoln’s 5,000 men at the Siege of Charleston, South Carolina, Gates was given command of the Southern Department. He foolishly led an ill-prepared and hungry army to a direct attack at the Battle of Camden in which nearly 2,000 men were killed or captured, effectively ending his military career. He was nearly court-martialed for the failure, but his supporters defeated it.

When the war was over, he returned to Virginia and married a wealthy widow. They moved to New York where he lived the rest of his life. He served one term in the New York legislature in 1800 and passed away in 1806 and was buried at Trinity Church on Wall Street.

http://www.revolutionary-war-and-beyond.com

Jack Manning

Historian General

National Society Sons of the American Revolution

www.sar.org  

"Do not conceive that fine Clothes make fine Men, any more than fine feathers make fine Birds." —George Washington (1783)