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CHARLES LEE: the GOOD, British, and Not Enough on His Performance on the Monmouth Battlefield

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CHARLES LEE: the GOOD, British, and Not Enough on His Performance on the Monmouth Battlefield The Newsletter of the American Revolution Round Table http://www.arrt-ny.org February 2021 CHARLES LEE: THE GOOD, British, and not enough on his performance on the Monmouth battlefield. Mr. McBurney is a lawyer, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY and both Lee controversies are legal in nature, so that is our author’s approach. Christian McBurney has graced our stage (or would have, if we had a stage) four times now. One more Lee was hot for revolution and republicanism until and we will have start a Five Times Club, like the he was captured by the British. After three months frequent hosts of Saturday Night Live. He addressed in the klink, he decided that the cause of American the Round Table in independence was hopeless. Why? Because HE had February 2014, been captured, and he believed himself to be October 2015, and America’s only hope. So he wrote the Brits a plan June 2018 and last by which they could quickly crush the rebellion. night, December 1 of Our speaker showed a slide of the plan, so we could the Plague Year. read it ourselves. Providing the enemy with a knowledgeable plan for your own side’s defeat is The Round Table is pretty obviously treason, and so legally, Lee should starting to get the have been hanged. But his treason was not Christian McBurney hang of this Zoom discovered for 75 years, luckily for him. business! Last Meanwhile, he was exchanged and was given, by night’s soiree went smoothly. No pirates boarded us. the Commander in We had 19 attendees in October and 26 last night, so Chief, command of the attendance is going up. Even the slides, so first wave of the attack troublesome at the Coffee House Club, worked fine. at Monmouth, New All who tuned in had to be vetted and muted. Jersey. Chairman Jacobs convened the meeting at 7:35. Some historians have After Lynne Saginaw’s book review (see below), dismissed Lee’s treason the Chair recognized Mr. McBurney. Our speaker is as a momentary, an attorney in Washington, but hails from Rhode unimportant lapse, and Island and has written about his home state in the have brushed over it RevWar and World War II. He publishes the Rhode with little attention. Island Historical Review online. One writer has even suggested that Lee was The subject of Mr. McBurney’s book and talk was offering his plan to General Charles Lee. His title is GEORGE General Howe as a WASHINGTON’S NEMESIS. The problem with trick. If so, it succeeded, because Howe decided to Lee, he said, is that biographers have given Lee too take Philadelphia. If instead he had stuck to his much Lee-way on the topic of his captivity by the original plan, he would have moved his army up the Hudson from New York City to Albany to link up with Burgoyne, coming down from Montreal. Howe IN THE NEWS might have won the war. Polly Guérin At Monmouth, Lee found two of his commanders reminds us of the abandoning the field. Those two, then, should be impending annual blamed for Lee’s retreat and not Lee. McBurney George finds that Lee did a competent, and even a brilliant, Washington’s job of holding the line with what forces he had left. Birthday Ball, He should be remembered as a hero of the battle. held at Fraunces Instead, Lee was blamed and court martialed, and Tavern by the said some intemperate things against his popular Tavern and Commander in Chief. Lee was already hated by Museum’s owner, others anyway, and most people among both the the SRs: the Sons army and later historians have been prejudiced of the Revolution against Lee just because he grated on everyone. in the State of McBurney hopes to redress both of these popular New York. This misjudgments of Lee with his book. year, of course, it will be a virtual One coup that McBurney pulled off in his book was ball. Not sure how that is supposed to work, but to the publishing of a memo on Lee by General Sir find out, just go to: www.frauncestavern- Harry Clinton, Howe’s successor as British museum.org. The event will be Zoomed on Friday, Commander in Chief. Our speaker says he is the February 19. first author to go into this much detail about Lee’s court martial. He showed us some of the six new Vic Miranda reports a website called battle maps that he had drawn just for this book. He www.historyauthortalks.com. It hosts online author pointed out the inaccurate view of the Monmouth talks on American History topics. The proceeds battle written by Lin-Manuel Miranda for a number benefit the Sons of the American Revolution in his “Hamilton – The Musical.” Genealogical Research Library. If you are a publisher or agent, send the website a proposal for a Member Joe Joyce asked (by Zoom’s Chat facility): talk. You can also buy books through this site. You What did Lee’s men think of him? Did he inspire can see the talks on You Tube. You can learn how to his men the way Arnold did? The answer was: no. write historical fiction. Lee’s abrasive nature worked its way down the ranks as well as up. Vic also recommends a 1933 movie called “Berkeley Square,” starring Leslie Howard. An Lee was better read than any other American American lives in a house on Berkeley Square, general, and probably any British one. London. It had belonged to an ancestor of the same name, Peter Standish. Peter, reading his ancestor’s Dr. Joanne Grasso asked: What do you like about diary from 1784, becomes convinced that he and his Lee? Answer: His pen, and the fact that he did a ancestor somehow switched places for a few days. good job at Monmouth. Sure enough, 1933 Peter finds himself suddenly in 1784. His ancestor had just come from New York, What is next for our author? – asked Chairman so perhaps he was a Loyalist fleeing the Revolution. Jacobs. A book on slavery during the Rev, but from There is also a 1951 version called “I’ll Never a new and different angle. Forget You,” with Tyrone Power. Peter thinks the Eighteenth Century was just peachy until he finds Our Zoom meeting wrapped up at 8:46, after himself transported thither, and learns about body announcements and thanks to our speaker. lice and the lack of bathing. Both movies are based 2 loosely on an unfinished 1917 novel by Henry And one more item from Polly Guérin: Expanding James, THE SENSE OF THE PAST. our purview by one war, Polly recommends an online video presentation on the battle of New In the December 2020 Smithsonian Magazine, Orleans by Bill Wiemuth, the keynote history and Erick Trickey profiles Mary Katharine Goddard entertainment speaker on American Cruise Lines, (1738-1816), and in other venues nationwide. Go to a Baltimore [email protected]. printer and postmaster. She was one BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS of the first printers of the Declara- PLEASE CONTRIBUTE A BOOK tion of Inde- pendence and REVIEW! THE ROUND TABLE IS led a very MORE FUN IF WE ALL PITCH IN active life. WITH A BOOK REVIEW! Deserves more attention. CONTACT LYNNE SAGINAW This from relatively new member David Nelson: THROUGH THE BROADSIDE OR There is now a Washington-Rochambeau THE WEBSITE! THANK YOU! Revolutionary Route Association – “W3R.” Its mission is to provide site markers, statues and Our Book Review Editrix, Lynne Saginaw, commemorative events to raise awareness of the recommends THE 10 KEY CAMPAIGNS OF THE route taken by the two generals and their armies AMERICAN REVOLUTION. It covers the war from Rhode Island through Connecticut and down from Lexington to Yorktown. Our February, April to Yorktown, Virginia, where they finished the war and June speakers all wrote chapters in this book. by defeating Lord Cornwallis. Go to www.w3r- Editor Edward G. Lengel was for many years the us.org. keeper of the George Washing- Tom McAndrew, of the Congress of Round Tables, ton Papers at the advises us that the Gotham Center for New York University of City History is offering an online course called Virginia. He has “New York City’s American Revolution.” There mustered an all- will be eight sessions of ninety minutes between star team of May 3 and May 26. The course costs $350.00. The experts to write the instructor is Christopher F. Minty, the managing chapters. editor of The John Dickinson Writings Project of the University of Virginia. He is a former assistant Lynne likes editor of the Adams Papers of the Massachusetts shorter, lighter Historical Society. He is the author of AMERICAN books. “While DEMAGOGUES: THE REVOLUTIONARY authors like Robert ORIGINS OF LOYALISM IN NEW YORK CITY Caro and Ron (Cornell U. Press, forthcoming), and the co-editor Chernow write of THE CAUSE OF LOYALTY: THE compellingly at REVOLUTIONARY WORLDS OF MYLES considerable COOPER. To register for this course, go to: length, for most authors words should be rationed www.eventbrite.com/e/gothamed/new-york-citys- with care.” Lengel keeps it down to ten chapters and american-revolution-registration-135778867247. barely 200 pages of crisp, cogent text, very 3 handsome, accessible maps, and details that amuse and instruct. The writing is often brilliant. The MENCKEN REMEMBERS THE Carolina back country fighters were “people who, in the blackest time for the cause, would bend but PRISON SHIPS never break; they were accustomed to privation, travail their normal lot, and mercy to an enemy was Your editor recently read THE DAYS OF H.
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