Sensibility and the American war for independence

American Historical Review

Volumn 109, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 19-40

  Knott, Sarah ^a  

^a INDIANA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 34547451641     PISSN: 00028762     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/530150     Document Type: Article

References (315)

1. Edmund Burke, quoted in Dror Wahrman, "The English Problem of Identity in the American Revolution," AHR 106 (October 2001): 1257;
2. Stephen Conway, The British Isles and the American War for Independence (Oxford, 2000);
3. Elijah H. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2000);
4. Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715-1785 (Cambridge, 1995);
5. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837 (New Haven, Conn., 1992).
6. See especially Joanne B. Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, Conn., 2002);
7. Susan Branson, These Fiery Frenchified Dames: Women and Political Culture in Early National Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 2001);
8. Catherine Allgor, Parlor Politics: In Which the Ladies of Washington Help Build a City and a Government (Charlottesville, Va., 2000);
9. David Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes: The Making of American Nationalism, 1776-1820 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997);
10. Simon P. Newman, Parades and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic (Philadelphia, 1997);
11. Len Travers, Celebrating the Fourth: Independence Day and the Rites of Nationalism in the Early Republic (Amherst, Mass., 1997).
12. Simon P. Newman, "Writing the History of the American Revolution," in Melvyn Stokes, ed., The State of U.S. History (London, 2002), 30-31;
13. see E. Wayne Carp, To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1984), xi.
14. The still outstanding historian of the war, on whose work this article builds, is Charles Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and the American Character, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill, 1979).
15. Accounts of events and their interpretation include Michael Meranze, "Major André's Exhumation," in Nancy Isenberg and Andrew Burstein, eds., Mortal Remains: Death in Early America (Philadelphia, 2003), 123-35;
16. Linda Colley, Captives (London, 2002), 203-08;
17. Judith Van Buskirk, Generous Enemies: Patriots and Loyalists in Revolutionary New York (Philadelphia, 2002), 90-105;
18. Caleb Crain, American Sympathy: Men, Friendship, and Literature in the New Nation (New Haven, Conn., 2001), 1-15;
19. Andy Trees, "Benedict Arnold, John André, and His Three Yeoman Captors: A Sentimental Journey of American Virtue Defined," Early American Literature 35 (2000): 246-73;
20. Robert E. Cray, Jr., "Major John André and the Three Captors: Class Dynamics and Revolutionary Memory Wars in the Early Republic, 1780-1831," Journal of the Early Republic 17 (1997): 371-97;
21. Clare Brandt, The Man in the Mirror: A Life of Benedict Arnold (New York, 1994);
22. Larry J. Reynolds, "Patriots and Criminals, Criminals and Patriots: Representations of the Case of Major André," South Central Review 9 (1992): 57-84;
23. Robert McConnell Hatch, Major John André: A Gallant in Spy's Clothing (Boston, 1986);
24. Charles Royster, "'The Nature of Treason': Revolutionary Virtue and American Reactions to Benedict Arnold," William and Mary Quarterly 36 (1979): 163-93;
25. Kenneth Silverman, A Cultural History of the American Revolution (New York, 1976), 377-82;
26. Robert D. Arner, "The Death of Major André: Some Eighteenth Century Views," Early American Literature 11 (1976): 52-67;
27. J. E. Morpurgo, Treason at West Point: The Arnold-André Conspiracy (New York, 1975);
28. James Thomas Flexner, The Traitor and the Spy: Benedict Arnold and John André (New York, 1953).
29. Samuel Shaw to John Eliot, September 27, 1780, in Josiah Quincy, ed., The Journals of Major Samuel Shaw, the First American Consul at Canton, with a Life of the Author (Boston, 1847), 77;
30. Continental Journal, October 12, 1780. See also October 5, October 19, October 26, November 30, and December 8, 1780.
31. Emphasis added. See, for example, Thomas Digges to Benjamin Franklin, November 13, 1780, in Leonard W. Labaree, et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, Conn., 1959-), 33: 528;
32. London Chronicle, November 11-14, 1780;
33. Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, November 14, 1780, and November 18, 1780;
34. British Mercury and Evening Advertiser, November 17, 1780, and November 23, 1780;
35. journal entry, November 13, 1780, A. Francis Stuart, ed., The Last Journals of Horace Walpole during the Reign of George III, 2 vols. (London, 1910), 2: 334-35.
36. British Mercury and Evening Advertiser, November 17, 1780;
37. Donna T. Andrew, comp., London Debating Societies, 1776-1799 (London, 1994), 116;
38. Public Advertiser, December 15, 1780;
39. Morning Herald, December 15, 1780;
40. Public Advertiser, December 25, 1780;
41. Scots Magazine 42 (1780): 608;
42. Morning Herald, November 18, 1780;
43. Gentleman's Magazine 52 (1782): 514;
44. Charles Henry Arnold, The New and Impartial Universal History of North and South America (London, [1782]), 248-53;
45. Edward Barnard, The New, Comprehensive and Complete History of England (London, [1783]), 694.
46. "General Greene's Orders," September 26, 1780, in R. K. Showman, ed., The Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 10 vols. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1976-), 6: 314;
47. Alexander Scammell to Nathaniel Peabody, October 3, 1780, in Henry B. Dawson, ed., Papers Concerning the Capture and Detention of Major John André (Yonkers, N.Y., 1866), 66.
48. Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Diary of George Nelson, September 30, 1780; diary entry, October 4, 1780, in Elaine Forman Crane, ed., The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, 3 vols. (Boston, 1991), 1: 376.
49. On the Philadelphian parades, also see Pennsylvania Packet, October 3, 1780;
50. Pennsylvania Journal, October 4, 1780;
51. Samuel Adams to Elizabeth Adams, October 10, 1780, in Harry Alonzo Cushing, ed., The Writings of Samuel Adams, 4 vols. (New York, 1904-08), 4: 209;
52. A Representation of the Figures Exhibited and Paraded through the Streets of Philadelphia, on Saturday, the 30th September 1780 (Philadelphia, 1780);
53. Americanischer Haus- und Wirthschafts-Calendar Auf das 1781ste Jahr Christi (Philadelphia, 1780),
54. woodcut rpt. in Lillian B. Miller, ed., The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family, 5 vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1983-) 1: 354;
55. Continental Almanac . . . for 1781 (Philadelphia, 1780).
56. New Jersey Journal, November 21, 1781,
57. quoted in Royster, Revolutionary People at War, 292.
58. Benjamin Tallmadge to Colonel Wadsworth, October 4, 1780, in Worthington C. Ford, ed., Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb, 2 vols. (New York, 1969), 2: 293;
59. Joel Barlow to Ruth Baldwin, October 2, 1780, quoted in Silverman, Cultural History of the American Revolution, 380;
60. anonymous account, October 2, 1780, in Pennsylvania Packet, October 10, 1780,
61. also printed in Pennsylvania Gazette, October 11, 1780,
62. New Jersey Gazette, October 18, 1780,
63. Continental Journal, October 26, 1780;
64. William B. Weeden, ed., "Diary of Enos Hitchcock, D.D., a Chaplain in the Revolutionary Army [1777-1780]," Rhode Island Historical Society Publications 7 (1899): 227-28;
65. "Extracts from the Letter-Books of Lieutenant Enos Reeves," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 29 (1896): 314;
66. Thomas Paine to Nathanael Greene, October 17, 1780, in Showman, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 6: 404;
67. Henry Lee, Jr., to Thomas Sim Lee, October 4, 1780, in Major Henry Lee, "Capture of Major Andre," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 4 (1880): 65;
68. Tallmadge to Wadsworth, October 4, 1780, in Ford, Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb, 2: 294;
69. Tallmadge to William Heath, October 10, 1780, in Dawson, Papers Concerning André, 195.
70. Richard K. Meade to Theodorick Bland, Jr., October 3, 1780, in Dawson, Papers Concerning André, 108;
71. Charles Pettit to Nathanael Greene, October 10, 1780, in Showman, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 6: 366.
72. Lafayette, quoted in Winthrop Sargent, The Life and Career of Major John André (Boston, 1861), 348;
73. Thomas Paine to Nathanael Greene, October 17, 1780, in Showman, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 6: 404;
74. Providence Gazette, November 29, 1780 (extracting New Jersey Journal).
75. For the letter itelf, see Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, October 11, 1780, in Harold C. Syrett, et al., eds., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 27 vols. (New York, 1961-87), 2: 460-70.
76. Syrett suggests that the numbers on the manuscript copy were for publication in 1802, but they in fact refer to how the letter was reordered in preparation for immediate newspaper printing. Patriot papers printed the letter anonymously: Pennsylvania Packet, October 14, 1780;
77. Pennsylvania Post, October 14, 1780, and October 20, 1780;
78. Pennsylvania Journal, October 18, 1780;
79. Pennsylvania Gazette, October 25, 1780;
80. Providence Gazette and Monthly Journal, November 29, 1780, and December 6, 1780. See also the response of Philadelphian loyalist Anna Rawle: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Shoemaker Papers, Rawle to Rebecca Shoemaker, October 28, 1780.
81. In loyalist New York, Rivington's Royal Gazette, November 8, 1780, extracted the published letter and attributed it to Hamilton.
82. In British print culture, see Annual Register 24 (1781): 37-50, quotation on 40;
83. Political Magazine and Parliamentary Naval, Military, and Literary Journal 2 (1782): 172-73.
84. Crain, American Sympathy, 5.
85. Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 1996), 38-39;
86. Sargent, Life and Career of John André, 355;
87. Louis P. Masur, Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776-1865 (New York, 1989);
88. V. A. C. Gatrell, The Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People 1770-1868 (Oxford, 1994), esp. 6-8;
89. Charles Patrick Neimeyer, America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (New York, 1996), esp. 144.
90. Colley, Captives, 205;
91. see Trees, "Benedict Arnold, John André and the Three Captors."
92. Diary entry, October 2, 1780, in Weeden, "Diary of Enos Hitchcock," 227-28;
93. Enos Reeves to anonymous, October 20, 1780, in "Extracts from the Letter-Books of Lieutenant Enos Reeves," 314.
94. Similar statements about André's last words are echoed in almost all reports. Benjamin Tallmadge to Samuel Blachley Webb, September 30, 1780, in Ford, Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb, 2: 293.
95. Anonymous account published in 1780, in Charles J. Biddle, "The Case of Major André: With a Review of the Statement of It in Lord Mahon's History of England," Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania 6 (1858): 372;
96. Tallmadge to Webb, September 30, 1780, in Ford, Correspondence and Journals of Samuel Blachley Webb, 2: 293-94.
97. British accounts concurred, adding good birth to these polite merits: British Mercury, December 2, 1780;
98. Political Magazine 1 (1780): 688;
99. Public Advertiser, January 9, 1781;
100. Political Magazine 2 (1781): 171.
101. André's sketch is reproduced in Stanley J. Idzerda, ed., Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution: Selected Letters and Papers, 1776-1790, 5 vols. (Ithaca, N.Y., 1977-83), 3: 183.
102. On politeness as a masculine ideal in Britain, see Philip Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, Britain 1660-1800 (London, 2001).
103. In America, see David S. Shields, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters in British America (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1997);
104. Steven C. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840 (Chapel Hill, 1996), esp. 34-35, 66;
105. Richard Bushman, Refinement in America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York, 1993), esp. chaps. 2-3.
106. Diary entry, October 2, 1780 (published much later), James Thacher, A Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783, Describing Interesting Events and Transactions of This Period, with Numerous Historical Facts and Anecdotes, from the Original Manuscript (Boston, 1823), 275.
107. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, 89;
108. Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens, October 11, 1780, in Syrett, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 2: 466-67.
109. Also see diary entry, October 2, 1780, in Thacher, Military Journal, 272.
110. George Washington to John Laurens, October 13, 1780, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington, 39 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1931-44), 20: 173.
111. For the trial proceedings, see Proceedings of a Board of General Officers, Held by Order of His Excellency Gen. Washington . . . Respecting Major John André, Adjutant General of the British Army, September 29, 1780 (Philadelphia, 1780), which was cheaply reprinted in New York, Fish-Kill, Hartford, Norwich, and Providence.
112. The letters were extracted also in the Pennsylvania Evening Post, October 24, 1780, and October 28, 1780;
113. the loyalist New York Gazette, November 6, 1780;
114. the English Gentleman's Magazine 50 (1780): 610-16.
115. For explicit British reaction, see Reading Mercury, November 20, 1780;
116. Annual Register 24 (1781): 45.
117. Pennsylvania Packet, September 6, 1781.
118. For antiquarian admiration, see Sargent, Life and Career of Major John André;
119. William Abbatt, The Crisis of the Revolution, Being the Story of Arnold and André (New York, 1899).
120. For recent skepticism, see John Evangelist Walsh, The Execution of Major André (New York, 2001).
121. Royal Danish American Gazette, October 3, 1772,
122. in Syrett, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 1: 35-37;
123. Mary-Jo Kline, ed., Alexander Hamilton: A Biography in His Own Words (New York, 1973), 23.
124. Claudia Johnson, Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender and Sentimentality in the 1790s (Chicago, 1995), 5;
125. Hannah More, "Sensibility," in Caroline Franklin, ed., Hannah More: Poems (London, 1996), 179.
126. "Sensibility," "sensible," Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 2 vols. (London, 1755);
127. More, "Sensibility," 180.
128. For a more detailed word history of these complex terms, see especially Eric Erametsa, A Study of the Word "Sentimental" and of Other Linguistic Characteristics of the Eighteenth-Century Sentimentalism in English Literature (Helsinki, 1951).
129. The analysis of sensibility here is thus more historically specific than the historiographical association with emotion heralded by Lucien Febvre, "Sensibility and History: How to Reconstitute the Emotional Life of the Past," in Peter Burke, ed., A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre, K. Folca, trans. (London, 1973), 12-26.
130. The term "culture of sensibility" is from G. J. Baker-Benfield, The Culture of Sensibility: Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Chicago, 1992).
131. Other important accounts of sensibility in Britain include Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727-1783 (Oxford, 1989), chap. 10;
132. John Mullan, Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1988);
133. John Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse: Sensibility and Community in Late Eighteenth-Century Scotland (Edinburgh, 1987);
134. Janet Todd, Sensibility: An Introduction (New York, 1986).
135. An elegant synopsis of the multifold histories in which sensibility plays a part is Markman Ellis, The Politics of Sensibility: Race, Gender and Commerce in the Sentimental Novel (Cambridge, 1996), 9-48.
136. Pennsylvania Gazette, June 17, 1762;
137. Pennsylvania Packet, November 11, 1771.
138. Also see Robert Mein's advertisement in Massachusetts Gazette, October 31, 1765.
139. For Bell, see, for example, Pennsylvania Chronicle, April 26-May 3, 1773;
140. Pennsylvania Gazette, May 3, 1773;
141. Jewels and Diamonds for Sentimentalists (Philadelphia, 1778);
142. Proposals, Addressed to Those Who Possess a Public Spirit (Philadelphia, 1771),
143. The anonymous poetic tribute features in The Philadelphiad; or, New Pictures of the City, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1784), 1: 40.
144. For further analysis of the late colonial transatlantic culture of sensibility, see Sarah Knott, "A Cultural History of Sensibility in the Era of the American Revolution" (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford University, 1999), chaps. 1-2.
145. Lady's Magazine quoted in Ellis, Politics of Sensibility, 23;
146. Shields, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters, 126-40.
147. Also see Carla Mulford, ed., Only for the Eye of a Friend: The Poems of Annis Boudinot Stockton (Charlottesville, Va., 1995).
148. Pennsylvania Magazine 2 (1776): 176-77.
149. Library bookplate, Noel Antoine Pluche, Spectacle de nature: or, Nature Displayed, 7th edn. (London, 1750), copy held at the Library Company of Philadelphia.
150. Barker-Benfield, Culture of Sensibility, xvii;
151. James Rodgers, "Sensibility, Sympathy, Benevolence: Physiology and Moral Philosophy in Tristram Shandy" in L. J. Jordanova, ed., Languages of Nature: Critical Essays on Science and Literature (New Brunswick, N.J., 1986), 117-58;
152. College of Physicians of Philadelphia, William McWilliam, "Anatomical Lectures of William Shippen," 1777;
153. University of Pennsylvania Archives, Curricula Collection, anonymous, "Notes Taken from a Course of Lectures by William Shippen MD Professor of Anatomy in the University of Pennsylvania," 1786, 57.
154. Like Laurence Sterne's Sentimental Journey, his Tristram Shandy was a colonial bestseller:
155. James D. Hart, The Popular Book: A History of American Literary Taste (New York, 1950);
156. Frank Luther Mott, The Golden Multitudes: The Story of Bestsellers in the United States (New York, 1947).
157. The Sentimental Magazine
158. quoted in Mullan, Sentiment and Sociability, 151;
159. James Fordyce, Sermons to Young Women,
160. quoted in Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, 99;
161. Dwyer, Virtuous Discourse, chap. 4.
162. Alexander Hamilton to Catherine Livingston, April 11, 1777, in Syrett, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 1: 226-27.
163. Also see, for example, "Reflections on Gallantry; and on the Education of Women," Pennsylvania Gazette, November 11, 1772;
164. "Thoughts on Matrimony," Royal American Magazine (1774): 9.
165. See, for example, Lewis Nicola, A Treatise of Military Exercise, Calculated for the Use of Americans (Philadelphia, 1776);
166. Thomas Simes, The Military Guide for Young Officers, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1776);
167. The Art of War (Philadelphia, 1776);
168. J. Ranby, Nature and Treatment of Gunshot Wounds (Philadelphia, 1776);
169. Baron von Swieten, Diseases of the Army (Philadelphia, 1776);
170. Benjamin Rush, "Directions for Preserving the Health of Soldiers: Recommended to the Consideration of the Officers of the Army of the United States," Pennsylvania Packet, April 22, 1777.
171. Patrick J. Furlong, ed., "An Execution Sermon for Major John André," New York History 51 (1970): 68-69.
172. John Lacey, "Memoirs of Brigadier-General John Lacey, of Pennsylvania," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 25 (1901): 197;
173. Charles Thomson, "Notes on the Proceedings in Congress," November 23, 1778, in Paul H. Smith, ed., Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, 25 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1976-98), 11: 242-50;
174. James Lovell to John Tnimball, March 16, 1777, in Smith, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 6: 540.
175. Pennsylvania Gazette, September 12, 1781.
176. Anthony Wayne to Joseph Reed, January 24, 1779, in C. J. Stillé, Major-General Wayne and the Pennsylvania Line in the Continental Army (Philadelphia, 1893), 177-79.
177. Also see Royster, Revolutionary People at War, 88-95, 207-11.
178. Field officers to Anthony Wayne, March 27, 1779, in Stillé, Major-General Wayne, 177-79;
179. Wayne to the President of Congress, August 10, 1779, Pennsylvania Packet, August 26, 1779;
180. Return Meigs to Wayne, August 22, 1779, and Isaac Sherman to Wayne, August 22, 1779, in Stillé, Major-General Wayne, 407-11.
181. Judith Van Buskirk, "Generous Enemies: Civility and Conflict in Revolutionary New York" (PhD dissertation, New York University, 1997), 294-95.
182. Royster, Revolutionary People at War, 86;
183. Neimeyer, America Goes to War;
184. Alexander Hamilton to John Jay, March 14, 1779, in Syrett, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 2: 17-18.
185. Sherman to Wayne, August 22, 1779, in Stillé, Major-General Wayne, 407-11.
186. Peter Thompson, Rum Punch and Revolution: Taverngoing and Public Life in Eighteenth-Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1999);
187. Shields, Civil Tongues and Polite Letters, esp. chaps. 3 and 6;
188. Bullock, Revolutionary Brotherhood, esp. 121-32. Masonic lodges developed within the army camps during the war. Bullock describes the ritualized use of sensibility (here equated with romanticism) as occurring only after 1790.
189. Nathanael Greene to Catherine Greene, August 16, 1779, in Showman, Papers of General Nathanael Greene, 4: 323;
190. Ephraim Douglas to James Irvine, July 26, 1782, in "Pittsburgh and Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1782-83, Letters from Ephraim Douglas to Gen. James Irvine," Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1 (1877), 44;
191. Gregory D. Massey, John Laurens and the American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 2000);
192. Hamilton quoted in Richard Brookhiser, Alexander Hamilton, American (New York, 1999), 41.
193. Massey, John Laurens, 4; American Philosophical Society, Sellers Family Papers, Peale-Sellers Papers, Elizabeth Coleman to Nathan Sellers, [late 1770s].
194. For Howe, see Pennsylvania Gazette, July 23, 1783.
195. For Washington, see Rivington's New York Gazette, December 6, 1783;
196. Pennsylvania Packet, December 12, 1783;
197. Pennsylvania Gazette, December 17, 1783.
198. Public Advertiser, December 6, 1780;
199. Anna Seward, Monody on Major André, by Miss Seward (Author of the Elegy on Capt. Cook) to Which Are Added Letters Addressed to Her by Major André, in the Year 1769 (Lichfield, 1781);
200. Gentleman's Magazine 51 (1781): 178-79;
201. Monthly Review 64 (1781): 371-76;
202. Monthly Review 66 (1782): 72.
203. Harriet Guest, Small Change: Women, Learning, Patriotism, 1750-1810 (Chicago, 2000), 260;
204. see Reynolds, "Patriots and Criminals, Criminals and Patriots," 64;
205. British Mercury, November 20, 1780.
206. The widow was identified as named Livingston in Morning Herald and Daily Advertiser, December 26, 1780.
207. John Burgoyne, A State of the Expedition from Canada (London, 1782),
208. quoted in Robert Jones, "Masculinity and Defeat: The Case of General John Burgoyne," in Jones, The Politics of Defeat: British Culture and the Loss of America (forthcoming);
209. Washington to Burgoyne, March 11, 1778, rpt. in Edward Barrington de Fonblanque, Political and Military Episodes in the Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century Derived from the Correspondence of the Right Hon. John Burgoyne (London, 1876), 329-30;
210. Richard J. Hargrove, Jr., General John Burgoyne (Newark, N.J., 1983), 221-37;
211. Solomon Lutnick, The American Revolution and the British Press 1775-1783 (Columbia, Mo., 1967), 108-13. I am grateful to Robert Jones for permission to draw on his new research.
212. Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, 110-11.
213. Analyses of "newer" male virtues among late eighteenth-century British military leaders have focused on humanity, not sensibility: Gerald Gordon and Nicholas Rogers, "Admirals as Heroes: Patriotism and Liberty in Hanoverian England," Journal of British Studies 28 (1989): 201-24.
214. Todd, Sensibility, 144, quotation on 141;
215. Barker-Benfield, Culture of Sensibility, 360;
216. Albert J. Kuhn, "Introduction," in Kuhn, ed., Three Sentimental Novels (New York, 1970), xx.
217. Mackenzie's "On Novel Reading"
218. Harriet Thompson's Excessive Sensibility are analyzed closely
219. in Ellis, Politics of Sensibility, 204-06 (quotation on 206), 212-13.
220. John Brewer, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1997), 121;
221. Burke's Reflections (1790)
222. his response to criticism quoted in C. Johnson, Equivocal Beings, 4.
223. Columbian Magazine, or Monthly Miscellany 1 (1786): 200,
224. later rpt. in Weekly Magazine of Original Essays, Fugitive Pieces and Interesting Intelligence 1 (1798): 126;
225. The American Museum, or Repository of Ancient and Modem Fugitive Pieces 3 (1788): 150;
226. Waldstreicher, In the Midst of Perpetual Fetes, 12, 73-80;
227. on sentimental nationalism in literature, Elizabeth Barnes, States of Sympathy: Seduction and Democracy in the American Novel (New York, 1997), esp. chap. 2.
228. For a general history of the "emotional sources of America's self-image," see Andrew Burstein, Sentimental Democracy: The Evolution of America's Romantic Self-Image (New York, 1999).
229. On memory of the war, see Sarah J. Purcell, Sealed with Blood: War, Sacrifice, and Memory in Revolutionary America (Philadelphia, 2002);
230. John Phillips Resch, Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment and Political Culture in the Early Republic (Amherst, Mass., 1999);
231. Cray, "Major John André and the Three Captors";
232. Charles Royster, "Founding a Nation in Blood: Military Conflict and American Nationality," in Ronald Hoffman and Peter J. Albert, eds., Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution (Charlottesville, Va., 1984), 25-49.
233. Pennsylvania Gazette, September 26, 1787.
234. On the sentimental novel of the early republic, see especially Bruce Burgett, Sentimental Bodies: Sex, Gender and Citizenship in the Early Republic (Princeton, N.J., 1998);
235. Julia A. Stern, The Plight of Feeling: Sympathy and Dissent in the Early American Novel (Chicago, 1997);
236. Barnes, States of Sympathy;
237. Shirley Samuels, ed., The Culture of Sentiment: Race, Gender, and Sentimentality in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (New York, 1992).
238. American Museum 1 (1787): 42-43;
239. American Museum 5 (1790): 83-85;
240. Columbian Magazine 4 (1790): 178,
241. but contrast Columbian Magazine 1 (1787): 343-44.
242. Benjamin Rush, "An Inquiry into the Influence of the Physical Causes on the Moral Faculty, Delivered before the American Philosophical Society . . . on the 27th of February, 1786," in Rush, Medical Inquiries and Observations, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1786), 44-45;
243. An Enquiry into the Effects of Public Punishment upon Criminals, and upon Society: Read in the Society for Promoting Political Enquiries . . . March 9, 1787 (Philadelphia, 1787),
244. rpt. in American Museum 2 (1787): 142-53, quotation on 144.
245. On sensibility, sex, and dissent, see Burgett, Sentimental Bodies;
246. Stern, Plight of Feeling;
247. Sarah Knott, "Benjamin Rush's Ferment: Enlightenment Medicine and Female Citizenship," in Knott and Barbara Taylor, eds., Women, Gender and Enlightenment (Basingstoke, England, forthcoming).
248. See, for example, Saidiya V. Hartman, Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1997);
249. Elizabeth Clark, "'The Sacred Rights of the Weak': Pain, Sympathy, and the Culture of Individual Rights in Antebellum America," Journal of American History 82 (1995): 481-93;
250. Karen Sanchez-Eppler, Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism, and the Politics of the Body (Berkeley, Calif., 1993);
251. Ann Cvetkovich, Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture and Sentimentalism (New Brunswick, N.J., 1992);
252. Samuels, Culture of Sentiment.
253. For example, see Cathy N. Davidson, Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America (New York, 1986);
254. Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 (New York, 1985);
255. Herbert Ross Brown, The Sentimental Novel in America 1789-1860 (Durham, N.C., 1940).
256. June Howard, "What Is Sentimentality?" American Literary History 11 (1999): 63-81, quotation on 72.
257. Turbutt Wright to John Hall, June 4, 1782, in Smith, Letters of Delegates to Congress, 18: 561;
258. Diary of Samuel Richards, Captain of the Connecticut Line, War of the Revolution, 1775-1781 (Philadelphia, 1909), 81;
259. diary entry, July 1782, Thacher, Military Journal, 377;
260. William Feilding to Lord Amherst, June 13, 1782, in Marion Balderston and David Syrett, eds., The Lost War Letters from British Officers during the American Revolution (New York, 1975), 216.
261. On the Asgill affair, see Larry Bowman, "The Court-Martial of Captain Richard Lippincott," New Jersey History 89 (1971): 23-36;
262. Arthur D. Pierce, Smuggler's Woods: Jaunts and Journeys in Colonial and Revolutionary New Jersey (New Brunswick, 1960), 252-77;
263. Katherine Mayo, George Washington's Dilemma (New York, 1938).
264. Alexander Hamilton to Henry Knox, June 7, 1782, in Syrett, Papers of Alexander Hamilton, 3: 92.
265. The letter by Vergennes, with that enclosed by Asgill's mother, was widely reprinted in loyalist and patriot America: Continental Journal and Weekly Advertiser, December 26, 1782;
266. Salem Gazette, December 26, 1782;
267. Providence Gazette and Country Journal, December 28, 1782;
268. New Jersey Gazette, January 1, 1783;
269. Rivington's Royal Gazette, December 25, 1782;
270. New York Gazette, and Weekly Mercury, December 30, 1782.
271. It was also printed in a British press largely tired of the failed American war and preoccupied rather with events in the East: London Chronicle, February 8-11, 1783;
272. Jackson's Oxford Journal, February 15, 1783;
273. Reading Mercury, February 17, 1783;
274. Gentleman's Magazine 53 (1783): 177-78;
275. Scots Magazine 44 (1782): 695-97. I thank Troy Bickham for some of these English references.
276. Elias Bouduiot, Journal of Historical Recollections of American Events during the Revolutionary War (Philadelphia, 1894), 63.
277. The classic account of Congress remains Jack N. Rakove, The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (New York, 1979).
278. Baron de Grimm to Denis Diderot, quoted in Thacher, Military Journal, 381-82;
279. John Adams quoted in Mayo, George Washington's Dilemma, 249;
280. Asgill (1785) attributed to J. L. Le Barbier
281. quoted in Lewis Rosenthal, America and France: The Influence of the United States on France in the XVIII Century (New York, 1882), 136;
282. Gilbert Chinard, ed., Vashington; ou, La liberté du nouveau monde, by Billardon de Sauvigny (Princeton, N.J., 1941), xxii.
283. Also see Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York, 1989), 30-31;
284. Bernard Fay, The Revolutionary Spirit in France and America, Ramon Guthrie, trans. (New York, 1966), 188-89.
285. French scholarship, which has focused largely on literature and language, includes Anne C. Vila, Enlightenment and Pathology: Sensibility in the Literature and Medicine of Eighteenth-Century France (Baltimore, 1998);
286. David Denby, Sentimental Narrative and the Social Order in France, 1760-1820 (Cambridge, 1994);
287. e siècle," Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 40 (1993): 86-101;
288. Anne Vincent-Buffault, The History of Tears: Sensibility and Sentimentality in France, Teresa Bridgeman, trans. (London, 1991);
289. Robert Darnton, "Readers Respond to Rousseau: The Fabrication of Romantic Sensitivity," in The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (London, 1985), 209-49;
290. J. S. Spinks, "'Sentiment,' 'Sensible,' 'Sensibilité': Les Mots, les Idées d'après les 'Moralistes' Français et Britanniques du Debut du Dix-Huitième Siècle," Zagadnienia Rodzajow Literackich 20 (1977): 33-48;
291. Geoffroy Atkinson, The Sentimental Revolution: French Writers of 1690-1740 (Seattle, 1965).
292. On the difference between Anglo and French modes, see Vila, Enlightenment and Pathology, 3;
293. R. F. Brissenden, Virtue in Distress: Studies in the Novel of Sentiment from Richardson to Sade (London, 1974), 18-20.
294. James Rivington, A Catalogue of Books Sold by Rivington and Brown at Their Stores in New York and Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1762), 71-82;
295. Paul M. Spurlin, Rousseau in America, 1760-1809 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1940), esp. chap. 5;
296. Claire Brock, "Rousseauvian Remains," History Workshop Journal 55 (2003): 136-53;
297. Andy Martin, Napoleon the Novelist (Oxford, 2000),
298. see the review by David A. Bell: London Review of Books (September 6, 2001): 26-27.
299. André Monglond, Le préromantisme français, 2 vols. (Grenoble, 1930), 2: 342;
300. Vincent-Buffault, History of Tears, 77-96, quotation on 91.
301. see William M. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework for the History of Emotions (Cambridge, 2001), 173-211;
302. Denby, Sentimental Narrative and the Social Order, 139-65;
303. Pierre Trahard, La sensibilité revolutionnaire (1789-1794) (Paris, 1936).
304. Suzanne Desan, "The Politics of Intimacy: Marriage and Citizenship in the French Revolution," in Knott and Taylor, Women, Gender and Enlightenment;
305. Desan, The Family on Trial in Revolutionary France (Berkeley, Calif., 2004). I am grateful to Suzanne Desan for generously sharing her book with me before publication.
306. Cerutti (Paris, 1789), quoted in Rosenthal, America and France, 181;
307. The Independent Gazetteer; or, The Chronicle of Freedom, November 8, 1788;
308. Susan Dunn, Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light (New York, 1999), 3-19.
309. see Louis Gottschalk, "The Place of the American Revolution in the Causal Pattern of the French Revolution," in Herman Ausubel, ed., The Making of Modem Europe (New York, 1951), 504, 507.
310. Marquis de Lafayette to Adrienne de Noailles de Lafayette, October 7, 1780, in Idzerda, Lafayette in the Age of the American Revolution, 3: 195.
311. Also see the memoirs of the chevalier de Pontgibaud: A French Volunteer of the War of Independence, Robert B. Douglas, trans. (Paris, 1898), 62.
312. Schama, Citizens, 24-31.
313. On the revolution as war, see Samuel F. Scott, From Yorktown to Valmy: The Transformation of the French Army in an Age of Revolution (Niwot, Colo., 1998);
314. T. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars 1787-1802 (London, 1996);
315. Jean-Paul Bertaud, The Army of the French Revolution: From Citizen-Soldiers to Instrument of Power, R. R. Palmer, trans. (Princeton, N.J., 1988).