revolutionary-pirate

[revolutionary-pirate]

Okay, this is pretty incredible. A 3D artist, consulting scholars and archaeologists, worked for a year and a half in Blender to create a reconstruction of pre-Columbian Tenochtitlán, complete with the surrounding landscape. It’s staggeringly beautiful, and—at least to me—gives a wonderful impression of the city as a place where people worked and lived and worshiped

[revolutionary-pirate]

Col Richard Kidder Meade was my GGGGG grandfather. I’m 58 and am a native of Virginia. I have a very clear family tree of our family connection. My Aunts are members of DAR and used Meade for their link to having a relative in the Revolutionary War. I found your blog when using Google to get more info on my Pops lol.

Hello! I’m not surprised you found me lol i hope my blog has been enlightening in some way! I’m pretty sure this is probably the most concentrated collection of information about him out there. I’m now feeling a little guilty my grad school crash and burn out + ADHD kept me from having the motivation to finish parts 2 and 3 of my info dumps on everything I ever found on Col Meade. I’m glad you said something! I’ve always wondered if anyone related to him would ever see any of the things that I have managed to find about him.

[revolutionary-pirate]

What date was Richard kidder Meade promoted to Lt. colonel? Was he a Major at any point?

The rank of Lt. Colonel came with the promotion to aide-de-camp, so he was promoted the day he joined staff, March 12, 1777 [x]

He was elected captain of a newly formed company in the 2nd Virginia on October 24th, 1775 [x]. He was then appointed straight to Lt. Col. on November 13th, 1776 by the Virginia House of Delegates to lead one of the new battalions, but he respectfully declined the position in a letter read by the House of Delegates on December 2nd, 1776. [x, x] He then gained a (initially) non-line command version of the Lt. Colonel rank anyway by being appointed aide-de-camp (which, coincidentally, was a position that opened up Because he turned down the appointment to head a battalion when one of Washington’s aides at the time, George Baylor, was offered the position in his place [x]).

#richard kidder meade #aides-de-camp #washionton’s aides #asks #anon #i woke up suddenly at like 6:30 am anf then got his ask 5 minutes later i found that very amusing so i answered it instead of sleeping

[revolutionary-pirate]

Not knowing the contents of the letters from Hamilton that Meade wanted to keep so private that he stood in a chimney to read them so no one could even glimpse them over his shoulder will haunt me until the day I die.

#thinking about this again #plus the more than 10 letters between hamilton and meade that i know existed but where lost

[revolutionary-pirate]

Was reading my own posts and saw a tag where I was raging about the Hamilton’s Revolution Book again. I forgot about that book and for that brief period of time i knew happiness but seeing the words “Hamilton’s Revolution” just now have refilled me with inconsolable rage

[revolutionary-pirate]

Btw I’ve fallen down an aides-de-camp rabbit hole, mostly based on Arthur Leftkowitz’s work. Is that a good source? Cuz I’ve used it to start constructing a VERY rough timeline of the aides’ hiring and leaving.

Sorry i’m late but yes! That’s basically the aide-de-camp research bible. There are things he gets wrong and things he’s missing and that’s to be expected tbh because of how old the book is but it’s the most complete published text on the aides-de-camp currently out there

#asks #elrondsscribe #i looked at the ask at work then te notification went away and then i forgot the ask existed adhd is a curse

[revolutionary-pirate]

Fandom Hamilton: works non-stop to the point of damaging his health and relationships

Canon Hamilton: pretended to be asleep to avoid the many duties awaiting him as an aide-de-camp

(source)

#alexander hamilton #aides de camp #washington’s aides #same #we cant all be Tilghmans

[revolutionary-pirate]

Said i’d start working then immediately got sucked into playing fire emblem three houses again instead whoops. And now i’ve realized i’m out of grad school and no longer have access to a lot of my academic sources i was working with because i forgot to follow through on downloading them all. Pain

#i’ll figure it out

[revolutionary-pirate]

My aide-related ask: I've been meaning to try to find a simple timeline of all the aides and the dates they held the position, maybe also quick info like age and where they were from/why they were aides at all. Do you know if something like that exists? I'm sure I can probably (I could be wrong) find a list, but before I throw hours at Google, then at a color-coded, hand-drawn timeline I inevitably have to start over when I misspell a name, I wondered if you knew of a resource I could go straight to. Thanks!

The short answer is no.

I have seen one list full of incorrect information in a book published decades ago. Good news for you, i was working on one before my hiatus. I’ll make it priority number one to finish! I’ll be sure to add in some of the other info you were wanting. Why they were aides isn’t an easy question to answer, though, but if i do know i’ll be sure to make note of it if you could clarify what exactly you mean by why they were aides

#asks #therevwriter

[revolutionary-pirate]

A year after leaving i’m finally recovering my motivation to do writing and research since grad school destroyed every drop of it I had. Going to start going through and re-reading a lot of my posts and sources because the file cabinets in my brain have started rusting shut but i plan to get back to work on some of my long drafts again

#i have 60 drafts monkaS

[revolutionary-pirate]

What all do you know about Washington’s aide William Grayson?

It has been years since i got this ask that this has been sitting in my drafts. So rather than letting it continue to sit i’m just going to publish it now as it is. I’m very busy but if i find myself with the time and energy now that i am out of grad school I will come back with a part two. But it has been So Long that my mental file cabinets full of information about the aides has rusted shut so i’ll have to go back through all of my material again to refresh myself and relern where all of my research is because past me was very very bad at organizing things for posterity rip. But it looks like i hit a good stopping point on his life when i was working on this back in the day. A quick summary: William Grayson officially joined Washington’s staff as an aide-de-camp on August 24th, 1776 [x] and served until he, like most of Washington’s staff at the time, was awarded a line command and given orders to raise one of Congress’ 16 Additional regiments in January of 1777. He would go on to become one of the first two U.S. senators from Virginia. I’ll be going in-depth below the break since this is a little bit of a monster:

William Grayson’s year of birth changes depending on the source, generally listed as being either 1736, 1740, or 1742, which places him at anywhere from 34-40 at the time of his appointment which is a pretty wide margin. When I initially made my age statistics posts, I was not fully aware of this continued discrepancy. The most commonly cited birth year was 1736 and, since I was doing a quick calculation at the time and just threw together my age statistics, I didn’t dig deeper until a couple months before you sent in this ask. The conjecture for 1736 is based on a book published in the 1850s that speculated c1736 to be about the year of his birth based on what the author could gather from the contemporary stories provided by the people who knew him and their guestimates of his age at the time of their knowing him. Since no one that had known him and was still alive at the time actually knew his age or birth year and because it was never written down anywhere or even inscribed on his coffin or grave (he’d been buried in a vault and, thus, had no tombstone) [x], it was better than any other guess out there and people stuck to it despite resurfacing evidence that started suggesting otherwise. A more recent source by Joseph Horrell (published in 1984) has presented that new evidence suggests his birth year is closer to being c1742. What led to this was the surfacing of an account kept by his older brother and guardian, Benjamin, from William’s 16th-21st years that shifted the century-old conjecture forward. The account ends in 1763 when William was 21 years old. Walk back 21 years from 1763 and it’s clear that 1742 is William’s most probable birth year. The closing of the account by February 8th suggests that he was born either sometime in January or the first week of February. [x] William Grayson was born to a well-established family in Prince William County Virginia. Some sources claim that his father was a Scottish immigrant, but records show that his branch of the family had been in the colonies for several generations. His Father, Col. Benjamin Grayson, married a widow, Susanna Monroe Tyler (Pres. James Monroe’s great aunt). The couple had four children before her death, three sons and a daughter: Benjamin Jr., Spence Monroe, William, and Susanna. His father remarried to another widow, Sarah Ball Ewell, but did not have any more children. Benjamin Grayson was a successful merchant who possessed a large estate and lived on a plantation called Belle Air. He also owned numerous other properties and buildings large and small with various purposes across Virginia. When Benjamin Sr. died in 1758, Benjamin Jr was the only one of the four children who wasn’t a minor. William, 16, inherited from their father’s will ~2,800 acres of land, 20+ slaves, a share of his father’s large estate, and ~$500 in cash. [x] Because William was only a minor and was unmarried, it was required by the court that a guardian was appointed for his care that would keep an account of his expenses. The courts were to handle his inherited estate until he was 21 years of age and could take charge of it himself. Because he was over the age of 14 (the age of discretion), he was allowed to choose his own guardian and selected his older brother, Benjamin. Spence was also old enough to choose his own guardian (William Ellzey), while their sister, who was younger than 14, got appointed her oldest brother, Benjamin, to be her guardian as well. Benjamin did a poor job of keeping William’s accounts and the other siblings’ either were never submitted or didn’t survive time. Benjamin actually failed to show up to court so that the court could record Williams’ expense account on more than one occasion, leading to them chasing him down and forcing him to appear one year. He then subsequently failed to show up again the next but was forced into showing up for the final year. This was a signal of the irresponsibility that would soon bite Benjamin in the ass. [x] It was arranged for William to attend the College of Philadelphia a few months after his father’s death, but he did not actually start attending there until the following year. In the meantime, he boarded with and was school by, probably, Charles Tyler who charged £10 to cover board, school, and clothing for a year. Benjamin pretty much let his younger brother request for and do whatever he wanted with his inherited money whenever he wanted to. Among the accounts that Benjamin was required to keep, it was recorded that William gambled £8 on horse races and in raffles, spent £36 on clothing, almost as much on horses and saddles, and £11 for a brand new sword. He left to attend the College of Philadelphia sporting his brand new sword in the latter half of 1759 but only stayed there for a single term (burning through £110 while he was there like the financially unaware 18 year old he was) before sailing to London in early 1760 and remaining there for 2 1/2 years. [x] When it comes to his time in England... we don’t really know what it was that he actually did there. Tradition states that he received a law education in England, but there were debates among historians as to whether it was at Oxford, Edinburg, or Temple. Apparently, Grayson’s name does not appear in Oxford records [x] which rules out that option, leaving Edinburg or Temple. One historian is pretty certain that it was at Temple, in London [x], Lefkowitz names Middle Temple specifically [pg. 63] and then vaguely contradicts that statement later, but Horrell states that there are no traces of him having attended Temple, either, and it likely wasn’t Edinburg. Horrell argues that rather than pursue an education, William might have gone to England as a merchant like his brother and father. He, apparently, acquired a job in a countinghouse while he was in England, which supports the theory. Otherwise, we know nothing about what he was doing there in England. [x] 1762 marks the year when the Benjamin Grayson Jr. estate collapsed. Benjamin financial downfall occurred after taking massive financial risks while trying to build himself an estate to match their father’s. He was apparently volatile in nature as well, having been taken to court multiple times for trespassing, assault, and battery which cost him his station as a justice of the peace in Virginia. His creditors started demanding payment on all of their loans to him, his safety nets collapsed, his wife had to forfeit dower rights, and his creditors threatened to seize all of his property or he would have to face prison time. He, naturally, did not balance his little brother’s accounts any better than his own and it was kinda a cluster fuck (which William would discover soon enough). Upon returning to America around his 21st birthday, William found that he was already in significant debt. He had to figure something out to make money and make money fast, and what a better career than law to make money in? After some quick thinking, he immediately started clerking at a law office and worked there for three years until he qualified to practice law himself in 1766 and thus managed to avoid ending his first year as an adult in debt. He was able to comfortably support himself and his spending habits moving forward with his law career. [x]. Grayson’s signing of the Leedstown Resolutions in protest of the Stamp Act on February 27th. 1766 was the first politically significant thing that he took part of as a new lawyer. Once he was a lawyer and practicing in Dumfries (the county seat of Prince William County), Grayson soon became good friends with George Washington, whose Mount Vernon plantation was nearby. They played cards and went fox hunting together [x x] as well as did business together [Lefkowitz, pg 63]. Grayson also became good friends with fellow lawyer and future member of Washington’s staff, Robert Hanson Harrison. Grayson would eventually name two of his future sons after the two, Robert Harrison Hanson Grayson and George Washington Grayson. Grayson was appointed as the deputy king’s attorney by the governor of Virginia in the late 1760s, but hoped to be elected to the House of Burgesses in 1772. Robert Hanson Harrison was in line to have a chance at being appointed to the office of deputy king’s attorney should Grayson have been elected to the House of Burgesses. These things, however, did not pan out so their positions remained as they were. [x]  Tensions began brewing between England and the colonies and Grayson was appointed Captain of the first militia organized in his county, The Prince William County Independent Company of Cadets, on November 11, 1774 [x]. It was a unit made up of about 40+ infantrymen [x]. Their motto was “Aut Liber, aut nullus” (“Either Freedom or nothing”) [x p. 68]. Grayson sent three men to request that George Washington take command of their company as their field officer, a request which Washington quickly granted to them and eventually to several other Independent companies as well [x]. On December 9, 1774, Grayson was appointed to the Prince William County Committee of Correspondence and Safety [x]. Pretty soon, he was also appointed Colonel of one of Virginia’s first Minutemen battalions [x]. During the Gunpowder Incident, Grayson and his Company joined with the other four Independent Companies under Washington’s command in requesting that Washington allow them to march to Williamsburg and demand the return of the gunpowder that had been taken on April 21st, 1775. [x x]. Washington evidently told them not to march and they reluctantly went back home while Patrick Henry and his men marched on to demand the return of the gunpowder themselves. Grayson and his Minutemen were stationed in Hampton starting in December of 1775 to guard the area against the British, who’d attacked it and lost in late October [x x]. He was described as having “behaved admirably well at Hampton” and to have “taken great Pains to improve himself in the Military Science” [x] since his appointment to leadership in the year prior. Grayson applied twice to obtain a commission in the Continental Army after its formation (one of which was in April of 1776), but, despite recommendations from those who knew Grayson to both Washington and Jefferson to appeal to Congress in his favor, some “false and scandalous report” about him potentially ended up standing in his way of getting an appointment at the head of a regiment. He wrote an open letter to John Pinkney on August 28th, 1775 that was published in Pinkney’s Virginia Gazette on September 7. The letter asked whoever was saying these things about him at the Virginia Convention to privately come forward with their name and home address so that he could convince them that they were wrong about him [Scribner & Tarter, pg 50-51, and x]. I haven’t come across a response or an elaboration about the things leading up to or following this issue. I really wish I could find what was said about him and if anyone responded, but nothing has come up yet. On July 22nd, 1775, Captain Andrew Snape Hamond of the British warship Roebuck with Governor Lord Dunmore following on the Dunmore came up the Potomac to restock on drinking water. On July 23rd they burned down the property of William Brent. A party of 60 militiamen under Captain John James camped out at the Brent property and drunkenly taunted the British while they worked, calling them cowards and challenging them to come ashore. Dunmore and Hamond decided to do just that, gathering together 108 men and rowing to shore while the militia slept off the alcohol. The militia fled as soon as the British started firing. Grayson swooped in with 30 of the men from his Independent Company and forced the British to retreat back to their ships and flee back out into the Chesapeake Bay. John Parke Custis wrote back to Washington about the event in early August. [x]  Potentially following that event, George Washington extended an offer to William Grayson to take a place on his staff as an aide-de-camp. Grayson was officially appointed on August 24th, 1776 [x], beginning letter work on the 25th. The staff at the time consisted of Robert Hanson Harrison (Military Secretary); Samuel Blachley Webb, Richard Cary, and George Baylor (aides-de-camp); Caleb Gibbs and George Lewis (Special Aides/Captain and Lieutenant of the Life Guard); Tench Tilghman (recently appointed Volunteer Aide); and Stephen Moylan (Quarter Master General granted continued aide-de-camp authority following his promotion and assisted at headquarters from time to time). Grayson served on staff for about four and a half months, which was about the duration of the bulk of the New York and New Jersey campaign. During that time, Richard Cary traded out for John Fitzgerald in November. Grayson, being one of the fastest riders of the staff at the time, was often selected by Washington to make quick rides back to headquarters while they were out in the field in order to draft and send time-sensitive messages. In January of 1777, Washington granted Webb, Grayson, Moylan, and Baylor the opportunity to raise and command four of the sixteen additional regiments requested by Congress. Washington officially informed Grayson, who was out of camp, of his offer to him in a letter written on January 11th, though Grayson had already heard he was going to be offered the position from Harrison in the days before [x].

Lefkowitz, Arthur S. George Washington’s Indispensable Men. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2003 Scribner, Robert L., Tarter, Brent. Revolutionary Virginia: The Road to Independence. Vol. 4. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978

#william grayson #aides-de-camp #washington's aides #i dont even remember my tagging system

[revolutionary-pirate]

Happy belated 274th birthday to this dude

#oh yo a bop #John paul jones #continental navy #music #video

[revolutionary-pirate]

On brand lmao

if anyone wants to take a pirate quiz….. i happen to have just made one….. :)

https://uquiz.com/S47WmW

#meme #quiz #not history #but it was just too fitting to NOT reblog onto this blog vs my misc lmao

[revolutionary-pirate]

Hello I saw your old(?) post about Valley Forge’s ceiling and great now I wanna cry too

It is old. I think i posted that like 3-4 years ago now 😂 i want to go back and cry without my parents there to rush me and to chat about the aides with someone. One day.

#asks #v-confused-213

[revolutionary-pirate]

I got an ask about one of the aides i hadnt talked about on this blog yet years ago that i put like two weeks of work into before I got permanently busy but it looks like I reached a good stopping point in the guy’s life so I might post what I have of it from my drafts today after i double check the links all still work and then make a part two later because no way i’m leaving such a long post in my drafts forever.

#same with part two of the meade info dump. #ihave time again so once i review i’ll have to get back to work on it

[revolutionary-pirate]

“Major Gibbs, I thought you had been too long in my family, not to know when it was eight o’clock”

George Washington, snappy as ever, according to an anecdote [x]

#aides-de-camp #caleb gibbs #george washington #washington’s aides #washington’s guard #Slow day at work so sifting through my drafts

[revolutionary-pirate]

I have started the JPJ movie and I already have one complaint: John Paul Jones’ hair is not nearly long enough.

#if your hair doesnt reach your ass is it really long enough to be JPJ?