US History - Revolutionary War

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by mithrand1r
I am sure you are refering to I-195 (Which crosses the State of NJ from Trenton (in the West) to Exit 98 of the Garden State Parkway (in the East) instead of I-95 (I will not bother with where I-95 traverses the state since it is a bit complicated).

I make the same mistake all the time saying I-195 instead of I-95.

yeah - 195 - not 95.

Radagast - as Valandil pointed out - he was general - but he was in charge of the armies. I had never heard of field marshall being used in terms of any American Army not even during the Revolution. We had General Washinton, General Lee, General Benedict Arnold and several others. But Washington was the commander of the Revolutionary armies and over all the other generals (but he was not a five star).

Here is the thing about the painting of "Washington Crossing the Delaware" as it is explained in "Washington Crossing" the book.

...The painting is familiar to us in a general way, but when we look again its details take us by surprise. Washington's small boat is crowded with thirteen men. Their dress tells us that they are soldiers from many parts of America...One man wears the short tarpaulin jacket of a New England seaman; we look again and discover he is of African descent. Another is a recent Scottish immigrant, still wearing his Balmoral bonnet. A third is an androgynous figure in a loose red shirt, maybe a woman in man's clothing, pulling at an oar.

At the bow and stern of the boat are hard-faced western riflemen in hunting shirts and deerskin leggings. Huddled between the thwarts are farmers from Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in blanket coats and broad-brimmed hats. One carries a countryman's double barreled shotgun. The other looks very ill, and his head is swathed in a bandage. A soldier beside them is in full uniform, a rarity in this army; he wears the blue coats and red facings of Haslet's Delaware Regiment. Another figure wears a boat cloack and an oiled hat that a prosperous Baltimore merchant might have used on a West Indian voyage; his sleeve reveals the facings of Smallwood's silkstocking Maryland Regiment. Hidden behind them is a mysterious thirteenth man. Only his weapon is visible; one wonders who might have been.

The dominant figures in the painting are two gentlemen of Virginia who stand tall above the rest. One of them is Lieutenant James Monroe, holding a big American flag upright against the storm. The other is Washington in his Continental uniform of buff and blue. He holds a brass telescope and wears a heavy saber, symbolic of a statesman's vision and a soldier's strength. The artist invites us to see each of the soldiers as an individual, but he also reminds us that they are in the same boat, working desperately together against the wind and current. He has given them a common sense of mission, and in the stormy sky above he painted a bright prophetic star, shining through a veil of cloud.

...Washington Crossing the Delaware, painted by Emanuel Leutze in 1850...hangs today in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Visitors...are startled by it's size, twelve feet high and twenty feet wide.

The artist was a German American immigrant of strong liberal democratic principals, who returned to his native land and strongly supported the Revolutiions of 1848. In the midst of that struggle Emanuel Leutze conceived the idea of a painting that would encourage Europe with the example of the American Revolution.

In 1848 and 1849, Leutze began to work on the great canvas. An early study survives...It is painted in strong primary colors, bright with hope and triumph. After he started, the European revolutions failed, but the artist kept working on his project in a different mood. The colors turned somber, and the painting came to center more on a struggle than triumph. Leutze recruited American tourists and art students in Europe to serve as models and assistants. Together they finished the painting in 1850.

Just after it was completed, a fire broke out in the artist's studio, and the canvas was damaged in a curious way. The effect of smoke and flame was to mask the central figures of Washington and Monroe in a white haze, while the other men in the boat remained sharp and clear. The ruined painting became the property of an insurance company, which put it on public display. Even in it's damaged state it won a gold medal in Berlin and was much celebrated in Europe. It became part of the permanent collection of the Bremen Art Museum. There it stayed until September 5, 1942 when it was destroyed in a bombing raid by the British Royal Air Force, in what some have seen as a final act of retribution for the American Revolution.

Emanuel Leutze painted another full-sized copy, and sent it to America in 1851, where it caused a sensation.

...American iconclasts made the painting a favorite target. Post-modernists studied it with a skeptical eye and asked, "Is that the way that American history happened? Is it a way that history ever happens? Are any people capable of acting in such a heroic manner?"...On National Public Radio in 2002, commentator Ina Jaffe argued at length that Emanuel Leutze's painting bore little resemblance to "histrorical reality," and she recited a long list of its "historical flaws."...

The debunkers were right right about some of the details in the painting, but they were wrong about others, and theyy rarely asked about the accuracy of its major themes. To do so is to discover that the larger ideas in Emanuel Leutze's art are true to the history that inspired it. The artist was right in creating an atmosphere of high drama around the events. To search the writings of the men and women who were there (hundreds of first hand accounts survive) is to find that they believed the American cause was very near collapse on Christmas nigth 1776. In five months of heavy fighting after the Declaration of Independence, George Washington's army had suffered many disastrous defeats and gained no major victories. It had lost 90 percent of its strength. The small remnant who crossed the Delaware River were near the end of their resources, and they believed that another defeat could destroy the Cause, as they called it. The artist captured very accurately their sense of urgency, in what was truly a pivotal moment for American History....

...He [Emanuel Leutze] represented something os its nature in his image of George Washington and the men who soldiered with him. The more we learn about Washington, the greater his contribution becomes, in developing a new idea of leadership during the American Revolution. Emanuel Leutze brings it out iin a tension between Washington and the other men in the boat. We see them in their diversity and their stubborn autonomy. These men lived the rights they were defending, often to the fury of their commander-in-chief. The painting gives us some sense of the complex relations that they had with one another; and also with their leader. To study them with their general is to understand what George Washington meant when he wrote, "A people unused to restraint must be led; they will not be drove." All of these things were beginning to happen on Chirstmas night in 1776, when George Washington crossed the Delaware. Thereby hangs a tale.

[Count Comfect]

Washington was, I believe, a 3 star general (Lt. Gen), but every time they invent a new rank they posthumously give him a new star so he is the most senior General of the Armies at the moment.
Grant was the 2nd Lt. General, then I believe John Pershing in WWI, then in WWII they had to expand up to Gen of Armies. There were about 5 IIRC

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Count Comfect
Washington was, I believe, a 3 star general (Lt. Gen), but every time they invent a new rank they posthumously give him a new star so he is the most senior General of the Armies at the moment.
Grant was the 2nd Lt. General, then I believe John Pershing in WWI, then in WWII they had to expand up to Gen of Armies. There were about 5 IIRC

Well I don't think he had any stars. He was the leader of ALL the armies - and I have never heard of him being referred to as having any stars. I think the stars came afterward - I always was under the impression the stars are used in association with our flag - which did not exist then.

I'll check though.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

If I read this article correctly, GW was a three star general.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/busters...ITRIVIA41.html

Also, a worse travesty then the "Crossing" movie cited above (which I thought was adequate with acceptably minimum historical inaccuracies) don't see, if you haven't, Mel Gibson's "The Patriot." Incredible distorting and imaginary misrendering of the American/British Rev. conflict in the South, a laughable misrepresentation of the Battle of the Cowpens, a picture of African-Americans in the South bordering on fantasy, etc. Just to give one example, Tartleton served in the British parliament after the war, so could hardly have been killed during it.

[jerseydevil]

According to Naval Historic Center - Washington did not use stars until 1798.

When our Army started in 1775 the Continental Congress commissioned George Washington General and Commander-in-Chief. He and his Major and Brigadier Generals wore various colored ribbons to show their ranks. There were no Lieutenant Generals in that army. In June 1780 General Washington ordered the Major Generals to wear a uniform that included two gold epaulettes with two silver stars on each epaulette. Brigadier Generals were to wear gold epaulettes with one silver star on each. General Washington might have chosen the stars because the generals and admirals of the French forces serving in that war wore stars. Another story has it that he was inspired by the stars in our new flag. The General's stars, then, are the oldest rank insignia still in use by our armed forces.

General Washington was the first to wear three stars when he became the nation's first Lieutenant General in 1798. After he died in 1799 there was not another Lieutenant General until 1855. The three stars appeared again, however, by 1832 as the insignia of the Major General who commanded the Army. In 1855 Congress honored Winfield Scott for his service as commanding general since 1841 and for his accomplishments in 1847 during the war with Mexico by making him a Brevet Lieutenant General. He held that rank until he retired in 1861.

He was bestowed with the title of "Commander-in-Chief" to designate his leadership over all the armies of the revolution. At first I thought the date he received the title of "Lieutenant General", 1798,was a misprint on this page - but the reason he was bestowed with the "three stars" and Lieutenant General was because John Adams called him back into service as a result of a possible war with France. If it wasn't for that short period - he died in 1799 - it seems as if he would not have been known as a Lieutenant General since the title bestowed on him by the Continental Congress was "General and Commander-in-Chief" - not "Lieutenant General"

According to the Mount Vernon page - Washington did not wear stars until 1780 when the insignia was created.

Painted in the early 1790s, Polk’s portrait shows General Washington with the battlefield of Princeton, NJ in the background. Though the Battle of Princeton occurred in 1777, Washington’s uniform was updated with three stars on the epaulet, the symbol created in 1780 to designate the commander-in-chief.

His military rank seems to be rather confusing - because we didn't have the set standards then. He was the highest rank at the time - but stars did not exist as an insignia.

[jerseydevil]

Originally posted by Tuor of Gondolin
If I read this article correctly, GW was a three star general.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx4/busters...ITRIVIA41.html

Bu you can't just go with that site. As has already been demonstrated - not all websites present correct and accurate information. All you have to do is look at my webpage on " New Jersey State Symbols and Flag" and see how the NJ state flag is misrepresented throughout the web. Yeah - Washington was "Lieutenant General" - but it seems according to more reliable sources that it was until until John Adams bestowed that on him in 1798 - way after the Revolution. Washington was NEVER Lieutenant General during the Revolution it seems, but was "General and Commander-in-Chief". He does use the 3 star insignia from what I gather toward the end of the Revolution - but whether he was ever termed a 3-star General at the time - I don't know.

BTW - I'm looking at what he would have been called back then - not what the position may have turned into today or be called today. Currently there is no General over all the armies of the US - which is what he was. To say he was Lieutenant General or a 3-star general during the revolution is rather misleading, because those positions today don't carry the power that he had.

Also, a worse travesty then the "Crossing" movie cited above (which I thought was adequate with acceptably minimum historical inaccuracies) don't see, if you haven't, Mel Gibson's "The Patriot." Incredible distorting and imaginary misrendering of the American/British Rev. conflict in the South, a laughable misrepresentation of the Battle of the Cowpens, a picture of African-Americans in the South bordering on fantasy, etc. Just to give one example, Tartleton served in the British parliament after the war, so could hardly have been killed during it.

"The Patriot" is one of the worst movies ever made. I rank that up with the butchering Jackson did to the Lord of the Rings. Oh - and one more thing about this worthless film - it's a hollywoodized, over dramatized love story basically. Why can't they make a REALLY good Revolutionary War movie like they do with the Civil War?

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Yes, I see what you're saying about the three stars. Perhaps what seems to be almost a tradition of attributing three stars to GW is a "shorthand" way of getting across his position in the Rev. Army to a general readership without having to go into detail. If so, I suppose arguably understandable.
_________________________________

Also, for anyone like Valandil who might bring sons east someday on a Rev. War themed vacation, Barndywine Battlefield and Germantown make an interesting, and close, battlefields tour. They actually illustrate some of Washington's strengths and weaknesses. Strategically Washington had sound concepts at both places, but also made tactical errors at both. On Germantown Avenue you can visit the Chew House (Cliveden) where he wasted time trying to take it instead of advancing. (Cliveden also has a great outdoor jazz festival on the grounds each summer:cool).

[jerseydevil]

I was going to ask - with people being interested in Revolutionary War stuff - I was wondering if you can check out the "Princeton Battlefield Area Preservation Society" website and maybe sign our petition.

I have to work on this website. I have stuff done but the form isn't posted for signing up for membership. [EDIT: Form is now posted] I'm going to get it up there - if you want you can print out the form and become a member or you can sign our petition. We're trying to prevent The Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton University from building faculaty housing - right up agains the battlefield. In actuality - they will be building on the battlefield - but the state never aquired that property - we are now trying to prevent the building on that land and to get control of it somehow.

BTW - the picture on the main page of our website is of Cowpens - not Princeton. There was A LOT of disagreement with using the picture - but several of us felt we needed an action oriented, bright colored picture that represented the Battle of Princeton relatively well. We coudn't find any. The Battle of Princeton took place on an orchard and farmland - not woods.