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- [00:00]
Hannah
Want a thousand dollar weight loss medication for $50. It all starts with Ro's free GLP1 insurance check. Just upload your insurance card to see if you have coverage. Then relax. Over 200,000 people have qualified for a $50 copay through Roe. Go to roe.co health. Half of covered patients have a $50 per month copay or less for medication, plus $1.45 monthly ro membership fee. Deductible cost may apply and final cost varies by insurance plan. For safety information about GLP1 medications, including Boxed Warning, go to ROE CO. SafetyRxOnly. You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank. Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70% off during Wayfair's 4th of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs, and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget, plus surprise flash deals. July 6th. Don't wait. Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at Wayfair.com Wayfair Every style, every home.
- [01:04]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
History as it happens, it's July 1776. The delegates are gathering inside the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia to vote on independence. When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness. And so it was on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress actually voted. On July 2, the war had been underway for more than a year. Fighting broke out at Lexington and Concord. April 1775 the Battle of Bunker Hill. June 1775. That was the same month Congress appointed General George Washington to lead the Continental Army. The Revolutionary War was a war, a prolonged, bloody war that wrought terrible suffering and internecine violence. Men died from bullets and cannonballs, but even more died from disease. So we should reflect upon this history, too, as we mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Because independence had to be won with blood, being a soldier was dangerous. It could also be tedious. When not engaged in combat, soldiers in the Continental army serve three duties, fatigue or manual labor, such as digging latrines, clearing fields or erecting fortifications. They also served on guard duty and drilled daily with their musket and in marching formations, according to an article at battlefields.org, which is the American Battlefield Trust. And the historian John ferling, in his 2007 book Almost a Miracle, writes, armies are seldom bastions of egalitarianism, and the Continental army most assuredly was home to incredible distinctions and between officers and enlisted men. In many ways, he says, the army reflected the society that had given it birth. Each was hierarchic and mirrored the commonplace notion of the time that there was a place for everyone and each person was expected to know his place. Furling goes on to say officers and men alike fell victim to an array of dangerous illnesses. One young officer from Massachusetts mentioned having suffered in the space of three years from severe colds, stomach aches, rheumatism, boils, influenza and lameness. Anne Furling says civilians often segmented the lives of the Continental soldiery into the time spent campaigning and the remainder of the year when they occupied winter quarters. The soldiers did not see such a neat dichotomy. There was no cessation of duty, one soldier remarked, adding that it was one constant drill year round. As with an old horse in a mill, said another, it was a continual routine campaigning ordinarily consumed less than half of each year, and combat was rare. Few soldiers experience more than one or two major battles a year, each a single day encounter. But one need not be in a large formal battle to be in harm's way. One veteran of several years service later recalled that serving in foraging parties and on routine patrols were nearly as dangerous as being in a large scale engagement and in some ways even more stressful. This is the eighth episode in my America 250 series as we mark the semi quincentennial. So if you don't feel like celebrating, we can at least soberly reflect on our history and embrace all its complexities. We don't have to valorize or glorify War. Because the American Revolution, like so many of history's wars, was a terrible affair, but it did create our nation. Alan Taylor is professor emeritus of history at the University of Virginia, a two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and the author of, among many books, American Revolutions, a Continental History, 1750-1804. Alan Taylor, welcome back.
- [05:57]
Alan Taylor
It's nice to be back. Thanks for having me.
- [05:59]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
You know, the Ken Burns documentary about the American Revolution in which you were featured, your interviews that reminded us the Revolutionary War was a war. What was life like for your typical recruit or enlisted man? I have to imagine it was a difficult existence.
- [06:17]
Alan Taylor
Extremely difficult. The United States, even before it's the United States, when they're starting the rebellion, the armed rebellion in 1775, they're, they're creating an army from scratch. They don't have veteran soldiers. They have some people that had served in the Seven Years War, but not in any specifically American force. And their numbers were quite small. The soldiers are mostly younger men who have no military experience. The emerging United States is trying to set up the logistical support network and they don't have the revenue to support an army. To have a revenue, you need to have taxes. And they've started this war out as a resistance against British taxes. So it's very hard for them to collect enough money from the taxpayers of the colonies about to become states in 1776. So everything that could go wrong in terms of supporting an army does go wrong. And the people who are left to suffer the greatest consequences are the enlisted men of the Continental Army.
- [07:22]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
I would have to imagine it was difficult to get troops to sign up for something like this.
- [07:27]
Alan Taylor
Well, initially they succeeded, but they succeed by limiting the enlistment period to either six months or one year. And that was fairly traditional in the colonies. Young men did not want to serve for more than one year. Any kind of service that extended beyond one year, they started to call slavery. So the contradiction at the start of the Revolution is they're inviting people to fight for liberty, but they don't dare to ask them to serve long enough for them to become professional soldiers. So Washington in the first couple of years of the war has to rebuild his army almost from scratch at the end of the year.
- [08:13]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
What kind of training were these men getting? I mean, were they adept at combat, at fighting? Did they know what they were doing?
- [08:20]
Alan Taylor
Most of them know. There are some of them that are from the frontier and they have some considerable experience fighting Native Americans, but most of them are enlisted in eastern counties and their only training consists of a single day a year in their local militia, which every colony had, and it was mandatory service. But it's mandatory service where the only training is one day a year. And a lot of that training day was spent drinking. You're not enlisting people with military experience. That is at all useful.
- [08:59]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Tactics, discipline. I mean, I assume that most people knew how to fire, load and fire a musket, but that's different. You know, maybe when you're going hunting, it's different than standing in formation with the British professional redcoats coming at you.
- [09:15]
Alan Taylor
Yes, One of the myths of the Revolution is that the patriots are in a position to just fire from behind trees and stone walls at the British, who are idiots and who just mass themselves in open fields. Now, if that myth had been true, the war would have been over in a year because all the British would be dead. The reality is there are some circumstances where combat unfolds that way. The most celebrated of them is the British retreat after Concord back to Boston, where the fighting unfolds in exactly that way. But that's not typical. And when George Washington takes charge of the Continental army, he very much wants to fight this war in the same style that the British fight their wars. And what that requires is training men to stand in open fields to deliver musket volleys that are coordinated to all fire at once. And the whole notion is that the force that can fire more rapidly will be the one that will win. And then the second thing these troops have to do is after discharging their volleys, they are to fix bayonets and go into the enemy and fight hand to hand with bayonets. That's a tall order to ask of men who have never done this before against veteran troops of Britain and. And their Hessian mercenaries who are very experienced at doing this.
- [10:50]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Why did men fight? This is something, a topic that historians have grappled with in all wars. There's the issue of enlisting, joining. And then when you're actually in a battle while you stay and fight rather than turn and run, which is the human instinct when bullets are flying at you. So how important were revolutionary ideas, republican ideals, to your typical patriot? Because we do have to keep in mind there are many people who are undecided, especially at first. And then there were plenty of Loyalists, too, who didn't want to fight for George Washington. Were ideas important or they given inducements to sign up for the army?
- [11:30]
Alan Taylor
Well, the answer is both, especially at the start. And there is pay, there are bounties. You do your promised clothing. So a Lot of promises are made, and those promises of material support are important, but they're not. While they may be necessary, they're not sufficient. You need to have motivation because, as you say, to go into combat, to risk your own body and to engage in killing the bodies of other people, that requires motivation. And especially in the first year or two of the war, the motivation that comes from the patriot cause is pretty high. Now, that's going to shift over time, especially after starting in 1777 when Congress, at Washington's request, dictates that enlistments must be for at least three years. There are a lot of these people who had been enlisting for one year at a time. They said, I'm out. And soldiers who are doing the three year terms are also subjected to much harder discipline, where if you violate the rules of the army, you are physically punished, including being horsewhipped. Now, that strikes your average American of that time as, what's the difference between this and slavery?
- [12:53]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
I'll go back to my farm and protect my family and deal with my crops. Most of these guys are farmers, right?
- [13:01]
Alan Taylor
Most of them are farmers. They're the sons of farmers. They're farm laborers. A growing number of them are immigrants who are laborers. So the social composition of the army shifts in 1777. Whereas you had a lot of farmers, sons and small farmers, who were serving in 1775 and 76. Once the enlistment terms increase, they're dropping out of the war and the army becomes much more dependent on the poorest Americans. People are indentured servants, other laborers, slaves who are promised their freedom for enlisting. Now, this happens initially only in the northern colonies where there are slaves, but the numbers of slaves are much smaller than in the South. A fair number of people who are being held in jail are given the choice, do you want to stay in jail or do you want to enlist in the Continental Army? Loyalists who are captured are giving the choice, do you want to stay, spend your time in prison, or do you want to decide that you're going to fight for the patriots? A fair number of them end up under duress doing that. You've got a new army that emerges in terms of social composition in 1777. It's an army that doesn't have the same political weight in terms of getting the attention of their elected leaders because they're coming from a population that doesn't vote. You had to have property, enough property, a farm or a small shop to vote in the America of 1776. These guys don't have it. And so it means that there's a higher level of neglect as the social composition of the army changes. The logistical systems that are already poor in 1776, they become poorer in 1777, and the pay for the soldiers just stops. Partly the problem is there's hyperinflation. The economy is really staggering under the weight of this war. And the people, again, who are bearing the greatest burden are the enlisted men in the Continental Army.
- [15:18]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
So based on what I've read in your books and others, soldiers half naked, barely enough food to get by. And of course, they didn't have good shelter during the winter, say, at Valley Ford, having to start off sleeping in tents, and then they tried to build some cabins. So many men had frostbite. I mean, there seemed to be no incentive to join the army unless you really did believe in the cause, or, as we said, you were given some kind of inducement, like a land bounty right in the Northwest Territory or the Ohio Valley. Because pay. You said how the economy was struggling, just printing more money and giving people basically worthless printed bills. That was not very attractive.
- [15:59]
Alan Taylor
This is an army of guys that are really struggling to get by. There are the material incentives that are promised to them. But then you discover the promises aren't being fulfilled. They're not getting the new uniform every year that was promised. They're not getting the pay that they were promised.
- [16:15]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Wasn't there a near mutiny over pay at one point?
- [16:17]
Alan Taylor
There are several mutinies. The mutinies really peak in 1780. It's not by the whole Continental army at one time. The Continental army is organized by regiments by state. So you're not going into the first United States. You're going into the first Massachusetts or the first Virginia or the first Delaware Regiment. So you are serving with people from your own state. Different units from different states would mutiny at different times. And that makes it easier for Washington to suppress most of these mutinies, because if the Connecticut men mutiny, he goes and gets the Pennsylvania men to suppress them. There are such bitter prejudices and resentments between the different states that that's how Washington is able to manage the mutinies.
- [17:12]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Wow. I know.
- [17:12]
Alan Taylor
Not everybody is feeling warm and fuzzy as Americans.
- [17:16]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Yeah, I mean, Washington's leadership is legendary here, but he also seems to have just been a good political operator.
- [17:23]
Alan Taylor
Well, you have to be a politician of a sort to run an army that is drawn from 13 different states of people who don't much like each other.
- [17:36]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
We often think of war as action exciting or really terrifying. But wasn't the Typical year. Or I guess if it was now, three years later in the war. But a typical year in service could be rather boring, right? I mean, how many major battles did the typical soldier participate in?
- [17:56]
Alan Taylor
Well, that's a, that's an impossible thing to answer. What can be said is if we look at particular Continental army soldiers, they spend most of their year either in encampment or marching to try to get a better position vis a vis the enemy. So I've recently written an essay about Joseph Plumb Martin, who left the only book length memoir by a Continental soldier. And he's quite clear in there that he spent many more days on long hard marches late into the night under all weather conditions than he spent in combat. Now, combat are these intense periods of danger and suffering and excitement. And then there are many longer spells of these marching around. And he is quite clear, he says, I suffered more on these marches than I did in any battle I was in. And he was in some pretty grim battles.
- [18:59]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Because battles in those days in pre industrial war lasted hours, not days or months. You know, the Battle of the Somme in the First World War, you have hundreds of thousands of casualties. You'd have sharp, short engagements that would be over within a few hours. But there was a lot of skirmishing. Right. And also when troops were, say, out foraging, they would encounter British soldiers as well.
- [19:21]
Alan Taylor
Yeah. A major part of military service is you've got to go out and gather supplies from the countryside. You're trying to gather food for the soldiers. In other words, you're going and you're taking it away from farmers. Now you're supposed to give them promissory notes that says, we've taken wheat or livestock of this value and someday the Continental Congress will pay you. That's not very satisfying to farmers who never know when that day will be and who dread that the payment will be in this worthless Continental Congress paper money. But that's what soldiers are doing. And they also have to get hay for the horses. That's a big part of foraging. When you're doing that, you're at risk of running into the patrols of the enemy that's trying to prevent you from doing that while they're foraging the same countryside.
- [20:11]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
The British suffered a lot of casualties in this manner.
- [20:15]
Alan Taylor
Yeah, I mean, our histories focus on the battles. The battles are dramatic. They often involve a few thousand men, but there is all of this sporadic combat that is smaller scale. All over the 13 states? Well, all over most of the 13 states. And then in pockets of the war, big pockets, I guess the whole south would be more than a pocket, but also around New York City, which the British occupy. Around Philadelphia while the British occupy it and along the frontier there is a very vicious guerrilla war going on where there are units that are not part officially part of the Continental army and they're not disciplined at all and they're on both sides, Loyalist and patriot, and they are ruthlessly killing each other.
- [21:07]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
You know you never have to listen to ads again. Tap subscribe now in the show Notes to skip ads, get early access and enjoy all of our bonus content or go to historyasithappens.com.
- [21:23]
Hannah
I'm Hannah. I've lost 75 pounds in 20 months with GLP1s diet and exercise on row. I've gone from struggling to run a mile to running far every day. You can Access FDA approved GLP1s online. Get the support you need to reach your weight loss goals. Go to Ro Co Weight to see if you qualify. I'm a paid ROE partner. 20% average weight loss in one year in non diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight related medical condition versus 3.1% in placebo arm RX only. To stay informed about serious side effects, go to Ro Co Safety A burst pipe? A dead water heater? The AC calling it quits? Who do you call? HomeServe is an easy way to handle unexpected home repairs with plans covering stuff basic homeowners insurance usually won't. Instead of scrambling for a contractor, you make one call to get the repair process started. Join the millions of customers who trust HomeServe right now. Go to HomeServe.com podcast for 50% less your first year. That's HomeServe.com podcast savings compared to renewal price void in Florida. You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank. Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside? Wayfair has everything you need to prep your space. Shop now and save up to 70% off during Wayfair's 4th of July clearance. Score huge deals on outdoor furniture, area rugs and more. We're talking thousands of products for every style and budget, plus surprise flash deals. July 6th don't wait. Shop Wayfair's 4th of July clearance now through July 6th at Wayfair.com Wayfair Every style, every home summer is here, which means we all want to look and feel our best. A GLP1 means be right for you. Visit orderlymeds.com to learn more about which GLP1 you could be eligible for Getting started is fast, easy, and happens virtually through telemedicine from licensed professionals. Check it out for yourself. Go to orderlymeds.com podcast that's orderlymeds.com podcast. Taking care of yourself feels great. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Eligibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details.
- [23:27]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
In John Keegan's book the First World War, he references old romantic notions of armies marching off to battle on their campaign. And you just picture, you know, the general on his horse and all the soldiers walking behind him. And in that image, we don't think of all the other people that are necessary to keep an army in the field. Even in the old days, you know, there had to be some logistics so armies would stay close to the coast because their supplies could be on ships right off the coast. I have an article here from American Battlefield Trust about what the typical experience was like for a Continental army man. I'll get you to respond to this. Said reveille was typically at daybreak. Soldiers cooked one meal per day around 3pm Whatever food was left over. Soldiers divided and placed in their haversacks to be consumed as needed. Rations were determined by Congress. Each man got a pound and a half of meat per day, typically beef. This was a hunk of meat that had bone, fat and gristle in it. Doesn't sound very appetizing. They had one pound of bread per day, and this is at least what they were supposed to get baked daily inside the camp. And they could make fire cakes. They would heat a flat rock, mix flour with water and pour the mixture on the heated rock and then flip it over to cook the other side. I don't know about you. That sounds delicious. And then this article goes on to say joining the men in the camps or on the march were women and children known as camp followers. Tell us about the camp followers.
- [25:02]
Alan Taylor
Well, let me start out with the report of the rations that are issued to them. Those are rations that are promised to them. Are those the rations that are actually delivered to them? No. There are days where they get no meat. There are days where they get no bread as well. Joseph Plumb Martin talks about gnawing birch bark off twigs because he's so hungry. There are stories of them boiling their shoes. So the famous story about the bloody feet of the soldiers in the snow at Valley Forge, Completely true. Many of these guys are trudging through the snow with rags around their feet rather than shoes. And partly it's that these long marchers are wearing their shoes out. And then there are also situations where they're so starving that about the only calories they can get is from boiling their shoes, killing cats and dogs in order to eat them. And then when the rations are delivered, here's your pound and half of meat today. And it turns out it's rotten horse meat that these guys don't want to eat.
- [26:06]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
That's terrible.
- [26:07]
Alan Taylor
The promised rations that are described in that story would have been Club Med from Joseph Plumb Martin's perspective if they'd actually gotten it. They did not get actually that. Now, one other thing that you mentioned, Valley Forge. And we so focus on Valley Forge. There were seven winter encampments. And Valley Forge is bad, but it's not the worst one by a long shot.
- [26:30]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
It wasn't Morristown. Even worse.
- [26:32]
Alan Taylor
Morristown is much worse. That's where Joseph Paul Martin has to eat birch bark to try to survive. You have to remember this is not a one year war or a two year war. This is an eight year war. The suffering for the soldiers gets worse over time. What seems to be unbearable in the winter of 1777 and 78 is actually not as bad as what they will experience in 1779-80. Now to the camp follower question. Camp follower is a term that seems loaded. It seems like these are women that are there for sexual relations with the soldiers. And that's not really the case. I mean, there are some women along. Many of the women who are along are the wives of soldiers. And they come from such poor families that they. As bad as the food is in the Continental army, it's better than what they would get at home. Since the soldiers don't have any pay to send them and they earn these rations, they're not getting them free. They're getting them in return for service. And there are two services that they provide usually. One is they do laundry for the soldiers. The second is they provide nursing for sick soldiers. And then under combat duress, they're often bringing munitions to the soldiers from. From the back ranks. And this is the famous story of Molly Pitcher. That's her job. She's bringing water up to assist artillerymen and included her husband at the Battle of Monmouth in 1778 on a very hot day. And then her husband gets severely wounded and she steps in and helps to run the cannon. So this has become a celebrated story. It's a real story based on a woman named Mary Ludwig, who is from Pennsylvania. But it's not the only case in which women are stepping into the breach. Literally the breach to Assist in combat.
- [28:40]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
You mentioned nursing there for sick soldiers. Disease plays a huge role in the Revolutionary War. Yet this history is still somewhat hidden when we think back to this period of time. I have a book titled American Revolutions here written by one Alan Taylor. Page 276. Smallpox. Smallpox spread is a deadly byproduct of the American Revolution. You wrote for it proliferated into crowded military and refugee camps. In 1776, smallpox ravaged the Patriot army in Canada and the black refugees who joined Lord Dunmore's British force in Virginia. Alan, as a historian, I mean, you've written about this, but do you think that this is kind of hidden, that most Americans today don't realize how important smallpox was during the history of the Revolutionary War?
- [29:30]
Alan Taylor
Yes, they don't. But in a way it's understandable because Americans have very busy lives. Not all of them read much in the way of history. The history that they most recently received was back in high school. And the job of high school teachers is to try to convey as much information as they can. And the directive has been to treat the story of the American Revolution as part of civics training to help to develop a pride in the nation. And so the version of the American Revolution that serves that civics purpose is one that emphasizes the nobility of the patriot cause, to present it as the American cause and to present the enemy as the British and as tyrants. And the war, we often remember it through these paintings of the 19th century. Because there are no photographs, we can't see the actual grim conditions through any kind of surviving imagery. The paintings tend to present battles as very neat and orderly in their ranks. They tend to show the Patriot soldiers is all, well, uniformed. In most cases of these paintings, they tend to focus on the political moments, such as the Declaration of Independence. It creates a misleading impression of this as an orderly revolution when if we go to the actual documents, to the diaries of soldiers, the memoirs of Joseph Plumb Martin, the letters of George Washington and other officers, it's a chaotic war with lots of misery to go around, not just for the soldiers, but also for civilians who are experiencing this war.
- [31:27]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Very little glory. I mean, more soldiers died from disease than from bullets.
- [31:32]
Alan Taylor
That's true. That's true of all American wars, including the Civil War, until we get up to World War I.
- [31:39]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
So smallpox. Washington did inoculate the. The soldiers. I mean, how bad was the smallpox outbreak? Not just for the Continental army, but for the British and also Native Americans.
- [31:50]
Alan Taylor
It's less devastating for the British, though. It is extremely devastating for the enslaved people. Who have run away to join them. Your typical British soldier or Hessian soldier has probably already experienced smallpox in adolescence and survived it. And that gives you an immunity. So they're okay compared to the people who are living in North America who are less experienced with this disease. Yes, it happens periodically, but not with the kind of annual frequency that was experienced in Europe. And smallpox is just one of the diseases. It's quite spectacular and it's very devastating in 1776. But after that, other diseases are the greater killer killers, like typhus and dysentery and measles.
- [32:41]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Dysentery is caused by dirty drinking water, Right?
- [32:45]
Alan Taylor
Poor sanitation. Yes, you do tend to consume it through the water. And a big part of the problem is that there aren't proper latrines or soldiers don't honor the regulations for using latrines. You're in some miserable condition. You're gonna go as close as you can to where you currently are. And this means that the water that they are consuming, local water they're consuming, tends to be tainted. And it means that there are massive outbreaks of dysentery.
- [33:14]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
You mentioned before, we have this simplified image of the patriots on one side and the British and of course the loyalists who joined them. I have Ray Rayfield's book here, A people's history of the American Revolution, and there's a chapter where he's talking about why it was difficult for the rebel side to recruit people in the South. And he's speaking specifically here about backcountry farmers in South Carolina. But it's a good example. I'll just share a sentence or two and then have your analysis afterward. He writes, the causes for disaffection in the south, meaning people just refusing to join the rebel side, are difficult to ascertain. The backcountry farmers who opposed the revolution did not justify their actions with well reasoned arguments supporting parliament or denouncing republican theory. In fact, most of them espoused the same republican values held by the revolutionaries. This was a conflict of interests and personalities, not ideologies. Yet southern loyalties cannot easily be explained by religion, nationality, or class. Anglican and Presbyterian, English and German, rich and poor appeared proportionally on both sides of the conflict. Some loyalists owned slaves, while others did not, and the same held true for patriots. Robert Lambert, in his analysis of loyalists in South Carolina, found only one characteristic in common. They were all recent arrivals, making them less likely to look favorably on a movement that was defying the authority from which they had obtained their lands.
- [34:43]
Alan Taylor
I agree with most of it and I don't agree with the notion that the Loyalists are all recent arrivals or even mostly recent arrivals. It is the case that if you are a recent arrival, you're probably going to be more likely to be a loyalist than a patriot. But your typical loyalist in the south is really not different in social composition or religious views than your typical patriot in the South. But what seems to have happened is that there are certain clusters of people in communities who may belong to, say, a Lutheran church, and they feel like the majority immediately around them are Presbyterians or Anglicans, and that this new republican system is going to increase the power of the majority, that they had some kind of protection for their rights under the empire. And the other fundamental issue is that the Continental Congress is actually demanding more of rural people than has ever been demanded before. They are demanded to take oaths of allegiance, to serve in a militia, and to pay taxes. And a lot of these people are living very dispersed. Most of them are living very dispersed. They're trying to just get by on these farms that are relatively new. They're not prospering people. And to make these demands of them. What they really want is not some common republican philosophy. They want to be left alone.
- [36:28]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
War is not a thing.
- [36:29]
Alan Taylor
They don't want the British to mess with them. They don't want Congress to mess with them. And it turns out Congress is doing much more of the messing with them. And that kind of pushes them toward being Loyalists. They weren't choosing to be Loyalists. They felt like they were forced to be Loyalists.
- [36:47]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
And didn't many people feel like they had it pretty good as a British subject? Or even if they had qualms with some of the behavior or conduct of the King in Parliament, they didn't think going to war was worth it.
- [36:58]
Hannah
Right?
- [36:59]
Alan Taylor
That's quite right. I mean, the reality is, the British had not been until we get to 1774, they'd not been remotely tyrannical. The British Empire had offered prosperity, military protection, and a level of civic liberties far better than any other empire in the transatlantic world. And the colonists appreciated it. The colonists revered their king, and they enjoyed being part of the British Empire. What happens is, in the 1760s, the British start to change the rules of the Empire. They make motions toward imposing new taxes on the colonists. And so the colonists are going, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We really loved the Empire when it was mostly leaving us alone. Now the Empire is demanding a bit more for us. And so there's a pretty broad consensus among the colonists that the new demands of Parliament are unconstitutional. And they are willing to resist them. But then we get to 1775, where the resistance becomes military resistance, which is demanding a lot more of people. And as a consequence, a fair number of people at that point say, hold on here, I was fined for protesting the taxes. I'm not okay with fighting the king's troops. And then congress and its representatives are saying to such people, you need to be with us or you're against us. At which point some of these people decide, okay, I'm against you because you're demanding too much.
- [38:41]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
And once the first bullet is fired and drop of blood spilled, it becomes more difficult to stay on the fence.
- [38:48]
Hannah
Right?
- [38:49]
Alan Taylor
Yeah, you have to. And both sides are putting major pressure on the fence sitters. The fence sitters are probably at least as numerous as the Patriots in 1775. But the fate of the war, I would argue, is going to be determined by which of the two sides is going to be more effective at moving the fence sitters off onto their side.
- [39:12]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
And you mentioned 1774, that in my view, if we had to pick one, I mean, there's always more than one turning point or important milestone on the road to revolution. When does something become a rebellion, an actual revolution? The reaction to the Boston Tea Party with the coercive acts or intolerable acts, that's when I think you start to see a continent wide or a colony wide movement that could be called a revolution.
- [39:38]
Alan Taylor
Yeah, that's absolutely true. That in 1774, the British are so upset by the Boston Tea Party that they enact a set of acts called the coercive acts that are meant to punish the city of Boston and the colony of Massachusetts in particular in very severe ways. Basically, they're shut down from trade in and out of Boston, which is the major port for Massachusetts. And this means unemployment, and that means hunger for the majority of people in Boston. And the British are expecting that these measures will intimidate the other colonies, but instead the other colonies are thinking, the colonists in the other colonies are thinking, if they can do this to Massachusetts, they can do it to us and we better support Massachusetts. It leads then to an intensification of organization of local committees of militias that are going to prepare to resist the British if they don't back down from these coercive acts. And the British don't back down from those coercive acts.
- [40:43]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Yeah. Here's an important chronology. Boston Tea Party is In December of 1773, news of the chorus of acts, including the Boston Port act that you just referred to reach the colonies in May of 1774. Parliament passed them in March of 74 in response to the Boston Tea Party. And then we know that the war breaks out in the spring of 75. It was in February of 75 when Parliament declares Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion. I like to reference books here. I got another one. TH Breen's book, American Insurgents, American Patriots. He has a theory as to why, despite all the violence between Loyalists and patriots, this is a major focus of your work, the Civil War aspect of the Revolutionary War. Right. He makes an argument as to why, despite all of that violence in these American Committees of Safety. That could be pretty harsh. It didn't spin totally out of control. The American Revolution did not become the Russian Revolution or Mao's Chinese Revolution or even the French Revolution. All out mass murder. He says whatever prerogatives the American Committees of Safety may have assumed, they seldom allowed the policing of popular ideology to get out of hand, meaning going around and roughing people up, saying, hey, why are you still not coming on our side? The contrast with the experiences of other revolutions throughout the world is striking. The French Revolution, for example, conjures up deeply disturbing images of mass executions and destruction of private property. He says that kind of bloodletting did not occur in the British colonies. The reason is not that Americans were exceptional. They surely would have burned houses and murdered neighbors if the situation had invited a continuous purging of ideological dissenters. Rather, he says, the explanation for the containment of violence, at least in 1774 and 1775, rests on the recognition that the social context in which these committees operated was quite different from that of other nations.
- [42:47]
Alan Taylor
Tim's a very good historian, and I think that's a very good book. But that particular claim requires you to put some blinders on. It requires you to focus on New England, which is what he does. In New England, the Revolution plays out in this relatively orderly way. But to say that there aren't people being roughed up is inaccurate. There are a fair number of Loyalists who are being physically abused. Their property is certainly being vandalized, and they are being published as enemies of American liberty, and therefore their neighbors won't talk to them and won't do business with them. Well, good luck getting by in a rural community if you're frozen out by the majority in that community.
- [43:28]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
Well, I think he recognizes some of that violence. He says it just doesn't seem spin out of control like in other revolutions.
- [43:34]
Alan Taylor
Right. In New England, there's probably 80 to 90% support for the Revolution, and so Some judicious intimidation is sufficient to maintain Patriot control there. Now let's go somewhere else. Let's go to the south later in the war, or let's go to the frontier, to Kentucky or to upstate New York. There you see massacres of people. Now, the massacres there are racial massacres in many ways. Enslaved people who try to help the British are not going to get the Geneva Convention, which didn't exist at that time. They're not going to get the same treatment as a white American or a white British soldier. There's a lot of lynching of Loyalists in the South. The name lynch, where does that come from? It comes from a Patriot officer, Charles lynch, and this was one of his specialties, was lynching Loyalists. Or if you go off to the frontier where native peoples are massacring Patriot settlers and Patriot settlers are massacring Indians, those are all parts of the revolution. So in those areas, you could say the Revolution has spun out of control. What has happened is there has been a cottage industry of saying American Revolution is much more orderly than the French or the Russian. And that's true at the kind of political center of the story, but the margins of the story are huge. And there it is, out of control. So we need to be able to tell both of these stories. It is absolutely true, as Tim writes, that the Continental Congress is able to ride this bucking bronco through to the very end and maintain its control without the kind of upheavals and purges that happened and changes of regime, say, in the. In the French Revolution, which is what leads to the massive executions. That particular story doesn't happen. But we should not allow that fact to screen out what's going on on the margins, the broad margins of this story, which is pretty grim indeed.
- [45:52]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
In the south, the fighting was really, really bloody and ferocious. So last thing here, Alan. The Revolutionary War was a very ugly and miserable experience for your average ordinary person. But the victory by the rebel side, our Declaration of Independence, this creates the nation that we're living in today with all its aspirations, inspiration and aspiration in the opening sentences of the Declaration. Today, I'm not sensing a lot of excitement for the 250th birthday. Why do you think that is?
- [46:23]
Alan Taylor
Well, you move in some pretty liberal circles, so that's why you're not hearing this. I don't know what we would find if you left your penthouse there and went down to the Great American State Fair.
- [46:37]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
D.C. is a very democratic city, but, yeah, go ahead.
- [46:40]
Alan Taylor
Well, there are people from outside of D.C. who are coming to that state fair, and I imagine a fair number of them are kind of excited about it. Not as many as our great leader would like. The country is divided and there are people who are very excited and feeling very patriotic during this time. And there are others of us who are feeling like what could have been a bipartisan, un unifying celebration of the 250th has been smashed by a desire to claim patriotism as the monopoly of one particular party in this country.
- [47:20]
Host (possibly a historian or podcast host)
So whether you celebrate the 4th of July or not, or if you're listening to this podcast before the holiday or afterward, we might all agree it's never a bad time to return to this history, pick up a book and learn about the American Revolution and the creation of the American republic. And on the next episode of History As It Happens, we're going to talk about another major political figure who is at odds with a monarch. No, not the 18th century and not in America. In the 20th century, in Iran, who was Mohammed Mosaddegh? And what does he have to do with what's happening today in the perfect Persian Gulf? That is next, as we report History as it Happens and make sure to sign up for my free newsletter. Just go to Substack and search for History as it Happens.