Image courtesy of Colonial National Historical Park, Yorktown.

Saturday, May 22, 2021

Harry M. Ward Book Prize: 2021 Nominees

Following are the books nominated for the 2021 Harry M. Ward Book Prize:

Winston Groom, The Patriots: Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the Making of America (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2020).

Donald F Johnson, Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of
Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020).

Cyrus Ansary, George Washington Dealmaker-In-Chief: The Story of How the Father of Our Country Unleashed the Entrepreneurial Spirit in America (Bethesda, MD: Lambert Publications, 2019).

Mary Beth Norton, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2020).

Nina Sankovitch, American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020).

Arthur S. Lefkowitz, Colonel Hamilton and Colonel Burr: The Revolutionary War Lives of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr (Lanham, MD: Stackpole Books, 2020).

Michael Cecere, General Peter Muhlenberg: A Virginia Officer of the Continental Line (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2020).

T. Cole Jones, Captives of Liberty Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019).

Thursday, May 20, 2021

St. John's Church Memorial Day Weekend Tours and Reenactments

 

Memorial Day Weekend

Let's kick off summer and welcome the delegates back to Richmond
We are 
OPEN for a 4-DAY WEEKEND 
Friday May 28th thru Monday May 31
offering Church Tours AND

TWO Reenactments! 
Tickets
Sunday May 30th AND  Monday May 31st
at 1:30 PM

seats are limited / reserve your seat now
THIS WEEKEND MAY 22 - 23RD
Liberty or Death Tours

Historic Graveyard and Visitor Center

SAT 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
SUN 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Tours
We look forward to seeing you! 

Questions? Please call the Visitor Center at 804.648.5015.

Thank You For Your Support. 
Your Ticket Supports Our Educational Programming.

Our Calendar is Filling Out

In addition to Bob Selig speaking at our July 21 Zoom meeting, Holly Mayer will speak at our September 15 meeting on the topic of Congress's Own, a Canadian Regiment. This meeting will most likely also be on Zoom, but stay tuned!

[from Amazon.com:]

Colonel Moses Hazen’s 2nd Canadian Regiment was one of the first “national” regiments in the American army. Created by the Continental Congress, it drew members from Canada, eleven states, and foreign forces. “Congress’s Own” was among the most culturally, ethnically, and regionally diverse of the Continental Army’s regiments—a distinction that makes it an apt reflection of the union that was struggling to create a nation.

The 2nd Canadian, like the larger army, represented and pushed the transition from a colonial, continental alliance to a national association. The problems the regiment raised and encountered underscored the complications of managing a confederation of states and troops.

In this enterprising study of an intriguing and at times “infernal” regiment, Holly A. Mayer marshals personal and official accounts—from the letters and journals of Continentals and congressmen to the pension applications of veterans and their widows—to reveal what the personal passions, hardships, and accommodations of the 2nd Canadian can tell us about the greater military and civil dynamics of the American Revolution. Congress’s Own follows congressmen, commanders, and soldiers through the Revolutionary War as the regiment’s story shifts from tents and trenches to the halls of power and back.

Interweaving insights from borderlands and community studies with military history, Mayer tracks key battles and traces debates that raged within the Revolution’s military and political borderlands wherein subjects became rebels, soldiers, and citizens. Her book offers fresh, vivid accounts of the Revolution that disclose how “Congress’s Own” regiment embodied the dreams, diversity, and divisions within and between the Continental Army, Congress, and the emergent union of states during the War for American Independence.

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

Meeting Notes: March 17, 2021

ARRT-Richmond 3/17/21 Meeting Notes

Pre-Guest Speaker Notes:

ARRT-R’s next meeting is scheduled for 5/19/21 at 6:30 p.m.  This is a zoom meeting!  Sign in

details will be provided in the May newsletter.  Thanks again to Peggy Watson for allowing us to utilize the Osher network.

Jack Kelly will be our May 19 speaker, presenting virtually on his new book “Valcour: The 1776 Campaign That Saved the Cause of Liberty.”

Mr. Kelly is an award-winning author and historian.  His books include Band of Giants: The Amateur Soldiers Who Won America’s Independence, which received the DAR History Medal.  He is also the author of The Edge of Anarchy, Heaven’s Ditch, and Gunpowder and is a New York Foundation for the Arts fellow in Nonfiction Literature.  Kelly has appeared on The History Channel, National Public Radio, and C-Span.  He lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

Guest Speaker:

Gary Ecelbarger, “Observing George Washington During the First Month of the Philadelphia Campaign: Old Challenges and New Discoveries, August 24 – September 23, 1777.”

Mr. Ecelbarger is the author of seven books on the Civil War and Lincoln.  He is an experienced tour guide of Revolutionary War and Civil War sites and is authoring a campaign biography of Washington during the struggle for Philadelphia.  He’s also an ARRT-Richmond member and a long-time friend.

Washington to the Continental Congress – September 10 from Chad’s Ford:

“The Enemy are now lying near Kennets Square and in a tolerably compact body. They have parties advanced on the Lancaster Road and on those leading over this Ford & to Wilmington.  Maneuvering  appears to be their plan; I hope, not with-standing, that we shall be able to find out their real – intended route & to defeat their purposes . . .”

Challenges in Defining the Continental Army in late August/early September 1777:

Numerical size

                Types and quality of arms

Uniforms

Number of cannons

Number of wagons


How Many Continental’s in Delaware?

Five Infantry Divisions; 11 Brigades (12th Brigade formed August 31st)

Troop Strength Returns: May 20th vs. November 3rd

13,000 Infantry present + 1,200 – 1,500 Dragoons and Artillery 

                14,500 present – 13,000 to 14,000 fit for duty

3,000 with combat experience


Washington’s Extended Military Family in Delaware & Pennsylvania:

“Washington’s Pen Men”

Colonel Robert Harrison

Colonel Timothy Pickering

Lt. Colonel Richard Meade

Lt. Colonel John Fitzgerald

Lt. Colonel Alexander Hamilton

Lt. Colonel Tench Tilghman

Lt. Colonel Peter Thornton

        Captain Caleb Gibbs

MG Marquis de Lafayette

MG Arthur St. Clair

MG of the Day (ex. Greene, Stirling)

BG Casimir Pulaski

BG Henry Knox

BG John Cadwalder

Colonel Charles Pinckney

Colonel Clement Biddle

Lt. Colonel Peter Thornton

Captain George Lewis

Dr. Benjamin Rush

Jacob Broom

Campaign Timeline:

August 25th – British land at Head of Elk

September 11th – Battle of Brandywine

September 26th – British occupy Philadelphia

October 4th – Battle of Germantown

December 19th – Americans arrive at Valley Forge