THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REVIEW a Journal of Regional Studies

AUTUMN 2018 THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REVIEW A Journal of Regional Studies The Hudson River Valley Institute at Marist College is supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. This issue of The Hudson River Valley Review has been generously underwritten by the following: Peter Bienstock THE POUGHKEEpsIE GRAND HOTEL SHAWANGUNK VALLEY AND CONFERENCE CENTER …centrally located in the Historic Hudson Valley CONSERVANCY midway between NYC and Albany… Conservation • Preservation • Education www.pokgrand.com From the Editors We are a “journal of regional studies,” so we should be familiar with the concept of “place”—in our case, the Hudson River Valley. But sometimes even we are surprised about how great an influence this region has had, both on the surrounding world and on its own residents. This issue highlights the interplay between “our place” and people from colonial times to the present. It also answers some intriguing questions. For example, who developed the British strategy during the American Revolution, and how was that strategy implemented by field officers and affected by the “field” itself? Or how has a legendary commander profoundly impacted the U.S. Military Academy despite never setting foot on its grounds? While both sides in the Revolution coveted the Hudson River Valley, at times it stood in their way, as when the French and American armies marched from Rhode Island to Yorktown. Their epic journey contributed immensely to America’s independence, so why did it take an equally epic effort to have the federal government establish the Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route? Some fifty years after the Revolution, one British citizen relied on the New World to forge his own independence from the Old. Today, a scholarly debate rages as to how British or American Thomas Cole may have been. Our author maintains that the artist’s small-town life in Catskill is the key to understanding his identity. Community and identity also are essential to the history of the Rhinebeck Fire Department, which has maintained a reputation for selfless service and strong fraternal ties since its founding in 1834. We hope this issue will inspire you to think about how we continue to inform and to be formed by the places we call home. On the cover: Detail of View on the Catskill – Early Autumn, Thomas Cole, 1836-37. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift in Memory of Jonathan Sturges by his children, 1895: 95.13.3 ii THE HUDSON RIVER VALLEY REVIEW Vol. 35, No.1, Autumn 2018 The Hudson River in the Revolution: America’s Key to Victory, James Kirby Martin ...........2 Thomas Cole’s Knickerbocker and Catskill Identity, 1825–1838: A Reconsideration of Cole’s “Englishness” and “Conservatism” through a Brief Portrait of the Artist who Chose Cedar Grove, Matthew DeLaMater .........16 Personal Reflection The Washington-Rochambeau Revolutionary Route National Historic Trail, James M. Johnson ............................................48 Notes and Documents The Maid of the Highlands: Joan of Arc Reflected in West Point Iconography, Dr. John Pendergast ..............................................................56 Regional History Forum Answering the Call: The Rhinebeck Fire Company and the FASNY Museum, Elijah Bender ...64 Book Reviews The Pinkster King and the King of the Kongo: The Forgotten History of America’s Dutch-Owned Slaves, Jeroen Dewulf ..................78 An Oneida in Foreign Waters: The Life of Chief Chapman Scanandoah, 1870-1953, Laurence Hauptman .............................................................80 A Spirit of Sacrifice: New York State in the First World War, Aaron Noble, Keith Swaney, and Vicki Weiss .....................................................83 Embattled River: The Hudson and Modern American Environmentalism, David Schuyler .....86 New & Noteworthy Books ........................................................89 The Hudson River in the Revolution: America’s Key to Victory James Kirby Martin View up the Hudson River from West Point Thirteen links of the Great Chain on display at United States Military Academy at West Point At the time of the Revolutionary war, waterways often dictated the direction and course of key military movements. Moving south to north along North America’s eastern coastline were five major river networks: the Ashley and Cooper rivers in South Carolina; the James and Yorktown rivers in Virginia; the Delaware River, dividing New Jersey and Pennsylvania; the Hudson River separating New York and New Jersey; and the St. Lawrence River in Canada. Each river network played some sort of pivotal role in major combat operations affecting the outcome of the Revolution. 2 The Hudson River Valley Review My question for consideration is as follows: Which river network was the most important, and why? Surprisingly, this subject has not received much attention in assessing the reasons for success and failure in the Revolutionary War. As a generalization, commentators seem to assume that major campaigns and battles more or less took place in haphazard fashion, as if land forces just happened to bump into each other for no particular reason. In reality, the geographic location of waterways had a profound effect in determining the sites of military operations during the war. It’s my conclusion that one river network, featuring the Hudson River, had the greatest impact of them all. So let’s go back in time to 1775 and 1776. The rebellion got off to a rather surprising start on April 19, 1775, when New England militiamen drove off a British force charged with capturing and destroying weapons being stashed in Concord, Massachusetts. Most shocked that the Americans could put up a good fight were British planners 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean in imperial mother England. King George III and first minister Lord Frederick North, along with many leaders in Parliament, had blithely assumed that these treasonous American rebels, as they called them, would break and run at the first whiff of massed British gunfire and gleaming bayonets. The loss of Fort Ticonderoga to Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen, and the Green Mountain Boys a month later, coupled with the brutal contest at Bunker (Breed’s) Hill in June shocked Britain’s leaders into realizing that the “rude rabble” represented a more worthy opponent than they had ever imagined.1 Developing a broad strategic plan to suppress the rebellion before it was too late to do so thus became an urgent British priority. During the autumn of 1775 and early winter days of 1776, King George, Lord North, and newly appointed Secretary for American Affairs Lord George Germain considered various options for effecting a quick end to the uprising.2 As they studied maps of the colonies, they came to appreciate the difficulties of regaining the political allegiance of more than two million Americans spread out along more than 1,000 miles of coastline—and in some locales, living more than 100 miles inland. Trying to subdue so huge a territory and so many people lay beyond their limited military means, referring to the size of land and naval forces of the day. Britain’s was a maritime empire, but using His Majesty’s navy to control the American coastline and key waterways could not guarantee the containment of ongoing rebel uprisings in the countryside. Any plan had to combine in some fashion the coordinated deployment of land and naval forces. Furthermore, any land-based operations would require thousands more trained troops than currently available in Britain (enter the hiring of Hessians to supplement His Majesty’s land forces). 1 For rebel success during 1775 in juxtaposition to supercilious British attitudes, see James Kirby Martin and Mark Edward Lender, “A Respectable Army”: The Military Origins of the Republic 1763-1789 (3rd ed., Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 33-52. 2 On Germain, known for his alleged cowardice at the Battle of Minden in 1759 but critical role in shaping British strategy during the Revolutionary War, see Andrew Jackson O’Shaughnessy, The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the American Revolution, and the Fate of the Empire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), 165-203; and Gerald Saxon Brown, The American Secretary: The Colonial Policy of Lord George Germain (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1963). The Hudson River in the Revolution: America's Key to Victory 3 The Campaign of 1777, Atlas of the American Revolution, Department of History, United States Military Academy Their study of the maps indicated to them that focusing operations on one geographic location had the potential to both contain and end the uprising before such traditional enemies as France began supporting the rebel cause in various covert ways. Establishing New York City as the main base of operations while also taking control of the Hudson River was the obvious choice. The idea was to cut off New England, at that time the epicenter of the rebellion, from the other colonies, some of them not yet fully committed to what would eventually morph into a widespread independence movement. Once in control of the Hudson River up to Albany, and even beyond, British land forces would then sweep eastward across New England to vanquish lingering rebel resistance. The Royal Navy, meanwhile, would complete the pincers movement by blockading the New England coastline. If need be, these war vessels would not hesitate to bombard any coastal community still offering rebel resistance. Let’s call this overview plan for British victory the Hudson Highlands Strategy. Part of the thinking of George III, Lord North, Lord Germain, and other advisers was that most colonists remained loyal to the Crown but had been duped into treasonous thinking by a few radical leaders like Samuel Adams in Boston and Alexander McDougall in New York City.3 The presence of the King’s troops would reawaken the suppressed loyalists to 3 For an example of the commonly held attitude that most colonists were still loyal to the empire but the dupes of popular leaders, see Douglass Adair and John A.

Load more