The 8th Virginia Regiment
  • Home
  • Blog
  • The Project
  • The Regiment
  • The Soldiers
  • Family
  • Learn More
  • Contact

Disestablishment: The Separation of Faith from Government Power

2/14/2022

1 Comment

 
Picture
Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History
by Katherine Carté (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2021)
Picture
Dwight Eisenhower once said that “our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it is.” This uniquely American argument, made by other presidents as well, is rooted in a seeming paradox of the Founding Era. America abandoned official religion in the wake of the Revolution and yet the nation became much more religious.

​Katherine Carté’s book 
Religion and the American Revolution is not about the theological origins of the conflict or the so-called “black-robed regiment” of militant clergy. It is about the impact of the Revolution on established religion on both sides of the sea. It is one of several recent books that opens the historical aperture on the era and lets us see familiar events in a broader context. This is especially important when it comes to the dominant Protestant sects of the period. These were trans-Atlantic organizations and America’s established colonial churches remained very close to and even dependent on support from home.
Fundamental to Carté’s analysis is understanding that the Church of England was just one of three denominations that represented a compound Imperial religious establishment. Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists all held privileged status in different parts of the Empire: Anglicans in England and the American South, Presbyterians in Scotland, and Congregationalists in New England. Carté describes a tripartite “scaffold” of establishment that bound Protestants together and united the King’s dominions. Protestantism defined the British Empire more than Englishness did, since most of its subjects were not English.
...continue to the Journal of the American Revolution.

More from The 8th Virginia Regiment

Picture
Picture
Picture
1 Comment

Three Centuries of Violence

3/9/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction Gnadenhutten, 1782
Eric Sterner (Yardley, Pa: Westholme, 2020)
Picture
In his first book, Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction of Gnadenhutten, 1782, Eric Sterner has taken on a difficult subject. Racial violence is something many writers would shy away from while others might delight in the chance to condemn the perpetrators. Mr. Sterner, laudably, does neither. Instead, he seeks to understand what happened.
​
It is worth noting that the first known massacre of Indians by white men in what is now the United States occurred long before the events in the book. It happened near Jamestown, Virginia in 1610 when Virginia’s governor, Thomas West, 3rd Baron de la Warr, ordered an attack on the Paspahegh Band of Powhatans. Seventy men attacked the village, killing between 65 and 75 Paspaheghs and kidnapping the village leader’s wife and children. Rowing away, the colonists decided to kill the children, “w[hi]ch was effected by Throweinge them overboard and shoteinge owtt their Braynes in the water.” Three centuries of violence ensued.
Lord de la Warr’s name appears frequently in Mr. Sterner’s story. His name was given to the Delaware River, which in turn lent its name to the Lenape people who have long been known to English speakers as the Delaware Tribe. Mr. Sterner has provided the definitive account of the worst atrocity of the Revolutionary War. In 1782 more than eighty white settlers clubbed, killed, and scalped ninety-six peaceful, Christian Indians as they prayed and sang hymns. The attack on the Moravian mission town of Gnadenhutten (Ohio) was intended as both a punitive and preemptive strike, conducted by settlers whose families and farms had been targeted by other Indians acting as proxies of the British. It is a horrific story that has defied understanding until now.

​...continue to Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

More from The 8th Virginia Regiment

Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Greene Eludes Cornwallis

1/25/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
To the End of the World: Nathanael Green, Charles Cornwallis and the Race to the Dan
Andrew Waters (Yardley, Pa: Westholme, 2020)

Picture
“In a place like Salisbury,” writes Andrew Waters of the North Carolina town that witnessed the 1781 Race to the Dan, “you can live among its ghosts and still not know it’s there.” Enthusiasts know that this is true of many Revolutionary War sites, including some of real importance. Mr. Waters complains in his book To the End of the World: Nathanael Greene, Charles Cornwallis, and the Race to the Dan of the simplified understanding most Americans have of the Revolutionary War. “For most of us, the story of the American Revolution is of George Washington and the minutemen, Valley Forge and Yorktown.” In our Cliffs Notes version of history, many places, heroes, and even whole campaigns are left out.

Like most of the war in the south, the Race to the Dan is overshadowed by Yorktown. The mere fact that George Washington was not a participant relegates the story to a second-tier status. The Race, however, holds unique challenges for the historian and the storyteller. It occurred over more than two hundred miles, depending on how you count it, rather than at one identifiable spot. Nathanael Greene’s genius is to be found in his mastery of logistics and strategy, which are subjects that make many people’s eyes glaze over. Though heroic and difficult, it was still a retreat and retreats don’t lend themselves to celebration. Its significance is not so much in what it achieved but rather in what it made possible, which requires detailed explanation.

Consequently, the Race to the Dan has been given short shrift for more than two centuries. It is mentioned in the war’s histories, but almost never in detail. In writing this book, Mr. Waters was determined to correct that and he has succeeded. One can’t resist noting the appropriateness his name: the waterways of the Carolinas play a central role in the story. He makes plain from the beginning that the story is personal to him. He is a conservationist and doctoral candidate in South Carolina who has made a career of conserving the Palmetto State’s watersheds. “Rivers are my business,” he says at the very beginning of the book. He also plainly declares, “We all need heroes, and . . . Greene has become one of mine.”


...Continue to The Journal of the American Revolution.

More from The 8th Virginia Regiment

Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments
    Picture

    Gabe Neville

    is researching the history of the Revolutionary War's 8th Virginia Regiment. Its ten companies formed on the frontier, from the Cumberland Gap to Pittsburgh.

    Categories

    All
    Artifacts & Memorials
    Book Reviews
    Brandywine & Germantown
    Charleston & Sunbury
    Disease
    Frontier
    Generals
    Organization
    Other Revolutionary War
    Race
    Religion
    Trenton & Princeton
    Valley Forge & Monmouth
    Veterans

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015

    © 2015-2022 Gabriel Neville

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Blog
  • The Project
  • The Regiment
  • The Soldiers
  • Family
  • Learn More
  • Contact