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Green and Mysterious, Absinthe Caused Controversy Wherever it Was Poured

Jesse Hicks — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Artemisia absinthium is a green, leafy plant native to Europe, but one that has since migrated to North America. Commonly called the wormwood plant, its flowers and leaves are the main ingredient of absinthe, one of the world’s most unusual liquors that was first distilled in Switzerland. Absinthe is naturally green in color, and potent, usually 90 to 148 proof.

That potency led many to believe absinthe had hallucinogenic powers, and controversy has plagued the drink since it was first distilled. Before coming to America, it was extremely popular in France. And then, Jean Lanfray killed his family after imbibing the “Green Demon.”

The Source of the Matter. The wormwood plant’s leaves and flowers are the main ingredients distilled into absinthe.

The Lanfray killings happened in Commugny, a small agricultural village in southwest Switzerland, nestled along the border with France. Lanfray was a tall, brawny vineyard worker and day laborer. Like many in the area, he was a born Frenchman; he had served three years in the French Army. At 31 years old, he lived in a two-story farmhouse with his family: his wife and two daughters living upstairs, and his parents and brother, with rooms downstairs.

On August 28, 1905, he woke at 4:30 in the morning. He started the day with a shot of absinthe diluted in water—not uncommon for him or for many Europeans at the time. He let the cows out to pasture, had some harsh words with his wife, and set off to a nearby vineyard to work. Along the way, he stopped for more alcohol: a creme de menthe with water, followed by a cognac and soda. By then it was 5:30 a.m.

Investigating the killings, Swiss authorities established a careful timeline of Lanfray’s prodigious drinking, learning that he would sometimes drink five liters of wine a day. Around noon, he lunched on bread, cheese, and sausage. He also had six glasses of strong wine over his lunch and afternoon break. And another glass before leaving work about 4:30 p.m.

At a cafe on his way home, he had black coffee with brandy. Back at the farmhouse, he and his father each polished off another liter of wine while Lanfray bickered with his wife. Their long-simmering grievances came to a head, and he rose from his seat, took down his rifle from the wall, and shot his wife through the forehead, killing her instantly.

The Progress of Absinthe. This series of French postcards takes an absinthe imbiber through the elation of a first drink to his confusing and stupefying end. Some absinthe opponents claimed the alcohol led to hallucinations.

As Lanfray’s father ran from the house seeking help, his daughter Rose came into the room—Lanfray shot her in the chest. He then went to the crib of his younger daughter, Blanche, and killed her, as well. He struggled to kill himself with the rifle, but it was too long to easily aim at himself and still reach the trigger. Using a piece of string, he finally pulled the trigger but succeeded only in shooting himself in the jaw. With blood running down his face, he picked up Blanche and carried her to the barn, where he lost consciousness. Police found him minutes later.

It was a senseless tragedy, the kind that leaves bystanders helplessly grasping at explanations. The fact that a man could get drunk, kill his entire family, and have no memory of it—that may have struck too close to home for Lanfray’s neighbors, who worked in vineyards and drank beside him. No, there had to be something else, something other.

At a public meeting soon after, the people of Commugny railed against the supposedly corrupting power of absinthe. Lanfray was known regularly to drink it (as did many, many others), and had drunk two glasses on the day of the murders (along with liters of wine). A story began to form, an explanation. Lanfray wasn’t simply an angry drunkard; he was an Absintheur.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

It was a story many were ready to hear. Absinthe already had a dangerous reputation, despite its widespread use throughout Europe. Even aficionados cautioned that “absinthe is a spark that explodes the gunpowder of wine.”

Lanfray’s killings provided potent fuel for a moral panic around absinthe that had been growing for decades. Politicians now had a scapegoat—and a crusade. The press feverishly covered “the Absinthe Murder,” putting it on front pages throughout Europe. One Swiss newspaper called absinthe “the premier cause of bloodthirsty crime in this century,” a sentiment echoed by Commugny’s mayor, who declared, “Absinthe is the principal cause of a series of bloody crimes in our country.”

In the region, a petition to outlaw the drink gathered 82,000 signatures within weeks. After an absinthe drinker in Geneva, Switzerland, killed his wife with a hatchet and a revolver, an anti-absinthe petition quickly gained 34,702 signatures. The public, too, had found a villain.

The following February, Lanfray went on trial. His defense hinged on proving him absinthe-mad, consumed by his addiction to that foul drink whose demonic grip had driven him to murder. If absinthe had made him do it, he couldn’t be held completely responsible for his actions.

Fix a Mixed Drink. A harvest of wormwood is laid out to dry on racks.

Once the wormwood was properly dehydrated, it was mixed with other herbs, like anise, to make the alcohol.

The woman at left seems positively refreshed by the drink.

The argument leaned on a folk understanding of “absinthism,” a collection of maladies supposedly known to afflict the chronic absinthe drinker, including seizures, speech impairment, disordered sleep, and auditory and visual hallucinations. Absinthism was the road to insanity and death; even as millions of people from every walk of life enjoyed absinthe, medical professionals and the press warned of asylums rapidly filling with former Absintheurs, now lost in the throes of madness.

It was known as “une correspondance pour Charenton,” a ticket to Charenton, the insane asylum outside Paris. (It’s unclear whether absinthism actually existed as a syndrome at all, rather than arising from misunderstandings about alcoholism and mental health more generally.)

Not every doctor gave credence to the more lurid claims about absinthism. In Lanfray’s case, however, Albert Mahaim, a professor at the University of Geneva and the head of the regional insane asylum in Vaud, examined the defendant in jail and later testified that “without a doubt, it is the absinthe he drank daily and for a long time that gave Lanfray the ferociousness of temper and blind rages that made him shoot his wife for nothing and his two poor children, whom he loved.” The prosecution, naturally, disagreed.

Whatever the public sentiment toward absinthe, Lanfray was found guilty on four counts of murder—his wife, it turned out, had been pregnant with a son. Three days later, Lanfray hanged himself in his cell.

Less than a month after his death, Vaud, the canton containing Commugny, succeeded in banning absinthe, with the canton of Geneva quickly following. Then it was banned nationwide. Belgium had already banned absinthe in 1905; the Netherlands in 1909. Even France, which consumed more absinthe than the rest of the world, and where it was, as historian P.E. Prestwich put it, “inspiration of French poets and the consolation of French workers,” banned the drink in 1914.

The Green Fairy to its advocates and the Green Demon to its detractors, absinthe was exiled from much of Europe. (The United Kingdom and the Czech Republic were notable exceptions.) While anti-alcohol movements had agitated in countries around the world for decades, absinthe was the first alcoholic drink singled out for a ban. Its outsized, bewitching reputation had been turned against it.

Before the exile, absinthe had a long history in Europe, particularly in France. In its modern form, it likely began as a patent remedy concocted by a French doctor living in Switzerland in the late 1700s. Its name derives from the Greek absinthion, an ancient medicinal drink made by soaking wormwood leaves (Artemisia absinthium) in wine or spirits. It was said to aid in childbirth, and the Greek physician Hippocrates, known as the father of medicine, recommended it for menstrual pain, jaundice, anemia, and rheumatism.

Wormwood persisted as a folk remedy through the ages; when the bubonic plague ravaged England in the 17th and 18th centuries, desperate villagers burned wormwood to cleanse their houses. Wormwood drinks were likewise medicinal—including that early patent remedy.

In 1830, France conquered Algeria and began to expand its empire into North Africa. Soon 100,000 French troops were stationed in the country, where the heat and bad water led to sickness tearing through the occupiers. Wormwood helped stave off insects, calm fevers, and prevent dysentery, and soldiers started adding it to their wine. When they returned home, they brought with them “une verte”—the potent drink with the unique green color.

Belly Up to the Bar. Imagine the likes of Mark Twain and Walt Whitman leaning on the bar at the Old Absinthe House in New Orleans. Note the water dispenser used to pour in the drink.

Old Absinthe House in New Orleans, a exterior view of the saloon.

Absinthe quickly became intertwined with French society, first as a harmless vice of the upper and middle classes. As its reputation (exotic, revelatory) grew, so did its popularity; even among those not looking for a hallucinogenic experience, the high alcohol content proved a key selling point, as you could easily dilute absinthe and still get a great bargain, proof-wise. Everywhere in France seemed to celebrate l’heure verte, the “green hour” of the early evening devoted to absinthe.

Absinthe became intricately connected to French culture and identity. So it is no surprise that when the drink found its way to the United States, the most famous venue for absinthe indulgence would be in a city with a distinctly French flavor: New Orleans, “the little Paris of North America.”

The French sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803, and the region’s uniquely French culture became a point of pride. As absinthe took off in France, it also appeared in New Orleans, though without the same fanfare and popularity. In a town already famous for carousing, absinthe was one drink among many.

Following the Civil War, a barman named Cayetano Ferrer, formerly of the Paris Opera House, began serving absinthe in what some clever marketing called “the Parisian manner.” A glass of the emerald drink would be placed on the bar beneath a pair of fountains, and water would slowly drip, creating a milky opalescence in a glass—a process called the “louche.”

Ferrer’s ritual proved a compelling spectacle for the tourists who flocked to the city of sin. The building became the Old Absinthe House. Thought to be the city’s first saloon, it hosted famous luminaries from Mark Twain and Walt Whitman to O. Henry and William Makepeace Thackeray. Oscar Wilde, of course, attended. No visit to New Orleans, by then “the Absinthe capital of the world,” could be complete without a round at the Old Absinthe House.

While Europeans of all classes drank absinthe, in the United States it remained a cosmopolitan indulgence little known outside the city. New York had its own Absinthe House, and large metropolitan areas such as Chicago and San Francisco catered to the artists, bohemians, and wealthy, gilded-age poseurs who wanted to associate themselves with absinthe’s dark allure.

Inspiration for Writers. Novelists worldwide used absinthe and its supposed side effects as grist for their pot boilers. This cartoon indicates murder, madness, and a police record dwell in every drink of absinthe one takes. That’s a lot of responsibility for a glass of booze.

Absinthe’s relative obscurity in America didn’t prevent the press from warning of its fearsome reputation, however. Against the backdrop of a growing temperance movement, in 1879, a Dr. Richardson offered his perspective on absinthe to The New York Times. “I cannot report so favorably on the use of Absinthe as I have on the use of opium,” he began, describing rising absinthe use in “closely-packed towns and cities.” He warned that the drink was commonly adulterated, and that frequent imbibers could become addicted. “In the worst examples of poisoning from Absinthe,” he wrote, “the person becomes a confirmed epileptic.”

Movie poster for Absinthe.

Later that year, the Times reiterated: “The dangerous, often deadly, habit of drinking Absinthe is said to be steadily growing in this country, not among foreigners merely, but among the native population.” It ascribed “a good many deaths in different parts of the country” to a drink “much more perilous, as well as more deleterious, than any ordinary kind of liquor.”

Absinthe, the writer claimed, had a subtlety lacking in other alcohol; addiction could sneak up quickly. “The more intellectual a man is,” the Times cautioned, “the more readily the habit fastens itself upon him.” It had already taken its toll in Europe: “Some of the most brilliant authors and artists of Paris have killed themselves with absinthe, and many more are doing so.” The Times closed by warning that absinthe, previously found only in large cities, had permeated everywhere, “and it is called for with alarming frequency.”

Much of absinthe’s mythology came from an accumulation of confusions, misunderstandings, and motivated lies. Some, though, did try to cut through the green fog and get to the truth—at least as best they could. Valentin Magnan, physician-in-chief at Sainte-Anne, France’s main asylum, saw rising numbers of insane people as a sign of his country’s social decay. (More likely, the increase resulted from improved diagnostic techniques.) Like many, he saw absinthe as the culprit, and set out to prove his case.

In 1869 he published his results. He had arranged an experiment. One guinea pig was placed in a glass case with a saucer of pure alcohol; another was placed in a glass case with a saucer of wormwood oil. A cat and a rabbit also got their own cases and their own saucers of wormwood oil. The animals breathing wormwood fumes were wracked with seizures, while the sole alcohol-breathing guinea pig just got drunk.

A Detective Fiction book cover, Absinthe.

This and other experiments convinced Magnan (if he hadn’t been already) that absinthe was uniquely toxic. He extrapolated his results to humans, and claimed that “absinthistes” in his asylum displayed seizures, violent fits, and amnesia. He pushed for banning the Green Demon.

Fellow authorities disagreed, pointing out that guinea pigs inhaling high doses of distilled wormwood couldn’t be compared to humans consuming tiny amounts of diluted wormwood. They suggested that wormwood likely had little effect, and whatever damage absinthe wrought was no different from typical alcoholism. Rhetorically, however, Magnan’s support for the concept of “absinthism,” separate from alcoholism, enabled those concerned citizens who wanted to ban absinthe without committing to full prohibition. Absinthe, after all, posed a unique medical danger, while other alcohol (including France’s beloved wine) was surely fine for responsible adults.

In the United States, absinthe never became the burning social question it was in Europe. The media took occasional potshots, reflecting a general sense of absinthe’s depravity, without ever raising banning it to the height of a moral crusade.

An 1883 cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, for example, had the caption, “Absinthe Drinking—The Fast Prevailing Vice Among Our Gilded Youth.” The picture above featured a strapping young man on the left, and on the right a broken, aged specter of dissolution, “after two years’ indulgence, three times a day.” An earlier article in the magazine declared: “Many deaths are directly traceable to the excessive use of absinthe. The encroachments of this habit are scarcely perceptible. A regular absinthe drinker seldom perceives that he is dominated by its baleful influence until it is too late. All of a sudden he breaks down; his nervous system is destroyed, his brain is inoperative, his will is paralyzed, he is a mere wreck; there is no hope of his recovery.”

French Absinthe poster.

In the early 1900s, public opinion in Europe began to turn against absinthe, generally as part of the long-simmering temperance movement, and more specifically because of the Lanfray murders. As countries began to ban the drink, Harper’s Weekly reported in 1907 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture had begun to investigate “the green curse of France.” Four years later, with little fanfare at the end of 1911, the department’s Pure Food Board announced starting January 1, 1912, importing absinthe into the United States would be prohibited.

Give it a shot!

Tenth Ward distilling in Frederick, Md., is one American distiller now
producing absinthe. Check them out at (tenthwarddistilling.com).

Tenth Ward Distilling Company’s bottle of absinthe.

The head of the board told the Times that “Absinthe is one of the worst enemies of man, and if we can keep the people of the United States from becoming slaves to this demon, we will do it.” (The board also announced new restrictions on opium, morphine, and cocaine.)

News reports from the time show that, unsurprisingly, Americans didn’t immediately cease drinking absinthe. In a preview of the Prohibition era, authorities particularly in California seized caches of the emerald beverage. British mystic and provocateur Aleister Crowley wrote his famous paean to the Old Absinthe House, “The Green Goddess,” in 1916, well after the ban. “Art is the soul of life and the Old Absinthe House is heart and soul of the old quarter of New Orleans,” he wrote. And he struck a familiar note about the bewitching, destructive power of the Green Fairy: “What is there in Absinthe that makes it a separate cult? The effects of its abuse are totally different from those of other stimulants. Even in ruin and in degradation it remains a thing apart: its victims wear a ghastly aureole all their own, and in their peculiar hell yet gloat with a sinister perversion of pride that they are not as other men.”

Crowley’s line evoked a demimonde particular to that time and place, but in 1920 the arrival of Prohibition blunted much of absinthe’s mystique in the United States. Jad Adams writes: “The surreptitious nature of drinking in the prohibition era—serving alcohol from hip flasks, barmen squirting a syringe of pure alcohol into soft drinks they were serving—was not conducive to absinthe, which was a drink of display and provocation.”

New Orleans continued imbibing and became known as “the liquor capital of America.” The Old Absinthe House was closed by federal agents in 1925 and again in 1926, the 100-year anniversary of its opening. Yet it outlasted prohibition and remains a fixture of New Orleans culture to this day.

Absinthe, too, persevered. It went further underground, particularly in America, and that burnished its appeal among bohemians and the counterculture. Ernest Hemingway and Jack London fondly recalled their absinthe experiences beyond the reach of U.S. law; Hemingway’s cocktail, Death in the Afternoon, is likely the country’s most lasting and well-known contribution to absinthe culture.

And eventually, like green shoots emerging after a long and punishing winter, the Green Fairy rose again. After nearly 100 years of targeted prohibition, in 2007 the United States once again allowed absinthe to be imported and consumed. The green hour had come back around again, at last.

Jesse Hicks writes about science, technology, and politics. Based in Detroit, his work has appeared in Harper’s, Politico, The New Republic, and elsewhere.

How Do You Drink Absinthe?

(Ask Hemingway)

Well, it requires a fancy slotted spoon, for one thing. The following is the most traditional and common method for preparing the drink. You place a sugar cube on the spoon, and then place the spoon over a glass of absinthe. Pour iced water over the sugar cube so you end up with about 1 part absinthe and 3–5 parts water.

Ernest Hemingway.

The water brings out the anise, which gives absinthe a licorice taste, and fennel that are also distilled with the leaves and flowers of the wormwood plant. If the mix is correct, the liquid will turn milky and opalescent in appearance.

Ernest Hemingway was a fan of absinthe—why is that not surprising? His favorite way to drink it was a simple cocktail he called “Death in the Afternoon,” the same name as his 1932 book about Spanish bullfighting.

Death in the Afternoon ingredients:

1½ ounces Absinthe

4 ounces chilled Champagne

Hemingway published the recipe in a 1935 book, So Red the Nose, or Breath in the Afternoon, which featured 30 drink concoctions from celebrities. He explained, “Pour one jigger Absinthe into a Champagne glass. Add iced Champagne until it attains the proper opalescent milkiness. Drink three to five of these slowly.” Yes. Very slowly.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of American History magazine.

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Did Scottish Warriors Invent The Man Bag?

Zita Ballinger Fletcher — Mon, 09 Oct 2023 17:59:25 +0000

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Kilts allowed Scottish warriors increased mobility in battle as they dashed around the Highlands, but these proud traditional tartan garments had one major problem: no pockets. A man without pockets to stash things in is a man in a state of clutter and confusion. This was as true in the Middle Ages as it is today. Yet as early as the 12th century, Highlanders had developed a clever solution in a small all-purpose bag which became known as the sporran.

The sporran, which is still a part of traditional Scottish menswear, was the ideal travel bag for the Scottish warrior on the go. Worn slung from a belt over the kilt, the sporran could be used to stash knives, food, bullets as soon as they were invented and whatever else an enterprising warrior wanted to take on the road. Early sporrans were made from leather or animal hide. Starting in the late 17th century, sporrans were furnished with metal clasps and gradually came to incorporate more intricate metal designs.

Ceremonial sporrans were developed for military use in the 18th century. These are made with animal hair and are known as sporran molach. Animal hair used to make them have typically included goat hair, horsehair and rabbit fur. Soldiers’ sporrans feature tassels, which swing when the kilt-wearing trooper is marching. The number of tassels, as well as their placement, weave and colors, are rich in meaning and vary depending on regiment and wearer.

Some officers have had custom sporrans made for them. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders have traditionally worn a tassel arrangement known as the “Swinging Six” style and sporrans made from badger heads. Sometimes fox heads have been used for sporrans as well. A sporran can be worn sideways over the hip or more boldly front and center.

An officer’s sporran of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders features six bullion-style tassels, oak leaves and battle honors.

Thistle engravings mark this 20th century sporran made of gray horse hair.

The reverse of a sporran from the University of Glasgow’s Officer’s Training Corps shows the intricate leatherwork that goes into each piece.

This officer’s sporran of the renowned Black Watch regiment is crafted with five tassels, elegant loops plus the regimental emblem of St. Andrew and his cross.

A pouch for storing items is hidden behind a dress sporran’s showy facade.

This 19th century sporran for enlisted men of the London Scottish Regiment is simple but ruggedly appealing.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Thomas Jefferson, Grave Digger

Rick Britton — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 13:00:00 +0000

While a number of enslaved African Americans looked on, 40-year-old Thomas Jefferson, shovel in hand, began poking into the side of the large Indian mound. Spherical in shape and 40 feet in diameter, it sat on the flood plain of the gently flowing Rivanna River, six miles north of Monticello, his mountaintop home. Jefferson was standing in a ditch surrounding the “barrow,” as he called it, when he commenced. “I first dug superficially in several parts of it,” he wrote, “and came to collections of human bones, at different depths, from six inches to three feet below the surface. These were lying in the utmost confusion….”

Americans can usually rattle off a few of Thomas Jefferson’s titles and achievements. The principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson, our third president, was the driving force behind the Louisiana Purchase and the wildly successful Meriwether Lewis and William Clark Expedition. But he was much more. Jefferson was a true Renaissance man, a brilliant polymath with an eclectic and dizzying array of interests.

Thomas Jefferson.

VIRGINIA: MONTICELLO. Historic Home With a View. Thomas Jefferson and his family were fortunate to enjoy this splendid view of the Virginia countryside north of Monticello, as captured in a water-color painted about the turn of the 19th century.

Of these, he called science his “passion,” and over the course of his busy life, despite devoting more than 30 years to public service, Jefferson made contributions to botany, paleontology, meteorology, entomology, ethnology, and comparative anatomy. He was also an amateur archaeologist, and in 1783, spurred on by a document sent him by the French government, Thomas Jefferson excavated a Monacan Indian burial mound. It was one of his greatest scientific accomplishments. “In applying his innate sense of order and detail,” wrote science historian Silvio A. Bedini, “he anticipated modern archaeology’s basis and methods by almost a full century.”

Born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell, his father’s plantation in the Virginia Piedmont—the western edge of European settlement—Thomas Jefferson studied in private schools prior to his 1760 enrollment at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va. There, as he later wrote, it was his “great good fortune” to study under and befriend, Dr. William Small, a disciple of the Scottish Enlightenment who “probably fixed the destinies” of his life. “[F]rom his conversation,” Jefferson wrote, “I got my first views of the expansion of science & of the system of things in which we are placed.”

It was in Williamsburg, too, that young Jefferson had an encounter that helped foster his fascination with Native Americans. In the spring of 1762, a party of 165 Cherokee from the Holston River Valley accompanied their chief to Williamsburg prior to his journey to London. Called “Ontesseté,” this chieftain delivered a stirring farewell oration the evening before he departed. Enthralled, Jefferson looked on from the edge of the native’s camp. “The moon was in full splendor,” he later wrote, “and to her he seemed to address himself….His sounding voice, distinct articulation, animated action, and the solemn silence of his people…filled me with awe and veneration, although I did not understand a word he uttered.”

Mapping an Embryonic Nation. This map of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Delaware was first published in 1787. A 1753 map drawn by Joshua Fry and Jefferson’s father, Peter, was used to depict Virginia’s boundaries.

After college, Jefferson practiced law for seven years. Then, following service in the Virginia House of Burgesses, the Continental Congress, and the Virginia House of Delegates, he was elected governor of the Old Dominion in 1779 during the American Revolution. In October 1780, the same year he was reelected governor, Jefferson received a fascinating set of 22 queries—in essence, a questionnaire—from the secretary of the French legation to the United States, François, Marquis de Barbé-Marbois (who in 1803 would play a large role in negotiating the Louisiana Purchase). The questionnaire sought out some of the basic statistical information on the nascent American states, then embroiled in a war with France’s common enemy.

The Virginia copy had been forwarded to Jefferson by a member of the state’s congressional delegation. Query number three, for example, asked for “An exact description of [the state’s] limits and boundaries,” while seven inquired about “The number of its inhabitants.” Others sought out details on the state’s religions, rivers, mountains, flora, seaports, colleges, commercial productions, and military force, as well as customs and manners.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

An inveterate compiler of data, Jefferson was well-prepared to respond. As he later noted in his Autobiography: “I had always made it a practice whenever an opportunity occurred of obtaining any information of our country [Virginia], which might be of use to me in any station public or private, to commit it to writing. These memoranda were on loose papers….I thought this a good occasion to embody their substance, which I did in the order of Mr. Marbois’ queries, so as to answer his wish and to arrange them for my own use.”

Although burdened with the responsibilities of his governorship, Jefferson began working on his reply immediately. Unfortunately, the declining state of military affairs in Virginia for Jefferson’s last seven months as governor meant that he had to set aside the project that so sparked his enthusiasm. During this tumultuous time, he was forced to flee twice from Richmond, the new state capital he had established. And—after Jefferson and the legislature relocated to Charlottesville to escape the enemy—he was compelled to even abandon Monticello when a British raiding party rode up the “little mountain” and captured his neoclassical home.

Although Jefferson later termed this troubling period the very nadir of his public career, the termination of his governorship in early June 1781 did nevertheless give him the time he needed to focus on the French questionnaire. Organizationally, each query became the topic of a chapter. In December 1781, Jefferson had the first version sent to Barbé-Marbois, but he immediately began enlarging the manuscript—indeed, tripling the length—until it was published in Paris in 1785 and then in London two years later by John Stockdale as Notes on the State of Virginia.

An appendix in later editions of Notes on the State of Virginia included this statistical table listing Indian inhabitants of Virginia’s Colonial era.

‘Forty different tribes’. Jefferson began work on his famed Notes on the State of Virginia, in 1781.

Most of the information came from Jefferson’s personal papers, his large library at Monticello, and his numerous learned correspondents. One query, however, animated him to travel afield. It asked for: “A description of the Indians established in the State….An indication of the Indian Monuments discovered in that State.” After writing about Virginia’s “upwards of forty different tribes”—and compiling a table of their numbers, “confederacies and geographical situation”—the former governor tackled the query’s second section. “I know of no such thing existing as an Indian monument…,” he wrote, “unless indeed it be the Barrows, of which many are to be found all over this country.”

Jefferson penned that these were “of considerable notoriety among the Indians,” and that one stood in his neighborhood. He recalled that, in the mid-1750s, a party of Native Americans “went through the woods directly to it…and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road” about six miles distant. (While some writers claim that young Jefferson, then only 10 to 12 years old, witnessed this incident himself, it is much more likely he heard this story secondhand.)

These Native Americans were most certainly Monacans, a Siouan-speaking people who, in the dim past, had journeyed from the Ohio River Valley across the Appalachian Mountains. Up through the late 1600s, the Monacan Nation—a confederacy of like-speaking Native American tribes—controlled a vast region of the fertile Virginia Piedmont, including the valleys of the Rivanna and upper James Rivers. By the time of the arrival of Europeans in the Piedmont in the 1720s, the Monacan had long since removed to the southwest.

Monacan men stalked elk, deer, and small game through the open woods and sometimes pursued bison over the beautiful Blue Ridge into the Shenandoah Valley. Dressed in animal skins, and sporting wildly cut manes, they adorned themselves with necklaces made of copper they had mined. Much prized, the copper they sometimes traded with the Powhatan, an Algonquin people who occupied Tidewater Virginia to the east. The Monacan and the Powhatan also frequently fought.

The Monacan women raised crops of corn, beans, and squash in the fields surrounding their villages. Often comprising scores of bark-covered domed structures, these villages were surrounded by 7-foot-high palisade enclosures (a feature that made them resemble the English-built forts). One such town, Monasukapanough, had once stood near the Rivanna River in close proximity to the “barrow” in Jefferson’s neighborhood. He noted the connection between the two sites when he wrote that the mound was located “opposite to some hills on which had been an Indian town.”

To better answer Marbois’ query and to satisfy his own curiosity, Jefferson determined to “open and examine” this mound thoroughly. Prior to the excavation, however—in anticipation of what was later termed the “scientific method”—he posited questions he hoped to find answers for in the earth. It was obviously a repository of the dead, but when was it constructed? How was it constructed? Was it true that those interred were the casualties of Native American battles fought nearby? Was it the common sepulcher (or tomb) of just one town? This supposition came from a tradition, Jefferson wrote, “handed down from the Aboriginal Indians, that, when they settled in a town, the first person who died was placed erect and earth put about him, so as to cover and support him….”

When another person died, the dirt was removed, he was reclined against the first, and then the earth was replaced. (In this manner, therefore, a burial mound would grow outward from the center.) Another question—inferred but never stated exactly—was this: Rather than being related to just one Indian village, was this barrow a sacred burial place for an entire section of the Monacan Nation?

Interestingly, a theory at the time—popular among members of the nation’s foremost scientific organization, the American Philosophical Society, which Jefferson had been elected to in 1780—claimed that Native Americans were too primitive to have erected the barrows, also called “tumuli,” which had been encountered in numerous states. Instead, they attributed their construction to a much earlier people descended from either Phoenicians, Israelites, or perhaps even Scandinavians (think Vikings). These ancient “Mound Builders,” they theorized, were subsequently driven away by the barbarous ancestors of the Native Americans with whom they were familiar. Some of the Mound Builders journeyed south, they believed, and founded the Aztec civilization. While Jefferson was certainly familiar with this racist hypothesis, it is unknown whether he was considering it as he began his dig.

Unfortunately, too, the exact date of the excavation is not known. Concerning this important detail—and so uncharacteristic of Jefferson, who was normally minutiae-obsessed—his Notes on the State of Virginia is silent. Historian Douglas L. Wilson, however, who studied the original manuscript at the Massachusetts Historical Society, the “setting copy” for the 1785 Paris edition, has concluded that the dig “must have been performed after…the summer or early fall of 1783 and before [Jefferson] left for Philadelphia on 16 October.”

Native American Roots. Moundsville, W.Va., derives its name from the majestic Grave Creek Mound—62 feet high and 240 feet in diameter, erected in 250-150 BC

A restored soapstone vessel, found at the base of Buck Mountain, Va.

A rebuilt Monacan Village now stands at the tribe’s historic home near Natural Bridge, Va.

The circular barrow was large, 40 feet in diameter, encircled by a ditch five feet across and five feet deep. It had been 12 feet high, Jefferson observed, “though now reduced by the plough to seven and a half, having been under cultivation about a dozen years.” Prior to that, it had been covered with a small stand of trees one foot in diameter.

Restored Honor

Finally recognized as an official state tribe by Virginia in 1989, the Monacan Indian Nation has made considerable strides in reestablishing its ancestral legacy. Its headquarters is located on Bear Mountain, Va., not far from Lynchburg. For more information, visit www.monacannation.com.

Monacan Indian nation logo.

Jefferson’s poking around quickly established that the mound contained human bones. They were lying in disarray, “some vertical, some oblique, some horizontal…entangled, and held together in clusters by the earth. Bones of the most distant parts were found together, as, for instance, the small bones of the foot in the hollow of a scull…to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or basket….”

These were “secondary burial features,” wrote University of Virginia anthropology professor Jeffrey L. Hantman, “the comingled remains of numerous individuals” who had been initially buried elsewhere, “then moved collectively at designated ritual moments….”

Jefferson marveled at the number of remains he uncovered; the vast majority being skulls, jaw bones, teeth, and the bones or arms, legs, feet, and hands. Some he extracted intact, but others, such as the skull of an infant, “fell to pieces on being taken out” of the mound.

Next began the most commented-upon aspect of Jefferson’s archaeological endeavor. “I proceeded then,” he wrote, “to make a perpendicular cut through the body of the barrow, that I might examine its internal structure. This… was opened to the former surface of the earth, and was wide enough for a man to walk through and examine its sides.” Typical of Jefferson’s writings, this passage disguises the fact that he alone could not possibly have performed this labor. Surely, the “perpendicular cut” was dug by a rather large number of enslaved African Americans, perhaps as many as 30 or 40, whom he had either transported from Monticello or leased from a nearby plantation owner. These sentences, too, reveal Jefferson’s utter insensitivity to the site’s sacred status.

Now the amateur archaeologist was able to determine how the barrow was constructed. “At the bottom, that is on the level of the circumjacent plain,” he wrote, “I found bones; above these a few stones brought from a cliff a quarter of a mile off…then an interval of earth, then a stratum of bones, and so on.”

At one end of the trench he found four strata of bones; at the other, three. The bones in the strata closest to the surface were the least decayed. Down through the ages, therefore, the barrow had grown taller with recurring layers of bones, stones, and earth. Next, he was able to determine whether any of those interred had fallen in battle. Of the bones he pulled from the mound’s various strata: “No holes were discovered in any of them, as if made with bullets, arrows, or other weapons.”

What of the other questions? Naturally, Jefferson wasn’t able to determine when the Monacan burial mound was initiated, but—thanks to his methods—he was able to answer two others. For the following reasons, he wrote, it was obviously not one town’s common sepulcher: The number of skeletons it contained (he “conjectured” 1,000); None of them were upright; The bones lay in different stratas, with no intermixing; And, the “different states of decay in these strata” seemed to indicate “a difference in the time of inhumation.” This burial mound, therefore, must have appertained to a fairly large region of the Monacan Nation. “Appearances certainly indicate,” he wrote, “that it has derived both origin and growth from the accustomary collection of bones, and deposition of them together….”

Familiar Ground. James Monroe, the nation’s fifth president, was one of Jefferson’s prominent Charlottesville neighbors. Here, archaeologists excavate a section of Monroe’s original Highland plantation.

In the balance of his response to the aborigine-related query, Jefferson briefly mentioned two other barrows (one of which also contained human remains), presciently noted “the resemblance between the Indians of America and the Eastern inhabitants of Asia,” and urged the collection of Native American vocabularies so that those skilled in languages could “construct the best evidence of the derivation of this part of the human race.” He concluded with a seven-page table listing the tribes residing within, and adjacent to, the United States, their names, approximate numbers, and the locations of their tribal lands.

Ambitious in scope, Notes on the State of Virginia—with its double-entendre title—won for Jefferson considerable notoriety. In 1785, the year of its French publication, Secretary of the Continental Congress Charles Thomson, a fellow member of the American Philosophical Society, called it “a most excellent natural history not merely of Virginia but of North America and possibly equal if not superior to that of any country yet published.”

Wrote English professor William Peden, who edited a 1954 edition of the work: “The Notes on Virginia is probably the most important scientific and political book written by an American before 1785; upon it much of Jefferson’s contemporary fame as a philosopher was based.”

And no small amount of that fame was due to the “sage of Monticello’s” archaeological dig (the only such of his lifetime). Unfortunately, other than what was published in Notes on the State of Virginia, there is no other information about the Monacan burial mound. Jefferson left no field notes. Its exact location has never been pinpointed, although many individuals have tried, including professor Hantman and a team of anthropology students from the University of Virginia.

A Museum All Its Own. A collection of keepsakes central to Jefferson’s life is displayed in Monticello’s Entrance Hall, including his father’s map survey of Virginia and the mounted heads and antlers of American fauna.

Unfortunate, too, is the fact that Jefferson never mentioned refilling the trench. If it was indeed left open, the examined remains strewn across the ground, the Rivanna River, which frequently inundates the plain upon which the mound stood, would have washed it away within a few decades. Jefferson obviously believed that the benefits of scientific inquiry greatly trumped the barrow’s importance to the Monacan people.

All that being said, the dig was nonetheless a major scientific achievement. “The importance of Jefferson’s experience and his report of it cannot be overstressed,” wrote science historian Silvio A. Bedini, “for he introduced for the very first time the principle of stratigraphy in archaeological excavation.” With this discipline, examining the layers—“strata,” Jefferson called them—provides a calendar for determining the age of items or human remains contained therein. In his description, Jefferson “not only indicated the basic features of the stratigraphic method, but also virtually named it,” wrote German archaeology writer C.W. Ceram, “although a hundred years were to pass before the term became established in archaeological jargon.”

Most important is the fact that thanks to his excavation of the Monacan Indian burial mound—and the detailed account of his posited questions and scientific methodology—Thomas Jefferson became known as the “father of American archaeology.”

Rick Britton is a historian and cartographer who lives in Charlottesville, Va., in the shadow of Thomas Jefferson’s “Little Mountain.”

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of American History magazine.

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Top 10 Commanders Who Became Unlikely Stars of Military History

Jon Guttman — Mon, 02 Oct 2023 16:37:10 +0000

Judas Maccabeus (190-160 bce)

The third of five sons born to Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, priest (cohen) of Modein—the others being Eleazar, Simon, John and Jonathan—the man more widely known by his Greek name was known in Hebrew as Yehuda HaMakab, or Judah the Hammer. Judas was a cohen in his own right and would have remained so had his Seleucid overlord, Antiochus IV Epiphanes (“God Manifest”), not sought to promote homogeneity in his multi-ethnic kingdom by imposing Hellenic culture and religion on all his subjects in 168 bce. That included installing images of Hellenic gods in the Second Temple of Jerusalem, provoking a revolt by Mattathias, his sons and other Jewish pietists.

During this war for control over Judea, Judas came to the fore. After winning a string of victories, he led his makeshift army into Jerusalem on the 25th day in the Hebrew month of Kislev (approximately December), 164 bce. In the course of cleansing the Temple, tradition has it that there was only enough oil to light it for a single day, but it burned through eight nights until more oil was found.

The fighting was far from over, however. Eleazar was killed in 161 and at Elasa in 160. Judas was outgeneraled by Bacchides and died fighting. His burial ended with a quotation from King David’s lament to King Saul: “How the mighty have fallen!” Jonathan and Simon subsequently died, leaving John the last Maccabee standing by 142 bce, when Judea finally won autonomy within the Seleucid kingdom and independence in 141.

Narses (c.ad 478-568)

The exact dates of Narses’ birth and death are uncertain, as is how he came to be castrated. What is known is that he was a Romanized Armenian who served as steward, chief treasurer and grand chamber of the court to the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I.

He played a vital role in putting down the Nika riots on 532, but there is no evidence of military training leading to Justinian’s ordering him in 538 to Italy, where Count Flavius Belisarius, after having conquered the Vandals in North Africa in 533, was trying to wrest the Western Roman Empire from the Ostrogoths. Although Narses demonstrated a surprising grasp of command, he and Belisarius did not trust one another and Justinian recalled Narses. Working with minimal resources, Belisarius conduced a brilliant defense of Rome in 538, but in 541 Justinian, suspecting his loyalty, reassigned him to fight the Sassanians in Mesopotamia. Narses took Belisarius’ place in Italy and by June 551 was the supreme commander at age 73 with a string of victories. In 554 the undersized eunuch was feted to the first Triumph held in Rome in 150 years—and the last. On Nov. 14, 565, Justinian died and the new emperor, Justin II, recalled Narses to Constantinople in 567. Some accounts claim he died enroute in April 568, but others describe his death in peaceful retirement in 574 at what might have been age 96—itself an achievement in the treacherous cauldron of Byzantine politics.

Genghis Khan (c. 1162-1227)

Born to a Mongol chieftain of the Borjigin clan, Temujin was eight when his father died. Certainly he would have learned the standard Mongol mounted warrior repertoire, but his accomplishments had gone far beyond that by 1206, when a kurultai of his peers elected him their first khagan, under the name of Genghis Khan. Among the most intriguing mysteries surrounding his rise to power is how he learned, hands-on, to forge alliances, turn an unwieldy collection of steppe warriors into a vast, well-disciplined army capable of conquering continents and, while he was at it, create a political entity of unprecedented scope to administer his holdings, complete with a codified legal system—all conceived virtually from scratch.

Although the victims of his ruthless expansion of empire have been estimated as high as 17 million—one-fifth the earth’s population at the time—Genghis Khan conquered the largest contiguous land mass in history and laid the foundation for a meritocracy allowing universal religious tolerance, which in times of peace connected the western world by pan-Eurasian trade. All this was without precedent in the Mongol world, but it lasted a quarter of a millennium. Is it any wonder that, however controversial he is elsewhere, Genghis Khan is still at the top of Mongolia’s hierarchy of national heroes?

Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly (1559-1632)

Born in the Brabant in the Spanish Netherlands (now Belgium), Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly attended Jesuit school in Cologne, but at age 15 enlisted as a soldier in the Spanish army against the Dutch in the Eighty Years War. In 1600 he served in a mercenary unit with the Holy Roman Empire fighting Ottoman forces in Hungary and Transylvania. It was not uncommon for professional soldiers to learn hands-on as they rose in the ranks in the 17th century, but Tilly was exceptional in that he ascended from private to field marshal in just five years. In 1610 Duke Maximilian I gave him command of the Catholic League.

When the Thirty Years War broke out in Bohemia in 1618, Tilly’s victory at White Mountain in 1620 knocked Bohemia out of the conflict at almost the beginning. As other Protestant countries rose against the Empire, Tilly defeated each in turn, seeming to be invincible.

Tilly’s career began to tarnish when King Gustavus II Adolphus put the Thirty Years War through a new phase with his innovatively mobile Swedish army. After a 20-day siege, on May 20, 1631 Tilly’s forces stormed Magdeburg and for the first time he lost control over his troops, who butchered 20,000 of the city’s 25,000 population. On Sept. 17, Tilly confronted Gustavus at Breitenfeld and was convincingly outmaneuvered and beaten, suffering 27,000 casualties. Tilly scored a modest victory at Bamberg on March 9, 1632, but at Rain am Lech on April 15 he was struck in the thigh by an arquebus round and died of osteomyelitis in Ingolstadt on the 30th.

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)

When the English Civil War broke out, its most famous—and notorious—figure was known among the merchant community and had been a member of Parliament for his home county of Huntingdon in 1628-29 and 1640-42. His only military experience had been raising a cavalry troop in Cambridgeshire for the Parliamentarians, which arrived too late to participate in the opening battle at Edgehill on Oct. 23, 1642. Oliver Cromwell proved avid at learning from experience, most notably at Gainesborough on July 23, 1643, at which point he was a colonel. He was involved in redeveloping the Parliamentary forces into a “New Model Army,” which proved its worth in the pivotal battles of Marston Moor in July 1644 and Naseby on June 14, 1645. By 1652 Cromwell’s subsequent campaigns in Scotland and Ireland sealed his place among Britain’s most successful generals. If appraised by his own standard, however—“warts and all”—he is also remembered as a regicide (he was the third of 59 to sign King Charles I’s death warrant), the revolutionary who dissolved Parliament and made himself “Lord Protector,” i.e. dictator, and one of those oppressors the Irish still love to hate.

Nathanael Greene (1742-1786)

Born in Warwick, Rhode Island, Nathanael Greene was running a mill when the American Revolution broke out, but he was an avid reader with—despite being a Quaker—a fascination with military science. That and his advocating the break with Britain led to his being expelled from his congregation, although he still regarded himself as a Quaker. When the battles of Lexington and Concord occurred, Greene’s only contribution was to form a militia unit, the Kentish Guard. On June 14, 1775 Greene met Maj. Gen. George Washington, the new commander of the Continental Army, in Boston, and the two became close friends. Serving as quartermaster-general, Greene distinguished himself in combat at Brandywine Creek, Valley Forge and Monmouth Court House. On Dec. 2, 1780 Washington sent Greene to Charlotte, N.C., where he reorganized the beaten Continental forces in the southern colonies and set out to retake them from British Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis’ army. Greene choreographed an artful campaign of fighting retreats, climaxing at Guilford Court House, N.C., on March 15, 1781. Although Cornwallis ended up holding the ground and technically winning the battle, the 633 casualties he suffered compelled him to disengage and retire to Virginia. While Cornwallis was trapped at Yorktown, Greene took the offensive, driving the last British in the South from Charleston, S.C. on Dec. 14, 1782. Before his death of heatstroke in Georgia on June 19, 1786, Greene summed up how he wore Cornwallis down: “We fight, get beat, rise and fight again.”

Francois-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803)

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture (1743-1803)

The son of an educated slave on French-owned Saint-Domingue, François-Dominique Toussaint got some education of his own from Jesuit contacts while serving as a livestock handler, herder, coachman and steward until 1776, when he attained freedom. A slave revolt broke out between oppressed blacks and their white and mulatto overseers in August 1791. By 1793 he was leading rebels in a self-developed guerrilla force and had adopted the surname “Louverture” (“opening”). Later that year he and his followers helped a newly-Republican France fight off Spanish and British forces and was encouraged to learn that the French National Assembly ended slavery in May 1794. Over the following years Louverture displayed a remarkable grasp of civil leadership, restoring the economy in 1795 and overrunning Spanish San Domingo in January 1801, declaring the liberation of its white, black and mulatto population. In January 1802, however, Sainte-Domingue was invaded by a French army led by Maj. Gen. Charles Victoire Emmanuel Leclerc, brother-in-law of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, with orders to reinstate slavery on the island. Overwhelmed and losing followers, Louverture agreed to lay down his arms in May and retire to his plantation. Instead, Bonaparte ordered his arrest. He died in Fort-de-Joux in the Jura Mountains on April 7, 1803.

Bonaparte’s treachery backfired. Leclerc died of yellow fever in November 1802. On May 18, 1803 Bonaparte made some quick cash for his European operations by approving American President Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, effectively writing off his ambitions in the New World. On Jan. 1, 1804 one of Louverture’s disciples, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, declared himself governor-general of Haiti, the world’s first black republic.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie (1762-1806)

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas-Davy de la Pailleterie was the issue of Alexandre Davy, Marquis de la Pailleterie, a minor French noble plantation owner in Jérémie, Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and one of his slaves, Marie-Céssette Dumas (whose surname Thomas-Alexandre adopted). The boy accompanied his father to France, where he could be free and get an education. In 1786, however, he enlisted in the French army’s 5th Dragoon Regiment (Queen). When the French Revolution broke out, he found numerous opportunities to show his military talents. On June 2, 1792 he was promoted to corporal, but over the next few years he was commissioned a lieutenant, then rose to lieutenant colonel and, in July 1793–the first person of African descent in history to attain the rank of brigadier general. Although not the most gifted strategist, he was exceptionally strong and reveled in leading by example. Among others, Dumas commanded the Army of the West in 1796 and the Army of Italy in 1796. On March 25, 1797, during a fighting retreat from Brixen and Botzen in the Tyrol, Dumas held the Brixen bridge against an Austrian cavalry squadron singlehanded. From 1798 to 1799 he served in Napoleon Bonaparte’s Army of the Orient.

Retiring in 1802, Dumas died of stomach cancer in 1806. Undoubtedly his lifetime of adventure inspired his son, Alexandre Dumas Sr., to write adventure novels, such as The Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo. His grandson, Alexandre Dumas Jr. also became an esteemed novelist and playwright, best known for La Dame aux Camélias.

Benjamin H. Grierson (1826-1911)

One of the iconic names in American Civil War cavalry had no military training and was afraid of horses. Born in Pittsburgh, Pa. on July 8, 1826, Benjamin Henry Grierson was nearly kicked to death by a horse at age eight and distrusted the beasts ever since. Educated in Ohio, he became a music teacher and shopkeeper in Illinois when war broke out and joined the U.S. Army at Cairo on May 8, 1861, as a volunteer aide to Brig. Gen. Benjamin M. Prentiss. On Oct. 24, however, Grierson was assigned to the 6th Illinois Cavalry and on March 26, 1862 his men elected him colonel.

Mastering his horse problem, Grierson led his troopers on raids and skirmishes throughout Tennessee and Mississippi. This climaxed with a diversionary raid in which Grierson led 1,700 troopers of the 6th and 7th Illinois and 2nd Iowa Cavalry regiments from La Grange, Tenn. on April 17, 1863 600 miles to Baton Rouge, La. on May 2. A step ahead of Confederate pursuers, Grierson’s raiders inflicted 100 casualties, took 500 prisoners, captured 3,000 arms and destroyed 50 to 60 railroad and telegraph lines. Of greatest strategic importance, the raid diverted a division’s worth of Confederate soldiers while Maj. Gen. Ulysses Grant’s forces slipped south of the Mississippi fortress of Vicksburg, leading to its July 4 surrender. After the war, Grierson decided to make a career of Army service, spending most on the frontier, his commands including the 10th U.S. Cavalry Regiment (Colored). On April 5, 1890 he was given a rare promotion to brigadier general in the Regular Army, shortly before retiring on July 8 of that year.

Vo Nguyen Giap (1911-2013)

The son of a well-to-do farmer who died in a French prison, Vo Nguyen Giap attended a Catholic lycée in Hue, joined the Indochinese Communist Party in 1931, gained a law degree in 1938 and worked as a history teacher while self-studying military history. In May 1940 he met Ho Chi Minh in China, where he learned tactics and strategy as practiced by Mao Zedong. By the end of World War II Giap was Minister of Defense for the communist-nationalist People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN).

Between 1946 and 1954 Giap blended guerrilla and conventional warfare, winning some campaigns and suffering some stinging defeats but learning from experience. His decisive victory over the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 shocked the Western powers, as did his success in wearing down U.S. forces between 1965 and 1973. Giap viewed himself as more soldier than politician, which may explain his being sidelined by North Vietnamese General Secretary Le Duan, whose “big battle” strategy prevailed over Giap’s during the 1968 Tet and 1972 Easter offensives, resulting in bloody tactical defeats. In the end, the PAVN prevailed over the American-backed Saigon government in 1975. In 1978 Giap oversaw an invasion of Kampuchea that toppled Pol Pot’s radical Maoist Khmer Rouge government. When the Chinese retaliated with a punitive expedition into Vietnam on Feb. 12, 1979, the PAVN’s stout defense convinced the invaders to withdraw on March 16.

Although Vo Nguyen Giap is widely touted as one of the military geniuses of his century, much of his self-taught strategy and tactics could only have worked in Indochina’s unique conditions in the second half of the 20th century.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

Clothes May Not Make the Man, But These Commanders’ Personal Effects Are Instantly Recognizable

Jon Guttman — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Like it or not, war can sometimes be a fashion statement. Among the multivarious uniforms that distinguish one unit from another, senior officers may indulge in the privilege of distinguishing themselves with individual touches—to be identifiable to their own troops, though hopefully not to the enemy. History records Hannibal Barca going to battle dressed as a common soldier, less conspicuous to his Roman enemies but still recognizable to his men. During the Napoléonic wars the namesake French emperor, Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher and British Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, favored the casual route, confident they’d be recognized by the right people when it counted. For every such low profile, however, there were extroverts who, aided by singular flourishes, went the distance to be unmistakable to all.

By World War II General Douglas MacArthur had his own formula down with this combo of crushed hat, aviator glasses and corncob pipe. These signature personal effects are preserved for posterity in the collection of the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Va.

From 1943 on British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery made his presence known with this black Royal Tank Regiment beret trimmed with gold braid. The beret is on display at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Reminiscent of the way Roman centurions distinguished themselves with transversely aligned crests on their helmets, Napoléon Bonaparte wore his bicorne hat (like this one in the collection of Berlin’s German Historical Museum) ear to ear across his head.

After being persuaded to quit the field at Mollwitz on April 10, 1741—and almost losing the battle as a result—Prussian King Frederick the Great made a point of always accompanying his men into the fray. At least three of his uniform coats have been preserved, including this one, also in Berlin’s German Historical Museum.

Theodore Roosevelt was already making a name for himself and his pince-nez spectacles by 1898 when he added the headgear of the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry “Rough Riders” to his trappings. This slouch hat of the “Cowboy President” hangs at New York’s Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.

When rendering this 1772 portrait of then Colonel George Washington—the earliest known depiction of the future president—Charles Willson Peale captured the hilt of this sword now preserved at Mount Vernon, Va. Washington is believed to have worn the sword when he resigned his commission as commander in chief in Annapolis, Md., in 1783 and when inaugurated on April 30, 1789.

On May 14, 1916, during Brig. Gen. John J. Pershing’s pursuit of Pancho Villa into Mexico, 2nd Lt. George S. Patton Jr. used this ivory-handled .45-caliber Colt Single Action Army revolver in a gun-fight with three Villistas and claimed two of them. Patton’s “Peacemaker,” with twin notches on the grip, is preserved in the General George Patton Museum of Leadership at Fort Knox, Ken.

Clotheshorse George Armstrong Custer made an impression during the Civil War with his far-from-standard-issue black velvet uniform and continued to dress as he pleased on the frontier as lieutenant colonel of the 7th U.S. Cavalry Regiment. In his wardrobe was this buckskin coat, on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

When assigned to the trenches near Ploegsteert, Belgium, in 1915–16, Lt. Col. Winston Churchill of the 6th Royal Scots Fusiliers took to wearing a French Adrian helmet. When visiting the Western Front as World War II British prime minister, Churchill relied instead on this Mark II Brodie steel helmet (whereabouts unknown).

Free French General Charles de Gaulle’s kepi, preserved in the Musée de l’Ordre de la Libération in Paris, kept him in the Allied public eye from 1941 to ’44.

Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s campaign hat, also on display at the National Museum of American History, reflects 1858 Army regulations with its gold general’s cord and silver “U.S.” on black velvet.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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A 1760 Fight for This Small Riverine Garrison Proved the Key to Canada for the British

Michael Laramie — Fri, 01 Sep 2023 13:00:00 +0000

For New France—Louis XV’s colonial dominion in North America—1759 had been a disaster, a year marred by crushing losses to British-led forces amid the French and Indian War, a sideshow of the broader Seven Years’ War. To the west, Fort Niagara was taken after a 20-day siege, cutting communications to Illinois Country, Louisiana and the western Great Lakes. In the central Champlain Valley, threatened by an advancing Anglo-American force under General Jeffery Amherst—commander-in-chief of the British army in North America—the French had blown up Forts Carillon and Saint-Frédéric and retreated north to Île aux Noix, in the midst and near the headwaters of the Richelieu River. Without doubt, however, the crowning blow came with the British conquest of Quebec, which effectively blocked the St. Lawrence River, severing Canada’s communications with France. By early 1760 the French dominion had shrunk to a tenuous strip along the banks of the St. Lawrence from Trois-Rivières in the east to Lake Ontario in the west. Almost everything from men to materials was wanting, food was short, and the populace was exhausted.

This British heavy dragoon flintlock pistol dates from 1760, the year General Jeffery Amherst launched his three-pronged Montreal campaign.

“The winding up of the last campaign,” reflected New France Governor General Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, “reduced the colony to the most critical circumstances and most melancholy condition.”

Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil.

In April 1760, hoping to reestablish the lifeline to France, Vaudreuil tasked General François Gaston de Lévis—the latter of whom had assumed command of the army after Lt. Gen. Louis-Joseph de Montcalm’s death the previous fall at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham—with recovering Quebec. Lévis managed to defeat Brig. Gen. James Murray’s army at Sainte-Foy on April 28, but he was unable to keep the British from retreating within the city walls. The French commander laid siege to Quebec, but with only a handful of heavy guns and little in the way of powder, he was forced to withdraw when British warships sailed upriver a few weeks later.

With Quebec once again secure, British focus shifted back to Montreal, the last enemy stronghold in New France. As in the past, the forthcoming campaign called for a three-pronged attack. Murray, with 4,000 men, would move up the St. Lawrence from Quebec, while Amherst would lead some 10,000 men across Lake Ontario and down the St. Lawrence against Montreal from the west. The third prong of the campaign comprised 3,400 Anglo-American troops under recently promoted Brig. Gen. William Haviland. In a continuation of British efforts in the Champlain Valley, Haviland was directed to capture the French stronghold at Île aux Noix and then advance on the Richelieu River forts and Montreal from the south. As the plan called for all three prongs to arrive simultaneously at Montreal, Amherst’s army, which had more moving parts and much farther to travel, was given a six-week head start. The other two armies would wait until mid-August before setting out.

François Gaston de Lévis.

Haviland’s men, encamped at Crown Point, overlooking a narrows on the west shore of Lake Champlain, spent the summer buttressing Fort Amherst, stockpiling supplies and constructing a flotilla of small boats for transporting troops. While such tasks proved challenging, the general was more concerned about the caliber of troops assigned to his command. He’d been given two senior British infantry regiments, the 17th and his own 27th, augmented with four companies of the 1st (Royals) and a detachment of Royal Artillery. The rest of his men, however, were colonials drawn from Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire, the latter including Rangers under Major Robert Rogers. Haviland shook his head at the allocations. He had dealt with such militia troops during a stint as commander of Fort Edward and typically found them wanting, especially Rogers and his band of frontier hooligans. At least naval support was not at issue. Supplementing a pair of British warships—the 18-gun brigantine Duke of Cumberland and the 16-gun sloop Boscawen—were three French xebecs captured the previous fall. Joining them in Haviland’s flotilla was the 84-foot radeau Ligonier, carrying six 24-pounder cannons, and three smaller radeaux built to carry the field artillery.

Jeffery Amherst

Meanwhile, at Île aux Noix, the late Montcalm’s chief of staff, Colonel Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, faced far more dire concerns. Named for its dense growth of walnut trees, Île aux Noix (Nut Island) sat in the middle of the Richelieu River a dozen miles south (upstream) of the French garrison at Fort Saint-Jean. The island is a little over three quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide. The channel west of Île aux Noix is the wider of the two but too shallow for heavy vessels, which must take the narrower eastern channel when passing the island. While the French could certainly contest northbound (downstream) navigation on the Richelieu at this point, the island itself was simply too large to be effectively defended by Bougainville’s garrison of 1,500 French regulars and militia. An even more serious drawback loomed in Bougainville’s reckoning. Although Île aux Noix’s eastern and western shorelines were swampy, they were not impassible, and as summer wore on, the shore facing the more navigable eastern channel tended to dry out. Thus, the garrison faced the very real possibility of being outflanked and cut off from their supply lines to Fort Saint-Jean before the enemy even positioned a cannon.

William Haviland.

To address these issues, Bougainville reinforced wooden booms blocking the upstream entrance to either channel and positioned a battery of guns to cover the eastern boom. He then stationed his ships near the outlet of the Rivière du Sud, just downstream of Île aux Noix, to prevent being outflanked to the east. The French squadron comprised the 10-gun schooner Vigilante, an armed sailing barge, four small gunboats mounting 9-pounder guns on their prows and two row galleys. The latter vessels had been recently constructed at Saint-Jean. The larger of the galleys, Diable, carried 60 oars and was armed with a pair of 18-pounders in the prow and another in the stern, while the smaller galley was indifferently armed and spent most of its time shuttling between Île aux Noix and Fort Saint-Jean.

While Bougainville was short on manpower, by August his hardworking troops had crisscrossed Île aux Noix with fortifications, with a particular focus on the southern end of the island, where an initial attack was likely to fall. A zigzagging, 18-foot-wide U-shaped ditch backed by an earthen rampart and parapet protected that vulnerable shoreline. Enclosing these entrenchments to the north was a curtain wall with a pair of hornworks at either end. Behind it a second line of defensive works spanned the island, tracing its slight elevations. Though the defenders completed an impressive amount of work in a short period of time, few felt it would be enough.

James Murray.

On August 11 Haviland set sail north up Lake Champlain from Crown Point, his 3,400 men crammed aboard 80 whaleboats, 330 bateaux and four radeaux. A storm sweeping down the valley sank a few of the smaller boats, but by the morning of the 16th the rest of the flotilla had entered the Richelieu, halting above Point Margot, some 100 yards shy of the southern tip of Île aux Noix, to land an advance guard under Lt. Col. John Darby on the river’s east bank. An hour later Darby gave the all-clear signal. Haviland then sent the warships and a few of the artillery radeaux to fire on the island and commenced landing operations. By nightfall 3,000 men were ashore on the east bank of the Richelieu, and the French had yet to fire a single shot.

Having heard no reply from the enemy, Haviland suspended landing operations and at dawn dispatched a handful of men in a small artillery radeau to determine whether the island had been abandoned. Haviland’s men halted their work and watched from shore as the boxlike vessel crawled toward the island. When the radeau had approached to within a few hundred yards of the French fortifications, its men slowly swung the boat to starboard and fired several rounds. All was quiet as smoke from the vessel’s swivel gun drifted over the water. The radeau then tacked about. But when the vessel showed its stern to the island, waiting French cannons finally came into action. The first shot went wide, but the second, from a 12-pounder, struck the radeau’s quarterdeck, tossing its captain and four others about like bowling pins before plowing down the length of the vessel and coming to a stop. The radeau drifted for a few moments while men scrambled back to their places. The British crew then exchanged a few shots with the enemy before moving out of range. Haviland had his answer and ordered his troops to continue unloading the artillery.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville.

Haviland’s army spent the next few days slowly moving down the swampy east bank of the river. Crews cut a road for the fieldpieces, while others built firing platforms and erected palisades. On the night of August 18 the general sent a number of Rangers forward to sever the boom in the eastern channel, but French gunners repelled them with loads of grapeshot. The French were less successful when it came to halting enemy activity along the east bank of the Richelieu, though it was only 250 yards away. Many of the colonial troops were happily surprised at the enemy’s inaccurate fire, given the range and the all-to-thin veil of trees providing the only cover.

After watching his artillerymen’s poor showing, Bougainville wrote in disgust to Lévis that there was “no gunner here who knows how to aim.” As frustrating as that proved, the French commander soon faced bigger problems. His greatest concern was that the enemy would land on the island in force and overwhelm his position. To forestall this, he dispatched troops to the northern end of the island, where such an attempt might succeed. Bougainville’s secondary concern was the enemy mortar batteries being erected across the channel. As his fortifications were simple fieldworks, with no bombproof shelters to protect French troops or munitions, such enemy guns posed a real threat to his exposed position.

Raft of Guns

Among the 414 ships in Haviland’s British flotilla were four ungainly vessels known as radeaux (French for “rafts”). Designed as floating gun batteries with which to transport and bring artillery to bear on targets ashore, they were tortoiselike in appearance and sailing performance.

Radeaux.

By the afternoon of August 23 Haviland’s men had completed three batteries. The first comprised six 24-pounders, the second three 12-pounders and ten 5½- inch mortars, and the third two 13-inch mortars and two 10-inch mortars. At 4 o’clock a signal gun sounded and, in keeping with the formalities of the age, the sound of fife and drums carried from one end of the British line to the other. For nearly 10 minutes the martial music filled the air, finally ending with the echoed command to fire. The batteries responded with five quick salvos against the island, “beating down all before them,” according to one observer. As the fire from shore slowed to a steady pace, Duke of Cumberland approached the island and added its guns to the onslaught. Initially the French remained silent, saving their ammunition. But as evening wore on, a few guns came into action, firing the occasional mortar round or cannon ball across the channel. Haviland exploited the distraction of the barrage to send several parties out to cut the eastern boom, but the alert French chased off each in turn with grapeshot and musketry.

At dawn Haviland again ordered all his guns into action. A low-hanging mist and the occasional rain shower proved no hindrance to what became most intense artillery duel of the siege, leaving one provincial soldier with the impression that “the Heavens and Earth was [sic] coming together.” That pronouncement seemed to come true later in the day when a French round struck the British bomb battery magazine, triggering a thunderous explosion that shook the ground and brought firing on either side to a standstill. Undeterred, Haviland soon sent work parties forward to prepare a two-gun battery near the eastern end of the boom. That effort drew a hail of French grapeshot and ball, inflicting more than a dozen casualties on the British, but it was the onset of heavy rains and not enemy fire that brought the work to a halt for the evening.

The still of that cloudy night was broken only by the occasional discharge of a cannon and shots from excited sentries. But in the predawn darkness of August 25 Colonel Darby’s grenadiers, light infantry and Rangers were on the move, trudging their way along the swampy east bank of the Richelieu, dragging behind them a pair of 12-pounder cannons and a pair of 5½-inch howitzers. It was a humid morning, which only magnified the backbreaking work of manhandling several tons of iron through the mud and between clusters of trees. Yet, by midmorning Darby’s men had reached their destination—a point of land just south of the mouth of the Rivière du Sud. Anchored across from them, just downstream of the island, were three French vessels. As Bougainville had feared, Haviland had ordered Darby to destroy the French squadron in order to cut the island’s communications with Fort Saint-Jean and clear the way for British ships once the boom had been cut.

A period illustration depicts the tent city at Crown Point, N.Y., on the shore of Lake Champlain, where Haviland’s men spent the summer of 1760 buttressing Fort Amherst (at center), gathering supplies and building small boats.

At 10 o’clock Darby’s guns opened fire, catching the French ships wholly by surprise. Diable’s captain immediately ordered the galley’s anchor cable cut so its crew could row the ship to safety. But Darby’s men were quick to find the range, and the next few shots crashed into Diable, killing its commander and throwing its crew into confusion. Meanwhile, men aboard the two smaller French ships, which were being splattered by grapeshot and slowly drifting under a northwest wind toward the British battery, either went over the side or surrendered. As Diable ran aground on the east bank of the Richelieu, Darby turned his attention to Vigilante, which had been moored a few hundred yards farther north. Captain Joseph Payant dit Saint-Onge, easily the most experienced mariner in the squadron, had slipped his anchor at the start of the engagement and raised sail in an attempt to run downriver, but the prevailing wind had pushed Vigilante toward the river’s east bank, and soon it, too, ran aground, on a peninsula north of the Rivière du Sud. The sailing barge that accompanied Vigilante met a similar fate. But while the barge crew had no recourse, Vigilante carried oars and with a little luck might still be freed.

Siege of Île aux Noix.

Darby, however, had no intention of allowing his quarry to escape. He ordered Rogers to cross the Rivière du Sud to the north while he and his men, having boarded Diable, pushed the vessel back out into the channel. Once across the shallow Rivière du Sud, Rogers and his men directed volleys of musketry against the grounded French vessels. A few bold Rangers armed with tomahawks swam out to and boarded the nearly deserted sailing barge without opposition. Vigilante’s crew, however, put up a fight, its gunners firing their 4-pounders at the Rangers while others attempted push the vessel off the shore with their oars. They raised a triumphant shout as Vigilante began to move, but when Diable, flying a British flag, hove into view with its two 18-pounders trained on his schooner, Saint-Onge weighed the odds and wisely struck his colors.

Sour Grapes

As Haviland’s Rangers sought to force passage down the deeper eastern channel past Île aux Noix, French gunners chased them off with loads of grapeshot, small-caliber round shot bound in canvas and fired from a cannon. The effect was akin to a large shotgun.

Cannon grapeshot.

For Bougainville the action was a fatal blow. The defense of Île aux Noix had hinged on naval control of the river below the island. With its loss and the lifeline to Saint-Jean effectively cut, the island’s defenders could at best only pin down a portion of the British army while the enemy fleet circumvented the island and advanced downriver toward Montreal. When brought before Darby shortly after his capture, Saint-Onge congratulated the colonel and wished him “the joy of the country,” knowing full well the British capture of the French fleet had unlocked the defenses of Île aux Noix.

He could not have been more right. The next day Bougainville and his officers resolved to abandon the island and fall back on Montreal. Given the rapid progress of the siege to the east, the west bank of the Richelieu remained the only possible escape route. Put in charge of a small rear guard, a lieutenant by the name of Le Borgne was ordered to conceal the retreat of the main French body for as long as possible by continuing to work the island’s guns. At 10 that evening, while Le Borgne’s men exchanged sporadic fire with the British, the French boats began crossing the western channel, and by midnight the bulk of the French garrison was ashore, trudging through the marshy woods toward Montreal and the closing days of the French regime in North America.

A number of French deserters entered the British camp in the early morning hours of August 27 and informed Haviland the garrison had fled out the back door. This was confirmed when Le Borgne lowered the French flag at dawn, ending the siege. Haviland took 113 prisoners and found 54 guns, a large supply of shot and a sizable number of small arms on the island. Both sides had suffered only a few dozen casualties in the siege, and Haviland’s apprehensions about his colonial troops had proved unfounded. They had distinguished themselves as pioneers, and even Rogers and his wild band of Rangers had contributed to the victory. More important, the boom blocking the eastern channel could be removed. Haviland’s force resumed its advance on Montreal the next day.

When all three British armies converged on Montreal within hours of one another, Governor General Vaudreuil wisely surrendered the city. The 1763 turnover of Canada to the British by treaty was a formality.

This aerial view of Île aux Noix takes in the defenses of Fort Lennox, built by the British in the wake of the War of 1812 to deter any future U.S. invasion. From this perspective one can appreciate the challenge Haviland faced threading the needle of the eastern (right-hand) channel.

On September 7 the British brigadier general’s column arrived on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal. Amherst’s army was already encamped on the island to the west of the city, while Murray’s men waited on the eastern end of the island. The timing was impressive. Three British armies that had started from different sides of the French colony had converged on Montreal within 24 hours of one another. No miracle would save New France. Though General Lévis wished to continue fighting, Governor General Vaudreuil wisely surrendered the next morning, bringing the last of four successive French and Indian wars to an end and presaging the turnover of Canada to the British.

Michael G. Laramie is the author of seven books on colonial America and the American Civil War. His most recent work, The Road to Ticonderoga: The Campaign of 1758 in the Champlain Valley, will be released this fall. For further reading he recommends The Fortifications of Île aux Noix, by André Charbonneau; The Great War for the Empire: The Victorious Years, 1758–1760, by Lawrence Henry Gipson; and Memoirs of the Chevalier de Johnstone, by James Johnstone.

This story appeared in the 2023 Autumn issue of Military History magazine.

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This British Officer Developed a Revolutionary Rifle Whose Worth He Was Never Able to Prove in Battle

John Miles — Fri, 07 Jul 2023 13:30:00 +0000

It was 1760, in the midst of the Seven Years’ War, and 16-year-old Cornet Patrick Ferguson was having the time of his life. He and another young officer were on horseback a few miles out in front of the British army when they ran afoul of a party of French-allied German hussars. Deciding it prudent to retire, they turned and spurred their mounts. As his horse jumped a ditch, Ferguson dropped one of his pistols. The naive lad, thinking it improper for an officer to return to camp without all his weapons, recrossed the ditch in the face of the pursuing enemy and dismounted to recover his pistol. The hussars, perhaps surmising a British dragoon wouldn’t be so foolhardy unless he had spotted friendly reinforcements, halted in their tracks. They looked on warily as Ferguson remounted, jumped his horse back over the ditch and joined his companion. The fortunate young men regained the British camp undisturbed.

Though Ferguson seemed to lead a charmed life in uniform, such reckless behavior in action would one day catch up to him.

Patrick Ferguson was born in on June 4, 1744, in Pitfour, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the son of a titled and well-connected lawyer. The Fergusons had a long tradition of military service, and from childhood Patrick resolved to pursue a career in the army. Accordingly, when the boy reached the tender age of 12, his father sent him to a military academy in London. At that time in European history a gentleman desiring to be an officer in the military could purchase his commission from a regimental commander. From there he might earn merit-based promotions, but he could also purchase ranks in turn. Ferguson’s father purchased his son’s first commission, as a cornet in the 2nd (Royal North British) Dragoons (aka “Royal Scots Greys”), when Patrick was just 14. Dragoons were mounted infantry, who rode horses into battle and then fought on foot. In 1760 Ferguson’s regiment deployed to continental Europe, where he got his first taste of combat in Flanders and Germany and lived to tell of his close encounter with hussars.

Patrick Ferguson holding his rifle.

In 1768, though Ferguson had cut his teeth with eight years of service, his father again purchased a commission for him, as a company commander in the 70th (Glasgow Lowland) Regiment of Foot, then serving in the West Indies. Late that year Captain Ferguson sailed to join his company in Tobago. Attuned to the well-being of his men, he had them take advantage of the tropical climate and grow vegetables as a supplement to their usual provisions of salted beef. While there, however, Ferguson himself contracted what was probably extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Related tubercular arthritis racked his knees with pain for the remainder of his life. After a brief stopover in the North American colonies, Ferguson returned to Britain in 1774.

By then it was clear that unrest with oppressive taxation and domineering British governance was approaching a breaking point in the American colonies. When British officers spoke among themselves, one oft-discussed point of concern was the colonials’ possession of precision hunting rifles—not in terms of numbers of weapons, which was not great, but because in the hands of skilled marksmen they were deadly at long range. In the event of war, of course, British officers would be the favored targets of such sharpshooters.

The standard long arm in the British military of the era was the “Brown Bess” muzzle-loading smoothbore flintlock musket, though it was notoriously inaccurate. An 1841 Royal Engineers test of the Brown Bess (in service from 1722 till 1838) recorded hits on man-sized targets at 150 yards only 75 percent of the time. Beyond that range the musket failed to hit even larger targets. Its point-blank range—the distance at which a round remains on a horizontal line of flight—was just 75 yards.

The muzzle-loading Brown Bess flintlock musket, the standard British long arm of the era, was notoriously inaccurate. Ferguson resolved to make a better gun.

The rifle, while more accurate, also had its drawbacks. Foremost was its slow reload time. While an adept soldier with a musket could fire some three to five rounds a minute, with a rifle he might manage only one or two shots a minute. Most rifles also had no means of attaching a bayonet, at a time when bayonet charges often proved decisive.

In set-piece battles of the day opposing armies lined up opposite one another, approached within effective range, fired by volley, then reloaded and repeated. Given the unlikelihood of scoring a hit, the line infantry drilled to reload as fast as possible and put more lead in the air, improving their odds. This madness continued until one side or the other appeared vulnerable, at which point the side sensing an advantage would launch a bayonet charge to finish the fight. Thus muskets, given their rate of fire and the ability to mount a bayonet, remained the long arm of choice for the rank and file. Realizing the limitations of his weapon, each soldier generally aimed at an enemy formation and hoped to hit someone, anyone. But soldiers tasked with reconnaissance and surveillance, such as the German Jägers, preferred rifles. Tasked with observing and reporting on the enemy from a distance, they required a weapon with long-range accuracy. God help them were they in bayonet range.

On his return to Britain in 1774 Captain Ferguson resolved to develop a faster-loading service rifle than those in use. If he could do so, it would eliminate the hidebound British military’s primary reasons for retaining the wildly inaccurate smoothbore. European gunmakers started experimenting with rifling as early as 1498, originally applying grooves to the insides of barrels in order to collect fouling. The black powder propellant of the era left a tremendous amount of residue, about 80 percent of the powder in each charge remaining behind to foul the weapon. Stabilizing the bullet was a happy and unexpected side effect of adding the rifling. If Ferguson could conceive of a faster action and add a bayonet lug to his new rifle, all the better. After searching for technological advancements and examining a range of existing weapons, he settled on a breechloader.

Breech-loading rifles had been in regular use for decades prior to Ferguson’s interest. What he did do was use his force of will, coupled with his family connections as minor nobility, to oblige senior military officers to listen to his proposals. Using family money, the captain contracted with the head armorer at the Tower of London to design a breechloader according to his specifications. After a period of trial and error, the Ferguson rifle was born. It centered on an innovative screw breech. With a working model in hand the inventor again wielded his political connections to arrange a demonstration for Lord George Townshend, master general of the Ordnance, and senior British officers. After winning them over, Ferguson was invited to Windsor Castle to demonstrate the rifle before King George III himself.

Ferguson’s rifle with its clever screw breech depicted here, had been dispersed to other units.

During his tests Ferguson was able to fire between four and six shots a minute and hit the bull’s-eye consistently at 200 yards. He was also able to reload his breechloader from the prone position, an impossibility for musketeers, as they had to at least kneel to pour powder down the barrel and manipulate a ramrod to force a ball down the muzzle. Ferguson simply rotated the trigger guard to open the screw breech and poured in powder, all from the ground. In a further demonstration of his rifle’s merits, he doused the loaded breech with water. In the black powder era a soggy charge wouldn’t fire—hence the expression, “Keep your powder dry.” To remove a wet charge from a musket, its owner had to thread a steel screw on the end of his ramrod, drive it down the barrel until it hit the ball, twist the screw into the soft lead, pull out the ball, dump the wet powder and then reload. The tedious process required the assistance of another person, to either hold the musket or manipulate the ramrod. In the midst of combat such fumbling might well prove fatal. Ferguson was able to screw open his breech, tap out the damp charge, add dry powder and screw it closed, again while remaining prone.

Duly impressed, his superiors placed an order for 100 Ferguson rifles and assigned the captain command of a light infantry unit, to be armed with his breechloader and employed in the American colonies, by then in open rebellion against the Crown. The men in his command would be volunteers, drawn from the assorted regiments already serving in the colonies.

While Ferguson prepared to ship overseas, a complication arose. As the Industrial Revolution remained in its earliest stages, Britain lacked factories able to mass produce firearms. Each weapon had to be produced individually by a gunsmith. Furthermore, fabricating the lands and grooves inside a rifle barrel was labor intensive, taking far longer to complete than the smoothbore barrel of a musket. Even with multiple gunsmiths working to create Ferguson’s rifles, there were nowhere enough to complete the 100 ordered weapons before he embarked.

In the end only 67 of Ferguson’s rifles were ready by the time he left in March 1777 to join Maj. Gen. Sir William Howe’s army in North America. On arrival the captain traveled among the various regiments to demonstrate the rifle and recruit 100 soldiers for his command. Finally, he began training his enlistees how to operate as light infantrymen armed with rifles. Due to the shortage of his namesake gun, Ferguson had to arm the remainder of his troops with traditional muzzle-loading rifles already in use; the remaining 33 Ferguson guns shipped from Britain that June. When he deemed his men ready, Ferguson was assigned to Hessian Lt. Gen. Wilhelm von Knyphausen’s command, then in New York.

Then-Captain Ferguson performed admirably at the Sept. 11, 1777, Battle of Brandywine, Penn., but only 100 examples of his namesake rifle were in use. The British above are using Brown Bess muskets.

The Ferguson rifle was about to get its trial by fire.

On Sept. 11, 1777, during the British campaign to capture Philadelphia—then capital of and largest city in the nascent United States—Howe’s British army met General George Washington’s Continental Army near Chadds Ford, Penn. The subsequent Battle of Brandywine was the second longest single-day battle of the war, with continuous fighting lasting 11 brutal hours. More troops fought at Brandywine than at any other battle in the North American theater of the war. Marching in the vanguard, Ferguson’s rifle corps was tasked with screening the main British army, so American forces couldn’t get a clear picture of Howe’s plans. The resulting British victory enabled Howe to capture Philadelphia two weeks later, prompting the Continental Congress to flee, first to Lancaster and then York, Pa.

Although his rifle corps performed its tasks admirably at Brandywine, Ferguson had been struck by a musket ball that shattered his right elbow, a wound that sidelined him from active duty for some months as he recovered. All things considered, he was fortunate. In the days before orthopedic trauma care, a wound such as he’d received would often lead to amputation, or at least medical retirement from the military. Ferguson refused to have his arm amputated, and he quite literally wouldn’t surrender his officer’s sword. Since the shattered elbow cost him full use of his arm, the right-handed major taught himself to wield his saber left-handed. It was such single-minded dedication and dogged determination that earned Ferguson the nickname “Bulldog.”

Brandywine was uniquely linked to Ferguson for another incident—one that proved among the most remarkable and enduring stories (or perhaps legends) of the war.

In a possibly apocryphal account from Brandywine, Ferguson allowed two American officers to ride within view unmolested. A post-battle conversation convinced Ferguson the lead officer had been General George Washington.

While he and his men were engaged in screening duties far in advance of British lines, Ferguson observed two American officers conducting a similar reconnaissance of the British. One was mounted on a bay horse and wore an especially large bicorne hat. The officers appeared unconcerned, as they remained well out of musket range. They were not out of rifle range, however, and Ferguson ordered three of his men to prepare to fire. Harboring reservations, Ferguson thought it advantageous to try and capture the American officers. Thus, he stepped into the open and called for them to ride toward him and surrender, or he would have his men shoot. At that, the Continentals simply turned their horses to ride away. Being out of musket range, they didn’t even feel it necessary to spur their mounts beyond a walk. Before Ferguson could give the order to fire, he again had second thoughts. The American officers posed no immediate threat to the British, and it certainly wouldn’t be sporting to have them shot in the back, so he had his riflemen stand down.

Later that day, when Ferguson was at the field hospital getting treated for his elbow wound, he struck up a conversation with a British surgeon who had also treated several wounded American officers. From details the surgeon gleaned from the wounded captives it seemed the two officers Ferguson had spared were none other than General Washington and an aide-de-camp. Lieutenant John P. de Lancey, Ferguson’s second-in-command, who had seen Washington before the war, later suggested the enemy officer in the cocked hat had been Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski, the Polish volunteer credited as the “father of American cavalry.” Whether it was Pulaski or Washington, and Ferguson had missed his chance to end the war on the spot, he later wrote that he didn’t regret his decision.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

While the Bulldog was recovering from his injury and mourning the death of his father back in Britain, the British were formulating a new strategy for their campaign in North America. The first few years of the war had primarily been fought in New England and mid-Atlantic colonies, and though the British had won most of the battles, they had yet to deliver a knockout blow. Meanwhile, the populace back home had grown increasingly weary of sending off their sons and spending their tax money to fight a seemingly endless war. Thus, in late 1778 Lt. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton launched a campaign in the South, hoping to spark an uprising of Loyalists, colonists born in North America but remaining loyal to the Crown. Were that successful, Clinton hoped to force the Americans to capitulate. The campaign began auspiciously enough with the capture of Savannah, Ga., that December 29, which the British successfully defended in October 1779. The day after Christmas Clinton and his second-in-command, Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis, left Knyphausen to garrison New York City and sailed for Savannah with a substantial army.

Having recuperated enough by then to return to active duty, Ferguson was commissioned a major in the 70th Regiment of Foot and embarked with the expedition. In the absence of its dynamic founder, however, Ferguson’s rifle corps had disbanded, its men returning to their original regiments, their rifles either put in storage or parceled out to other units. The major returned to service without a command to lead.

Regardless, his superiors recognized Ferguson’s leadership ability, and Cornwallis gave him command of a battalion of provincial Loyalist militia. In that capacity Major Ferguson would participate in the largest all-American battle of the war.

The Overmountain Men got word of Ferguson’s approach and surrounded his men at Kings Mountain.

From Savannah the British army marched north to Charleston, S.C., which Clinton captured on May 12, 1780, after a six-week siege. He then returned to New York, tasking Cornwallis with subjugating the Carolinas. By summer Cornwallis had pushed north to Charlotte, N.C., and was concerned about protecting his flank. The threat he envisaged came from “Overmountain Men,” hardscrabble frontiersmen from west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the leading edge of the Appalachian Range. Cornwallis assigned Ferguson’s battalion to counter the threat posed by the Patriot riflemen. The stage was set for the Battle of Kings Mountain.

Resolving that the best defense was a good offense, Ferguson departed Charlotte for the Appalachian reaches. According to American sources, en route Ferguson captured a Patriot and had the man relay a message to the “Backwater Men,” as the British called their foes west of the Blue Ridge. They were to lay down their arms in surrender, Ferguson warned, or the British would burn their farms and villages and hang their leaders. Whether those were truly Ferguson’s words or shrewd Patriot propaganda is unknown. As the message wasn’t written down, it cannot be proved or disproved. Regardless, at word of the threat the Overmountain Men mustered a superior force to repulse Ferguson’s militia. On September 30 Patriot deserters brought word of the onrushing American force. Ferguson gave the order to fall back on Cornwallis’ main army at Charlotte. He made it as far as Kings Mountain, straddling the border of North and South Carolina some 30 miles west of Charlotte.

The “Bulldog’s” refusal to admit defeat finally caught up to him at Kings Mountain when he rejected a suggestion he surrender and was ultimately shot from the saddle.

Ferguson is buried where he fell, beneath the stone cairn behind this marker at Kings Mountain National Military Park, near Blacksburg, S.C. He shares the grave with one “Virginia Sal,” possibly a camp follower.

On Oct. 7, 1780, an advance party of 900 Overmountain Men on horseback surrounded Kings Mountain and attacked Ferguson’s command. Though caught by surprise and soon in desperate straits, the major rode back and forth among threatened points, repeatedly leading his men in bayonet attacks to repel the determined frontiersmen, who fought independently by detachment. Despite being severely wounded and having multiple horses shot from under him, Ferguson continued to fight and animate his men by example. Toward the end of the battle his second-in-command earnestly recommended the major surrender. Ferguson refused and in short order received a fatal rifle shot to the chest. Survivors later counted seven bullet wounds on his body. It was an abrupt end to a promising military career at age 36. In a battle that lasted just over an hour, 290 of Ferguson’s Loyalists were killed, 163 wounded and 668 captured, while the Patriots suffered 28 killed and 60 wounded. In its wake Cornwallis abandoned his ambitions in North Carolina and withdrew south.

Patrick Ferguson was buried on the spot along with a female companion named “Virginia Sal,” who was possibly his mistress. Their shared grave was marked by a stone cairn that still stands in present-day Kings Mountain National Military Park.

Retired U.S. Marine Colonel John Miles writes and delivers lectures on a range of historical topics. For further reading he recommends Every Insult and Indignity: The Life, Genius and Legacy of Major Patrick Ferguson, by Ricky Roberts and Bryan Brown; Biographical Sketch: Or, Memoir of Lieutenant Colonel Patrick Ferguson, by Adam Ferguson; The Philadelphia Campaign: Vol. 1: Brandywine and the Fall of Philadelphia, by Thomas J. McGuire; and Kings Mountain and Its Heroes, by Lyman C. Draper.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

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This Force of French and Allied Warriors Snowshoed 300 Miles to Terrorize a Small Town in Massachusetts

P.G. Smith — Fri, 30 Jun 2023 13:30:00 +0000

The ragged force of 250 French Canadian, Abenaki, Huron and Mohawk warriors hunkered down in the snowy underbrush just before midnight on Feb. 28, 1704. They wrapped their blanket coats and furs tightly about themselves and kept careful watch for any signs their presence had been detected. The men had arrived at a frozen meadow just north of the village of Deerfield, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, after an arduous journey of more than 300 miles on snowshoes from Chambly, Quebec. Although they surely smelled the wood fires burning in nearby hearths, the warriors could only huddle together for warmth—campfires would risk the all-important advantage of surprise. They chewed on the last of the dried pemmican and corn to ease the gnawing in their bellies. If everything went according to plan, they would all soon eat their fill from the kitchens of New Englanders.

Carved from a single piece of wood and fitted with a leaf-shaped iron blade, this Mohawk ball club is typical of the weapons carried by raiders.

While some warriors quietly chanted tribal war songs, others, particularly the French Canadians and their Roman Catholic Mohawk and Huron allies, whispered Christian prayers for the success of their raid against the heretic English Protestants. For the French and some warriors the expedition was a religious crusade, encouraged by Roman Catholic priests in New France. For the Mohawks the raid also offered the promise of captives to be adopted into their clans. For some of the Abenakis the attack would serve as vengeance against the English for having been evicted from their lands. All warriors looked forward to the rewards of plunder and the wealth the sale of captives could bring.

In the predawn darkness Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville, the expedition’s French Canadian commander, quickly dispatched scouts to observe the sleeping hamlet. The 35-year-old Hertel was the son of renowned bush fighter Joseph-François Hertel de la Fresnière. The younger Hertel was no stranger to frontier partisan warfare, having accompanied his father on raids against the English settlements of Salmon Falls and Casco, in what today is Maine, and Schenectady, N.Y. But this was his first command.

Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville

Philippe de Rigaud, the Marquis de Vaudreuil and governor general of New France, had ordered the raid deep into New England. His instructions were in keeping with directives from the court of Louis XIV to conduct offensive actions that would strike terror into the English and deter their territorial expansion in North America. The expedition had the secondary goal of drawing northern tribes into the broader struggle between the European powers by binding them to the French through plunder, captives and bloodshed. On a more personal level, Hertel hoped a successful outcome would finally convince the Crown to approve his family’s petition for nobility, a request previously denied due to his father’s lack of wealth. As he waited in the darkness, however, Hertel must have been singularly focused on ensuring the war chiefs of the various tribes, as well as his French Canadian subordinates, clearly understood the plan of attack.

Ensconced within Deerfield’s stockade walls, the Rev. John Williams lay in bed beside his wife, Eunice. He had likely read Bible passages to his seven children as they gathered around the blazing stone hearth after dinner. Perhaps the Williams’ slaves, Frank and Parthena, and the pair of militiamen quartered in the house had joined them by the fire until it was time for bed.

They and their fellow townspeople slept soundly. True, back in October two settlers working in the fields outside the village had been captured by marauding warriors, stoking fear. But such risk was part of the price Deerfield’s 270 inhabitants were willing to pay for fertile farmland on the western fringes of Massachusetts. Months had passed with no attacks.

John Williams

Not to say townspeople were complacent. Reasonable precautions could reduce the risk of French and Indian attack, and the Rev. Williams and other prominent leaders had petitioned the Massachusetts Legislature for protection. Indeed, it was in the best interest of Massachusetts, as well as Connecticut, to defend Deerfield and other frontier settlements rather than do battle with raiders in the streets of Boston or Hartford. The Legislature duly dispatched soldiers to Deerfield and approved a tax abatement so the town could repair the crumbling wooden stockade that enclosed the heart of the village. Connecticut also sent troops.

Periodic reports about a large force of French and Indians assembling near Montreal had reached Deerfield as early as the summer of 1703, but there had been scant enemy activity, other than the autumn marauders. Subsequent reports generated fresh anxiety, but the rumored threats never materialized, and Massachusetts and Connecticut had ultimately withdrawn their forces. Finally, the leaves turned crimson and gold, temperatures dropped and the snow fell.

By the morning of February 29 a 3-foot-deep blanket of snow lay on the ground, further lulling townspeople into a sense of security. Surely such deep snow would impede the progress of any attacking force, or at least slow them to the point the alarm could be sounded in plenty of time to establish a solid defense. Furthermore, 20 militiamen had arrived just four days ago. So, the townspeople slept on.

Two hours before dawn Lieutenant Hertel listened with eagerness to the hushed reports of his scouts. Snow had drifted up against the 10-foot-high northern wall of the Deerfield stockade. Nimble men on snowshoes should be able to scamper up over the wall and drop down into the village. Once inside, the advance party could open the gates for the attacking force.

Hertel ordered his men to advance to concealed positions just outside the stockade. Rather than approach en masse, small squads rushed forward for short distances to mimic the sound of wind gusts. Once the entire force was in position, they awaited their opportunity to strike. The only complication was a lone militiaman on night watch, keeping a listless patrol inside the stockade.

At the Rev. John Williams’ house raiders murdered his 6-year-old son John, 6-week-old daughter Jerusha and a female slave before capturing the reverend, wife Eunice, their five surviving children and two others.

The militiamen had undoubtedly taken turns at watch, patrolling the perimeter through the long winter’s night, trudging through the snow and lugging their heavy muskets up and down the watchtower ladders. Like most colonial militiamen, they were probably poor, unskilled young men offered up by neighboring towns to fill the militia levy.

Perhaps they assumed no raiding party of any size could advance quickly and quietly through the deep snow. Perhaps they thought the reinforced palisade would thwart any invaders from entering the village. Perhaps, like the sleeping townspeople, they were wrong.

Lieutenant Hertel squinted in the predawn gloom as he scanned the north side of the stockade. Suddenly, a gap opened amid the timbers, and he cautiously led his force forward through the north gate of the stockade. The first phase of his plan had gone perfectly. Several chosen men had silently crept up the snowdrifts against the north wall and dropped down into the village. Undetected, they had swung open the gate’s heavy doors for their waiting comrades.

Approaching on snowshoes through knee-high drifts, the attackers went undetected till the last moment. A lone sentry’s warning shot came too late for most residents, 112 of whom were taken captive.

The next phase, a standard procedure for French-led raids, was to array small squads around each house. Once all squads were positioned, the attacks would commence simultaneously, thus attaining total surprise, minimizing resistance and limiting one’s own casualties.

But something went wrong. While Hertel’s raiders were still pouring through the north gate, a musket shot rang out, probably fired by the late-reacting sentry. Chaos erupted as mixed bands of French, Mohawks, Abenakis and Hurons fanned out through the sleeping village.

The Rev. Williams leaped from his bed at the commotion and hurriedly retrieved and cocked his flintlock pistol. As a clutch of warriors burst into his bedroom, he pointed its muzzle at the leading Abenaki and pulled the trigger. The resulting harmless click of a misfire probably saved the reverend’s life. Had Williams shot the Abenaki, follow-on warriors would almost certainly have slain him on the spot. Things were bad enough.

A clutch of seven men, five women and several children forted up in the home of Benoni Stebbins. He was killed protecting the others.

His assailants overpowered the reverend and bound his hands. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the house warriors murdered his 6-year-old son, John, and smashed 6-week-old Jerusha’s head against a doorway, killing her. Parthena, the Williams’ female slave, was also killed, likely defending the children.

One of the militiaman quartered in the house, garrison commander Lieutenant John Stoddard, jumped from an upstairs window, the deep snow breaking his fall. Clad only in his nightshirt and a cloak, he bound his feet with strips of cloth and ran through the snow to raise the alarm in the village of Hatfield, nearly 12 miles away.

The remaining occupants of the house—Eunice Williams, her surviving five children, Frank the slave and the other militiaman—were ordered to dress and ready themselves for the northbound trek into captivity.

Gunshots, war whoops and screams resounded through the village lanes and in homes where residents had quietly slumbered just moments before. Lieutenant Hertel must have been exasperated as he watched his plans evaporate into mayhem. All hope of command and control was gone.

Several townspeople, particularly those in the southern end of the village, fled in the direction of the nearby towns of Hatfield and Hadley. Some managed to shelter south of the village in the garrison house of Captain Jonathan Wells. Others burrowed into cellars and likely nooks to evade the attackers. Several of those in hiding survived the raid. Other unfortunates burned alive when their houses were set afire.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

The raiders spread death and destruction throughout the village, indiscriminately killing babies and young children who would prove a burden to them on the return march to New France. They set torch to all structures in the village and slaughtered as many cows and sheep as they could while plundering food stocks and portable items of any value.

Entire families were rounded up and herded into the meetinghouse, which served as a holding area for captives. The raiders captured 112 residents of Deerfield and killed 50 others during the attack. But not all villagers were slain or taken without a fight.

Sergeant Benoni Stebbins had escaped from Indian captivity as a young man and resolved never to be captured again. Built for defense, the inner and outer walls of his house were filled with “nogging”—unfired bricks certain to stop musket balls. At the first sounds of the attack Stebbins had rushed to secure his home, which sheltered seven men, five women and several children. The well-armed defenders were determined to hold out as long as possible.

Hertel sent wave after wave of attackers in a costly effort to either overwhelm Stebbins’ outpost or set it afire. It would have proved smarter to bypass it. A Huron chief, an Abenaki captain and Ensign François-Marie Margane de Batilly were among the raiders killed or mortally wounded during the assaults. Hertel himself was wounded while leading one of the attacks, though the wound didn’t appear serious. At one point the French offered the defenders terms of surrender, but Stebbins would have none of it. After a firefight of more than two and a half hours, the raiders finally broke off the attack, but only after they’d wounded one of the women and a militiaman and killed the valiant Sergeant Stebbins.

As the first rays of dawn shone through the thick smoke, small groups of attackers made their way back toward the meadow where they had gathered the night before. Their progress was slowed by the plunder they carried and the bound prisoners who stumbled through the snow, choking on acrid smoke and their bitter tears. Behind them lay the blood trails of slain villagers and butchered farm animals, as well as the smoldering remains of their homes and everything they owned.

The march into captivity was a bitter ordeal. Of the 112 residents captured at Deerfield, only 89 survived the trek to New France. Warriors killed any unable to keep pace.

Lieutenant Hertel, anticipating counterattackers would not be far behind, sternly ordered his men to hurry. The chastened raiders in turn brandished hatchets and threatened their weeping captives to pick up their pace or face a quick death. Not all raiders heeded their commander’s warnings, however. Some lagged behind in the greedy search for further plunder or drunken bloodlust as they searched the ruins for more victims.

By early morning a force of armed New Englanders, alerted to the attack on Deerfield, rode to its relief from villages to the south. The force gained strength along the way, adding to their number soldiers who had taken refuge in Captain Wells’ fortified home. Other militiamen who’d fled the attack joined the group of 30-odd avenging New Englanders as they approached the charred village and engaged in a chaotic running fight with the last of the straggling raiders. Faced with the fury of the enraged militiamen, the attackers dropped their plunder and fled north.

Hertel knew from experience the New Englanders would follow. He also realized that his force, strung out and burdened by captives and plunder, would never be able to outrun pursuers hellbent on vengeance. But the experienced officer also understood that emotionally charged counterattackers were likely to act in haste, without proper reconnaissance. So, he rallied 30 reliable men and concealed them along a riverbank with clear fields of fire.

The New England relief force, having chased the last of the raiders out of the village, soon gained a true understanding of the wanton carnage resulting from the attack. Giving vent to anger and rage, some militiamen threw aside their coats and cumbersome equipment and ran in pursuit of the French and their allied warriors. Cooler heads, like Captain Wells, tried to establish command and control, but to no avail.

Among those slain during the return march north was the Rev. John Williams’ wife, Eunice, depicted here in a propagandistic rendering with expedition commander Lieutenant Jean-Baptiste Hertel gazing coolly at her corpse.

As the infuriated New Englanders ran headlong toward the river, Hertel sprang his trap. The concealed raiders opened fire, killing nine counterattackers and wounding many more. Though the raiders also suffered casualties, they succeeded in driving the New Englanders back behind the Deerfield stockade.

By nightfall the next day nearly 250 soldiers and armed citizens from western Massachusetts and Connecticut had gathered amid the smoking rubble of Deerfield. Though many were anxious to begin the pursuit of the French and Indian raiders, their leaders convened a war council. As they weighed the merits of various courses of action, the weather warmed and rain began to fall. Those with prior military experience realized the deep slush would slow progress to a crawl. Their plodding approach would in turn alert the raiders, who would probably massacre their captives. In the end, wiser voices prevailed, and the counterattack was called off.

The New Englanders returned to their homes harboring grief and hatred while the raiders and their captives slogged north through the snow.

The long and torturous journey to New France was marked by atrocities, including the drunken murder of Frank, the Williams’ slave, and the heartless killing of Eunice Williams, who was unable to keep pace because she’d recently given birth. A few Englishmen escaped, but warriors killed all those who fell behind. Of the original 112 captives, 89 survived the trek. Firsthand accounts also record small acts of humanity, like the strong words and actions of Huron warrior Thaovenhosen as he implored fellow tribesmen to spare captives from torture and mutilation.

On his triumphant return Lieutenant Hertel received widespread praise for the success of the Deerfield raid. While he led other raids and held additional commands, nothing compared to the devastating impact of the 1704 attack. Hertel was eventually promoted to captain, founded and served as commandant of Fort Dauphin (present-day Englishtown, Nova Scotia) and was decorated with the prestigious Ordre de Saint-Louis. The Hertel family finally received its patent of nobility in 1716.

The fate of the surviving Deerfield captives varied considerably once they reached Montreal and environs. Two men were worked and starved to death by their Abenaki captors. Most townspeople, however, were ransomed by French Canadian citizens, who treated them with compassion and humanity. Though not compelled by force to remain in New France, those who did stay were strongly encouraged to embrace Roman Catholicism. Some captives were adopted as full members of warriors’ tribes. Of the captives who survived the trek, some 60 eventually returned to New England. Many others married and began families, choosing to remain in New France the rest of their lives.

The Rev. Williams and four of his children were among those who returned home, in 1706. By then his 10-year-old daughter, Eunice, had been adopted by the Mohawks. She later married a Mohawk and bore their children in New France. Though she visited her New England relatives on several occasions, she and her growing family made their home in Kahnawake, a Mohawk community on the St. Lawrence River opposite Montreal.

Many a headstone in the Old Deerfield Burying Ground relates the death or captivity ordeal of those targeted by the 1704 raid.

Such happy endings aside, the Deerfield raid had been an act of terrorism, intended to strike fear into a target population through brutal violence, indiscriminate destruction and random victimization of noncombatants. Like many such terrorist acts, the raid was successful in the short term, as the fear of further French and Indian attacks discouraged English settlement in northern New England, if only temporarily. The raid also prompted overreaction against New England tribes as the English launched their own savage, punitive raids.

In the end, however, the policy of terrorism initiated by the French Crown only served to inflame England and her colonists and prompt acts of retribution, like the sorrowful expulsion of French Canadians from Acadia a half century later. Ultimately, the bitter harvest reaped at Deerfield contributed to the final defeat of New France in the 1754–63 French and Indian War.

Retired Brig. Gen. P.G. Smith, a former commander of the Massachusetts Army National Guard, teaches counter-terrorism strategy at Nichols College in Dudley, Mass. For further reading he recommends Captors and Captives: The 1704 French and Indian Raid on Deerfield and Captive Histories: English, French and Native Narratives of the 1704 Deerfield Raid, both by Evan Haefeli and Kevin Sweeney, as well as The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story from Early America, by John Demos.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

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Precision vs. Propaganda: Some Painters Meticulously Researched Their Masterworks — Others Not So Much

Jon Guttman — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 13:30:00 +0000

The earliest depictions of war served one purpose: to emphasize the invincible might of the leaders who commissioned them. A stroke of accuracy might be useful toward establishing credibility, but only so long as it served the warlord’s purposes. Pharaoh Ramses II, for example, employed what amounted to a private propaganda bureau to back up his claims to godhood. Witness Egyptian depictions of his 1274 bc victory at Kadesh. His Hittite opponents commemorated it as their victory, though in reality it ended in an inconclusive standoff. Over the subsequent millennia war artists have wrestled with the matter of balancing accuracy and the lionization of their subject, who was very often the supporting patron.

However effective a depiction of battle may be in its own time, posterity often brings out the nitpickers. Often even the most well-meaning attempts at accuracy miss something. Just as often errors, accidental or deliberate, can be glaring. In any case, the advocates of historicity have their own leg to stand on in their conviction that a true act of valor can and should stand on its own merits.

This story appeared in the 2023 Summer issue of Military History magazine.

One of French First Consul Napoléon Bonaparte’s military coups was his spring 1800 crossing of the Alps to surprise the Austrians in Italy. In 1850 Paul Delaroche, aided by Adolphe Thiers’ 1845 account of the crossing, depicted a sensible, if not terribly heroic, Napoléon picking his way through Great St. Bernard Pass on a sure-footed mule appropriated from a convent at Martigny and led by a local guide. Contemporaries critiqued Delaroche’s realistic approach for having failed to capture its subject’s spirit. Ironically, he ended up selling a smaller copy of the painting to Queen Victoria of Britain, who presented it to husband Prince Albert on his birthday, Aug. 26, 1853.

Between 1801 and ’05 one of the future emperor’s most devoted admirers and propagandists, Jacques-Louis David, painted five versions of the crossing, all showing Napoléon atop a rearing charger behind an outcrop carved with his name and those of his illustrious martial predecessors Hannibal and Charlemagne.

German muralist Wilhelm von Kaulbach’s epic 1868 canvas The Naval Battle of Salamis reflects a recurring problem whenever artists weigh accuracy against epic—namely, fitting everyone into the available space. Painted for display in Munich’s palatial Maximilianeum, his depiction of the 480 bc clash squeezes in Themistocles, Xerxes, Artemisia of Caria and even a few Greek gods. “The Sea Battle of Salamis 480 BC”. Painting, 1862/64, by Wilhelm von Kaulbach (1804–1874). Oil on canvas, approx. 5 × 9m. Munich, Maximilianeum Collection.

Similarly, in his 1849 painting The Conquest of the Teocalli Temple by Cortés and His Troops (Aztec Temple in Tenochtitlan, 1520) German-American painter Emanuel Leutze had many points to make, historicity being beside the point.

In his 1770 work The Death of Wolfe Benjamin West depicts mortally wounded British Maj. Gen. James Wolfe achieving martyrdom as he learns of his victory at Quebec. Joining Wolfe’s nattily dressed officers is a contemplative British-allied Indian, though none were present.

Rendered in 1851, Leutze’s iconic Washington Crossing the Delaware, with its all-inclusive crew of Continentals and Patriot volunteers setting out to attack the Hessians at Trenton, N.J., on the morning of Dec. 26, 1775, transcended several egregious errors. For example, there was no Stars and Stripes flag until June 1777; the crossing was made around midnight amid a snowstorm over a narrower stretch of river; and General George Washington’s men crossed in larger, flat-bottomed Durham boats.

this article first appeared in Military History magazine

Painted for the U.S. Navy in 1962, Vladimir Zveg’s Battle of the Virginia Capes, 5 September 1781 is forced by space constraints to close the combatant ships to point-blank range. Another gaffe is the Union Jack, whose red Cross of St. Patrick was not added until 1801.

Henry Arthur McArdle was obsessed with the March 6, 1836, Battle of the Alamo and tried to have things both ways—capturing the fight down to the most minute detail, but succumbing to the urge to glorify the Texians’ last stand. The artist’s 1905 Dawn at the Alamo depicts Jim Bowie (at left with knife in hand, though he was bedridden at the time) battling Mexican troops alongside David Crockett (in shirtsleeves at right) and William Barret Travis (larger than life atop the battlements).

Few battles have been so widely painted as George Armstrong Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Bighorn (known by American Indian victors as the Greasy Grass), but only in recent years have reasonable renditions emerged. Painted the year of the battle, Feodor Fuchs’ version includes such hokum as a fight on horseback (the soldiers were dismounted), the use of sabers (not taken) and Custer’s fancy dress jacket (vs. buckskin).

This Ethiopian depiction of the March 1, 1896, Battle of Adwa—the first decisive African victory over a European power in the 19th century—lacks perspective and depicts a set-piece battle, complete with an intervention by Saint George. Missing are such details as the Italian blunder of having split their army in three. Another mistake is the green, yellow and red Ethiopian flag, colors not adopted until 1897.

In Charles Hubbell’s depiction of the April 21, 1918, death of German fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen the all-red Fokker Dr.I is correct, but by then the flared Maltese cross had been replaced by the straight-armed Balkenkreuz. Of course, Canadian Sopwith Camel pilot Roy Brown never got that close. Regardless, the bullet that killed the Red Baron in fact came from a Vickers gun fired by an Australian foot soldier.

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The Challenge of Portraying America’s First President in Film

Sarah Sicard — Wed, 17 May 2023 12:19:42 +0000

Farmer, surveyor, Founding Father, first American commander in chief. These are just a few of the ways President George Washington is remembered.

And though books abound, there have been a surprisingly limited number of attempts to tackle the mythic Virginian’s story in film — at least beyond the documentary space. As such, it’s difficult to discern which actor played the best Washington.

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“I don’t know that Mount Vernon could fairly rank but we certainly have some modern day favorites,” Matt Briney, vice president of media and communications for Mount Vernon, told Military Times.

Those, Briney said, include portrayals by Barry Bostwick from the 1984 miniseries “George Washington,” Jeff Daniels in “The Crossing,” and Ian Kahn from “TURN: Washington’s Spies.”

Two major motion pictures about the life or military career of Washington — “The General” and “The Virginian” — were rumored during the mid-to-late 2010s, but their status remains unclear.

Briney notes, however, that in the experience of the historians, the life of George Washington — or the other Founding Fathers, for that matter — does not need the Hollywood treatment to be compelling.

“I think some directors want to [view] them in a more superhuman, mythical [lens] — unrealistic portrayals of one-liner action heroes, but a good director with proper consultation from historians can create a story of their lives that would be very relatable to most people today.”

A treatment such as HBO’s “John Adams,” starring Paul Giamatti as the title character, would be a particularly good way to tackle the life of America’s most influential man, Briney adds.

“It’s my opinion, having produced several short films about Washington, that his life is a complicated and very full story to tell. That’s difficult to do in a 90- to 120-minute film,” he said. “Washington would likely be better served as a mini-series.”

Whether something of that nature is in store remains to be seen. For now, though it’s not historically accurate, there’s at least something to be said for the Dodge commercial in which Washington advances on the Redcoats behind the wheel of a Challenger. Talk about legendary.

Originally published by Military Times, our sister publication.

Abigail Adams Persevered Through Siege and Smallpox to Support the Revolution

Jon Mael — Tue, 02 May 2023 12:30:00 +0000

On June 17, 1775, a vicious battle rocked Bunker Hill in Charlestown, Mass. That first major engagement of the Revolution saw British Commander in Chief William Howe lead around 2,000 Regulars in what Howe expected to be a quick victory over 1,200 colonists commanded by Colonel William Prescott. Howe guessed wrong. The fierce, bloody fighting raged through the night. From a hillside miles away, Abigail Adams, 30, and son John Quincy, 7, watched with excitement and anxiety.

The Adams family lived in Braintree, a small coastal town 12 miles south of Boston. Abigail’s husband, John, a lawyer and key figure in the insurrection, had been gone since April, when he left on a meandering journey, eventually arriving in Philadelphia to attend the Second Continental Congress that convened May 10. John’s departure began a long separation that left Abigail Adams and their four children in one of the most dangerous places on earth—a city under siege—for nearly two years. She would have to run the family farm, keep her children safe, and husband the family’s finances. Abigail’s letters to John during this time, some of the most reliable accounts of significant early events in the Revolution, influenced decisions being made in Philadelphia that shaped the nation.

The Whites of Their Eyes. Colonel William Prescott, in red waistcoat, readies his patriot militia for approaching British troops during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

John Adams and Abigail Smith met in 1759. He was 25, living with his parents in Braintree; she was 15, also at living at home in Weymouth, just to the south. Writing was the easiest way to communicate, and when they began courting in 1764, the two established themselves as exuberant letter writers. Honest, poetic, tragic, joyful, and deeply thoughtful letters flew back and forth between the young romantics. He nicknamed her “Portia,” for the independent-minded heroine of The Merchant of Venice, and that was how she signed some letters. The couple married on October 25, 1764, when John was 29 and Abigail 19. They welcomed their first child, Abigail—nicknamed “Nabby”—the following year. By the time John left for Philadelphia in April 1775, John Quincy, Thomas, and Charles had arrived.

Like her husband, Abigail firmly believed in the American experiment and staunchly opposed slavery. She relished the Boston Tea Party. After Lexington and Concord in April 1775, she wrote to John and many friends and acquaintances, expressing joy and anxiety. In a letter to rebellious Plymouth playwright Mercy Otis Warren, Abigail described her emotions following the fighting. “What a scene has opened upon us since I had the favor of your last!” she wrote May 2. “Such a scene as we never before experienced, and could scarcely form an idea of. If we look back we are amazed at what is past, if we look forward we must shudder at the view.”

this article first appeared in American history magazine

Rebel Bostonians, having stepped collectively into the unknown, feared for their future. Abigail found a tonic for unease in her excitement at seeing the patriotism she had long advocated taking root and spreading. “Our only comfort lies in the justice of our cause,” she wrote. She urged Mercy not to leave Plymouth for relative safety inland, adding, with the characteristic vehemence that often outdid her husband’s: “Britain Britain how is thy glory vanished—how are thy annals stained with the Blood of thy children.”

As Abigail was writing to Mercy, John, now in Hartford, Conn., was writing to Abigail. He knew that in wartime even agrarian Braintree was bound to suffer. “Our hearts are bleeding for the poor People of Boston,” he wrote May 2. “What will, or can be done for them I can’t conceive. God preserve them.”

In that letter, John told Abigail he had purchased books on military strategy and said that if his brothers were interested, he’d be able to train them to be officers. “Pray [sic] write to me, and get all my friends to write and let me be informed of every thing that occurs,” he wrote.

Abigail took his request seriously. In a lengthy May 24 letter, she recounted an incident in Weymouth the previous Sunday morning. She awoke at 6:00 and learned the Weymouth bell had been ringing, that cannoneers there had fired three shots to sound an alarm, and that drums had been beating. Abigail hurried the three miles to her hometown and found everyone, even physician Cotton Tufts, “in confusion.” She described a wild scene, the result of four British boats anchoring within sight of Weymouth Harbor.

According to Abigail, a rumor had spread that 300 Redcoats had landed and were about to march through town. Residents began scrambling to fight or run. Abigail’s family fled. “My father’s family flying, the Dr. in great distress, as you may well imagine,” she wrote, “for my aunt had her bed thrown into a cart, into which she got herself, and ordered the boy to drive her off to Bridgewater which he did.”

Abigail was describing the “Grape Island Incident.” According to her letter, 2,000 local men gathered to fight, but the British never sent troops ashore. Instead, on Grape Island, a minor land mass in Boston Harbor, they stocked a barn with hay. The Weymouth men procured a small boat, intending to torch barn and contents. “We expect soon to be in continual alarms, till something decisive takes place,” Abigail wrote.

Though not decisive, Bunker Hill was a British victory, earned at great human cost and a boost to patriot morale because neophyte freedom fighters had stood their ground and were not overrun. The battle personally touched Abigail and John. Their good friend and physician Joseph Warren (no relation to Mercy) had died in action. “God is a refuge for us.—Charlestown is laid in ashes,” Abigail wrote to John on June 18. “The Battle began upon our intrenchments upon Bunkers [sic] Hill, a Saturday morning about 3 o’clock and has not ceased yet and tis now 3 o’clock Sabbeth [sic] afternoon.”

In a passage of the same letter written June 20, Abigail lamented her inability to gather quality intelligence for John about the battle. “I have been so much agitated that I have not been able to write since Sabbeth day,” she wrote. “When I say that ten thousand reports are passing vague and uncertain as the wind I believe I speak the Truth. I am not able to give you any authentic account of last Saturday, but you will not be destitute of intelligence.”

In reality, Abigail had a knack for threshing fact from fiction—over the years she heard many rumors of John’s death by all manners, including poisoning, but never believed any. Regarding Bunker Hill, she was able to assemble and recount a reasonably detailed narrative of events there, and she assured John that news of Warren’s death was true.

On the same day as the battle, George Washington was named commander in chief of the Continental Army. He rushed to Boston, intent on forcing the British to evacuate. Abigail first met him July 15, 1775, less than a month after Bunker Hill, with the city still under massive financial and military stress. The next day, she wrote that the appointments of Washington and General Charles Lee to positions of command had given locals “universal satisfaction,” but she also pointed out that the people would support leaders only as long as they were delivering “favorable events.” Washington displayed “dignity with ease, and complacency, the gentleman and soldier look agreeably blended in him,” Abigail wrote. “Modesty marks every line and feature of his face.” By the time that note would have reached John, he was going through a grave embarrassment—one threatening both his budding political career and worldwide geopolitics.

In the summer of 1775, many members of Congress believed war with Britain was still avoidable. On July 8, Congress signed the “Olive Branch Petition.” Written by John Dickinson, a Pennsylvania delegate, the document was a final reach for peace. That outcome was a long shot, but the British intercepted an inflammatory July 24 letter from John Adams to Colonel James Warren, Mercy’s husband. In that communique, Adams suggested to Warren that by now the colonists should have “completely modeled a constitution,” “raised a naval power and opened all our ports wide,” and “have arrested every friend to government on the continent and held them as hostages for the poor victims in Boston.”

Circulation by the enemy of these statements sank all hopes of diplomacy. After that episode, Abigail resumed signing letters “Portia.”

Through eight months of siege, Abigail’s updates became steadier and her commentary sharper. “Tis only in my night visions that I know anything about you,” she wrote October 21, needling John for his laggard epistolary ways but also reporting a wide range of goings-on around Boston. A wood shortage meant bakers would only be able to work for a fortnight. Biscuits had shrunk in size by half. The British were constructing a fort near the docks, and the Continental Army was short on provisions.

In that letter, Abigail also commented on Dr. Benjamin Church, a supposed patriot who had been caught passing coded information about the forces surrounding Boston to the British. Locked up by Washington’s men, Church had been dumped as the Continental Army’s “Director General” of medicine and was awaiting arraignment. “It is a matter of great speculation what will be [Church’s] punishment,” Abigail wrote. “The people are much enraged against him. If he is set at liberty, even after he has received a severe punishment I do not think he will be safe.”

Abigail was in mourning. Her mother, Elizabeth Quincy Smith, had died in Weymouth October 1. In his grief, Abigail’s father, Parson William Smith, had lost “as much flesh as if he had been sick,” she wrote, adding that her sister Betsy looked “broke and worn with grief.” She regretted John’s chronic absences, estimating that in 12 years of marriage, they had only actually been together six.

Washington’s troops quietly ringed Boston in a martial noose, placing cannons on high ground that forced the British to depart by sea at the end of March 1776. The warships and transports that carried the enemy away, Abigail wrote on March 17, amounted to the “largest fleet ever seen in America;” she likened the bristle of masts and billows of sails to a forest. Washington allowed Howe’s men to leave unmolested on the proviso that the Redcoats not burn the city. The foe was as good as his word, though some Britons looted like pirates on holiday. Dirty tactics notwithstanding, though, their exit thrilled locals, Loyalists excepted.

Abigail told John she felt the burden of the British presence merely to be changing location but admitted to being happy that Boston had not been totally destroyed. The city’s escape exhilarated John, a fiend for independence. On March 29, he wrote to Abigail about his joy at learning Boston was free, even as he moped that he knew few details and so awaited her accounts with “great impatience.” He wanted Boston Harbor made impregnable. Abigail had neither the ability nor the desire to command troops, but John often discussed strategic ideas with her and greatly valued her opinion of them.

Most of the time.

The most famous look into Abigail’s politics arose from Patriot celebrations of the British retreat. Abigail only reminded John that he “Remember the Ladies” after she had unleashed a condemnation of Virginia. “I have sometimes been ready to think that the passion for liberty cannot be equally strong in the breasts of those who have been accustomed to deprive their fellow creatures of theirs,” she wrote March 31, 1776. “Of this I am certain that it is not founded upon that generous and Christian principle of doing to others as we would that others should do unto us.”

The letter gained fame because in it Abigail forcefully characterizes women’s second-class status in the colonies. Law and custom barred women from owning property and assigned any wages they earned legally to their husbands. “All men would be tyrants if they could,” and if a Declaration of Independence was coming, it would be shrewd not to put all of the power in the hands of one sex, Abigail argued.

She dusted her broadside with drollery. “The ladies,” she said, were prepared “to mount a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.” The letter also conveyed notes of optimism, originating as it did in one finally assured she could plant seeds on her farm or go for a walk without hearing cannonades.

But that optimism evaporated. John dismissed his wife’s adjuration to “Remember the Ladies.” In an April 14 note, he pooh-poohed Abigail’s thoughts as “saucy”—implying that she was straying from her designated societal role and venturing into arenas she should eschew. John’s shrugging response irked his wife. She wrote to Mercy Otis Warren asking if they should compose another appeal to Congress. Frustrated with John’s lackadaisical mien, she and the family faced a stout new challenge just as the absent man of the house was taking on unprecedented responsibilities in Philadelphia.

Smallpox had been blistering indigenes and colonizers in disfiguring, deadly waves around North America since the Europeans first arrived. In 1775-76, British occupiers and Continental Army soldiers besieging them loosed a particularly severe outbreak. Abigail first mentioned the pox in her March 17, 1776, letter to John celebrating the city’s survival. As the British were withdrawing, the port was still battling the latest epidemic. Only the previously infected were even being allowed into town, a category that would have included John Adams, who in 1764 had undergone a controversial procedure—inoculation.

To inoculate against the pox, a doctor opened a small wound and into that cut or scrape inserted matter intentionally tainted with exudate from a person with smallpox. The idea was to trigger a mild case of pox from which the recipient emerged in a few weeks enjoying lifelong immunity, as occurred with survivors of full-on cases like George Washington. By summer 1776, inoculation had become en vogue. The “Spirit of Inoculation,” as Abigail labeled it, finally achieved such critical mass that city authorities legalized the procedure.

Writing on Sunday, July 7, Abigail invited John Thaxter, who was her cousin and John’s law clerk, to “come have the small pox with my family” that Thursday, July 12. As a clinical setting Abigail’s cousin Isaac Smith Sr. provided his sprawling Boston home. Abigail, Thaxter, the Adams children, and nearly 20 others, including Abigail’s sister Betsy Smith Cranch and her family, as well as strangers like Becky Peck, crammed the mansion to await inoculation by Dr. Thomas Bulfinch. The doctor was charging 18 shillings per week for what he estimated would be three weeks of sequestration while inoculation did its work. During that time those inoculated could expect to experience smallpox symptoms to a greater or lesser degree.

The next day, Abigail wrote her first letter to John since June 17. The children had undergone inoculation “manfully,” she reported. She wished John could have joined them, she wrote, but the opportunity had arisen on short notice, and most residences around Boston were at and beyond capacity. The group had been lucky to book a house.

That year’s hot summer would have had the city resonating around the clock with coughing and the house redolent of rotting flesh—two noxious and prominent smallpox symptoms. Abigail wrote that the children “puke every morning,” complaining to John that a maid she had hired was useless, the girl’s lone qualification being immunity conveyed by a case of the pox.

Owing to a leisurely postal system Abigail’s graphic letter about those events was not the means by which John learned his family had been inoculated. Letters reporting the coup from Isaac Smith Sr. and young Boston attorney Jonathan Mason reached Philadelphia first, stunning John. In a letter to Abigail dated July 16, beset by worry that colleagues would think him a cad for ignoring his loved ones in their hour of need, he poured out his heart. His feelings were “not possible for me to describe, nor for you to conceive my feelings upon this occasion.” He remained steadfast in his commitment to press on with the Congress. “I can do no more than wish and pray for your health, and that of the children,” he wrote. “Never—never in my whole Life, had I so many cares upon my Mind at once […] I am very anxious about supplying you with money. Spare for nothing, if you can get friends to lend it to you. I will repay with gratitude as well as interest, any sum that you may borrow.”

Abigail’s letter of July 13-14 arrived July 23. By then, the effects of inoculation had begun to take hold. Abigail experienced only one “eruption”—a pustule signaling infection. Nabby and John Quincy had gotten sick, but without eruptions. Thomas and Charles showed no symptoms, so she had them re-inoculated. Around this time, she got her first intimate look at the real disease. On July 29, she wrote, fellow inoculant and temporary housemate Becky Peck had symptoms of smallpox “to such a degree as to be blind with one eye, swelled prodigiously, I believe she has ten thousand [pustules]. She is really an object to look at.”

Lags between letters consigned John to anticipating past events. He wrote that Abigail’s accounts had convinced him that Charles had not yet taken the smallpox virus. By the time that news reached Abigail, she had had Charles inoculated a third time, and Nabby a second. Hundreds of pea-sized pustules covered almost all of Nabby’s body. In one letter, John referred to her as his “speckled beauty.” Abigail’s ordeal ground on until September 4, 1776, when she and Charles returned to Braintree. A treatment advertised as lasting three weeks had stretched into seven.

During her siege by inoculation, Abigail occasionally slipped away briefly. She left the family lodgings on July 18 to attend the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence. She stood in a large crowd below the balcony of the Massachusetts State House on Boston’s King Street to listen to the words her husband and his committee had helped draft. Writing to John she described a scene of great joy punctuated by church bells and celebratory gunfire. She, however, attended the fete in a state of disappointment.

In her July 14 letter, Abigail had reacted sourly to a rendering of the finished declaration that John, copying it himself, had sent. “I cannot but feel sorry that some of the most manly sentiments in the Declaration are expunged from the printed copy,” she wrote. “Perhaps wise reasons induced it.” She likely meant an earlier draft Thomas Jefferson had written and shown to John. That version denounced slavery, a sentiment expunged from the version made public. It is reasonable to hypothesize that, reading the version in her husband’s handwriting, Abigail thought that John had composed the entire document and that he himself had eliminated the statement on slavery.

During the inoculation interlude, Abigail was on tenterhooks anticipating John’s return; he had asked her to direct a man with two horses to fetch him in Philadelphia. However, on June 12, John was named president of a new Committee on War and Ordinance, recasting him as a one-man defense department in charge of organizing a military, allocating that force’s finances, supplying Washington’s men, and more. Just as Abigail was preparing to return home to Braintree from the Smith house, John intuited that New York City was to be the war’s next battleground. He would have to stay in Philadelphia to nurse the infant country he had just helped found. Often in correspondence he fretted about his health.

In Braintree Abigail struggled. Farm workers were scarce. Most men had enlisted in the Army, taken up privateering, or, as Loyalists, had fled with fellow Tories. Tea, which soothed her headaches, was at least as scarce as farmhands; John did send a tin that the courier delivered to Elizabeth Adams, his second cousin Samuel’s wife.

In November 1776 John escaped the revolution’s gravitational pull and joined his family for their first significant reunion since April 1775. The children had survived. He and Abigail had gained the independence they had sought together for years. Abigail had been the keystone, communicating crucial information to the Congress, guiding the household through smallpox, and uplifting John through good times and bad. Always appreciative of his spouse’s integral part in his public life, he wrote of his feelings for her to a friend the day after he had signed the Declaration. “In times as turbulent as these, commend me to the ladies for historiographers,” John Adams wrote July 5, 1776. “The gentlemen are too much engaged in action. The ladies are cooler spectators….There is a lady at the foot of Penn’s Hill, who obliges me, from time to time with clearer and fuller intelligence, than I can get from a whole committee of gentlemen.”

Jon Mael is a high school teacher and author from Sharon, Mass. He has been fascinated by Abigail Adams for decades. Follow him on Twitter @jmael2010.

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Revolutionary War Soldiers Slated for Reburial 243 Years After Battle

Jonathan Lehrfeld — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 18:48:47 +0000

The rediscovered remains of American Revolutionary War soldiers who died in South Carolina more than 240 years ago are set to be reinterred this weekend in a ceremony to honor their sacrifice to a budding nation.

Archeologists excavated the skeletal remains of 14 individuals in fall 2022 at the Camden Battlefield, the site of a 1780 British victory during America’s fight for independence.

“Honoring these heroes in a respectful manner and ensuring the permanent protection of their remains continues to be the mission of this effort,” Doug Bostick, CEO of the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust, said in a release.

The reburial of the unknown soldiers will honor some of America’s earliest fallen and advance current understanding of how the important battle unfolded.

Recovering remains of history

Some of the soldiers’ remains were first discovered during the past few years by looters searching for artifacts, Bostick said in an interview with Military Times.

A team of archeologists and anthropologists launched an ensuing excavation in September 2022 and uncovered even more remains. Some remains discovered during the eight-week search were found in shallow graves less than six inches below ground.

An initial examination of the soldiers concluded 12 of the bodies are likely Patriot Continental soldiers from either Maryland or Delaware, one is likely a North Carolina loyalist and another served with the British 71st Regiment of Foot, Fraser’s Highlanders, the nonprofit said in a release.

Forensic anthropologists are continuing to craft biological profiles for each of the troops.

At least five of the Continentals were determined to have been teenagers, while the oldest soldier is estimated to have died when he was between 40 and 50 years old. Some possess clear evidence of battle injuries from musket balls and buck shot.

The Scottish Highlander is the only soldier who appears to have been carefully laid to rest, face up with his arms crossed. Others were found face down or overlaying each other. Based on the historical record, the Highlander’s identity has already been narrowed to three potential candidates, Bostick said, but it will only be confirmed when a DNA analysis is complete.

Researchers are collecting DNA so that individuals with a suspected connection to the soldiers can provide a sample to help the identification process, though that undertaking can take some time, Bostick said.

The loyalist militiaman is thought to have Native American ancestry and is not a part of this weekend’s events. Instead, he is scheduled to be honored in a private ceremony with local tribes.

The August 16, 1780, Battle of Camden was a devastating defeat for the Americans in the early stages of the British military offensive in the south. It did, however, usher in changes in the rebellious colonists’ military leadership that eventually altered the war’s course.

The recent recovery of remains in South Carolina comes on the heels of a similar discovery during summer 2022, when scientists uncovered a mass grave in New Jersey with as many as a dozen German soldiers, called Hessians, who fought alongside the British.

Honoring early heroes

The full slate of weekend festivities — a funeral procession at Fort Jackson, historic reenactments, a military flyover and more — is expected to draw lawmakers, foreign troops and public spectators.

Historians are looking to keep the burial as authentic to the time period as possible. The soldiers’ coffins are handcrafted in an 18th-century design using hand-forged nails and wood from longleaf pine trees thought to have grown not far from where the historic battle took place.

At the conclusion of the funeral service and military honors, the soldiers will be reinterred in the seven locations where they were found on the battlefield.

“The work we are doing honors their sacrifice by shedding light on details that are not yet documented in the historical record,” archeologist James Legg said in the release. Legg added that the marked graves will now allow “for the contemplation of battlefield visitors.”

Originally published on Military Times, our sister publication.

The 5 ‘Dumbest’ Moments in History — That Actually Changed History

Claire Barrett — Tue, 28 Mar 2023 16:29:05 +0000

“What is the dumbest way a huge turning point in history began?” was a question historian Peter Manseau recently posed on Twitter. What resulted was a flood of user comments that ranged from the inane (some noted their own births) to world altering.

We here at HistoryNet have compiled some of the more notable answers and added a few of our own to the list!

1. The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Gavrilo Princip failing to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand, giving up and go for lunch only to find after finishing his lunch, that Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand parked up outside the cafe after stalling the car.
— Ben Hall (@benscribbles) March 20, 2023

While the story of Gavrilo Princip stopping to get a sandwich after the first failed assassination attempt on the lives of Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie may be apocryphal, what is true is the couple’s driver took an unexpected new route (or a wrong turn) which led the pair to cross paths with Princip. The subsequent deaths of the Ferdinands plunged the world into the Great War, the Second World War, the Cold War and on and on the ramifications go.

2. The Death of Glyndwr Michael

Also: Glyndwr Michael eats a handful of rat poison
— Allan (@AllanRicharz) March 22, 2023

The idea itself was very simple: find a dead body, plant false papers on the corpse, and then drop it where the Germans would inevitably find it. Yet to pull off the ruse would require ingenuity to overcome a complicated series of hurdles, namely finding the appropriate body that looked like it had died in an air crash at sea and floated ashore.

The British eventually found their man in Glyndwr Michael, a vagrant who had recently died in London after swallowing rat poison. With no family to claim him, Michael’s body was put on ice as Charles Cholmondeley and Ewen Montagu set about creating “Captain (Acting Major) William Martin of the Royal Marines.”

Attached to Michael’s body was a briefcase that contained a series subterfuge documents designed to draw the Germans away from the Allies’ main target, Sicily.

On April 30, 1943, “Captain Martin” was launched into the ocean from the British submarine HMS Seraph and left to drift. From then on it was a wait-and-see game. Macintyre told The New Yorker that the Germans had to “believe that they had gained access to the documents undetected; they should be made to assume that the British believed the Spaniards had returned the documents unopened and unread.”

Indeed, they did. After taking the bait, the Germans rapidly doubled the number of troops being sent to Sardinia, while Hitler sent an additional panzer division from France to Greece. British code breakers sent the telegram, “MINCEMEAT SWALLOWED ROD, LINE, AND SINKER” to Winston Churchill in mid-May of 1943.

And as 160,000 Allied troops stormed Sicily on July 10 it became clear from the scanty German resistance that the British dupe was effective. The successful six-week campaign to retake Sicily brought Mussolini to his knees, helped to initiate the Italian land campaign, and forced Hitler to divert nearly a fifth of the entire German army fighting on the Eastern Front to help prop up Italy. Countless Allied lives were saved due to this one cadaver.

3. Ben Butler and the Bermuda Hundred Campaign

Grant sending Ben Butler to land at Bermuda Hundred with two junior officers required to approve any changes in orders, and Quincy Gilmore, one of those officers, promptly riding away from HQ and thus locking down the Army of the James
— John Barnes, probably not the one you thought (@JohnBarnesSF) March 20, 2023

By fate, Benjamin Butler and P.G.T Beauregard found themselves at the head of opposing armies on the Virginia Peninsula in 1864: Butler in command of the Army of the James, Beauregard the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia.

Their showdown in the Bermuda Hundred Campaign, lasting May 5 through June 7, 1864, remains one of the war’s most overlooked military ventures despite the fact that it could have possibly ended the American Civil War a year earlier, according to historian Sean Michael Chick.

That spring, Butler’s army was handed the critical role as “Left Hook” in Ulysses Grant’s massive three-pronged advance on Richmond, and even though Butler seemed to have the parts in place to succeed, he was instead left to rue lost opportunities and to cast blame on his subordinates.

Although there had been missed Confederate openings too, one thing was certain by June 7: Beauregard had managed to turn back Butler’s onslaught and Grant had been stopped on the outskirts of Richmond. He would not claim the coveted Confederate capital for another 10 months.

4. James Madison and the Bill of Rights

We got the Bill of Rights because Madison was pen pals with himself.
— Zappit (@Zapdraws) March 21, 2023

According to the National Archives, “James Madison, once the most vocal opponent of the Bill of Rights, introduced a list of amendments to the Constitution on June 8, 1789, and ‘hounded his colleagues relentlessly’ to secure its passage.”

Per the Archives:

Although no draft in his hand survives, there is good reason to believe that JM composed Washington’s first inaugural address. Even before he was officially elected president, Washington had turned to JM for his opinion of a seventy-three-page draft address that Washington’s secretary, David Humphreys, had drawn up for the occasion. Washington copied this draft with the intention of sending it to JM, but owing to the uncertainty of the communications between Mount Vernon and Montpelier, he decided to wait until JM stopped over at Mount Vernon late in February. The Humphreys draft clearly embarrassed Washington, and JM later referred to it as a “strange production.” No doubt for this reason Jared Sparks felt justified in cutting up Washington’s copy of the proposed address and sending pieces of it to his friends as examples of the great man’s autograph (PJM, XI, 446, 446–47 n. 1).

At their Mount Vernon meeting Washington and JM agreed that the Humphreys draft, which contained numerous legislative proposals, should be discarded in favor of a brief address that deliberately omitted specific recommendations to Congress. The one recommendation which the president made in his inaugural, that Congress consider amendments to the Constitution, was one that JM had much at heart. If the passage on amendments suggests the pen of JM, a remark by Washington in his note of 5 May 1789 clearly points to him as the author of the address: “Notwithstanding the conviction I am under of the labour which is imposed upon you by Public Individuals as well as public bodies—Yet, as you have began, so I would wish you to finish, the good work in a short reply to the Address of the House of Representatives.” Thus in the opening series of formal exchanges between the president and Congress, JM was in dialogue with himself. Having composed the inaugural, he drew up in turn the address of the House of Representatives in reply to the president (5 May), the president’s reply to the House address (8 May), and for good measure the president’s reply to the Senate address (18 May).

5. George Washington and the French and Indian War

George Washington accidently started the French and Indian war, which would in the end propel the revolution
— Magi Balthasar (@BalthasarMagi) March 21, 2023

Yes, you read that correctly. The then 22-year-old George Washington managed to spark a global war.

According to the Smithsonian, George and “his Virginia Regiment of a little over 100 effective soldiers were the tip of His Majesty’s spear in North America. Their assignment: to finish building a fort that would anchor Britain’s control over the Ohio Valley.”

Although Washington wasn’t instructed to start a war, he had the authority to restrain any French interlopers in the contested region of Ohio, if necessary, “kill & destroy” them. The scuffle that ensued — with many noting that it was Washington who fired the first shot — and the subsequent death of French Ensign Joseph Coulon de Jumonville, would spark the French and Indian War and help lead to the American Revolution (which was led by none other than George Washington).

HistoryNet’s honorable mentions:

1. The Discovery of Penicillin

Regarded as a true turning point in human history, penicillin, one of the world’s first antibiotics is discovered by Dr. Alexander Fleming — and by mistake no less. Fleming, a Professor of Bacteriology at St. Mary’s Hospital in London was returning to his lab after a holiday and was beginning to sort through his petri dishes that contained colonies of Staphylococcus aureaus when he noticed that a mold, penicillium notatum, had prevented the growth of the staphylococci. What he discovered that day was a means to kill bacteria, and thereby treat infectious diseases. However, Dr. Fleming did not have the resources nor the chemistry background to isolate the penicillium mold juice, purify it and mass produce it.

After publishing his findings in a 1929 journal, his report languished until 1938 when Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at Oxford University began in earnest their work on purifying penicillin. Their testing on mice showed that penicillin appeared nontoxic and could combat a variety of pathogens, including the bacteria that caused gangrene. Their work became so precious and closely guarded during the war that the researchers rubbed Penicillium notatum spores into the fabric of their jackets in case an imminent German invasion forced them to destroy their work. Despite initial successes, however, the issue became developing a means of mass producing the penicillin.

This would not come until the summer of 1941, when British scientific ingenuity paired with American production abilities. And from January to May of 1942, 400 units of pure penicillin were manufactured and by 1945, American pharmaceutical companies were producing 650 billion units a month. During World War II penicillin is credited for not only curing rampant outbreaks of venereal disease, but for saving hundreds of thousands of Allied lives. The “wonder drug” cut incidences of gangrene to 1.5 cases per thousand and bacterial pneumonia from 18% in World War I to less than 1% in World War II.

As Dr. Fleming famously wrote: “When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn’t plan to revolutionize all medicine by discovering the world’s first antibiotic, or bacteria killer. But I guess that was exactly what I did.”

2. The Death of Rear Admiral Keiji Shibakazi During the Battle of Tarawa

The attack on Betio, the largest and southernmost island in the Tarawa atoll, required a direct assault on the beachheads by U.S. Marines. Protected by coral reefs, the flat, small island was one of the most heavily fortified in the Pacific, and because of the island’s geography, the nearly 5,000 Marines would have no immediate room to maneuver. Landing on November 20, 1943, the Marines were met with withering fire, poured out by elite troops of the Imperial Navy’s Special Naval Landing Force, sometimes called “Japanese Marines.” The lethal hailstorm of mortars, machine gun and rifle fire threatened to halt the advance of the Marines. From this precarious position, General Smith radioed General Holland Smith midafternoon stating: “Successful landings on Beaches Red 2 and 3. Toehold on Red 1. The situation is in doubt.” By the end of the first day, the Marines had a tenuous hold on all three landing zones – designated Red 1, Red 2, and Red 3. Corralled onto the narrow beaches, no units had penetrated more than 70 yards inshore and by nightfall, being driven back into the sea was a legitimate threat.

However, by some stroke of luck, the commander of the Japanese garrison, Rear Admiral Keiji Shibakazi, frustrated with his inability to contact his men in the field, ordered his command post to move to the south side of the island. By a twist of fate, a fluke, or skill one of the U.S. destroyers managed to lob a 5-inch shell directly in the commander’s path as he left his concrete blockhouse — instantly killing him and several other senior officers. The death of Shibakazi essentially cut off the head of the Japanese command structure, which is seemingly why the Japanese could not coordinate an early banzai charge. If they had, it is likely that the Americans would have lost their fragile toehold on the beachheads.

Aware of their perilous position as a new day dawned, the Marines fought with extraordinary courage, many fighting despite being wounded several times. The fighting on day two is considered to be one of the toughest battles in Marine Corps history. However, by day three, Japanese resistance had largely collapsed, leaving only rogue snipers and small pockets of fanatical fighters. The Japanese had boasted that it would take a million men and 100 years to take the island. The Marines took it in three days.

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Lies and False Promises Left California Indians With Little of the Mission Lands They’d Farmed

Ramon Vasconcellos — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 12:41:11 +0000

In his reminiscences, written in Rome in the 1830s, Pablo Tac, a former Luiseño Indian and devoted Catholic, expressed his affection for the bygone mission life of Spanish Alta California. At Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, Tac’s former home, Indians partook in such religious aspects of daily life as the choir, enjoyed the protection of soldiers (“so that nobody does injury to Spaniard or to Indian”) and were cared for by Franciscan fathers who “[know] the customs of the neophytes well.” In a letter to Alta California Governor José Figueroa written around the same time, Narciso Durán, father-president of the missions, contrasted the “far more wretched and oppressed” existence of Indians living outside their walls. “All in reality,” he wrote, “are slaves, or servants, of white men.”

Overlooking such advocacy of the mission system, Mexican government officials moved to secularize (i.e., nationalize) all California missions in the 1830s, transferring the lands once owned by the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church to the state. Under the Secularization Act of 1833 and a subsequent gubernatorial order, the former mission lands were confiscated and then made available for private ownership, ostensibly enabling Indians to purchase property. However, the stark reality for most “emancipated” Mission Indians was a slide into destitution. Dispossessed of their mission holdings, few became private landowners.

When founded in the late 17th century, the missions formed part of a tripartite settlement arrangement in Spanish California comprising presidios (military outposts) pueblos (adjacent villages) and misións (centers of religious worship and instruction usually within proximity of the former two). Mission de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó (aka Mission Loreto), founded in 1697 by Jesuit priest Juan María de Salvatierra, was the first successful mission of 20 the Jesuit order established in Baja (Lower) California. In 1767 distrust of the wealthy and powerful Jesuits by King Charles III prompted him to expel them from Spain and its colonies, particularly from distant California. He turned over the 14 operating missions in Baja California to the Franciscan order, which ultimately established 21 new ones in Alta (Upper) California. Father Junípero Serra founded the first of the latter in San Diego in 1769.

Incentivized to live on mission settlements by the protection afforded from marauders and the prevalence of food, local Indians became a captive audience of potential neophytes (converts). The Franciscans adopted the practices of reducción and congregación in their administration of the missions, instilling in their wards Western culture and values in hopes of “reducing” Indians from their comparatively undisciplined ways, while “congregating” them together for the purpose of instruction. Baptized neophytes were expected to adopt the worship practices, marital customs and other behaviors promoted by the Franciscans. Those yet to be converted were referred to as gentiles.

Elderly Indian women of Mission San Luis Rey de Francia, founded in 1798, rest on its grounds. Before the Secularization Act of 1833 Mission Indians enjoyed the protection of Spanish soldiers and the care of Franciscan fathers.

Though Indians were not compelled to reside at the mission, once one had converted and adopted it as home, he had to remain a resident for 10 years, after which time the land he’d farmed would revert to his ownership. Rarely could neophytes or gentiles come and go as they pleased. To enforce the rules and maintain discipline the Franciscans sometimes resorted to draconian measures. In 1831 Frederick William Beechey, an English ship’s captain, recalled having witnessed reprisals against runaway Indians. “Armed force is sent in pursuit,” he wrote, “and drags him back to punishment apportioned to the degree of aggravation attached to his crime.” Beechey questioned the Franciscans’ commitment to Indian autonomy. “Having served 10 years in the mission, an Indian may claim his liberty.…A piece of ground is then allotted for his support, but he is never wholly free from the establishment, as part of his earnings must still be given to them [the Franciscans].” Disaffected Indians sometimes staged revolts, including uprisings at Mission San Diego in 1775 and Mission Santa Inés, in central California, in 1824.

In theory, under both Spanish and Mexican rule, each mission was to operate only 10 years. The expectation was that the Franciscans would have converted and instructed an ample Indian populace within that time, after which the mission lands were to be distributed among them. Nonenforcement of that decree in California in part prompted secularization. Justly concerned the entire scheme was a pretext to diminish the influence of the Catholic Church, one Franciscan challenged Mexican officials to step up. “Let the latter begin to work, to found establishments and schools, and to practice arts and industries,” he wrote. “Then will be time to lead the Indians to follow a good example.” The process called for the missions to become pueblos, allowing for Indian landownership. Yet only one, Mission San Juan Capistrano, did so. All others transferred to ranchos owned by wealthy Californios (descendants of Spanish colonists). By one estimate the ranchos swallowed up some 90 percent of former mission lands.

A few Indians received sizable allotments. In 1838 Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado granted Ignacio Pastor of Mission San Antonio de Padua a whopping 43,000 acres. Widow Cristina Salgado, who’d been emancipated with her husband from Mission Carmel prior to secularization, gained title to 3,200 acres near the Salinas River, making her perhaps the only female Indian awarded a grant. However, most Indians—notably the Chumash of Mission Santa Barbara—received little more than small plots on which to raise vegetables. Adding insult to injury, the government officials who administered secularization, like commissioner José Antonio Romero of San Carlos, challenged the very right of Indians to own land.

In the wake of the 1848 signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War and ceded California to the United States, land disputes between Californios and the federal government routinely bypassed any concerns about Indian landownership in the new territory. By then, in an echo of Father Durán’s observation of non–Mission Indians decades earlier, most California Indians lived in a state of destitution.

this article first appeared in wild west magazine

Through Muck and Mud: How the Weather Dictates Spring Offensives

Jon Guttman — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 18:18:16 +0000

In March 1945, Germany launched a last desperate offensive aimed at driving the Soviet army out of Budapest and back eastward across the Danube River. This doomed effort (later than the Battle of the Bulge, whose December 1944 launch date had been calculated to take the Americans by surprise) was codenamed “Spring Awakening,” for all the good that did the Third Reich.

The military history of the Northern Hemisphere is replete with spring offensives and there is a logical reason for it. Given the limited resources with which armies had to fight, winter was usually handicapped by the added dimensions of miserable weather and the need for sturdier shelters, more fuel and more food. For centuries the ideal time to launch a major campaign was just as spring was arriving, to allow as many months as possible before winter set in.

Harkening back to World War II, Adolf Hitler had intended his invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, to be unleashed in early May 1941, but when Benito Mussolini’s October 1940 invasion of Greece turned into a fiasco and British forces were landing there, Hitler needed to guard his southern flank by bailing Il Duce out. By the end of May the Germans had conquered Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete, but by the time their weaponry had undergone necessary maintenance and regrouped for their primary target, it was June 22. Military historians still debate over whether that lost month’s effect on timing made the difference between the German juggernaut taking Moscow or losing the opportunity to win the war.

Weather has always been the chief factor that dictated “campaign season,” whether in 1777, when General George Washington dug in at Valley Forge while General William Howe retired to Philadelphia, or more recently in Afghanistan, where the Taliban spent 20 years receding into the mountains each winter to lick their wounds, only to resume attacks on the Afghan government and its Western allies every spring. There have been exceptions, of course, such as the Battle of Stones River on the last day of 1862, but more often the serious fighting began in spring, as occurred twice in the same part of Virginia — Chancellorsville and the Wilderness — and in the latter case, May 1864 saw Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant coordinate an unprecedentedly unified effort in Eastern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley and western Georgia.

One might note January 1879 as the month that that the Zulu impi slaughtered British invaders at Isandlwana, but it is also noteworthy that South Africa is in the Southern Hemisphere, where the seasonal factors are largely reversed. Moreover, after that surprise victory, Zulu king Cetewayo was desperate to convince the British to negotiate a peace as soon as possible because for all their vaunted ferocity and discipline, his warriors were citizen soldiers and they would soon be needed as the harvest season set in. Similarly, the spring campaigns of the South Atlantic War were a source of misery to Argentine and British troops alike in the damp cold of April-June 1982 on the southern side of the globe.

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Fighting Over Lobsters, Pigs, and Kettles: Here Are the Top 10 Bloodless Wars in Human History

Jon Guttman and Alex Griffith — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 17:07:29 +0000

The Mongol Subjugation of Novgorod (1238)

In 1238, a 40,000-man Mongol horde led by Genghiz Khan’s grandson, Batu Khan, embarked on a campaign of conquest against the Rus. By the end of 1238 they had taken 14 major cities and razed them for failing to heed Batu’s ultimatums. Only two major cities in the northern Rus territories were spared: Pskov and Novgorod, which pledged fealty to the Great Khan and agreed to annually pay a tax based on 10 percent of their produce. Novgorod, a vital fur-trading center, was surrounded by potential enemies, including not only the Mongols, but the Swedes and an order of German warrior-monks known as the Teutonic Knights.

Both western powers coveted the lands to the east, declaring their purpose to spread Catholicism while destroying the Eastern Orthodox Church. Appointed kniaz (prince) of Novgorod in 1236 at age 15, Alexsandr Yaroslavich was compelled to choose his friends and enemies carefully. He knew resisting the Mongols was suicide, but they tended to spare those who surrendered and left them to their own domestic affairs…whereas the Swedes would seize land and the Germans would kill nearly everybody.

Prince Alexsandr Nevsky negotiated with Batu Khan rather than risk open war with the Mongols.

As the Mongols marched on Novgorod in 1238, the spring thaws hampered their horses, halting the campaign 120 kilometers short of its objective. Seizing his opportunity, Alexsandr met the Mongols and accepted their terms. Pskov did the same. The Mongols moved on, establishing their western headquarters at Sarai under a yellow banner for which their force became known as the Golden Horde. Alexsandr made the right choice. He would later have to battle both his western enemies, defeating the Swedes on the Neva River on July 15, 1240 (for which he acquired the moniker Alexsandr Nevsky) and the Livonian Knights at Lake Peipus on April 5, 1242. Credited with preserving Russian civilization at a time of terrible duress, Alexsandr did so by knowing both when to fight and when not to.

The 335-Years War (1651-1986)

What if they gave a war and nobody came? Better still, what if they gave a war and nobody noticed? During the English Civil War, the United Provinces of the Netherlands sided with the English Parliament. As one consequence many Dutch ships were seized or sunk by the Royalist navy, which by 1651 was based in the Isles of Scilly, supporting the last diehards in Cornwall.

On March 30 Lt. Adm. Maarten Harpertsoon Tromp arrived at Scilly, demanding reparation for damages to Dutch ships. Receiving no satisfactory answer, Tromp declared war but then sailed away—and never returned. Critics of that so-called “war” have since noted that as an admiral, not a sovereign, Tromp was really in no position to formally declare war. The issue seemed moot in June 1651 when a Parliamentarian fleet under General at Sea Robert Blake arrived at Scilly to compel the last Royalists to surrender.

So things stood until 1986, when historian Roy Duncan chanced upon Tromp’s idle threat and in the course of investigation concluded that, the utter lack of hostilities notwithstanding, the Netherlands and Isles of Scilly had spent the past 335 years at war but had never gotten around to declaring peace. That oversight was finally remedied on April 17, 1986, when Dutch ambassador to Britain Jonkheer Rein Huydecoper formally declared one of history’s longest conflicts at an end—adding that it must have horrified the islands’ inhabitants “to know we could have attacked at any moment.”

The Kettle War (1784)

Along with winning independence, in 1585 the Republic of the Netherlands closed off the Scheldt River to trade from the Spanish Netherlands to the south, adversely affecting Antwerp’s and Ghent’s access to the North Sea while serving to Amsterdam’s advantage. Spain accepted that arrangement again in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, but in 1714 Spain ceded the southern Netherlands to Habsburg Austria. Between 1780 and 1784 the Netherlands allied with the fledgling United States of America in hopes of gaining an advantage over Britain but was defeated. Seeking to take advantage of that situation, on Oct. 9, 1784, Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II sent three ships, headed by the large merchantman Le Louis, into the Scheldt.

Calling his bluff, the Dutch sent the warship Dolfijn to intercept the Austrians, firing a shot through a soup kettle aboard Le Louis. At this point the Austrian flagship surrendered. On Oct. 30 Emperor Joseph declared war and the Netherlands began mobilizing its forces. Austrian troops invaded the Netherlands, razing a custom house and occupying Fort Lillo, whose withdrawing garrison broke the dikes and inundated the region, drowning many locals but halting the Austrian advance. France mediated a settlement signed on Feb. 8, 1785, as the Treaty of Fontainebleau, upholding the Netherlands’ control over the Scheldt but recompensing the Austrian Netherlands with 10 million florins.

The Anglo-Swedish War (1810–1812)

With the signing of the Treaty of Paris on Jan. 6, 1810, Emperor Napoleon imposed his Continental System throughout Europe and placing a trade embargo on one of his remaining enemies, Great Britain. That included Sweden, Britain’s longtime trading partner. A booming smuggling trade led Napoleon to issue an ultimatum on Nov.13, 1810, giving his reluctant ally five days to declare war and confiscate all British shipping and goods found on Swedish soil, or itself face war from France and all its allies. Sweden duly declared war on Nov. 17, but there were no direct hostilities over the next year and a half—in fact, Sweden looked the other way while the Royal Navy occupied and used its isle of Hanö as a base.

Ironically, this delicate standoff was upset by a Frenchman, Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who with the death of Sweden’s Crown Prince Charles August on May 28, 1810, was elected crown prince on Aug. 21. Although King Charles XIII was Sweden’s official ruler, his illness and disinterest in national affairs caused him to leave Crown Prince Bernadotte as the de facto ruler—who put Swedish interests above France’s. Relations with Napoleon deteriorated until France occupied Swedish Pomerania and the isle of Rügen in 1812. Bernadotte’s response included the Treaty of Örebro on July 18, 1812, formally ending the bloodless war against Britain and thus declaring a soon-to-be bloodier war against Napoleon’s France.

The Aroostook War (1838–1839)

Both the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 ended with unfinished business regarding the boundaries between the United States and British North America. On several occasions both countries came to the brink of further conflicts. One such was the “Aroostook War” regarding unresolved land claims between Lower Canada and Massachusetts, exacerbated in 1820 when a new state, Maine, broke away from Massachusetts. By 1839 the U.S. had raised 6,000 militia and local posses to patrol the disputed territory while British troop strength rose to as high as 15,000.

There were no direct confrontations.

Two British militiamen were injured by bears. The decisive action came in 1842 in the form of negotiations between British Master of the Mint Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton and U.S. Secretary of State Daniel Webster. As was often the case, the resultant Webster-Ashburton Treaty was a compromise. Most land went to Maine, leaving a vital area northeast for the Halifax Road to connect Lower Canada with the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In 1840 Maine created Aroostook County to administer civil authority in its expected territory, from which the incident got its name in the history books.

Great Britain and the United States of America nearly fought a war which began with the shooting of a pig.

The Pig War (1859)

Since at least the 1844 American presidential election that got James K. Polk elected on a slogan of “Fifty-four-Forty or Fight,” the United States set its sights on raising the northern border of the “Oregon Territory” (including what is now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia) to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, rather than 49 degrees north as it had been in 1846. That border bisected San Juan Island, in the Straits of Juan de Fuca between Seattle and Vancouver, where on June 15, 1859, American resident Lyman Cutlar caught Charlie Griffin’s pig rooting in his garden and shot it dead.

Cutlar subsequently offered to compensate his British neighbor $10 for his loss. Griffin angrily demanded that local authorities arrest Cutlar. The U.S. authorities would not countenance Britain arresting an American citizen. Soon both sides were reinforcing the island with troops and offshore warships. Things came to a head when the governor of British Columbia ordered the commander of the British Pacific Fleet, Adm. Robert Baynes, to invade the island.

At that critical hour Baynes became the voice of reason when he disobeyed the order, declaring that he would “not involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig!”

News of the standoff spurred Washington and London to negotiate while reducing troop strength on San Juan to 100 each. Finally in 1872, an international commission headed by Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany settled the matter by ceding the entire island to the United States. Total casualties: one British pig.

The Pembina Raid (1871)

Following the American Civil War a committee of radical nationalists called the Irish Brotherhood, or Fenians, embarked on three attempts to capture large areas of British North America to ransom for an independent Irish republic. Although the participants were mostly hardened Civil War veterans—from both sides—their first attempt to seize the Niagara Falls peninsula in 1866 failed. A second attempt launched from New York and Vermont in 1870 was a greater failure—largely because the Fenians were facing better-prepared militiamen now defending their own sovereign state, the Dominion of Canada. Although the Irish Brotherhood itself had given up on the idea, Col. John O’Neill set out west for one more try, planning to invade Manitoba and form an alliance with the half-blood Métis, then rebelling against the Canadian authorities for land, ethnic and religious rights. By late 1871, however, Ottawa was acquiescing to Métis demands. Consequently the Métis had no intention of allying with the Fenians.

Undeterred, at 7:30 a.m. on the morning of Oct. 5, 1871, O’Neill led 37 followers to seize the Hudson’s Bay Company trading post and the nearby East Lynne Customs House in Pembina. Of 20 people taken prisoner, a young boy escaped and ran to the U.S. Army base at Fort Pembina. While about a thousand Canadian militia marched south to deal with the threat, Capt. Loyd Wheaton led 30 soldiers of Company I, 20th U.S. Infantry Regiment to the settlement. O’Neill later said he was loath to fight bluecoats alongside whom he had served during the Civil War.

The Fenians fled north, but O’Neill and 10 others were quickly captured. By 3 p.m. the crisis was over. Canada had seen off its last invasion threat without firing a shot. Taken to St. Paul, Minnesota, O’Neill was tried twice for violating the Neutrality Acts and twice acquitted on the grounds that he had not really done so. Unknown to O’Neill, in May 1870 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had straightened out the disputed Canadian border, resulting in Pembina no longer being a quarter mile north of the border, but three-quarters of a mile south in Dakota Territory. O’Neill gave up his invasion ambitions under an avalanche of public ridicule over not only failing to conquer Canada but failing to even find Canada!

The Lobster War (1961–1963)

There have been numerous conflicts over territory and others over the natural resources they produce. One example began in 1961 when French fishermen seeking spiny lobsters off Mauretania tried their luck on the other side of the Atlantic and discovered crustacean gold on underwater shelves 250 to 650 feet deep. Soon, however, the French vessels were intercepted and driven off by Brazilian corvettes upholding a government claim that that part of the Continental Shelf was their territory, as was any sea life that walked on it. On Jan. 1, 1962 Brazilian warships apprehended the French Cassiopée, but the next time two Brazilian corvettes went after French lobstermen they were in turn intercepted by the French destroyer Tartu.

France and Brazil in 1963 nearly waged a war over lobsters.

By April 1963 both sides were considering war. Fortunately, an international tribunal summarized the French claim as being that lobsters, like fish, were swimming in the sea, not walking on the shelf. This prompted Brazilian Admiral Paolo Moreira da Silva’s counterclaim that that argument was akin to saying that if a kangaroo hops through the air, that made it a bird.

The matter was finally settled by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on Dec. 10, 1964. By it, Brazilian coastal waters were extended to 200 nautical miles but permitted 26 French ships to catch lobsters for five years in “designated areas,” paying a small percentage of their catch to Brazil. Otherwise the two nations might have warred for a pretender to the throne of the true lobster—spiny lobsters, a.k.a. langustas, don’t have claws like their North Atlantic cousins and are thus not considered true lobsters. Although often used for “lobster tails,” some might not find them tasty enough “to die for.”

The Sumdorong Chu Standoff (1986–1987)

While the United States and the Soviet Union were having a nuclear Cold War faceoff, in October 1962 border tensions in the Himalayas between India and the People’s Republic of China flared when Indian troops seized Thag La Ridge. The People’s Liberation Army reacted in force, inflicting a stinging defeat on the Indians at Namka Chu. Over the next 24 years both sides reformed and improved their military capabilities while still eying one another suspiciously. On Oct. 18-20, 1986, India staged Operation Falcon, an airlift that occupied Zemithang and several other high ground positions, including Hathung La ridge and Sumdorong Chu. The PLA responded by moving in reinforcements, calling on India for a flag meeting on Nov. 15. This was not forthcoming.

In the spring of 1987 the Indians conducted Operation Chequerboard, an aerial redeployment of troops involving 10 divisions and several warplane squadrons along the North East India border. China declared these activities a provocation, but India showed no intention of withdrawing from its positions. By May 1997 soldiers of both powers were staring down each other’s gun barrels while Western diplomats, recognizing similar language to that preceding the 1962 clash, braced for a major war.

Cooler heads seem to have prevailed, for on Aug. 5, 1987, Indian and Chinese officials held a flag meeting at Bum. Both sides agreed to discuss the situation and in 1988 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, reciprocating for the first time Zhou Enlai’s April 1960 visit to India. The talks were accompanied by mutual reductions in forces from a Line of Actual Control that was agreed upon in 1993. With the crisis defused, there would be no major Sino-Indian border incidents again until 2020.

Hans Island became the focus of the informal “Whisky War” between NATO members Canada and Denmark, who respectively left bottles of liquor behind on the island as “claims.” The “conflict” was settled in 2022.

The Whisky War (1984–2022)

The disagreement over the exact national boundaries dividing little Hans Island involved two of the least likely adversaries, both members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization: Canada and Denmark. Lying in the Kennedy Channel between Ellesmere and the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland, Hans was divided in half by a line that left a gap in its exact border descriptions. That gap went ignored until 1980, when the Canadian firm Dome Petroleum began four years of research on and around the island.

Matters took a more specific direction in 1984, however, when Canadian soldiers landed on Hans and left behind a Maple Leaf flag and a bottle of whisky. In that same year the Danish Minister for Greenland Affairs arrived to plant the Danish flag with a bottle of schnapps and a letter saying, “Welcome to the Danish Island.” These provocations heralded decades of escalating mutual visits and gestures that left all manner of souvenirs behind. Finally, on Aug. 8, 2005—following a particularly busy July—the Danish press announced that Canada wished to commence serious negotiations to settle the remaining boundary dispute once and for all.

Even so, it took the Russian “special military operation” against Ukraine to remind the world how serious war could be, resulting in the rivals unveiling a plan on June 14 for satisfactorily dividing the unresolved remnants of Hans Island between the Canadian territory of Nunavut and Danish Greenland.

this article first appeared in military history quarterly

John Fetterman Isn’t the First Ill Politician to Serve. Here Are Examples from History

Richard Brookhiser — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 12:47:00 +0000

On May 13, four days before the 2022 Pennsylvania primaries, John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor running for the Democratic Party’s senatorial nomination, suffered a stroke. Fetterman won his primary by a huge margin, and took a lead in the polls against the GOP winner, Mehmet Oz. But he did not appear in public to campaign until October, and when he did, his speech was choppy and halting. Even a friendly review of Fetterman’s performance in his lone debate with Oz conceded that “while his overall points were intelligible, it was at times genuinely difficult to understand some of his sentences.”

Fetterman was not the first American with a disability to run for office. A candidate’s ailment can be the thing that sinks him, or a mark of his gumption, as shown by the sudden onsets of paralysis that afflicted two presidential candidates, one in the 19th century, and one in the 20th.

As James Monroe, last of the “Founding Fathers” presidents, neared the end of his administration (1817-25), a pack of younger men, all belonging, like him, to the first Republican Party, panted to succeed him: John Quincy Adams, his Secretary of State; John Calhoun, his Secretary of War; Henry Clay, Speaker of the House; and Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

this article first appeared in American history magazine

The favorite of the field, though, was William Crawford. Handsome, tall, with a receding hairline that gave him gravitas, Crawford had served as a senator from Georgia and as a diplomat. In 1816, he had challenged Monroe for the Republican nomination, standing down at the last minute and accepting the job of Treasury Secretary instead on the grounds that he was young enough to wait. He spent the Monroe years scheming to undermine his rivals. Adams, in a sour diary entry, called Crawford “a worm preying upon the vitals of the administration within its own body.” Ex-presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison liked the worm, however, welcoming him on visits to Monticello and Montpelier as if anointing the heir apparent.

Then, in the fall of 1823, disaster struck. Medicine that Crawford took to cure a skin condition instead brought on a stroke. At first he could not speak, see, or move his limbs; Cabinet-level discussions of what would become known as the Monroe Doctrine proceeded without his input. Over time, Crawford’s condition improved, but progress was slow. In the new year, his supporters called for a caucus in Washington, D.C., of Republican senators and representatives to pick their party’s next presidential candidate. This was the system that had been used to select nominees for a generation. But Crawford’s rivals, sensing his vulnerability, stayed away and denounced the custom as “king caucus.” Crawford won the poll of the rump that showed up, but it was a hollow victory.

A century later, Franklin Roosevelt was considering his own White House run. His fifth cousin (and wife’s uncle) Theodore had brought the office into the family. Franklin himself, after a term in the New York Senate and eight years as undersecretary of the Navy, filled the veep slot on a Democratic ticket swamped by the GOP tsunami of 1920. Even this loss earned Roosevelt points as a show of party loyalty in hard times. But his rise was halted the following summer when, during a vacation cruise in the Bay of Fundy, he suddenly lost sensation in his legs. Decades before the Salk vaccine, he had contracted polio.

Roosevelt found that by using upper body strength he could swing himself across short distances on crutches, and stand with the help of leg braces to give a speech. But despite years of physical therapy and hot spring baths, he never recovered control of his limbs. His mother, Sara, wanted him to retire to the family estate at New York’s Hyde Park and live the life of a permanent patient. But his advisers, his wife Eleanor, and Roosevelt himself were determined he stay in public life. At the 1924 Democratic Convention, he nominated New York Governor Al Smith for president, hailing him as “the Happy Warrior of the political battlefield.” His game hobble to the mic and his gallant smile made the nickname apply to himself. When he ran to succeed Smith as governor four years later, Smith dismissed concerns about his health by saying “a governor does not have to be an acrobat. We do not elect him for his ability to do a double back flip.”

In the 1824 cycle, Crawford’s support slipped as the election approached. With the Republican Party unable to agree on a candidate, it was every man for himself. Since none of the contestants won a majority in the Electoral College, the House of Representatives picked the winner from among the top three finishers. Crawford made the cut, behind Jackson and Adams. But on the eve of the House vote a friendly kibitzer wrote that even Crawford’s supporters were concerned by the state of his health. He could walk and talk again, and see well enough to play cards without spectacles. Yet his liabilities were “but too evident….I will not express a confidence which I do not feel.”

The tension wore Crawford to the breaking point. One winter day, he went to the White House to discuss with lame-duck Monroe the appointment of customs collectors. When he and the president disagreed, Crawford, cracking, swung up his cane and called Monroe a “damned infernal old scoundrel.” Monroe grabbed the fireplace tongs to defend himself and threatened to ring for the servants to throw Crawford out. Crawford blurted an apology, and left, never to see Monroe again.

When the House met to pick Monroe’s successor in February 1825, Adams won on the first ballot.

Roosevelt won the New York governor’s race in 1928, and was re-elected two years later. In 1932, in the depth of the Depression, he won the Democratic nomination for president, and carried 42 of 48 states. He would go on to win the White House three more times.

Why did Roosevelt succeed where Crawford failed? Crawford had strong rivals able to take advantage of his travails, while Roosevelt faced a GOP blasted by economic catastrophe. But the key difference was their differing disabilities. Crawford’s stroke left him blind and mute as well as immobile, and while he recovered in great part, he was never again 100 percent. As a sympathetic biographer admitted, his “intellect never regained its full tone and power.”

Roosevelt’s paralysis was total, but his mouth, his mind, and his charm were unaffected. A forgiving press never showed him wheelchair bound; eloquence, savvy and will did the rest.

John Fetterman won his senate race, 51 percent to 46.5 percent. Like Roosevelt, he was lucky in his opponent—Mehmet Oz was a TV doctor making his maiden political race. Unlike Crawford or Roosevelt, Fetterman was running for the Senate, not the White House. There are 100 senators, whose job is to vote and advise. There is only one president, who must govern and lead. Voters are more forgiving of would-be solons than candidates for Mount Rushmore. Fetterman also had 21st century science to his advantage: He used voice recognition technology to make up for his impaired hearing, and enough voters were assured by his conviction that he could, and therefore would, recover.

Medical tech can win offices, but office-holding is not for the weak. Young presidents—Carter, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama—all step down with gray hairs. Good luck to Sen. Fetterman.

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These 7 Foreigners Helped Win the American Revolution

Claire Barrett — Wed, 01 Mar 2023 16:04:23 +0000

Sure, we’ve all heard the tales of George Washington’s exploits, Paul Revere’s famous “one if by land, two if by sea” ride, Benjamin Franklin’s role in well, just about everything. But what about the foreign fighters that served with distinction, nay, may have even saved the revolution?

Here are seven foreigners who freely joined the fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

1. Baron von Steuben: Fraud Turned Hero

Baron Steuben at Valley Forge, 1778.

The Prussian’s resume was impressive. America’s diplomats in Paris, Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, claimed he was once the major general and quartermaster general in the Prussian army, as well as a one-time aide-de-camp to the legendary warrior-king Frederick the Great. But Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben, or Frederick William Augustus, Baron de Steuben, was a fraud. He had been none of those things.

And yet in America, he became a hero.

“[M]ore than any other individual,” writes historian Paul Lockhart, Baron von Steuben “was responsible for transmitting European military thought and practice to the army of the fledgling United States. He gave form to America’s first true army — and to those that followed.”

Despite his bolstered resume, the 47-year-old was a career soldier and did in fact have a keen military eye. He brought to the Continental Army a wealth of European military experience to rally an ill-clothed, starving and poorly trained army at Valley Forge into a professional force. There, von Steuben introduced discipline, putting Washington’s entire army through Prussian-style drills. He noted to Washington that short enlistments meant constant turnover at the expense of order. There was no codified regiment size and different officers throughout the Continental Army used different military drill manuals meant chaos if other units attempted to work with one another.

“[It was] Steuben’s ability to bring this army the kind of training and understanding of tactics that made them able to stand toe to toe with the British,” historian Larrie Ferreiro told the Smithsonian.

Appointed inspector general of the Continental Army in May 1778, von Steuben’s methods categorically transformed the fledgling patriots before going on to write “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States,” the first military manual for the American army.

2. Casimir Pułaski: NO ENGLISH, ALL COURAGE

Casimir Pułaski

“In the 13 months since the United States had declared its independence from Great Britain, the Continental Congress had been unable to develop an effective mounted force or find men who could organize, lead and train one,” writes Ethan S. Rafuse. Yet in December 1776, after numerous defeats and retreats, Gen. George Washington called on the Continental Congress to change that.

“I am convinced there is no carrying on the War without them,” he wrote to John Hancock, “and I would therefore recommend the Establishment of one or more Corps…in Addition to those already raised in Virginia.”

Enter Casimir Pułaski.

Born into Polish nobility, Pułaski had made a name for himself under the Knights of the Holy Cross — the military arm of the Confederation of the Bar that opposed Russian rule.

As a cavalry commander, Pułaski earned widespread acclaim for his 1771 defense of the hallowed monastery of Częstochowa against 3,000 Russians.

However, the Pole was soon forced to flee and found himself in dire financial straits in France. He was soon offered a lifeline by Benjamin Franklin, who agreed to pay for Pułaski’s trip to America in June of 1777.

According to Rafuse, Franklin wrote to Washington lauding Pułaski as “an officer famous throughout Europe for his bravery and conduct in defense of the liberties of his country against the three great invading powers of Russia, Austria, and Prussia” and suggesting that he might “be highly useful to our service.”

First an aide to Washington, Pułaski was soon made brigadier general in the Continental cavalry — where, despite not speaking a word of English, soon proved his mettle.

By 1778, Pułaski was awarded command of the “Pulaski Legion,” an independent cavalry unit composed of American and foreign recruits. The following spring Pułaski and his Legion made their way south to defend the besieged city of Charleston. In October that year, Pułaski was mortally wounded by a grapeshop while leading a cavalry charge during the Siege of Savannah. The 34-year-old’s heroic death established him among the American Revolution’s most famous foreign volunteers and earned him the moniker as the “Father of American Cavalry.”

3. Michael Kováts: HE WAS HUNGARY FOR BATTLE

Michael Kováts

While Pułaski might be known as the Father of American Cavalry, Michael Kováts de Fabricy shouldn’t be overlooked.

He arrived in America four months prior to Pułaski after declaring to Benjamin Franklin, “I am a free man and a Hungarian. I was trained in the Royal Prussian Army and raised from the lowest rank to the dignity of a Captain of the Hussars.”

“Kováts had an even more impressive military record than Pułaski,” according to Rafuse. “Born in Karcag, Hungary, in 1724, Kováts belonged to a noble family whose history of service to the Hungarian crown went back centuries. In Hungary as in Poland, cavalry was the most important element of the army, and for the same reasons: the country’s open plains and acquisitive neighbors — in Hungary’s case, Habsburg Austria and the Ottoman Turks.”

Kováts forged a fiercesome reputation as a brave and effective officer, declaring that he rose through the ranks, “not so much by luck and the mercy of chance than by the most diligent self-discipline and the virtue of my arms.”

As a mercenary soldier, Kováts found himself training participants in Poland’s nascent patriot movement, which included members of the Pułaski family. Like Pułaski, Kováts soon found himself in France and then on a ship to the fledgling nation of America to offer his services to the revolution.

Despite struggling to gain a commission, Kováts eagerly began training men within the Pułaski Legion in April 1778. In his new unit, writes Rafuse, Kováts “particularly emphasized the ‘free corps’ concept popular in Europe in the 1740s and 1750s. To preserve the strength of their rigorously drilled and tightly disciplined battalions of infantry, Eastern European military leaders began accepting into their service units of light forces to operate around the fringes of their armies.” It was here that, under Pułaski, Kováts was able to organize and train one of the first hussar regiments in the American army.

Kováts was mortally wounded by a rifle shot during a clash with the British on May 11, 1779, in defense of Charleston.

4. Tadeusz Kościuszko: LOSER IN LOVE, WINNER IN WAR

Tadeusz Kościuszko

Commissioned a colonel by the Continental Congress in 1777, the 30-year-old Kościuszko soon established himself as one of the Continental Army’s most brilliant, and much needed, combat engineers — all thanks to an unsuccessful attempt to elope with a lord’s daughter back in Poland.

After discovering his brother had spent all the family’s inheritence, Kościuszko was hired to tutor Louise Sosnowska, a wealthy lord’s daughter. The pair fell in love and attempted to elope in the fall of 1775 after Lord Sosnowski refused Kosciuszko’s request. According to the Smithsonian, “Kosciuszko told various friends, Sosnowski’s guards overtook their carriage on horseback, dragged it to a stop, knocked Kosciuszko unconscious, and took Louise home by force.”

Broke, heartbroken, and perhaps fearing repercussions for his actions, Kościuszko set sail across the Atlantic in June 1776. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, John Hancock appointed him a colonel in the Continental Army that October, and Benjamin Franklin hired him to design and build forts on the Delaware River to help defend Philadelphia from the British navy, writes the Smithsonian.

The Pole oversaw the damming of rivers and flooded fields to stem a British pursuit following their victory at Fort Ticonderoga in 1777. This action bought time for the patriots to regroup and prepare for their first major victory of the war — Saratoga. Fortifying Bemis Heights overlooking the Hudson, Kościuszko’s design contributed to the surrender of General John Burgoyne and precipitated the French’s entry into the war.

From there, Kościuszko’s oversaw the defense of West Point, with his fortifications so thorough that the British never deigned to attempt an assault.

At war’s end he was promoted to brigadier general with Thomas Jefferson praising the Pole, “As pure a son of liberty as I have ever known.”

5. Johann de Kalb: Died doing what he loved — Fighting Brits

Johann de Kalb

Who hated the British most during this time period? The French yes, but Germans were a close second.

Born outside the Prussian city of Nuremberg, Baron Johann de Kalb entered the service of France and fought in the Seven Years’ War against the British. He eventually rose to officer rank and was made a Knight of the Royal Order of Merit, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, the veteran soldier saw a chance not only to fight for the ideals of the Enlightenment but to strike a blow to his old foe the British.

Initially denied a commission, a furious de Kalb was making his way back to France when he learned that the Marquis de Lafayette had influenced Congress to appoint him as major general. De Kalb survived the infamous winter at Valley Forge with George Washington and Lafayette, before taking command of 1,200 Maryland and Delaware troops in the war’s Southern theater in 1780.

His command would, alas, be short.

On the morning of August 16, 1780, Gen. Horatio Gates deployed to meet Lt. Gen. Charles Cornwallis in the now famous Battle of Camden. When Gates and his inexperienced militia broke ranks and began to run only de Kalb was left to defend against Cornwallis.

De Kalb and his infantry refused to retreat. Yet somewhere in the midst of melee, de Kalb fell — downed by some 11 wounds, the majority from a bayonet. Taken as prisoner by the British, de Kalb survived for three more days before supposedly telling a British officer: “I die the death I always prayed for: the death of a soldier fighting for the rights of man.”

6. Bernardo de Gálvez: Our Spaniard in LouisianA

Bernardo de Gálvez

A best friend is one with deep pockets — especially when you’re trying to win a war. And although Bernardo de Gálvez was never a soldier in the Continental Army, he certainly had the means to help supply the revolution.

As governor of the Spanish province of Louisiana, Gálvez, according to American Battlefield Trust, “began to smuggle supplies to the American Rebels — shipping gunpowder, muskets, uniforms, medicine, and other supplies through the British blockade to Ohio, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia by way of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.”

When Spain joined in the war effort against the British, Gálvez didn’t miss a beat and began planning a military campaign against the British where he eventually captured Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi and Natchez — all four formerly British ports.

However, Gálvez is best remembered for his role “in denying the British the ability to encircle the American rebels from the south by pressing British forces in West Florida and for keeping a vital flow of supplies to Patriot troops across the colonies,” during the rocky beginnings of the war.

Gálvez was officially recognized by George Washington and the United States Congress for his aid to the colonies during the American Revolution and remains one of eight people in history to receive honorary citizenship.

7. The Marquis de Lafayette: You Know This Guy

Marquis de Lafayette

Last but certainly not least, Gilbert du Motier, the Marquis de Lafayette. The skinny, red-haired 19-year-old had a family tradition of fighting against the English.

Three hundred years before he was born, writes James Smart, “a Gilbert Motier had ridden beside Joan of Arc as a marshal of France. In 1759, when Lafayette was two, his father had been cut in half by a cannonball at the Battle of Minden during the Seven Years’ War. In the newly declared and still embattled United States of America, Lafayette probably hoped to run across William Phillips, the officer who commanded the artillery that killed his father.”

Despite a growing feeling of irritation among the Continental Congress due to the high number of French officers applying for commission, the wealthy Lafayette was willing to serve without a salary and pay for his own expenses.

Wounded while commanding a fighting retreat at the Battle of Brandywine on Sept. 11, 1777, Lafayette soon earned the trust and admiration of George Washington.

In November of that year, Congress voted Lafayette command of a division, where the boy general served with distinction at the battles of Gloucester, Barren Hill and Monmouth.

Lafayette was instrumental in rallying crucial support in France for the patriot cause. By 1781, the then 24-year-old had grown out of his moniker as “boy general” and took command of an army in Virginia, playing a pivotal role in the entrapment of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, that eventually led to the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.

The general remains beloved in America to this day, with numerous streets, statues, and buildings erected and named throughout the United States in his honor.

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Lewis and Clark’s Race Against Spain

By Mike Coppock — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 14:30:00 +0000

Meriwether Lewis

On a hot day in September 1806, with flags flying, Lieutenant Facundo Melgares led some 300 Spanish army troopers and New Mexico militiamen into a large Pawnee camp on the Platte River in what is now Nebraska. Melgares, whose force had set out three months before from the provincial capital, Santa Fe, had orders to intercept and arrest certain Americans known to be traveling unlawfully in Spanish territory and said by an American informer to be descending the Missouri River. The American trespassers’ names were William Clark and Meriwether Lewis.

Melgares had departed Santa Fe on June 15 with 105 Spanish regulars, 400 New Mexican militiamen, and 100 American Indians. At the Arkansas River near present-day Larned, Kansas, Melgares left 240 men with instructions to build a fort; he led the rest of his contingent north on the king’s business. He had to tread lightly. His orders were to keep the peace with the Pawnee at all costs.

William Clark

Unbeknownst to Melgares, at that moment Lewis and Clark were 140 miles east, sailing down the Missouri River toward the frontier town of St. Louis. At his village, Pawnee Chief White Wolf refused to let the Spanish continue, seemingly ready, Melgares thought, to fight if pressed. Melgares could only persuade the Pawnee to fly Spain’s flag exclusively and keep Americans off their lands. He arrested two French trappers found in the village for trespassing. Around September 11, captives in tow, he made for Santa Fe. Unaware they were targets, Lewis and Clark proceeded to St. Louis, there ending a 29-month round-trip odyssey to the Pacific.

Melgares and his men made up the last of four Spanish forces sent to arrest Lewis and Clark. Each contingent just missed its assigned troop of Americans, whether it was traveling up the Missouri or bound back to St. Louis. The Spanish considered these ventures evidence of espionage and meant to stop all four.

The American troops were following President Thomas Jefferson’s orders to map the acreage acquired when the United States bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803 from France. Spain, however, viewed that deal as illegal because in 1863, at the end of the Seven Year’s War between France and Britain, France had signed the land over to the Spanish crown to ensure that Britain didn’t grab the prize.

The Path They Took. The Lewis and Clark Expedition managed by quirks of timing and route to avoid Spanish forces that were pursuing the Americans as unwanted interlopers.

The Spanish pursuit of Jefferson’s expeditions is a chapter in the emergence of the young United States as a continental nation, pushing at its borders and testing Spain’s claim on the Louisiana Territory, itself a vestige of the sprawling Seven Years’ War.

Lands west of Appalachia were filling with enterprising settlers open to gain wherever it might arise. Jefferson’s drive collided with the perfidy of two of his peers—one an effective army commander later called a “mammoth of iniquity” during a trial for corruption; another a political rival with his own land-grabbing ambition—and courted war with Spain.

Thomas Jefferson

In its efforts to thwart the Americans, Spain had a mole in the Jefferson administration who was on its side. Secretly working for the Spanish, General James Wilkinson leaked details on each westward lunge. Wilkinson was addicted to scheming. As a Revolutionary War officer, he had joined in the plot to remove Commander-in-Chief George Washington. As second in command of the Legion of the United States for the reinvasion of the Old Northwest, Wilkinson maligned his boss, legion commander Anthony Wayne, hoping to replace Wayne. In 1787 Wilkinson offered Spain his services as a spy helping to get the western states to secede. He began reporting to Spanish handlers in New Orleans in 1794 but hadn’t had much involvement in the leadup to Jefferson’s westward expedition. When Jefferson took office as president in 1801, Wilkinson was senior Brigadier General. Soon after buying Louisiana, Jefferson placed frontier forces under Wilkinson’s command. Wilkinson hastened to get back on Spain’s payroll, demanding pay for his inactive years and a retainer for services to be rendered. Fearful of Americans flooding their provinces, Spain settled 12,000 gold pesos on Wilkinson as back pay and agreed to a $4,000 annual stipend.

General James Wilkinson

In gaining nominal title to Louisiana, Jefferson had acquired the land adjoining New Orleans and St. Louis—plus the preemptive right to obtain Native American lands in Louisiana by treaty or force to the exclusion of other colonial powers. Spain administered the west bank of the Mississippi south from St. Louis but had no problem with the Americans assuming control of that side of the river, which seemed inevitable. Since 1799 Daniel Boone and Henry Dodge had been leading American settlers to St. Louis, becoming such presences that Spanish authorities made Boone and other Americans judges there. Spain did object to American claims on lands further west. Spain had bled for these expanses, a gateway to gold and silver deposits in what is now Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and California. The United States had practical reasons for buying Louisiana: the port of New Orleans, and control of the Mississippi. But American revolutionaries like Washington and Jefferson envisioned the new nation stretching to the Pacific. Louisiana offered an overland route to the western ocean.

The first American attempt at traversing the continent came the year that America won independence. Learning in 1783 of British intent to send a party across the continent, Jefferson asked General George Rogers Clark about trying to beat the British west with a large force. Clark argued that a martial display would anger Native tribes. Send three to four men, he said. In 1790, Secretary of War Henry Knox sent Lieutenant John Armstrong to see what was beyond the Mississippi; underfunded, he stopped at the big river. In 1793, the American Philosophical Society took a run at the Pacific, funded partly by President George Washington, financier Robert Morris, and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Jefferson named French botanist André Michaux its leader. To avoid nettling the Spanish, the government told Michaux to cross the Mississippi north of St. Louis. He and his men set out in June, but when Michaux was revealed to be a French agent assigned to attack Spanish positions along the Mississippi, Jefferson scrapped the project and sent Michaux back to France. American dreams of the Pacific lapsed until Alexander Mackenzie, a Scot working for the North West Company of Canada, reignited that ardor in 1793. Mackenzie became the first European to cross the continent north of Mexico and reach the Pacific, painting his name in red on a rock along the Canadian coast.

In 1802, thanks to social connections, outdoorsman and former soldier Meriwether Lewis was President Jefferson’s secretary when his boss obtained a copy of Voyages from Montreal, Mackenzie’s account of his feat. In the 1801 volume, the explorer urged Britain to develop a land passage across North America. That incitement and the image of a rock daubed in red transfixed Jefferson. He said he would soon be sending Lewis on just such a quest. Jefferson sounded out Spain’s ambassador on whether a Pacific-bound expedition crossing Spanish holdings would sit well with the king. Ambassador Carlos Martinez de Yrugo said Spain would view such efforts as a hostile act, even if the ostensible point was only to map unknown territory.

Breaking an Overland Trail to the Western Ocean. In 1793 the Scot Alexander Mackenzie, an operative of the North West Company, reached the Pacific shore, becoming the first European to cross the North American continent above Mexico.

The mysterious expanse fired Jefferson’s curiosity. Lewis’s instructions from Jefferson for the journey included looking for Welsh descendants from Prince Madoc’s 1170 expedition to the New World, hunting for mammoths, and collecting evidence that Native Americans were human beings. Jefferson did know that the Rocky Mountains were the source of most of the rivers feeding the Mississippi from the west. Working with Captain Robert Gray’s 1792 discovery and precise mapping by longitude and latitude of the mouth of the Columbia River along North America’s Pacific Coast, Jefferson acquired a rough idea of the distance between the east coast and the west coast as a crow flew. Spanish fur traders had been trapping and bargaining for skins on the upper reaches of the Missouri River for decades. In 1795 Spanish merchants in St. Louis sent an expedition up the Missouri seeking a route to the Pacific. Two years later the exploratory party returned with detailed maps of the Missouri. By 1802, Spain had installed 11 trading posts on the Upper Missouri.

Aaron Burr

When French officials offered American negotiators all of Louisiana in 1803, Jefferson grabbed it. The deal dovetailed perfectly with his aspirations for an overland route to the Pacific Ocean. Jefferson ignored a festering decades-old border dispute over whether the Sabine River marked the border between French and Spanish holdings. The French said it did, while the Spanish claimed the border was further east within the Mississippi drainage.

Jefferson hurriedly assigned four expeditions to explore particular aspects of Louisiana. Lewis, with George Rogers Clark’s younger brother William and a few men, would go up the Missouri and head west for the Pacific.

A second party would explore the length of the Red River, previously the northern boundary separating the Spanish province of Texas from Louisiana and now the new southern border separating the United States and New Spain. Jefferson wanted to know if the Red River ran west to Santa Fe in New Mexico. The third expedition would travel up the Kansas River and onto the Great Plains, hunting the Red River’s source. A fourth expedition would travel up the Arkansas River mapping that waterway.

Learning of Jefferson’s expeditionary plans, Wilkinson, Spanish secret agent and commander of American forces on the frontier, alerted his Spanish handlers. Ever the conspirator, Wilkinson also had signed onto former Vice President Aaron Burr’s scheme to grab part of lower Louisiana, merge it with a few northern provinces of New Spain, and form a new nation.

Jefferson explicitly ordered Lewis to avoid Spanish settlements. When intelligence suggested the Arkansas River expedition, set for 1804, would encounter Spanish troops, Jefferson canceled it. By this time Lewis and Clark were two months into their trip up the Missouri. That was when Wilkinson squealed to the Spanish, suggesting they intercept the men of the Corps of Discovery and repel or arrest them.

Nemesio Salcedo, commandant general of the Internal Provinces of New Spain, headquartered in Chihuahua, worried that “Captain Merry” intended to “penetrate the Missouri River in order to fulfill the commission which he has of making discoveries and observations.” Salcedo feared “Merry’s” discoveries would include pinpointing Spain’s gold and silver mines in the mountainous West. Salcedo sent Pedro Vial north after the American explorers three times. Vial was too early to the Pawnee village and had been gone a month when, slowed by a slow spring melt on the frozen Missouri, Lewis and Clark reached the mouth of the Platte on July 21. Vial left Santa Fe on his second foray on October 5, 1805, with 100 men, but they clashed with Native warriors while crossing the Arkansas River in today’s eastern Colorado and turned back. In his third attempt, Vial left in April 1806, again turning back owing to desertions in the ranks. Now Salcedo sent Melgares, who chose to maintain peace with the Pawnee rather than chase Lewis and Clark.

Poling in the Missouri Shallows. In May 1804 the Corps of Discovery was on the Missouri River in a keelboat whose sail often had to be reefed in favor of men using poles.

Five months after Lewis and Clark left St. Louis for the west, Jefferson approved a smaller expedition up the Ouachita River by way of the Red River. That undertaking was headed by Dr. William Dunbar, a friend of Jefferson’s who had been set to lead the aborted Arkansas expedition. Dunbar, keen to find a medicinal hot spring said to be in the unexplored region, pitched his idea to Jefferson rather than going through Wilkinson. Jefferson approved the plan through a personal letter to Dunbar with the promise of funding, again leaving Wilkinson out of the loop.

Along with chemist George Hunter, the Dunbar party consisted of 13 soldiers, Hunter’s teenage son, Dunbar’s two slaves, and Dunbar’s servant. The expedition left St. Catherine’s Landing on the east shore of the Mississippi on October 16, 1804. The men were aboard a boat designed by Hunter and built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, months earlier. The team quickly realized the craft, a “Chinese-style vessel,” drew too much water for the shallow rivers they were traveling, but they bumped upstream on the Red River, onto the Black River, and finally the Ouachita, which brought them to the storied medicinal waters—today’s Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hunter made studies on water quality while Dunbar calculated the rate of discharge of the springs. The degree to which the supposedly empty area had been settled amazed Dunbar. Cabins harboring American, French, Spanish, and Native trappers surrounded the springs.

On their return traversing the New Orleans Territory to Fort Miro (now Monroe, Louisiana), Dunbar himself hurried overland to Washington, DC, bringing along with him flora and fauna samples and maps that he delivered to his pal, the president, the first substantial information from one of Jefferson’s expeditions. The remainder of the expedition returned by boat in January 1805. The Spanish had not interfered.

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Jefferson now wanted the seasoned Dunbar to lead the Red River expedition. He told Dunbar to obtain passports from Spanish officials since the expedition would be traveling near Spanish Texas. In New Orleans, the Marquis de Casa Calvo, former Spanish governor of Louisiana, issued passports but told the Americans he could not override Spanish authorities in Texas if the Tejanos chose not to honor the passports. Dunbar decided not to go. Command went to Thomas Freeman, who had helped survey the line between the United States and Spanish Florida. Peter Custis, a trained naturalist with a medical background, signed on as second in command. When intelligence reports warned of possible encounters with Spanish troops, U.S. Army Captain Richard Sparks, two junior officers, and 17 enlisted men were assigned to the venture. The Freeman party left Natchez, Mississippi, on April 19, 1806, traveling up the Red River in two barges and a native canoe. Because a border dispute with Spain along Louisiana’s Sabine River was heating up, the expedition took on more soldiers until Spark had 45 men.

Owing to snags and logjams, the expedition needed a month to reach Natchitoches, Louisiana, and two months more to clear the Red River Raft, a massive natural logjam, and the Great Bend of the Red River. The crawl up the Red gave Wilkinson and Calvo time to alert Spanish territorial officials of the expedition, just as Jefferson was praising the project to Congress. To stop Freeman and company, Spain sent Captain Francisco Viana, newly appointed commander of the Nacogdoches garrison in east Texas. Viana and his men rode hard north. On July 28, some 615 miles upriver, the American explorers began hearing Spanish guns. Freeman asked to parley. Viana said he had orders to fire upon any foreign troops in Spanish territory. Freeman demanded Spanish objections be put in writing and the name of the official who had sent Viana to stop him. Viana refused. Three days passed. Freeman gave in, claiming he wanted to avoid an international incident. The Red River Expedition headed downriver, embarrassing Jefferson and tickling Burr and followers.

Meeting Across the River. In 1805, Pike, at the time leading a water-borne exploratory party, encountered Indians at the headwaters of the Mississippi River.

As a result of the Sabine River dispute with Spain, war clouds gathered. Wilkinson began assembling an expedition to find the Red River’s source. Lieutenant Zebulon Pike, 27, had returned to St. Louis on April 30, 1806, from a separate quest, having spent nine months searching for the source of the Mississippi River and informing British traders in what would become Minnesota that they were trespassing. Pike had identified the wrong lake as the mighty river’s source, but no one would know that for decades. The President praised young Pike in his December 1806 message to Congress.

On his own, Wilkinson promoted Pike to captain and assigned him a new challenge. Starting in mid-July, Pike was to cut across the Great Plains to the Rockies to find the Red River’s source.

It occurred to Pike that Melgares knew where he was going, and Pike did not. Pike decided to follow him.

Locals in St. Louis, where it was held that the Red rose on the plains, scoffed, noting that Pike’s schedule would put him in the Rockies during winter. Jefferson told Pike to avoid New Mexico, but Wilkinson had ordered him to get as close to the Spanish settlements as he could with Dr. Robinson, a confidant of Aaron Burr. Wilkinson made his son James Biddle Wilkinson second in command. The 23-man Pike expedition left on July 15 with 59 Osage hostages Pike was to drop off at the nearest Osage village in what is now Kansas.

Wilkinson did not see Pike off; the Sabine River crisis had pulled him to New Orleans. But earlier the general had written Pike that if caught by the Spanish near Santa Fe he should claim to have gotten lost. Within weeks of Pike’s casting off, Governor Salcedo in Chihuahua City learned from his agents in St. Louis and from Wilkinson of the Pike expedition’s departure.

Zebulon Pike

Pike reached an Osage village in eastern Kansas a month later, delivering the hostages as a goodwill gesture from the U.S. government. He then marched for the Pawnee village on the Platte River in central Nebraska. He and his force arrived September 29, missing the hapless Melgares and his troops by several weeks. Seeing the Spanish flag over Chief White Wolf’s teepee, Pike asked for a tribal council. Pike told the Pawnee they were now under the protection of the United States and were to lower the Spanish flag.

When White Wolf learned that Pike planned to proceed west, he forbade the American to take that direction, just has he had forbidden Melgares to go east. Pike was not worried about keeping the peace with the Pawnee. If anything, he was spoiling to project American power.

Pike told the chief his men were well armed and that if anything befell them, the United States would avenge their deaths. He then marched west for the Arkansas River, in two days finding a campsite the Melgares force had left. Pike counted 59 fires. The thought occurred to Pike that Melgares knew where he was going, while Pike did not. The American explorer decided to follow the Spanish soldiers’ trail.

As Pike and his men were following Melgares’s trail, Wilkinson’s troops were clashing with Spanish troops along the Sabine River. Without Jefferson’s permission, Wilkinson had signed an understanding with his Spanish counterpart, Lt. Colonel Simon de Herrera, for the withdrawal of U.S. and Spanish forces from the Sabine River to avoid war. But Jefferson accepted the understanding because it created neutral ground between the U.S. and Spain. From 1806 to 1821, the neutral strip along the Sabine was a de facto demilitarized zone that besides helping to avoid direct confrontations between Spain and the U.S. over the Jefferson-appointed incursions was a haven for outlaws and smugglers. Its creation also marked a change of direction for Wilkinson. He decided Aaron Burr and his grandiose plans for a new nation were a dangerous liability, but Wilkinson was not yet through scheming.

Two weeks of hard riding brought the Pike expedition to the banks of the Arkansas River. Near present-day Coolidge, Kansas, by the Colorado border, Pike split his force. Young Wilkinson would follow the Arkansas River downriver to civilization with five men while Pike’s group and Robinson would continue upriver.

A map showing portions of the route Zebulon Pike took during his 1805-06 expedition into New Spain.

On December 3, near present-day Pueblo, Colorado, Pike noted that Melgares’s trail suddenly had turned south, apparently taking him to Santa Fe. Instead of following, Pike continued up the Arkansas, roaming the Rockies through snow for a month before crossing the Sangre de Cristo Mountains into the San Luis Valley in what is now Colorado. Locating the upper reaches of the Rio Grande, Pike built a small fort on January 31, 1807, on the west bank of the Rio Grande, in territory undisputedly Spanish.

From there, Dr. Robinson proceeded south alone for Santa Fe. Spanish troops arrested him two weeks later as they rode north to confront Pike. Aaron Burr was arrested at approximately the same time in Alabama on charges of treason. Wilkinson had turned him in.

The night of February 26, Spanish troops stormed Pike’s Fort, arresting him and his men for spying. In Santa Fe, officials confiscated Pike’s notes and maps. After being questioned, the Americans were given travel money and allowed to keep their unloaded weapons.

Melgares and troops escorted them to Los Coabos, the capital of Chihuahua. After interrogating Pike and his men, Governor Salcedo had an armed escort take them to the Louisiana border.

A compass used by Lewis and Clark.

As Spanish troops were taking Pike to the border, an American named Burling was making his way overland from Louisiana to Mexico City, telling Spanish authorities he had come to buy mules. He also carried a letter from Wilkinson to the Viceroy of New Spain. In the letter Wilkinson demanded $100,000 in cash. After all, he had prevented an invasion of Mexico by Burr and saved Spain from a costly war with the United States. The Viceroy gave Burling neither the money nor the mules.

Pike reached the United States on July 1, 1807. In 1813, during the War of 1812, he died at York, Upper Canada, when retreating British troops blew up an ammunition magazine. Meriwether Lewis had died of gunshot wounds in 1809, either by his own hand or murdered.

William Clark went on to serve as territorial governor of Missouri until 1822, when President James Monroe named him Superintendent of Indian Affairs, a post he held until his death in 1838. Jefferson’s protégé William Dunbar pioneered ways to make use of cottonseed oil and other improvements to plantation economies before dying on his plantation in 1810. Thomas Freeman, who had taken over Dunbar’s expedition, died in 1821 after forsaking his career as explorer and surveyor to become an astronomer.

General James Wilkinson was ordered court-martialed by President James Madison for his role in the Burr conspiracy; a military tribunal acquitted him. He was later appointed as the U.S. Envoy to Mexico in 1821. Wilkinson died in Mexico City in 1826, possibly from an overdose of laudanum. He was 68. Suspicion persisted that he was spying for Spain, but not until 1854 did correspondence discovered in that nation’s archives confirm Wilkinson’s skullduggery.

This article appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of American History magazine.

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