CHRONICLES: The eMagazine of History

Tea, Bells, and Guns: An American TimelineThe Path to Liberty

Arizonaʼs Liberty BellThe Colt Percussion Revolver

The eMagazine of Hiory

Vol. 1 No. 4July, 2010

Chronicles is sponsored byFireship Press, LLC

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CHRONICLES EDITORBarbara Marriott

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SENIOR EDITORTom Grundner

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Contents

FROM THE EDITOR

The Rockets Red Glare 1

FEATURE ARTICLES

Tea, Bells, and Guns: An American Timeline

The Path to Libertyby Mary Anne Butler 2

Arizonaʼs Liberty Bellby Jane Eppinga 5

The Colt Percussion Revolverby Dwight Jon Zimmerman 8

BOOK REVIEWS

Astrodene on Booksby David Hayes 10

NEW AND NOTABLE

THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG: A Novel of Wolfe and Montcalm at Quebecby Terry Mort 13

WRITER'S BLOCKby Julian Padowicz 14

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From the Editor...

Chronicles • July, 2010 • Vol 1, No 4

- 1 - www.FireshipPress.com - 1 -

! Happy Birthday America, this edition of Chronicles is dedicated to you.! In this celebratory issue we decided to look at some of the symbols that have played a predominate role in the history of the United States. Tea, Bells, and Guns: An Ameri-can Timeline traces some of Americaʼs favorite icons along a historical timeline. ! Mary Ann Butler sets the scene by tracing the procession of frustration that lead to the Revolutionary War. It was tea that gave birth to the discontent that launched a na-tion, and it was Thomas Paineʼs Pamphlet that created a platform for revolt. ! Butler is a dedicated historian focusing on the history of our country and the people who forged a path from the Revolutionary War to the Great Depression. Her books in-clude the fictional American Trilogy Journey To A land Called Hope, Wilderness Road, and Broken Country, and the autobiographical Down But Not Out about the Great De-pression can be found at Fireship Press. ! Our Liberty Bell will always stand as a symbol of the United Stateʼs Independence. So on this July 4th letʼs figuratively ring it loud and clear. But which one? While the great historical bell sits in Philadelphia, every state has an official duplicate. Jane Eppinga tells the story of how they came into being and what happened to Arizonaʼs Liberty Bell. ! Eppinga is a graduate of the University of Arizona in Tucson. She won the C. Leland Sonnichsen 1995 award for the best paper in The Journal of Arizona History. Her book Henry Ossian Flipper: West Point's First Black Graduate was a Spur finalist award from the Western Writers of America. In July of 2008, she presented a paper at the Interna-tional Womenʼs Congress in Madrid. Her writing credentials include more than 200 arti-cles in both popular and professional publications. Her books include Arcadia Publish-ingʼs Images of America series and focus on Tucson, Nogales, Apache Junction, and Tombstone. She has also written Arizona Sheriffs: Badges and Bad Men published by Rio Nuevo Press in Tucson, Arizona. Her They Made Their Mark: An illustrated history of the Society of Woman Geographers was published by Globe Pequot. She is a mem-ber of Western Writers of America, Southern Arizona Authors, Arizona Press Women, the National Federation of Press Women, and Society of Woman Geographers! Perhaps one of the most powerful icons of our country is the Colt Revolver. It made its impact in the Civil War then went on to tame the west, or perhaps make it a wilder place. You canʼt think of the more violent side of Americaʼs history without including the Colt firearm. Dwight Jon Zimmerman does a wonderful job of describing the impor-tance of this weapon, a truly iconic symbol of the wild west of America. ! Zimmerman, with John Gresham, co-authored Beyond Hell and Back, and Uncom-mon Valor, which will be released September 2010. His other books include First Com-mand: Paths to Leadership and The Book of War.! As you celebrate our independence this month, give a thought to the original “rock-ets red glare,” to the tenacious men who wanted a better life, and the symbols that stand for that dream.

Barbara Marriott

! Because Great Britain faced enor-mous debt largely brought on by the French and Indian War, in 1763 it began looking to the colonies for help. At first Parliament imposed a tariff on sugar, mo-lasses, and rum imported into America from the West Indies. Then it levied the Stamp Act, which required that stamps be affixed to newspapers, pamphlets, and legal documents. While some of these efforts were later repealed, the Americans finally rebelled at the passage of the Tea Act, legislation that allowed the East India Company to acquire a monopoly on the tea trade. ! Parliament then passed a series of disciplinary measures against the upstart colonists and closed the Boston port. Not

to be outmaneuvered, a few Americans fought back. Under the leadership of Samuel Adams, a Boston patriot, fifty men decked out in feathers and red ocher to resemble Indians, boarded an East In-dia Company ship in Boston Harbor and tossed three hundred chests of tea taxed at three pence a pound overboard. In Charleston, the patriots let the tea rot in the southern heat, while in Philadelphia and New York, no one came forward to unload it and the cargoes were sent back. In a further indignity, the British did not go home at the end of the war as expected, but continued to maintain an army in America, supposedly to secure the rough frontier. First headquartered in New York, the army moved to Boston in 1768.



The Path to Liberty by Mary Anne Butler

! Pressure increased against both the imposed taxes and the occupying army. Militias known as Minutemen began or-ganizing, drilling, and stockpiling arms and ammunition throughout the colonies. In retaliation, a few British units rounded up subversives and confiscated some of the military stores. ! The colonists were soon fed up. It was time to act and seventy armed Minute-men marched to the Lexington, Massa-chusetts common, then onto Concord where they defeated the British. However, at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775 and even though the British suffered enor-mous casualties, they managed to defeat the rebellious colonists. So it went for the next fifteen months: without a formal dec-laration of war, American and British troops engaged in numerous skirmishes. What they needed was a cohesive rea-son to fight on, and it came from the pen of Thomas Paine in January 1776 when

he released his famous pamphlet pro-claiming that the United Colonies “are, and of right ought to be free and inde-pendent states.”! Congress moved quickly to embrace his ideals by appointing a committee of five prominent men to draft such a decla-ration. They included the revered patriots John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Livingston, and Roger Sherman. Written by Thomas Jefferson and approved by Congress on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence would provide a blueprint for America that has endured for 234 years. The docu-ment also marked the beginning of the declared Revolutionary War that would last until September 3, 1783, when the United States of America finally secured its independence from Great Britain, and its claims to all those lands east of the Mississippi River were granted.

Chronicles • June, 2010 • Vol 1, No 3


A notice from the "Chairman of the Committee for Tarring and Feathering" inBoston denounced the tea importers as "traitors to their country."

! Not everyone was eager to join in the battle. Great Britain, somewhat short of troops, counted on the many Loyalists living in the colonies to support the war effort, and many did. But there were oth-ers in Britain who did not want to fight in some far off country and refused to join up. This led the British to bolster its army with German mercenaries commonly known as Hessians, because so many of them came from the German State of Hesse. Some of the Americans, tired of the constant warring they had left on the other side of the pond, refused to join in. Others claimed they could not spare their sons needed to work the farms. Many like the Amish, Mennonites, and Quakers were avowed pacifists. ! However, for those who did join, con-ditions were abominable. Itʼs a wonder the Commander-in-Chief George Wash-ington was able to keep any men. Win-ters at Valley Forge and later at Morris-town were the harshest in anyoneʼs memory. Men endured without proper clothing, food, and supplies. Many were

barefoot, forced to sit up nights by the fires to keep from freezing in their sleep.! Even though each colony was charged with supporting its own men, the funding was haphazard. New Jersey, for example, paid $250 to each man who en-listed; Virginia was generous paying $750; Pennsylvania a meager $20. Later recruits were promised lands in the West with no roads or byways to get them there; and the promised funds for joining up did not always materialize, nor did uni-forms and equipment. Some endured without shoes and blankets and were forced to sleep on the frozen ground. Starving, they stole food from neighboring farmers and townspeople leading to con-siderable resentment against the army.! So in 2010 as Americans enjoy their picnics and parades while perhaps giving only passing thought to the reason that brings them together, they might pause in their celebrations to contemplate the sac-rifices that those valiant men endured to ensure a free America for generations to come.



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! The Arizona Liberty Bell is located on the State Capitol courtyard between the Senate and House of Representatives buildings, suspended from a mesquite-wood yoke. It is one of 53 exact replicas of the original lib-erty bell that were cast by a French foundry in 1950.! In that year, John W. Snyder, the U.S. Treasury Secretary, pre-sented the bells to each of the, then, 48 states, plus five territories, as part of a U.S. savings-bond program. It was displayed in cities throughout the state from May 15th through July 4th.! Secretary Sny-der said, "In view of the lively compe-tition among the many civic, historical and other organiza-tions in the various States for the privi-lege of exhibiting the replica bells, the problem of selecting an appropriate site and sponsorship for permanent exhibition of the bells in each of the States should

properly be decided by the States them-selves." Representatives from the Treas-ury Department's Savings Bonds Division conferred with officials of the various States, Territories, and the District of Co-

lumbia to arrange for turning over the bells. The ar-rangements in-cluded plans for the organization of proper ceremonies to attend and mark the occasion.! The replica Lib-erty Bells are iden-tical in size, weight, manufacturing process, legends, markings, and to-nal quality, with the original Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. Each replica bell with its mounting stands about six feet high, is twelve feet in circumfer-

ence around the lip, and seven and one-half feet around the crown. Each bell weighs approximately one ton, but together with its mountings weighs about two tons.



The Arizona Liberty Bell

By Jane Eppinga

! Local Savings Bonds volunteer or-ganizations in the various states arranged for receptions and tours for the bells. Secretary Snyder stressed "The Liberty Bell symbolizes not only our political in-dependence but also those American characteristics which serve to sustain our financial independence… Of these char-acteristics, thrift is the most outstanding. In the Independence Drive the Liberty Bell will be a forceful reminder of the im-portance of investing in Savings Bonds to our economic life and to the financial in-dependence of the individual." ! The donors of both money and mate-rial for the Liberty Bells included the Ana-conda Copper Mining Company, Kenne-cott Copper Corporation, Phelps-Dodge Corporation, American Smelting & Refin-ing Company, the American Metal Com-pany, Ltd., and the Miami Copper Com-pany. The Ford Motor Company supplied forty-nine red, white, and blue trucks, which took the bells on the tour of the states and the traveling expenses of the truck drivers. The United States Steel Corporation's American Bridge Company provided the standards, stays, and hard-ware for mounting the bells on the trucks. Individual truck operators within the States paid the salaries of the drivers. The State Savings Bonds Chairman in each State announced the name of the truck operator who agreed to make this

contribution. The Standard Oil Company of New Jersey contributed the oil and gasoline required by the trucks during the tours.! When Snyder announced that that the bells would be turned over for permanent exhibition to the respective States and to Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia, he said that the bells should make all Ameri-cans more than ever aware of the inde-pendence which is their priceless heri-tage.! Fifty-three bells were cast for the Bond Drive, however, it appears that three more were cast. According to Sec-retary of the Treasury Snyder, in addition to the fifty-three bells made as part of the original project, he arranged to have the bell made that General Douglas MacAr-thur presented to Japan (#54), and he presented another bell to the town of An-necy, France (#55) where the bells were cast, and he presented a bell from the people of Annecy to Independence, Mis-souri (#56). The bells were cast at the Sons of Georges Paccard Foundry in Annecy-le-Vieux, France. The bell that was given to Independence, Missouri by the people of Annecy was dedicated on November 6, 1950, and President Harry S Truman was present for the dedication. After the Truman Library was built (1957),



the Bell was moved to the Truman Library grounds and rededicated in 1959.! The inscription accompanying the Liberty Bell on the grounds of the Truman Library reads:

DEDICATED TO YOU, A FREE CITIZEN IN A FREE LAND

! After fifty years, however, the frame on the Arizona bell had become structur-ally unsound; so, in 2005, volunteers de-cided to renovate it. A $2,000 piece of mesquite, a wood that would withstand Arizonaʼs intense heat, was purchased from Tumacacori Mesquite Sawmill near Tucson, and a new yoke was made.



His Majesty’sShip

The JackassFrigate

HMS Diamond The TempleThe Midshipman Prince

True Colours

Alaric Bond’s Fighting Sail Series

Tom Grundner’s Sir Sidney Smith Series

! One of the great sidearms of the Civil War was the percussion cap revolver produced by the Coltʼs Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company (now Coltʼs Manufacturing Company). ! Colt manufactured two models during the war, the Army Model 1860, a .44 cali-ber six-shooter of which more than 200,000 were made, and the Model 1861 Navy, a .36 caliber six-shooter of which almost 39,000 were produced. These succeeded earlier Dragoon and Navy models that saw wide use in the war. While it is unlikely that as many as 500,000 Colt pistols were used in the conflict, it is true is that they so outnum-bered all other revolvers that the name “Colt” became synonymous with the word “revolver.” ! All of these early model Colts were muzzleloaders. The “cartridge” was com-posed of three parts: a bullet, a measured amount of black powder, and a small copper percussion cap containing volatile fulminate of mercury. The percussion cap was placed on a hollow nipple located at the base of the chamber. Firing occurred when the hammer struck the percussion

cap. This in turn ignited the gunpowder charge in the chamber. Pulling back the hammer rotated the cylinder for the next shot.! Though all military services and branches were issued pistols, it was es-pecially favored by the cavalry; so the story of the revolverʼs use in the Civil War is primarily a cavalry story. Both sides used them, with the Confederates eagerly confiscating Colt revolvers from captured Union prisoners or arsenals. ! Confederate partisan leader Colonel John Singleton Mosby, the “Gray Ghost of the Confederacy,” thought they were indispensable. His Rangers favored the Army Colt and carried at least two (it was not unusual to see men with as many as six). Mosby later boasted, “I think we did more than any other body of men to give the Colt pistol its great reputation. ”Mosby and his Rangers became the terror of Un-ion troops who had to fight them in Lou-doun County, Virginia. In fact, the exploits of Mosbyʼs men were so successful that Union general Ulysses S. Grant was driven to issue the order that, “where any



The COLT PERCUSSIONREVOLVER

byDwight Jon Zimmerman

of Mosbyʼs men are caught, hang them without trial.” ! Mosby had the distinction of being one of the few Confederate officers never to surrender to Union forces. Shortly after General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Gen-eral Ulysses S. Grant, Mosby gathered his command and disbanded them. Since Mosbyʼs unit was independent of any su-perior, Mosby was fully authorized to is-sue such an order.

! Mosby, a lawyer before the war, re-turned to his home, resumed his law practice, and, controversially, became an active member of the Republican party. Grant got to know his one-time enemy when the latter became his campaign manager in Virginia during Grantʼs presi-dential campaign. Grant later wrote, “Since the close of the war, I have come to know Colonel Mosby personally and somewhat intimately. He is a different man entirely from what I supposed. He is able and thoroughly honest and truthful.”



An Epic Novel of Persia and Palestine On one hand, it’s a tale of the crusades—as told from the Islamic side—where Shi'a and Sunni are as intent on killing Ismaili Muslims as they are crusaders. But, it’s also the story of a French boy, who is captured and forced into the alien world of the assassins.It’s a sweeping saga that takes you across 12th century Persia and Pales-tine, over vast snow covered mountains, through the frozen wastes of the winter plateau, and into the fabulous cites of Hamadan, Isfahan, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Astrodene on Books! As I look back, it is amazing how little US History was taught during my childhood in post-war Britain. There was of course a steady diet of Hollywood Westerns, but the struggle for U.S. independence could probably be summed up with: 'It started over something called the Boston Tea Party, George Washington led the rebels, and we lost."! So, as the U.S. is celebrating its annual 4th of July holiday, I thought I would take a look at how authors have dealt with the war at sea during the period of the revolution.! There are several things that influence how it is portrayed, not least of which is the nationality of the author. British authors tend to write about big fleets arriving, and lone ships being sent to places where the crew goes ashore and faces whatever is hidden in the impenetrable woods. U.S. authors, on the other hand, tend to write about the valiant privateers.! Part of that filtering process was an early TV adaptation of James Fenimore Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans. It was Cooper who was probably the first to write about the war at sea with The Pilot (1823), which followed the life of a naval pilot during the Revolution. This is thought to be based on the exploits of John Paul Jones.! The popularity of naval fiction as a whole started to grow via authors who had served in the Royal Navy, such as Captain Frederick Marryat. However, most of these veterans were products of the Napoleonic Wars, which was both a fertile source of material and, from their point of view, a victory as opposed to a defeat. Therefore, the American revolutionary period does not really feature much in early UK nautical literature. This changed in 1968 when Alexander Kent wrote the first of his epic 29 book Bolitho series To Glory we Steer (the 30th book, In the King's Name, is due out next February). The revolutionary period was also covered in later books, Sloop of War (1972) and In Gallant Company (1977), and also by Richard Woodman as part of his Nathaniel Drinkwater series with An Eye of the Fleet (1981).

Book Reviews



! American authors, not surprisingly, are much more prolific on the subject and John Paul Jones is a popular figure to feature. Tom McNamara wrote three novels that are based on the life of his ancestor, Henry Lunt, who served under John Paul Jones.

Harvey Haislip's 'Tommy Potter' trilogy is about a 12 year old who lies about his age to get a position as a midshipman in John Paul Jones' Bonhomme Richard. More recently Nicholas Nicastro, whose novel The Isle of Stone: A novel of Ancient Sparta was reviewed in the first issue of Chronicles, is currently writing the 'John Paul Jones Trilogy.' He has released, so far, The Eighteenth Captain (1999) and Between Two Fires (2002).!Dan Parkinson (1935-2001) wrote a four book series about the adventures of Patrick Dalton, The Fox & the Faith, The Fox & the Fury, The Fox & the Flag and The Fox & the Fortune. Dalton, who as an Irishman is accused of treason, has to flee the Royal Navy,

and steer a difficult path as he tries to avoid taking sides in the conflict. The books seem quite good at giving an insight into the complex relationships at a time when friends were deciding whether their future was as loyalists or rebels, and of the privateering ships based around the Delaware and Chesapeake. ! U.S. writers who wish to do a series of books sometimes feel that the revolutionary period is too short, and so they either write from the Royal Navy perspective moving on into the Napoleonic Wars, or cover both the Revolutionary period and the War of 1812. Dewey Lambdin's popular Alan Lewrie series is one of the former with only the early work such as The King's Coat (1989) covering the Revolution. Examples of the latter are Jon Williams five book 'Privateers and Gentleman' series, with only The Privateer (1980 - also published as To Glory Arise) set during the revolution, and William C Hammond's 'Cutler Family Chronicles' including A Matter of Honor (2007)! Some authors have a mixed series covering the war on land and at sea. F. Van Wyck Mason's 'American Revolution' series was one such with Three Harbours (1938), Stars on the Sea (1940), Rivers of Glory (1942), Eagle in the Sky (1948), Valley Forge: 24 December 1777 (1950) and Wild Horizon (1977).! A leading expert on the war at sea during the period is James. L. Nelson. His 'Revolution at Sea Saga' of five books is about the adventures of Isaac Biddlecomb. It was published in the late 1990's and more recently, he has moved on to authoritative factual works such as Benedict Arnolds Navy (2006), George Washington's Secret Navy (2008) and the recently released George Washington's Great Gamble. As I mentioned last month, the second of these was the 2009 recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for excellence in naval literature. ! In 1885 Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was appointed to the U.S. Naval War College to teach naval history and tactics, and his true calling emerged. He was an absolute genius as a naval historian and theoretician. His books were avidly read by naval officers the world over and shaped the way modern navies would be organised and, more importantly, revolutionised the way ships would fight. Fireship Press has recently



re-released his nonfiction work on the period, Sea Power and the American Revolution: 1775-1783.

! Other novels set during the Revolution include J. E. Fender's five books about the adventures of Geoffrey Frost, All the Proud Ships (1996) by Charles E Friend, and Escape to Danger (1949) by Edward Buell Hungerford.!! The period has therefore spawned many books and I suspect will continue to do so as evidenced by the release last month of John Barry: An American Hero in the Age of Sail by Tim McGrath a major new biography of the man regarded as "The Father of the American Navy.”!! Looking at what else is out, attracting a great deal of interest because of the new area it covers is Russian Warships in the Age of

Sail 1696-1860: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates by John Tredrea & Eduard Sozaev now available worldwide.! In fiction, Seahorse by Michael Aye, part of 'The Fighting Anthonys' series has just been released. Interestingly, as Michael told me in a recent interview, whilst set in the Age of Sail the book is “somewhat of a tribute to the World War II hero, who was a first mate on a crash boat, SeaHorse, in the Pacific”. Victory by Julian Stockwin was out in the UK and will be released on 1 October in the US. It completes the trilogy that dealt with the incredible events in the two years leading up to Trafalgar in 1805 and is a milestone in the Kydd series as it features the last of the big set-piece naval battles.! Finally, in general nautical fiction, is Treachery and Treason in Canada's Sealing Fleet by Mel McIlveen and for those who follow the resurgence of Pirate fiction after the successful 'Pirates of the Caribbean' films, book three in John Drake's 'Treasure Island' series, Skull and Bones, is now available in hardcover in the UK and on Kindle in the US.



An act of treason, a mysterious murder—and Grantʼs campaign in the West is finished

unless the mystery can be solved.

New and Notable



THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG: A Novel of Wolfe and Montcalm at Quebec

by Terry Mort

“Measured by the numbers engaged, the Battle of Quebec was but a heavy skirmish; measured by the

results, it was one of the great battles of the world.” — Francis Parkman.

When the British defeated the French at Quebec in 1759, they not only guaranteed Britainʼs acquisition of Canada but also, unwittingly, paved the way for the American Revolution.

But this is a larger story than just the single day of battle on September 13, 1759. The final action was the culmination of a summer-long campaign involving a series of engagements between the British Army, American Rangers and the Royal Navy on one side, and the French regulars, the Canadian mi-litia and Indian allies on the other. As the weeks passed and the British became increasingly frustrated, the campaign de-generated into total war in which civilians and combatants suffered alike.

The two commanders – Wolfe and Montcalm – could hardly have been more different in background and personality. Yet they shared an intense professionalism, dedication to duty and, ironically, a similar fate.

In this carefully researched novel Terry Mort reconstructs the action of the campaign that climaxed in the dramatic events on the Plains of Abraham.



WRITERʼS BLOCKA sensational new novel from the

award-winning author and filmmakerJulian Padowicz

From his miserable childhood to his mediocre career as a col-lege professor, fate had not been kind, or even terribly fair, to “Kip” Kippur. But Kipʼs luck changes when he inherits a house in a small coastal village in Massachusetts. He chucks his pre-vious life and moves there to write the Great American Nov-el—a thinly disguised autobiography.

As Kip struggles to transmute a leaden life into golden fiction, he finds himself alone and rudderless in a strange community. He stumbles into a mysterious murder, an awkward romance, a married lady's hot-tub, an unusual proposal of marriage—and an invitation to sail to Florida, during storm season, in a sail-boat of questionable seaworthiness, with an autocratic captain and a homicidal crew mate.

But Writerʼs Block is more than just the tale of a late-life crisis gone terribly awry. Itʼs also an intriguing portrait of a small town and the complex people who inhabit it. It will keep you riveted all the way to its crashing conclusion.

Over the course of this summer we will be converting ALL of our Fireship Press and Cortero Publishing titles into electronic book format.Eventually, these titles will be available for

Apple iPadAmazon KindleSony ReaderBarnes & Noble Nookand many other readers

Many titles are already available, but be sure to check your retail vendors, or stop by our website for a complete listing.

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