Quarters

Gilbert McCurdy John

Description

When Americans declared independence in 1776, they cited King George III "for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us." In Quarters, John Gilbert McCurdy explores the social and political history behind the charge, offering an authoritative account of the housing of British soldiers in America. Providing new interpretations and analysis of the Quartering Act of 1765, McCurdy sheds light on a misunderstood aspect of the American Revolution. Quarters unearths the vivid debate in eighteenth-century America over the meaning of place. It asks why the previously uncontroversial act of accommodating soldiers in one's house became an unconstitutional act. In so doing, Quarters reveals new dimensions of the origins of Americans' right to privacy. It also traces the transformation of military geography in the lead up to independence, asking how barracks changed cities and how attempts to reorder the empire and the borderland led the colonists to imagine a new nation.Quarters emphatically refutes the idea that the Quartering Act forced British soldiers in colonial houses, demonstrates the effectiveness of the Quartering Act at generating revenue, and examines aspects of the law long ignored, such as its application in the backcountry and its role in shaping Canadian provinces.Above all, Quarters argues that the lessons of accommodating British troops outlasted the Revolutionary War, profoundly affecting American notions of place. McCurdy shows that the Quartering Act had significant ramifications, codified in the Third Amendment, for contemporary ideas of the home as a place of domestic privacy, the city as a place without troops, and a nation with a civilian-led military.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• United States of America
• Reino Unido
• Military history
• United Kingdom
• History of the Americas
• Human geography
• American Revolutionary War
• Great Britain
• États-Unis
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501736612
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

QUARTERS

QUARTERS

T HE ACCOMMODAT I ON OF T HE BRI T I SH ARMY AND T HE COMI NG OF T HE AME RI CAN RE VOLUT I ON

J o h n G i l b e r t M c C u r dy

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2019 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Names: McCurdy, John Gilbert, 1972– author. Title: Quarters : the accommodation of the British Army  and the coming of the American Revolution /  John Gilbert McCurdy. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. |  Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019002331 (print) |  LCCN 2019004115 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501736612 (pdf ) |  ISBN 9781501736629 (epub/mobi) | ISBN 9781501736605 |  ISBN 9781501736605 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Soldiers—Billeting—United States—  History—18th century. | Soldiers—Billeting—  North America—History—18th century. | Requisitions,  Military—United States—History—18th century. |  Requisitions, Military—North America—History—  18th century. | Great Britain. Army—Barracks and  quarters—History—18th century. | United States—  History—Colonial period, ca. 1600–1775. |  United States—History—Revolution, 1775–1783. |  United States—History, Military—18th century. |  United States. Constitution. 3rd Amendment—History. Classification: LCC UC403 (ebook) | LCC UC403 .M33  2019 (print) | DDC 973.3/113—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019002331 Cover image:Battle of Golden Hill, NY, Jan. 19, 1770, by Charles MacKubin Lefferts, ca. 19191920. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of the NewYork Historical Society.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgmentsvii A Note on Quotations, Terminology, and Moneyxi

Introduction: The Importance of Place in the Age of Atlantic Revolutions 1. Houses: The Rise of Domestic Privacy 2. Barracks: Constructing a Colonial Military Infrastructure 3. Empire: Drafting and Implementing the Quartering Act 4. Borderland: Native Americans, Soldiers, and Colonists in the Backcountry 5. Cities and Towns: Accommodation and Eviction of the British Army 6. Nation: American Armies and the March toward Independence  Epilogue: The Third Amendment and the Shadow of Quartering

Notes245 Index303

1 10

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P r e f a c e a n d A c k n o w l e d g m e nt s

If you ever find yourself in Ypsilanti, Michigan, get a bite to eat at Sidetrack. DuringamealatSidetrackin2012,Inoticed,acrossthestreetinfront of a longabandoned building, a new historical marker, for “The Barracks.” As the marker explains, the building once housed Civil War recruits. Yet I was less intrigued by Company H, First Michigan Infantry, than I was by the name. “The Barracks” seemed incongruous in a modern American commu nity, especially across the street from Sidetrack and a mile from my univer sity. I thought of barracks as segregated from civilian life and ensconced in military bases like Fort Leavenworth. A barracks in Ypsilanti? The only thing more preposterous would be soldiers marching in the city. Quartersis my attempt to explain why “The Barracks” is so unusual. Hav ing grown up near an active US Army base, I always have been aware of how the military both penetrates and evades civilian life. Placing that question in a historical context, I have concluded that the civilianmartial relationship is ultimately spatial and that our perceptions of it emerge from the eighteenth century, particularly the twenty years preceding the American Revolution. From 1755 to 1775, professional soldiers were a common sight in many American cities, yet after the war, troops disappeared along with the military infrastructure. Although they resurfaced at moments of mobilization, like the Civil War, they have never been the permanent fixtures they once were. Quartersfulfills my longstanding desire to write a book about the Ameri can Revolution. Digging in such wellworked fields is a daunting prospect, and when I started this project, I had no idea what insights I could add. I often tell my students who can’t find a research topic to go sit in an archives and read until they find something interesting. In January 2011, I took my own advice and went to the William L. Clements Library. After several false starts, I settled on quartering because no one had ever written a book about the Quartering Act and because of the exquisite details in the Thomas Gage Papers. As with any good research project,Quartershas opened a number of new intellectual avenues for me, including the study of place, as well as

vii

viii PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Atlantic and military history. Eight years later, I am even more convinced of the consequence of the Revolution to presentday US culture. Therearemanypeopleandinstitutionstothankforthisbook. More than anything, this book is the product of two universities: Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. Since 2005, EMU has been my academic home, and I have delighted in working with excellent students and colleagues. EMU provided me with a sabbatical and a faculty research fellowship, as well as several travel grants to visit archives and con ferences. It also provided a Provost’s Research Support Award to defray the costs of publishing this book. I am grateful to the advice and insights of my colleagues, including George Cassar, Kathleen Chamberlain, James Egge, Jesse Kauffman, John Knight, Richard Nation, MaryElizabeth Murphy, Ste ven Ramold, Tomoyuki Sasaki, and Philip Schmitz. Julia Nims, Alexis Braun Marks, and other members of EMU’s Bruce T. Halle Library provided books and articles, and tracked down interlibrary loans. This book also could not have been written without the resources of the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor. The William L. Clements Library has amazing collections and a worldclass staff, including Brian Leigh Dunnigan, Clayton Lewis, and Cheney Schopieray. The U of M also provided me with an Eisenberg Institute Residency Research Grant, which introduced me to the scholarship of place and put me into conversation with exceptional schol ars, including Howard Brick, Gregory Dowd, June Howard, Susan Juster, John Shy, Scott Spector, Alexandra Stern, and Hitomi Tonomura. I am also grateful for Michigan’s Hatcher Graduate Library. I was humbled to receive the support of institutions outside of Michigan. I am appreciative of a Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati award from the Massachusetts Historical Society and a Library Resident Research Fel lowship from the American Philosophical Society. I had the good fortune to present parts of my research to the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, the Society of Early Americanists, the Organization of American Historians, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the Colo nial Society of Massachusetts. In addition to the abovenamed institutions, I spent many blissful hours researching at the Henry Huntington Library, the New Jersey State Archives, the NewYork Historical Society, the New York Public Library, the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, the South Carolina Historical Society, and the UK National Archives at Kew. I thank the Albany Institute of History and Art, the Burton Collection at the Detroit Public Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Library of Congress, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the William

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  ix

L. Clements Library for permission to reprint images in this book. Material from chapters 2and 5previously appeared in my article, “From Fort George to the Fields: The Public Space and Military Geography of Revolutionary New York City,”Journal of Urban History44, no. 4: 625–42, reprinted by per mission of SAGE Publications. At Cornell University Press, I worked with an excellent staff of editors including Susan Specter, Glenn Novak, and Carmen Gonzalez. Michael McGandy deserves special credit for shepherding this book to completion. I thank the readers for their insightful comments on my manuscript and advo cacy for its publication. DanielPolleywasinstrumentalinhelpingwithmytranslationsfromthe French. I thank Stephanie Sambrook for her excellent maps and Daniel Bow lin for his research assistance. Duringmytimeworkingonthisbook,Imetmanywonderfulscholars who challenged my thinking and made this book stronger. They include Laura Ferguson, Eliga Gould, Derek Gregory, Robert Gross, Eric Hinde raker, Woody Holton, Matthew Klingle, Hyun Wu Lee, Tracy Neumann, Daniel Richter, Alan Taylor, Kacy Tillman, Tim Williams, Kariann Yokota, Serena Zabin, and Rosemarie Zagarri. Even better are those early American historians who are also dear friends. I am blessed to share laughs and learning with George Boudreau, David Hancock, and Ann Little. Manyfriends,congregants,andneighborshaveprovidedasupportnet work, including Shane Dillon, David and Sally Epskamp, Damian Evilsizor, Dario Gaggio, Collin Ganio and Suzanne Davis, Dawn DeZan, Suzanne Fliege, Charles and Diane Jacobs, Anne Kirk, Gary Kotraba, Beverly McCurdy, Marcia McCrary, Angelo Pitillo, Daniel Polley, Helmut Puff, Doug Ross and Larry Barker, Sinderella, JoAnn Kennedy Slater, Liz Taylor, and Brenda Wil son. I’m saddened that two of the people who readCitizen Bachelorsdid not live to seeQuarters:GilbydrdnatreuCcMakDre.chMilae LastbutneverleastisAnthonyMora.OnJuly28,2011,ImetAnthonyon break from the Clements, and he has been there ever since. I could not have done any of this without him, so I dedicate this book him.