Joseph J. Ellis - Revolutionary Summer

The summer of 1776 was revolutionary summer in the incipient United States.  In this thrilling example of popular narrative history, historian Joseph Ellis tells the story.  Ellis is my favorite early American historian.

Though the war touched off in 1775 it really began in 1776 when George Washington took his ragtag continental army to New York to meet the impending British invasion.  It turned out that New York City was indefensible and Washington was warned that this was so but he and others thought it had to be defended anyway.

Ellis's framework thesis is that the events in Philadelphia in the summer of 1776 must be considered in conjunction with the unfolding events in New York in that same summer as General Washington prepared to meet the expected British invasion.

The Continental army was routed in New York.  Washington and his men barely escaped to fight another day. First they escaped from Long Island to Manhattan, and then from Manhattan to the mainland up to White Plains.  If the Howes had only pursued they could have wiped out the Continentals.  They did not pursue because the Howes didn't think they had to to end the rebellion.  Richard Howe was playing diplomat trying to get surrender without undue bloodshed.  Good thing!   If the Continental army had been thoroughly anihilated, would the war have ended then and there?  Historians will always debate the question.

It is obvious that Ellis likes John Adams.  As the war commenced it was Adams more than anybody that held things together in Philadelphia as the Second Constinental Congress did its business.  In effect Adams was the secretary of war.  Adams was a conservative revolutionary.  He was dedicated to independence but thought the road to independence had to be properly and slowly carried out.  Events moved faster than Adams could control.  There was never any doubt in Adams's mind that the colonies would succeed.  You get the feeling from Ellis that there was some kind of mystical feeling on the part of true believers.  Once the rebellion reached a certain point, there was no turning back and the Howes were deluded in thinking they could end the matter in New York.