2.John Adams to William Tudor, June 1, 1817, in Charles Francis Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, 10 vols. (Boston, 1850–1856), 10: 260–261.
3.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 16–25, 42–45; Allan, John Hancock, p. 40.
4.Allan, John Hancock, p. 59; Unger, John Hancock, pp. 45–50.
5.John Adams to William Tudor, June 1, 1817, in Adams, ed., Works of John Adams, 10: 259.
6.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 54–59.
7.Ibid., pp. 64–68, 110–111.
8.Hancock’s biographers differ on the extent to which the revenues from the House of Hancock depended upon smuggling. Unger, John Hancock, pp. 72–73, admits that Hancock, like nearly all New England merchants, engaged in the smuggling of molasses but argues that most of the smuggling carried out in Boston was done by smaller merchant houses, not prosperous ones like the House of Hancock. Allan, John Hancock, pp. 45–48, argues that smuggling was a more fundamental part of the Hancock enterprise. For a general account of American smuggling during the prerevolutionary period, see Lawrence Harper, The English Navigation Laws: A Seventeenth Century Experiment in Social Engineering (New York, 1939), pp. 267–270 and passim. See also Jensen, Founding of a Nation, pp. 43–50; and Robert Middlekauf, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 (New York, 1982), pp. 63–66.
9.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 118–119.
10.Middlekauf, Glorious Cause, pp. 166–169; Unger, John Hancock, pp. 19–24, 129–132.
11.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 129–132; Ferling, John Adams, pp. 58–59.
12.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 129–131; Allan, John Hancock, pp. 95–96.
13.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 121–122; Alexander, Samuel Adams, p. 74.
14.Unger, John Hancock, pp. 143–146.
15.One of the reasons for the decline in Hancock’s interest in the politics of rebellion during this period was no doubt due at least in part to the fact that he was also engaged in the ardent courtship of his future wife, Dolly Quincy, the daughter of one of the colony’s most prominent families. Unger, John Hancock, pp. 255–256; Allan, John Hancock, p. 125; Samuel Adams to Arthur Lee, Sept. 22, 1773, in Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 36–37.
16.Richard Brown, Revolutionary Politics, pp. 59–61, 66–67; Unger, John Hancock, pp. 161–163.
17.Hutchinson’s letter is in Hosmer, Life of Thomas Hutchinson (Boston, 1896), p. 224. See also Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge, MA, 1974), p. 178.
18.Bailyn, Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson, pp. 221ff; Wood, Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, pp. 141–146; Puls, Samuel Adams, pp. 133–140.
19.Reardon, Peyton Randolph, pp. 61–62; Allan, John Hancock, p. 190. See also Unger, John Hancock, pp. 205–206; Lorenzo Sears, John Hancock, The Picturesque Patriot (Boston, 1913), pp. 178–179; Alexander, Samuel Adams, p. 243.
20.Reardon, Peyton Randolph, p. 67; John Adams to James Warren, Sept. 19, 1775, in Adams Papers, 3: 160–161.
CHAPTER 14—CONGRESS ASSUMES COMMAND OF A WAR
1.Ferling, Independence, pp. 138–140. See also Ward, War of the Revolution, pp. 63–72.
2.Ferling, Independence, pp. 138–140.
3.JCC, 2: 56–57, 59–61; New York Delegates to Albany Committee of Correspondence, May 18, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 358; John Hancock to President of New York Provincial Convention, May 26, 1775, ibid., 1: 409.
4.American Archives, 4th ser., 2: 696; JCC, 2: 59–61, 74; New Hampshire Delegates to Provincial Committee of New Hampshire, May 22, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 369.
5.JCC, 2: 76–78; Marston, King and Congress, pp. 258–260.
6.JCC, 2: 79, 83–84.
7.John Adams to Moses Gill, June 10, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 20–21; Sam Adams to James Warren, June 10, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 467–468.
8.John Hancock to Massachusetts Provincial Congress, June 10, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 472–473.
9.John to Abigail Adams, June 10, 1775, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 213–214.
10.JCC, 2: 89–90.
11.Ibid., 2: 91.
12.There are numerous excellent accounts of Washington’s military career and of the circumstances surrounding his appointment as commander of the continental army. In my account, I have relied on Freeman, George Washington, 3: 418–459; Chernow, Washington, pp. 182–192; and Ellis, His Excellency, pp. 67–72. Washington’s account of the bullets whistling was in a letter to his brother Jack, May 31, 1754, GW Papers, C.S., 1: 118.
13.There has been some difference of opinion as to which uniform Washington brought with him to Philadelphia. Freeman, Washington, 3: 426, believes that it was the red and blue uniform that Washington wore during the French and Indian War. Chernow, Washington, p. 183, believes that it was the blue and buff uniform of the Fairfax County militia. The historians at Washington’s Mount Vernon side with Chernow. Benjamin Rush to Thomas Ruston, Oct. 29, 1775 in Butterfield ed., Letters of Benjamin Rush, 1: 92.
14.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 322–323. See also Ellis, His Excellency, pp. 68–69.
15.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 322–323.
16.Ibid.; JCC, 2: 91.
17.Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, June 16, 1775, Eliphalet Dyer to Joseph Trumbull, June 17, 1775, Robert Treat Paine to Artemas Ward, June 18, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 494, 499–500, 509.
18.Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, Sept. 10–11, 1774, Smith, Letters, 1: 62.
19.George Washington to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775, George Washington to Burwell Bassett, June 19, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 3–5, 12–13. Patrick Henry’s comment is quoted in Freeman, Washington, 3: 436.
20.“Address to the Continental Congress,” June 16, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 1–3.
21.JCC, 2: 93–97. John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, June 18, 1775, John Adams to James Warren, June 20, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 25–26, 34.
22.JCC, 2: 99, 103; John Adams to Joseph Warren, June 21, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 44.
23.James Duane to New York Provincial Congress, June 17, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 498–499; JCC, 2: 103; Burnett, Continental Congress, p. 82.
24.George Washington to Burwell Bassett, June 19, 1775, George Washington to John Parke Custis, June 19, 1775, George Washington to Martha Washington, June 18, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 4–6, 12–16. A copy of the will has never been found.
25.JCC, 2: 100–101.
26.Chernow, Washington, pp. 189–190.
27.George Washington to Martha Washington, June 23, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 27.
28.Chernow, Washington, p. 191.
29.John to Abigail Adams, June 23, 1775, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 226–227.
CHAPTER 15—DESPERATE EFFORTS AT RECONCILIATION AMIDST AN ESCALATING WAR
1.This brief summary of the much-written-about battle of Bunker Hill has been based on a composite of sources, including: Ward, War of the Revolution, pp. 73–98; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, pp. 48–60; Middlekauf, Glorious Cause, pp. 281–292.
2.See for example, George Washington to the Continental Congress, June 25, 1775, George Washington to John Hancock, June 25, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 32–35. Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, July 4, 1775, Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 184–185.
3.Sam Adams to Elizabeth Adams, June 28, 1775, Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 220–221. Sam Adams to James Warren, June 28, 1775, in Smith, Letters, 1: 553; John Adams to James Warren, June 27, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 49–50.
4.JCC, 2: 105.
5.JCC, 2: 107–108; For an extensive discussion of the various drafts of the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity for Taking Up Arms, see Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 187–192.
6.Carl Van Doren, Benjamin Franklin (New York, 1938), p. 522. See also Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, pp. 286–289.
7.Silas Deane to Elizabeth Deane, July 1, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 567; John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 23, 1775, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 252–253.
8.John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 23, 1775, Adams Family Correspondence, 1: 252–253.
9.The “Vindication” is pri
nted in Smith, Letters, 1: 561–566, which includes an informative discussion of the provenance of the document.
10.Jack P. Greene, Quest for Power: The Lower Houses of Assembly in the Southern Royal Colonies, 1689–1776 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1963), pp. 467–474, esp. p. 470. Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 101–109.
11.The life history, and even the lineage, of Jane Randolph, Jefferson’s mother, is surprisingly sketchy. The best, but still fragmented, account of her life is on the website of Jefferson’s home, Monticello: http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/jane-randolph-jefferson.For Jefferson’s early life, see Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 3–48.
12.Ibid., pp. 62–87, esp. p. 73.
13.Ibid., pp. 181–190; Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 121–137. Jefferson’s Summary View had attracted enough attention that Samuel Ward of Rhode Island, when he saw that Jefferson had taken his seat in the Congress, referred to him as “the famous Mr. Jefferson.” Samuel Ward to Henry Ward, June 22, 1775, Smith, Letters, 1: 535.
14.Joseph Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1997), pp. 24–25, writes that Jefferson traveled to Philadelphia with three slaves—Jesse, Jupiter and Richard. Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 202–203, citing Jefferson’s account book, simply says “at least two servants, Jesse, who rode postilion, and Richard, apparently a body servant.”
15.JCC, 2: 128–157.
16.Ibid.; Livingston’s comment is quoted in Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, p. 205. The most complete account of the evolution of Jefferson’s two drafts, Dickinson’s revision, and the eventual outcome of the debate, can be found in Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 187–219. See also, Jacobson, John Dickinson, pp. 95–98.
17.Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 188–189n.
18.Ibid., 1: 217; JCC, 2: 128–157.
19.JCC, 2: 127; John Adams to James Warren, July 6, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 62; Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 190n.
20.John Adams to James Warren, July 10, July 11, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 70–72.
21.JCC, 2: 127.
22.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 318.
23.John Adams to James Warren, July 6, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 62.
24.JCC, 2: 127, 158–162; Paul Leicester Ford, The Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, 1743–1790 (New York, 1914), p. 19.
25.John Adams to James Warren, July 24, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 89.
26.Adams Papers, 3: 90–93n; George W. Corner, The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush: His “Travels Through Life” Together with his Commonplace Book for 1789–1813 (Princeton, NJ, 1948), p. 142.
27.JCC, 2: 195–199.
28.Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, pp. 299–300; Burnett, Continental Congress, p. 90. Smith, Letters, 1: 643–644n, has a useful discussion of the provenance of Franklin’s proposal, of which there were apparently several copies. See also Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, pp. 299–300; and Burnett, Continental Congress, p. 90.
29.Smith, Letters, 1: 643–644n; see also Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 179–182.
30.JCC, 2: 202; Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, pp. 198–201; Boyd, Jefferson Papers, 1: 223–230.
31.JCC, 2: 224–234.
32.Eliphalet Dyer to Joseph Trumbull, July 28, 1775, in Smith, Letters, 1: 674.
CHAPTER 16—MANAGING A WAR WHILE SEEKING PEACE
1.Richard Smith Diary, Sept. 12, 1775, Smith, Letters, 2: 5; JCC, 2: 240–247.
2.Adams, Diary, Sept. 15, 1775, 2: 172–173.
3.“List of Delegates,” Smith, Letters, 2: xvi–xxii.
4.John Adams to James Warren, Sept. 17, 1775, Adams Papers, 3: 158–159; Sam Adams to Elbridge Gerry, Sept. 26, 1775, in Cushing, ed., Writings of Samuel Adams, 3: 226. I am grateful to John Ferling, Independence, p. 182, for revealing this anecdote.
5.Quoted in Marston, King and Congress, p. 158.
6.For just a few examples of General Washington’s constant complaints about army disciplines, see General Orders, July 4, July 7, July 11, July 16, July 24, July 26, Aug. 1, Aug. 4, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 54–55, 71–74, 106, 122, 163–164, 172, 207, 218–219.
7.George Washington to Lund Washington, Aug. 20, 1775, George Washington to John Hancock, Feb. 9, 1776, GW Papers, R.S., 1: 334–337, 3: 275. See also Marston, King and Congress, pp. 152–153.
8.Marston, King and Congress, p. 157.
9.For a thorough analysis of the committee system—and its various weaknesses—in the Congress, see Jillson and Wilson, Congressional Dynamics, pp. 91–131.
10.JCC, 2: 254, 255.
11.JCC, 3: 265, 266, 270–271.
12.John Adams to James Warren, Oct. 1, 1775, Adams Papers, 2: 177; Sam Adams to James Warren, Oct. 3, 1775, Smith, Letters, 2: 101–102.
13.Thomas Lynch to Washington, Nov. 13, 1775, Smith, Letters, 2: 337–338. See also Chernow, Washington, p. 208; and Freeman, Washington, 3: 554–556.
14.Ellis, His Excellency, pp. 77–78.
15.The shelling by the British of the Port of Falmouth, Maine, lent greater urgency to this matter. For a general history of the creation of the American navy, see George Daughan, If by Sea: The Forging of the American Navy from the American Revolution to the War of 1812 (New York, 2008).
16.Burnett, Continental Congress, pp. 119–120; “Notes of Debates,” Oct 5, 1775, Adams, Diary, 2: 192–194; James Duane, “Notes of Debates,” Oct. 5, 1775, Smith, Letters, 2: 113–114.
17.JCC, 3: 293–294; Burnett, Continental Congress, pp. 119–120.
18.JCC, 3: 378–389, 425–427.
CHAPTER 17—WAITING FOR KING GEORGE III
1.This account of George III’s background, and much that follows, is drawn from Jeremy Black, George III: America’s Last King (New Haven, CT, 2006), pp. 6–10.
2.Ibid., pp. 11–21, 43–70.
3.Lord Sandwich’s remarks are quoted in McCullough, 1776, p. 6, from American Archives, 4th ser., 1: 1681–1682.
4.Quoted in Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, p. 254.
5.Ibid., p. 255.
6.Ibid., 255–258; Ferling, Independence, p. 173.
7.Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, p. 258.
8.Ibid., pp. 62–63.
9.The full text of the King’s speech is in David C. Douglas et al., eds., English Historical Documents, 12 vols. (London, 1956– ), 9: 850–852.
10.Ibid.; Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 268–270.
11.Thomas, Tea Party to Independence, pp. 270–271.
12.Samuel Ward to Henry Ward, Nov. 11, 1775, in Smith, Letters, 2: 330–331; Francis Lightfoot Lee to Richard Henry Lee, January 8?, 1776, in ibid., 3: 58.
CHAPTER 18—SMALL STEPS TOWARD INDEPENDENCE
1.Reardon, Peyton Randolph, pp. 68–69; JCC, 3: 302–303.
2.Breen, American Insurgents, pp. 294–299, has an excellent account of this. See also Captain Cochran to Governor Wentworth, Dec. 14, 1775, in American Archives, 4th ser., 1: 1041–1042.
3.Breen, American Insurgents, pp. 297–298.
4.Marston, King and Congress, pp. 260–261.
5.Ibid., pp. 262–265; New Hampshire Delegates to Matthew Thornton, Nov. 3, 1775, Smith, Letters, 2: 293; Adams, Autobiography, 3: 355; JCC, 3: 307.
6.Marston, King and Congress, pp. 265–267. For a full account of the “Regulator” movement in the backcountry of South Carolina, see Richard Maxwell Brown, The South Carolina Regulators (Cambridge, MA, 1973); and Rachel Klein, Unification of a Slave State: The Rise of the Planter Class in the South Carolina Backcountry, 1760–1808 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1990), pp. 47–108. For colonial South Carolina politics more generally, see Robert Weir, Colonial South Carolina: A History (Columbia, SC, 1997) pp. 291–328; and Eugene Sirmans, Colonial South Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC, 1966), pp. 315–357.
7.Marston, King and Congress, pp. 269–271; JCC, 3: 326–327.
8.Adams, Autobiography, 3: 357.
9.Ibid., 3: 357, 358.
10.For an excellent analysis of New Jersey’s, and in particular William Franklin’s, attempt to negotiate separately with the British, see Smith, Letters, 2: 445–446n.
11.JCC, 3: 304.
12.Samuel Ward to Deborah Ward, Nov. 1, 1775, in Smith, Letters, 2: 283–286. Although Ward’s long letter to his wife is dated November 1, it may be that he wrote the section describing the king’s response to the petition a day or two later, for that section was apparently added later, as a postscript. See also Samuel Ward to Henry Ward, Nov. 2, 1775, in ibid., 2: 290–292; Sam Adams to James Warren, Nov. 4, 1775, ibid., 2: 297–301.
13.JCC, 3: 342–343.
14.At least one delegate, Georgia’s John Zubly, may have faced punitive action under the provisions of the new rule of secrecy. On November 10, Zubly left the Congress and returned to Georgia, for reasons, according to some historians, involving a letter that he wrote to Georgia’s royal governor James Wright revealing details of the Congress’s deliberations. Smith, Letters, 2: 328–329n, notes that the supposed letter to the governor has not survived, so there is no direct evidence proving this contention. Nevertheless, there is some evidence that Zubly left under a cloud.
15.Flower, John Dickinson, p. 142.
16.“A Proclamation from the Royal Chief Magistracy, May 6, 1775,” in Scribner and Tarter, eds., Revolutionary Virginia, 3: 100–101.
17.Ibid., 4: 334.
18.Ibid., 4: 435–436.
19.Michael McDonnell, The Politics of War: Race, Class and Conflict in Revolutionary Virginia (Chapel Hill, NC, 2007), pp. 161–162.
20.Ibid., pp. 139–144, 156–157, 179–180. While acknowledging that Dunmore’s proclamation offering freedom to the slaves was alarming to most white residents of Virginia, McDonnell also stresses the important class divisions among free whites and indentured servants within Virginia at the time.
21.George Washington to John Hancock, Dec. 31, 1775, GW Papers, R.S., 2: 623; Chernow, Washington, pp. 212–213; Ellis, His Excellency, p. 84.
22.JCC, 3: 403–404.
23.Ibid., 3: 357.
CHAPTER 19—THE YEAR 1776 DAWNS
1.McDonnell, Politics of War, pp. 166ff.
2.The literature on the military campaigns of the American Revolution is of course vast. I have relied on the following for this account of the campaigns. In Montreal and Quebec: Christopher Ward, The War of the Revolution, 2 vols. (New York, 1952), 1: 135–201; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, pp. 80–99; and Middlekauf, Glorious Cause, pp. 304–308.
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