AMERICA AT 250: A TWO-SEMESTER COURSE OF STUDY
The Open Discourse Coalition with Bucknell University
https://america250.blogs.bucknell.edu/2025/08/05/america-at-250-discussion-guide/
UNIV 119, America at 250: Telling the Story
Fall Semester, Fridays Noon to 12:50, Quarter Credit
Aug. 29 through Dec. 5, except Nov. 20 Thanksgiving Break
Noon to 12:50 pm, Fridays. Coleman 55
Instructor: Rev./Prof. Paul Siewers, Bucknell University, asiewers@bucknell.edu
About Your Instructor: Prof. Siewers holds a Ph.D. in English, and a B.A. and M.A. in History. As an undergraduate, he majored in U.S. history at Brown with Prof. Gordon Wood as an instructor, an eminent early American scholar. He has worked as an award-winning journalist covering current issues of the American experience. In American fashion, while a Russian Orthodox priest, he is also a direct descendant of one of the New Englanders who fought at the Battle of Lexington in 1775.
Two quotes for introductory reflections
“Young man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had been free, and we meant to be free always. They didn’t mean we should.”
–Captain Levin Preston, 91-year-old veteran of Lexington and Concord, in 1843 interview with a college student
Now the Lexington bell began to clang in the wooden tower, hard by the meetinghouse. More gallopers rode off to rouse half a hundred villages. Warning gunshots echoed from farm to farm. Bonfires flared. Drums beat. Across the colony, in an image that would endure for centuries, solemn men grabbed their firelocks and stalked off in search of danger, leaving the plow in the furrow, the hoe in the garden, the hammer on the anvil, the bucket at the well sweep. This day would be famous before it dawned.
–Rick Atkinson, writing of April 19, 1775, the leadup to the Battles of Lexington and Concord that began the American Revolution
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Nine Framing Questions for Weekly Discussions Throughout the Year:
- Is America, based on its founding, primarily an idea or a cultural homeland, or both? In examining the story and key texts of the American founding, is America a “propositional nation” based on an idea, or a country based on a particular culture? Or both?
- How was the American founding exceptional and why? The historical narrative and founding documents suggest the exceptional nature of the American founding. To what extent and in what way do they provide evidence for America as an exceptional country?
- What evidence is there for reading issues of race and economic class into the founding of America? It has been argued in recent years that race and economic concerns were primary in America’s founding, and that “1619” (marking the arrival of African slaves) and not “1776” was determinative. An evidence-based approach such as Atkinson’s suggests they were not the main determinants. But how do we assess such ideological concerns?
- What was the role of religious faith? What do the story of the American founding and its key documents tell us about the role of religious faith in the American republic then and now? How determinative of the founding was it, if it had a major role?
- What are different ways of reading the founding in story and texts, based on the traditional liberal arts? How can terms from classical liberal arts inform our analysis of narrative history of the American founding, as well as of foundational documents? For example, consideration of Aristotelian elements of plot, characterization, themes, and settings. Or ways of reading, such as: Historical, moral, allegorical, spiritual. Or types of causation: Material, efficient, formal, final.
- Was America’s founding a revolution in the modern sense, or a civil war as some participants suggested? Why or why not for each? Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his final work The Red Wheel characterized revolution as “retribution,” based on the Russian Revolution of 1917. How did the American Revolution differ from later Marxist definitions of revolution as class struggle, or the use of the term revolution in terms of cultural upheavel in the 20th century?
- What are the personal lessons of leadership and character we can glean from the American founding, applicable to individual and family lives and careers today?
- As the American Revolution evolved, the Declaration and later the Constitution together became central to American culture. How did these founding documents came to fill a void left by the monarchy? University of Chicago historian Eric Nelson has argued that the Americans generally objected to Parliament more than to the King specifically, the monarch being more of a national symbol. The latter was transferred over to the Republic and the Presidency, Nelson argues. See if you find evidence for that trend as we move along in our reading.
- What is America today for you? How would you define America? Is the material we’re studying relevant to your experience and ideas of America in 2025?
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FIRST SEMESTER, AMERICA AT 250: TELLING THE STORY
Summary: Using a recently published and acclaimed narrative history of the American Revolution covering 1775 to 1780, we will examine causes of the American founding, issues of character and virtues with personal applicability, any lessons for today’s America, and issues of faith and American identity arising from the founding (see framing questions above for the entire year). In the process we will examine approaches to telling the story of America based on our readings, and differing ways of experiencing the founding today.
Textbooks for Fall Semester:
Rick Atkinson, The British Are Coming
Rick Atkinson, The Fate of the Day
Intro: Overview of the Atkinson volumes.
Writing history is an art. In fact, one of the ancient Classical Muses, Clio, was patroness of history. A great narrative historian who lived during the time of the American Revolution in London, Edward Gibbon, is mentioned in passing in our readings. Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is one of the classic narrative histories of all time. Like Atkinson’s book it has both tremendous sweep and use of detail to describe a major historical event of global importance. Yet Gibbon despite his skill and achievement inevitably got some things wrong. For example, as mentioned in our book, Gibbon underestimated the Americans. In his history, he also stereotyped the role of Christians in Late Antiquity. But Gibbons’ influential historical writing still testifies to the importance of narrative in shaping our lives and communities, and engaging us with our past, while reminding us that we can and should also read historical narrative critically (Francis Parkman’s 19th-century France and England in North America is another example of incredibly engaging narrative mixed with flaws). Atkinson’s project offers a grand narrative for events that deserve it, based carefully in factual research (indicated in extensive source notes), yet is told like a story with engaging details, and has gained critical acclaim from both liberals and conservatives in America on its recent publication. It is a grand sweep of story that many Americans are less familiar with today than even 50 years ago. As you read, consider the challenges of telling this story of America, why it may be worthwhile, and how it may be open to criticism, or not.
Atkinson’s writing project is planned to include three volumes covering the American Revolution from 1775 to 1783, two volumes of which have been written, which we’ll be reading, covering 1775 to 1780.
The first volume begins with a short quotation from George Washington right after the title page. Why was this quotation chosen, do you think? What themes and lessons from the story of the Revolution can be gleaned from it, and about the purposes of telling the story? Why was it selected?
Check out the map of the British Empire just inside the cover, and the map comparing the size of the American colonies with the size of the British Isles just before Part 1. Atkinson near in his later account of the fighting at Lexington and Concord at the start of the Revolution said a “new world” had begun. Is there anything in the geography that provides background for his statement?
Check out the notes and sources listed in this first volume on pp. 567-745. Although this is written as a story, it has a lot of research backing it as supporting evidence. Keep track of the notes related to your discussion focus section for class by keeping a marker in it.
Also, take a look at the photo-picture section between pages 300 and 301. What does the selection of images tell us about the Revolution and also the way its story is told here?
Finally, remember when reading and preparing your section for class discussion to consider the nine “framing” questions listed earlier above (p. 2 of this handout).
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WEEK 2, The British Are Coming: Through Lexington and Concord. Prologue and Chapters 1 and 2.
Read Atkinson, The British Are Coming, Prologue, and Chapters 1 and 2.
This week’s readings will lead us up through the fighting at Lexington and Concord that began the American Revolution in 1775. As the Prologue indicates, factors involved in that beginning actually go back much further in history. For example, this timeline helps provide background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_American_Revolution
Those in class will each be assigned in advance to a group focusing on one section of the reading (Prologue, Chapter 1, or Chapter 2). Each individual group member will need to present on points from that focus section related to the nine framing questions above. Individually, prepare three points from three different framing questions, with a specific passage and page number to present to us. Prepare an analytical question related to the framing questions (not just a question about the “plot”), for each of your three points, and be prepared to ask them of the class and stimulate discussion.
Note: Scoring for semester grades will be based on attendance, participation, and evidence of preparation for effectively leading discussion on assigned sections.
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Prologue
–Inspecting the Fleet
This first section opens with King George III’s triumphant inspection of the British fleet in 1773. Why was this selected as the opening of the story? How does it convey the sweep and might of the British Empire at that time (considering also the map inside the book cover)?
This section includes a technique used throughout the history, a combination of flashback and mini-biography to establish a sense of a major character in the story, in this case first of all George III.
It includes the statement that Britain held “the greatest, richest empire since Rome.” Is that true? How/why is that significant to the story of the American Revolution, and to ways of reading it historically, morally (in terms of lessons of character), and also allegorically and spiritually (as offering metaphorical lessons about life and larger contexts of our place in the universe personally)?
The Treaty of Paris in 1763 had proclaimed a “new world order” for its day of “Christian, universal, and perpetual peace.” The warship that King George III boards on his inspection as told in this section is “the biggest, most complex machine in the eighteenth century.” What analogues or parallels or lessons might this background to the story offer for us today?
How does all this imperial background add to our potential sense of causes for the Revolution: Material (such as economic and racial), Efficient (such as political and personal frictions), Formal (such as differences in cultures and worldviews), and Final (any larger sense of purpose and inspiration or ideas involved)?
How does Atkinson’s use of details, such as the setting and people at the fleet inspection festivities, help inform the history, or not?
–Avenging the Tea
Here is an historical reason for Americans’ liking for coffee over tea generally. It’s an example of cultural foundations that keep on shaping cultures long after the reason is forgotten. A kind of trivial example, perhaps, but it illustrates why evidence-based understanding of the American founding is of cultural significance today when it comes to larger issues as well.
Adam Smith is mentioned in this section, advocating for Britain departing from colonial empire to focusing on growing her wealth through free economic markets instead. Was that view true? Why or why not?
King George III with his ministers are described as holding to three critical assumptions: 1. Most Americans remained loyal to the Crown. 2. Firmness would restore harmony. 3. Failure to act firmly would lead to the coming apart of the British Empire—a “domino effect.” The Coercive or Intolerable Acts and the Quebec Act (applying to Canada but religiously controversial in America and illustrating religion as a factor in the Revolution) are expressions of these imperial assumptions as discussed in this section of the Prologue.
What kind of lessons can be learned from the way these assumptions informed ultimately unsuccessful policies? How may these assumptions have been limited by friction between medieval-religious and Enlightenment-rationlistic views in that era (which also existed on the American side)?
Recall the “four ways of reading” in classical liberal arts: Historical, moral, allegorical-metaphorical, spiritual. How could these be applied to the British assumptions? How could these assumptions be related to the classical view of four causes—material, efficient, formal, final, as we’ll discuss in class?
The formation of the Continental Congress at this time, along with a network of Committees of Safety throughout the American colonies, aimed at retaliating against British goods. What can we glean from this about economic causes of the Revolution and their relation to other causes?
London is described at the time also—with about 750,000 inhabitants, compared to 2 million people in the American colonies. To what extent did the Revolution also mark a divide between the urbanizing development of England and the mainly agrarian colonies?
Here Lord North, the British Prime Minister, is profiled. There is also a glance at William Pitt, an opponent in Parliament of firmness against the colonists. How do details about their background and character further the telling of the story of the Revolution, or sidetrack it? Why? In allegorical application, are there any lessons from the differences between North and Pitt for modern history?
Both King George III and many of the New England colonists who end up fighting against Britain at Lexington and Concord are described as pious and religious in their views. This may remind us of Abraham Lincoln’s observation about the later American Civil War that “Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God and each invokes His aid against the other.” What does this tell us about the nature of the Revolution? Was it, as some suggested, more a civil war? Why or why not?
–Preparing for War
Logistics of stocks of weapons and military supplies, together with numbers of soldiers, are discussed in this section.
What were the “divergent values and conflicting visions of a world to come” between the British and Americans described by Atkinson?
Both of the above issues in the account indicate a material and a spiritual (so to speak) level of reading the story of the American Revolution. How did these combine and is there one that was most decisive?
Atkinson here calls the Revolution a “civil war.” He also breaks down the “fourth wall” with us as readers to talk about the making of history. He indicates that the creation of the American republic “inspired a creation myth” as one of “mankind’s most remarkable achievements.” The reality he states would be both “grander and more nuanced” than the “melodramatic tale” of the myth. The actual tale was one he argues “of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Beyond the battlefield, then and forever, stood a shining city on a hill.” What does this mean?
This section also contains a mini-biography of Benjamin Franklin (with a brief description of Joseph Priestley, who ended his years living a short distance from Bucknell’s campus). How do the personal aspects of Franklin as described inform our understanding of character lessons for us, positive and negative, in the history of the American Revolution? There is a reference to concerns in Franklin’s correspondence with “an abridgement of the rights of English liberties” by the British in America. How can we unpack the meaning of that phrase, which sums up an important reason given by the revolutionaries of that time for “why we fight.” How/why were they fighting for an imagined legacy of the past, rather than in a modern revolutionary sense of a future utopia? How did that affect the nature of the American Revolution?
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WEEK 2, The British Are Coming: Through Lexington and Concord. Chapters 1 through 3 (Lexington and Concord, and Bunker Hill, 1775)
Chapter 1, God Himself our Captain: Boston, March 6-April 17, 1775
The chapter title, taken from a quotation by a clergyman in the chapter, indicates the religious factor in the Revolution. This continues with the account of the sermon at Old South Church in Boston. Keep track of that theme as you read. It is one of our framing questions for discussion. How significant was the religious factor? Why or why not? How does it inform our understanding of America and world events today?
In the sermon scene, the crowd mistakes cries of “fie” for “fire.” This causes a stampede. To what extent are issues of fighting and war in the start of the American Revolution related to emotion and confusion? What lessons can be learned from that if any?
To what extent does the description of the character of General Gage, the British commander, inform the history, and why? How was his closing of Boston Harbor in 1774 a significant background to the outbreak of the Revolution at Lexington and Concord nearly a year later?
As General Gage and his British troops become effectively besieged in Boston, the Committees of Safe in Massachusetts (as elsewhere), under the Provincial Congresses and the Continental Congress of the Americans, “enforced loyalty oaths, stigmatized ideological opponents, and compelled fence straddlers to make hard choices.” This powerful network opposing British authoritarian control itself engaged in a kind of enforced social and political conformity in its cause. Did this contradict ideas of freedom at the time? Or did the notion of freedom in 1775 differ from common ideas of freedom in 2025?
In parallel with the Committees on Safety, Militia companies formed including “quick-reaction units” called “minute men,” supposed to be ready at a moment’s notice, who “reportedly carried their muskets even to church.” As the conflict opened at Lexington and Concord with such militia men gathered from local farmers and tradesmen (see the opening reflection quotations near the start of these notes, p. 1), there can be seen the basis for the idea of “gun rights” in America enshrined in the Second Amendment to the later U.S. Constitution. It has been argued in recent years that fear of slave rebellion inspired the Second Amendment, but the history of the risings against the British in New England appear to offer a different reason. How can we assess this historically?
Gage revised upwards his earlier low request for military presence: “If one million [soldiers] is thought enough, give two. You will save both blood and treasure in the end,” he told the British government in late 1774. What does this say about the nature of the American threat, and what can we learn from this?
We are reminded also in this section of two groups of people marginalized in society: Slaves and political dissenters. Slaves were not a large part of the New England population but were a presence. As the Revolution started in earnest, the British in Virginia would promise freedom to slaves of American revolutionaries in return for their support. Also the Tories as a despised segment of the American population are mentioned. Many ended up in Canada where they helped shape that country’s formation. To what extent do issues of slavery and (in another dimension) resistance by Tories seem to shape this account of the opening of the Revolution?
Atkinson terms the culture of New England as “A Calvinist people marinated in the doctrine of predestination,” who in 1774 “braced for the inevitable,” with intense preparations for war. How can we unpack this statement in discussion? What does it again suggest about religious causes for the war and for the shaping of American culture? (The Massachusetts Congress required militia soldiers to attend worship services and void profane oaths, with a fine for cussing.)
A British officer writing home mentioned how the people were “too puritanical” in Boston to allow theaters, even while “there’s perhaps no town of its size could turn out more whores than this could.” What does that suggest about contradictions we may not always see in historical accounts? (At the same time the locals complained about the British ice-skating on the Sabbath and their soldiers’ profane speech.)
“The indiscipline of a bored anxious army weighed on Gage.” This is a theme through this and our last chapter for the first week. The British soldiers, while regulars, did not show good discipline, as seen in their firing on rebels and looting.
Desertion rates among British soldiers throughout the Revolutionary War (high) are discussed in this section. Why would desertion be attractive to soldiers whose homes were in the British Isles? (Maybe it was partly details such as the only Christmas event in 1774 in the Boston garrison reportedly was the execution of a deserter.)
The chapter ends with a description of spy networks. Why and how was “intelligence” (together with use of media, technologically primitive-seeming to us) important in the American Revolution?
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Chapter 2, Men came down from the clouds, Lexington and Concord, April 18-19, 1775
How does Atkinson’s use of detailed storytelling at the start of this chapter contribute to the historical account, or not? Why?
Paul Revere’s mythic ride is given here with historical details. What does this characterization add to the historical narrative? What types of lessons about character and for communities today can it tell us? For the poetic version once memorized by many American schoolchildren, please read this: https://www.paulreverehouse.org/longfellows-poem/
In the lead-up to the fight at Lexington, Atkinson writes: Now the Lexington bell began to clang in the wooden tower, hard by the meetinghouse. More gallopers rode off to rouse half a hundred villages. Warning gunshots echoed from farm to farm. Bonfires flared. Drums beat. Across the colony, in an image that would endure for centuries, solemn men grabbed their firelocks and stalked off in search of danger, leaving the plow in the furrow, the hoe in the garden, the hammer on the anvil, the bucket at the well sweep. This day would be famous before it dawned.
Why does he say this should not really be called a Battle? How do the Lexington action and the battle at Concord form the opening bookend to the long American Revolutionary War? What can be learned historically about the causes, about lessons for our lives and historical situations today, and about issues of “gun rights,” if such lessons can be garnered from this historical account?
What do we learn from the characterizations of Captain Parker, Major Pitcairn, and Lord Hugh Percy on the British side in this chapter?
Why was the British attack, successful militarily at Lexington, so unsuccessful overall on the strike to Concord and the return to Boston?
How does the use of personal details from correspondence and journals of those on different sides add to or distract from the narrative? Choose an example.
Where did all the people come from referenced in the chapter title?
How did Concord’s economic situation provide a context for the military history?
Militiamen at Concord are described as including fifers playing a Jacobite air from a Scottish uprising in 1745. Look up the meaning of Jacobite as contrasted with Jacobin (there was a strong Scots-Irish and pro-Stuart element among the American revolutionaries). Can the difference between the two 18th century terms help us discern better the nature of the American Revolution?
The issue of “strangers” commanding the British troops highlights also the class differences among the British forces, between officers and soldiers. How is that an economic factor, as well as possibly a cultural and a military factor?
Atkinson quotes James Russell Lowell as referring to the battle at Concord as involving “that era-parting bridge,” across which the old world passed into the new. What does that mean? Is it true? Why or why not?
Here is Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous poem about the Battle of Concord, please read it as part of your discussion preparation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45870/concord-hymn
Atkinson writes as the moon rose overnight on April 19-20, it “found the world changed, changed utterly,” and the beginning of almost a yearlong open siege of the British in Boston by the mainly rural militiamen.
At the end, British casualties from April 19 included 73 fatalities, and Americans 49 dead, with the number of wounded British soldiers far higher than the Americans. Does such data help fill in the story? How if so?
Atkinson tells of how word of the battle day spread quickly across New England thanks to riders like Revere. News of the clash and its successful outcome for the Americans was carried secretly by ship to a London newspaper, where it arrived faster than the official British Army dispatch, and was seen in the paper by King George III among others. How does this compare to the role of media today in conflict and society?
Yet we are also told that American preachers on the Sunday following, and for Sundays to come, preached lessons from the biblical book of Lamentations to their congregations, reminding them that suffering from war reflected divine judgment on sins, quoting: “The joy of our heart is ceased. Our dance is turned into mourning.” Joy was tempered with repentance. Why is this significant to mention, or not?
Atkinson concludes this key chapter by mentioning the tragedy of “fraternal blood-letting” in this Anglo-American world.
This reminds us of the words of a veteran of Lexington and Concord years later, who told a young student:
“Young man, what we meant in going for those Redcoats was this: we always had been free, and we meant to be free always. They didn’t mean we should.”
Another great narrative historian, Shelby Foote, in discussing the causes of the later American Civil War (1861-1865), observed how a captured ragged Confederate Solder told his Union captors, nevermind slavery and issues of the Constitution, “I’m fighting because you’re down here.”
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WEEK 3. CHAPTERS 3-6
Chapter 3, I Wish This Cursed Place was Burned. Boston and Charlestown
The Battle of Bunker HIll. See and apply framing questions above.
Let’s consider the Battle of Bunker HIll as a kind of fractal image of the story of the Revolution and its lessons for us, using ancient liberal arts techniques.
Bunker Hill and the related battles of and around Charlestown (often later conflated as the Battle of Bunker Hill) were according to Atkinson a “Pyrrhic” victory for the British. That is, they made General Gage and British leaders report that several more such “victories,” given the high number of their casualties for a small army, and they would be lost. But Atkinson notes that for the colonists, in the long term the “defeat” would lead to pride in the way that untrained citizen-soldiers could exact such heavy losses on professional British soldiers–which he called a dangerous lesson in “pride going before a fall.”
There are again four ways of reading that evolved from ancient times in the liberal arts. How can these four ways of reading be applied to this account of the Battle of Bunker HIll and the foundational American experience? Let’s try.
- Historical meaning
Near the end of the chapter there is a breakdown of the casualties, with the American losses higher than the British. In terms of following the historic meaning of the account, what were the casualties on each side? What problems with preparation (and even in the case of the British, uniforms) contributed to the large casualties?
Why does Atkinson conclude that the battle in the longer term was of benefit to the Americans, yet at the same time created a dangerous delusion for them? Do you agree or not?
2. Moral meaning
In what ways can the reader learn lessons about life from this account of an early significant conflict in the American Revolution? What were issues with preparation, and potential arrogance that clouded proper planning? What were qualities of character that stood out? Near the end the price of the war is conveyed in details of the afflictions of the wounded. Can one draw moral lessons from that in terms of negative or positive aspects of leadership?
3. Allegorical meaning
In this case, allegorical meaning could involve lessons for situations today, such as wars in the Middle East and western Eurasia. Are there any lessons that can be gleaned so far from the first battles of the Revolution, and the issues leading up to them, for situations in the world today, and the role of the U.S.? Try to make specific connections with details in the chapter.
4, Spiritual meaning
What from the account provides a glimpse of a larger sense of meaning to our lives. in spiritual terms, not only as Americans but as human beings who also have spiritual lives? Aspects of meaning to life beyond just “this world”? The Iroquois or Haudenosaunee, many of whom during this time became allies of the British against Americans encroaching on their lands in their view, developed an ethos known as “the seventh generation.” This involved viewing one’s actions in a spiritual context in terms of their effect on the seventh generation to come, while honoring the seven generations that had gone before. In terms of the Americans, to what extent can their actions and lives be seen in a spiritual “seventh generation” context? The notion of honoring those who had gone before for them often involved consideration in biblical terms. What could they have seen as a biblical frame for their actions? A related frame of their rights as “Englishmen”? And how did that project out into actions for generations to come, if it did?
The chapter ends with the transport of injured and maimed from Bunker Hill arriving at Plymouth in England, a kind of full circle from the earlier triumphant imperial display of the fleet there for King George III as portrayed in the Prologue. Is there an argument here against war? Imagine arguments for and against opposition to war in general both at the time of the American Revolution and today. To what extent was war justified, and to what extent could pacifism have been justified if at all (spiritually or ethically) given the human costs detailed by Atkinson’s account? What makes for a “just war” or a “necessary war” (two somewhat differing concepts in the ancient Latin and Greek traditions), and from the standpoint of the Americans and the British how did the Revolutionary War fit into one or both categories, if it did, and why?
Four Causes
Related to the above concluding question about the cost of war, we can consider here the “four causes” of Aristotle, in relation to this further picture of the Revolutionary War. What was the “material cause” of the Battle of Bunker Hill, in terms of geography and physical jockeying for position by the military forces? What was the efficient cause or the immediate historical trigger, so to speak? Then there are the more immaterial two causes: The formal and the final. Can we see a kind of logic in the concepts of the two sides in terms of how the Battle played out, that would be the formal aspect, in terms of the different mentalities of the characters involved? What about the final cause or purpsoe? What was that? What purportedly justified the violence and suffering, and why?
Chapter 4, What Shall We Say of Human Nature? Cambridge Camp
This chapter lacks the “action” of the last one on Bunker Hill. In its form of telling the story of the American Revolution and the foundation of America, it dwells largely on the figure of George Washington, as he arrives in New England to take up his role as the first Army head commander for the Continental Congress. (Similarly, later in the chapter, General William Howe takes over the command of the British forces, at the time besieged in Boston, from the hapless General Gage). The chapter besides looking at leadership qualities, especially Washington’s, includes a focus on logistics and statistics–the size of the opposing forces and the challenges of maintaining and supplying them.
Let’s consider this chapter in relation to another liberal-arts approach to storytelling, that of Aristotelian categories of plot, characterization, theme, and setting. And also deeper details of “close reading,” in terms of the style, diction, tone, analogies, and context woven into the story by Atkinson’s writing.
First, in terms of characterization, how does Atkinson frame Washington as the “indispensable man” and also the emerging Continental Army as indispensable to the emergence of American identity?
Atkinson engages in “evidence-based” research writing. What are the ways in which he backs up a description of Washington as “indispensable”? Washington was often romanticized, but does he make the case for him as a worthy “father of his country,” even at this early point in the Revolutionary War? How and why? Does a factual characterization of Washington balance or not accusations in recent years that he was both tainted and driven by his role as a slaveholder, or not?
In terms of characterization of the Army itself, how is its difficult transition from New England militia units to Continental Army indicated (in its early stages) in this chapter? How did the challenges involved help inform the challenges facing the American drive for independence more generally?
As far as plot as another element of storytelling, does the emphasis on logistics in this chapter, and the lack of a major battle like Bunker Hill, “lose the plot”? Or is this itself a kind of storytelling plot element of a different type than battle accounts?
The destruction of Falmouth could be an action plot element but also in its detail an aspect of setting as a storytelling device. How do the details of the town and its end inform the conclusion of the chapter? What is meant by the line near the end, “The wolf had risen in the heart:?
In light of that conclusion, how would you describe the theme of this chapter? Its title “What Shall We Say of Human Nature” is taken from John Adams’ reaction to news of a spy in the midst of the revolutionaries. How might that include both issues of Washington’s qualities as leader, the capacity for ruthless cruelty in the British destruction of Falmouth, and the frustrating fluidity of the American militia’s strength? How do human factors impinge on historical movements? And do you agree with Atkinson’s assertion that it was the Continental Army under Washington that transformed rebels (in a civil war) into revolutionaries (in a revolution)?
Finally, as an aside with regard to Dr. Benjamin Church: How does the ambiguity about his guilt, as portrayed from the perspective of the time, add to or substract from the main storytelling in the chapter? He was proven to be a spy only long after the Revolution, but the evidence at the time was less definite, although he was convicted. (In this it parallels a famous modern American case, that of the Communist spy Alger Hiss during the Cold War.) Does Atkinson’s portrayal of the case mainly from the perspective of the time place us as readers effectively into the “cloud of war”?
Consider also, in the above categories of characterization, theme, plot, and setting, the aforementioned qualities of the writing: Style, diction, tone, analogy, context. How does Atkinson’s form as an experienced writer inform each of those categories through those details?
Chapter 5, I Shall Try to Retard the Evil Hour. Into Canada
In the concluding section of the chapter, Atkinson mentions that “Canadian peasants” flocked to help the Americans. Does this suggest an “economic” class element to the revolutionary cause, at least in the feudalistic French Canadian region? But was that aspect lacking in the 13 American colonies?
The chapter is structured around mini-biographies, such as of Generals Schuyler, Montgomery, and Carleton, and Benedict Arnold. Why was Arnold hailed as “an American Hannibal” for his exploits?
Why is the Quebec Act, which Carleton shepherded, important to the context?
How could American identity have been changed by including Canada in the United States? Does any of this have any relevance today to U.S.-Canadian relations? Why or why not?
Is there a noticeable difference between the federal-constitutional structure of government that emerged in the U.S., and the parliamentary-constitutional monarchy that emerged in Canada since? To what extent did those divergent political systems contribute to separate cultures and social orientations?
Chapter 6, America is an Ugly Job. London
Why did Atkinson choose to interrupt the military narrative by this chapter on London?
Consider Edmund Burke, who is considered a kind of godfather of conservatism in modern America. Did his de facto support of the American Revolution signal a conservative aspect to it? Why do you think he voiced his famous support for the American Revolution and famously opposed the French Revolution later?
The above relates to the nine framing questions near the top of this page, and the nature of the American Revolution.
Please apply the framing questions to this chapter in particular.
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WEEK 4: CHAPTERS 7-10
Chapter 7, They Fought, Bled, and Died Like Englishmen. Norfolk, VA.
This chapter raises the issue of race, and black slaves, in the American Revolutionary War. Gov. John Murray of Virginia, the Early of Dunmore, whose father had been arrested as a Jacobite in Britain (the theme of Jacobitism runs through the story of the American Founding as we will discuss more this semester and next) sought to arm an “Ethiopian” army of freed slaves of rebels against them. However, he himself did not free his hundreds of slaves, and Atkinson described his performative role as “emancipator” as largely a bluff because he recognized how the economy depended on slavery. Indeed, outside of America, “Britain would remain the world’s foremost slave-trading nation into the nineteenth century.” Still, his threat to arm slaves was a big reason for why he was detested by the Anglo-American rebels in Virginia. However, there were important economic and religious reasons motivating the Virginia rebels as well, as Atkinson indicates. What were some of those other reasons (see top of p. 183)? The title itself, although spoken of British imperial troops, is a giveaway, too, in this regard: The rebel elite saw themselves as fighting for the rights of Englishmen.
At the Battle of Great Bridge, rebel militia bore “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and many had “liberty or death” printed above their hearts. British losses were high, Dunmore was blamed for hubris. Norfolk then was heavily destroyed first by the British and then by rebel looting, as Dunmore the governor was driven offshore.
What kind of lessons can we personally learn from the character and virtues of those involved in these battles? What do the details described by Atkinson tell us about the nature of war and how it should be approached? The story of the destruction of Norfolk tells us what about the importance of propaganda and history in what today might be called asymmetric war?
The harsh situation of blacks fighting with the British captured by the rebels reminds readers today of the brutality of slavery and racialist ideology of the time. What warnings does that convey for us in a supposedly more enlightened 21st century?
Chapter 8, The Paths of Glory. Quebec, Canada.
The description of the effects of smallpox in the chapter offered a detailed reminder of the biological basis for human life and history, even especially military history. So, too, does the physical description of the terrain of Quebec City and its siege.
An instance of religious factors in the struggle can be seen in the resistance of New Englanders to inoculation as an early attempt to protect against smallpox. To what extent can such factors enter still into life today?
Quebec City is described as a religious-centered historic community, but in a different way than the New England settlement. How does that inform our understanding of those two cultures? Consider the role again of faith and spirituality in the conflict.
Lt. Col. Allan Maclean is another one of the Jacobite-related figures we’ll meet, rallying the British defenders of Quebec City against the rebel siege. The Jacobites were British (mainly Scottish Highlanders but including other royalists) who as outlaws fought for restoration of the Stuart dynasty and against the unseating of King James II in the so-called English Glorious Revolution. Later, at the Battle of Culloden in 1745, only a generation before the American Revolution, they had attempted to overthrow the new English parliamentary order, in favor of the Stuart claimant to the throne known as Bonnie Prince Charlie. Going down to romanticized defeat, some became loyalists fighting in America, while others joined the American rebels. University of Chicago historian Eric Nelson said that a strong Neo-Stuart cultural influence affected the American founding and how it led to a strong monarch-like Presidency, embodied first in George Washington. Indeed, the rebels engaged in propaganda that often blamed the moneyed interests of the British parliament for excesses and oppression, rather than the monarchy, at least as an institution. The Jacobites tended to rally for the old kingship and the old faith in England, as opposed to the later Jacobins in France who were revolutionaries. What does latent Jacobitism in American colonial culture, influencing both sides, say about the nature of the American Revolution versus the French Revolution?
The American General Montgomery seemed to display prideful delusion about capturing Quebec City in the same way that later the British leadership did about taking North Carolina (Chapter 10). Is that moral lesson also “allegorical” in the secular metaphorical sense of having applicability to the current-day world? If so, think of an example in international politics.
The chapter title comes from a popular poem, Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Writes in a Country Churchyard,” associated with the British General Wolfe’s earlier fatal victory over Quebec City, that “the paths of glory lead but to the grave.” How is that spiritually applicable in our own lives as a lesson from the American Revolution?
The details of the description of the defense of Quebec City are reminiscent, but on the British and French Canadian side, of the riveting description of the mustering of the militia solders at Concord and Lexington. How does that comparable use of engaging detail for either side enrich Atkinson’s storytelling about the war?
Does the history of this chapter leave a sense of the war as revolution, civil war, or foreign war? Can it be all at once?
Finally, the “martyrdom” of General Montgomery affords further reflection on memory and propaganda. Was the idealization of his death deserved, and if so, in what sense? In what way can history become mythological, and a siege such as that of Quebec City become a kind of epic story like the Trojan War in Homeric storytelling? Is this a helpful thing for people or not?
Chapter 9, The Ways of Heaven are Dark and Intricate, Boston, MA.
Details of the siege of Boston and of issues with natural resources including coal and salt open this chapter, as reminders of the constraints placed on any human conflict and ideals. The use of the interior of Old South Meeting House (a worship space of Puritan ancestry) for kindling, and then as a horse-riding ring, which later shocked George Washington the Anglican Vestryman. The British looked down on locals who had restricted theatrical performances under the legacy of Puritanism, and put on productions and masques, a couple of which (at least one here and one in a later chapter) Atkinson tells were disrupted by rebel activities. General Howe’s leadership in the siege is described, including his alleged dalliance with a young married loyalist woman, and his drive to have people inoculated against smallpox despite Puritan prejudices against inoculation. Realities of the dangers of trans-Atlantic supply logistics, including privateers, are told. Martha Washington is fully introduced as she comes up to be with her husband George, with whom she stayed “for half of the war’s one hundred months.”
How do such issues of forces and resources from the natural world, good and ill, together with personal lives, enter into a history of the conflict? Do we often miss that dimension in historical thinking and contemplating the grand efforts of our own lives and times?
The personality and character of Henry Knox as a support for Washington’s effort to forget an effective Continental Army are also introduced here. He brought the cannons from Lake Champlain. What aspects of character does he illustrate here?
Atkinson describes how Washington backed down from a potentially disastrous idea of a frontal assault on the British in Boston. He listed to his staff and surely also considered the limited supplies at hand. The danger of delusion through pride and “virtual reality” in one’s hand always seemed present for the leaders of both sides in the American Revolution. What does Washington’s about-face illustrate for us in our own choices, and potentially parallel about those faced. by American leadership today?
Chapter 10, The Whipping Snake. Cork, Ireland, and Moore’s Creek, NC.
The title of the chapter is related to British Major General Clinton’s gullible observation about the “whipping snake,” a mythical southern beast, which like the idea of “loyalist legions” was a delusion of British visitors.
Atkinson begins the chapter describing efforts to recruit Irishmen for the British Army and its planned expedition from Cork to the American South, and how the Irish were considered “cannon fodder” by the British.
The whole big armada-like project against North Carolina was a mistake and a delusion.
In fact, the Loyalist Scots Highlanders and others melted away as a “native” American guerrilla force, despite the presence among them of Flora MacDonald, herself a legendary figure from the earlier Jacobite uprising in Britain in 1745, mentioned above (now living in North Carolina and amid the pro-monarchist Loyalists).
Weather and logistical problems delayed the great British plan for a surprise attach on North Carolina, which was picked up by American intelligence way in advance anyway.
The slaughter of Loyalist Highlanders in Carolina marshland is chronicled in vivid detail by Atkinson in this chapter, culminating in the Moore’s Creek Battle.
The whole account may remind the reader of the later American General William Tecumseh Sherman’s comment that “war is hell.”
Efforts to romanticize and idealize war must meet with the reality of the deaths, damage, and grief it causes.
The ancient Byzantine Christians asserted that there were no just wars, only some necessary ones.
Was the American Revolution a necessary war? Why or why not?
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WEEK 5 (Oct. 3)
Chapter 11. City of Our Solemnities. Boston.
Chap. 12. A Strange Reverse of Fortune. Quebec
Chap. 13. Surrounded by Enemies, Open and Concealed. New York.
Chap. 14. A Dog in a Dancing School. Charleston, SC.
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Week 6 (Oct. 10)
Chap. 15.
Chap. 16.
Chap. 17.
Chap. 18
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Week 7 (Oct. 17)
Chapter 19.
Chapter 20.
Chapter 21.
Chapter 22.
Epilogue
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Week 8 (Oct. 24)
The Fate of the Day. 1777-1780.
Prologue. France.
Chapter 1. The March of Annihilation. Fort Ticonderoga, NY.
Chapter 2. This Cursed, Cutup Land. NYC.
Chapter 3. Fellows Willing to Go to Heaven. Little Neshaminny Creek, PA.
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Week 9 (Oct. 31)
Chapter 4. Thine Arrows Stick Fast in Me. Oriskany, NY, and Bennington, VT.
Chapter 5. A Barbarous Business in a Barbarous Country. Brandywine, PA.
Chapter 6. These are Dreadful Times. Philadelphia and Paoli, PA.
Chapter 7. Born Under a Fiery Planet. Germantown, PA.