Walking the Berkshires

Reflections on Ken Burns' : The National Parks

I've been watching the DVDs of Ken Burn's latest documentary: The National Parks; America's Best Idea.  Burns and collaborator Dayton Duncan have brought their cinematic eye and art to the American wilderness,  illuminating places such as the Grand Canyon - about which Teddy Roosevelt observed; "The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it." -  and ideas about conservation and public benefit that the filmmakers present as emblematic of American democracy. 

It is a powerful story, carried forward by stunning visuals and Burn's signature treatment of historic images and personalities.  Like many viewers I find it inspiring and it makes me want to visit and revisit many of these places (which will likely be welcomed by the Park Service in the face of a marked trend of decreasing visitation and connection between Americans and our Great Outdoors. 

It is also a story that embodies great complexity, with larger than life figures like John Muir who somehow outshines even Teddy Roosevelt in the first part of the series.  Some of the "talking heads" help to weave together what for the sake of the story is tempting to cast as opposing conservation viewpoints rather than two sides of the same coin. The nation's first Forest Service Director, Gifford Pinchot, still gets less than his due, in my opinion, particularly after having just read Timothy Egan's brilliant new history of The Big Burn; Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America.  Pinchot was certainly more significant as a conservationist than just as the pragmatic proponent of sustainable use of forestland that he becomes when juxtaposed to the wilderness prophet Muir.

Those talking heads without whom a modern documentary would be unthinkable are a narrative device pioneered and perfected by Burns.  I am always intrigued to see which emerges as the charismatic authoritative voice in the film, as Shelby Foote did in Burn's treatment of The Civil War.  Two episodes into the series, there are two voices that stand out for me, but for very different reasons. 

One belongs to William Cronon, the Frederick Jackson Turner Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and author of the excellent Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology of New England.  His is the voice of gentle intelligence and sensitivity, seeing the study of history and ecology as mutually sustaining (a perspective with which I am fully in accord). 

The other is Shelton Johnston, a charismatic veteran park ranger, a marvelous story teller whose love of the parks is palpable.  Johnston is an African American with considerable Native American ancestry who was raised in Detroit.  More than this, his background makes him a distinct minority both as a Park Ranger and among visitors to our national parks.  Not even 1% of those who visit Yosemite, for example, are African American.  As Johnston said in a recent interview:

"It's bigger than just African Americans not visiting national parks. It's a disassociation from the natural world," said Johnson, who has worked in Yosemite for the past 15 of his 22 years in the Park Service. "I think it is, in part, a memory of the horrible things that were done to us in rural America."

The rejection of the natural world by the black community, he said, is a scar left over from slavery.

"All Snoop Dogg has to do is go camping in Yosemite and it would change the world," said Johnson, 51. "If Oprah Winfrey went on a road trip to the national parks, it would do more than I have done in my whole career."

The conservation movement in America has a long way to go before this disconnect is resolved.

Burns' film emphasizes that the creation of National Parks was a reaction to the wholesale exploitation of natural resources during the final decades of the 19th century.  Yet the very idea of setting aside land for non consumptive public benefit would not even have been considered for the American wilderness if we had not already chosen to do so within our own developed habitat.  The rural cemetery movement, the development of public parks within the urban landscape by Frederick Law Olmstead and those he inspired, and even the setting aside of some of the great killing fields of our nation's Civil War as monuments to its memory, all preceded the establishment of the first National Park.

This was not the case in the 18th century, when the Common was a place for the community's livestock and there were better uses for old battlefields than places of quiet reflection.   We do not set aside land until we believe what it contains is both essential and irreplaceable.  Nor do we invest in the survival of what we do not see as having value.  Whether that value is intrinsic, as Muir would have it, or essential to our own health and well being, or both of these things, has long been part of the national conservation debate, and especially so regarding the conservation purposes, use and management of public lands. 

One thing, at least, has changed since Roosevelt's Day.  Nature does not take its course, at least during the span of human lives, completely free of our influence.  Our hands may mar without our even being aware, but they can only mend if we are deliberately conscious in our choices and pay close attention to the results of our interventions.  Having a national conversation along these lines would be a wonderful outcome of Burn's storytelling.

  

Last Post

Not mine: theirs.  On this Armistice Day, 91 years after the cession of hostilities in WWI, there are just three confirmed veterans of that war who remain alive.  Last year there were 10 confirmed WWI veterans still with us, down from 23 in 2007 and 53 in 2006. 

108 year old Frank W. Buckles is the last remaining American doughoy.  At 109, Jack Babcock, a dual Canadian/American national, is the last Canadian veteran.  The last UK seaman is 108 year old Claude S. Choules, now living in Australia.  That is all.

I am struck by what these oldest of the old have said about war as their numbers have dwindled.  Claude Choules does not participate in remembrance day commemorations, after a 41 year military career that spanned both World Wars, because according to family members "he didn't think we should glorify war."  Britian's Harry Patch died earlier this year, respectfully declining a state funeral and having said that "the only lessons to be drawn from the 'organized murder' of war were those of peace, compromise, and reconciliation." There is more in their words of Wilfred Owen than In Flanders Fields.

We marvel at these very few men from that time beyond all other living memories, but what they remember is more important than the novelty of their extreme longevity.  The notes of their last post are sounding.  What will we hear in their echoes?

Nominations Open for Cliopatria Awards for the Best in History Blogging in 2009

The Cliopatria Awards are accepting nominations this month for the best in History Blogging published after December 1, 2008.  Since 2005, this has been the preeminent recognition of excellence in history blogging, with a panel of judges reviewing nominations in the following categories:

• Best Group Blog
• Best Individual Blog
• Best New Blog
• Best Post
• Best Series of Posts
• Best Writer

I was deeply honored last year to receive a 2008 Cliopatria award for the best series of posts.

This is a wonderful way to recognize the quality of blogging efforts of professional and amateur historians alike.  Why not drop in at Cliopatria at History News Network and give them an excellent slate of nominees from your favorite history blogs and posts?

Unknown: A Local History Civil War Mystery

I came upon this grave marker recently in Cornwall Hollow Cemetery.  It caught my eye as a government issued headstone of the "Civil War" type, authorized in the 1870s for the graves of Union soldiers (and also was used for unmarked graves of veterans of earlier wars).  Given its low status position over at the very edge of the graveyard, I wondered whether it would prove to belong to a black soldier, for there were social and racial hierarchies even in New England graveyards and I often find veterans of the 29th Connecticut colored infantry in such places.  What I found instead has left me searching for explanations.

This weathered marble stone has no name or associated company and regiment.  It is inscribed simply  "Unknown U.S. Soldier".  If this private cemetery were near some battleground or a place that had seen the passage of armies, I would not have given it another thought.  But this is northwest Connecticut, hundreds of miles from the battlefields of the Civil War, and in a part of the state which has never seen a military engagement since its settlement. 

The presence of this artifact at this location raises many questions.  How did it come to be here?  Are there remains associated with the grave marker, and how were they associated with Cornwall, Connecticut?  The marker was provided at no cost for veterans by the government, but someone covered the expense of the plot, and if the soldier died far from Cornwall, also paid to transport the remains here.  

Graduate school taught me the value of testing the assumptions of every explanatory hypothesis.  The available evidence at the outset consists of the stone itself and the site where I found it, which is a matter both for the archeologist and the historian.  My initial inquiry in Cornwall has determined that neither the historical society nor the town clerk, nor the sexton have any knowledge of a written record beyond what is recorded on the stone, nor of how it came to be here.  So let us begin with the stone.

As the photograph at the top of the page illustrates, this marble headstone is discolored and weathered, consistent with other military grave markers of its time period.  It is of a "Civil War" type used for Union veteran's graves beginning in 1873, and authorized for use in private cemeteries in 1879.  This establishes the earliest date in which this artifact would have appeared at this site.  Such markers were in use until a significant design change after WWI.  This one has straight rather than curved sides coming to a point at the bottom of the sunken shield, which is the earliest variation on this design.  Although unmarked graves of U.S. veterans of from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War, Indian Campaigns and Spanish American War were furnished with this type of headstone, (Confederates got their own from the U.S. government in the early 20th century), this stone - because of its apparent age and the sheer number of soldiers involved - is most likely for an unknown Civil War soldier.

This is not the first design for grave markers of unknown U.S. soldiers, however.  According to this site"

"In 1873 Secretary of War William W. Belknap adopted the first design for stones to be erected in national cemeteries. For the unknown dead, the stone was a block of marble or durable stone six inches square, and 30 inches long. The top and four inches of the sides of the upper part were finished and the number of the grave cut on the top...The use of stone blocks for marking graves in national cemeteries was discontinued on October 21, 1903, and the graves were marked with the same design as those furnished for the known dead."

It is possible that this practice had already been followed in private cemeteries long before 1903, but I do not know how regular it was.  Two of the federal contractors for Union grave markers were located in the southern Berkshires in Stockbridge and Lenox, Massachusetts.  Quite possibly the stone was manufactured there.

Coincidentally, there is another Civil War connection between the little cemetery in Cornwall Hollow, Connecticut and Stockbridge,  Massachusetts.   Major General John Sedgwick came from here and is buried beneath a prominent monument in the Cornwall Hollow Cemetery, with another monument to his memory located across the road.  A branch of the Sedgwick family moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts from Cornwall, where his cousin Catherine Maria Sedgwick was prominent fiction writer.

That is about all that I can surmise about the stone itself.  There is also its position in the cemetery to consider, in a low status plot at the very edge of the graveyard.  This is not a public memorial, though it is a dutiful acknowledgment of the military service of an unknown soldier with a government headstone in a private cemetery.  I believe that while the stone itself may have been moved within the cemetery and probably replaced an earlier marker of some kind, there were indeed once unknown remains with which is is associated. 

How did an unknown U.S. soldier of this time period come to Cornwall?  It is hard to imagine a scenario where remains of an unknown soldier from the Civil War were at least partially identified such that they could be positively to assigned to a soldier from this particular rural community in Connecticut.  Cornwall Hollow is in the northeast corner of the town, but even if we consider Goshen, and Canaan/Falls Village as well it still seems implausible.  Remains that preserved evidence of a Corps badge colored by division, a regiment number and company letter would stand a good chance of being positively identified unless there were several candidates from the same company who came from the same place and died in the same place.

Blaikie Hines "Civil War Volunteer Sons of Connecticut" has a wealth of detail about the service and casualty figures for every Connecticut regiment and community.  The majority of the enlistments in this communities was in the :county regiment": the 2nd CT Heavy Artillery (40% of those credited to Cornwall, 34% of Canaan's soldiers, 53% from Goshen).  Yet even on their worst days of the war, such as Cold Harbor where the Heavy's took heavy casualties and remained under fire for days thereafter, the number of dead in these communities was very low.  Cornwall suffered 11 casualties on June 1st at Cold Harbor but only 1 battlefield death (another was wounded mortally).  Canaan lost just 2 at Cold Harbor and 2 at Antietam and the remainder were single fatalities.  Goshen lost 2 at Winchester.  At no time did these communities suffer multiple battlefield deaths from the same unit (or any combination of units) except at Cold Harbor where Goshen and Cornwall together lost three from the 2nd C.T.H.A.  This strongly suggests that there was not a situation where a group of men from the same communities died and became unknowns at the same place.

I also discount the likelihood that some private individual cared enough about unknowns (perhaps having lost but not recovered a loved one in the war) to pay for the transportation of the remains of an unknown to stand for them all and then bury at the edge of a private cemetery, procuring a government issue headstone somewhere along the way.

The only other explanation I can think of involves considerable conjecture.  It might have been that a Union veteran was passing through the area, alone, unknown in the community, and died here before he could leave.  This might have happened after mustering out - probably not as a deserter because he would have avoided drawing attention to himself identifiable as a soldier - or as an invalid separated from his friends.  He might have been buried "in a pauper's grave", and his original wooden marker replaced with government issue sometime thereafter.  It would have been a lonely end, and in that case someone did the decent thing and buried him with recognition of his service, if not his name.

I honestly do not know the answer.  But I find the possibilities fascinating.  Any readers willing to test my assumptions or offer other insights would be most welcome.

Postscript (November 6th, 2009): Remarkable what data may be lurking in Google books.  In a February, 1876 record of Congressional testimony regarding contracts to furnish soldier's headstones, I find that the contract for the original headstone blocks for unknown soldiers of the Civil War was awarded to one D.C. Sage, of Cornwall, Connecticut.  The unknown soldier grave marker in Cornwall Hollow was not one of Sage's blocks, but could have been a later replacement.

In Memoriam: What Henry Knox has to do with 9/11

In January, 1776, Henry Knox and his civilian teamsters  passed through Egremont, Massachusetts on their way through the Berkshires with a train of cannon and other war supplies destined for Boston.  In September, 2001, hijacked passenger airliners were deliberately crashed into the heart of New York's financial district, the Pentagon, and (after passenger intervention) a field in Pennsylvania.  As is evident from the photograph at left, these two separate events are now commemorated together in North Egremont.

The vertical marker is one of the 30 granite and bronze monuments placed in 1927 to commemorate the Knox expedition by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts during the Sesquicentennial of the American Revolution.  The route taken by Knox is poorly documented by primary sources, and in 1975 this marker was moved from its original location along Rte 23 in South Egremont to its present site in North Egremont to reflect a different theory of where Knox crossed the Taconics into the Berkshires.  The monument itself remains the property of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the small patch of open space on which it is situated is owned by the municipality.

The nearly horizontal plaque and its stone and cement base were physically integrated with the Knox memorial in 2002.  The North Egremont 9/11 memorial reads as follows:

"This monument is dedicated to the thousands of men, women and children killed by terrorist attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania on September 11th, 2001.  They died for our country and our freedom.  We shall not forget.  Dedicated on September 11, 2002 North Egremont, Massachusetts"

As a war memorial with the fresh association of 9/11, these conjoined monuments have attracted both a small American flag and someone's personal offering of a conch shell.  Visually, as a piece of public art, the Knox memorial is now the headstone, casting its shadow on the graves of 9/11.

In many ways, these memorials seem more dissimilar than alike, reflecting a great deal both about the events they commemorate and the values and attitudes of those who erected them and how we remember today.  There is something very intentional about the union of these two monuments, with one the visible extension and successor to the other.  There is a very clear message that those died in the terrorist attacks were as patriotic as those who dragged the cannons to Boston.   The North Egremont memorial was an expression of fresh grief and resolve to give meaning to terrible losses.  Whereas the Knox commemoration was an expression of state pride in the accomplishments of a favorite son and role that Boston, and the cannons brought from Ticonderoga, played in our Nation's founding. 

People in 1927 could look to recent victory in Europe - "Lafayette, we are here! -  as the coming of age of that nation which their Revolutionary ancestors helped to establish.  These monuments, which along with their counterparts in New York represent one of the earliest "heritage trails" established in America, gave a local connection to larger events.  That connection is precisely what this September 11th memorial is all about.  There is a strong cultural connection in this part of western New England to New York City which is home to many of our part-time residents. Many of us lost love ones there, or are close to others who did.

Local commemorations, however, often reflect individual sensibilities and the need to make the personal very public.  I do not know who was behind the North Egremont memorial, or the decision to physically integrate it with the Knox monument. I can contrast it with a private effort by her friends to plant a native American Elm cultivar with a stone plaque in the memory of a Salisbury, Connecticut resident who died that day.  I can also compare it to the current controversy in Kent, Connecticut over a grieving father's insistence that the wording of a public 9/11 public memorial to his son include the phrase "murdered by Moslem extremists."  The complete wording as proposed is as follows:

James Gadiel
February 3, 1978
A gentleman and a gentle man
Lifelong resident of Kent
Murdered by Moslem extremists
September 11, 2001

In recent days, what previously had divided a small town is now a conservative cause celeb thanks to national exposure.  I will note, as an aside, that "Muslim" and "Moslem" are not interchangeable, with the latter word an older transliteration that less accurately reflects the Arabic pronunciation /mʊslɪm/.  Some Muslims, I understand, find the older word offensive, analogous, perhaps, to calling Beijing "Peking". I rather doubt that changing from one self referential word to the other would address the controversy, but thought it worth considering that "Moslem" is the word proposed for the memorial.

What is written in stone is meant to be gospel.  What we cast in bronze we intend to endure beyond our span of years.  What we chose to record, and how we record it, is what we want others to remember.  Yet time and the distance from living memory can make some public monuments lose their meaning, especially when demographics change and the old surnames on the war memorials are no longer represented in the community.  Three of the Knox monuments in New York have simply vanished, and others have been moved about in response to development.  "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!".

Imbuing the Knox memorial in North Egremont (which was moved to its current site just a few decades ago)  with the meaning of 9/11 may have rescued it from obscurity, even if for the benefit of modern interpretation of the more recent event.  As an historian I find the pairing troubling, but I also know that the object is not the event, but rather an artifact of its own time.  It is therefore subject to reinterpretation by subsequent generations, revealing much about what we remember, and how we recast the past to give meaning to the present.

In Which I Lose My Head Over Hallowe'en

I never do pumpkins by halves.

Who Had Greater Need of Knox's Cannons at Boston: Washington or Howe?

It must have been a relief to General Howe when Washington's army occupied the oddly undefended Dorchester Heights, threatening the city of Boston and the shipping in the harbor with the guns from Ticonderoga.  British records show that Howe and his superiors had been advocating for the evacuation of Boston for many months in favor of more significant campaign operations elsewhere:  well before Knox's  "noble train of artillery" showed up on his doorstep, in fact.  It was not their intent to remain in Boston for the next season, as his correspondence with policy makers in London the previous Autumn clearly demonstrates. In fact, had Lord Dartmouth's September 5th, 1775 orders to General Howe  not been delayed in crossing the Atlantic, the British might well have gone into winter quarters in Halifax and been long gone from Boston, obviating the need to send Knox to Ticonderoga to dislodge them.

Needless to say, this is not the version of events that Americans remember.  We can thank the likes of Sam Adams and a long line of patriotic propagandists and historians for that.  The significance of Knox's achievement in bringing the ordinance overland is unquestioningly credited both by his contemporaries and by subsequent writers as the determining factor in forcing the British to abandon Boston.  To the degree that negotiations for withdrawal followed swiftly on the heels of the fortification of Dorchester Heights, this conclusion is, at first blush, quite reasonable.  General Howe's own account of his decision, written to his superior Lord Dartmouth (who himself had been superseded by Lord Germain in the meantime), appears to lend support to the guns of Dorchester as a causal factor compelling him either to expose the army to the greatest distress or withdraw from Boston.  One wonders, however, whether the General did not find in the guns a convenient means for justifying a move he long had contemplated.

Aside from the nightmarish logistical challenges of evacuating the city and its loyal inhabitants, Howe was heavily constrained by the length of time it took to communicate with his superiors, and above all by personal and political considerations.  One could not abandoned the city with honor, no matter how prudent or compelling were other military concerns, without having endured (and preferably tried to counter) a proper siege. Until Knox arrived with the cannon, the British may have been on short rations in their winter quarters but they were hardly threatened with reduction, nor unable to leave the harbor so long as there were ships available. The occupation and fortification of Dorchester Heights was a bold stroke, but it also was the key to unlocking the British from a cage of their own making.

Howe did what was expected of him to counter this new threat.  He ordered his artillery to fire on the American position, but apparently the guns were unable to elevate sufficiently to hit the heights.  One does wonder whether there really were no mortars in the British arsenal capable of doing the job, or whether the attempt was just for form's sake. They evidently spiked and abandoned at least one 13" mortar that had been part of a bomb battery opposing Lechmere.  Maybe it was too much to ask to shift that gun to the other side of town, but the idea that the guns wouldn't elevate is clearly a poor excuse.

Michael Pearson's "Those Damned Rebels; The American Revolution as Seen Through British Eyes" describes a British council of war in the aftermath of the aborted night attack subsequently ordered by Howe against the heights:

"Lord Percy, according to engineer Archibald Robinson, advised strongly against persisting with an attack that was likely to be expensive in casualties  and could at best only result in controlling a position they were about to abandon.

'Those have been my own sentiments from the first,' said Howe with a sigh, 'but I thought the honour of the troops was concerned.'

It seemed a pretty poor reason for a possible replay of Bunker Hill, and so it evidently appeared to the men sitting at that conference table.  For the next morning the evacuation was ordered."

Pearson concludes that "Howe's heart was not in it."  This most enigmatic of British commanders during the American War of Independence has been the source of much speculation and second-guessing, and is greatly in need of a clear eyed biography.  I am not suggesting that Howe deliberately left the back door open to Boston, offering up his post to the rebels with the sort of perfidy that Arnold intended in betraying West Point.  But the honor of their commander was as much in play as the "honour of the troops."  Until the conditions for an honorable withdrawal were met, Howe tarried, filling his correspondence with complaints that the season was too advanced, or there were not enough ships to evacuate Boston as his superiors intended and he himself wished.

In this regard, Knox's accomplishment and the overnight fortification of Dorchester Heights are both worthy of American praise and of British relief, for without them, Howe would have waited until the massive reinforcements then being assembled across the Atlantic required his assistance in taking New York - as indeed they did during the coming campaign.  In saving face, General Howe gave a boost to patriot arms that they were not to enjoy again until he had swept them from New York and across the Delaware and the Hessians settled into their briefly occupied winter quarters at Trenton.

"Henry, Get Your Guns": Whose Idea Was it to Go to Ticonderoga?

Henry Knox is best remembered as the man who dragged a "noble train of artillery" through the frozen wilderness from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, compelling the British to evacuate the City.  It is one of the great epic stories of our nation's founding, ranking for sheer audacity alongside the capture of the Hessian garrison at Trenton (in which Knox and his cannons played a significant part) and Benedict Arnold's expedition through the wilds of Maine to assault Quebec. 

There is no question that coordinating the successful transport of all that heavy ordinance in the dead of winter was quite an accomplishment, and is testimony to Knox's considerable organizational skills and unflagging spirit.  Nevertheless, whatever evidence exists in the historic record does not always accord with the way the story has come down to us, and indeed I have come to question some of our long standing assumptions about Knox's expedition and its significance.

The idea to retrieve the cannons from Fort Ticonderoga is roundly regarded as a bold and brilliant stroke. Historians routinely credit Knox with making the suggestion to Washington, but there is contradictory evidence in Washington's own correspondence that shows he had previously dispatched an aide-de-camp with instructions to forward the much needed ordinance to Boston.  That gentleman was Col. Joseph Reed, later the Governor of Pennsylvania.  In a letter of November 16th, 1775, Washington writes to the New York Legislature:

Sir: It was determined at a Conference held here in the last Month, that such Military Stores as could be spared from New York, Crown Point, Ticonderoga &c., should be sent here for the use of the Continental Army. As it was not clear to me, whether I was to send for or that they were to be sent to me, I desired Mr. Reed on his way to Philadelphia, to enquire into this matter; as I have not heard from him on the subject, and the Season advancing fast, I have thought it necessary to send Hen: Knox Esqr who will deliver you this. After he forwards what he can get at your Place, he will proceed to Genl Schuyler, on this very important business.

    I request the favor of you Sir, and the Gentlemen of your Congress, to give Mr. Knox all the assistance in your power, by so doing you will render infinite service to your Country and vastly oblige Sir, etc.

From this it is clear that Washington had determined the need for supplies from both New York and the captured northern forts some time before he sent Knox to follow up.  What he meant by "military stores" is clear from a letter drafted the same day to Maj. General Philip Schuyler; stating: " I am in very great Want of Powder, Lead, Morters, Cannon, indeed of most Sorts of military Stores.  For Want of them we really cannot carry on any spirited Operation."  In fact, as yet another letter makes clear, Washington had been looking for supplies of this sort, particularly lead, from Albany as far back as that August.

The fact is, General Washington was leaving no stone unturned in his search for military supplies, and while no one in Cambridge knew precisely what ordinance and war material was to be had from Ticonderoga and Crown Point, they certainly had not been forgotten since their capture that Spring.

Joseph Reed left Cambridge October 29th, so Washington had not been waiting very long for word about the supplies he was so impatient to secure.  Nonetheless, it does not appear that Col. Reed had been able to give it much attention as he was passing through New York, nor that the New York authorities were overly motivated to make the effort to give up what they had on hand.  Sending Knox there for the express purpose of forwarding military stores was a sound decision and, as it turns out, an excellent choice by Washington. 

Knox was still a civilian volunteer at this time - "a Gentleman of Worcester" - although he had been recommended by Washington for a Colonelcy (and his commission was waiting for him when he returned to Boston).  He had impressed Washington with his well laid siege works at Roxbury, and the Boston bookseller's considerable knowledge of artillery and engineering which he had gained largely from reading books. 

But was the idea to gain the cannon from Ticonderoga his as well, or should he instead be remembered for his execution of the plan rather than its instigation?

The answer to that may lie in Washington's allusion in his letter to the New York Legislature to a "Conference held here last month".   Washington did indeed hold a conference with his general officers on October 8th, at which time he put a number of questions to them regarding the organization and supply of the Continental Army.   Henry Knox, as a civilian volunteer, would not have been obligated to attend, nor is it clear that he would have been at liberty to do so.  A subsequent commission which met in Cambridge from Oct 18th-22nd included members of Congress and notables from several states, but not Knox. A unanimous decision of the Generals at the October 8th conference, however, was to replace the current commander of the Artillery, and on November 8th Washington would "recommend Henry Knox, Esqr, to the consideration of Congress" for that position.  Whether or not Knox ventured the idea unofficially is interesting to speculate, but Washington's correspondence makes no mention of it and it may well be an assumption of his later biographers who took it on faith that the volunteer Mr. Henry Knox "volunteered".

Washington's orders to Knox on November 16th make it clear that his great contribution to this effort would be to do for the authorities in New York what they were unable to do for themselves in forwarding ordinance, and scarce war supplies such as gun flints, to Cambridge:

INSTRUCTIONS TO HENRY KNOX Head Quarters, Cambridge,

November 16, 1775.

    You are immediately to examine into the State of the Artillery of this Army, and take an account of the Cannon, Motors, Shells, Lead and Ammunition, that are wanting. When you have done that, you are to proceed in the most expeditious Manner to New York; there apply to the President of the provisional Congress, and learn of him whether Colonel Reed did any Thing, or left any Orders respecting these Articles, and get him to procure such of them as can possibly be had there. The President, if he can, will have them immediately sent hither: If he cannot you must put them in a proper Channel for being transported to this Camp with Dispatch, before you leave New York. After you have procured as many of these Necessaries as you can there, you must go to Major General Schuyler, and get the Remainder from Ticonderoga, Crown Point, or St John's. If it should be necessary, from Quebec; if in our Hands. The Want of them is so great, that no Trouble or Expence must be spared to obtain them. I have wrote to General Schuyler, he will give every necessary assistance that they may be had and forwarded to this Place, with the utmost Dispatch. I have given you a Warrant to the Pay-Master General of the Continental Army, for a Thousand Dollars to defray the Expence attending your Journey, and procuring these Articles; an Account of which you are to keep and render upon your Return. Endeavour to procure what Flints you can.

There can be no doubt that Henry Knox possessed "an enterprising and fertile mind", as one biographer puts it who had access to the vast bulk of Knox's surviving papers.  I have yet to find first hand evidence, however, that he deserves the credit for conceiving as well as successfully executing the task of retrieving the guns, and regrettably that same biographer offers no citation for the assertion that he did.

So, as is often the case with historical inquiry, I do not know for certain whether Henry Knox had this bold and brilliant idea, but I have reason to be skeptical.  Although I lack many of the resources of those professional historians and biographers whose work precedes my impertinent question, the ability to tap online databases such as Washington's papers and even Google Books opens new lines of inquiry.  And this is not the only question I have about the Knox Expedition and its place in history.  I'll lob another little mortar shell in a subsequent post.

Locally Grown History Weekend

Lightning struck twice for me in October, as Facebook's personal marketing profile proved to be well calibrated to my interests, at least where local events are concerned.  Facebook's sidebar suggestion that I experience the new Walkway Over the Hudson sent me and my children on a grand adventure a week ago.  Then last Friday it picked up on my Revolutionary War interest and clued me in to a pair of terrific events in Torrington, not to mention a whole local history initiative in Western CT about which I had previously been unaware.  Score one for social media: it is still a long way from a decent batting average, but a nice example of what is possible.

Locally Grown History is aspparently in its second year, and an effort to showcase the extraordinary opportunities in our region to experience its history and cultural heritage and integrate these resources with what our children learn in schools, as well as what the public in general knows about our past.  Sponsored by the University of Connecticut in collaboration numerous groups and agencies, including the Upper Housatonic Valley National Heritage Corridor, it is a wonderful local resource.  It seems to be doing for our heritage of regional history the same sort of thing that the Litchfield Hills Greenprint Collaborative that I direct is striving to achieve for regional conservation by aggregating the resources and talents of local conservation groups in the service of important land protection efforts.  I would commend any effort out of hand that tackled this objective for our history, but in addition to that the organizers of last weeks events produced a high quality forum on the Revolutionary History of Connecticut that was most welcome and very well received.

It began on Friday evening at UNCONN's Torrington campus (immediately after a Civil War Sesquicentennial event at the site of John Brown's birthplace) with a screening of Mary Silliman's War.  The movie was presented by historian Richard Buel, who produced the film and was the co-author of the book The Way of Duty on which it is based.  The opportunity to see this film was very timely for me, as that very day I noted that J.L. Bell at Boston 1775 discussed the paucity of historically accurate, watchable films about the American Revolution.  I can now confidently add Mary Silliman's War to that impoverished list.

This movie was not a big budget Hollywood film - and regrettably it will set you back $75 to purchase a DVD from the distributor - but they did wonders with the resources they had.   The acting, particularly by Nancy Palk in the title role, is quite compelling.  From an historiographical perspective it belongs in the a progressive tradition, viewing the war as a socially disruptive civil conflict on a human scale, more in keeping with My Brother Sam is Dead than Johnny Tremain.  Professor Buel shared his thoughts on the compromises that are made translating a book to film and conveying complex events and ideas in visually compelling ways. In one interesting aside, he mentioned that the officer leading the reenactors who represented the royalist forces who burned Fairfield objected to one scene of sexual violence saying; "The British did not rape", demonstrating a blind spot that is not borne out by any serious study of the subject and the historic record.  I've been reading Sharon Block's Rape & Sexual Power in Early America, so I feel fairly current in this regard.

I found it particularly well done regarding the values, attitudes and expectations (changing and immutable) that the characters had of themselves and for each other.  The film displays the Silliman household, with its children, servants and slaves, in a way that does not trivialize or over exploit power relationship and the effects on the family of the loss of the patriarch.  As an aside, my ancestor Ebenezer Olmsted of Ridgefield, CT fought in Silliman's regiment From June-December, 1776, and both of them were present at the Battle of Ridgefield during Tryon's Danbury Raid the following year.

It was a terrific set up for Sunday afternoon's Revolutionary War forum.  The keynote address was by Professor Robert Gross, author of The Minutemen and their World.  He spoke of  his experience of the marvelous diorama at Minuteman National Park of the fight at Concord Bridge that prompted his book.  As he gazed at the little figures, frozen under glass, he was struck at how this depiction of a highly symbolic moment in time placed both the event itself and the people of Concord out of context.  His subsequent research revealed that militant patriotism only took hold in Concord in 1774 with the revocation of the colonial charter, and it was this event, rather than taxes and tea, that threatened the local institutions that were already fraying in Concord.

There were a number of workshops offered following this address.  I participated in two: 

• Revolutionary Archaeology in Connecticut:  Dr. Nicolas Bellantoni, Connecticut State Archaeologist

• Children and the Revolution through Literature: Prof. Christopher Collier, University of Connecticut, former Connecticut State Historian and co-author of the Newberry award-winning My Brother Sam is Dead and other historical novels for young adults.

Each presenter had a unique style - Bellantoni's clear enthusiasm for his subject and Collier's thoughtful pedagogical engagement with each of the participants - and I learned new things from each.  I will be sure to follow the Rochambeau Trail through Connecticut and revisit Collier's novels at my earliest opportunity.  As I myself am writing a novel based in the Revolutionary era - albeit a counterfactual one - I was keenly interested in Collier's thoughts on how to stay true to the values and attitudes of his characters and their time while making them empathetic and approachable to modern readers.  He very kindly provided us with a number of free copies of the teaching aid he wrote for his historical novels for young adults entitled My Brother Sam and All That and there is much there about writing historical fiction as well as using it in the classroom that I am enjoying thinking about.

The last session was a round table of the topic of Religion and the Republic: Approaching a Central Theme in Connecticut History.  In keeping with the spirit of Locally Grown History, this was a collaborative effort, expertly woven together by Professor Andrew Walsh of Trinity College.  I have come to believe that the first Great Awakening, as much as any other causal factor of the Revolution, played a pervasive and dominant role in determining loyalties within communities and the direction of social, and therefore political life.  In an increasingly secular society, where we are either too partisan, polite, or politically constrained to thoughtfully discuss the history of religion in America and its influence on the growth and development of our Republic.  This is an area of study to which I need to give more thought.

I felt the afternoon, despite the dreary wintry mix outside, was a grand success, and look forward to becoming moire involved in future  Locally Grown History events.  This collaboration is a true regional asset.

Civil War Memorial in Stanford, NY

If you have occasion to travel through the Town of Stanford, NY on County Route 82, as I did yesterday, you might notice that in company with many northern towns and villages, it has its own Civil War memorial.  The monument does not dominate the Town square, nor preside over the community from atop a noble granite column. In fact, is is unique for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that despite the verdigris of its oxidized bronze, the memorial is not of great antiquity but a far more recent creation.  It certainly was not there when I grew up within the township.

In 1996, in fact, the Stanford Historical Society erected a statue commissioned from local artist Peter Wing to commemorate all of the Town's Civil War soldiers. The sculpture is quite unusual in that it depicts an actual person rather than a homogeneous representative soldier as was the practice with such monuments erected in the decades after the war.  The bronze statue depicts one native son in particular: Maj. Cornelius Nase Campell, one-time Town Moderator of Stanford and then 1st Surgeon in the 150th N.Y.S. Volunteer Infantry ("The Dutchess County Regiment").

This three year's regiment saw service in both theaters of the war, fighting with the 12th Corps at Gettysburg and then with the Army of the Cumberland in the redesignated 20th corps.  The sculpture of Maj. Campell wears the distinctive 5 pointed star of the 20th corps as a cap badge.  The 150th fought in the Atlanta campaign and marched as part of Sherman's Army through Georgia and the Carolina's, participating in the Grand Review in Washington before heading home in June of 1865, having lost 132 to deaths during its three years in service.

Peter Wing - himself a Viet Nam veteran - was able to consult this wartime image of Maj. Campell from the collection of the U.S. Army Military History Institute when sculpting his likeness.  His name is often recorded as "Campbell", with the notable exception of the dedication plaque on the Standford monument.

Maj. Campell is an intriguing choice for the subject of a late 20th century Civil War Memorial.  I would be very curious to know what was the impetus for the modern day residents of the Town of Stanford, only a small proportion of whom are likely to be descended from those veterans they chose to commemorate, to commission and erect this monument generally to those who served and specifically to Maj. Campell.  It may have been a happy chance that there was local talent available to create the bronze statue, for most 20th century memorials tend to emphasize names on plaques rather than images of soldiers.  In that sense, this memorial is a deliberate look back at an earlier aesthetic, yet it reflects the sensibilities of our era by depicting an actual person to stand for the whole.

In fact, most modern Civil War memorials are commissioned not for hometowns but for battlefields - those that will still accept them.  The motivations for erecting them may be genealogical, as with two monuments I observed at Perryville Kentucky paid for by the descendant of a particular confederate NCO who died on the field, or cultural, such as the relatively recent monument to the Irish Brigade at the Bloody Lane in Antietam.  When such monuments appear in our time, when no one's living memory encompasses the individuals and events they commemorate, it is worth considering what motivated these remembrances even as we acknowledge those they seek to honor.  

The Stanford memorial was dedicated even before the sculpture was created.  Freedom Square Park lies below the public school on the other side of a rail fence near Rte 82, and this memorial is its principal monument.  The quotation on the plaque at the base of the pedestal is from another native son of Stanford - Talmadge Wood, who died of wounds received at Gettysburg.  Clearly the Historical Society had access to material like this that enabled the Town to personalize its memorial and make direct links between our time and second hand memory of the past.

I grew up in an isolated corner of the Town of Stanford, although I was in both a different school district and a different postal district than the rest of the Township.  I remember celebrating the Bicentennial in Stanford, though, right where the monument now stands and still have the souvenir wooden nickel from the festivities.  I wish I had still been around in the mid 1990s when this statue was commissioned and the memorial was dedicated.  Now that my curiosity has been peaked, I will have to pay a visit to the Historical Society and see what else i can learn about this role of Civil War Memory in my old hometown.