There were no imbedded reporters during the Revolutionary War.
That’s not to say there’s a lack of information about the war. We have volumes of declarations, letters, diaries, memoirs, etc. Even so, the major writings were generally produced by a very small elite segment of the population, and the possibility exists that it was not representative of the whole.
Additionally, even when first person accounts were available, they were only first recorded decades after the event.
— Paul Revere was relatively obscure until he was made famous in 1861 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow … who distorted virtually every detail of that now famous ride
— Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech didn’t appear in print until 1817 … and, even then, under mysterious circumstances
— Valley Forge was not celebrated until 30 years later
— The “shot heard ’round the world” wasn’t known as that until 1836 …. 61 years later
But, the repetition of these “facts” eventually confirmed their authenticity! Considering that memories often portray facts inaccurately even very shortly after an event, and then add in personal bias, politics, and ideology — well, let’s say that what we consider “historical fact” may just be, at least in part, historical imagination. Accepting these stories at face value leads to fashioning a past we would have liked to have.
Q1: For example, what (if anything) is wrong with the very famous painting below?
The primary method of communicating stories of the Revolution was by word of mouth …. a method which makes every telling, and retelling, quite malleable. Even though unintentional, it provided fertile ground for the invention of history. It was the “big picture” story of us that was of utmost importance, not necessarily the details. You can grasp that mindset from this quote by Noah Webster in 1790;
“Every child in America, as soon as he opens his lips … should rehearse the history of his country; he should lisp the praise of Liberty and of those illustrious heroes and statesmen who have wrought a revolution in his favor.”
One person who actually did attempt to give an accurate written account almost immediately after the war was Charles Thompson. He was Secretary of the Continental Congress, and had extensive access to insider information. He felt he had much information to reveal which needed to be accurately recorded for posterity. But then, suddenly out of the clear blue he stopped, never to resume. This is what he said;
“I shall not undeceive future generations. I could not tell the truth without giving great offense. Let the world admire our Patriots and heroes.”
Q2: It seems “spin”, coverup, and likely even deception has been part of the American experience right from the very beginning. Do you agree?
Q3: What great American Revolutionary Secrets do you think Charles Thompson was so afraid to reveal???
Q 1. It’s just a romantic depiction of the actual event. It makes GW look like a hero and that’s probably what the artist wanted to convey.
Q2. Yes
Q3. That is a question that would take a lot of time to answer. I’ll leave it for someone else. If I don’t get my ass out to the house to help my husband I will feel guilty when he comes home exhausted. I’ll bet you have some ideas, though.
Did you try the meatloaf recipe?
I am firmly convinced that much of what we think we know about the Revolution —- such as the four examples I gave —– is not exactly true.
I have no idea what Charles Thompson was afraid of. I just stumbled on that quote yesterday …. and thought. I’d throw it out there to the very very smart folks on TBP, some of whom are very knowledgeable regarding the Revolution … which I am not.
No, I have not tried the meatloaf yet. 🙁
I looked for it, but couldn’t find out specifics. This is an interesting bit of artistical history.
http://www.mountvernon.org/george-washington/the-revolutionary-war/the-trenton-princeton-campaign/10-facts-about-washingtons-crossing-of-the-delaware-river/
Not being a Yankee, I don’t know; but being an oppressed Southerner, the Yankee Fabulist version of why we fought the Tyrant Government for our Independence is all Propaganda; it’s like watching NYC TV “News” today to learn any Truth about Trump and Conservatives. I regret we lost and pray we succeed next time.
I suppose the old axiom “winners write history” applies in spades here. A classmate and fellow football teammate from high school received admission to West Point thanks to our congressional rep. He said they use Washington’s strategic and logistical moves in the Revolutionary War as “Exibit A” as what not to do.
Luck? Providence? We just don’t know.
Following “elites” is nothing but representative of the whole. Most of it, anyway. Ditto magic words consumption (the original junk food).
Q1: It’s paint by numbers.
Word o’ mouth is the telephone game.
“Us” is usury & the principal never gets paid down, let alone off. Propagandus.
Q2: Fake news ain’t new. & spin is what revolution means.
Q3: Long train of cattlecars, wheels revolutioning down the track. Action’s in the caboose, magic words are the loco-motive, & no revelation is possible. Messengers may well get shot. Bovine boltguns, friendo.
Yeah. Wanna see some magic word action? Name your boy Sue. He might even wind up in Folsom prison, or a San Quentin Tarantino reservoir doggie. Reality’s stranger than pulp fiction. Whey weigh stranger.
Saw “Life in 12 Bars” recently. Didn’t realize how sued Eric was. Pure luck he survived. Same as anybody else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hftgytmgQgE
Q1: Washington looks like he is getting ready to tip that boat over as the guy in the front kicks that big ice flow away tipping it to the left.
I have not read Thompson, Stucky, but will look at it soon.
I have read any number of historical fictional works about the Revolutionary War period of American History, with one colleague decades ago being an agoraphobic (recovered) history professor who had returned to the workforce as a museum curator. I was hired to help file and catalog large collections of documents of varying kinds. One box of records I sorted contained what appeared to be correspondence between Herbert Hoover and a local military frontiersman in the region long before Hoover was president. Some of their discussion sent me into the real archives, two floors beneath the main floor of the museum and library. There were books there, printed before 1800, some by some of the publishing houses in Colonial America. Those ancient books can tell the stories of any number of lives in those Revolutionary War Days.
I do not remember which of the books in this sequence concerned itself with the intricacy of forming a network to distribute information in the form of Letters. It became a format familiar to the colonists and surrounding expansions into what would soon be known as Territories. It is why so many of the arguments promoting the creation of a central government were written as Letters and distributed over that familiar network of communication lines.
That, I believe, is why the main stream media today is in such a denial posture, refusing to admit its error or guilt. They know there are better distribution networks for information being built behind their backs.
https://www.johnjakes.com/kentchronicles.htm
I wonder if they are still there, or if they were discarded since digitizing them would require so much tedious scanning. Digital information transmits widely, but only if the information available is in digital form. Did anyone bother to scan the very, very old books and documents stored in the basements of libraries, perhaps in acid free paper? Did we SAVE those first hand accounts some of the landed folks in Colonial America paid to have published and bound in printings of less than ten for local or family distribution?
What do you think?
Q1 – needs a few more rowers(with oars)
Q2 – Yes, I agree
Q3 – My initial guess would be the act that started the war (Lexington Commons and the Shot Heard Round the World).
“I shall not undeceive future generations. I could not tell the truth without giving great offense. Let the world admire our Patriots and heroes.”
I was going to paste the quote into a separate comment, ask you for info, and then I saw your Q3.
America as we know it is a literally mythic construction. The myths (not necessarily untrue accounts of reality, just embellished for dramatic effect) work to focus our attention and devotion on ideals which we agree are desirable. It is convenient and effective to confer and enhance the authority of the nation state if pleasant myths dominate.
We used to broadly agree that these myths were perationally effective. That is no longer true. We are searching for new myths that will bind us voluntarily together, and finding none that seem to stick. As we have nothing trancendent to bind us together, we atomize. The nation we knew as a mythic creation, the one that seemed to work so well for so long, is gone.
We will get a new set of myths to found a new nation, of sorts. What will those myths refer to? The myth of White Supremacy? The myth that men and women are interchangeably equal units? The myth of endless borrow-and spend? The myth that techno-relationships are any substitute for hand to hand human contact? The myth that abortion of babies is a good and positive thing?
It will be interesting and heartbreaking to watch.
My husband and I were just discussing this almost exact thing, Mr. Reilly. And, if I could take it one step further?
If abortion is such a wonderful thing and was a woman’s right and all… how come women who have had one do not proclaim it proudly. And those having had multiple abortions should get some sort of celebratory medal!
Why don’t they? SHAME may be hidden or disguised, but it is still there, masked by all sorts of things, drugs and sexual perversity included. The gender confusion we see in our young people is nothing more than a desperate plea to know that they are not just accidents of some speck of cosmic dust. They need to know it matters one way or the other and it is not a choice to be made surgically, at least not on a whim.
Perhaps because after an abortion the woman is around 40% more likely to get breast cancer, or just plain-old off herself?
Washington was a giant asswhore. Used the original Stop Loss to prevent troops from returning home AFTER their terms of enlistment were up. When they deserted to go provide for their family, he shoot a few as examples. He didn’t have a huge number of bodyguards NOT drawn from the general army because he was such a popular guy. He also thought nothing of using troops as cannon fodder so he could be one of the cool kids like the Europeans, fighting in ranks. He detested the redneck hillbillies fighting like the Indians. They weren’t “proper” soldiers. I guess that all didn’t make for a great first Prez and “fighter for our liberty”. And the next time you get pissed with the French for not being obedient little mercenaries for us, remember THEY won the war for us. The Brits had the mobility with their navy. Almost all colonial roads went east-west rather than north-south and water was the primary highway logistically. The French navy ratcheted down that advantage. The French also didn’t want us in WWI-that was the British ( who screwed over the French every chance they got ) more so than the French and our own central bank more so than the Brits. We didn’t “save” France as payback for the Revolutionary War-we saved JP Morgan. And if WWI had been allowed to end on its own without our intervention, there would have probably not been WWII and the need to save France then.
“Washington was a giant asswhore.”
Wow. That’s a difficult pill to swallow!!
Thankfully, you didn’t provide any evidence.
No one has even come close to giving the correct answer your Q1. Lol
Hey, is George Washington’s wife on that boat? (That’s a hint.)
My Q1 answer was the best
Q1: That boat is severely overloaded beyond capacity, and there are no PFD’s in sight.
Write those fuckers a ticket!
I heard her grandchildren called her Maggie.
Your hinting at the flag.
Don’t tell Stucky. Someone who might have helped stitch it.
The flag is wrong.
The boat is wrong.
That does look like a chica in the red coat.
What are the guys with the horses gonna do?
What do you expect from a German artist?
Why is it so clear?
Wasn’t the reason they were able to cross and attack unmolested due to a fogbank created by ancient aliens after they talked to Georgie in the woods outside Valley Forge?
At least that’s what the Greek with the hair says….
I was trying to study the pic and thought I saw a women but I couldn’t get a good enough resolution to tell for sure.
I read “Burr” by Gore Vidal. (Slogged thought it, actually. I found it tough sledding.)
Vidal portrays the heroes of that era to be flawed humans. He also said exactly what you did about Washington as a military strategist. That he was terrible as a military general.
I think we do portray our heroes as larger than life, all the way back to the disciples of Christ. I think our mind re-frames the history the way we WANT it to be, not always the way it really was.
How many times have we thought “that wasn’t what happened” then dismissed it to accept the new, improved version of history we are handed.
Someday, our grandchildren will learn the great truth about what happened here in our time and they will either sing songs of celebration around a slightly modified flag on the Fourth of July or they will speak of it in whispers while toiling in the fields to feed their masters on that great and glorious Founders’ Day September 11. I will pray for the first, but prepare them a hideaway here should they someday need it.
Because it is looking more and more like they will need it.
Q1 – How about they actually crossed at night, but that wouldn’t make a good pic.
No time for jokes.
Country in deep turmoil.
Think Patriotism.
Careers matter.
Her Legacy?
Time is sequential, not random.
13 comes before 50, not after.
It is plain, not hidden.
But not obvious.
Know your history.
Washington was a good guy.
Would never engage in a false flag, like today.
Why start now?
Q
Did someone ask what the definition of an “Asswipe” here is? Ta Da.
Here is what’s wrong with the picture.
Washington crossed the Delaware River in 1776.
That flag, the Betsy Ross flag, made it’s first appearance in 1792
I thought those Q hints would have given it away.
Mistake.
You want some myths blown up?
Ok, but fasten your seat belts…
1) The Revolutionary War was not really about fundamental rights, it was about rich people angry over how they got taxed more than poor people.
If you look at the taxation system in that era – all taxes were paid through 3 specific activities:
a) Luxury goods of which Tea was prominent
b) Taxes on each transfer of indentured servants
c) Taxes when land was sold
That’s it. There were no sales taxes, income taxes, property taxes (except when being bought/sold), etc etc. Notice how none of these taxes applied to anyone but a wealthy person. If a poor person wanted to go out into the wilderness and carve out a farm from the forest, that was tax free. Only the plots of land and already working plantations had such deeds and tended to be enormous mercantile affairs.
Taxation Without Representation was the slogan used because the rich Americans felt they were being unfairly taxed to pay for England’s various wars on the Continent – when they personally could care less about them.
Convert the above to libertarian and alt-right views on welfare…
2) American revolutionaries as underdogs. The British were actually outnumbered about half the time – and were outnumbered in all of the decisive battles that ended the war. The French role was enormous both in terms of supplies and in outright troops. Furthermore while the overall population of Britain was slightly larger than that of the 13 colonies, that larger population was 2 months sailing away. That also means 2 months of supply chain and information lag.
3) George Washington did free his slaves upon his death, but he also conspired to ensure they didn’t get freed before then. Pennsylvania had a law at that time which stated that any slave resident for more than 6 months would be automatically freed; GW, when he had to stay in Pennsylvania for years due to his being President (it was the temporary capital in 1790), rotated his slaves in and out to avoid that law taking effect.
4) GW was a terrible shot. He was, however, unquestionably very brave and was shot many times without being injured. He was also extremely good and conscientious about PR. He had teams of people writing up his notes to ensure his place in posterity and took a lot of other measures to ensure his image stayed positive. He was also the head spy for the Revolutionary effort – running the overall Revolutionary spy organization.
Don’t forget his successful distilling business after putting down the Whiskey Rebellion. Quite the lucky entrepreneur in the liquor trade’s early years after Constitutional ratification.
[he]”was shot many times without being injured.”
Impressive.
Q1: Never let your general become an easy target. Too many people in the boat. Always wear a life jacket and stay seated. Maybe a good idea would have been to post snipers on every corner?
Q2: History is written by the victors.
Q3: Possibly these: Washington’s embarrassing defeats early in the war. The importance of France (and Spain’s) contributions in the war; without the assistance of these nations, the British would have won. The fact that half of Washington’s soldiers deserted their ranks by late 1776. That America was established by deists and freemasons instead of born-again Christians.
Yumbo ,most people will never Know the truth about these vile Jews .The more I learn about these vile damn trailors the more I understand why so many people and leaders throughout history have hated these Son of a bitches.They deserve to be removed from not only America but the whole world.
“They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy’s armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in… It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America.”
-George Washington
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/repute.htm
Or many other sources, that is but one, with a much longer Franklin quote next in line.
“If they are not excluded from the United States by the Constitution, within less than a hundred years they will stream into our country in such numbers that they will rule and destroy us, and change our form of government for which Americans have shed their blood and sacrificed life, property and personal freedom. If the Jews are not excluded, within 200 years our children will be working in the fields to feed the Jews, while they remain in the Counting House gleefully rubbing their hands.”
-Benjamin Franklin
Hoax. Franklin did not utter those words.
I WAS MISQUOTED -Benjamin Franklin
“Your churches will be used to teach the Jew’s religion and in less than two hundred years the whole nation will be working for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry.” General Cornwallis to Washington
Wow. Can you cite that to another source or is that an ECclectic sort of direct quotation?
I second that request, Maggie. But knowing what I do know about DC, the Vatican and Freemasonry, I would not be the least bit surprised.
Don’t tell YoYoMah (Tbp sister swear it!) but I’ve finally listened to enough of the links to start to grasp why the question that is never uttered is so important.
I still do not like the comparison, which I noticed the other day but did not note aloud, but grasp the implication and agree it is valid.
And, that’s all I got to say about that.
If you travel to England, you will find on the Northeast coast a town called Washington. It was originally the town of Weshington and when William the Concerer was dividing up the spoils in 1066 he gave Lord Heartburn (no I am not making that up) the lands around Weshington and he became the Lord of Weshington. As there were no clean french babes to marry up there in the hinterlands he went over the boarder to Scotland and snagged himself a young Scottish princess. So now he was Lord Weshington and a member of the Royal family. The Weshington family evolved into the Washington Family and remained a part of the British royalty up until Oliver Cromwell rolled into town at which time most of the Washingtons ran to merika where the then still king had given them lands in Virginia. Much royal fucking over the years lead to our friend George…the father of our country. Well maybe the uncle of our country but that is not Stuky’s point.
You can look up for yourself what Lord Heartburns crest was but I will describe it briefly. It was three stars and three bars, in red on a silver background. This was predominately because there were only a few colors available in 1066 so the crests were simple. As the family progressed through the royalty ranks the crest become more complex. By the time the Washington family had appeared in Sulgrave, the family crest contained many more fields but the stars and bars were still prominent, with the addition of the Moorish crescent moon. This family crest is still in the window of the church that the Washintons attended and supported financially.
https://www.sulgrave.org/Sulgrave%20Church/Church01.html
It is this crest that is the basis for our flag. Our flag is a modification of the Washington family crest. Old George was offered the kingship of merika because he was royal. I suppose you could think well of him because he turned it down. I suspect that he was sick and tired of dealing with all of those conniving assholes who started a whole revolution just because they were being beaten in the market place by the East India Company which had managed to get the king to be an investor. He was happy to put up with them for a few years but no way he wanted a life sentence.
So to my point. Stucky is right. Your history is a fraud created to mollify the masses. Are you not mollified? Every year people from the US travel to Washington England to celebrate the relationship between the British Washingtons and the American Washingtons. There is a large stone in the town common that proclaims that the merikan flag is derived from the Washington family crest but you don’t know that. Your history is different. Your book learning is crafted to avoid the tragic little inconsistencies that would destroy the narrative that has been the basis for your world view. The narrative that made you a trump supporter. The narrative that made Stucky’s sister in law a purple haired harpy. Yeah that narrative. It was all a lie from the get go and it will always be a lie because they can’t trust you troglodytes to make the right choices. They have to lead because they can’t trust you and they never could. That is the reason that they are they and you are you. It is the well spring for all that you hold dear. Your foundational myths are a lie. That’s why they are called foundational myths.
Great piece Stucky.
But even the legends sometimes contain some element of truth and of history, making them worth preserving and retelling to inspire new warriors to protect the cause.
It is why the Quotable Quotes exists: to remind and inspire us to say better things for posterity to remember us by and to fight for.
well no, not really. But if it helps you sleep at night then go with that.