I receive with Pleasure every Mark of your Friendship, and none with more, than when You freely communicate to me your Disapprobation of any part of my Conduct.
- John Dickinson to Charles Lee (July 25, 1776)
A couple weeks ago, Sadie came home from school complaining about a Liberty's Kids video they watched about the Boston Tea Party. Turns out, her friend S had done a lot of research on the incident, and both were scandalized by some inaccuracies.
Their biggest issue was with British claims made in the Cockpit about how much tea was thrown into the harbor. So we chatted a bit about propaganda and why the British might have exaggerated, as well as how a lot of content necessarily elides, simplifies, conflates, etc, to maintain narrative within the media's limitations.
I mentioned the John Adams miniseries, specifically their portrayal of John Dickinson. For example, the Declaration is announced to the Publick in dramatic fashion, with Dickinson shown in uniform, then riding off with the militia to defend our independence even after arguing against it. Absolutely true in a broad sense, albeit a somewhat compressed timeline1, and naturally doesn't delve further into his service:
Since June 1775 he had been chairman of Pennsylvania's Committee of Safety and Defense. He also had organized the first battalion of troops raised in Philadelphia, the so-called Associators (today's 111th Infantry, Pennsylvania Army National Guard). Lacking a militia organization, Pennsylvania traditionally had relied on volunteer units such as Dickinson's Associators for military support.
When a large British invasion force appeared in New York harbor in July 1776, Pennsylvania called the Associators into active duty as a part of the general mobilization of militia to defend New York City, and Dickinson absented himself from Congress to assume command. His unit was assigned to the Flying Camp, a mobile reserve that provided Washington with some 10,000 men who could be called forward to join the continentals holding New York City. Dickinson commanded a major garrison point at Elizabeth, New Jersey, in the defense against any attempt by British forces on Staten Island to cross the New Jersey countryside to attack Philadelphia.
Turned out of Congress after refusing to sign the Declaration, Dickinson resigned his commission in the Associators and retired to his home in Delaware. During the summer of 1777, however, he once more enlisted for active duty, this time to serve as a private in Captain Stephen Lewis' company of Delaware volunteers.
The mobilization of Delaware units was in response to the appearance of a British force under General Sir William Howe at Elkton, Maryland, at the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. From there Howe planned to attack Philadelphia, the American capital. General Washington's hastily organized defense called for the mobilization of Delaware's militia under the command of General Caesar Rodney; its mission was to maintain a sector of the cordon thrown up between the approaching British and the capital by combined troops from the middle states. Rodney's units were also expected to delay any possible British drive south toward Baltimore until Washington's continentals could arrive on the scene.
During the defensive action, Dickinson's company guarded the approaches to the Brandywine River. His unit, along with the rest of Delaware's forces, returned home after the British retired from the area, but Dickinson continued as a part-time soldier. In October 1777 General Rodney issued him a commission as a brigadier general of militia.
A similar scene (I can't find a good version on YouTube) shows Congress creating the Continental Army through a sort of parliamentary backdoor by nominating George Washington to be in command first, all in like...3 minutes. To be fair, there aren't a lot of contemporaneous notes about what actually happened, given it was debated in the Committee of the Whole and secrecy was paramount for obvious reasons.
Still, the army was approved on June 14, while Washington didn't get the nod until June 15. Presumably the writers didn't want to stretch things out for pacing reasons, and needed to show Adams deftly stomping on the man he called a "piddling genius" since the show wasn't called John Dickinson2.
In conclusion, media literacy is a land of contrasts. Oh, and happy birthday, US Army.
1 - The Declaration was read aloud on the 8th, Dickinson left in mid-to-late July. I can't find a precise date, but he certainly didn't go directly from the event as depicted.
2 - Don't get me started on how they dealt with Jay's Treaty later on, centering Adams in an atrociously ahistorical fashion (I still like the series, but man, even I can't be chill about this one).
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