Fort Stanwix National Monument, Rome New York

The first year of the war went well for the patriots. They had chased the British out of Boston and almost captured Canada. King George responded by sending more troops who landed in the New York area in 1776. British General Howe led his 32,000 army against Washington’s assorted militia units and beat them in August 1776 in the Battle of Long Island. Fortunately for the revolution, Howe failed to pursue his advantage and allowed the American army to slip away. On Christmas Day 1776, Washington struck a counterblow by leading his troops across the ice-choked Delaware River to attack and capture 1,400 German soldiers at Trenton and the next day, secured another victory in Princeton. This provided a welcome lift to the rebellion through that winter.

Place where Washington and his soldiers crossed the Delaware River on Christmas 1776 (Photo by Hunner)

The next summer, the British launched an ambitious campaign to split off New England from the rest of the colonies by capturing the Hudson River Valley. They planned a three pronged invasion with two armies moving south from Canada and another one coming north from New York City. General Howe was to invade from New York City, but decided instead to try to capture Philadelphia. General Burgoyne at first succeeded in advancing down from Canada through Lake Champlain and captured Fort Ticonderoga. General St. Leger came into New York from the west to join Burgoyne near Albany. The British had to pass by Fort Stanwix first.

Originally built during the French and Indian War to protect this key portage, Fort Stanwix protected the “Oneida Carrying Place,” a six-mile stretch between the Mohawk River which goes east into the Hudson River and Wood Creek which drains west into Oneida Lake. Ranger David at Fort Stanwix said that this was the center of the world for this region. During this period, all roads went through the Oneida Carrying Place and so converged at Fort Stanwix. However, after the French and Indian War, the British had no further use for it and so abandoned the fort.

In the 1770s, the British declared a boundary through central New York that prohibited settlers moving west into land that belonged to the Iroquois Confederacy. George Washington had bought the Great Meadow around Fort Necessity and men like Ben Franklin, Sam Adams, and others had also invested in land west of the boundary. They were unhappy that the King had set aside this region. So this boundary fueled the growing anger about a distant government meddling in America affairs.

Supporting the British plan to invade New York in 1777 from the north, west, and south, General St. Leger sailed by way of Lake Ontario to Oswego, New York with 800-900 British soldiers and Loyalist Tories and 1,000 Iroquois allies. According to Ranger David, the British promised the Iroquois that there would be no sieges, no battles, and that their warriors would enjoy many gifts. Hearing that the British were coming, the patriots secretly started rebuilding Fort Stanwix. They succeeded in rehabilitating the fortification so that when the British force arrived, they had to set up a siege.

On August 6, 1777, an American militia relief force led by General Nicolas Herkimer approached from the east but ran into an ambush of Tories, Mohawks, and Seneca Indians at Oriskany, about fifteen miles from Stanwix. Around half of Herkimer’s soldiers were killed or wounded in this vicious fighting. Ironically, Oriskany was the first in a series of events that led to the defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga. Here’s why.

As the Iroquois were fighting at Oriskany, their camps near Fort Stanwix were looted by soldiers coming out from the fort. When the Iroquois heard of this, they broke off fighting at Oriskany and rushed back to find their possessions gone. All of the promises made to them, no siege, no battles, lots of gifts were broken. So they left the campaign. The British and the Loyalists continued the siege for another two weeks until they heard that Benedict Arnold approached with 3,000 troops. In truth, Arnold had only 800 soldiers but had sent a Loyalist into St. Leger’s camp sounding the alarm about the bigger force. St. Leger abandoned his invasion, returned to Canada, and left Burgoyne without essential reinforcements. Arnold turned around and raced with his troops back to support the upcoming battle with Burgoyne.

As I wandered the grounds, I recalled Joan Zenzen’s book, Fort Stanwix National Monument, about the creation of the fort. After the reconstruction of Fort Stanwix, for the first twenty years, interpreters at Fort Stanwix played first person – that is they pretended to not know anything after 1777. I talked with many volunteers who were at the fort that Saturday. Volunteer Charles, who portrayed a Captain, switched from a Civil War reenactor to the American Revolution. When I asked Charles about first person interpretation at Fort Stanwix, he said that they don’t do that anymore. He explained that first person interpretation is hard on the audience and hard on the interpreters. The opinion of the interpreters at the fort is that it is difficult to engage with an audience when you pretend to know nothing about today.

I also had an interesting conversation about the interpretation done at the fort with volunteers  Frank, William, and Mike in a barrack as they shared bread and passed around some salami for lunch. Since the goal of volunteers and staff is to engage visitors, they considered that the best way to accomplish this was by talking with them from today. So they were in costumes from 1777, but are squarely in 2016. I blogged about this from my time at Conner Prairie Interactive Park, and I must admit, my thoughts are changing on this. More about this when we get to Plimouth Planation in Massachusetts.

Another interesting volunteer I met was Renee. She played a British Grenadier and explained that she has been fascinated by history since the 4^th grade and wanted to be a Redcoat since then. She found a friendly group with the volunteer group at Fort Stanwix and while I visited with her in a barrack, a mother with two children came in. Renee showed how muskets worked and even let them cock and pull the trigger on the gun.

To get back to the campaign of 1777, Britain’s attempt to split the colonies failed, but Howe did manage to capture Philadelphia, the nascent country’s capital. In European wars, capturing the capital often meant a war was won. Not here. The British occupied the City of Brotherly Love that winter of 1777-78 while Washington and his army hunkered down thirty miles away at Valley Forge. Up north, at Saratoga that fall of 1777, Benedict Arnold distinguished himself again and saved the rebellion. We will fully explore this in the future.

Fort Stanwix became a National Monument on August 21, 1935. The NPS acquired the property in 1973 in anticipation of the U.S. Bicentennial. A group of politicians and local boosters received urban renewal funding to revitalize the downtown area by rebuilding the fort with promises of hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The more recent buildings on top of the site were razed, archeological excavations conducted, and the blueprint for the original fort was discovered in a British archive which helped recreate the fort. Today, the promise of tourist hordes has failed to materialize, but it is a lively site with costumed interpreters firing off cannons, demonstrating martial life of the time, and engaging visitors with their knowledge and love of the place that prevented the British forces from uniting in 1777 and dividing the colonies along the Hudson River. 

Independence National Historical Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

It was one thing for a group of hotheads in Massachusetts to start shooting at the Redcoats in response to the Intolerable Acts and the Boston Massacre. It was another thing altogether to establish a unified governing body to justify, fund, and fight a rebellion against the most powerful army in the world. Much of this discussion and planning happened in the streets, taverns, and formally in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall. The Hall also served as the birthplace for the United States Constitution. Before we return to the battles of the Revolutionary War, we will look how Philadelphia contributed to the creation of the United States and the buildings there where this history happened.

Independence Hall in Philadelphia (Photo by Hunner)

A lot of the intellectual fervor of the revolution centered in Philadelphia. Granted by King Charles II in 1682 as a colonial charter to William Penn, Pennsylvania became a place of religious freedom for Quakers and a haven of tolerance for others. Philadelphia’s central location between the northern and southern colonies, its position as a gateway to productive lands in the west, and its embrace of the many peoples who flocked to its streets all gave it a vibrancy and primacy in colonial affairs during the 18^th century.

Ben Franklin's first Post Office at Franklin House (Photo by Hunner) 

Three important moments in the founding of our republic occurred at the Pennsylvania State House. First, delegates debated and signed the Declaration of Independence there in 1776. Second, these delegates also wrote the Articles of Confederation there. Third, in 1787 and 1788, representatives from the newly formed states replaced the Articles with the Constitution of the United States.

The Second Continental Congress convened on May 19, 1775 at the State House, which in 1730s, had served as a seat of government for the colony and then for the Revolution. As conflict erupted in Boston, the Second Congress created the Continental Army on June 14 and appointed Virginia delegate George Washington as its commander-in-chief the next day. In response, Washington wrote to his wife Martha: “It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defense of the American cause shall be put under my Care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.”[1]  

George Washington (From  exhibit at Saratoga NB)

The Congress chose Washington for several reason. He had combat experience from the French and Indian War (1754-1760). He also came from Virginia, the wealthiest and largest colony at the time; however, throughout the war, delegates from other colonies, especially Massachusetts, challenged his competence.

A curious inconsistency surfaced with the Continental Congress. It had no legal authority to create an army, tax, print money, create legislation, in fact no legal authority to maintain a central government over the separate colonies. The Continental Congress created itself out of thin air, and then it began to rally for independence and to govern.

As fighting erupted and discontent simmered, Congress in the spring of 1776 moved toward a formal declaration of freedom. To officially sever ties with the British Empire, it passed a resolution on May 10 calling on all colonies to form a revolutionary government in defiance of King George and Parliament. A “Committee of Five” composed of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston assisted Thomas Jefferson in drafting a resolution.

Thomas Jefferson worked on the document at the Declaration House in Philadelphia. This resolution applied John Locke’s contract theory of government that urged people to discard a government if it abused its power and the rights of its citizens.

The table that Thomas Jefferson used to draft the Declaration of Independence
(From exhibit at Declaration House in Philadelphia)

In contrast to the aristocratic non-elected governments in Europe, the Declaration called for a system of governance where “all people are created equal,” where governments derive their “just Powers from the consent of the people,” and where people need to “alter or abolish” that government if the inalienable rights of “life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” are curtailed. After establishing the rights of citizens to seek freedom from an unjust form of government, the rest of the Declaration was a list of twenty-seven specific abuses perpetrated by the King and Parliament on the colonies.

Fifty-seven delegates signed the Declaration of Independence in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House, including such luminaries as Samuel and John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Philip Livingston of New York, and Thomas Jefferson of Virginia. The delegates officially ratified the declaration on July 4, 1776. The declaration has inspired people from around the world with its call for equality and freedom; however, written by slave owners and devoid of a woman author or signer, this call for liberty and freedom is still a work in progress.

The Assembly Room at Independence Hall where the Declaration was signed on July 4, 1776 (Photo by Hunner)

The Congress then turned to creating a way to govern the rebellious colonies. They ratified the “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union” in November 1777 which established the rules and duties for the national government including prosecuting war and seeking peace, negotiating diplomatic and trade agreements, and settling disputes between states. Unfortunately, the Articles were flawed, especially since Congress had no official authority to raise money through taxes. It struggled to finance the war with borrowed money.

As the war progressed, most people realized that the Articles did not work. No state honored all of their financial obligations since there were no penalties. At times, Georgia and New Jersey refused to pay anything. Consequently, the Confederation government lacked the money to pay even the interest on its foreign debt. By 1786, the United States defaulted on its debts from the war as they came due. Changes had to happen.

The Constitutional Convention convened on May 14, 1787 when delegates returned to Independence Hall in Philadelphia to correct the Articles. By mid-June, the delegates switched from revising the existing Articles to creating a different form of government. Some of the contentious issues included how much power to give the federal government; how to elect representatives to Congress and how many should come from each state; who could vote; when to hold elections; and how to change the constitution and thus the government? Delegates debated all of these issues and more through the summer of 1787 in the State House.

Despite creating a democracy to give the public power over government, our country’s founders did not really trust the people. As Virginian James Madison observed: “if humans were angels, no government would be necessary.” To counter human nature, the delegates turned to Montesquieu who championed the separation of power between executive, legislative, and judicial branches to protect individual freedoms. Only power checking power could preserve the hard won liberty.  

The convention focused on two proposals of governance—the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan favored empowering the states with larger populations. It proposed a federal government with three branches to insure checks and balances. The legislative branch had two houses—one elected by popular vote for three year terms and the other selected by state legislatures for seven year terms. Representation was based on population – larger states had more elected officials in both chambers.    

The New Jersey Plan, also known as the Small State Plan, countered the disproportionate power that the more populated states would have under the Virginia Plan. This called for a unicameral body with one vote for each state. In a compromise cobbled together by the Connecticut contingent, aspects of the New Jersey Plan were incorporated into the final draft. This created a bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives apportioned by population and a Senate which granted equal votes to each state, big or small.

After lengthy debate and compromise, the Convention adopted the new Constitution on September 17, 1787 and sent it out from Independence Hall to the states for approval. Ratified by conventions in eleven States, the Constitution went into effect on March 4, 1789. As the supreme law of the land, the Constitution formed a model for representative government that launched a democratic revolution around the world.

In addition to an elected bicameral legislature, the Constitution also established an elected president in charge of the executive branch and an appointed judicial system. All three have duties to ensure a separation of powers to safeguard against abuses.

The Constitution provided the framework for a working republic. It held many firsts as historian Joseph Ellis states:  it established the first modern republic; it created the first wholly secular nation; and it created a federal government where multiple states and their divergent interests worked together. Despite the strengths of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers avoided several areas which belied the phrase that all men are created equal. For a nation created on equality, slavery existed and in the coming years, grew in some states. Native Americans did not receive equal protection and in fact, lost land and rights. And women did not win the right to vote until the 20th century. While the Constitution serves as a model for democratic governance around the world, it also held some almost fatal flaws as well.  We will explore this when we drive to the parks that focus on the Civil War.

The colonial men and women had fought a long and difficult war to free themselves from King George and the Parliament. The Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation came from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. After the war ended, the hall once again hosted the intense debates and creation of the new republic. The resultant Constitution of the United States has for more than two centuries served as a model for democratic governments around the world.

Millions of people from around the world have converged on Philadelphia, have tramped over the grassy mall, toured Independence Hall, and visited the other buildings and sites of this National Historical Park. They all come to look for America.

On June 28, 1948, the U.S. Congress authorized the Independence National Historical Park which was then formally established on July 4, 1956. Independence Hall became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on October 23, 1979.

In the next blog, we return to the war and the campaign of 1777.

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[1] Kelly, Best Stories of American Revolution, 85.

Minute Man National Historical Park at Concord, Massachusetts

“Lay down your arms, ye damned rebels, lay down your arms!” With that terse warning from Major Pitcairn of the British Army, his guard of 150 soldiers confronted the 77 assembled Minute Men on the town green at Lexington, Massachusetts. The militia on the Lexington Green on April 19, 1775 had responded to the alarms spread by Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Dr. Samuel Prescott. At the time, no one cried “the British are Coming!” Most colonials still considered themselves British. The cry that did ring out through the New England countryside that night was “The Regulars are Coming!”

Lexington Green (Photo by Hunner)

At the Lexington Green, a shot rang out, and the militia scattered, some run down by the Regulars who charged with bayonets, killing eight and wounding ten. The Regulars suffered no casualties. Pitcairn marshaled his jubilant troops back to command and rushed his men to Concord to capture a stockpile of rebel arms and ammunition.

 Reenactors portraying British Regulars at Concord (From exhibit at Minute Man NHP) 

The fighting at Lexington and Concord that April in 1775 sparked the American Revolutionary War and changed the world. The road to rebellion was slow boil for the colonists in British America that dated back to the French and Indian War. Administering the American colonies burdened the growing British world empire, and Parliament thought payment was due. Beginning in 1733 with the Molasses Act, taxes on essential colonial products raised the ire of the Americans. First Lord of the Treasury, George Grenville, justified the taxes saying that they would go “toward defraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said colonies and plantations.” From our early days, taxes have vexed Americans. A particularly odious tax on the colonies was the Stamp Act of 1765, covered in last week’s blog. Local Sons of Liberty began to organize against the rising “tyranny” of the British over colonial matters.

Ben Franklin's call for unity during the protest against King George III and Parliament.
(From Franklin House exhibit at Independence NHP)

Revolutions need many elements to succeed. They need a perceived threat to motivate people to rebel. They need talented leaders to take charge and figure out how to rebel. They require a network of communication to spread the word. And they need luck.

Talented writers fanned the flames of rebellion and justified the challenge to the British and King George III. Virginians Patrick Henry and John Dickinson, Pennsylvanian Benjamin Franklin, and Bostonian Samuel Adams stoked popular resentment with pamphlets, broadsheets, and articles decrying British tyranny and rallying the public with slogans such as “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and “Give me Liberty or give me Death.” From leaflets to popular songs sung in taverns, the rebels organized against England. The patriots were lucky with such talented publicists.

Building on the growing discontent, rebels started boycotting British imports. Sassafras tea replaced British tea as the protestors’ drink of choice. Women made garments out of homespun cloth, merging fashion with defiance. Patriots organized militia to resist England. In Massachusetts, almost all men between sixteen and sixty served in their town’s militia, with the younger men serving as a rapid response force, nicknamed the Minute Men. All knew that once open rebellion started, they would face the best military in the world.

Political cartoon showing the English forcing tea down an American
(From exhibit at Minute Man NHP)

What did the rebels want? They fought for independence from an oppressive regime; for equality (for white males with property); and for representation in government. Newly arrived from England, Thomas Paine published the influential Common Sense in January 1776. In it, he wrote:

It is not in the power of Britain to do this continent justice: … for if they cannot conquer us, they cannot govern us.… Independency means no more, than, whether we shall make our own laws, or, whether the king, the greatest enemy this continent hath, or can have, shall tell us, "there shall be no laws but such as I like.”

Cries for rebellion like Payne’s unified the disparate colonies into a continent, into a whole land. Granted, the thin line of English settlement along the eastern seaboard ignored the rest of North America continent; nonetheless, colonials started seeing themselves as part of a larger country fighting against a corrupt government.

In my tour of Independence Hall in Philadelphia led by Ranger Greg, he mentioned militia Captain Preston’s reason about why they took up arms against the King. Was it taxes? No. Was it the Boston Massacre? No. Preston said they fought because those people in England felt that we Americans could no longer take care of our own business, we could no longer govern ourselves. That is why he and his fellow soldiers rebelled.

The First Continental Congress met at the Carpenters’ Hall from September 5 to October 10, 1774 to respond to the Punitive Acts (aka the Intolerable Acts) that Britain enacted due to the Tea Party. General Gage placed Boston under martial law. The Congress, with representatives from all the colonies but Georgia, petitioned King George III to remove these acts and soldiers from the colonies. They then adjourned with the understanding that they would meet again if the King rejected their petition. The King was not amused.

Revolt ignited that April morning north of Boston. After the British attacked the militia at Lexington Green, they continued to Concord. Nearby Minute Men swarmed to the sounds of gunfire as the Redcoats searched for arms and ammunition. When the militia saw smoke coming from Concord, they feared that the British had started to torch the town. They charged the North Bridge occupied by the Redcoats and exchanged fire which killed two Minute Men and eleven English soldiers. British Colonel Francis Smith ordered his men to retreat to Boston.

North Bridge at Concord where the shot heard 'round the world occurred (Photo by Hunner)

The  Minute Man statue at North Bridge (Photo by Hunner)

A mile east of Concord at Meriam’s Corner, a narrow bridge across a creek created a bottleneck for the British, and the gathering militia, hiding behind fences, walls, and trees, started picking off the enemy. More militia joined the fray and forced the English to run a gauntlet of deadly gunfire as they retreated to Boston. Near Lexington, the British column faced the men they had attacked that morning who exacted retribution from the Regulars. A British officer wrote about their retreat:

The Rebels kept the road always lined and a very hot fire on us without intermission; we at first kept our order and returned their fire… but when we arrived a mile from Lexington, our ammunition began to fail … so that we began to run rather than retreat in order.[1]

Inconceivably, the ragtag group of colonial militia had forced the Redcoats to flee in disorder. The Regulars ran into reinforcements at Lexington sent from Boston or their retreat would have been worse.

The retreat from Concord (From Minute Man NHP exhibit)

The engagement shocked the British —almost three hundred men killed, wounded or missing, and their forces now under siege in Boston. The Minute Men suffered ninety-three killed or wounded. As an irregular unit, the militia inflicted serious damage to the best army in the world by using guerrilla tactics learned from fighting Native Americans in the woods. This would be a different kind of war.

After the first skirmishes near Boston, conflicts erupted at Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point in New York. Then, on June 17, militia from the Boston area defended the strategic heights above Charlestown from a Redcoat assault. During the Battle of Bunker Hill, a first wave of 2,200 Regulars struggled uphill over fences and hastily constructed bulwarks. Volleys of bullets rained down from above and forced the Redcoats to retreat. They charged again, and again the militia fought them back. The third charge proved successful for the Redcoats as the Patriots started to run out of ammunition. The British suffered 1,054 casualties including 232 dead while the Americans had only 400 dead, wounded, or missing. British General Clinton complained: “A dear bought victory—another such would have ruined us.”

The vicious battle for Bunker Hill (From Bunker Hill exhibit at Independence NHP)

Several consequences came out of these first armed clashes. First, with cold weather approaching and surrounded by a hostile force, the British abandoned Boston and retreated by boat to Halifax, Canada where they wintered. Second, the British generals became more cautious in engaging the home grown militia whose atypical combat style proved effective. Third, the British decided to counter this rebellion with a show of force and sent their largest contingent of soldiers up to that time anywhere for next summer’s campaign. Finally, the Continental Congress called for all able bodied men to join the militia.

Not all Americans joined the rebellion. Perhaps a third of the colonials wanted rebellion and freedom from England while another third remained loyal to the king. The rest stayed neutral, but this was as much a civil war as a unified struggle against the British. Finally, these Boston battles sparked the years of combat and destruction as armies chased across the colonies, killing one another, and often destroying whatever lay in their paths.

In 1775, the Second Continental Congress convened in May and in response to the fighting in Boston, declared the colonies independent. They also organized the defense of the colonies as combat rang out in Boston and elected George Washington to lead the nascent Continental Army. At the City Tavern, at Quaker meetinghouses, in Carpenter’s Hall, debates rang out about whether to rebel and if so, what to put in Parliament’s place.

Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia (Photo by Hunner)

City Tavern in Philadelphia (Photo by Hunner)

The American Revolution, begun in April 1775 in Concord, lasted until the Battle of Yorktown in Virginia in October 1781. We will explore the history of the war and the creation of our democracy in future postings.

The Minute Man National Historical Park was created on September 21, 1959 when President Eisenhower signed its enabling act. The sites connected to the Revolution in downtown Philadelphia was designated as Independence National Historic Site in 1934 and added as Independence National Historical Park in 1938.

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[1] Stevens, America’s National Battlefield Parks, 25.

Notes from the Road, August 29, 2016

I went to a birthday party on August 25^th and fell in love with a French woman. I have seen her several times over the years, but this time we clicked. Maybe it was the celebration, maybe it was all the people flocking to her, whatever the chemistry, I was smitten. I admired her like millions of others past and present, for her call for freedom and liberty. Of course, I am talking about the Statue of Liberty. More about her later.

The Statue of Liberty from the ferry (Photo by Hunner)

Before the NPS birthday party at the Statue of Liberty, I went to the New Bedford Whaling NHP. As a desert dweller, I am fascinated by the sea and those who sail it. It is a foreign world to me. From there, I drove to another shipping museum at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut where I boarded the Edward Morgan, the last surviving tall ship from the American whaling fleet. A passing comment by a volunteer in the information booth sent me to the U.S. Submarine museum in Groton where I crammed myself into the passages of the USS Nautilus, the first Navy vessel to use nuclear propulsion.

A painting of the whaling ships at New Bedford with barrels of whale oil. (From the exhibit at the visitors' center) 

I then landed at an RV park across the Hudson River from Manhattan, and even more importantly, near the New Jersey ferry to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I went to Liberty first to help celebrate the 100^th birthday of the National Park Service. I asked if there were any celebratory activities and found out that a Girl Scout troop was singing “This Land is Your Land” at the base of the Lady. Park rangers held up cue cards with the lyrics, and many of us sang along. When asked why the park chose that song, Chief Ranger Melissa turned to me and said, “The parks belong to all of us, they’re all our land.” Lady Liberty is a majestic and endearing symbol of our yearning for a better life. I am in awe of this green elegant woman.

Park rangers holding up the lyrics to "This Land is Your Land" (Photo by Hunner)

I hopped on the Statue Cruises ferry and went to Ellis Island where millions arrived to actualize that dream. It was humbling to see the stories of why people fled their ancestral homes to come to the United States. It was also inspiring to see how they pursued a dream of a better life for them and their families in the U.S.

Immigrants fled from poverty and war (From the Ellis Island exhibit)

The New York neighborhood that immigrants arrived at (From Ellis Island exhibit) 

The next morning, I toured the September 11 Memorial at the site of the World Trade Center. The fountains that cascade down over the foot print of the two towers and then into square chambers further underground is a moving image for all the lives lost. Walking around the subterranean museum with its crushed fire helmets and relics of the collapsed skyscrapers and with the video and photos of the carnage of that tragic day was at times too much for me. In truth, I rushed through parts of the exhibits since the emotion was still too raw. It is an incredible museum which I will write about in a future blog in combination with the Flight 93 National Monument.

One of the two fountains at the September 11 Memorial (Photo by Hunner)

The remnants of the foundation of one of the Twin Towers with the last steel girder that was removed
(From September 11 Memorial exhibit)

Leaving the New York area later that morning, I took a wrong turn on an interstate in New Jersey. Fortunately, I found myself at the Morristown NHP where George Washington and his Continental Army wintered in 1779-1780. Here, the winter was worse than Valley Forge, but the Patriots lost less men because of the lessons learned about hygiene and camp living.

General George Washington's office at Morristown where he wintered with the Continental Army 1779-1780
(From the Ford House exhibit at the  Morristown NHP) 

I then spent a couple of days in the Philadelphia area, first with tours of Independence Hall, City Tavern, Declaration House, Franklin House, and Carpenter Hall. And then I biked around Valley Forge and surprisingly, met Jennifer Bourque, a former public history student from New Mexico State University. I went on her tour of the camp and was happy that she is doing well as a park ranger.

Former NMSU Public History student Jennifer Bourque leading a tour at Valley Forge (Photo by Hunner)

At an RV campsite, I parked next to Sheldon, a Civil War re-enactor who showed me his uniform as a Yankee Signal Corps sergeant. As I was getting ready to leave for Gettysburg, he briefed me on the first day of battle there.

As I went from Valley Forge to Gettysburg, I have to admit that I ground some gears as I shifted from the American Revolution to the Civil War. And I realized that I have been immersed in our war parks for the better part of last week with another week of battlefields on the schedule.

Like last week, I visited more parks than I have time to blog about. Eventually I will write about all of these parks when I am not driving so much. In the meantime, while I travel to the next historic site, I find rejuvenation as I think about that French lady, about Lady Liberty.

The face of Liberty (From exhibit at the Statue of Liberty National Monument)

Happy Birthday National Park Service!

I went to a birthday party yesterday at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Yes, the NPS turned 100. Lady Liberty continues to draw people to her island and to our shores, and Ellis Island bears witness to the diverse strength of our people. More about this in a future posting.

Rangers at the base of the Statue of Liberty holding the lyrics to "This Land is Your Land"
(Photo by Hunner)

For now, a highlight was a group of Girl Scouts at the base of the Statue of Liberty signing “This Land is Your Land” with rangers holding up cue cards with the lyrics so we could sing along. Check out their Facebook page for a clip of it. It touched me in a surprising way, since I got chocked up. When I asked Supervisory Park Ranger Melissa Magnuson-Cannady about the choice of the song, she had a simple answer: “These parks are your land.” So happy birthday NPS. Congratulatory messages are coming in across the board, from President Obama to Nicolas Kristoff. Here’s mine.

Driven by History has celebrated our parks and historic sites since February with weekly blogs. Some parks are the jewels in the crown, like the Grand Canyon which still takes my breath away, Yosemite with its magnificent wilderness, and the majestic Statue of Liberty. Others are pinky-toe parks with small visitation and scant staff that require determination to get to and imagination to envision. Since I already honor the parks with my weekly blogs, this posting celebrates the creation of the National Park Service and the people, past and present, who made it happen and keep it going.

Many people find spiritual renewal in our parks. Their spirits soar with the landscapes, their senses come alive to the sounds and smells, their souls revitalized with tall trees, glaciers, grizzlies, and waterfalls. I too am nourished by wilderness, but I also get rejuvenated at our historical parks. The past grabs me in hardy embraces, and I am fascinated by our predecessors who created our country and then changed it again and again. Our national parks preserve this history and narrate what we have achieved and how we continue to work towards our best idea—the Declaration of Independence.

A century ago however, most Americans did not find communion with sublime nature, but saw the seemingly boundless resources in our continent solely as sources for profit. Others did grow concerned about the vanishing wilderness. One of the most influential was John Muir who I wrote about in a previous blog. In his ten books and over 100 articles, he helped launch the preservation movement with calls like this: “The forests are not inexhaustible, quick measures must be taken if ruin is to be avoided.”

Others joined him. In 1908, Republican President Teddy Roosevelt acknowledged: “We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources, but the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”

Roosevelt worked to pass the Antiquities Act of 1906 which gave presidents the authority to designate public lands as national monuments. Within ten years, presidents had designated twenty-one national monuments across the country, but no bureau to manage them or the parks. Consequently, some parks lost valuable resources. For example, part of Yosemite National Park was lost to San Francisco in 1913 when Hetch Hetchy Valley was dammed to provide water to the Bay Area. This loss motivated the preservationists to work for the creation of the NPS in 1916.

The idea that public lands needed protection from those who wanted to extract resources from them dates back to after the Civil War when a movement to preserve Yellowstone gained momentum. It resulted in our first official national park in 1872. Setting aside the groves of giant sequoias in California and the waterfalls in Yosemite established the next parks in the 1890s. More followed. By 1916, the U.S. had fourteen National Parks.

A wealthy Chicago businessman, Stephen Mather, loved the existing parks. He complained to the Interior Secretary Franklin Lane about the deterioration of the parks who invited Mather to come to Washington to straighten things out. Mather realized that the parks needed their own agency. Some resource extraction companies fought against protecting these public lands. Additionally, some federal agencies did not want to share their lands with a national parks bureau, especially the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. By emphasizing the economic benefits of parks as a tourist draw, Mather won over Congressmen to his cause, and President Wilson signed the enabling legislation for the National Park Service on August 25, 1916.

As with any new agency in government, creating the NPS was a political act. In fact, creating every park has been a political act since our elected officials do it. Vested interests often fight new park proposals. A convoluted example of this concerns the Grand Canyon. Ralph Cameron arrived at the Grand Canyon as a miner in 1890. In the coming years, he filed dubious mining claims so that he could charge people to hike on the Bright Angel Trail. In 1919, the Grand Canyon became a National Park but Cameron continued to act as if he owned the trail from the South Rim. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him, the NPS tried to dislodge him, but after he got elected as a Senator for Arizona, he used his office to defund operational funding for the Grand Canyon so he could continue to profit from tourists hiking on the Bright Angel Trail. In 1926, Cameron lost his reelection bid, exposed for using his office to help him profit at the Canyon. The Bright Angel Trail became part of the NPS in 1928.

Congressional opposition to the parks continues today. The Center for American Progress has found that over the last three years, conservative members of Congress have introduced forty-four bills or amendments to strip away protection for national parks. Some in Congress want to devolve units of the NPS to state ownership. And the Republican Party’s 2016 official platform states: “Congress should reconsider whether parts of the federal government’s enormous landholdings and control of water in the west could be better used for ranching, mining or forestry through private ownership.”[1] Our public lands, especially those protected by the NPS, continue to be targeted by a dedicated group in Congress. 

In fact, funding for the NPS has declined 15% over the past fifteen years despite the addition of twenty-two new units in just the last eight years. The NPS estimates that it has a backlog of deferred maintenance of $1.2 billion. In the historic preservation field, we call this “demolition by neglect.”

Nonetheless, our parks enjoy robust public support. Over 300,000,000 people will visit the parks this centennial year. To take care of that many visitors to the 413 units of the NPS, three key groups of people make the parks work. First, permanent NPS staff manage many of the aspects of park operations, from interpretation to preservation to administration to maintenance to search and rescue (yes, places like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite have a team of rangers to help those visitors who are lost or injured while hiking and camping).

The second group are seasonal park employees who work during the peak summer months. They are college students doing an internship, recent graduates, retirees, and people who are dedicated to the parks. A total of about 22,000 people—permanent, temporary, and seasonals—work for the NPS.

The third group of people are volunteers. The parks would not be able to operate at the level they do without volunteers who sit at the reception desks, who give tours, and who help with maintenance and preservation. Over 200,000 volunteers make the parks happen. Here are some of the park people that I have met recently.

Retired elementary school teacher Tom Wilson at Ft. Clatsop in Oregon role played being a sergeant with the Corps of Discovery. Blacksmiths Dennis Torresdahl and John Prutus at Fort Vancouver in Washington demonstrated working hot iron at their fur trading site. Maria Wynn and Kay Morrison at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front park in California are true Rosies who welded the Liberty ships that helped win the war. All the above are volunteers who enriched my experiences at the parks.

Ranger Alisa Lynch showed her commitment to telling the story of Japanese American internment camps during the war at Manzanar in California. Ranger Robert Petersen at Huffman Prairie Field explained the dramatic events at the place where the Wright Brothers perfected their flying machines. Rangers Joe Ratterman and Kate at Hopewell Heritage in Ohio argued with me and each other about the theories of the people who lived there 2,000 years ago. Rangers Joel Shockley and Richard Zahm at Washita spent a good part of a morning discussing with me the events of Custer and Black Kettle at their site. Ranger James and volunteer Paul shared with me their deep knowledge about the French and Indian War at Fort Necessity in Pennsylvania.

Volunteer Roxanne Sullivan, who lives near where Flight 93 crashed on September 11, 2001, shared with me her experience as she first grappled with this horrid tragedy and then healed through taking care of the items left at the site by visitors. These are just a few of the many people who I met and engaged with on a wide variety of topics. I am a better historian hearing about our pasts from them, and I am a better citizen knowing that we have such dedicated, caring, and lively people preserving and interpreting our past.

So happy birthday National Park Service. We are a better country having you around. Our parks nourish us, enlighten us, and explain us. And they are fun to visit. For me, celebrating this birthday at the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island was a blast.

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[1] Oliver Milman, “The Political Crusades Targeting National Parks for Drilling and Exploitation,” The Guardian, 8/23/2016. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/23/national-parks-100th-birthday-political-threats?cmp=oth_b-aplnews_d-1.

Road notes for August 22, 2016

Last week, after I left the Women's Rights NHP at Seneca Falls, I drove east looking for the Erie Canal. I crisscrossed it several times and ended up at Syracuse where I stopped at the Erie Canal Museum. Housed in the Weight Lock House where barges were weighed as they plied the waterway, the museum offers an engaging account of this important economic and transportation avenue to the west.

Erie Canal between Rochester and Syracuse (Photo by Hunner)

I then went to Fort Stanwix National Monument in the middle of Rome, New York where a decisive battle of the Revolutionary War took place in 1777. Feeling inspired by this visit, I launched a series of stops over the rest of the week at other American Revolution sites—Saratoga Battlefield NHP, Fort Ticonderoga, Boston NHP, and the Minute Man NHP.

Cannon demonstration at Fort Stanwix (Photo by Hunner)

One if by sea, two if by land (Photo by Hunner)

The North Bridge at Concord where the Patriots exchanged gunfire with British Regulars and started the American Revolution (Photo by Hunner)

I also snuck in a couple of 19^th century sites, the first at Lowell NHP where the beginning of America’s industrial age began.

The Weave Room at Lowell NHP (Photo by Hunner)

Then I went north to Salem Maritime NHS which spurred the growth of the new Republic between the Revolution and the War of 1812 as its tall ships sailed around the world seeking commerce and trade. Interestingly enough, the ships brought back a lot of luxury items, especially spices and silk from Asia. Wasn’t that what Columbus sought?

The Customs House at Salem Maritime NHP where duties were collected on imported goods which financed most of the early Republic's government.(Photo by Hunner)

I ended the week with a visit to Adams NHP south of Boston where the Adams presidents resided and influenced the birth and early history of the United States. Finally, I went to another living history park at Plimouth Planation. More about these visits as I have time to write them up.

The Adams Home in Quincy, Massachusetts (Photo by Hunner)

This week on August 25, the National Park Service turns 100. Please celebrate it by going to a park, remembering some of your past park trips, and letting your family, friends, and elected representatives know what our parks mean to you. I will post a blog about the NPS on Thursday to help celebrate the anniversary. In the meantime, party with your parks!

Gov. Bradford and Julianne Morton at the Plimouth Plantation in 1626 (Photo by Hunner)

Fort Necessity National Battlefield, Farmington, Pennsylvania and Boston National Historical Park, Boston, Massachusetts

Like many of us, George Washington fumbled his early attempt at leadership. In fact, he botched it so bad that he launched a world war. We call it the French and Indian War, the Europeans call it the Seven Years War. To understand the American Revolution, we first need to visit Fort Necessity where Washington surrendered to the French in 1754. This war, while ultimately won by the British, led directly to the American Revolution. So Washington’s mistakes set in motion two wars that transformed the world and helped create these United States. The next several weeks’ postings in Driven by History will cover the lead up to and then the American Revolution. We start with Fort Necessity, the only NPS site that preserves and interprets the French and Indian War.

George Washington as an older man (From exhibit at Ft. Necessity's visitor center)

In 1754, Lt. Col. Washington went west with a military force to contest the French’s presence in the Ohio River Valley. When I arrived at Fort Necessity’s visitors center, Ranger James took me to the mock-up of the battle encased behind Plexiglas. He explained that Britain and France had competing claims on North America which centered on the Ohio River Valley. Virginia claimed it as an extension westward of its colony’s boundaries. France had been in the region for years as its fur traders plied the waterways of the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. These rivers also provided a vital link between New France up north and Louisiana in the west. In a time of rough roads and slow wagons, rivers served as the quickest way to travel long distances.

Map of the contested lands between England and France south of the Great Lakes
(From exhibit at visitors center)

James also offered some insight into George Washington. He was twenty-three years old at Fort Necessity, with little formal nor military education, but instead worked as a surveyor. He did have ambition, leadership ability, and a capacity to learn from his mistakes. Fort Necessity was where Washington began his military career.

To assert itself, the French established several forts in the region, including driving the Virginians out of their small stronghold at the forks of the Ohio River where Pittsburg now stand. The French expanded and renamed it Fort Duquesne. In April, Lt. Col. Washington went to the region to request that the French leave. They did not. The English then set up camp in a marshy area called the Great Meadows which Washington thought was “a charming field for an encounter.”

Replica of Ft. Necessity in the Great Meadow (Photo by Hunner)

Scouts brought news that French group of soldiers were nearby. At dawn on May 28 at Jumonville Glen, Washington with forty soldiers and some Seneca allies attacked the French. Commanded by Joseph Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville, the French fought back but were quickly defeated, with ten dead and twenty-one captured. De Sieur was killed, perhaps scalped by the Seneca chief Tanaghrisson, aka the Half King. Washington lost one man and had two wounded. Paul Haney, a volunteer that led my tour down to the replica of Fort Necessity, speculated that the Half King wanted the British and French to fight each other so he goaded the English into this attack. This brutal attack on a French party led to the American Revolution.

Suspecting that the French would quickly respond, the English prepared for a counter attack by building a circular palisaded fort in five days at the Great Meadows. Several days after the encounter, the commander of the British forces, Colonel Fry, was thrown from his horse and died. Washington became the commander in the field. Washington had about 300 men under his command, which was reinforced later with 100 British regulars from South Carolina led by Captain James Mackay. But perhaps a quarter of his men were unfit for duty.

The view of Ft. Necessity from where the French stood (Photo by Hunner)

On the morning of July 3, 600 French and 100 Indian allies attacked Fort Necessity. They were led by Captain Louis Coulan de Villiers, the slain Joseph’s brother. The French first killed all the cows and horses in the fields outside of the small fort to prevent the English from leaving. Stiff action lasted the whole day with casualties on both sides, and as rain came down harder and harder, the English, pressured by the French and Indians, grew more desperate in their fort. Around thirty of their soldiers had died.

Hut within Ft. Necessity where Washington signed the surrender document (Photo by Hunner)

Then, Captain de Villiers offered peace terms and after a long evening of negotiations, Washington surrendered. The British retained their baggage and weapons and retreated to Virginia. The French burned Fort Necessity. Lost in the translation of the surrender document from the French, Washington accepted personal responsibility for assassinating Joseph de Villiers. Within a couple of months, the French had the signed document back in Europe, illustrating that the English were proud of being assassins.

The day long battle at Fort Necessity sparked the war between England and France for the control of the North American continent. It also initiated a wider war between these two colonial powers in Asia and on the high seas. The Seven Years War ended in 1763 with the French expelled from Canada and India.

Consequences, both intended and unintended, came from this victory. An intended consequence was that the lands west of the Appalachian Mountains opened up to settlement by the English colonists. For Britain’s Indian allies, this was poor recompense. Treaties arose that moved them off of their ancestral lands and created reservations for them, which were invariably broken as settlers pushed ever westward.

War wampum belt (From exhibit at visitors center)

An unintended consequence was that some of the key colonial military leaders of the Revolution earned their stripes in this conflict. A more significant unintended consequence was the changed relationship between England and her colonies. Looking for ways to pay off both the war debt and the expenses of running their expanded empire, King George III and Parliament turned to the prosperous American colonies. The English argued: Didn’t the war begin in the colonies? Didn’t the colonies need the continued protection of the British military? Surely, the colonists grasped that they should pay their fair share. So they placed more taxes on their American colonies.  

While all the colonies were subject to taxes, the people in Massachusetts proved particularly troublesome to the King’s wishes. So let’s shift from Fort Necessity to Boston. I stopped by Faneuil Hall on a hot August day and stood in line with several hundred people. I asked the man in front of me if this was the right line for the visitor’s center and he shook his head: “No I’m taking the oath.” On Thursdays, naturalization ceremonies occurred at the Great Hall of Faneuil Hall.  I congratulated him and slipped into the ground floor and the NPS welcome center.

I got on a tour of part of the Freedom Trail led by Ranger Bill Casey. He said that Faneuil Hall has protected the rights of Englishman since 1742. These rights—to vote, to assemble, and to debate—were threatened by the new efforts of the Crown. Bill asked us to complete James Otis’s declaration in Faneuil Hall, “Taxation without representation is … tyranny.” The colonists had no representatives in Parliament since the Lords did not want to share their power with the provincials.

A particularly odious tax on the colonies was the Stamp Act of 1765. It required revenue stamps on newspapers and most printed material, even playing cards. Thus, the Stamp Act angered the influential people who shaped public opinion—the newspaper editors, lawyers, and tavern owners. As a result, open acts of rebellion flared, including the sacking of the Bostonian homes of the Lt. Gov. Thomas Hutchinson and his brother-in-law Andrew Oliver, a stamp act commissioner. In response in 1768, the British sent troops to Boston to quell the growing rebellion, which the Bostonians had to house.

The stamp required for all printed materials from the act of 1765.

On March 5, 1770, a lone British sentry marched between his barracks and the customs’ house across the street. He cried out as a group of youths pelted him with snowballs and rocks. Soldiers poured out of the nearby barracks and tussled with the gathering crowd. A British solder fired, then more shots rang out, killing five and wounding another eight. Ironically, one of the first persons killed in the fight for freedom was Crispus Attucks, a runaway slave who worked on the ships in the harbor. Future president John Adams defended the British soldiers charged with murder since he felt that without a fair trial, rule by mob threatened justice. Of the ten British soldiers, two were convicted of manslaughter, the rest were absolved. Nonetheless, the Boston Massacre escalated the conflict.

Ranger Bill ended our walking tour in front of the Old South Meeting House, the biggest building in North America in the 18^th century. It could hold 4,000 to 5,000 people. At this Congregationalist Church, on December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams launched the Boston Tea Party. A group of men disguised as Mohawk Indians stormed three ships in the Boston harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the frigid waters to protest the taxes.  Parliament punished Boston with the Coercive Acts, aka the Intolerable Acts, which closed the port until the equivalent of over $1,000,000 in today’s dollars was paid for the tea. Only the governor, Gen. Thomas Gage, could approve public assemblies. The British military now ruled Massachusetts. Discontent grew in Boston and other cities in the colonies.

In next week’s blog, we will return to Boston and the shot heard ‘round the world and then follow the war at other NPS and historic sites. Also on August 25, the National Park Service turns 100. Please celebrate it by going to a park, remembering past park trips, and letting your family, friends, and elected representatives know what our parks mean to you. Party with your parks!

Fort Necessity was designated a National Battlefield Site on March 4, 1931 and a National Battlefield in 1961. Boston National Historical Park was created on October 1, 1974.