THE BATTLE OF HUBBARDTON
“Huh? Hubbardton?” may well have been the reaction of most Round Tablers when they learned that this forgotten clash would be the subject of our February meeting. But five minutes with our ebullient speaker, Bruce Venter, soon changed our skepticism to full and fascinated attention. Bruce knows how to interest an audience.
Backed by a PhD from SUNY Albany, he spends most of his time displaying his
expertise to patrons of his tour and conference company, American History
LLC. As for Hubbardton, he at first said it was
famous because it is the only battle of the war fought in Vermont. One of
our more knowledgeable members promptly asked: “What about Bennington?”
Bruce informed him that the town of Bennington was in Vermont but the
battlefield of the same name was in New York.
Doubly impressed, we listened while he told us how General Arthur St. Clair,
the commander of the Northern American army, had decided to evacuate Fort
Ticonderoga when he found himself confronted by General John Burgoyne’s army,
which outnumbered him four to one. Working frantically through the night, the
Americans loaded women, the sick and six hundred fighting men, plus
supplies and ammunition aboard several ships and set out for Skenesborough on the southern end of Lake Champlain. St.
Clair and most of his fighting men retreated by land, heading down a crude
military road that led to Hubbardton, twenty miles
away. In close pursuit was Brigadier Simon Fraser with an 850 man brigade of
light infantry and German General Friedrich von Riedesel
with a thousand Germans. St. Clair paused at Hubbardton
to give his weary men some rest, and appointed Colonels Ebenezer Francis
of Massachusetts and Seth Warner of Vermont to command the rear
guard. By this time Bruce had us mesmerized and what
followed – the battle itself - was worthy of that word to the last shot.
The Americans, especially Seth Warner’s men, stunned the British with their
marksmanship and cool performance of commands that reduced British flank
attacks to zero-minus. The Redcoats’ casualties were stunning – and the
impact of these losses on the battles to come, culminating in Burgoyne’s
surrender, more than justified Bruce’s description of the two hour battle as a
turning point that rescued the Revolution. Applause was thunderous
-- and books were signed and sold at a memorable rate. Hubbardton became a battle -- and a night – to
remember.
BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS
Okay we’re traditionalists.
We’re sticking with our title in spite of having only one review. Vic Miranda
came through with an appraisal of a new book by an author with an historic
name. War of Two, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Duel that Stunned
the Nation by John Sedgwick is so close to Tom Fleming’s 1999 Duel:
Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America that Tom ought to
confer with a lawyer. But he won’t. You can’t copyright history. Vic
calls War of Two a “dual biography” of the two principals which he
compares to Gore Vidal’s novel, Burr. Maybe Vic was trying to ease Tom’s pain
by omitting any mention of his book. At any rate, Vic tells us how the
author excerpts revealing passages from the two men’s letters and otherwise goes
into all the well known things about the rivals – the Maria Reynolds affair,
their letters to each other, the duel etc.. The climax is the last letter
Hamilton wrote on the night before the duel. It went to Theodore Sedgwick, a
trusted friend of both men and the author’s ancestor. Vic’s conclusion:
the book was “interesting.”
THE RUNAWAY SLAVE WHO RESISTED GEORGE WASHINGTON’S INVITATION TO RETURN TO MOUNT VERNON
Newspapers and magazines have been telling some but not all of the truth about Ona Judge, the slave who fled George Washington’s presidential mansion in Philadelphia in 1796. Ona was Martha Washington’s personal servant, and she was extremely fond of the young woman. Her flight troubled the Washington marriage for a long time. George had little enthusiasm for regaining her from New Hampshire, where she found refuge. By this time he was having severe doubts about the value of slavery for America. But Martha could not accept what she saw as Ona’s ingratitude. Under the complex laws of slavery, George did not own Ona. She was descended from one of the slaves Martha inherited from the estate of her first husband.
Ona plays a prominent part in an exhibit at Mount
Vernon, which portrays the Washington slaves there. She is also the subject of
a book, “Never Caught: the Washingtons’ Relentless
Pursuit of their Runaway Slave Ona Judge by
Erica Armstrong Dunbar. The exhibit is the first time that slavery has been
publicly discussed at Mount Vernon. Research has discovered a newspaper
featuring Ona in 1796, offering 10 dollars for the
return of “a light skinned girl, much freckled, with very black eyes and bushy
hair” who has “absconded” from the president’s house. Ona
was born around 1773. Her mother was a slave and her father was a white
indentured servant at Mount Vernon. Ona was brought
to live in the mansion house, eventually becoming Martha Washington’s favorite
servant. When Washington became president, she followed the first couple to New
York and then Philadelphia, home to a growing black community. Some local
blacks aided Ona to escape. Her chief motive was
learning that Martha was going to give her to her granddaughter, Eliza. This
awoke the harsh reality of slavery in the young woman’s mind. Ona had no idea what Eliza might do with her and decided to
risk freedom. Martha wanted her back and begged George to find her. His pursuit
was hardly relentless. He made three attempts to retrieve Ona
over the course of several years. He was obviously responding to Martha’s
pleas. Ona remained intransigent and spent the rest
of her life in New Hampshire. Only when Martha read George’s will did she
discover that he had freed all the slaves he owned. But Ona
and Martha’s other inherited slaves were not included in this bold gesture,
which George hoped would inspire others to do the same thing and begin a
movement to gradually abolish slavery in America.
HAMILTON SELLS BIG OFF BROADWAY TOO
Sotheby’s, the Manhattan
auction house, is the latest to profit from the rage for things Hamilton since
the opening curtain of Lin Manuel Miranda’s musical. On Wednesday, Jan 18,
2017, enthusiasts coughed up almost $2.6 million for samples of his writing, featuring
numerous letters to loved ones. All the documents came from one unidentified
Hamilton descendant, the auction house told us before the feverish bidding
began. A 1795 letter to sister-in-law Angelica Schuyler Church, with whom many
think Hamilton had an affair, went for $62,500. That was seven times more
than Sotheby’s had predicted. Several people must have read the longing
letters Angelica exchanged with Hamilton – and taken a good look at her
uninspiring British husband. A tender letter to Hamilton’s wife,
Elizabeth, emptied another set of pockets to the tune of $40,000,
Another letter relied on its news value more than its personal significance. In
it Hamilton told Elizabeth that they had caught General Benedict Arnold trying
to sell West Point to the British. A headline hunter paid $81,250 for that
one. But the evening ended in a disappointment. Sotheby’s offered
an original essay by Hamilton under the pen name Pacificus.
It was part of the debate he had with James Madison about whether the United
States should stay neutral in the looming war between Britain and France.
Sotheby’s had predicted it would sell for $500,000 dollars. But they had to
settle for $262,500. Apparently the buyers were more interested in the personal
letters and were not as enthusiastic about Hamilton’s political activities. All
things considered, the owners of the letters had little to complain about.
ONCE UPON A TIME, HAMILTON WAS NOBODY’S FAVORITE, ESPECIALLY FDR’S
Recently, C-SPAN featured a
talk by Stephen Knott. His book, Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence
of Myth, published in 2002, has been enjoying a resurrection. Knott notes the
way Thomas Jefferson and his followers and later Andrew Jackson and his adherents
saw Hamilton and his principles as un-American. His policies generated distress
in the South and the West, where he is still seen as the founding plutocrat.
Hamilton’s status reached its nadir during the New Deal when Franklin Roosevelt
portrayed him as the personification of coldhearted greed. When FDR erected the
Tidal Basin monument to Jefferson in 1943, he elevated the sage of Monticello
to the American pantheon and Hamilton fell into almost total disrepute. He came
to epitomize the forces of reaction, contemptuous of “the great beast,” the
American people. Knott’s book has been reissued as a paperback.
A VISIT TO THE ROUND TABLE’S HISTORIC HOME
On January eighteenth, Tom Fleming journeyed to the bottom of Manhattan to speak to the New York State Society of the Cincinnati at Fraunces Tavern about his new book, The Strategy of Victory. He told his listeners that he felt very much at home at this venerable emporium. For almost 30 years, the New York Round Table met here. Five times a year Tom talked history with the founders of our conclave in this historic setting, with the ghost of Sam Fraunces looking on. Sam went on to become President Washington’s first steward.
Tom found much that was familiar in the old Tavern. Even though it was Saturday
night, the bar was jammed. A guitarist was playing familiar tunes. On the
second floor, there were changes: the spacious room in which the RT pioneers
met was destroyed when Puerto Rican terrorists bombed the Tavern. The Cincinnati
gathered for dinner in the Washington Room, a small but nicely decorated space
where two waiters served endless drinks and a delicious meal. Tom found the
food better than the old Tavern’s fare. He told the descendants of Washington’s
officers about his new book, which portrays George as a thinking general.
Surprise, surprise, they liked it. He doubles as their Washington scholar. The
Round Table will hear more about it when the book comes out in September or
October.
THE FIRST OVAL OFFICE
A few weeks ago, the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia celebrated a large step toward their opening day. They were cheering the first display of the centerpiece of their Museum, a fragile 10 feet tall elliptical tent. The linen marquee was the office and living quarters for George Washington during much of the Revolutionary War. R. Scott Stephenson, the museum’s vice president of collections, calls it, ” The first Oval Office.”
Conservators, engineers and Museum officials had spent years working toward this moment, the realization of a dream that began in 1909, when an Episcopal minister, hoping to build a museum at Valley Forge, bought the tent from a daughter of Robert E. Lee. At the $120,000,000 Museum, designed by Robert A. M. Stern, the tent will occupy a climate and light controlled space behind shatter-resistant glass. “Having any George Washington artifact is important, and having one as tangible as this is quite extraordinary,” says David Redden, former vice chairman of Sotheby’s. He declined to value the tent, but added: “ I can’t think of any other Revolutionary War tents that survive.”
Washington’s step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, gave the tent to his daughter, Mary, who had married Robert E. Lee, long before he became commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The tent was seized by federal troops in 1862, and it wound up in storage at the Smithsonian Institute. There it remained until 1901, when after petitions by the Lee family, President McKinley returned it. In 1909, Mary Lee sold it for $5,000 to raise money for Confederate veterans. The purchaser was Reverend W. Herbert Burke, founder of the Valley Forge Historical Society, whose collection was given to the new museum in 2003. The date is a signpost that also tells us how long the museum has been waiting to be born.
Visitors can view the tent beginning on April nineteenth -- the 242nd anniversary of “the shot heard round the world” that set off the Revolution. The museum is in the center of historic Philadelphia just a short walk from Carpenters Hall, meeting place of the First Continental Congress. Inside the museum’s walls, visitors will walk through 16,000 square feet of permanent exhibition galleries that tell the war’s story through immersive experiences of re-created historical moments – as when General Washington stopped a fight between several dozen Virginia and Massachusetts soldiers in 1775.
Among the museum’s other treasures are a 13 Star commander-in-chief standard that marked Washington’s presence on the battlefield, the first newspaper printing of the Declaration of Independence and dozens of guns and uniforms. The museum takes pains to include the roles played by women and slaves, such as Washington’s fearless black valet William Lee, who was freed in Washington’s will. There are Native Americans and later immigrants in the tale. R. Scott Stephenson notes that the story does not end with American independence. It is a story that continues to this day. “We are still in the midst of this exhibition,” Stephenson said.
HISTORY PLUS CULTURE EQUALS EDUCATION
Polly Guerin worries that
along with the Revolution’s thousands of facts we won’t have room
for anything else in our crowded craniums. That explains the brilliant essay
she sent us about this year’s Winter Antiques Show at the Park Avenue Armory
(on 67th and Park.) The major exhibit is called Revolution And Evolution, which
pays homage to the Folk Art collection of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Art
Museum, one of the museums that populate Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia.
Perhaps its most popular painting is by the Massachusetts folk artist Ruben Law
Reed, painted in the mid-19th century. It depicts commander-in-chief George
Washington and his favorite French general, Gilbert du Motier
Marquis de Lafayette on horseback surveying the land segment of one of the
decisive engagements of the American Revolution – Yorktown. Family members
claim that the image was painted from a description of the battle by
eyewitnesses. Reed had ancestors who had fought in the battles of Lexington and
Bunker Hill and he maintained a lifelong interest in the war. Polly noted every
painting, wall paneling and piece of furniture in the show is vetted by a
committee of 160 experts from America and Europe. So you can be
sure you’re looking at the real thing.
COURTESY AND HONOR IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE BATTLE OF PRINCETON
If you visit the Morristown
cemetery on Veteran’s Day, you will see small American flags fluttering over
the graves of American soldiers. But over one grave flutters a
Union Jack. Therein lies a touching story. Newly promoted British Captain Willie
Leslie was killed in the early fighting at Princeton. In his pocket was a
letter from Dr. Benjamin Rush, asking if he were captured, all courtesy should
be shown him. Rush had lived with Leslie’s father, when he studied medicine in
Scotland before the war. Rush was notified of Captain Leslie’s death and
the doctor, who had been attending the wounded in the American camp, prevailed
on General Washington to bury the young man with full military honors.
Washington invited Generals Sullivan, Greene and Colonel Knox along with staff
officers and an honor guard of Delaware soldiers. After the service the army
marched into nearby Moristown for their first winter
encampment. Rush wrote Leslie’s father a letter, telling him of the honors his
son had received. After the war Rush paid for a stone for Leslie’s grave. All
in all it is a touching example of the way the men who fought the
Revolution remained civilized admirers of their redcoated
foes.
THE SPEAKER FOR APRIL AND HIS TOPIC
George C. Daughan has a doctorate in American History from
Harvard. He has taught at the US Air Force Academy, the University of
Colorado and the University of New Hampshire. His book on the American
Navy in the Revolution won the Samuel Eliot Morrison Award in 2008, His
topic in April will be his new book, Revolution on the Hudson, which tells the
story of the war in a new and surprising way.
AND A WORD FROM OUR CHAIRMAN
We will continue the Round Table’s 57th year on Tuesday, April 5, 2017, at 6 pm at The Coffee House Club, at 20 West 44th Street, on the sixth floor. As usual, we would like everyone’s reservation in advance. If you are having trouble receiving your digital copy, or would prefer a print copy, tell our secretary-treasurer Jon Carriel, at joncarriel@protonmail.com.
Your most obdt svt,
David W. Jacobs