The British Army in 1775

 

In 1775 Great Britain depended on the Royal Navy to maintain trade and project British power.  Throughout the war the British could strike when and where they would along the virtually undefended American coastline. 

The British army numbered 48,000 men, about a quarter of the size of the French army.  Unlike the navy which depended on conscription and impressment for manpower, the British Army at the time of the American Revolution was a volunteer force. 

Volunteers were farm laborers or the unemployed, and usually in their early twenties.  A life in the army provided steady pay, regular meals and an escape from poverty.  The non-commissioned officers were the backbone of the army and insured strict discipline and rigorous training.

As the war progressed, the army expanded rapidly.  Some fifty thousand British soldiers fought in America. 

Two short periods of impressment were tried, in which unemployed men were taken into the army.  This proved so unpopular in Britain that it was quickly abandoned. 

The British turned to a well-established eighteenth century custom to augment their numbers namely hiring foreign auxiliaries.

Approximately 30,000 German troops were hired by the British to fight during the American Revolution. Most of these troops were from the German princely state of Hesse-Cassel, and hence the term “Hessians” came to be applied to all German troops in America no matter which princely state from which they may actually have originated.

Soldiers were a major export for Hesse-Cassel.  Boys were registered for military service at the age of seven.  Men from the ages of sixteen to thirty presented themselves annually for possible induction.  School dropouts, bankrupts, and the unemployed could be inducted at any time.  Life in the Hessian army was marked by harsh discipline, but had economic benefits.  Wages were higher than farm work and there was a promise of additional official money from the sale of captured military property.  There was also the lure of making money by plundering civilians, which although officially forbidden was widespread.

Early in the war, the Continental Congress devised a plan offering fifty acres of land, freedom to practice their religion, and civil liberties to German deserters.  Thousands of former Hessian soldiers did indeed remain in America after the war.

Benedict Arnold after the American Revolution

 

After betraying his country, Benedict Arnold accepted a commission in the British army.  After the war Benedict Arnold was not celebrated when he arrived in England.  

He tried to advise British politicians to continue the fight for America despite the defeat at Yorktown.  Members of Parliament expressed the hope that the government would never put Arnold at the head of a part of the British army lest “the sentiments of true honour, which every British officer (holds) dearer than life, should be (offended).”  

Arnold next tried his hand at business.  He was turned down for a position in the East India Company where great fortunes were being made with the explanation that the purity of his conduct was generally thought low.  

In 1785, Arnold tried land speculation in Canada and trading in the West Indies.  The entire family moved to Canada in 1787, where the quarrelsome Arnold became involved in a series of bad business deals and petty lawsuits.  He became so unpopular that the townspeople of Saint John, New Brunswick burned him in effigy in front of his house as his family watched.  

The family returned to London in 1791. In July 1792, Arnold fought a duel with the Earl of Lauderdale who had impugned his honor.  When war broke out with France he outfitted a privateer and sailed for the West Indies.  By 1801 Arnold’s health began to fail.  After four days of delirium he died on June 14, 1801 at the age of sixty leaving debts and a name synonymous with treachery.

Banastre Tarleton after the American Revolution

 

 Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton who led the fearsome Loyalist British Legion returned to England in triumph at the end of the American Revolution.  He was universally acclaimed for his legendary exploits in the American war and became a close friend of the Prince of Wales (the future King George IV).  In 1787 Tarleton wrote History of the Campaigns of 1780 and 1781 in the Southern Provinces of North America.  In 1790 he was elected to Parliament, where he served for over twenty years. In the Napoleonic Wars, Tarleton served under the Duke of Wellington reaching the rank of lieutenant general in 1801.  In 1815, he was awarded a baronetcy.

 In 2006, four Patriot regimental colors captured by Tarleton in 1779 and 1780 were auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York City on Flag Day.  Lot No. 1 consisted of one flag.  Lot No. 2 consisted of the three regimental colors of the 3^rd Virginia Detachment that Tarleton captured at the Battle of Waxhaws (also known as The Waxhaws Massacre).  Passed down in Tarleton’s family for almost two hundred and fifty years these battle flags were the last American Revolutionary War colors known to remain in British hands and the last such colors to remain in private hands anywhere.  The fiercely contested auction lasted fourteen minutes and raised $17.3 million. The three Virginia flags sold for $5.0 million.  The private buyer remains anonymous, but the flags have occasionally been exhibited publicly.

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Lord Cornwallis after Yorktown

 

Despite his defeat at Yorktown, Lord Charles Cornwallis was cheered when he landed in England on January 21, 1782.  He retained the confidence of successive British governments and was appointed Governor-General and Commander-in-chief in India in 1786.  He successfully led British forces to victory in the Third Anglo-Mysore War from 1789 to 1792.  In 1798 Cornwallis was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Commander-in-chief of Ireland.  The spirit of revolution had swept the British out of America and now threatened to do the same thing in Ireland.  Disaffected Irishmen began to assert their “constitutional rights” and sought aid from the French who had staged their own revolution in 1789.  A massive force of 26,000 was assembled under Lord Cornwallis which crushed the Irish rebellion and repulsed a French invasion of Ireland.  Following his service in Ireland, Cornwallis was reappointed to India in 1805 where he died of fever at the age of sixty-six not long after his arrival.

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The Most Famous Private Soldier of the American Revolution

 

 Peter Francisco (1760-1831) who was six feet eight inches tall, and weighed some 260 pounds has come down to history with the title the “Virginia Giant.” His deeds during the Revolutionary War became the stuff of myth and legend. Some of the stories may actually contain an element of truth, others if not true “ought to be”, in the words of the heroic storytellers of the Revolution.  The stories of the Giant’s deeds were so popular by the 1820s that the early Revolutionary War historian Alexander Garden wrote that he “scarcely ever met a man in Virginia who had not some miraculous tale to tell of Peter Francisco.”

Pedro (later called Peter) Francisco arrived at the dock in City Point aged five and was unable to speak English. It is believed that he had been kidnapped from his Portuguese parents in the Azores. He was taken in and raised by the family of Judge Anthony Winston.

 In 1776, at the age of sixteen Francisco enlisted in the Virginia Line. He fought in Pennsylvania at the Battle of Germantown and in New Jersey at the Battle of Monmouth. Francisco was part of an attack on the British fort of Stony Point in New York where supposedly, even after receiving a nine-inch wound to the stomach, he continued to fight; killing twelve British grenadiers and capturing the enemy’s flag.

  One of his most well-known feats occurred in South Carolina after the Battle of Camden. Seeing an American cannon mired in mud and about to be abandoned, he freed the 1,100-pound cannon and carried it on his shoulders to keep it from falling into the hands of the enemy.

 He fought at Guilford Court House in North Carolina. A monument at Guilford Court House National Military Park commemorates Francisco’s efforts,” To Peter Francisco a giant in stature, might, and courage who slew in this engagement eleven of the enemy with his own broad sword rendering himself thereby perhaps the most famous Private soldier of the Revolutionary War.”

 The story of “Francisco’s Fight” relates how the legendary giant, although unarmed, overpowered nine enemy dragoons who were trying to rob him of the silver buckles on his shoes. He supposedly killed three dragoons and made off with eight horses.

The First Attack on the Custer Legend (Battle of the Little Bighorn)

 George Armstrong Custer’s widow, Elizabeth “Libbie” Custer died on April 4, 1933.  She had defended her husband’s reputation for over fifty years.  Within a year the Custer legend was under attack by revisionist historians.

 In 1934 Frederic F. Van de Water wrote Glory Hunter.: A Life of General Custer.  

Custer’s primary qualities according to Van der Water were blind ambition and hubris. 

Rare Copy of Constitution Sold at Auction

 

 The National Archives 

On October 17, 2024, a rare privately owned copy of the U.S. Constitution was sold at auction by Brunks Auctions of Asheville, North Carolina for $9 million.  The final bid far outstripped the reserve price of $1 million.  The bidding lasted seven minutes and bids came in at $500,000 intervals.

This rare artifact is one of the 100 official copies printed in 1787 that were sent to state leaders for review before being formally adopted, and is among only eight copies known to exist today, and is the only one still in private hands.  The document was sold to an anonymous bidder.

The almost 237 year old document was found inside a battered filing cabinet in a long neglected storage room on a property in Edenton, North Carolina once owned by the state’s first governor Samuel Johnston.  Johnston was governor from 1787 to 1789, and oversaw the state convention that ratified the Constitution.  Also found with the copy of the Constitution was an original letter from George Washington asking for ratification!

Wicked and the Ruby Slippers.

 

Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West creates a backstory for Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, and explores the world of The Wizard of Oz from her perspective. Elphaba is modeled after Margaret Hamilton's portrayal in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz: green-skinned, clad entirely in black and wearing a tall, peaked hat. 

The novel Wicked explains that the ruby slippers a pair of magical shoes which play a pivotal role in The Wizard of Oz, were given to Nessarose, the future Wicked Witch of the East, by her father. In the musical Wicked, it is Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who enchants the shoes, giving her crippled sister Nessarose the ability to walk.

The ruby slippers worn by Dorothy, played by Judy Garland, in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz have achieved iconic stature and are among the most valuable items of film memorabilia.

In L. Frank Baum's original 1900 novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy wears silver shoes but the color of the shoes was changed to take advantage of the introduction of Technicolor to the movies.

The wardrobe woman who worked on the film claimed "six identical pairs" had been made. Four pairs used in the movie have been accounted for.  Is it possible that the other two pair are tucked away in someone’s garage or attic?

Let’s look at the big four:

One pair is on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.

Another pair was initially owned by one Roberta Bauman who won them in a contest.  In 1988, these shoes were sold at auction to Anthony Landini for $150,000. Landini auctioned this pair of slippers, at Christie's auction house in 2000, for $666,000. They now belong to a collector who owns memorabilia shops in Hollywood.

A third pair were the highlight of the 2011 “Icons of Hollywood auction”.  They were offered with a starting reserve price of two million dollars, but did not sell.  Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, and other benefactors made it possible for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to acquire the pair for an undisclosed price in February 2012 for the Academy’s new Museum in Los Angeles.

Michael Shaw acquired the fourth pair in 1970. These were stolen from an exhibit at the Judy Garland Museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in August, 2005.  On September 4, 2018, the FBI announced the stolen pair had been recovered after 13 years.  Five year later, one Terry Martin was indicted for the crime and pleaded guilty, saying that he thought the slippers were made from real rubies because they were insured for one million dollars.

Another iconic piece of Oz memorabilia, the Wicked Witch’s hat from the 1939 movie, has recently come up for auction with a whopping price tag of $140,000.