Transcripts For CSPAN3 Holly Mayer Congresss Own 20220817 :

History. Well, its such a pleasure to be able to introduce dr. Holly a mayor who is been a dear friend of mine for decades. Now. We are catching up a little bit on the terrace earlier trying to calculate the years, but its been it was back in the 1900s when we first met one another thats not amazing how that sounds now holly dr. Mayer is now a professor emerita from the mccannulty college in the graduate school of liberia arts at Duquesne University in my hometown of pittsburgh, pennsylvania where she taught for many decades she did i think two stints as chair of the History Department there after joining duquesne after receiving your phd at the college of william and mary. She also has served as the visiting heraldkay johnson chair of military history at the Us Army War College out in carlisle, pennsylvania at the Carlisle Barracks and is currently during this Academic Year at west point where shes serving as the charles bowl ewing visitor professor of history. She is also has been commissioned went through rotc and served in the us army reserves. And so she stands a long time ago, but you still stand fairly straight youre recognizable as a military person still she is the author of a whole slew of articles about this or military and history historical. Im sorry the military political social sort of intersections of history in the era of the American Revolution and the colonial era her first book belonging to the arm. Cant followers and community during the American Revolution still in print and absolutely an essential text for studying this period of time, but shes here to talk tonight about her hot off the press. I think this is maybe literally hot off the breast new book congresss own a canadian regiment the Continental Army and the American Union canada. What is canada have to do with the American Revolution, so please join me in warmly welcoming dr. Holly mayer of you and to share in this community of history and the revolution in particular and to of course examine this particular very unusual regiment or an uncommon regiment for an uncommon revolution as we could also say for it. So im starting off and i just want to point out that that is an image. It is a painting from don troni that is on the cover of my book. So i figured i might as well say kudos to him as well for helping illustrate my book as well as of course being here in many other his other illustrations and paintings in about a month that you will be able to see so well worth it. Wonderful. So with congresss own i want to talk a few things about the regiment in particular and then actually spend more time talking about Sergeant Major john h hopkins, who was the person who introduced me to this regiment through his writings in that journal that i found at the Historical Society of pennsylvania. So i wanted to take it a step further to talk about this with you and make sure im going in the right direction here. Is to pick up and talk about the congresss own regiment which actually went through about three or four different names through its lifetime. As this uncommon regiment it was first formed actually in january of 1776 authorized by the Continental Congress for moses hazen as the colonel and Lieutenant Colonel edward until as the second in command and it was commissioned as the second canadian regiment. So it brings us up to this point about why a canadian regiment and i asked students at time. Did you know that canada was involved . Well, yeah, there was an invasion the americans lost they had to retreat from quebec, you know by june of 76 theyre gone and that was the end of canada. Well, no, not really not by any means in here. But while the american invading force was up in canada, it was already starting to recruit canadians to join in this rebellion. Certainly the Continental Congress was sending out declarations to the canadians, especially the French Canadians essentially saying, join us rebel with us, you know, and you might think it goes back to the enemy of my enemy is my friend and so the French Canadians at one point had been certainly the enemies of most of the new englanders and others who had been fighting colonial wars with the french and their indian allies through a series of imperial conflicts. But at this point it was lets invite the canadians in because we truly want this to be a continental rebellion. Let us have a true Continental Congress with canadian representatives. Let us have a Continental Army which includes canadians as well as we invite others to join us in what was first of course a rebellion a defense of the rights of americans or these continental provisionals in the early part, and then after july of 76 ultimately a revolution for the independence of the country itself, so they were joining us and the first regiment or the First Canadian was by James Livingston who had already been in action up there. So he got the First Canadian and moses hazen got the second canadian. So to give you a little bit of background on moses hazen. He had actually been in rogers rangers during the seven years war. And then he had actually gotten a commission with the 44th regiment of foot, which ultimately led him to retire in the Montreal Region and right around saint john in canada itself. So i like to point this out. Is that here was an american who did get a British Commission as opposed to washington who did not and hes an actually was really really torn about which way he was going to go in this conflict. He was getting a pension from the British Government for his service during the seven years war he was right there on the borderlands if you can see it up there in canada up along saint john just south of montreal would he give up that pension would he give up those lands to join in this american rebellion, and at first he wasnt sure he was really on the fence in those borderlands which way he was going to go ultimately in the end. Of course as we know he decided to join with the americans with the priv. That he could create his own regiment and that he had command to that regiment the second canadian regiment in this case. So hazen is not the person though that i really want to talk about. I want to continue on with this regiment on few other points. Second canadian was then in the retreat from canada and at that point it had lost probably about half of its recruits on that retreat down to crown point and then fort ticonderogan ultimately into albany. Through the summer of 76 there was a true question as to whether or not these canadian regiments would continue. Canada was not choosing to join in this rebellion. So why would you have this other canadian regiment the original idea behind it was that it would be like all the other colonies that became states is it would have its own iteration of a regiment, but if its not joining the rebellion, what are we doing with this regiment . Ultimately, what happened . Is that congress by september of 76 went back to hazen and he was really pushing for this and said, yes, we will reauthorize your second canadian regiment that you can recruit among the canadian refugees that were up around albany certainly recruit those that had come with the American Forces to ticonderoga and the like but were also authorizing you to recruit among all of the states. So here is another unique factor about this second canadian regiment is that its allowed to recruit elsewhere. Well this brings up the next point how many people from elsewhere would actually want to join the canadian regiment if theyre from pennsylvania, new jersey, maryland, connecticut, rhode island, which is where theyre trying to recruit. And in the middle of that certainly by the end of 76 going into 77 we see then the advertisements going out the recruiting going out for congresss own regiment. This is not something necessarily that congress itself had authorized. It seems to have come out of the regimen itself. I think it actually probably came from Lieutenant Colonel edward until who was part of this because he was more of a thinker. I think than moses hazen was quite frankly. I i see hazen as the pugilist. He was always really rather irritating as an individual from what i can see i think his commanding officer. Saw him that certainly general knox at the end of it said that this was a man who was blessed with one of the most obstinate tempers he had ever seen. But it was the kind of temper that meant that this regiment continued in action through the rest of the war. But given this it starts going out for recruiting for congresss own so you can see whats going on here. You cant recruit for second canadian among all of them, but you can for congresss own guard here. Its got elite status. This sounds really good. This is better than just simply what the first pennsylvania really the first video. Why not congresss own and they did tremendously. Well this regiment was authorized a thousand men so much bigger than the common continental infantry regiment, but it was authorized a thousand and by this spring of 77. It was hitting close to 900 men had enlisted in this regiment now did they all stay . Absolutely not see it in the record some of these guys joined up put the caucade in their cap. Got their bounty money and headed off. So weve got that they dont all stay but it was tremendously successful recruiting under congresss own unfortunately. Regiment also didnt always get along well with others it got a rather infirmal reputation in what it was doing and congress came back and said youre not supposed to be calling it congresss own. Um, so whats it supposed to be called back to second canadian . No, thats not doing recruiting. They tended to keep going which was rather traditional by hazens name. So it was hazens regiment for much of this war, but i also noted in some of the rosters that the captains in this regiment put little cors under their rosters. Yeah. Theyre still part of congresss own regiment in here. They knew how they were being recruited and how they were doing the recruiting in it. So they were incredibly successful under that name of congresss own and continued to do that through the rest of the war. Even after 1781 when James Livingstons regiment was demobilized anybody left over from that as well as other foreign recruits and soldiers joined hazens regiment and it became known as the canadian old regiment, but let me tell you. Not the name thats in the pension accounts hazens regiment congresss own is usually what you see they they picked up on that identity. So this leads me into the other one that i want to talk about is this is how we get Sergeant Major John H Hawkins. Is that they are recruiting among all of these other camps and garrisons up in the new york area. They are sending recruiting officers down here into pennsylvania into these other states to the point where weve got soldiers from 11 of the states in the regiments. The only ones we dont have is i havent found anybody from South Carolina or georgia in this regiment, but theyve got somebody from every other state. So weve got this tremendously unique. Regiment that was called canadian was called congresss own but in some ways is a microcosm of the Continental Army itself. Is that within its companies and many of these companies were segregated by states. There were certainly at least two of the companies that were still french canadian with officers who are still talking french with their soldiers versus with all of these other recruits. So Sergeant Major John H Hawkins from what i can see had actually first enlisted in 76 in a pennsylvania unit had served through it and then in early january of 77 was up for reenlistment so many of the soldiers who had enlisted in 76 were on shortterm enlistments the army going into 77 was again trying to recruit an army at this point and john h. Hawkins reenlisted in congresss own as he reenlisted. Because he also had service time and i think also because he was so literate. He was a writer now come to that in a moment is that he was first given a corporals enlistment and then very quickly within weeks was made a sergeant of the regiment. So John H Hawkins, who is the i think he is from philadelphia. Yeah some of this where i wont say full assumptions. I am following clues. I spent probably way too much time trying to find this guy in the records not always the easiest person to find but from what i could understand first of all by reading his journal is that he kept talking about his typographical brethren. He talked about printing offices. He talked about newspapers. He was holding newspapers and books in his knapsacks. In fact when you look at that journal over there, theyve got it on the page where hes talking about what he lost when he shooked his knapsack when he was running before those british highlanders to get away at brandywine and then part of it when you look in there. Hes talking about the papers and the quills and the books and the other things that he all had in his knapsack. So weve got this point that he was affiliated with printing in some form. So when a little further in trying to do research and actually found a runaway ad for an apprentice that ran away from david sellers printing shop here in philadelphia. This was back in 58 and you just go. Is this the same guy . Its john hawkins. Its printing its pennsylvania, you know, yeah, its its its very likely unfortunately, i couldnt nail it down for sure because he didnt say in his journal anywhere that he was a runaway apprentice. I wonder why. But there was this and of course you get that little hint in this looking at hawkins in his story is that he had run away from david sellers shop. Well david seller had been the partner of Hall David Hall who had been a partner of Benjamin Franklin who was the most notorious runaway apprent . All right, so youre going oh, hes following that kind of tradition in some form or another well from what it appears. He must have come back and served out his his term as an apprentice or found Something Else because hes back here in pennsylvania and in philadelphia, but obviously not finding a job or his own independent shop and thus there he was enlisting in the Continental Army during the revolution in this thing. So we followed him in but it also makes sense about why he would be a sergeant and certainly by a Sergeant Major. This is somebody who can keep the records and he was he was writing some of the orderly books. So weve got proof of this individual but the big part was that journal now, of course, i looked at that journal and its wonderful and think about the Material Resources when you can touch this and im going and i was and youre youre hearing this and going 250 years ago he was writing in this and so from his pen and ink to my eyes to see whats going on in his world at that time. He is speaking to me through the writing and i in turn am trying to speak to you through his writing as well to to introduce you a bit to his world and what he saw in this revolution. So to take it from there again, he is there in a regiment that had probably close to 1900 men serving in it over the course of the war. So again unique and tremendously large of a unit in there. So i wanted to take it a step further from his journal in this is not and we can come back to talking about this certainly to answer your questions about the regiment itself where it served and how but what i really wanted to pick up on in here. Is that coup . Tree campaign. Thats not as you know familiar to many people looking at the revolution just like a canadian regiment is not so familiar, but one of the great things in hawkinss journal is when he talks about what he sees as he is marching through this country. Who is he talking to who are some of the people he is looking at the community that is becoming a nation and he is seeing what is similar and different as he is marching through it. So this brings me back to this point that i wanted to bring out here is im picking up on another scholars work Benedict Anderson who was talking about imagined political communities. In this and he premised that a nation is an imagined Political Community because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members. They will never meet them or even hear of them yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. That image of the communion can exist at the same time through shared experiences or over time through events like this. So we are part of that imagined community that is part of the nation and were doing it through him. So right now as we work through his words we are part of the imagine community of that developing nation. In the 1770s going through the 1780s. So were sitting here in philadelphia here in 2021. In the philadelphia that he was living in in 1776 that he marched through on the way to yorktown if you will as well. Actually he sailed through it in 1781 and the like but were part of that imagine community. Were part of an imagined community right now is were all finally getting to see each other, but then there are those of them who are over there over zoom. So i say hi to you youre part of this imagine community. Were all together to look at this particular history, but the other part that Benedict Anderson had mentioned in his is that when we form these communities he talked about