"Dark violence and atrocities of the Revolutionary War" Topic

"Holger Hoock's grimly detailed "history of violence" in the conflict between Great Britain and its rebellious colonies across the Atlantic offers a sobering corrective to the sanitized version of the American Revolution passed down through generations by the victorious United States. He paints a disturbing picture of what was in many ways a civil war, with both sides committing atrocities. He also provides a fascinating case study in the power of myth-making — and it seems only fitting that even at the birth of their nation, the Americans had a better grasp of the need for good publicity…"
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Amicalement
Armand

This might be a good book to take a look at.

The Revolution was restrained in its violence. But there were significant exceptions like the Mohawk valley, and the Carolinas collapsed into a Hobbesian state of nature that lasted well into 1782.

In general large conflicts tend to pick up pre-existing animosities and intensify them. And there were plenty of those in the colonies in 1775.

But there was nothing even close the the French Reign of Terror. Colonel Lynch in Virginia may have seen his name attached to extra-judicial hangings, but he in fact confined himself to whippings, confiscation of property (mainly guns), and forced enlistment in the Continental army. He suppressed what might have been a dangerous Loyalist conspiracy in southwest Virginia, acting immediately without waiting for legal permission; and the legislature retroactively indemnified him, making him immune from law suits.

It WAS a revolution, but comparatively mild if the French or Russian or Chinese revolutions are a standard.

And what is a 'standard' revolution?

1688 was a pretty civilised revolution by most standards.

What I said: French, or Russian, etc. The Anglo revolutions are often more restrained, as in 1775 and 1688.

Key thing distinguishing American from, say, French, is American was conservative, fought to preserve existing liberty rather than to gain it. Plus the French tried to change EVERYTHING, while America kept, for example, its local and state levels of government pretty much intact right through it.

And America was a SUCCESSFUL revolutiuon. Contrast Washington with Oliver Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte.

Doc-
I've read the book. I think you should too. It makes its point, which is mainly comparing modern American myths of the war to reality.

For example, people tend to think of the Carolinas as the sole region of chaotic guerrilla carnage. This is incorrect.
NJ was also subject to such, with both sides hanging prisoners as reprisals, and active raiding by Tory groups.
With counter raids by Patriots.
Add on the foraging expeditions of the British out of NYC, and you have a very bloody affair. And it lasted longer than the Carolina violence.

"atrocities of the Revolutionary War"

All that good tea thrown into Boston harbor, shameful really!

Read what was done by the British to American prisoners and how few of them survived. Amazed that that atrocity has not been carried forward thru the years.

The AWI was far from the most violent revolution/civil war in history. Still it was more violent than the sanitized version that is usually presented. The violence in some instances started even before the fighting, and atrocities were committed by both sides.

1689 in England may not have been that bad, but remember what happened in Scotland and Ireland.

Glad you like it Kevin!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

And America was a SUCCESSFUL revolutiuon. Contrast Washington with Oliver Cromwell or Napoleon Bonaparte.

There is no need for shouting.

Napoleon is properly Napoleon Bonaparte before becoming First Consul of France, usually with his rank attached to his name, so usually General Bonaparte.

Upon becoming First Consul, he would be First Consul Bonaparte or just Bonaparte.

Upon becoming Emperor of the French, he would be Napoleon.

As a captain of artillery in 1789, Napoleon distinguished himself in combat, first at the siege of Toulon in 1793, winning promotion to general of brigade, and then as an army commander and a general of division. He fought in the wars of the Revolution but was not involved in politics until he was recruited by Sieyes for the coup against the Directory, the body that ruled France, in 1799. He was not the instigator of the coup, but he came out of it in charge as First Consul.

His institutional reforms completely changed France for the better and many of those reforms are still part of the French government and law. And he ruled as a civilian head of state and never as a military dictator.

When he was First Consul, one of his generals asked him if he would resign and step down when his reforms were done. He replied, 'Who do you think I am? George Washington?'

Napoleon admired Washington and put the French army into mourning when he heard of Washington's death in late 1799. He also made peace with the United States and ended the Quasi-War in 1800.

Still it was more violent than the sanitized version that is usually presented. The violence in some instances started even before the fighting, and atrocities were committed by both sides.

Absolutely correct and very well said.

The Continental Army endured far more hardships than any American Army in the field since then and accomplished more than any of them-independence and a new country.

Dan Cyr, really? Get some perspective. Alternately consider they were in rebellion and could have been strung up instead.

I doubt the prison hulks were deliberate cruelty; more likely just indifference and bureaucracy.

Kevin, I had not read that Napoleon quip about Washington. Indeed he wasn't!

And caps are for EMPHASIS, not shouting.

You don't know too much about Napoleon, do you? He was as great a man as Washington and in political thought he was a liberal.

His greatest achievements were social and political and how he remade France from the chaos of the Revolution.

There are many things I do not know too much about. However, the juxtaposition of the two makes clear the extent to which the American revolution was successful and the French was not. The American Revolution did not produce chaos that required a Great Man on Horseback to undo. The revolutionaries lived long lives governing the nation they had created and mostly died in bed. And I suppose the Emperor was politically a liberal? General Bonaparte was, I guess.

So, in that event, hanging, the Americans should have hung all the British and German troops that surrendered?

As for "indifference and bureaucracy", one might have thought that the British would have noticed the thousands that died during the first winter in NYC after the campaign to capture Manhattan. Locked up in churches, warehouses and such, with not enough to eat, drink, clothing/blankets after being robbed when captured, heat, medicine, they died by the dozens each day right in front of the entire population/army occupying the city.

Every war has its atrocities, but few murdered tens of thousands of prisoners deliberately at that time in Europe.

…clear the extent to which the American revolution was successful and the French was not.

But the French Revolution was successful in that the social gains of the Revolution were so ingrained in French society that fifteen years of restored Bourbon rule from 1815-1830 could not and did not replace them. And the French finally threw the Bourbons out in 1830 and a monarchy finally out in 1848.

And, yes, the Emperor Napoleon was a political liberal. He successfully ended the French Revolution in 1800.

The American Revolution did not produce chaos that required a Great Man on Horseback to undo.

But there was great chaos in the country after the war ended and the country was falling apart because of a weak central government. The Constitutional Convention fixed that, but it would have been still-born without Washington as head of state.

He wasn't elected the first term-he was for all intents and purposes appointed and Article II of the Constitution was modeled on Washington.

I agree with all of that except the "great chaos" part. We've already argued about the reality versus the hype of Shays Rebellion.

I believe monarchy lasted in France until 1870, when the second Bonaparte emperor abdicated.

Correct. I forgot about that person, who is entirely forgettable.

I doubt the prison hulks were deliberate cruelty; more likely just indifference and bureaucracy.

Really? I suggest that you might want to study that subject just a little more.

The British also used them during the Napoleonic Wars. That seem 'deliberate' to me.

"Deliberate". I do not think that word means what you think it means.

Are you saying cruel deaths was the PURPOSE, the end in view, of the use of prison hulks? If the deaths were incidental to other things -- like keeping the costs low, for example -- then it was not deliberate.

The conditions in the hulks were unsanitary, promoted disease, and the end result was the death of many of those incarcerated.

And you believe the British were not aware of that? And if they were aware of that and did nothing to fix the problem, then that is deliberate.

If nothing else it was criminal negligence.

'When a man died he was carried up on the forecastle and laid there until the next morning at 8 o'clock when they were all lowered down the ships sides by a rope round them in the same manner as tho' they were beasts. There was 8 died of a day while I was there. They were carried on shore in heaps and hove out the boat on the wharf then taken across a hand barrow, carried to the edge of the bank where a hole was dug 1 or 2 feet deep and all hove in together. It is reported that 11700 and odd was buried at this place and in this manner.'-Christopher Vail who was aboard the Jersey in 1781.

'The heat was so intense that (the hot sun shining all day on deck) they were all naked, which also served the well to get rid of vermin, but the sick were eaten up alive. Their sickly countenances, and ghastly looks were truly horrible; some swearing and blaspheming; others crying, praying, and wringing their hands; and stalking about like ghosts; others delirious, raving and storming,—all panting for breath; some dead, and corrupting. The air was so foul that at times a lamp could not be kept burning, by reason of which the bodies were not missed until they had been dead ten days.'-Robert Sheffield 1778.

Have you read this one?

link

How about this one?

link

We've already argued about the reality versus the hype of Shays Rebellion.

Shay's rebellion was not the only unrest in the country during this period. And you're underestimating the danger of a Shays' rebellion. And blood was shed and shots were fired.

The Revolution was restrained in its violence.

Really? The battles of the Revolution were just as brutal as in other wars and if you need examples I would be more than happy to list and explain them to you.

Some examples of the viciousness of the fighting was Tarleton's behavior at the Waxhaws, Lee's surprise and slaughter of Pyle's command at the Haw River in February 1781.

And I suppose the Emperor was politically a liberal? General Bonaparte was, I guess.

Baron Fain in his memoirs commented on Napoleon, among other things, the following:

'His religious opinions were the height of modern philosophy; he was completely given to tolerance.' '…everywhere that he found several religions, he ended the domination by which one took precedence over the others.'

'As for his political opinions, they were liberal…Napoleon's political education, begun with reading the writings of antiquity, was completed in the camps of the Republiic…In the best passages of his imperial speeches, we find a host of expressions and turns of phrase that could well pass for echoes of the republican style.'

'Equality of rights was everything in Napoleon's eyes. He saw all the good of the French revolution expressed there in a single phrase, and he brought great honor on himself by keeping this vital principle safe and sound.'

'Far from being evil, Napoleon was naturally good. If he had been evil with so much power at his disposal, would he be reproached for two or three acts of violence or anger during a government that lasted fifteen years!'

I forgot about that person, who is entirely forgettable

Evidently, but not perhaps to the French who, following the Bonapartist coup, embraced an adventurist monarchy for a further twenty years climaxing with the Prussians in Versailles and the bloody repression of the Paris Commune.

"Ou sont les neiges d'antan?"

One should distinguish between battlefield deaths and political executions. There was nothing remotely like the Reign of Terror.

It remains one of the great facts of world history, and of immense and beneficial consequence, that the French style of government and philosophy did NOT prevail over the Anglosphere. From Louis XIV to Robespierre and Bonaparte, the world beyond the Continent mostly avoided the worst effects.

I agree with "criminal negligence" though again I suspect the main cause was indifference and inertia as opposed to deliberate cruelty. I think the comparison with the Civil War POW camps -- where Camp Douglas in Ilinois had almost as high a death rate as Andersonville, though the North had immensely greater resources -- may be apt. I have walked around Camp Ford in Tyler Texas, the main Trans-Mississippi Confederate POW camp (and a very interesting place), and it is grim indeed -- though far less severe than Andersonville or the hulks. Deliberate cruelty certainly exists, but I think in large scale it is far more likely to be an unintended by-product rather than the aimed-at purpose. We have the Holocaust as the model of what THAT looks like.

Libby prison…

Civil prisons in peeace time were not exactly beds of roses.

From Louis XIV to Robespierre and Bonaparte, the world beyond the Continent mostly avoided the worst effects.

And the 'worst effect' from Napoleon were…?

The idea of empire, once again.

And that is a 'worst effect'?

What about the empires of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Great Britain?

The governments of the first three were both corrupt and bankrupt during the period 1792-1815 and the Tsar, king, and emperor were not in any way a reformer as Napoleon was. And compared to Napoleon they came up short in the character category.

In France during the period, and probably before the Revolution, the terms 'nation' and 'empire' were synonymous.

There was nothing remotely like the Reign of Terror.

In the same vein, there was nothing like the Bourbon 'White Terror' after Waterloo.

The multi-national empires you listed were the prison-camps of nations, and brought on WWI, as great a disaster as the world has seen. Napoleon may have been relatively liberal, but the IDEA of empire is not remotely liberal.

The multi-national empires you listed were the prison-camps of nations

Prison camps? How so?

And since in the French sense, as already mentioned, the terms 'empire' and 'nation' were synonymous, your comment on Napoleon and his Empire can be construed as naïve. Napoleon spread his reforms and policies of civil rights, the Code Civile, freedom of religion, etc., as the Empire grew. And Napoleon's allies, such as the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, also conducted reforms.

And it should not be forgotten that Napoleon was a constitutional monarch after becoming Emperor and governed by the rule of law-he was neither a military dictator or a tyrant.

No-one was ever arrested, threatened, or executed, at Napoleon's personal dictat who didn't deserve it.

Empires can do some good by imposing peace on antagonists who would rather fight each other, but this comes at a very high price in freedom. Consider Poland's non-existence at the time of the Russian and Austrian empires. (Granted, Napoleon supported a Polish nation but it was to weaken those inimical empires.)