AMERICAN REVOLUTION ROUND TABLE of RICHMOND
Please join us for our next meeting on Wednesday, March 15, with dinner at 5:30 and the meeting following at 6:30.  During the revolution, officers – from ensigns to generals – were a fluid group, constantly coming and going.  William M. Ferrarro will be our speaker.  Bill, the Managing Editor of the Washington Papers at the University of Virginia, will tell the story in his presentation “Officer Resignations in the Continental Army: General Washington’s Constant Headache.”  We meet in the Heilman Dining Center at the University of Richmond.  Details and maps are here.  http://arrt-richmond.blogspot.com/p/2013-meeting-schedule.html  Please also check our site for future speakers and dates.  In the meantime, please also remember to reenlist.  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9SzsTHS3bC1cVpkU2Z2MDhNeEU/view  Thank you.
Unfortunately, I must report the death of our member Dennis Framer.  He had been sick for a year or so, but, according to Carol, he lived his last days to the fullest.  Dennis made a wonderful presentation to us in 2015 entitled “Stand to Horse,” about the Continental Light Dragoons, a subject on which he was an expert.  He was actively involved in local history for years.  I remember his excellent narration of the reenactment at Battersea a few years ago.  Dennis will be missed.  His details are here.  
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/progress-index/obituary.aspx?page=lifestory&pid=184179851

This is our last call for the 6th Annual Conference of the American Revolution at http://americashistoryllc.com/2016/5th-annual-conference-of-the-american-revolution-2-2/.  The Yorktown bus tour is filled, but there are still a few seats remaining for the conference.  Don’t miss it.
Our Mark Lender’s Fatal Sunday, the story of Monmouth, continues to garner recognition, now as a nominee for the 2017 George Washington Prize.  Mark and the competition are described here:
The finalists for the 2017 George Washington Prize, which recognizes "the best-written works on the nation's founding era, especially those that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of early American history," are: 

George Washington's Journey: The President Forges a New Nation by T.H. Breen (Simon and Schuster)
"Most Blessed of the Patriarchs": Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf (Liveright Publishing)
A Revolution in Color: The World of John Singleton Copley by Jane Kamensky (Norton)
The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution by Michael J. Klarman (Oxford University Press)
Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle by Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone (University of Oklahoma Press)
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking)
American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804 by Alan Taylor (Norton)

The winner of the $50,000 prize, sponsored by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, George Washington's Mount Vernon and Washington College, will be announced at a gala on May 25 at Mount Vernon.





The new American Revolution Museum at Yorktown (ARMY) will be celebrating its grand opening from March 23 until April 4, with daily celebrations of each state in the order in which they ratified the Constitution.  Details are here.  http://www.historyisfun.org/grandopening/  A number of our friends, too many to name, are involved and will be making presentations.  Click on each state for details of the various presentations. 





The other new Museum of the American Revolution, this one in Philadelphia, will open on April 19.  Since they began selling tickets on February 22, only 18,000 have been purchased, a sure sign that interest in the revolution continues to grow.  https://www.amrevmuseum.org/   The centerpiece will be Washington’s wartime headquarters tent.  This outstanding piece of history from the old Valley Forge Historical Society has long been in storage.  It will be great to once more have it on display.





As today is the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, here’s a brand new and very impressive rendering of the action by artist Don Troiani.  https://massachusettsnewswire.com/artist-historian-don-troiani-recreates-infamous-boston-massacre-in-new-master-painting-27507/ and http://boston1775.blogspot.com/2017/03/when-i-paint-my-massacre.html  According to Troiani, he will no longer be painting Civil War scenes, but will now focus entirely on Revolutionary War topics.  Great news.





Our John Millar sent the following news.



I have just learned about the discovery of a document at Harvard that I thought would be of interest to you. Harvard Professor Danielle Allen has recently discovered in the Houghton Rare Book Library at Harvard John Adams’ first draft of the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Massachusetts General Court on 19 January 1776, over 6 months earlier than the actual Declaration. Professor Allen states that the only reason we have agreed that Jefferson wrote the Declaration is that he put that statement on his tombstone (and Adams did not – but what if he had?). The article where I read this had a photo of the document, so I took it down to the super-duper copy machines at FedEx and made a great enlargement of the photo to a size where it is possible to read it. It has the same identical structure as “Jefferson’s” and some of the phrases remain the same, but it is clearly a different document from “Jefferson’s.” I don’t know whether this means that we should refer to Jefferson now as more of an editor than an author – my judgment is six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.  The document was published a few days later by order of the Massachusetts General Court on 23 January 1776 by Benjamin Edes in Watertown MA, and this Harvard copy appears to be the only known surviving copy. The article in question is in Harvard Magazine March/April 2017.



The article is here, on page 56.  http://harvardmag.com/pdf/2017/03-pdfs/0317-HarvardMag.pdf





Please be prepared to offer your nomination for our 2017 Preservation Partner at the March meeting.  We’ll open the process then.  



And one final reminder.  The University of Richmond has been our very gracious host for the last eleven years.  All they ask in return is that you purchase your dinner before entering the meeting.  I urge you all to do so.  Thanks.



See you on March 15.



Bill

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