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    Fort Lee's Despicable Namesake

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    George Washington's second in command was not a good man.
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    With all the unwelcome attention Fort Lee, N.J., has received lately, people might wonder why a Northern town carries the Southern-sounding name Lee. It is indeed named for a high-ranking general from Virginia — but not the obvious one. This one is buried right here in Philadelphia.

    Charles Lee was a frustrated British army officer who came to America in 1773 after being repeatedly passed over for promotions in London. After buying a home in Berkeley County, Va. (now in West Virginia), he schmoozed his way into a major general’s commission from the Continental Congress. Like that of an out-of-control rock star, his career soared to stratospheric heights and then plummeted to the lowest of depths in just a few years.
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    Though he could be charming, Lee was not a good man. His approach to military discipline was to “flog them in scores.” Though he hated King George III, a relative of Lee’s wrote, “I think His Majesty and poor Mr. Lee are much upon a par; they are both vain and obstinate.”

    ...continue to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

    [Note: Since this essay first appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer on March 2, 2014, new research by Mark  Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone (Fatal Sunday) and Christian McBurney (George Washington's Nemesis) have painted a more positive picture of General Lee's conduct at Monmouth,]

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    The Shenandoah Valley's Regiment

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    The 8th Virginia was truly, and uniquely, the Shenandoah Valley's regiment in the Revolution. Unlike any other regiment, the 8th represented nearly the full extent of the greater Shenandoah Valley cultural region and even beyond it from the North Carolina (later Tennessee) line all the way to Pittsburgh (then claimed by the Old Dominion). The only county in the Valley that did not raise a company for the regiment was Botetourt. ​
    This vast territory can be characterized in two important ways. First, as the frontier. Second, and just as important at the time, the territory can be described as the part of Virginia populated by newcomers.  Most of them had come inland via Pennsylvania and were neither English nor Anglican. Culturally, the Irish and German men of the regiment had more in common with Pennsylvania than with Piedmont or Tidewater Virginia. Those parts of Virginia--"Old Virginia" or "Tuckahoe Virginia" -- were very homogeneous. Most "nonconforming" churches were barely tolerated in most of Virginia but fared better west of the Blue Ridge. Still, Lutheran-trained Peter Muhlenberg had to go to London to be ordained in the Church of England in order to serve as Beckford Parish rector in Woodstock as late as 1772. Four years later he became the regiment's first colonel. In describing the 8th Virginia as the "German Regiment" and appointing German field officers to lead it, the Virginia Convention was making an effort to make sure the colony was united. At the same time, they were blocking Presbyterian Scotch-Irish from holding senior commands.

    Winchester's Daniel Morgan is the most prominent hero of the Shenandoah Valley, and he is rightly famous. However, other than the 1775-1776 rifle company he led as a captain, the military organizations he led were not true Shenandoah Valley units the way 8th was. In 1776 and 1777 he was colonel of the 11th Virginia, which recruited from Frederick County but also from Prince William, Amelia, and Loudoun counties; his famous Virginia rifle battalion, formed in 1777, was built on merit, not geography. As a general, he led men from even more places.

    The 8th Virginia truly represented the geography and the culture of the Shenandoah Valley.

    ​(Updated April 26, 2020 and May 9, 2024)

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    "Irish," "Scotch-Irish," or "Scots-Irish?"

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    A sign in New Hampshire marks the place of an early Scotch-Irish settlement.

    'Scotch is a whiskey, Scots are a people." Sometimes I'll get a comment of this sort on a blog or social media post. 

    Many of the enlisted men in the 8th Virginia were "Scotch-Irish." Most often they were simply called "Irish" at that time, even though their ancestors often came from Scotland. They were universally Protestant (Catholics were not allowed to immigrate), but they were Presbyterian--a denomination most British soldiers equated with revolutionary sentiment.  
    The term "Scotch-Irish" was occasionally used during the Revolutionary period as an adjective, but first appeared as a noun in 1789. It became important to distinguish Protestant Irish from the Catholic Irish, who began to come to American in large numbers in the 1840s. Here's an interesting article on the difference between "Irish" and "Scotch-Irish" in American history and culture. I use the term "Scotch-Irish" and "Protestant Irish" and sometimes just "Irish" interchangeably. Occasionally, someone will tell me that the proper term is "Scots-Irish," even though that word first appeared in 1966. I've stuck to "Scotch-Irish" (or just "Irish") because it is correct for the period, traditional, and what I was taught to say as a child.

    To be fair, though, "Scots" is technically older. It dates to the 14th century. It was a contraction of "Scottis," a local (northern) variant of "Scottish." It was revived in Britain in the mid-19th century in reaction to some nasty English vernacular. Even then, though, I suspect it was adapted as an adjective from the plural for "Scot," and therefore not a real continuation of the earlier term. "Scotch" is a contraction of "Scottish" and is plenty old itself, dating back as far as 1590.  It is now distinctly American. If you go to the British Isles they will correct you if you refer to a person that way. But, then, they don't call their whiskey "Scotch," either. They call it "whisky."

    "You say 'tom-AH-to' and I say 'tom-AY-to.'" As an American blog about American history, "Scotch-Irish" seems like the right term here.

    (Revised, May 26, 2021 and May 21, 2024)
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    First Post.

    For years, I've been researching the history of the 8th Virginia. It's been a lot of work, crammed into an hour or two a night. I've visited archives in Philadelphia, Winchester, Washington, D.C., and Richmond. I've read reliable first-hand contemporary accounts and unreliable romantic accounts written a century after the war ended. The facts are out there, but they are hard to find. I tell my friends that it's like detective work--I've cast a wide net, because you never know which tiny bits of information might turn out to be significant in light of the next discovery. For a long time, I didn't share what I was doing because it wasn't ready. Much of the research is done now and I've begun work on a manuscript. A lot of people have helped me get this far. This blog is my way of saying "thanks" in the form of updates and a occasional previews.