Memorial Day: Remembering Rhode Island’s Early Veterans

In the process of helping to create a year of programming based on “Rhode Island at War,” and as a member of a re-enacted Revolutionary War regiment, I hear and think a fair amount about the need not to glorify or romanticize war. I don’t always hear a counter point about remembering what war means, and still less about remembering the men who served. “We’re not glorifying war, are we?” someone asks, and feels they’ve done their duty.

That’s not enough, not really. What about remembering the effects of war, beyond treaties made and boundaries changed, the effects of fighting a war on the men who serve? An organization I belong to, the Brigade of the American Revolution, is dedicated to recreating the life and times of the common soldier of the American War for Independence, 1775-1783. I mention this because what I think is most important is the adjective common. Officers get fancier uniforms and better food, larger tents and nicer equipment. There were also far fewer of them. We have more diaries and letters from officers, more personal effects and portraits. What we do have for the common soldiers, aside from the amazing and idiosyncratic journal kept by Jeremiah Greenman of the 2^nd RI, are records.

In considering the men who served, and what happened to them, we are fortunate to have, in the transcribed Records of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, a “list of Invalids resident in the State of Rhode Island, who have been disabled in the service of the United States during the late war, and are in consequence thereof entitled to received a monthly pension during life.”  This list was assembled after the Congressional act passed June 7, 1785 establishing pensions for wounded veterans.

The list includes the soldiers’ names, monthly pay, age, rank, and Regiment (or Corp or Ship) in which they served, as well as the disability and its causes. The range is moving, and all the more so because the injuries often make real the simple facts we absorb as early as grade school: Washington’s soldiers had no shoes. Here is Joseph A. Richards, Corporal, age 37 in 1785, who served with the Rhode Island Regiment commanded by Jeremiah Olney. “Loss of part of all the toes on the left foot, by reason of severe frost when on the Oswego expedition, commanded by Col. Willet, in Feb., 1783; also a wound in the knee in the battle of Springfield, June 23, 1780.”

Richards is not the only man to have suffered from frost on the Oswego expedition. Oswego! I had to look at a map; the last time I’d heard Oswego named was in Room Service. Oswego, as geographically-savvy readers will know, is a port city on Lake Ontario, home to a fort held by the British throughout the revolution, despite being challenged by the Americans. Let us take a moment to consider how far from Rhode Island Oswego, New York actually is (about 330 miles), and that Corporal Richards would have walked there, and that the action in Oswego took place in January and February 1783, and that Oswego is in a region well-known for snow fall.

Other disabilities call to mind the shabby condition and privations of Continental Soldiers. Benvil Laroach, born in 1746, Sergeant in Olney’s Regiment, lost the use of his left arm “by reason of a fall from a sleigh when on public service, after clothing for troops, from Saratoga to New Winsor, in January 1783.” Washington’s soldiers were dressed in rags. January of 1783 is very nearly the end of the war, and this disability resulted from a fall while going out to get clothing for the troops. This is dull business, but very necessary.

These are but two examples of young men, men who would have been just 30, or thereabouts, when they enlisted. There are older men, too, and we forget that men of all ages served. An excellent additional resource is the Regimental Book, Rhode Island Regiment, 1781 Etc. recently published by Bruce MacGunnigle, Cherry Bamberg, and the R.I. Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

William Parker, age 69 in 1785, Private in Olney’s Regiment: “A very bad rupture in the groin, occasioned by a fall, when on a march from Red Bank to Mount Holly, in November, 1777, together with the infirmities of old age, which renders him incapable of obtaining a livelihood.”  1777 is the year of the Defense of the Delaware, when Washington’s army tried desperately, and ultimately failed, to keep Philadelphia from falling to the British. The march from Red Bank to Mount Holly was a retreat following battles at Red Bank and Fort Mifflin on the Delaware River, when the army headed to winter quarters. The following summer, at the excruciating Battle of Monmouth, George Bradford, serving under Colonel Israel Angell, received the wound that caused his disability: “A lame arm, occasioned by a wound received in the battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778, which fractured the bone and renders the arm weak, and the wound has several times broken out, per certificate from Dr. Mason.” Bradford would have been about 21 when wounded.

When I think about opening an exhibit on June 28, the 234^th anniversary of the Battle of Monmouth, and celebrating the opening with cake and punch, I have a sense of unease. How can we celebrate such a miserable anniversary, of a lengthy and confusing battle fought in heat that reached over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, a battle that got Major General Charles Lee a court martial, and resulted British official losses of 65 killed, 59 dead of “fatigue”, 170 wounded and 64 missing, and American losses of 69 killed, 161 wounded and 132 missing (37 of whom were found to have died of heat-stroke).

Bradford was but one of 161 wounded, out of an estimated 11,000 American soldiers.  Losses were fewer than in a comparable Civil War battle because of the inaccuracy of smooth-bore muskets in the Revolutionary War period. That the men lost were a smaller percentage of the whole force makes them no less important, or meaningful, than any other loss or casualty in battle. To die of heat stroke in battle is still to die in battle; to suffer for the rest of your life from a wound received while collecting clothing for troops is still to be wounded and disabled. Let us take a moment to remember all the soldiers present and past, their sacrifices great and small, and thank them for all they have done for those of us lucky enough to remain in the comforts of home.

~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

Nuclear Nathanael Greene

In another serendipitous moment, while looking for a sheet of much earlier 5-cent stamps, I found this:

The USS Nathanael Greene was nuclear-powered James Madison class submarine, launched May 12, 1964 and commissioned on December 19, 1964. So 48 years ago tomorrow, this envelope was mailed to the RIHS to commemorate Rhode Island’s most important Revolutionary War general. The USS Nathanael Greene carried Polaris missiles, hence the iconography on either side of the Greene family crest. The Latin motto, nec timeo nec sperano, translates as “I neither fear nor despise.” Perhaps true of General Greene, but a statement somewhat less believable of Cold War America.

With its curious combination of elks and missiles, 18^th and 20^th centuries, the envelope is but two years younger than the Brigade of the American Revolution, the oldest umbrella organization of Revolutionary War reenactors.  The centuries and wars converge on this envelope, a commemoration of the past and a celebration of the bold future of nuclear weaponry (this was also the time of the space race).

The envelope looks almost kitschy now, missiles and elks, something more suited for a hipster t-shirt than a solemn event. How we honor history says as much about us as it does about the past.

~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

Happy Rhody Independence Day!

Two full months before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia declared independence from Great Britain, the General Assembly of Rhode Island passed and printed an act renouncing our allegiance to the King of England.

Printed in Providence by John Carter, the town’s 3rd printer who operated from1767-1814, the Rhode Island Historical Society holds one of the two known copies of this broadside (the other is atPrincetonUniversity). But to make ours unique, a contemporary, un-named hand wrote the word “State” over each occurrence of “Colony” in the “General Officers” and “Town Officers” paragraphs of the newly revised oaths. The original manuscript of the act is held by the Rhode Island State Archives.

“An Act Repealing an Act Intituled [sic], ‘An Act for the More Effectual Securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations;’ and Altering the Form of Commissions, of All Writs and Processes in the Courts, and of the Oaths Prescribed by Law.”  [G1157 Broadsides 1776 No.6; Alden 661]

On July 18th the Rhode Island General Assembly officially voted to abandon the word “colony”, but this early scribe demonstrates the zealous excitement of the day, and heralds the political winds of change that would blow down the Bay and set the rest of the British colonies inNorth Americaon fire.

Last year our copy of the Act of Renunciation was  on full display for public viewing at the John Brown House Museum in conjunction with a lauded display of a rare “Dunlap copy” of the Declaration of Independence  printed on the eve of July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia by John Dunlap. There are 25 known copies of the Dunlap imprint still in existence. These were distributed to each colony in order to be reprinted by the local printers. The RIHS hold two distinct imprints of the R.I. version — both printed at Newport by Solomon Southwick.

This year, we will open an exhibition on Thursday, June 28 at the John Brown House  Museum that will feature relics and artifacts from the Revolutionary War including a replica of the warrant for any information leading to the capture of any of the Gaspee participants–One hundred pounds, which in good Rhode Island tradition was never claimed.

-P. Bean, Printed Collection Librarian

Cold Christmas

New England troops had a cold Christmas in 1777 at Valley Forge. Most of us are familiar with the story—ragged, cold, hungry troops encamped in tents and tiny huts amid the snow—but the words of the men who were there remind  us of that reality. (A typical camp of the time can be seen in the background of this Peale portrait of Colonel Walter Stewart of the 2nd Pennsylvania). The encampment at Valley Forge was part of a larger strategy that required General Washington and his commanders to care about the quotidian details of their men’s lives. For us, Christmas and the winter holidays usually mean warm hearths or homes and presents, celebratory meals and the comfort of families. For Albigence Waldo, it did not.

From Waldo’s diary:

December 24.—Party of the 22^nd not returned. Hutts go on Slowly—Cold & Smoke make up fret. But mankind are always fretting, even if they have more than their proportion of the Blessings of Life. We are never Easy, always repining at the Providence of an Allwise & Benevolent Being, Blaming Our Country or faulting our Friends. But I don’t know of any thing that vexes a man’s Soul more than hot smoke continually blowing into his Eyes, & when he attempts to avoid it, is met by a cold and piercing Wind.

December 25, Christmas.—We are still in Tents—when we ought to be in huts—the poor Sick, suffer much in Tents this cold Weather. But we not treat them differently from they used to be at home, under the inspection of Old Women and Doct. Bolus Linctus. We give them Mutton & Grogg and a Capital Medicine once  in a While, to start the Disease from its foundation at once. We avoid Piddling Pills, Powders, Bolus’s Linctus’s Cordials and all such insignificant matters whose powers are Only render’d important by causing the Patient to vomit up his money instead of his disease. But very few of the sick Men Die.

2, 898 men (or about 25 % of the men in the camp) were reported unfit for duty at Valley Forge on December 23, 1777, largely due to a lack of clothing. Supplies were short, from flour and meat to linen and wool and shoes; a lack of supplies would dog the Continental Army for years, but the troops fought on. By February, about 32% of the men were listed unfit because they lacked clothing. In November, 1776 the Providence Gazette had published advertisment for “All Taylors who are desirous of employ” to make up “a great Quantity of woolen Cloathing, for the Continental Army,” but 13 months later, coats were still scarce on the ground.

Some basic information about the huts and tents can be found online at Valley Forge Encampment and about medical staff and conditions at Valley Forge at Historic Valley Forge .

~ Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

What’s in a Pocket?

Lucy Lockett lost her pocket
Kitty Fisher found it
Not a penny was there in it
Only ribbon round it

The best “pocket” history I know of on the web is on the V&A Museum’s site but pockets have been a topic on some 18^th century roundtables lately, and I thought it would be nice to share a Rhode Island pocket (accession number 1985.1.9, found in collection).

Probably made between 1750 and 1775, this pocket was a child’s, judging by the size. It is 12 inches long, and 9 inches at the widest part, embroidered with silk on plain weave linen, with what may be some wool threads as well in the darker yellow-cream color. The embroidery is clearly crude and the pattern wiggly and hand-drawn by an unsophisticated hand, but the pattern is typical of the 18^th century, with pointed leaf-tips that show the influence of Indian textile designs.

The back is pieced plain-weave linen coarser than the front, which is lined with the same plain-weave as the front. The slit is bound with a red-print calico much worn on the front, but with just enough detail remaining on the reverse to provide a tantalizing hint of the original fabric.

Pockets that hung on loops from petticoat ties, or were tied around the waist over petticoats and under gowns, were the 18^th century woman’s version of pockets in some skirts and dresses and the purses or bags many women carry today. They could hold a wide assortment of items from sewing tools to snuff boxes, pocket books of money or pocket-sized prayer books.

Pockets could be plain or fancy (see this fantastic assemblage in Britain):  but they all served the same purpose of carrying items to free hands.

The first pocket I made was based on the example in the RIHS collections, though not embroidered. I threaded my petticoat ties through the loop, and wore the pocket under a gown. After wearing it to a few events, I cut off the loop and sewed the top to linen tape and tied it around my waist. The loop was simply too annoying: the pocket twisted under my gown, and I was left hiking up my gown trying to get into the pocket to find a bandage for  a friend’s cut finger. I’m never very poised, and I’m no fine lady in the 18^th century, but the laughter of the soldiers in my own Regiment (though the bandage was for one of them!) was enough to fix my resolve upon solving my pocket woes.

I’ve included a PDF tracing of the  Pocket. Print it out without scaling, and then enlarge it 129% from letter to ledger size on a copy machine, and the embroidery will be full-scale for this pocket. The maker’s initials are included in cross stitch; we don’t know her name, but I think of her as Sarah Fairfax; the RIHS Registrar calls her Mrs. Ferrars. By the time of Jane Austen’s novels, women’s dresses were too slim in profile and too fine and light in fabric for pockets to be worn; reticules were carried instead.
~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

Fire Cake & Water: Soldiers’ Winter Part III

Perception is reality, but how does a soldier’s own reality color his perception? For Jeremiah Greenman of the 2^nd Rhode Island, who had marched to Quebec on Arnold’s expedition of 1775, eaten squirrel and dog and endured barefoot marches through snow, Valley Forge proved less remarkable an experience than it was for Albigence Waldo, the well-educated surgeon with the  1^st Connecticut. Ebenezer David, Chaplain with the 2^nd Rhode Island, was also there.

Here are their accounts for this week in December, 1777.

Greenman
S 20 to W 31
Continuing near vally forg / we drawed axes to build huts for ye winter / we began our huts / order’d to build them with logs 14 feet  one way & 16 ye other / Continuing building our huts / nothing very Remarkable & C  / mov’d in.

Waldo
December 21—[Valley Forge.] Preparations made for hutts. Provisions scarce. Mr. Ellis went homeward—sent a Letter to my Wife. Heartily wish myself at home, my Skin & eyes are almost spoil’d with continual smoke. A general cry thro’ the Camp this Evening among the Soldiers, “No Meat! No Meat!” —the Distant vales Echo’d back the melancholy sound—“No Meat! No Meat!” Immitating the noise of Crows & Owls, also, made a part of the confused Musick.

What have you for your Dinners Boys? “Nothing but Fire Cake & Water, Sir.” At night, “Gentlemen the Supper is ready.” What is your Supper Lads? “Fire Cake & Water, Sir.” Very poor beef has been drawn in our Camp the greater part of this season.  A Butcher bringing a Quarter of this kind of Beef into Camp one day who had white Buttons on the knees of his breeches, a Soldier cries out – “There, there Tom is some more of your fat Beef, by my soul I can see the Butcher’s breeches buttons through it.”

December 22.—Lay excessive Cold & uncomfortable last Night—my eyes are started out from their Orbits like a Rabbit’s eyes, occasion’d by a great Cold & Smoke.

What have you got for Breakfast, Lads? “Fire Cake & Water, Sir.” The Lord send that our Commissary of Purchases may live [on] Fire Cake & Water, ‘till their glutted Gutts are turned to Pasteboard.

Our Division are under Marching Orders this morning. I am ashamed to say it, but I am tempted to steal Fowls if I could find them, or even a whole Hog, for I feel as if I could eat one. But the Impoverish’d Country about us, affords but little matter to employ a Thief, or keep a Clever Fellow in good humour. But why do I talk of hunger & hard usage, when so many in the World have not even Cake & Water to eat. …

This evening a Party with two field pieces were order’d out. At 12 of the Clock at Night, Providence sent us a little Mutton, with which we immediately had some Broth made, & a fine Stomach for same. Ye who Eat Pumpkin Pie and Roast Turkies, and yet Curse fortune for using you ill, Curse her no more, least she reduce your Allowance of her favours to a bit of Fire Cake, & a draught of Cold Water, & in Cold Weather, too.

David
Decem. 22 1777
Dear Sir,
Have written you once or twice of late & missed in sending … I road through Germantown—to hear the inhabitants complain—to see the ruins of furniture, & Rooms kneedeep in feathers from beads was truly affecting—A Cow Horse or sheep was scarce to be seen for mile—After the Enemy returned we set out to Cross Schoolkill, accidentally met a large party of the Enemy at the Ford, who had drove our militia—this caused delay—since we have crossed we have lain a few days 7 or 8 Miles short of this at a place called the Gulph—The whole Army are come here to build Hutts to winter in The Huts are to be 14 feet by 16—in hight 6 ½–twelve Soldiers to a hut each mess builds their own—Those in each Regiment who build the best are to have 12 Dollars Premium—They are now laying out the ground

to Morrow I expect to take the ax—To think of the Jersey & so large a Part of this Province [Pennsylvania] lying at the Mercy of the Enemy is truely affecting—yet I believe the Measures to be the best possible in present circumstances—After Huts are provided we may send out large Scouts to check small parties—For our whole Force to be exposed for the winter as they have been we should have no Army in the Spring—Had we retired to any of the towns we should have found them crowded with Refugees—

May kind Heaven render the next Campaign prosperous & put speedy issue to this contest—we ruin the Country for miles round wherever we lay

“We ruin the Country for miles round wherever we lay:” Ebenezer David’s perspective is different from Greenman and Waldo’s. Waldo whines, he gripes, he complains, he thinks of the people who are better off than he is. Greenman observes, neutrally, for the most part.  David steps back farther and sees the effect of the war on the people and the country around him.  Each man’s record of the war is colored by his position and his education; as a minister, David has the broadest perspective and looks the most outside himself. As the best-educated and wealthiest, Waldo’s experience in the war offers the greatest contrast to his former life. Greenman, poorly educated and without a profession when he joned the Army at 17, has the most reportorial and neutral perspective of the three.

~ Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

Soldiers’ Winter Part II

Plan of Fort Mifflin

There is yet another Rhode Island record of the events at Fort Mifflin: the letters of Ebenezer David, Chaplain of the 2^nd Rhode Island. Today, his November 23, 1777 letter to Nicholas Brown will be added to the accounts of Fort Mifflin. David was a graduate of Rhode Island College (now Brown University), and a Seventh-Day Baptist. He resigned from the Regiment in January, 1778 to undertake medical training, but  rejoined the troops at Valley Forge in the medical service a month later. He died  March 19, 1778, of what was probably typhus, contracted during an epidemic.

Waldo
November 15
An attack was made on Fort Mifflin by 4 ships, 4 Batteries, & 1 Gally. Our People fired from Fort Mifflin 1 Battery, 12 Gallies & two Shearbacks or small ships. The firing was incessant all Day. Our people defended themselves with unparallel’d bravery amidst a continual storm of Balls ‘till at length when Capt. Lee’s company of Artillery were almost all cut off, and a reinforcement had stood at the Guns till 9 o’clock in the evening the Garrison evacuated the  fort, after having spiked up the Cannon. Capt. Stephen Brown was kill’d by a shot from the round-top of a Ship that had hauled up in pistol shot of the Fort.
Mem.—Fort Mifflin was a Burlesque upon the art of Fortification.

Greenman
S15.
This morning about 9 oClock the Enemy made a furious attack, by the River, & land / the Ships came as near to the Fort as posable in the Main Channell, & a large East Indiaman they cut down & mounted 20 24 pounders on here. She came up under the protection of the Land Batteries, behind Hog Island & anchored four yards from the Angle of the SW Battery, the Fort had been very much exposed on this side / than on it, did not remain one Single Gun except those that was dismounted Major Thayer ordered a 32 pounder to be carried thare, which was effected with great trouble & danger, this was done before the Ship got up / the single gun put 14 shot into her bow but as soon as She was farly at anchor she began to play, all resistance became imposable, in 3 or 4 Broad Sides and from the tops with Cowhorn filled with Grape Shot so that it was almost imposable for a man to move without being killed…

David
Nov 23—1777
–the 15 of the Month & 6^th Day of the Canonade the East-indiaman Cut down [the Vigilant] of which you must have heard with 20-24 pounders came up a Channel that was said by the Commodore to the insuffitient for her, & laid within Pistol shot of the Fort. Our Cannon being chiefly dismounted, & the Fort badly constructed—What was extraordinary she fired 2- 24 pound shot into a 32 Pounder, from which she received the chief annoyance. This Day the fire exceeded all Description from their Fleet & Batteries.

The noise and misery of Mud Island must have been intense, as 400 Americans defended the Fort against some 2000 British troops. More than half of the American defenders were killed or wounded before the Americans evacuated and began the march to Whitemarsh and eventually to winter quarters at Valley Forge. When Major Simeon Thayer, of the 2^nd Rhode Island, ordered the evacuation of the Fort, Greenman wrote:

Major Thayer evacuated the Fort with a Degree of fermness equal to the Bravery of his defence, he set fire to the Remains of the Barracks & with less than two hundred men carried off all the wounded & most of the Stores

A 32-pound gun produces not just enormous noise but also a shockwave that reverberates in your chest and pops in your ears, so the terror and noise is multidimensional; you cannot escape it. It is impossible for most of us to really imagine what those men experienced 234 years ago.  Reading their journals, erratic spelling and all, helps us put ourselves in their place.

Soldiers’ Winter

Sometimes you find the best things in a random way: thanks to an emailed reference question, I discovered the diary of Albigence Waldo, surgeon with the 1^st Connecticut Regiment, Continental Army, covering the period November 10, 1777-January 8, 1778. The “So what?” of this for Rhode Island is that the 1^st Connecticut and the 2^nd Rhode Island were both engaged in the Defense of the Delaware in 1777 and encamped at Valley Forge in 1777-1778, months recorded in the Diary of Jeremiah Greenman, sergeant with the 2^nd Rhode Island. (Full disclosure: this writer’s family belongs to the reenacted 2^ndRhode Island Regiment.) While the RIHS does not own the original of either of these diaries (Waldo’s is at Harvard, and Greenman’s remains in private hands), both have been published and can be compared.At 17, Greenman joined the army in 1775 and participated in Benedict Arnold’s expedition to Quebec; the privations of that starving march when soldiers ate squirrel head and candle wick soup, killed and ate their own dogs, and abandoned their sicker comrades, surely colored Greenman’s experience of Valley Forge. Waldo, well-educated, a scholar of Latin, left behind a flourishing practice, a comfortable home, wife, and children; his perspective and his language, are far different from Greenman’s.

But to compare them is to understand each man better, and to understand the war better—so hard to do now, when it is so long ago and far away in time, technology, and myth-making.

West Jersey History Project Hessian Map

To begin with, some minor background: After the battle and retreat from Fort Mifflin in November, the Continental Army fell back to Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, and engaged in minor skirmishes with British forces in early December 1777. The goal was to get to winter quarters at Valley Forge, and to build shelter for the coming winter.

Here is the action at Fort Mifflin, side by side:

Waldo November 10 After describing the turn of fortune experienced by Captain Nichols, caption of an English packet captured at New Castle, Waldo notes, “An incessant cannonading at or near Red Bank this day. No salt to eat dinner with. November 11, 12, 13, & 14—Nothing material happened.

Greenman M 10.  this day the Enemy set out a new, resolving if posable to reduce the fort, knowing if it was nor done they would be obliged to evacuate Philadelphia, [they] opened three more batteries upon it & keep up an incessant fire on the Fort, all the palisades where broken dow[n], the Diches filled up with Mud by the strong tides, Capn. Treet, who distinguished himself by his bravery, and his Lieut, was killed / the Garrison exhausted & almost reduced. T 11. this morn cule / We burst an eighteen pounder which was got from the wreck of the agusta, and killed one Many & by the Scales & peaces of the Carriage Eighteen More where slightly wounded— W. 12 Colo. Smith was wounded and went out of the [fort] with the old Garrison, being relieved by Major Thare [Thayer] with sum of our men, the Enemy now began to doubt the promises of their Engineer Montresor who had constructed the Fort & had bosted at the beginning that he would reduce it in a few days…

Greenman, uneducated, a sergeant, has a different set of responsibilities than Waldo, and a in every sense, a different position. He seems unlikely to have agreed with Waldo’s estimation that “Nothing material happened” those days in November, 1777.

~Kirsten Hammerstrom, Director of Collections

You can read Greenman’s published diary, Diary of a common soldier in the American Revolution, 1775-1783 : an annotated edition of the military journal of Jeremiah Greenman by Robert C. Bray and Paul E. Bushnell (DeKalb, IL: 1978)  in the RIHS Library. Waldo’s diary was published in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Volume 21 No. 3, 1897, now available free through JSTOR. The Map of the American Fortifications on the Delaware is one of the Revolutionary War Era Maps available through the West Jersey History Project.

Unknown Soldiers

French Officer 1895.9.1

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, and we hope you will join us at the Museum of Work & Culture at 11:00 am for a ceremony honoring Rhode Island’s veterans. In addition to remarks by RIHS Executive Director, C. Morgan Grefe, Ph.D., the 2^nd R.I. Regiment will honor Marshall Sloat, a late member of the re-enacted Regiment, and the organizer and curator of the military exhibition at the Museum of Work & Culture. Dr. Grefe will make an exciting announcement about the Society’s plans for programming in 2012.

Found, when looking for something else: A French Officer, watercolor on paper given to the RIHS in 1895. Some of the best behind-the-scenes finds are those you’re not expecting, and this officer was one of those exciting moments of discovery. The label on the back says only “Watercolor portrait/Subject unknown/Supposed to be one of the/ French officers engaged/in the American Revolution,” but we know this was given to the RIHS in 1895, by John A. Howland, a long-time and active member of the Society.

Label, back of frame 1895.9.1

French troops arrived in Newport on July 11, 1780 and were quartered there, and in Providence, for nearly a year before they left to begin the long march to join Washington and his troops at Dobb’s Ferry, NY. It is possible that this portrait is of an officer  stationed in Rhode Island, though the details of his coat suggest a date earlier than 1780. Could this be Claude Blanchard, Rochambeau’s supply officer, who found Rhode Island’s farmer’s so slow to make a business deal, and so very fond of hard currency?

Perhaps he was a member of the Regiment of Saintonge, whose second-in-command, the twenty-four-year-old Armand Charles Augustin, kept a diary of his time in Newport that is now in the National Archives in Paris.  Augustin recorded his relief at sighting and on strolling on Conanicut Island.  The French officers in Newport enjoyed dances and teas with the ladies of the town, the troops dug earthworks (redoubts), examples of which can still be found in Tiverton and Jamestown.

It was long ago, and seems far away, but in the proud face of this man who gazes at us across time, we’re closer to the past and to the moment when he came to Rhode Island and helped create the world we live in today.

You can find out more about the French in Newport, and in Rhode Island, in Rhode Island History, Volume 11 No. 3, pp.73-81, among other articles. ~KNH

Happy Rhody Independence Day!

! Happy Independence Day Rhode Island!

Two full months before the Continental Congress in Philadelphia declared independence from Great Britain, the General Assembly of Rhode Island passed and printed an act renouncing our allegiance to the King of England.

G1157 Broadsides 1776 No.6; Alden 661

“An Act Repealing an Act Intituled [sic], ‘An Act for the More Effectual Securing to His Majesty the Allegiance of His Subjects in this His Colony and Dominion of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations;’ and Altering the Form of Commissions, of All Writs and Processes in the Courts, and of the Oaths Prescribed by Law.”

(Providence: John Carter, 1776)

Printed in Providence by John Carter, the town’s 3rd printer who operated from1767-1814, the Rhode Island Historical Society holds one of the two known copies of this broadside (the other is at Princeton University).  But to make ours unique, a contemporary, un-named hand wrote the word “State” over each occurrence of “Colony” in the “General Officers” and “Town Officers” paragraphs of the newly revised oaths. The original manuscript of the act is held by the Rhode Island State Archives.

Detail

On July 18th the Rhode Island General Assembly officially voted to abandon the word “colony”, but this early scribe show us the zealous excitement of the day, and heralds the political winds of change that would blow down the Bay and set the rest of the British Colonies in North America on fire.

This year our copy of the Act of Renunciation will be on full display for public viewing at the John Brown House Museum  on May 5 in conjunction with the display of a rare “Dunlap Broadside” of the Declaration of Independence  printed on the night of July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia by John Dunlap. Of the estimated 200 copies printed, there are 24 known copies of the Dunlap imprint still in existence. These were also distributed to each colony in order to be reprinted by the local printers. The RIHS holds two distinct imprints of the R.I. version — both printed at Newport by Solomon Southwick.

Also on display will be some fascinating relics from the Battle of Rhode Island, the medical case of the Burning of the Gaspee participant who bandaged the British captains’ leg and the warrant for any information leading to the capture of any of the Gaspee participants–One hundred pounds which in good Rhode Island tradition was never claimed.

-P. Bean, RIHS Printed Collection Librarian