Continental Army veterans: from outcasts to icons: despite contemporary popular history, our Revolutionary War veteran-forefathers were not always perceived by the public as heroes. This is a sobering reminder during this primetime of patriotism

John Resch

Since Sept. 11, 2001, America's surge of patriotism has inspired tributes to its professional soldiers and gratitude toward veterans, heightened by images of heroism and sacrifice in films depicting combat in Somalia and Vietnam.

Today's esteemed status of soldiers and veterans would shock the generation that made the American Revolution.

According to historians Wayne Carp and Charles Royster, the country often treated the Continental Army with a level of suspicion and hostility that was more appropriate for enemy troops than its defenders.

Veterans continued to feel that sting. When typical veteran William Alld, for example, left the Army in 1783 there was no ceremony celebrating his return. Observers would later recall that veterans like Alld "returned to the bosom of their country, objects of jealousy, victims of neglect."

Many were destitute. The country greeted them with indifference; it quickly forgot them. Proud veterans felt betrayed.

The Revolutionary generation's view of the war shaped its image of the military and treatment of veterans. Conceived as a people's war, exceptional leaders and a virtuous citizenry created an American David to defeat the English Goliath.

Honoring the citizen-soldier who fought temporarily in the militia supported that generation's view that a regular army, including the Continental Army, was a threat to liberty.

The Army, in contrast to the militia, was presumed to be corrupt, vice-ridden and-only a, necessary, but temporary evil. Its ranks like that of the British military, were believed to be filled with riffraff, greedy misfits, and led by pretentious, ambitious officers.

After independence, the story of the Newburgh Conspiracy [in 1783, officers protested, not receiving their back pay] was a reminder of the danger posed by disgruntled officers and the unique role of Gen. Washington in preventing a purported coup.

IMAGE MAKEOVER

Between 1783 and 1818, the image of Continental soldiers changed from dangerous dregs and self-serving officers to patriotic warriors and defenders of liberty. But partisan politics helped to create this new image.

In 1808, as historian Robert Cray wrote, New York's Tammany Hall sponsored a public procession for the re-interment of the bones of the thousands of men who died on the British prison ships. Tammany used the occasion not just to honor the martyrs as icons of patriotism, but to gain popular support for their party as the guardian of democracy and the Revolution.

Honoring Revolutionary War veterans became politically useful. As tensions with England and France increased between 1800 and 1812, Republicans and Federalists glorified veterans to arouse patriotism.

On July 4, 1810, Republican Charles Caldwell told party faithful that Americans will meet any aggression with the spirit of '76 as had their forefathers. He called upon the country to immortalize Revolutionary War soldiers in arts, song, poetry and civic festivals.

He pleaded for a modern Homer to glorify them. Federalists also praised veterans to rally people around the flag and to condemn Thomas Jefferson for undermining the spirit of '76 by weakening the nation's defense.

The danger to national security exposed a deeper crisis of national identity. Historians revised the image of the Continental Army to create models of American character that would guide a new generation facing war with Europe.

John Marshall's and David Ramsay's biographies of George Washington glorified the heroism of regular soldiers. Their descriptions of naked, cold, hungry, bloodied and mistreated troops at Valley Forge underscored the patriotism, virtue and fortitude of the regular Army.

Ramsay's account of the Newburgh Conspiracy changed it from a near act of treason to a tribute to the Army's patriotism and virtue. In the hands of these historians, Continental troops were patriots, not mercenaries, virtuous citizen-soldiers, not vice-ridden dregs of society.

During the War of 1812, popular periodicals such as Port Folio and Military Monitor went even further in making soldiers, particularly Revolutionary War veterans, models of patriotism and national character.

They called for monuments to celebrate heroism and virtue. They proposed a national military cemetery, the preservation of Valley Forge and memorials in painting and songs.

Fictional stories, such as the "Old Soldier" that appeared in the Juvenile Port Folio in 1812, reinforced the new image. In that story a poor, disabled Continental Army veteran dressed in a tattered military uniform is begging for food on a busy street. Before accepting gifts, he tells the crowd that he lost his wife, wealth and health in service to his country.

The writer used this character to convey a larger lesson. Infirm, impoverished and aging veterans were not to be shunned as paupers. Their poverty was not evidence of moral failure. Their suffering was a badge of honor and merit that made them worthy of public acclaim, gratitude and reward.

Veterans contributed to this image of themselves as heroic, disadvantaged soldiers who deserved the nation's gratitude. Their applications for disability pensions contained accounts of the miseries of poverty and infirmities they claimed resulted from service.

They reinforced the public's sense of gratitude to veterans and feelings of guilt for failing to reward and aid them.

CHANGE IN PUBLIC PERCEPTION

This image of the "suffering soldier" changed the public's perception of the Continental Army. No longer did Americans view it as an army filled by large numbers of transients, social dregs, former slaves, greedy bounty jumpers, paid substitutes and power-hungry officers.

No longer did Americans perceive the Army as frequently plagued by desertions, riots and insurrections that had nearly crippled it. Newburgh no longer tarnished the Army with the stain of treason.

A new generation made the soldiers icons--brave, heroic, patriotic citizens and models of American character. As a result, the portrayal of the Revolution as a people's war now gave credit for victory to the once-shunned Continental Army.

This new, honored status for veterans benefited from the outpouring of nationalism and nostalgia. President James Monroe focused the nation's attention on veterans during his 1817 tour of the Northeast. He wore his military cocked hat to remind people that he, too, was a veteran who had shed his blood for independence.

He made a special effort to visit battle sites such as Fort Griswold in New London, Conn. There he met with veterans who still bore the scars from atrocities inflicted on the defenders by Benedict Arnold's troops.

The President was observed touching the wounds of one of them. In doing so, a reporter on the scene wrote, the "venerable patriots realized that their country blessed them for their valor and sufferings."

SERVICE PENSION PRECEDENT

In 1818, the President signed the Limited Service Pension Act awarding $8 per month to men in the ranks and $20 a month to officers who had served at least nine months in the Continental Army and who were in "reduced circumstances."

The act was a "monument" to those veterans. It broke with the Revolutionary principle of not awarding pensions for service. It affirmed the image of these veterans as icons of patriotism and American character, and deserving of the nation's gratitude.

Despite a subsequent scandal over benefits, Congress reaffirmed that veterans had a vested right to their pensions. Though in 1820 it added a "means test" of assets and income to stop fraud. The Alarm Act paved the way for future legislation that provided pensions for nearly every surviving veteran and their widows. It also set the precedent for later programs.

The pension acts--like the creation of monuments at Bunker Hill, Fort Griswold and Valley Forge, the mythic scenes painted by artists such as Benjamin West, and the songs, poetry, autobiographies and public festivals--have created our modern memory of the Revolution.

That memory has glorified the soldiers of the Continental Army, once feared and even despised, as part of our national identity and self-affirmation as a democratic people.

JOHN RESCH is professor of history at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester. He is the author of Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment and Political Culture in the Early Republic (University of Massachusetts Press, 2000). He has recently been a Fulbright senior lecturer teaching U.S. history at the Institute of English and American Studies, University of Debrecen, Hungary.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning