that's not amazing how that sounds now holly dr. mayer is now a professor emerita from the mccannulty college in the graduate school of liberia arts at duquesne university in my hometown of pittsburgh, pennsylvania where she taught for many decades she did i think two stints as chair of the history department there after joining duquesne after receiving your phd at the college of william and mary. she also has served as the visiting herald-kay johnson chair of military history at the us army war college out in carlisle, pennsylvania at the carlisle barracks and is currently during this academic year at west point where she's serving as the charles bowl ewing visitor professor of history. she is also has been commissioned went through rotc and served in the us army reserves. and so she stands a long time ago, but you still stand fairly straight you're recognizable as a military person still she is the author of a whole slew of articles about this or military and history historical. i'm sorry the military political social sort of intersections of history in the era of the american revolution and the colonial era her first book belonging to the arm. can't followers and community during the american revolution still in print and absolutely an essential text for studying this period of time, but she's here to talk tonight about her hot off the press. i think this is maybe literally hot off the breast new book congress's own a canadian regiment the continental army and the american union canada. what is canada have to do with the american revolution, so please join me in warmly welcoming dr. holly mayer of you and to share in this community of history and the revolution in particular and to of course examine this particular very unusual regiment or an uncommon regiment for an uncommon revolution as we could also say for it. so i'm starting off and i just want to point out that that is an image. it is a painting from don troni that is on the cover of my book. so i figured i might as well say kudos to him as well for helping illustrate my book as well as of course being here in many other his other illustrations and paintings in about a month that you will be able to see so well worth it. wonderful. so with congress's own i want to talk a few things about the regiment in particular and then actually spend more time talking about sergeant major john h hopkins, who was the person who introduced me to this regiment through his writings in that journal that i found at the historical society of pennsylvania. so i wanted to take it a step further to talk about this with you and make sure i'm going in the right direction here. is to pick up and talk about the congress's own regiment which actually went through about three or four different names through its lifetime. as this uncommon regiment it was first formed actually in january of 1776 authorized by the continental congress for moses hazen as the colonel and lieutenant colonel edward until as the second in command and it was commissioned as the second canadian regiment. so it brings us up to this point about why a canadian regiment and i asked students at time. did you know that canada was involved? well, yeah, there was an invasion the americans lost they had to retreat from quebec, you know by june of '76 they're gone and that was the end of canada. well, no, not really not by any means in here. but while the american invading force was up in canada, it was already starting to recruit canadians to join in this rebellion. certainly the continental congress was sending out declarations to the canadians, especially the french canadians essentially saying, join us rebel with us, you know, and you might think it goes back to the enemy of my enemy is my friend and so the french canadians at one point had been certainly the enemies of most of the new englanders and others who had been fighting colonial wars with the french and their indian allies through a series of imperial conflicts. but at this point it was let's invite the canadians in because we truly want this to be a continental rebellion. let us have a true continental congress with canadian representatives. let us have a continental army which includes canadians as well as we invite others to join us in what was first of course a rebellion a defense of the rights of americans or these continental provisionals in the early part, and then after july of '76 ultimately a revolution for the independence of the country itself, so they were joining us and the first regiment or the first canadian was by james livingston who had already been in action up there. so he got the first canadian and moses hazen got the second canadian. so to give you a little bit of background on moses hazen. he had actually been in rogers rangers during the seven years' war. and then he had actually gotten a commission with the 44th regiment of foot, which ultimately led him to retire in the montreal region and right around saint john in canada itself. so i like to point this out. is that here was an american who did get a british commission as opposed to washington who did not and he's an actually was really really torn about which way he was going to go in this conflict. he was getting a pension from the british government for his service during the seven years' war he was right there on the borderlands if you can see it up there in canada up along saint john just south of montreal would he give up that pension would he give up those lands to join in this american rebellion, and at first he wasn't sure he was really on the fence in those borderlands which way he was going to go ultimately in the end. of course as we know he decided to join with the americans with the priv. that he could create his own regiment and that he had command to that regiment the second canadian regiment in this case. so hazen is not the person though that i really want to talk about. i want to continue on with this regiment on few other points. second canadian was then in the retreat from canada and at that point it had lost probably about half of its recruits on that retreat down to crown point and then fort ticonderogan ultimately into albany. through the summer of '76 there was a true question as to whether or not these canadian regiments would continue. canada was not choosing to join in this rebellion. so why would you have this other canadian regiment the original idea behind it was that it would be like all the other colonies that became states is it would have its own iteration of a regiment, but if it's not joining the rebellion, what are we doing with this regiment? ultimately, what happened? is that congress by september of 76 went back to hazen and he was really pushing for this and said, yes, we will reauthorize your second canadian regiment that you can recruit among the canadian refugees that were up around albany certainly recruit those that had come with the american forces to ticonderoga and the like but we're also authorizing you to recruit among all of the states. so here is another unique factor about this second canadian regiment is that it's allowed to recruit elsewhere. well this brings up the next point how many people from elsewhere would actually want to join the canadian regiment if they're from pennsylvania, new jersey, maryland, connecticut, rhode island, which is where they're trying to recruit. and in the middle of that certainly by the end of 76 going into 77 we see then the advertisements going out the recruiting going out for congress's own regiment. this is not something necessarily that congress itself had authorized. it seems to have come out of the regimen itself. i think it actually probably came from lieutenant colonel edward until who was part of this because he was more of a thinker. i think than moses hazen was quite frankly. i i see hazen as the pugilist. he was always really rather irritating as an individual from what i can see i think his commanding officer. saw him that certainly general knox at the end of it said that this was a man who was blessed with one of the most obstinate tempers he had ever seen. but it was the kind of temper that meant that this regiment continued in action through the rest of the war. but given this it starts going out for recruiting for congress's own so you can see what's going on here. you can't recruit for second canadian among all of them, but you can for congress's own guard here. it's got elite status. this sounds really good. this is better than just simply what the first pennsylvania really the first video. why not congress's own and they did tremendously. well this regiment was authorized a thousand men so much bigger than the common continental infantry regiment, but it was authorized a thousand and by this spring of 77. it was hitting close to 900 men had enlisted in this regiment now did they all stay? absolutely not see it in the record some of these guys joined up put the caucade in their cap. got their bounty money and headed off. so we've got that they don't all stay but it was tremendously successful recruiting under congress's own unfortunately. regiment also didn't always get along well with others it got a rather infirmal reputation in what it was doing and congress came back and said you're not supposed to be calling it congress's own. um, so what's it supposed to be called back to second canadian? no, that's not doing recruiting. they tended to keep going which was rather traditional by hazen's name. so it was hazen's regiment for much of this war, but i also noted in some of the rosters that the captains in this regiment put little cor's under their rosters. yeah. they're still part of congress's own regiment in here. they knew how they were being recruited and how they were doing the recruiting in it. so they were incredibly successful under that name of congress's own and continued to do that through the rest of the war. even after 1781 when james livingston's regiment was demobilized anybody left over from that as well as other foreign recruits and soldiers joined hazen's regiment and it became known as the canadian old regiment, but let me tell you. not the name that's in the pension accounts hazen's regiment congress's own is usually what you see they they picked up on that identity. so this leads me into the other one that i want to talk about is this is how we get sergeant major john h hawkins. is that they are recruiting among all of these other camps and garrison's up in the new york area. they are sending recruiting officers down here into pennsylvania into these other states to the point where we've got soldiers from 11 of the states in the regiments. the only ones we don't have is i haven't found anybody from south carolina or georgia in this regiment, but they've got somebody from every other state. so we've got this tremendously unique. regiment that was called canadian was called congress's own but in some ways is a microcosm of the continental army itself. is that within its companies and many of these companies were segregated by states. there were certainly at least two of the companies that were still french canadian with officers who are still talking french with their soldiers versus with all of these other recruits. so sergeant major john h hawkins from what i can see had actually first enlisted in 76 in a pennsylvania unit had served through it and then in early january of 77 was up for reenlistment so many of the soldiers who had enlisted in 76 were on short-term enlistments the army going into 77 was again trying to recruit an army at this point and john h. hawkins re-enlisted in congress's own as he reenlisted. because he also had service time and i think also because he was so literate. he was a writer now come to that in a moment is that he was first given a corporal's enlistment and then very quickly within weeks was made a sergeant of the regiment. so john h hawkins, who is the i think he is from philadelphia. yeah some of this where i won't say full assumptions. i am following clues. i spent probably way too much time trying to find this guy in the records not always the easiest person to find but from what i could understand first of all by reading his journal is that he kept talking about his typographical brethren. he talked about printing offices. he talked about newspapers. he was holding newspapers and books in his knapsacks. in fact when you look at that journal over there, they've got it on the page where he's talking about what he lost when he shooked his knapsack when he was running before those british highlanders to get away at brandywine and then part of it when you look in there. he's talking about the papers and the quills and the books and the other things that he all had in his knapsack. so we've got this point that he was affiliated with printing in some form. so when a little further in trying to do research and actually found a runaway ad for an apprentice that ran away from david sellers printing shop here in philadelphia. this was back in 58 and you just go. is this the same guy? it's john hawkins. it's printing it's pennsylvania, you know, yeah, it's it's it's very likely unfortunately, i couldn't nail it down for sure because he didn't say in his journal anywhere that he was a runaway apprentice. i wonder why. but there was this and of course you get that little hint in this looking at hawkins in his story is that he had run away from david sellers shop. well david seller had been the partner of hall david hall who had been a partner of benjamin franklin who was the most notorious runaway apprent? all right, so you're going oh, he's following that kind of tradition in some form or another well from what it appears. he must have come back and served out his his term as an apprentice or found something else because he's back here in pennsylvania and in philadelphia, but obviously not finding a job or his own independent shop and thus there he was enlisting in the continental army during the revolution in this thing. so we followed him in but it also makes sense about why he would be a sergeant and certainly by a sergeant major. this is somebody who can keep the records and he was he was writing some of the orderly books. so we've got proof of this individual but the big part was that journal now, of course, i looked at that journal and it's wonderful and think about the material resources when you can touch this and i'm going and i was and you're you're hearing this and going 250 years ago he was writing in this and so from his pen and ink to my eyes to see what's going on in his world at that time. he is speaking to me through the writing and i in turn am trying to speak to you through his writing as well to to introduce you a bit to his world and what he saw in this revolution. so to take it from there again, he is there in a regiment that had probably close to 1900 men serving in it over the course of the war. so again unique and tremendously large of a unit in there. so i wanted to take it a step further from his journal in this is not and we can come back to talking about this certainly to answer your questions about the regiment itself where it served and how but what i really wanted to pick up on in here. is that coup? tree campaign. that's not as you know familiar to many people looking at the revolution just like a canadian regiment is not so familiar, but one of the great things in hawkins's journal is when he talks about what he sees as he is marching through this country. who is he talking to who are some of the people he is looking at the community that is becoming a nation and he is seeing what is similar and different as he is marching through it. so this brings me back to this point that i wanted to bring out here is i'm picking up on another scholar's work benedict anderson who was talking about imagined political communities. in this and he premised that a nation is an imagined political community because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow members. they will never meet them or even hear of them yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion. that image of the communion can exist at the same time through shared experiences or over time through events like this. so we are part of that imagined community that is part of the nation and we're doing it through him. so right now as we work through his words we are part of the imagine community of that developing nation. in the 1770s going through the 1780s. so we're sitting here in philadelphia here in 2021. in the philadelphia that he was living in in 1776 that he marched through on the way to yorktown if you will as well. actually he sailed through it in 1781 and the like but we're part of that imagine community. we're part of an imagined community right now is we're all finally getting to see each other, but then there are those of them who are over there over zoom. so i say hi to you you're part of this imagine community. we're all together to look at this particular history, but the other part that benedict anderson had mentioned in his is that when we form these communities he talked about journeys or pilgrimages between times and statuses and places. so again, we're part of that journey. but these are meaning creating experiences that create the experience of the imagine community. and so i'd like us to consider too that when we look at the continental army as it is marching through the united states the new united states they are creating this community and it's not all imagined. they are actually experiencing it. they are actually seeing it. they are actually meeting these people. so here it is this philadelphia who is meeting people up in massachusetts and new york and up into the coupes country. that is vermont and new hampshire. he is meeting them and he is making these distinctions about are they like us or unlike us? are they with us? are they are not with us in some form and we expand that to all of the thousands and tens of thousands who were part of that army at that time taking what is imagined and making it real in some form or another so we come back to that reality as we look at hawkins, so i wanted to pick it up, especially. in this one aspect whose country campaign. this was in 1779. so even before this a year before this and 78 there was talk about a possible another invasion into canada. general lafayette was given charge of that possible invasion in '78 is let's move up and go for it. certainly hazen was gung ho for this. yes. let's get back to canada. i have my estates back there. you know, i want to get my lands back the rest of it and it went nowhere. okay, that was the end of it in '78. they could not get the supplies. they could not get the support quite frankly general washington was not real fond of the idea either he had other things he needed to do in 78 instead of worrying about canada. so it was put on a back burner then on the six of march 79. washington ordered hazen's regiment to move into the coos country. so at that point hazen's regiment had spent the winter at what was called putnam's folly which is outside of redding, connecticut one of the largest encampments through this war and probably about the largest inhabited area at that point in connecticut in there. so this big town and they were given the orders to start marching north into the coos country and then eventually to to build a road or cut a road from haverhill new hampshire, which is up at the top there through into what were the new hampshire grants also called the pretended state of vermont at that point and to move up towards the canadian border. so this was the orders now, what was the reason for it? hazen's orders were you are to scout the area build a road and engage the populace so three components to that mission. he wanted he's an in particular to discover whether the inhabitants would support an expedition from kuaz to canada. and so he's saying go out there and do it, especially if they were to do it with the french support which by that time america had so he was going you know, why don't you go up and do that? he's an is delighted to take his regiment up there to do this. now what he didn't realize and what washington did not tell him is that this was actually part of washington's greater strategy. which threefold could be seen as a strategy of disinformation out to the enemy and those who are within the colon or the states as well as up to canada a diversion against the enemy in canada. so if they think the enemy is coming one way, they might not be watching as closely in another direction and that also ultimately a bone to throw to people like hazen who had kept harassing him. remember he had that obstinate temper about making an invasion into canada. can you all figure why washington wanted a diversion in the spring and summer of 79? what do we got? look a little over there to new york on that border. you may have heard of general sullivan. and a campaign against the native americans into new york. to move against that enemy so wouldn't it make a lot of sense if you're sending sullivan up one way to have haze and create a diversion in another locale. it's a faint. all right, move them in a different direction. so hazen's delighted in any sense his troops up and this brings us back to hawkins. then hawkins describes what he is seeing on that trek that you see listed on there. so they're basically following the connecticut river valley moving up into new hampshire and then across into what will be vermont. so he describes the various towns and peoples of this trek. they move out in three divisions, essentially. what would have been three battalions within the regiment itself as they saw it moving up first through to springfield, massachusetts at springfield hawkins records at daybreak on 14 april all three divisions, march out followed by a baggage tree. he records eight wagons 21 teams. 21 teams to be pulling these wagons. those have got to be really heavy wagons and they definitely are because what's on them loaded with spades shovels axes picks carbines horseman's swords pistols and other military stores carpenters tools armorers tools provisions. they are out to really cut this road and they're taking all the tools with them. so think for a minute what that would look like. to the communities through which this baggage train is going with these soldiers in these three divisions. who may not have seen a lot of soldiers up to this point? but they are moving through this is part of hazen engaging the populace. it is not just the tools to cut the road. this is if you will to show the flag in this area. this is a borderland on this revolutionary frontier where much of the action is beyond there, but they are not forgotten. okay, we're sending troops up there to deal with issues. they are worried about. and of course hazen still hoping he'll get his lands back. so we've got that part. so they've got that and they're trailing behind their own traveling forge if they break their way their tools, they can fix them. they've got that in the wagon trail as well. so again, they're marching out. we've got all of these animals all of these wagons moving out to show the force of the continental army. and by extension congressional authority that they are moving on that into these hinterlands this is part of creating that political community as well as sending the military up. so they started marching in hilly territory, but hawkins is looking there. oh, where are the level roads? where's the beautiful pine tree country where the trees are shading the road on a hot day. that's really important when you're wearing woolens and you're marching up through this and it's warm. so where are the fine houses and the farms. he looks at northampton what a handsome and large village though much scattered checking it out. how does this work? but he goes the court of justice is small but very elegant house inside work is very grand. so other things pointing out how people are living. so he's praising some areas that he goes through. and then he denigrates others swansea for instance was despicable. okay. all right, not good for any pr there, walpole. oh lordy, walpole where he found the troops much scattered some indwelling houses and other in barns the poor mean despicable wretched town. could not afford one regiment room in their dwelling houses for one night. this is the first night that our men has been under the necessity of lying in barns on this march. so fascinating point in this he's revealing that as they have been marching through these communities. they have been quartered in people's homes. the inhabitants along this trek have been welcoming the soldiers. into their homes, they've not had to lay out under the stars or at that point up to that point in barns. now i will point out that it could be all welcoming at another point or two as we look at what hazen is doing. he was also perfectly willing to threaten councilmen along the way that if you are not willing to give us the supplies they we need for instance flower then we'll take it if you don't let us stable our horses in your barns. we will then put them in anyway, and we will stay there until you supply. so again that obstinate temper either be very willing to do it or we'll use a little bit of authority to get what we want. but so that was part of it, but it was interesting that the despicable one is the one that makes the men sleep in the barn these other ones. these wonderful communities are welcome the soldiers into their homes. so he was very happy to leave miserable wall pool. that was on the 24th of april, ryan, charleston. handsome those small. but lovely it resembled, princeton, new jersey. so again, there's this other side to it where he's taking what he knows and comparing what he's just meeting. hey, they're like us they're like princeton up there. you know. hey, we've got these connections. they're part of our community and doing this and then he also pointed out the other side of the connecticut river is what is called the state of vermont, but which is in dispute at that time. okay, so he's observing and recording he's examining what is different. what is similar? what is common among these various regions and people's there were certainly some unpopular or some unfavorable comparisons, but quite frankly. he was often very positive about what he was seeing. i will say he was also always looking for future opportunities in this the thing that we see with hawkins is he couldn't make it as a printer down here. delphia i think there was a surplus of printers down here in philadelphia at the time, but he was certainly looking out there and you see things like hmm albany. do you have a printing press there? i see that nobody's using well, he was drafting a letter to say would you be interested in letting me have it setting something up he looked at what was up at dartmouth college? oh, they've got a printing press wonderful. this liberty of liberties is the printing press he thought this was great. that is true civilization is to have a press so he's out there looking for other opportunities and you go this is what other soldiers were doing as well as their marching through is are they going to go back home, or are they going to look for opportunities? elsewhere's so in the process of all of this hawkins was checking this out as hazen's regiment was out there collecting intelligence. denying intelligence to the enemy as they saying it because they were also sending elements up into canada at that point checking in with native americans trying to have native american allies, or at least keeping them neutral if nothing else in there and making sure that the newer settlers were protected from and also made sure that they were not engaging with the enemy at that point. so again, the regiment was showing the flag as it was moving into the borderland to cut the invasion route. so as it did and by the end of august hazen had indeed cut that route up to what is now called hazen's notch and it's right there below the canadian border. he was very close. he was within sight of the canadian border when he got orders from washington to return. that washington had gotten what he wanted out of this expedition. the faint had worked sullivan's expedition was successful. it was time for hazen to bring his regiment back so that it would be ready for engagements through the rest of 79 and moving into 1780 at that point. so with this and i know i'm coming to the end of this they do continue on if we go back to what you've said after the cruise country campaign through there. they went back to morristown the regiment suffered through the hardships of morristown in winter encampments there in 1780 the regiment did march to yorktown in 1781 hazen hawkins was very good about recording that one as well the long trick down into yorktown what he was seeing there at yorktown the regiment did distinguish itself in particular. it's light infantry company, which had been attached to lafayette's light infantry corps through that summer of 1781 and the light infantry company of hazens regiment was part of the assault party under hamilton on readout number 10, which beat the french who were trying to take readout number nine at the exact same time. through it by after yorktown. the regiment was set up to lancaster pennsylvania. not too far from here if you will and they were on guard duty with the prisoners of war there where i would like to point out that hazen again was pressing for an invasion of canada. through into 1782, you know, let's do it. and of course you're everybody's waiting for the diplomats to get everything done to get the peace treaty. let's end this and there is hazen going. come on. we have one last chance. let's go for canada again, and i love it. washington writes them back going interesting. send me your plans. you know, and i think this is great as as a senior officer. he's going write it out for me about how this would actually work and the trouble is it only kept haze and occupied for a few weeks. and then he already had sent the plan back but at that point washington at other things for them to do they were brought back up. york spent most of the rest of the war up at pompton waiting for the furlough most of the troop was furloughed in july by june july 1783 one small contingent of it then continued up to west point between west point and newburgh where they stayed until the army was totally disbanded in november of 1783. so here was a regiment that served from basically from 1776 when it was authorized in january to november of 1783 and in it sergeant major john h hawkins was with it from 1777 through to 1783 and i am very thankful that he left us a journal to see part of this regiment's travels. thank you very much. shall we t tyler behind you we've got to so just raise your hand. maybe i'll kick things off. as soon as our contingency plan comes into effect here with our handhelds. i really appreciated your your casting the role of the continental army as a sort of nationalizing force. you know, it's something that for those of you who are familiar with our core exhibition here at the museum. you recall that very dramatic tableau scene with the lifecast figures of the snowball fight with george washington breaking up this fight between new england and virginia soldiers, and we did that of course because we wanted to remind or for the first time tell visitors that the nation did not spring out of you know, the heads of the men who were gathered down the street here, but that it was a really hard long process perhaps an ongoing process that is still going on a little bit later in the core exhibition. you see that a of soldiers buttons from the period of 1777 and the valley foraging campment when usa of course was first printed on you know in boston the buttons worn by soldiers on the uniforms and one of the things we wanted to convey is this is actually the first time most americans would have seen, you know, we can't usa the first time that appears of course is on the bodies on the of these continental army soldiers. so i think you know this regiment again being a regiment without a country is just an incredible embodiment of that of that process. they very much were when you start looking at the the rosters at the end of this war lieutenant benjamin moore's it was actually the nephew for hazen started to do a roster. they were pulling all the names together actually hawkins was part of that. he had also done part of the roster and moved them together, which is that master roster had about i counted 1,482 soldiers on that roster and then i also did more research and pulled out another 300 or so. that weren't on it many of them were the french canadians who had left or stayed in canada instead of coming down at the retreat. so again we get into about 1900 men with them, but on that roster, they didn't all have places where they came from which was absolutely important because later on when they wanted their bounty lands and the rest they had to have a state affiliation by which to get it, but about 300 of those names just had us after them in other words. they had no state affiliation. they only had the united states affiliation and then after that we saw the pennsylvania and the new yorkers and new jersey and the like that you saw but that us was essential for the french-canadians. it was also essential for some of the foreigners who did so we did have some prisoners some of the prisoners prisoners of wart lancaster joined hazen's regiment germans more than the english in that case others had also joined so it was very much a multi-ethnic multilingual regiment there with the continental army. what what happened to sergeant major hawkins after 1783? hard part because almost there's only two other records. i was found and they were both about bounty lands in particular as he was selling them off or distributing a elsewhere and basically by 93. i can't find him. i actually went into the records for the yellow fever hospitals to see whether he died and one of the hospitals to see whether that happened. i couldn't find his name. i was a little relieved by that point. i did find at least two john hawkins's in the philadelphia directories. and one was more of a cobbler and another as a grocer. and i think you know it's possible. if he is who i think he was he may have had some experience with leather working in the family. i'm more inclined to think he could be a grocer with his experience it would have been relatively easy for him to set that up and to go into trade. he definitely did not become a farmer as far as i know. he didn't disappear. i think he was too urban for that. i didn't have that kind of experience, but i spent a lot of time trying to do it because i was determined i am going to find this guy. i have got to he left this marvelous journal. i have been spending all this time reading about him. i want to meet him, you know this kind of thing more than hazen. he's an you know problem, but hawkins i really wanted to meet. and i couldn't and finally one of my colleagues after i was spending way too long. she says, you know, that's part of the story here. is that so many of the people that we have named on these rosters. this is all we've got of them this that we know that they live we have their name and we have nothing else so we know more about him, but he also represents so many of these soldiers who came in enlisted fought and disappeared. do we know where those journals were? between him disappearing into the ether and them ending up at hsp or how they came into the collection there. i have not seen it. but if we want to talk to this there's a guy over there that might be able to help us with this about. yeah, i will say what is evident in this at some point. they were bound together and so they were actually when he was writing them. they were in smaller like paper-bound kind are stitched together pages and that at some point somebody decided to put them within a leather binding and when they did there are one or two pieces that were bound out of order, so i was going it stops here, but then that's not going to this page and then i find it later on in the journal so there was a little bit of a difference and if you take a good look at the journal you will notice that the pages are of different sizes. and the different chunks there that again is showing where this first came from and that the binding is later. for this but yeah. thank you, dr. mayer. i'm going to throw the first question to one of our guests watching from home. this is from riley sutherland who clearly like us as a fan of your past research. riley asked. did dr. mayer's research reveal anything about the canadian women attached to hazen's regiment and if so did their experiences differ from other camp followers and women that we know of in the american revolutionary british forces. little bit in air about the women with the regiment there. i couldn't leave camp followers out. there's no way what we do know, is that women and children did also retreat with the french canadians at the retreat from canada moses hazen's wife. charlotte was also a refugee edward. ann till's wife was a refugee. she also kept bearing children in camp and losing about half of them. through the process of this war there were certainly other soldiers that had their wives and their children with them in camp. and what is interesting. is that within a few years at least with the french canadians seeing that some of the soldiers who had come down are starting to marry the daughters. of the other soldiers who had come down so they were maintaining their community ties in the camps. so it is that it was much older soldiers with teenage daughters, but then if you look at the regulations at some points there they were saying women over the age of 14 would not be allowed to be in camp separately and you go well at that point you get married and you get rations and you're allowed to stay in camp. i did not find as many women following with the anglo soldiers and certainly not with the deserters from the german or the british side coming in with them, but most of the time that's they could stay closer to home. so one of the things with campfollowers to always remember is are they coming out of areas in which there is action or has been taken by the enemy and so they are following because they're also refugees not simply because of the funding. but yes, they are there. they are in the book got them. i'm curious. can you talk a little bit about sort of fast forwarding to the 19th century when those who have survived to the pension acts in 1818-1832. like what were you able to find out through? through those sources which i think should be known by all americans. i mean, this is the first oral history archive of an american conflict 80,000 pension records in the national archives. and and it's it's still such a it's a bountiful field to plow. so, what did you learn about the cor first you find out that the best records usually come after the 1820 pension regular when they are saying you've got to show need and what do you own what you don't own and they're making this by the time you get into the 1830s at this point. they're just going you survived. okay, we can, you know, we can pension you off at that point but in the 1830s also is when the widows could ask for the pensions based on their their husband's service the soldiers service and they would have to give proof of where you actually married the first of the accounts said were you married during the war. then later on where you married within so many years of the war and then finally it was well wendy, you know, it didn't matter when you married the veteran. it's just that you had been married to one of these soldiers. but what was tremendous and where i got most of the records for this was actually among the french canadians is because actually congress or the war department was tending to push against some of them especially going. well. that means that she got married when she was 13. no. no that can't be there's got to be something wrong. well, no, they actually did mary at 13 in some of these cases and there are the reasons why and they would try to get more information from these women. most of them were illiterate and she can't write her name and she doesn't know this stuff, but she can give the story or tell tales about well we stood up in the barracks before everybody in the company and declared that we were married with the company commander there to supervise this. so it was a common law marriage and then for them they were waiting until a priest would arrive and they could actually do the sacramental marriage at this point, which you did happen. there was a missionary priest by the name of are farmer who went up to the encampments up there and he married some of them and baptized some of the children. so we've got that but what they were doing is then telling us these little intimate details of their life at least when they thought they got married if they had had children while they were still in camp with them at some point, but the other part that was tremendous is that they had maintained the community for many of those french canadians, new york state gave them bounty lands. and they and those bounty lands were up past plattsburgh, so they are right smack dab there on the canadian border some of them were within 50 miles of where they had lived before the war. so they're right close to home again at that point and they had created a community up there and then in the pension accounts, you've got sister being witnessed a sister. to being witness to a brother's children to then their children are representing their their parents in these accounts, but they really were all very much a strong community this way. so it was yeah a great other story there. that's a great certainly been a theme of much of your work is thinking of these institutions rather their regiments armies as as communities and you know really together better if they become a community sure that they have that sense of affiliation with them. and as i said, it is also picking up on this idea of creating a community. that is a nation. so you've got the smaller communities and then that bigger one that keeps growing from that. mm-hmm. i'll ask another question from our friends on the internet walt jaron. ek is wondering if john hawkins says anything about the famous cabals and inside dealing that those of us who have been studying the later years of the revolutionary war might have heard of not as much i wish you would there are quite a few gaps in his record part of it as you would see there is he lost part of his journal when he was running away from that highlander at brandywine. there was another account when he was up at albany they had marched up from wilmington to albany for that first so-called eruption into canada in 78 and his his he had lost stuff out of his pocket that he thought was stolen and there went another journal at that point. so there had been so there are gaps in the record at that point what i do see at the end and this was before the newburgh conspiracy as he was talking about hazen and hazen's military. family all together in erin schuyler's house up there and they're sitting around and he's trying to write in his journal and he's trying to write letters and people are singing and dancing all around them. and then the housekeeper apparently at that point kept just trying to push his stuff aside, you know, and he's saying i'm in i'm in fear of my life right now as she's brandishing knives at me to put down on the table to set the table for dinner. so he was he was talking more about things that intimately concerned him as a powers to those those greater events. i would have loved to have seen the account about the mutiny at new jersey hazen's regiment was part of putting that down. but there it's that's one of the gaps in the journal. i was about to call on john reese. i did look this up. i was checking it out their worst a few african-american in hazen's regiment. but what made it difficult is that in the rosters, they were not putting down race. next to the soldier's names they put down where they came from because that's where they were to be supplied and paid but there was no indication of race. so when i started to do as i was researching some part of what we can do sometimes is by naming. there's a name that seems like it was often associated with african-american and if i ran across that name, i would try to research it. and i did find a few that way by tracing them back through census accounts. so kates who could have been kato mumford at one point was found as a free person of color up in connecticut, but he was never noted that way in the regiment itself. for it another person that i came so i found about three or four is really all i could say for sure that i had cooperating evidence to say that this was a person of color. one was john saratoga now? he's an interesting character in this. no indication whatsoever about race. where i found out was later on at the end of the war. is that edward chin? who was the pay master of the regiment put in the paperwork saying that all monies do to john saratoga were to go to him for he is my slave for life. so here we know that we had so kate's munford was a free person of color and then we've got john saratoga who is an enslaved person both serving in the regiment on the roles major john taylor from virginia brought an enslaved. servant with him and registered him into the regiment so that he was getting then rations and pay through his enslaved servant. so we do know that they were there there were other accounts for putnam's regiment at one point about like 27 men and hazen's regiment was part of putnam's regiment and they said there were 27 african-american with the regiment at that time. some of them were probably in hazen's regiment. but so i was really trying to track him down but i i found it. very interesting. they did not make that designator. and what does that mean that they are not making that designator on these troops? down we before we give everyone the opportunity to get their books signed to appreciate the amazing artifact we have on loan from hsp or to imagine what that knapsack contained with our recreation. it is our long tradition for scott stephenson to the final question. i do like to have the final word as you know. i'm curious have have portions presumably not all of the dire has been in published. i'm just curious if what would you like to say about that with it? i did in the midst of doing this. this is one of the things where your research if you were right. i'm not sure where it is. but when i first came the sergeant majors journal and he is my start to major is i started to think. ah, this would be a great thing to transcribe annotate and then publish as a primary source for use, so i ended up i've transcribed the entire journal. i've got the transcription in my records, but i got so involved going every time i was going to annotate something. well, i got to learn more i gotta learn more and the next thing you know, it's i think i'm writing a monograph here. i think i've got some other story in this so i there's a part of me that is still thinking maybe i should still go back and publish this primary source for use in schools and elsewhere. whether or not that's as important anymore. we do more and more digital history is is the question if i don't go in that direction, i am going to give the transcription to hsp. it doesn't make sense that it just stays on my computer at that point. yeah, okay. well the second half of my final question is just more broadly as we approach the 250th anniversary of the declaration of independence going to be somewhat of a celebration. i hope here in philadelphia. just curious. what are you? what are you thinking about? what are your aspirations? what are you worried about open-ended question, but how are you reflecting on you know, the commemoration anniversary that's coming up. certainly hoping i'm still going to be here to celebrate that yeah with it all actually right now. i'm just working. i'm actually an editor for a volume on women waging war. it is a collection of essays about the women's side of this war in it. it's under contract with uva press and so that should be coming out next spring. so that's the project in the near term and then it may be a revisiting sergeant major hawkins. fantastic. well, thank chicago tribune owner robert mccormick. all the libraries if you can remember. let's start at the beginning and give the years. the hoover was what year was 1987 until 1993 with a year out. for the eisenhower's centenary

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