3. Gin has been often wrongly identified as a British invention. The liquor was first distilled in Holland, and became popular in England only when Dutch-born William of Orange sat on the British throne in the late seventeenth century. At one point in the eighteenth century, an estimated eight thousand vendors sold cheap and often lethal doses of high-proof liquor on the streets of London. Soon, the government outlawed the gin street vendors. But through the years, gin and tonic became one of the world’s most popular cocktails. That happened because, around the world, British subjects dissolved antimalarial quinine tablets into carbonated water and then mixed this “tonic water” with gin to hide the taste.
4. General Howe and his elder brother Richard were authorized by King George to broker peace with the colonists. On September 11, 1776, the two met with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge, in what has since been labeled the Staten Island Peace Conference. The sticking point, of course, was the Declaration of Independence. General Howe demanded that the colonists rescind the document before peace talks moved forward. The colonial representatives refused.
5. The first census in the British Isles took place in 1801, with the combined population of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales numbering 15.7 million people. The population for Great Britain during the American Revolution can only be estimated, but it is believed nearly 1.0 million called London home.
6. The disease (which researchers believe was caused by a blend of hereditary porphyria and the arsenic used not only to powder his ceremonial wigs but also to treat his mental health) reached its peak in 1789, when thanksgiving services for his recovery were held at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It went into remission for many years, but never fully disappeared. More episodes of manic, incoherent behavior between 1801 and 1810 resulted in his being removed from the throne. His son, the Prince of Wales, George Augustus Frederick, succeeded him as George IV. George III spent the last ten years of his life suffering from blindness, rheumatism, and dementia.
7. George III’s robes were made by Ede and Ravenscroft, a London shop then owned by Martha and William Shudall. The shop had held the royal warrant for robe making since 1694. It is still in business, on Chancery Lane in London, currently serving as robe maker and tailor to Queen Elizabeth II, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Edinburgh.
Chapter 10
1. Thomas and Martha Jefferson had no idea she was afflicted with diabetes. In fact, it was only in the twentieth century that historians began to believe, based upon her recorded symptoms, that Mrs. Jefferson was diabetic. Children born to diabetic mothers often come into the world with low blood sugar or jaundice, or they are stillborn. The use of insulin as a successful treatment for diabetes was begun in the early 1900s. It’s worth noting, however, that some scholars believe malaria may have been the cause of Martha’s miscarriages.
2. Formed in 1619, this body was the first elected legislature in America. Originally known as the House of Burgesses, it was dubbed the House of Delegates in 1776. Its last act as the “House of Burgesses” was to vote in favor of independence.
3. Among the first known uses of the word revolution to describe political change was the Glorious Revolution in 1689, which saw England’s King James II removed from the throne.
4. Thomas Jefferson’s first and only male child will come into the world on May 28, 1777. He was never given a name, though some sources claim the boy was called either Peter, after Jefferson’s father, or Thomas. The baby boy lived just seventeen days, most likely dying of fevers associated with influenza and diarrhea.
Chapter 11
1. There is no official American flag at this point. George Washington marched into battle flying a standard of thirteen red and white stripes set against a field of blue featuring the X-shaped cross of St. Andrew. The Reprisal’s thirteen stripes are displayed against a field of yellow.
2. Capturing the two vessels was a form of piracy known as privateering. Though the British had engaged in such maritime theft since the days of Sir Francis Drake, two hundred years earlier, they expressed diplomatic outrage at the Reprisal’s success. The Reprisal, however, was not a privateer, but a Continental Navy vessel. The British were outraged by its victories because they did not recognize the legitimacy of the U.S. Congress and therefore its navy. It is not known how Wickes managed to capture the ships. A warning shot across the bow from the Reprisal’s cannon, along with the common knowledge among sailors that quick surrender was more likely to result in lenient treatment of prisoners, would have been valid reasons for the British seamen to give up. A “prize crew” would then board the captured vessels and sail them back into a French port, there to be sold. The victorious captain and his crew received percentages of the total. As for the prisoners taken, some were given the option of switching sides to sail with the Americans, while others were held in the hope of arranging a future prisoner swap with the British.
3. Other than merchants and sailors, the transatlantic journey was most frequently undertaken by the poor and hopeful, fleeing the poverty of Europe to make a new life in America. Many paid for the voyage by selling themselves and their children into years of indentured servitude. More than a few died en route, from shipboard diseases, and their bodies were immediately thrown overboard. However, death was not always a reason for not paying one’s way: if a passenger perished more than halfway across the Atlantic, his remaining relatives were still personally liable for the fare.
4. Franklin stepped ashore at the harbor of St. Goustin, which is today considered the “old part” of Auray. His arrival is still commemorated with a plaque, a local dock, and a public school named in his honor.
5. In a letter to his father seeking leniency, William Franklin describes his forty-nine-year-old wife’s fragile condition as being a chronic though unknown illness: “She is naturally of an exceeding weak constitution, and for several years past has needed my constant care and tenderness to keep her in tolerable health.”
6. Captain Wickes and the Reprisal spent the next eleven months harassing shipping around the British Isles, capturing many vessels and delivering them to ports in France. On October 1, 1777, while sailing back to America, the USS Reprisal sank in the high seas off the coast of Newfoundland. Captain Wickes and almost the entire crew drowned. Only the cook survived to tell the tale.
Chapter 12
1. Paine, who also wrote Common Sense, published The American Crisis on December 19, 1776, perhaps the darkest hour in the short history of America. It read, “These are the times that try men’s souls; the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”
2. The house belonged to William Keith, who purchased the 230-acre site in 1761. Many of his neighbors were Quakers who followed their religious principles and treated the war of rebellion with pacifist indifference, but the Scots-Irish Keith was a prominent Presbyterian and a rebel sympathizer. When he learned that the rebels were nearby, he offered the home to George Washington, who used it as his headquarters from December 14 to 24, 1776. Legend has it that one of Washington’s top spies, John Honeyman, whom the British believed to be a Loyalist, was secretly sequestered in a small stone house on the Keith property in order to pass along news of Hessian troop movements in Trenton without being seen. The house still stands.
3. Fort Washington is now the Washington Heights section of Manhattan. Fort Lee is now a riverfront town in New Jersey.
4. Although very young, Maj. James Wilkinson had already served under Nathanael Greene and Benedict Arnold. He fell out with Arnold when the commander demanded that Wilkinson shoot his horse in the midst of his retreat from Canada. Wilkin
son did as ordered but felt Arnold to be unnecessarily cruel. Wilkinson would later become infamous for acts of treason against the American government during the Louisiana Purchase. Theodore Roosevelt would later say of him, “In all our history, there is no more despicable character.”
5. The precise term for Tarleton’s rank was that of “cornet,” a junior grade that corresponded to the naval rank of ensign. It was utilized strictly by cavalry officers. The British Army abolished this term during military reforms in 1871, renaming the rank “second lieutenant.” The British and American navies still use the rank of ensign.
6. John Augustine Washington was forty years old and living on his family’s plantation, Bushfield, at the time of his brother’s letter in 1776. During the war, John Washington served on his county’s Committee of Safety, which sought to undermine any Loyalist activity. He died of unknown causes in 1787, and is buried with his wife in an unmarked grave. Their son, Bushrod, went on to become a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
7. A “stand of arms” consists of a musket, cartridge box, bayonet, and belt. However, most frequently, it was just a musket and bayonet.
8. Among those wounded is an eighteen-year-old college dropout named James Monroe. A bullet shot through his chest severed an artery. Monroe would recover and go on to become the fifth president of the United States. In the famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware, by Emanuel Leutze, Monroe is depicted as standing behind the general holding the American flag. This is historically inaccurate.
Chapter 13
1. Other than their amazing victory at Trenton, one other key reason for high morale was a ten-dollar bonus for reenlistment, which Washington paid in cash to each man on New Year’s Day. Most soldiers made just six dollars a month, so this was a large amount of money. This moment marked a change in the constitution of the Continental Army that had been under discussion by Congress for months. Americans were once opposed to the idea of a standing army, preferring small militias of citizen-soldiers and short enlistments. That changed late in 1776. The Congress began to see that only a trained fighting force would defeat the British. The standard enlistment was changed from a few months to either three years or the length of the war. Early in 1777, Congress also approved Washington’s request for greater numbers of artillery, infantry, and even cavalry, which had been in short supply on the American side until then. “A regular army and the most masterly discipline,” insisted John Adams, who had once opposed such a force. “Without these we cannot reasonably hope to be a powerful, prosperous, or a free people.”
2. Martha will save her husband’s letters for the rest of her life, though, in an effort to keep their love life private, she will one day burn all but two of them.
3. Among General Mercer’s descendants are legendary composer Johnny Mercer and World War II general George S. Patton.
Chapter 14
1. Thirty-two-year-old Sarah “Sally” Franklin Bache lives in Philadelphia with her husband, Richard, who served as the U.S. postmaster-general. She is the mother of eight children and devotes her time to assisting with the war effort by sewing clothing for the troops.
2. On the Left Bank, Passy is well within the city’s boundaries now, a short walk from the Eiffel Tower. Also on the Left Bank today, near the Square de Yorktown, is the rue Benjamin Franklin.
3. These figures are based upon an accounting of France’s official registers, published by French writer Louis-Pierre Manuel in 1792. In addition to the 6,000 spies in Paris, Manuel reported a figure of 19,300 official spies throughout all of France. Manuel, a French revolutionary who belatedly became a supporter of Louis XVI, was guillotined in Paris one year later for his loyalty to the king.
4. Franklin’s physical appearance was considered astonishing in Paris, for he seemed completely indifferent to the rigorous French code of dress, which included mandatory ruffled lace shirts, shoes with elaborate buckles, and white silk stockings. Many men and women often shaved their heads to avoid the constant threat of lice, donning wigs. Franklin’s scalp was already mostly bald, but he made no attempt to groom his few remaining strands of hair.
5. The website of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency makes note of Bancroft, saying, “What a spy he was! Bancroft was the asset that case officers and analysts today dream about.”
Chapter 15
1. A unit specially formed to harass the British with their marksmanship, Morgan’s Riflemen were led by Virginian Daniel Morgan, a backwoodsman who had also served with Washington at Braddock’s Defeat. The riflemen used the “long rifle”—also known as the Kentucky rifle or Pennsylvania rifle. Developed for hunting rather than warfare, this weapon had a barrel up to four feet long, allowing for superior range and making it possible to fire at distant targets on the battlefield without the shooter’s being exposed to enemy gunfire.
2. Henry Dearborn of the First New Hampshire is the namesake of the city of Dearborn, Michigan.
3. The nickname, coined by James Warren, paymaster-general for the Continental Army, in a letter to Samuel Adams, refers to Hannibal Barca, the Carthaginian general who effected a surprise attack on the Roman Empire by using elephants to cross the Alps in 218 BC during the Second Punic War. One of Benedict Arnold’s officers during the Quebec journey was a nineteen-year-old New Jersey native named Aaron Burr, who would later become vice president of the United States and would also kill Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
4. Gates denied that Arnold was even on the battlefield that afternoon. And even today, despite the many eyewitness accounts in favor of Arnold, there is debate as to whether he was on the front lines or was held back to coordinate troop movements. The authors of this book believe Arnold led his men into battle.
5. The Battle of Brandywine on September 11 and Paoli’s Massacre on September 20–21.
6. The “Liberty Bell” was originally cast in England in 1751. Just before the British occupation of Philadelphia, it was removed from the belfry of the Pennsylvania State House and carried by wagon to the Zion German Reformed Church, in what is now Allentown, Pennsylvania. It remained hidden beneath the church floorboards throughout the British occupation of Philadelphia. The story that the bell pealed on July 4, 1776, to announce American independence, is false. The bell was rung in 1760 to announce the coronation of King George III. The well-known crack in it occurred sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century. Although legend says the bell was taken out of Philadelphia during the fighting to prevent it from being melted down for munitions, it was more likely simply to ensure it would not be stolen. Musket balls were made of lead, not bell metal. The Liberty Bell could have been recast as a brass cannon, but the British did not produce their artillery pieces in America.
7. Arnold was also known to give his horse a bit of rum before a fight. Many American soldiers drank before battle, leading the British soldiers to denounce them as drunkards.
Chapter 16
1. Lord Howard originally commissioned the tapestries to hang in his London home, which they did from 1595 to 1616. Laced with threads of pure silver and gold, each tapestry was fourteen feet tall and twenty-eight feet wide and cost the equivalent of eighty-seven years’ wages for a normal working man. In 1616, Howard sold the tapestries to King James I. They hung in the House of Lords from 1644 to 1834, when they were destroyed by fire. Ironically, his heir, the Earl of Effingham, serving in Parliament during the Revolutionary War, was so opposed to the war in America that he resigned his army commission when his regiment received orders to go there. His denunciation of the war was so public that the Americans named a warship after him.
2. At the time, there was a King’s Closet at both St. James’s Palace, in London, and Windsor Castle in Berkshire. Both are considerably more palatial than a simple closet.
3. British newspapers reflected the nation’s growing discontent with th
e war. “We were told that the Americans were cowards,” one newspaper will remark of the king’s speech. “And now we are told they are so obstinate they will not be conquered.”
4. For more than a decade, Chatham has spoken in favor of American rebellion. The most memorable speech to Parliament was delivered on January 14, 1766, when he marveled at colonial reaction to the Stamp Act. “I rejoice that America has resisted. Three million of people so dead to all feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.” Chatham’s last speech in the House of Lords will be on April 7, 1778.
Chapter 18
1. Hamilton’s actual birth year is uncertain. He could be as much as two years younger.
2. Married women were sometimes allowed to sleep in huts with their husbands, but most often women and children were kept in separate housing. All were expected to work in order to be afforded a daily ration, with women doing laundry, sewing, and performing nursing duties. Children did sundry chores around camp, with older boys offered the opportunity to enlist once they reached the legal age of sixteen—although many joined up much earlier. There were prostitutes at Valley Forge, too. These women plied their trade discreetly—the punishment for being caught was expulsion from camp.
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