by Kenton Long
Today is the 243rd anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the first battles in our eight-year war with Britain we call the American Revolution or War for Independence.
Old North Church, Photo Aimee Seavey
The Red Coats set out from Boston, first crossing Boston Harbor (two lanterns hung in North Church indicating “by sea”), landed, then marched west. They stopped at Lexington on their way to Concord. The British were looking to capture patriot agitators Samuel Adams and John Hancock, as well as capture arms that colonists had stored in secret.
The first engagement happened at the town green of Lexington where 700 British Red Coats were confronted by 77 colonial militia. The first shot rang out (the shot “heard ‘round the world”). Seven militia were killed, no casualties among the Red Coats.
The Red Coats march on to Concord where they were again confronted by a small number of militia. Adams and Hancock eluded capture. The colonial stores of gunpowder were not found.
The British began a return march to Boston, but were soon swarmed by more than 2,000 militia come to the cause.
Thus began the American Revolution.
Great sacrifices were made by our Founding Fathers. I would like here to dispel the misperception our Founding Fathers were wealthy elites who sat out the war, growing richer and more elite for America having won it.
The eldest son of John Witherspoon of New Jersey, signer of the Declaration of Independence, was killed in the Battle of Germantown in October 1777.
Phillip Livingston of New York, signer of the Declaration of Independence, took his family and fled from home to escape the British army and never returned to the house.
George Clymer (Declaration of Independence) and his family, escaped British soldiers who ransacked their home. They fled to Philadelphia, but were found. British troops began tearing the building down and only stopped when told the house didn’t belong to Clymer.
The house of William Ellery (Declaration of Independence) of Rhode Island was burned down and his property was destroyed by British troops.
From Arthur Bernon Tourtellot, “We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes And Our Sacred Honor,” appearing in American Heritage, December 1962 (emphasis added):
Nearly all the signers [Declaration of Independence], in either a civil or a military role, became involved in the prosecution of the war. Over a fourth of them—seventeen—saw military service, and twelve of these were actively in the field during the Revolution.
. . . Thomas Heyward, Jr., Arthur Middleton, and Edward Rutledge, fought to resist the British forces besieging Charleston. All three were captured. All three were imprisoned in the steaming British garrison at Saint Augustine. . . . Finally, all three survived the war—although Thomas Heyward, Jr., had a near miss. Freed from the British prison, he was en route by ship to Philadelphia when he fell overboard and saved himself only by clinging to the rudder until his plight was discovered.
Several of the signers lost their fortunes not to enemy action but in acts of private generosity for the public good. William Paca, long an articulate leader in Maryland politics, used his own money to outfit troops for the Continental Army.
. . . Thomas Nelson, Jr., of Virginia, . . . succeeded Jefferson as governor of Virginia, he gathered a militia of three thousand men and joined Washington in besieging the British forces in Yorktown. His own mansion there was known to be occupied by British officers. Nelson asked the American officers why it had been spared, and was told that it was out of respect for the private property of the governor of Virginia. Nelson urged that the artillery be turned on his house, and he was promptly accommodated. Two pieces were aimed at the building, and the shots riddled it, dislodging the occupants.
The houses of William Ellery, Lewis Morris, and Josiah Bartlett were burned. Those of George Clymer, Lyman Hall, John Hart, William Floyd, William Hooper, Francis Hopkinson, and Arthur Middleton were destroyed or thoroughly ransacked. Altogether seventeen of the signers suffered extreme, and in some cases total, property losses.
But not one man of the fifty-six lost his “sacred honor.” Throughout the long ordeal of an often-floundering war, in a cause that at times seemed hopelessly lost, there was not among the fifty-six men a single defection—despite the reservations that some had had about independence at the beginning and despite the repeated sagging of popular support for the war.
Although Jefferson directed that his authorship of the Declaration be cited in his epitaph, most of the signers, politically sophisticated and living in the midst of eventful times, did not in their later years dwell on the historic moment when they had signed it. They did not write memoirs of the event or, for the most part, even refer to it in their letters. In doing a job that had to be done, they seemed, like Josiah Bartlett of New Hampshire, to have made up their minds to do it—and then to have taken it in their stride.
Today we are accustomed to ready availability of cash and credit, but in our Founders’ day, cash and coin were rare, particularly during and after the Revolutionary War. So, even if you owned property to sell, no one had cash to give you—leaving you stuck without money to buy necessities (try eatting a valuable painting, or library of books, or wearing a feather bed). Outside of large cities, bartering was the coin of the realm during colonial times. Wealth means nothing if there is no liquidity, i.e. cash or coin with which to trade.
From Willard Sterne Randall’s “Washington Was Broke? Why Founding Fathers Were Strapped for Cash,” at The Daily Beast, dated February 20th, 2012 (emphasis added):
Washington had lost half of his net worth in the revolution. He refused to accept any pay for his eight years as commander in chief. Paying his own expenses and feeding his staff of up to 16 hungry officers at every meal, he also shelled out for a network of some 500 spies in gold. . . . A British raid on Mount Vernon had stripped him of his livestock and many of his slaves. He could not sell two thirds of the slaves because they were Martha’s dowry and only she could sell or free them after his death.
Washington tried to sell land or rent it. He bartered for virtually everything he needed. He swapped fish caught in the Potomac for shingles, planks, nails, and rum for the field hands at harvest time. He abandoned tobacco planting and raised wheat, which he sold to neighbors to feed their slaves. With the cash he realized from wheat sales and from stud fees for mules he introduced into America because they ate less than horses, Washington paid white weavers he imported from England to turn flax he was raising into linen clothing for his workers, white and black, and to pay his taxes. He allowed his slaves to keep muskets to hunt for small game. Washington’s cash-poor lifestyle was typical of other Founding figures.
Jefferson accepted payment of debts owed him during the revolution in worthless Continental money, but, after losing the war, British merchants he owed refused to accept American currency. He never recovered financially. He even borrowed from his slave chef and body servant, James Hemings, brother of the famous Sally, when he accompanied James Madison on vacation.
Alexander Hamilton could only afford to stay briefly as a New York delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He made one six-hour speech and then went back to his 57 Maiden Lane law office to earn the money to support his seven children. On the run from the French Revolution’s guillotine, Prince Talleyrand was shocked to look through Hamilton’s office window one midnight and see the first secretary of the Treasury scrawling away, sans clerk, on his legal briefs. . . . When Hamilton died in a duel in 1804, Schuyler’s family couldn’t afford to bury him. Mourners packing St. Paul’s Chapel passed the hat for his burial expenses in the graveyard right across the street from the Wall Street he had created.
Just to be clear. If your house, business, or barn burned down in the 1700s, you lost everything and started over. Though home fire insurance was available (Benjamin Franklin was the first to introduce it in the colonies), insurance companies do not cover damages due to acts of war. You’re on your own.
For the ill-informed who spin self-soothing tales our “landed” and “wealthy” Founding Fathers fatted their pockets with the enterprise of freedom, I suggest reading a little history. Sometimes it’s better to keep one’s mouth shut and risk looking like a fool than to open one’s mouth and removal all doubt.
Compliments to the following sources:
Fossel, Peter. (2001, July 1). “The Fate of Our Founding Fathers.” American Profile. Retrieved from: https://americanprofile.com/articles/the-fate-of-our-founding-fathers/.
Mikkelson, David. (2005, June 28). “The Price They Paid.” Snopes. Retrieved from: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-price-they-paid/.
Tourellot, Arthur Bernon. (1962, December). “We Mutually Pledge To Each Other Our Lives, Our Fortunes And Our Sacred Honor.” American Heritage, 1 (14). Retrieved from: https://www.americanheritage.com/we-mutually-pledge-each-other-our-lives-our-fortunes-and-our-sacred-honor.
Randall, Willard Sterne. (2012, February 20). “Washington Was Broke? Why Founding Fathers Were Strapped for Cash.” The Daily Beast. Retrieved from: https://www.thedailybeast.com/washington-was-broke-why-founding-fathers-were-strapped-for-cash.
Prodigal Sons of Liberty: A Modern Thriller by Kenton Long
CAUTION: A page-turning, political thriller sabotaging your bedtime and leaving your sleep collateral damage!
NOW AVAILABLE in eBook, paperback, Kindle Unlimited, and Kindle Owners Lending Library at KentonLong.com and Amazon Books.
__________________________________
JOIN thousands of subscribers to Prodigal Sons of Liberty! Subscribers receive latest articles directly by email. To subscribe enter your email address above. It’s FREE, fast, and easy. I do NOT sell your email. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Share an article with family, friends, and patriots by clicking your favorite social media or email icon below each article.
THANK YOU for subscribing and sharing
Prodigal Sons of Liberty!
