Stop the Revolution: America in the Summer of Independence and the Conference for Peace by Thomas J. McGuire
SKU:
$16.00
$16.00
per item
Stop the Revolution: America in the Summer of Independence and the Conference for Peace by Thomas J. McGuire
"The met, they talked, they parted."
So wrote Ambrose Serle, secretary to British admiral Richard Lord Howe, after the Staten Island Conference on September 11, 1776, in which Howe met with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge of the Continental Congress in an attempt to bring a peaceful end to the American Revolution. It would be the last time that Great Britain would speak to America as colonies.
This fascinating story of this little known, but pivotal event in American history is here woven together by Revolutionary War expert Thomas J. McGuire through eyewitness accounts from the participants, culled from contemporary letters, logs, diaries, and reports.
At the outset of the Revolution, Admiral How and his brother Gen. William Howe had been granted limited power by the British government to act as "peace commissioners" to attempt to bring an amicable end to the rebellion. Admiral Howe arrived in New York on July 12, a week after independence was declared in Philadelphia, and contacted his friend Benjamin Franklin in hopes of effecting reconciliation with the colonies. Howe made another effort after the disastrous Battle of Long Island on August 27 by sending captured American general John Sullivan to Congress with a message asking for a meeting with "private gentlemen" to discuss peace. So Adams, Franklin, and Rutledge embarked from Philadelphia on a journey through New Jersey to meet with Howe at the Billopp House on Staten Island to find out exactly what the British had to offer.
The story of the conference is set in the context of the Summer of Independence, a world of tavern meetings, military encampments, horse-and-carriage transport, and menacing warships, with insights from an array of colorful individuals, such as Nicholas Cresswell, a feisty Englishman observing events while traveling through the heart of the colonies; Rev. Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg, the acerbic senior Lutheran pastor living in Trappe, Pennsylvania, who is distressed by the war and the radical aspects of the new state constitution; and Margaret Moncrieffe, a British captain's precocious daughter, who dined with George Washington and raised a glass to General Howe.
The book offers a compelling glimpse into politics, military diplomacy, and American character at the dawn of independence and reflects on the meaning and importance of such fateful moments from the past in light of current events.
Stackpole Books, Hardcover, 2011
This is a BRAND NEW book.
"The met, they talked, they parted."
So wrote Ambrose Serle, secretary to British admiral Richard Lord Howe, after the Staten Island Conference on September 11, 1776, in which Howe met with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Edward Rutledge of the Continental Congress in an attempt to bring a peaceful end to the American Revolution. It would be the last time that Great Britain would speak to America as colonies.
This fascinating story of this little known, but pivotal event in American history is here woven together by Revolutionary War expert Thomas J. McGuire through eyewitness accounts from the participants, culled from contemporary letters, logs, diaries, and reports.
At the outset of the Revolution, Admiral How and his brother Gen. William Howe had been granted limited power by the British government to act as "peace commissioners" to attempt to bring an amicable end to the rebellion. Admiral Howe arrived in New York on July 12, a week after independence was declared in Philadelphia, and contacted his friend Benjamin Franklin in hopes of effecting reconciliation with the colonies. Howe made another effort after the disastrous Battle of Long Island on August 27 by sending captured American general John Sullivan to Congress with a message asking for a meeting with "private gentlemen" to discuss peace. So Adams, Franklin, and Rutledge embarked from Philadelphia on a journey through New Jersey to meet with Howe at the Billopp House on Staten Island to find out exactly what the British had to offer.
The story of the conference is set in the context of the Summer of Independence, a world of tavern meetings, military encampments, horse-and-carriage transport, and menacing warships, with insights from an array of colorful individuals, such as Nicholas Cresswell, a feisty Englishman observing events while traveling through the heart of the colonies; Rev. Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg, the acerbic senior Lutheran pastor living in Trappe, Pennsylvania, who is distressed by the war and the radical aspects of the new state constitution; and Margaret Moncrieffe, a British captain's precocious daughter, who dined with George Washington and raised a glass to General Howe.
The book offers a compelling glimpse into politics, military diplomacy, and American character at the dawn of independence and reflects on the meaning and importance of such fateful moments from the past in light of current events.
Stackpole Books, Hardcover, 2011
This is a BRAND NEW book.
1 available