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Authors: James MacGregor Burns

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Oh, we’ll rally ’round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom;

We will rally from the hill-side, we’ll gather from the plain,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom…

We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true, and brave.

Shouting the battle cry of freedom,

And although they may be poor not a man shall be a slave,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Somewhere in the South soldiers were singing, to the same tune:

We’ll meet the Yankee hosts, boys,

With fearless hearts and true,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom,

And we’ll show the dastard minions

What Southern pluck can do,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Somewhere the 1st Arkansas (Negro) Regiment heard the President’s proclamation.

See, there above the center, where the flag is waving bright,

We are going out of slavery; we’re bound for freedom’s light;

We mean to show Jeff Davis how the Africcans can fight,

As we go marching on!

Notes
PROLOGUE

[
Pownall’s map
]:T. Pownall,
A Topographical Description of the Dominions of the United States of America
(1776). Lois Mulkeam, ed. (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1949), pp. 25-26; see also (as referred to in Pownall) Edward Anthill, “An Essay on the Cultivation of the Vine, suited to the different climates in North America,”
Transactions
of the American Philosophical Society (Wm. and Thomas Bradford, 1771), (O.S.) I, Section II, pp. 117-97.

[Origin of first Americans]:
Harold E. Driver,
Indians of North America.
(University of Chicago Press, 1961), Ch. 1.

[Dispersion of Indian Americans across the continent]:
Geoffrey Barraclough, ed.,
The Times Atlas of World History
(Hammond, 1979), pp. 36-37.

[Nootkas on the tide]:
quoted in Richard B. Morris, ed.,
Encyclopedia of American History
(Harper & Row, 1976), p. 10.

[Types of Indians]:
Driver, Ch. 24.

[Decimation of Indians on Martha’s Vineyard and Block Island]:
Howard Zinn,
A Peoples History of the United States
(Harper
&
Row, 1980), p. 16.

[Tideland and piedmont Indians]:
Bureau of the Census,
A Century of Population Growth
(Government Printing Office, 1909), pp. 39-40.

[Joseph Brant and the Iroquois]:
Katharine C. Turner,
Red Men Calling on the Great White Father
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1951), p. 19; Angie
Debo, A History of the Indians of the United States
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), p. 71.

[Great Lakes tribes]:
Debo, p. 13.

[Treaty with Cherokees]:
U.S. Congress, House Committee on Indian Affairs, “Indian Territory, West of the Mississippi,”
Reports of Committees, 30th Congress, 1st session,
no. 736 ([Albany?]: Wendell and Van Benthuysen, [1848?]), p. 1.

[Creek-Seminole army]:
Angie Debo,
The Road to Disappearance
(University of Oklahoma Press, 1941), p. 44·

[Population in the 1780s]:
Bureau of the Census,
A Century of Population Growth
(Government Printing Office, 1909, 1976).

[Religious affiliation, 1775]:
Morris, p. 824.

[Transportation and currency in the 1780s]: A Century of Population Growth,
pp. 20-23.

[Taverns and drinking]:
Frank J. Klingberg,
The Morning of America
(Appleton-Century, 94’) PP· 295-301.

[Patrick Henry as an “American”]:
quoted in Oscar Handlin,
The Americans
(Little, Brown, 1963), p. 150.

[Catholic mass in Boston]:
John Thayer,
An Account of the Conversion of the Reverend Mr. John Thayer
(J. P. Cochlan, 1787), as cited J. P. Brissot de Warville,
New Travels in the United States of America, 1788.
Durand Echeverria, ed. (Harvard University Press, 1964), p. 88.

[Songs in America]:
James Truslow Adams,
The Epic of America
(Little, Brown, 1931), pp. 70-71.

[Omaha leader’s song]:
Alice C. Fletcher,
Indian Story and Song from North America
(Small, Maynard, 1906), pp. 24-25.

[Americans in the 1780s]:
see also St. John de Crèvecoeur.
Sketches of Eighteenth Century America
(Yale University Press, 1925); Percy G. Adams, ed.,
Crèvecoeur’s Eighteenth Century Travels in Pennsylvania & New York
(University Press of Kentucky, 1961); James Schouler,
Americans of 1776
(Dodd, Mead, 1906); Marshall Davidson,
Life in America
(Houghton Mifflin, 1974), Vol. 1, passim; Marquis de Chastellux,
Travels in North-America in the Years 1780-81-82
(White, Gallagher, & White, 1827).

1. THE STRATEGY OF LIBERTY

[Fiscal background of Shays’s Rebellion]:
Jonathan Smith, “The Depression of 1785 and Daniel Shays’ Rebellion.” address before the Clinton, Mass., Historical Society, printed in pamphlet form by that Society (1905), and reprinted in
William and Mary Quarterly,
Third Series, Vol. 5 (January 1948), pp. 77-94; for a contemporary analysis, see Richard Cranch to John Adams, Oct. 7, 1786, John Adams Papers, Microfilm Reel 369, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston.

[Leadership of the rebellion]:
On Shays’s role, reflected in a dialogue between him and General Rufus Putnam, as reported by Putnam to Governor Bowdoin, see Charles Oscar Parmenter,
History of Pelham, Massachusetts
(Carpenter and Morehouse, 1898), pp. 395-98.

[Collective nature of the rebel leadership]:
Richard B. Morris, “Insurrection in Massachusetts,” in Daniel Aaron, ed.,
America in Crisis
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), pp. 31-33.

[Reaction of Massachusetts authorities to the rebellion]:
see especially extensive references in correspondence in the Henry Knox Papers and the Bowdoin-Temple Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; see also Van Beck Hall,
Politics Without Parties: Massachusetts, 1780-1791
(University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972), pp. 210-12, and references therein.

[Statement of “respectable Bostonian ”]:
Joseph Warren to John Adams, Oct. 22, 1786, Adams Papers.

[Letter of anonymous Regulator to Gov. Bowdoin]:
Bowdoin-Temple Papers, anonymous to Bowdoin, n.d. The records of the Regulators are virtually nonexistent as compared to those of the authorities. See, however, George Richards Minot,
The History of the Insurrections in Massachusetts
(originally written 1788), 2nd ed. (Books for Libraries Press, 1970), letter, Eli Parsons to “Friends and Fellow Sufferers,” Feb. 15, 1787, pp. 146-47; see also files of the many newspapers of the day. William Manning,
The Key of Libberty
(written in 1798), Samuel Eliot Morison, ed. (The Manning Association, 1922), offers the views of a “typical” farmer who was partial to neither authorities nor rebels.

[Other sources on Shays’s Rebellion]:
Neville Meaney, “The Trial of Popular Sovereignty in Post-Revolutionary America: The Case of Shays’ Rebellion,” in Neville Meaney, ed.,
Studies on the American Revolution
(Melbourne: The Macmillan Co. of Australia, 1976), pp. 151-216; Robert J. Taylor,
Western Massachusetts in the Revolution
(Brown University Press, 1954); Josiah Gilbert Holland,
History of Western Massachusetts
(Springfield: Samuel Bowles & Co., 1855), Vol. 1.

The Great Fear

[Washington’ s daily life at Mount Vernon, fall 1786]:
John C. Fitzpatrick, ed.,
The Diaries of George Washington
(Houghton Mifflin, 1925), Vol. 3, passim; see also
Washington’s
Map of Mount Vernon
(reproduced in facsimile from the original). Introduction by Lawrence Martin (University of Chicago Press, 1932).

[Washington on the cause of the commotions]:
Washington to David Humphreys, Oct. 22, 1786, in John C. Fitzpatrick, ed.,
The Writings of George Washington
(Government Printing Office, 1939), Vol 29, p. 27; Knox to Washington, esp. quotation of Knox by Washington in Washington to James Madison, Nov. 5, 1786,
ibid.,
p. 51.

[Washington on inconsistency of man]:
Washington to David Humphreys, Dec. 26, 1786,
ibid.,
pp. 125-26.

[Washington to Madison on “thirteen sovereignties”]: ibid.,
P 52.

[Letters of John and Abigail Adams’ correspondents, and the Adamses’ responses]
Adams Papers, Microfilm Reel 369, Massachusetts Historical Society; see esp. exchanges with Rufus King, Cotton Tufts, James Warren, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams. [
Abigail Adams on Hyde Park
]: quoted in Page Smith,
John Adams
(Doubleday, 1962), Vol. 2, p. 642. [
John Quincy Adams on the governor as “Old Lady”
]:
JQA
to Abigail Adams, Dec. 30, 1786, Microfilm Reel 369.
[AA to JQA on “Poppa’s” new work]:
AA to JQA, Jan. 17, 1787,
ibid.
John Adams’ new work was published in his
Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,
published in two volumes, 1787.

[Reports to Jefferson about Shays’s rebellion, and his response]:
see Julian P. Boyd, ed.
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
(Princeton University Press, 1954-55). Vols. 9-11, passim; see also Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and the Rights of Man
(Little, Brown, 1951), pp. 156-66
. [Jefferson’s and Adams’ English tour]:
Boyd, Vol. 9, pp. 369-75; see also L. H. Butterfield, ed.
Diary and Autobiography of John Adams
(Belknap Press, 1961), Vol. 3, pp. 184-86.
[Abigail Adams to Jefferson on Shays’s rebellion]: AA
to Jefferson, Jan. 29, 1787; and Jefferson’s reply, Feb. 22, 1787, Adams Papers, Microfilm Reel, 369, Massachusetts Historical Society.
[Jefferson on revolution and the tree of liberty]:
Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Nov. 13, 1787, Boyd, Vol. 12, p. 356.

[The rebel attack on the Springfield arsenal]:
see detailed reports in the Henry Knox Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society; and a separate folder, “Lincoln-Bowdoin, Shays’ Rebellion Campaign, 1786-1787,” Massachusetts Historical Society, containing day-to-day reports from Gen. Lincoln to Bowdoin. See also General Shepard to Governor Bowdoin, Jan. 26, 1787, Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 190, pp. 317-18, reprinted in
American Historical Review,
Vol. 2, No. 4 (July 1897), pp. 694-95.

[Events in western Massachusetts after the Springfield arsenal encounter]:
Robert J. Taylor,
Western Massachusetts in the Revolution,
pp. 162-63.
[Stockbridge episode]:
Electa F. Jones,
Stockbridge, Past and Present
(Samuel Bowles, 1854), pp. 193-98; newspaper clippings, Shays’s Rebellion, city and town libraries, Berkshire County; Robert A. Burns assisted in this research. See also Thomas Egleslon,
The Life of John Paterson
(G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1894), pp. 198-99. Edward Bellamy.
The Duke of Stockbridge
(Silver, Burdett, 1900), offers a fictionalized version of some of these events. See also Marion L. Starkey,
A Little Rebellion
(Alfred A. Knopf, 1955).

[Alexander Hamilton on the question Americans must decide]: Federalist
No. 1, Edward Mead Earle, ed.,
The Federalist
(Modern Library, 1937), p. 5.

[Early Americans on their country as mission or venture]:
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Address to the American Historical Association, Washington, DC, Dec. 29, 1976, reprinted under the title “America: Experiment or Destiny?”
American Historical Review,
Vol. 82, No. 3 (June 1977), pp. 505-22.

A Rage for Liberty

[Franklin’s home and addition in Philadelphia]:
Franklin to M. le Veillard, April 15, 1787, in Albert Henry Smyth, ed.
The Writings of Benjamin Franklin
(Macmillan, 1907), Vol. 9, pp. 558-62; on aspects and artifacts of his home, see Robert D. Crompton,
“Franklin’s House off High Street in Philadelphia,”
Antiques,
Vol. 102, No. 4 (October 1972), pp. 680-83; George B. Tatum,
Penn’s Great Town
(University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961), p. 158 and illustration No. 15.

[Description of Franklin]:
quoted in Carl Van Doren,
Benjamin Franklin
(Viking Press, 1938), p. 750.

[The Philadelphia of Franklin’s time]:
Edwin Wolf 2nd,
Philadelphia: Portrait of an American City
(Stackpole, 1975); George B. Tatum,
Philadelphia Georgian
(Wesleyan University Press, 1976).

[Independence Hall]:
David W. Belisle,
History of Independence Hall
(James Challen
&
Son, 1859).
[Franklin on “hanging together”]:
John H. Hazelton,
The Declaration of Independence: Its History
(Dodd, Mead, 1906), p. 209.

[Liberty as a precious jewel]:
cited in Bernard Bailyn,
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution
(Belknap Press: 1967), pp. 62, 114.

[Hamilton on the “rage for liberty”]:
quoted in John C. Miller,
Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox
(Harper & Brothers, 1959), p. 113.

[Saxon origin of liberty]:
Gordon S. Wood,
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787
(University of North Carolina Press, 1969), pp. 31, 228.

[Congregationalism vs. Baptists]:
Bailyn, pp. 264-66.
[Baptists and Quakers vs. John Adams]: ibid.,
268-69.
[Virginia Declaration of Rights]: ibid.,
p. 260.

[Benjamin Franklin on “publick liberty “]:
quoted in Clinton Rossiter,
Seedtime of the Republic
(Harcourt, Brace, 1953), p. 299.

[John Adams on liberty and property]:
from Adams,
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America,
quoted in Francis W. Coker,
Democracy, Liberty, and Property
(Macmillan, 1942), p. 125.
[Continental Congressman on dilemma of liberty and luxury]:
quoted in Wood, p. 65.

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