A panel of historians looks at various aspects of the revolutionary warera military. Topics include George Washingtons and how historians use a soldiers personal memoirs or journals. By the society for historians of the early american republic. I want to welcome you. Have for very young historians today, so i feel a generation or two beyond. I will introduce them in a moment. Before i do, a word or two on why we are actually here. All of our historians are specialists on the American Revolution with a particular interest in its military aspects. As you learn from listening to them, their approaches for the for independence very considerably. There is no microphone here. We will hear remarks about gender, personal narratives, the influence of revolutionary statery service and formation. It, i think our panelists are going to illustrate the Central Point of all military history and that is the field encompasses virtually all perspectives historians can bring to bear. Military organizations, by their interact with, reflect, and influence the eras from which american and the revolution was no different. What we will see today or what we will here today is how much new scholarship and new directions can teach us about the war that has gripped historians for two and a half centuries. This is the socalled new military history, a point to which i will return later, as applied to the struggle and dependents. So, now we meet our panelists. We will take the order we will. Ear from them they will take 5, 10 minutes to talk about the nature of the work and then we will open the floor for discussion, which i will try to keep rolling. First, dr. Lindsay trayvon ski ravinsky. She is white house historian at the White House Historical association. Her focus is military service during the revolution as a precursor to senior Political Leadership in the new republic. er new book, the cabinet George Washington and the creation of an american is due out next year from Harvard University press and we certainly look forward to that. Duval got her phd from American University and is currently an assistant professor ofhistory at the university oklahoma. Her interest in gender roles during the war for independence has led to a forthcoming volume experienceehold under British Occupation in charleston, south carolina. The book will be one of the first truly detailed look set domestic institutions while under military occupation. Richard angle is a doctoral candidate at Lehigh University and currently teaches at the university of pennsylvania. She is looking at the history of this is central to her dissertation, americas first band of brothers ship and come robbery during friendship and camaraderie during the American Revolution. Ar next speaker has had number of teaching and fellowships throughout his career. His forthcoming work looks at the economic aspects of the revolution and is now the assistant editor of the papers of George Washington. Hes a little different from the rest of the editorial team. They are posted at uva. Dan is not. He has an office at the fred w. National library for the study of George Washington at mount vernon. This point and look. Aose of you who have had chance to review the program, there was going to be a fifth panelists for those of you herrera ricardo rick does she could not make it. He may have gotten caught in one of the storms. He will be missed. Hes a particularly fine scholar. I say that because he gave me a dustst gasket quote jacket quote a few years ago. I will give each of the panelists five or 10 minutes to talk about their work and how it relates to our panel theme new directions in military history. I will pose a number of questions. I have four ready to go and i suppose others will pop up as we go along. As we go along, you should feel and askraise a hand questions of your own. Please wait for the microphone. The microphone will be on a boom will bringthe crew it over so you can get your start him on cspan. All rights. We will start for my left, go down the table. And we will start with lindsay. The floor is yours. I will sit down for a moment. You so much. Thank you everyone for being here. I know that there is stiff competition. I know i speak for everyone when i say that we are grateful you are here and i hope you will participate in a robust conversation. I think that is what makes roundtables fun. I hope you agree. I like to jump right to the end of the revolutionary war. A generation of soldiers and officers went home and very few of them stayed there for long. They held their positions in state governments. They held decisions in the confederation congress. They worked for reforms. For additional whatehensive reforms when they were trying for at the state level was not sufficient. Looking at the numbers it is particularly illustrative of the participation of the army in these efforts. For example, the annapolis sent out a newch invitation for another conviction convention, seven of 10 delegates had served in the military. Similar number of delegates at the Constitutional Convention in philadelphia. All 55 delegates that gathered, 29 of them had served in the military. Rallied for had their state conventions as well. We will again see a similar level of numerical service that i think is really helpful as we are talking about these abstract themes. The First Federal congress, 29 individuals served in the senate , and 15 of those 29 had been in the military. In the house of the 52 ad military, service. In the cabinet, which tends to be focus, the secretary of war, the attorney general had all three of the four first secretaries had been in the army of washington. Wereue that these officers informed and motivated by a unique form of nationalism that was forged during the battle of the revolution. Singleeferred a powerful executive and they supported a Standing Army which differed from other federalists who supported concentrated power, but distrusted the army for its tradition in the british way of tradition. Many have looked at the nationalism that emerged in the 1780s, but few people have considered how that military Service Affected people once they got into office. Produced a silo weighing that ends up being revolution, new republic. And and if we want to understand how peoples motivations and ideology shape her behavior while in office, we have to look at where their formative experience takes place. I bring these examples into the cabinet. I look at how the councils of war are very importance as they institution. Ew and i look forward to exploring how the councils of war may have affected state governments in congress and other bodies beyond the and i would encourage others to do so as well, to take that military perspective. Though our military seems to be a completely civilian one, i would argue military culture was really formative in the early years of the early republic and so, i am very much looking forward to our conversation. Thank you for being here. I will welcome your questions once we are all done. Dr. Duval. History has really pushed us for a more expansive definition of what is worth it, right . Underk looks at cities occupation, under british rule. It has actually been overlooked in military histories. Armies really disrupted urban environments and routines. Civilian inhabitants they really taxed the resources of these cities. Streets. Crowded the cities, encamped in the in confiscated churches. Soldiers were a constant presence and female civilians faced new and immediate dangers. There had been threatened victims of robbery and plunder. Wood wasmade of capable of being torn down for kindling. Occupation really brought the war into the homes of american civilians and it presented more broadly a challenge in revolutionary america that men would rule over their households. I really analyzed the household side of comfort, not only between soldiers and civilians, but various genders and i argue that occupation is really crucial for understanding the civilian wartime experience. It reveals how the household was the center of emotional ties and power relations. And as we take more seriously the disorder that occupation rot on american households, there is a new historic understanding of what was it stake in this conflict. Theres not really a vibrant scholarship on other wars. But it remains pretty underexplored for the American Revolution. Returning to the occupation of the American Revolution, theres a new understanding. By this, i mean not only womens experiences, but also the relation of power for people both free and in slaves. Short, it happens to families. It happens to men and women and exploring the revolution through reallysehold can illuminate these gender dynamics. It can show us philadelphia where a man worries about his wifes decision to quarter british soldiers in their house, even though elizabeth had the situation well in hand. It sheds light on experiences of men in charleston. Who createorganizers a ball for charleston officers. And it is how they take advantage of a distracted household to better their station in life. They were sent off with kitchen tongs and other kitchen implements. Civilians encountered British Forces in their homes and experienced war through the lens domestic concerns. War permeated society and a fundamentally altered the way that men and women coexisted in their households. So i gendered approach to history and revolution really shifts the perspective on this conflict, particularly between civilians and the military. We have to consider the other places that war takes place. Focus more fully on civilians and what their place is in the history of the war of the American Revolution. It has these gender dynamics and how they intersect other reallyctions of power highlight these dynamics and vital and essential ways that we can reshape consequences. Engle. El great. Thank you, lindsay, for organizing this. Thank you to everyone for coming. John adams sent a letter to the editor of the weekly register. Anthe letter, adams provided answer to the fundamental question that we, as scholars, and will likely debate in a few minutes. What do we mean by the American Revolution . He said the revolution was affected before the war commenced. Moreover he compellingly argued the revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people, which he believed was illustrated through a change in their religious sentiments, their duties, and their obligations. Above all, adams thought this radical change in opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real revolution. Seemingly adams seemingly prophetic statement was a change in emotion. Has recently attracted the attention of scholars. After compelling work by many all of to get understanding of the way emotions have persuaded individuals to make decisions during the war. Practitioners of the history of emotions find much material to work with them especially for ofiod the period of the revolutionary war. Historians can develop fresh interpretations of enduring questions as well as reveal individual perspectives, masked documentarytional evidence. In other words, focusing on , we can enrich our understanding of the legacy of the American Revolution and how individuals responded to the transformations of this time. In my view, applying the is proof of the lived experience. Many members of the army First Experience together how to interact with a group of diverse individuals. Distinctive,this but in a predominately homosexuals days, the eggs. Some poor celebrated emotions such as fear, friendship, and competition. As i argue in my research, it removes from individuals the opportunity and the necessity to create relationships. They created patterns and rituals that simplifies what it part of the army. With the research on friendship and men, not only drove revolutionary rhetoric, but was critical to defining revolutionary relationships. It offers a starting point to understand how participants on the ground of revolutionary movements throughout the became entangled in the process of social hierarchies. I believe that scholars often overlook how the environment served as an important nexus in the process of implementing change. Overall, examining the american a promisingers opportunity to unlock the key of a fundamental para lockstep. Esist in the age of revolution how social revolutions were created and justified throughout war. Today, i look for to our discussion. We are in the midst of something great in military history, that embraces innovation and creativity. Thank you. Thank you, ms. Engl. Mark. Nk you, goes back to my time editing washingtons papers turned the revolutionary war. Youre really are with Washington Post vias papers as a resource, in many cases we are looking for very extensive detail that we can find to illuminate the content you find in a documentary edition to brings of the day together the bigger picture, the larger life. Excuse me. The documentary record on which we all depend. Part of this, a source we have relied on for many years is the journals of individual soldiers, officers. Sometimes its the journal of , in the coursees of their service on a daily basis. Broadera little bit lives of these people. One resource everyone is aware of is travel diaries. , i get this descriptive level description of things that perhaps do not generally come out in the written records of in this case, the 18th century. Some of these diaries, some of these journals, they are very first terms of when they any of these journals werens transcribed and published 100 years ago or more. It seems like in some ways they have been forgotten to a certain extent among the sources available to historians for the they are do or ,ccasionally referenced briefly based on a reference noticed in another second dori secondary source that is relevant to the larger topic that you as a historian are working on. That is not a knock. You can use other peoples work to track down sources. I am making a plea for looking at these sources as whole narratives and the perspectives of the individuals involved. Rachel just reference the work knott. H in thes a lot there intimacy of the information involved, a person positive thoughts, the things they were thinking about in a careful way. Sometimes they are base reactions to the people and events they encountered, which can be uncomfortable to the 21st century reader, uncomfortable or amusing. The things that people talk about in these travel narratives are of course incredibly relevant to us in the work that historians do in terms of race and class and gender and a lot theopics that have become foundation of scholarship of the euro over the last few decades in between the time that these accounts were originally published. I think there is a value to be had in looking back at these which mayurces, sometimes not seem particularly of aant, the diary european aristocrat who served in a battle in the American Revolution seems particularly focus perhaps in his description war,litary aspects of the of battlefield history, but in fact these people tended to be interested in much bigger or ,uch more general questions events, things at the time. The development of ideas about what the revolution was about, about what revolutionary what was the purpose of the fight they were undertaking, what it meant to be an aristocrat fighting for the cause of liberty during the course of the war, what it meant to interact with the civilian , what was your responsibility to protect people who were not perhaps your own people in the sense of if you germanfrench soldier or soldier serving in america. Your allies with the americans, but perhaps historically you have been an enemy of these people but now you are seeing the many different context for the first time in some ways as allies and as people youre supposed to protect and you are responsible for. Sense getting a sense as you look at the broader history of the revolutionary era what it meant for these people the revolution and the people involved and the idea that they were presumably ,ighting for and to take those to take those ideas and those values back with them where they came from and make them part of the broader age of revolutions, as historians have come to think of it over the past couple of decades. Is seems very relevant to what lauren and rachel and lindsay have talked about. I do not know, as an open disk as an open discussion question, how we bring those whole narratives back into the historical record in a useful context thates the they provide as historical texts on their own, but also brings in scholarship that has been published over the last several decades and the new many volumes of new information, new evidence we have uncovered as historians over the years. I think making an effort to do that is a valuable potential new direction for revolutionary history to go in. Thank you. This will begin our q a session. As moderator, i get first crack. The questions i will ask are going to be very general. It is difficult to hone in specifically because the perspectives represented in our panel are so different. Lets see if we cant get them to respond to a couple of very general questions. You should feel free to get in on this. The first thing i will notice is that all of the presentations we have just heard deal with military history from perspectives that, frankly, are fairly far from the battlefield. And lookingime ago at the socalled new military that historian Dennis Showalter noticed he battlefield was disappearing from the narrative. He remarked that military historians who ignore the ,ighting, the actual combat might be considered analogous to historians of science who ignore the laws of newton or political historians who ignore the the actual conduct of the elections. I will ask our panelists to comment on how their particular work intersects with what went on on the battlefield itself. If im going to mirrors our panelists, i guess i pick at random embarrass our panelists, i guess i pick at random. Go ahead, lauren. Absolutely battles are important. Work, it is important context to understand the experiences that troops are bringing to these when they interact with civilians, what is happening in the broader war and the strategy that is playing outc