Sydney George Fisher - The True History of the American Revolution

The purpose of this history of the Revolution is to use the original authorities rather more frankly than has been the practice with our historians. They appear to have thought it advisable to omit from their narratives a great deal which, to me, seems essential to a true picture.

I cannot feel satisfied with any description of the Revolution which treats the desire for independence as a sudden thought, and not a long growth and development, or which assumes that every detail of the conduct of the British government was absurdly stupid, even from its own point of view, and that the loyalists were few in numbers and their arguments not worth considering. I cannot see any advantage in not describing in their full meaning and force the smuggling, the buying of laws from the governors, and other irregular conduct in the colonies which led England to try to remodel them as soon as the fear of the French in Canada was removed. Nor can I accept a description which fails to reveal the salient details of the great controversy over the rather peculiar methods adopted by General Howe to suppress the rebellion. This controversy was a part of the Revolution. It involved the interesting question of Howes instructions from the ministry and the methods which the ministry intended to use with the revolted colonists.

Whatever we may now think of Howes conduct, and in whatever way we may try to explain it, the fact remains that it was once a subject which attracted universal attention and aroused most violent attacks upon him in England and among the loyalists in America. Some of these very plain-spoken arraignments, with the evidence in support of them, can still be read in the writings of Galloway, Van Schaack, and others, or in Howes own defence, which some thought was the strongest argument against him. Why should these documents and the evidence taken before the Parliamentary committee of inquiry be concealed from the ordinary reader, with the result that if by chance he turns to the original authorities he is surprised to find that the Revolution there described is entirely different from the one in which he had been taught to believe?

Some of us might possibly not accept these attacks upon Howe as just or well founded; they might think that his reply, which we can still read in his published Narrative, was a complete defence and justification. There is no reason why we should not adopt any opinion or explanation which seems best. But I protest against the historians who refuse to give us a chance to form an opinion of our own on either the one side or the other. I protest against the concealing of this subject, of suppressing the whole of the evidence against Howe as well as the evidence in his favor; and I protest because his conduct necessarily produced momentous results in the Revolution.

To my mind the whole question of the conduct of General Howe is as important a part of history as the assistance rendered us by France; for if what the people of his own time said of Howe be true, his conduct directly contributed to bring about our alliance with that country, and ultimately our independence.

There has, it seems, been a strong temptation to withhold from the modern public a knowledge of the controversy over Howes conduct, because it is impossible to disclose that controversy in all its bearings without at the same time showing that the British government, up to the summer of 1778, used extremely lenient and conciliatory methods in dealing with the revolted colonists. The historians appear to have felt that to admit that such gentle methods were used would be inadvisable, would tend to weaken our side of the argument, and show that we were bent on independence for mere independence sake.

The historians seem to have assumed that we do not want to know about that controversy, or that it will be better for us not to know about it. They have assumed that it will be better for Americans to think that independence was a sudden and deplorable necessity and not a desire of long and ardent growth and cautiously planned intention. They have assumed that we want to think of England as having lost the colonies by failure to be conciliatory, and that the Revolution was a one-sided, smooth affair, without any of the difficulties or terrors of a rebellion or a great upheaval of settled opinion.

The taint of these assumptions runs through all our histories. They are, I think, mistaken assumptions and an affront to our people. They prefer to know the truth, and the whole truth; and there is nothing in the truth of which they need be afraid.

Having decided to withhold from the public a knowledge of the contemporary opinion of Howe, the historians naturally conceal or obscure his relations to the Whig party, the position of that party in England, its connection with the rebel colonists, the peculiar difficulties under which the Tory ministry-labored, and their instructions to Howe on the conduct of the war. Unless all these conditions are clearly set forth, most of the events and battles of the Revolution are inexplicable.

Before I discovered the omissions of our standard histories I always felt as though I were reading about something that had never happened, and that was contrary to the ordinary experience of human nature. I could not understand how a movement which was supposed to have been such a deep uprooting of settled thought and customa movement which is supposed to have been one of the great epochs of historycould have happened like an occurrence in a fairy-tale. I could not understand the military operations; and it seemed strange to me that they were not investigated, explained, and criticised like those of Napoleons campaigns or of our own Civil War.

I was never satisfied until I had spent a great deal of time in research, burrowing into the dust of the hundreds of old brown pamphlets, newspapers, letters, personal memoirs, documents, publications of historical societies, and the interminable debates of Parliament which, now that the eye-witnesses are dead, constitute all the evidence that is left us of the story of the Revolution. Those musty documents painted a very vivid picture upon my mind, and I wish I had the power of painting the picture as the original sources reveal it.

I understand, of course, that the methods used by our historians have been intended to be productive of good results, to build up nationality, and to check sectionalism and rebellion. Students and the literary class do not altogether like successful rebellions; and the word revolution is merely another name for a successful rebellion. Rebellious are a trifle awkward when you have settled down, although the Declaration of Independence contains a clause to relieve this embarrassment by declaring that governments long established should not be changed for light or transient causes. The people who write histories are usually of the class who take the side of the government in a revolution; and as Americans they are anxious to believe that our Revolution was different from others, more decorous, and altogether free from the atrocities, mistakes, and absurdities which characterize even the patriot party in a revolution. They do not like to describe in their full coloring the strong Americanism and the doctrines of the rights of man which inspired the party that put through our successful rebellion. They have accordingly tried to describe a revolution in which all scholarly, refined, and conservative persons might have unhesitatingly taken part; but such revolutions have never known to happen.

The Revolution was a much more ugly and unpleasant affair than most of us imagine. I know of many people who talk a great deal about their ancestors, but who I am quite sure would not now take the side their ancestors chose. Nor was it a great, spontaneous, unanimous uprising, all righteousness, perfection, and infallibility, a marvel of success at every step, and incapable of failure, as many of us very naturally believe from what we have read.