8. There is a widespread, though unsubstantiated, belief that Washington used biological warfare against the British in this same manner.
9. American troops under Gen. Benedict Arnold earned America’s first victory of the Revolutionary War by capturing the British-held Fort Ticonderoga on May 10, 1775. Twenty-five-year-old Henry Knox from Boston, a bookstore owner who had yet to receive his commission in the Continental Army, boldly suggested the idea of retrieving the captured guns from Ticonderoga and dragging them to Boston by ox-drawn sleds. Washington put Knox in charge. The nearly impossible three-hundred-mile journey through thick winter snow and ice took fifty-six days, but Knox successfully arrived in Boston on January 25, 1776—completing one of the most impressive military missions in American history.
10. Washington himself required his soldiers and officers to call him “Excellency.” The term, now frequently associated with popes and kings, was once more commonly used to signify status within an organization. The term often precedes another title, thus “His Excellency General George Washington,” signifying that Washington was separate and superior from the other generals in the Continental Army. It was a source of deep frustration to Washington that he was looked down upon by the British military leadership. Using this title was yet another way to show that he was their equal. Despite this, General Howe, in particular, refused to acknowledge Washington as anything other than a contemptuous rebel.
11. Massachusetts passed a Banishment Act in 1778, prohibiting the return of certain individuals who once lived in the colony and expressed an abiding loyalty to the king.
Chapter 4
1. The Jamestown colony was founded at the mouth of Chesapeake Bay in what is now Virginia, on May 14, 1607.
2. It is ironic that, eighty-five years after Richard Henry Lee made the case for an independent American nation, another Lee from the same bloodline, Confederate general Robert E. Lee, waged war to cut the nation in two.
3. Paine, a recent immigrant from England, published the pamphlet anonymously on January 10, 1776. He argued not only that America had a right to independence, but that continued servitude to England was illogical. Five hundred thousand copies of Common Sense were sold in America, France, and England in its first year of publication. It is still in print.
4. Jefferson used the same notebook throughout his life. It is on display at Monticello, which is now a museum. He recorded every daily observation in pencil, then transferred those notes into books pertaining to each subject (weather, garden, etc.). He then erased the notations in his notebook and reused the pages.
5. Though the Hemings lineage at Monticello is easily traced, some chose to spell their last name with two m’s. Biographers alternate the spelling, depending upon individual preference.
6. Of the hundreds of slaves Thomas Jefferson will own in his lifetime, Robert “Bob” Hemings was the first he set free, most likely sometime around 1799. After leaving Monticello, Hemings owned a livery business in Richmond, Virginia, until his death in 1819. Bob’s life as a freedman, however, was not easy. At some point, he had both his hands shot off during an attack later in life.
Chapter 5
1. Congress appointed a committee of five men to craft the Declaration of Independence: Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Robert Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston from New York. Jefferson was chosen to do the actual writing because of previous documents he had written on the subject of independence. He then ran the document past the rest of the committee for a critique. Franklin’s insight was highly regarded, but there were some who thought the author, printer, and political theorist might have tried to insert too much humor into the document if he had been the writer.
2. In 1745, Franklin wrote the essay, “Advice to a Young Man on the Choice of a Mistress,” in which he acknowledges the lustful “violent natural inclinations” living within all men. He suggests that if a man should decide to take a mistress, she should be an older woman because “there is no hazard for children” and “they are more prudent and discreet in conducting an intrigue to prevent suspicion. The commerce with them is therefore safer with regard to your reputation.” Franklin concluded that “in the dark all cats are grey, the pleasure of corporal enjoyment with an old woman is at least equal, and frequently superior, every knack being by practice capable of improvement.” Franklin took this advice to heart in his relationship with Margaret Stevenson during the fifteen years he rented a room from her in London. She was his own age, and their relationship was often considered one of husband and wife. However, Franklin often forgot his own instruction. In 1767, a good friend of his recounted walking in on a sixty-one-year-old Franklin kissing and fondling “a young lass sitting on his lap.”
3. Polly Stevenson was just eighteen when Franklin first moved into her mother’s home, and he was instantly attracted to her intelligence and curious mind. The relationship between Ben Franklin and Margaret Stevenson was romantic, but that between him and Polly Stevenson was likely never more than filial. For many years after his return to America in 1775, it consisted solely of transatlantic correspondence. In all, she and Franklin exchanged 170 letters. Polly married a British surgeon in 1770. When he died from sepsis contracted while dissecting a cadaver, Franklin encouraged her to bring her three children to America to live with him. She did so, remaining in Franklin’s home until his death.
4. Franklin spoke with representatives of the Seven Nations of Canada, the same tribes from the Saint Lawrence River Valley that had fought alongside the French in the French and Indian War. They were on their way home from a council with the Six Nations, a confederation of tribes in New York and the Great Lakes region. The purpose of that council was to discuss whether the Native Americans would stay neutral in the war between Britain and the colonies. As of Franklin’s meeting, no decision had been made on the matter. The Seven Nations of Canada later joined the fight on the side of the British. The Six Nations of the New York and Great Lakes region divided their loyalty, with tribe often fighting tribe as one side fought for the British and the other for the Americans.
5. William Franklin’s date of birth is uncertain, but historians place it between September 1730 and March 1731. In his autobiography, Benjamin Franklin said of his sexual encounters at that time: “that hard-to-be-governed passion of youth hurried me frequently into intrigues with low women that fell in my way.” Perhaps for this reason, the name of William’s mother remains unknown.
6. The thirteen colonies were broken up into three distinctions: royal colonies (New York, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia), proprietary colonies (Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware), and charter colonies (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island; Massachusetts would later become a royal colony). Royal colonies were administered by officials chosen by the king; charter colonies were self-governed, with rights and privileges granted to them through a written contract with the king; proprietary colonies were lands deeded to an individual by the king, with full governing rights.
7. The Copley Medal was the eighteenth-century equivalent of the Nobel Prize, though focused exclusively on science.
8. Manchester velvet was made of printed cotton, not the shiny and more expensive silk velvet. It is also commonly known as “corduroy.” Franklin would have worn this as a nod to the burgeoning textile industry in northern England, and also as a sign of practical fiscal conservatism.
9. Bancroft is a fascinating character. Just thirty-one in 1776, he was already an accomplished physician, chemist, adventurer, and author, writing the treatise Essay on the Natural History of Guiana in 1769. Franklin not only assisted in getting his fellow American elected to the Royal Society, the world’s leading body for scientific discourse, but he also hired Bancroft to spy on Britain’s top leaders.
10. By definition, a courtier is an individual who spends a great d
eal of time in the royal court. In its most pejorative meaning, however, it is an insult hurled at members of the royal court who seek personal advancement through fawning, flattering, and other obsequious behavior.
Chapter 6
1. The site of Hickey’s gallows is currently the corner of Chrystie and Grand Streets, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
2. A story was later widely circulated that a soldier named William Cooper testified before a secret committee of the New York Provincial Congress that Washington was having an affair with a woman named Mary Gibbons, and by doing so, put himself in danger. “General Washington was very fond [of her],” Cooper charged. “He came there very often late at night in disguise.” The accusation was a widely circulated British invention, intended to discredit Washington. In fact, no one named William Cooper testified before the secret committee.
3. Washington’s bodyguards were known by several names, among them the Life Guards (common with enlisted members), Washington’s Life Guard, the Commander-in-Chief Guard, and Washington’s Body Guard. In the general order of June 27, 1776, sentencing Hickey to death, they are referred to as the “General’s Guards.” Their official title, however, was “His Excellency’s Guard.” Whatever the name, the bodyguards’ motto was “Conquer or Die,” and the unit served Washington faithfully throughout the war. First formed in March 1776, they were disbanded in June 1783.
4. Despite his pro-British leanings, Tryon is remembered in New York City to this day. He is the namesake for Fort Tryon Park in Upper Manhattan, and for Tryon Avenue in the Bronx.
5. The Continental Navy was formed on October 13, 1775. (This date is still celebrated as the birthday of the U.S. Navy.) However, the small force was defensive in nature, and no match for British ships of war.
6. Currently the corner of Varick and Charlton Streets in Lower Manhattan.
Chapter 7
1. The four South Carolina delegates were originally ordered by the governor and his advisers to vote against independence because they hoped for reconciliation with Britain. But these instructions were rescinded as patriotic fervor grew. Thus, it was somewhat surprising that, on July 1, the South Carolinian delegation got cold feet, still believing that independence was premature and decided to vote no.
2. In an era before there was such a thing as hotels, City Tavern on Second Street was what many delegates chose as their lodgings while serving in Congress. Three stories tall, with spacious meeting and drinking areas where the members could debate politics, it was described by John Adams as “the most genteel tavern in America.” The Second Continental Congress had a standing reservation for a dinner for all delegates every Saturday night. City Tavern was leveled in 1854, then meticulously rebuilt by the National Park Service in 1975, in time for America’s bicentennial. It is still a thriving business.
3. Slavery was legal and condoned in all thirteen colonies, but by 1776 only Georgia and South Carolina still allowed the importation of slaves. Many members of Congress, including Thomas Jefferson, not just owned slaves but also sold them as a form of commerce. However, the issue of slavery was making many Americans uncomfortable. One of them was Jefferson. He blamed King George for bringing slavery to America. His original language in the Declaration concerning freedom caused considerable debate in Congress, particularly from Georgia and South Carolina. It was later modified to avoid the slavery issue. The congressional delegates deleted the following paragraph:
He [George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Although those words disappeared from the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson kept them in his private library.
4. The modern practice of bathing or showering by submersion was not widely practiced in America until the nineteenth century. For this reason, the room for conducting daily ablutions was known as a privy instead of a bathroom. In the absence of flush toilets, an individual either used a chamber pot or an outdoor privy. For the latter, it was necessary to dig a trench deep into the ground outside a building for use as a toilet, line the hole with bricks, then fit a wooden seat over the opening. “Bathing” in 1776 consisted of cleaning the face and hands with a cloth wetted in a small washbasin in one’s bedchamber. Once the act of cleansing by submersion in water eventually became a common practice, there was great debate over whether cold or hot water was better for the body. Cold-water bathing was considered a form of personal strength, while the use of warm water was seen as a sign of indulgence.
5. The story of Rodney’s ride to Philadelphia is cloaked in mystery. There is disagreement about the moment Rodney arrived, whether he rode in a carriage or on horseback, and the specific route he followed from Dover to Philadelphia. In John Adams, historian David McCullough gives the moment of Rodney’s arrival as roughly 9:00 a.m., when the doors to Congress were about to be closed so the session might begin.
6. Adams’s vision proved to be true, but not on the date the Bostonian intended. The July 2 vote for independence was a poorly kept secret in Philadelphia, with the delegates trying to keep it quiet until the final wording of the Declaration of Independence could be approved. This took place on July 4, which is why that is now considered America’s Independence Day.
7. Jefferson will not publicly take credit for writing the Declaration for more than twenty years.
Chapter 8
1. Brooklyn is located on the southern tip of Long Island, which stretches from the East River to Montauk Point, a distance of 118 miles. Long Island is also 23 miles wide at its broadest point, making it the largest island in the contiguous United States. The name “Brooklyn” was given to the locality by the Dutch who originally settled the region. It was termed “Breuckelen,” after a town in Holland. When the British took control of the area in 1687, the spelling was Anglicized. New York’s Staten Island, along with the Flatbush and Yonkers districts, also take their names from the Dutch. Manhattan was named by the Lenape tribe, who termed it “Manahatta”—or “hilly island.” The name “New York” was given to the region on September 8, 1684, after the British defeated the Dutch for its control. It was named for the Duke of York, who went on to become King James II, a widely reviled monarch who was eventually forced off the throne and died in exile.
2. The British troops, who despise the Americans, fear what will become of them should they be taken captive by the colonists. Many English believe the Americans to be cannibals. A rumor circulates throughout the British ranks that Americans are fond of slitting open a man’s body to stuff it with dry wood, then setting the wood afire as a form of torture.
3. General Howe’s official dispatches put the number of American casualties at 3,300. He estimates the British dead, wounded, and captured to be 367.
4. The Old Stone House survived the battle. From 1883 to 1891 it would serve as the clubhouse of a baseball team that would become known as the Brooklyn Dodgers.
5. Gist, who would go on to fight and to survive the war, named his two sons Independent and States.
6. Hessians came from two German region
s known as Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau. Other German auxiliaries came from Brunswick, Anspach, and other states, but the collective term Hessians has endured. These German states possessed their own professional armies. In fact, Hesse-Kassel’s major export was the Soldatenhandel (“soldier business”)—the leasing of their soldiers to other nations. The amount the British paid for using Hessians in the Revolutionary War covered the equivalent of thirteen years’ tax revenue for the Hesse-Kassel region.
7. More than three hundred men from Massachusetts died at the hands of the Hessians that day.
Chapter 9
1. Members of the House of Commons did not begin receiving a salary until 1911.
2. Hartley was a good friend of Benjamin Franklin, whom he met and socialized with during Franklin’s tenure in London.
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