tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2009239175020341445.post4524254856138316076..comments2022-03-29T17:43:03.236-04:00Comments on History Book Club: The War of 1812Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2009239175020341445.post-18702321482655623342014-08-17T13:13:43.312-04:002014-08-17T13:13:43.312-04:00DP wrote:
Jonathan Yardley has an interesting rev...DP wrote:<br /><br />Jonathan Yardley has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/headline/2014/08/15/406e4a5e-1bde-11e4-ae54-0cfe1f974f8a_story.html" rel="nofollow">an interesting review</a> of a new book by Peter Snow (British author) in the Wash. Post today on the burning of Washington: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/When-Britain-Burned-White-House/dp/1848546130/ref=tmm_pap_title_0" rel="nofollow"><i>When Britain Burned the White House, The 1814 Invasion of Washington</i></a>. He calls it “a fine example of serious and literate popular history.” He also calls Anthony Pitch’s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Burning-Washington-Bluejacket-Paperback/dp/1557504253/ref=tmm_pap_title_0" rel="nofollow"><i>The Burning of Washington</i></a> published in 2000, “one of the best accounts of a war that hardly deserves to be forgotten.” I had read a review of Pitch’s book that was slightly uncomplimentary, but most Amazon reviews are 4 or 5 stars. His very detailed book would naturally be of more interest to locals than others. This local author has also led Smithsonian tours of historical Washington.John Dalyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05363204598363726098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2009239175020341445.post-73708204762738583862014-06-15T05:31:23.299-04:002014-06-15T05:31:23.299-04:00There is a video of an interesting talk by Alan Ta...There is <a href="http://www.c-span.org/video/?315789-1/2014-pulitzer-prize-winner-alan-taylor" rel="nofollow">a video of an interesting talk by Alan Taylor on the role of escaped slaves in the British campaign in Maryland and Virginia in the War of 2812</a>. The talk is related to his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Internal-Enemy-Virginia-1772-1832/dp/0393073718" rel="nofollow"><i>The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia: 1772-1832</i></a>, which won the 2013 National Book Award for Nonfiction and the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for History.<br /><br />There is also <a href="http://series.c-span.org/History/Events/Lectures-in-History-Alcohol-Use-in-the-Early-American-Republic/10737444122/" rel="nofollow">an interesting online lecture by Professor Taylor on Alcohol Use in the Early American Republic.</a>John Dalyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05363204598363726098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2009239175020341445.post-31362133323585080322014-06-13T09:58:10.966-04:002014-06-13T09:58:10.966-04:00Oops! The Erie Canal cost $7 million, not $7.Oops! The Erie Canal cost $7 million, not $7.John Dalyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05363204598363726098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2009239175020341445.post-82560151078400908702014-06-13T09:50:53.635-04:002014-06-13T09:50:53.635-04:00Norm's comment, Part II:
Although his militar...Norm's comment, Part II:<br /><br />Although his military incompetence did preclude his gaining the governorship, as Tompkins intended, SVR III later used part of his inheritance to found the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, a reputable university in Troy, New York (near Albany).<br />A major turning-point in the war was the construction and command of several formidable warships at Erie, PA, by Navy Commander Oliver Hazard Perry on Lake Erie (pp. 243, 246). He engaged British commander Barclay in a close victory, which he communicated to General William Henry Harrison with the well-known line, “We have met the enemy and they are ours”. Perry then transported Harrison’s army north of Detroit, from where it advanced to a U.S. victory in the 1813 Battle of the Thames. (Devotees of Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” comic strip may remember his support of EPA programs with a poster in which Pogo converts Perry’s line into “We have met the enemy and they are us”.) Perry’s next action in South America did him in. But his younger brother Matthew C. Perry – who had served with Oliver in the Lake Erie victory – capped a distinguished Navy career by taking a floatilla of steam powered warships (the latest technology of the time) into Edo (Tokyo) Bay and intimidating the Emperor into granting a coaling base and trading post with the U.S. Prior that event, the Tokugawa Shogunate had for 200 years permitted only limited trade, and then only with a Netherlands monopoly.<br />Finally, there is mention of Abraham Markle (p. 247), born in New York State and a lively if ruthless entrepreneur, briefly an hotelier in Newark (Niagara on the Lake) and a colleague of Canadian “deserter” Joseph Willcocks. Don’t know for certain owing to lack of documentation, but I believe he was an ancestor of my mother, also a Markle. John Dalyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05363204598363726098noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2009239175020341445.post-2758241146586346302014-06-13T09:50:18.241-04:002014-06-13T09:50:18.241-04:00Norm shared this comment on the club listserve: (P...Norm shared this comment on <a href="https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/HistoryBookDiscussion/info" rel="nofollow">the club listserve:</a> (Part I)<br /><br />Alan Taylor’s Civil War of 1812 marshals an impressive amount of detail about incidents along the U.S.-Canadian border. Much additional history lies beyond that border, for example:<br />George McClure’s aide William Beatty Rochester was the first-born son of Nathaniel Rochester, who departed Hagerstown, Maryland, to found a flour mill alongside the Genesee River falls near Lake Ontario. It became Rochesterville, later Rochester, which was my birthplace – located about halfway between the campaign points of Oswego, NY, and Newark, Ontario. <br />Oswego was a target for the British because it was the repository of U.S. munitions and supplies. Its loss crippled much of the planned action on Lake Ontario. It remains a bucolic but pleasant area that I visited as a teenage camper.<br />Newark, Ontario – at the western side of Niagara River discharge into Lake Ontario – is now called “Niagara on the Lake”. Decades ago it was restored by a wealthy benefactor into a pleasant town containing a Shaw performance theatre, three very good wineries that also serve excellent cuisine in very pleasant surroundings, and other attractions. It is the place to book in, as I did, whenever visiting Niagara Falls.<br />William Beatty Rochester and his colleague Jessie Hawley actively petitioned for construction of a canal from Lake Erie to the northern Hudson near Albany, persuasive upon Republican New York State politician DeWitt Clinton who also served on an “Erie Canal Commission”. Clinton nearly beat Madison for the presidency in 1812, later becoming governor of New York in 1817 (re-elected twice). As governor he persuaded the NY legislature to allocate $7 for the canal, against vocal opposition (“Clinton’s overpriced ditch”); but it proved crucial to stimulating trade as far west as Duluth, and for changing New York City from a dinky town into a commercial metropolis. The cost of the canal was returned within six years. During my teens, a great sport for young bucks like me was taking young ladies out on the canal in canoes. Weeping willow trees along the shore provided hidden sanctuaries where boaters could stop and, say, have lunch. Or whatever. <br />Originally the canal went through the center of Rochester via a Roman-style aqueduct. George Eastman’s first photograph showed that aqueduct crossing over the Genesee River; and it was at that intersection my father was employed half a century as a law-book printer.<br />Another strong advocate of the Erie Canal was Stephen Van Rensselaer III, whose father was the ninth patron of Rensselaerswyck, a 1,200 square-mile grant in upstate New York awarded by Dutch colonists to his ancestor Kiliaen van Rensselaer – making SVR III the tenth-richest American of all time (adjusted for inflation) and the 22nd richest in history. He was Lieutenant-Governor under John Jay, and in 1812 the leading candidate to replace Governor Daniel Tompkins. Tompkins cleverly eliminated the rivalry of SVR III by offering him command of the U.S. army facing the well-fortified British at Queenston Heights on the Niagara escarpment (p. 183). As Taylor notes, Van Rensselaer, an untrained militia general, was a bumbling commander; and despite the demise of British general Brock during battle, SVR III lost the assault. Although Taylor doesn’t mention this, the British victory was helped significantly by Laura Secord, wife of a British soldier wounded a year earlier, who acquired information about SVR III’s impending attack and walked 20 miles to alert a British lieutenant defending the escarpment. Today, “Laura Secord” is the name of Canadian chocolates; the joke being that most U.S. purchasers do not recognize he significance of that name.<br />John Dalyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05363204598363726098noreply@blogger.com