Showing posts with label History 1770s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History 1770s. Show all posts

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Kevin Dayhoff The Tentacle 4th of July Against overwhelming odds

June 29, 2011

Against overwhelming odds
Next Monday is Independence Day. For someone like me, who grew up in a small agriculture-based country town in the heartland of the birth of our great nation, the holiday has always had a special meaning. I have often wondered why.

Perhaps it is because the Fourth of July is a part of our nation’s collective historic Zeitgeist, which commemorates the shared common experience of a great nation surviving against overwhelming odds.

As I have grown older and my study of history has intensified, the holiday has only grown in stature and meaning.

History is written by the winners and it is often sanitized and romanticized to an extent that the events portrayed by historical accounts, would be unrecognizable by the participants.

This great experiment we call democracy, freedom and America, should have failed any number of times in history and yet we prevail.

After the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress, which was only a revolutionary government in formation since September 5th, 1774, immediately set about the struggle to form a national government among states that did not get along, delegates that did not like each other, and regions of the colonies that had diametrically opposed interests.

On July 3, 2005, George Will wrote that when General George Washington “arrived...  http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=4485

*****
Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Dr. Paul Lockhart: The Whites of Their Eyes - Bunker Hill: History and Myth


June 15, 2011

Bunker Hill: History and Myth
Kevin E. Dayhoff
Last week I picked-up a copy of “The Whites of Their Eyes,” by Dr. Paul Lockhart, a highly readable and entertaining socio-political – and military – study of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the first American army, and the emergence of George Washington.

Although I am behind in my summer reading, my first selection was well worth the wait.

To add to my anticipation of diving into new insights, research and scholarship on the first major political–military engagement of the American Revolution, last week I was fortunate to be able to attend a presentation on the topic by the author.

Dr. Lockhart, a noted historian, discussed his just-released book in Williamsburg, VA, in which the author debunks much of the folklore and legendary mythology over this episode of the American experience.

His evening presentation came on the heels of a long week of record hot temperatures in the muggy tidewater environs of colonial Williamsburg, setting the stage perfectly as he took his audience back to one hot afternoon on June 17, 1775, on a hill in Charlestown, near Boston.

He then explained that what is arguably “the first honest-to-goodness battle of the revolution” did not take place on Bunker’s Hill, but on a nearby redoubt called Breed’s Hill.

The battle, in the chaotic aftermath of the unplanned skirmishes of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, took place in the larger context of the siege of Boston and has since reserved its place in American history as the “truly iconic battle of the American Revolution,” Dr. Lockhart noted.

In his book, he observes that the Battle of Bunker Hill two months later “simply would not be forgotten. And that is very curious. Bunker Hill … doesn’t enjoy any special tactical or strategic significance.”

The battle on the Charlestown peninsula, “was not decisive, nor was it an American victory. We often forget that Bunker Hill was, in fact, a British victory and a significant one at that.”

“It was small even when compared to other battles of the Revolutionary War and laughably puny when compared to lesser-known battles in Europe… There is no earthly reason, no logical reason at least, that Bunker Hill should be so famous, and yet it is…”

It was at that juncture that Dr. Lockhart’s talking points reminded me of the conversation on the topic of American Exceptionalism which Steve Berryman, Pattee Brown, and I had with WFMD listeners just the other weekend...  http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=4459

*****
*****
Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack: http://www.kevindayhoff.net/ Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/