USAHEC Educators' Toolbox: American Revolution and War of 1812

The American conquest of Indian communities east of the Mississippi River helps demonstrate how early Americans embraced warfare shaped by extravagant violence and focused on conquest. Grenier provides a major revision in understanding the place of warfare directed at noncombatants in the American military tradition, and his conclusions are relevant to understand US 'special operations' in the War on Terror. He explores the evolution of American war, showing how the first war waged against Indian noncombatant populations and their agricultural resources became the standard method of war employed by early Americans and which ultimately defined their military heritage.

While it lasted only sixteen months, King Philip's War (1675-1676) was arguably one of the most significant of the colonial wars that wracked early America. As the first major military crisis to directly strike one of the Empire's most important possessions: the Massachusetts Bay Colony. King Philip's War marked the first time that Massachusetts had to mobilize mass numbers of ordinary, local men to fight. In this exhaustive social history and community study of Essex County, Massachusetts' militia, Dr. Kyle F. Zelner boldly challenges traditional interpretations of who was called to serve during this period. Drawing on muster and pay lists as well as countless historical records, Zelner demonstrates that Essex County's more upstanding citizens were often spared from impressments, while the "rabble" - criminals, drunkards, the poor- were forced to join active fighting units, with town militia committees selecting Soldiers who would be least missed should they die in action. Enhanced by illustrations and maps, "A Rabble in Arms" shows that, despite heroic illusions of a universal military obligation, town fathers, to damaging effects, often placed local and personal interests above colonial military concerns.

Before the USS Maine, Pearl Harbor, or the attacks on 9-11-01, the United States suffered an often forgotten national tragedy: the burning of Washington, DC in 1814. Washington Post correspondent Steve Vogel’s second book, Through the Perilous Fight: Six Weeks that Saved the Nation, will focus on the events surrounding the British campaign during the War of 1812, which included burning the Capitol Building and the White House. He will tell the story of the fateful summer of 1814, when the United States was on the brink of defeat at the hands of its former masters. Vogel’s character-driven narrative highlights both the American and British main players in the Burning of Washington and the Battle of Baltimore. While President James Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe contemplated American defense, British Admiral George Cockburn and his men invaded Washington and burnt city landmarks in an attempt to cripple the government and crush the American spirit. After the attack, American troops regrouped and successfully defended Baltimore, changing the outcome of the war. During the Battle of Baltimore, a Washington lawyer, Francis Scott Key, witnessed this “perilous fight” and composed “Defense of Fort M’Henry,” a poem eventually turned to song and renamed, “The Star Spangled Banner.” Steve Vogel is a reporter on the National staff for The Washington Post. He covers the federal government, specializing in military and veterans’ issues. From 1989 to 1994, he reported first-hand accounts of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War, and U.S. military operations in Africa and the Middle East. Vogel’s reporting on the war in Afghanistan contributed to a selection of Washington Post articles nominated for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. He covered the September 11th attack on the Pentagon and followed its reconstruction, leading to his first book, The Pentagon: A History, published in 2007 by Random House. Vogel is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and earned a master’s degree in international public policy from John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

In 1675 and 1676, the Wampanoag Indian alliance violently pushed back against encroaching Europeans, devastating much of New England in the conflict historians have dubbed, "King Philip's War." One colony, however, emerged from the bloody conflict relatively unscathed. With the exception of some remote settlements, Connecticut, unlike the Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay colonies, did not experience the carnage of this blood-soaked contest. Major Jason W. Warren broadens the history of King Philip's War in his book, Connecticut Unscathed: Victory in the Great Narragansett War, 1675-1676, by reveling a new perspective on this chapter of Colonial America and the critical role of the Narragansetts, the largest Indian tribe in southern New England at the time. Warren explains how Connecticut's comparatively conservative Indian policies were key in making an alliance with the otherwise hostile Mohegans and Pequots possible.

Major Jason Warren graduated from West Point in 1999 and received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Military Police Corps. He served as a Platoon Leader and Logistics Officer with the 10th Military Police Battalion, 10th Mountain Division. Warren received his doctorate in history from Ohio State University and served as an Assistant Professor of History at West Point. In 2012 and 2013, Major Warren served as a strategist and training officer for the 3rd Infantry Division in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal. Currently, he is a strategist and the Director, Concepts and Doctrine at the U.S. Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership and Development.

As the British soldiers marched from the streets of Yorktown, Virginia on October 17, 1781, their heads hung and their colors remained cased. They marched toward the officers representing General George Washington's Continental Army where their arms, and pride, was to be surrendered. Each soldier wondered how the increasingly victorious and mighty British Army could possibly be sent into ignoble defeat by their very own colonies. Since that day, scholars, military leaders, and historians have studied the victory of a relatively unprofessional army over their far superior foes. On Saturday, December 5, 2015, the latest installment in this 234 year debate will be the center of a lecture and discussion led by Professor Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy in the 4th edition of the First Annual Discussions on Military History Roundtables at the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC). Dr. O'Shaughnessy will be joined by a panel including Dr. James Scudieri, Senior Historian at the USAHEC, and Dr. Gregory Urwin, Professor of History at Temple University.

The roundtable discussion will center on the arguments made by O'Shaughnessy in his latest book, "The Men Who Lost America: British Leadership, the Revolutionary War and the Fate of the Empire." The book follows the careers and decisions of the primary leaders during the war, from King George III himself to the generals on the front line. How could the British, who captured every major American city throughout the war, lose to the colonial forces? O'Shaughnessy weaves a narrative of political turmoil in London undermining the war effort and the fearsome desperation of the American fighters to outline how each of the primary British actors in this martial saga failed to maintain the holdings of the British Empire.

Dr. O'Shaughnessy is a Professor of History at the University of Virginia and serves as the Director of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello. He has written several important books on the history of the American Revolution, including An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean. Dr. James Scudieri, formerly of the Department of Military Strategy, Plans, and Operations at the U.S. Army War College, is currently serving at the USAHEC as Senior Historian. Dr. Gregory Urwin teaches history at Temple University and is currently writing a book with the working title of "When Freedom Wore a Red Coat: A Social History of the British Invasions of Virginia, 1781."

Although the Revolutionary War is widely taught and written about, the important role of intelligence activities in the conflict is underreported by authors and educators. In his 2014 book, "Spies, Patriots, and Traitors: American Intelligence in the Revolutionary War," professional intelligence officer Kenneth A. Daigler posits that American intelligence during this period is a new lens from which to study the Revolutionary War era and colonial independence. He explores the tradecraft of intelligence collection through multiple groups. For example, the United Front Organization was essential to inter-colonial communication, coordination, and spreading political action through propaganda. Other organizations, such as Hortalez and Company, aided intelligence efforts through weapons contributions and technical expertise. The renowned General George Washington led American military intelligence activities with his skills of observation, tactical and strategic deception, elicitation, and defensive counterintelligence. Key battles, from the Battle of Trenton to the Battle of Yorktown, succeeded because of intelligence operations.

In the second roundtable of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center's (USAHEC) quarterly "Discussions on Military History," Mr. Daigler will discuss how intelligence played a major role in Revolutionary War events using his unique point of view as a former Career Operations Officer for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He will cite several examples of intelligence collection and provide an overview of the major American intelligence activities during the Revolutionary War era. After the talk, our esteemed panel of experts will examine the implications of intelligence and how this lens changes the understanding of the Revolution.

Mr. Daigler, alongside his career with the CIA, consulted for the Department of Defense in the counterintelligence field. He is also a Veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps and the Vietnam War. Daigler is the author of numerous articles for journals on the subject of intelligence, such as Studies in Intelligence and The Intelligencer. His writing and research concerns American intelligence activities in the period between 1765 through 1865.

In 1779, General George Washington ordered one of his primary subordinates, Major General John Sullivan, to take "the war home to the enemy and break their morale." Sullivan marched to destroy over 40 Iroquois towns allied with the British, including their stores, weapons, and fighting men. The American Continentals struggled through the dense woodland of central New York, fighting loyalists and Indian warriors at every turn, falling deep into a morass of savagery and a holocaust of burning villages. On Thursday, February 2, 2017, Dr. Wayne Lee of the University of North Carolina, will give a lecture entitled, "Speaking Through Skulls," to explore how death-related objects reflect the way Europeans, Native Americans, and Colonists related to the violence around them throughout the American Revolution, including those involved in Sullivan's Campaign.