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Buy the Book
The Rest of the Story
The first attempt in a generation to study the Loyalist side in our War of Independence.
Tories: Fighting for the King in America's First
Civil War
By Thomas B. Allen
(Harper, 416 pages, $26.99)
First of all, let's get rid of the myth (blamed on John Adams) that during our War of Independence American opinion was neatly divided into thirds -- one third Patriot, one third Loyalist, and one third who just wanted to be left alone. The Adams quote so often cited was in a letter he wrote in 1813 and referred to public opinion about the French Revolution and the subsequent war between France and England that complicated his ill-starred presidency.
This book is the first attempt in a generation to study the Loyalist side of what was really a nastier and more violent civil war than the one that divided our nation a hundred years later. And as historian Thomas Allen demonstrates in this thoroughly researched and evocatively written examination of those Americans who opposed separation from Mother England, there is a lot about our one-sided founding Patriot history that is just nonsense. In short, this book is a treat for your favorite arm-chair historian and should be on everyone's holiday gift list.
The big myth that Allen puts to rest at once is the notion that our sainted Founding Fathers set out from the beginning of their taking up arms in a quest to build a new and independent democracy on the still largely unsettled continent. In truth, for quite some time after the skirmishes at Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775, nearly all of the roughly 2.5 million people in the thirteen colonies merely wanted some reforms on taxes and regulations of the kind enjoyed by Britons back home.
Certainly this was true of George Washington. Allen recounts how Washington set out in early June 1775 from Mount Vernon to take command of the rag-tag Continental Army drawn up around the British garrison in Boston. He took the ferry at Alexandria, Virginia, to get across the Potomac. He spotted the Reverend Jonathan Boucher, an old friend and former tutor of his stepson, on the ferry coming the other way. Washington ordered the two craft to halt in mid-river to get the latest news from his friend.
As Allen writes, "Boucher bluntly told Washington that Americans would soon declare for independence. Washington denied that he was 'joining in any such measures,' Boucher recalled. Like most of his supporters, the new general believed that the colonies were seeking a redress of grievances, not independence." To the point, the supposedly radicalized Continental Congress sent off yet another groveling petition to King George III assuring him of their devotion and loyalty to the Crown and begging for some relief from the more onerous taxes and trade restraints. The king, to his cost, refused to even read the document.
Another myth Allen lays to rest is the notion that the struggle, once it began in earnest, would lead to an inevitable victory for Our Side because of the nobility of Our Cause. In truth, the war was one for the British to lose and they did so through a combination of arrogance and stupidity that must cause gasps of admiration among Pentagon strategists even today. The British generals in charge of various campaigns just could not bring themselves to treat the American Loyalist volunteers who rallied to them as anything but social embarrassments. And despite the overwhelming Loyalist sentiments in all the major colonial cities -- even Boston, but more so in New York, Philadelphia, Charleston and Savannah -- Washington managed to nullify that advantage by keeping the war in the open countryside where sentiment and supplies were more to his advantage.
More to the point, whatever the Tory sentiment among white colonials throughout the long war, the British clearly had greater support than the Patriots among two other critical population groups -- the Indian tribes on the western frontier and among the roughly 500,000 free and enslaved Africans who, in some colonies, outnumbered the white population.
Virginia's royal governor the Earl of Dunmore as early as 1775 proclaimed freedom for all slaves who would joint his newly raised Ethiopian Regiment; slaves from both Monticello and Mount Vernon were among the thousands who flocked to the British side. Washington at first banned any black volunteers from his army, but finally relented and allowed only freedmen to enlist.
The Indian attacks on frontier settlements in the South and service as scouts and guides in the campaigns through New England provoked an instant horror among the Patriot side that may have caused more harm than good for the British. Certainly, it drove Highland Scots settlers in the Carolinas to the rebel cause despite a preference for the Crown cause.
And Allen makes clear it did neither the Indians nor the Loyalist blacks any real good either. At the end of the war the British evacuation shipped hundreds of black allies and their families to dismal exiles in Nova Scotia and the Caribbean. One has to wonder how, when the drafters of the Constitution in 1786 came to deal with the political questions involving the rights of African and native Americans, whether the rancorous memory of their disloyalty did not prompt some measure of revenge by the Founders, especially those from the South.
And in the end another remarkable myth gets put away. It is true that many thousands of Tories fled north to Canada or uncomfortable exiles in Britain, but of the roughly half million white Americans who survived the war and remained loyal to the King and Crown, only about 100,000 of them then upped stakes and left for new lives elsewhere. Remarkably, as Allen points out, within a generation the emotional and political scars of that violent and emotionally fraught clash had largely healed.
This is a long overdue part of our history which is well and truly told by a seasoned historian. Savor it; give a copy to a friend.
About the Author
James Srodes is the author of Franklin: The Essential Founding Father (Regnery). His email address is srodesnews@msn.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (38) | Leave a comment
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Andrew B| 11.23.10 @ 7:52AM
I am glad to see a clear history of our Loyalist history is finally in print. I worked for several years in a historic site related to a Loyalist regiment of the British Army, and it opened my eyes as to our hidden history. What I found most interesting is that, following the Revolution, New York State found a way to punish the Loyalists who remained behind in what would become its accustomed way: it hit them with huge tax increases.
The more things change...
Simon Templar| 11.23.10 @ 11:22AM
You and Srodes can kiss my American Revolutionary ass...OUR loyalist history!? Who the hell are you and why is American spectator carrying such a column as this? I thanks God everyday for those colonist and the men like those that signed the Declaration that believed in a self governing Republic. If you want to live under a elite or monarchy than move to England or communist China. I do not remember not reading about the loyalist as a child in school or being under the impression that at the beginning of the revolution people were trying to achieve reforms and petitioning their King. The declaration is an historical account of their years trying to settle their greivances with England through proper channels with no success and much frustration. Do not try to revise history. Yes, there were loyalist even after the Boston Massacre and the Declaration. They were in a minority..all our founding fathers were in COMPLETE agreement to sever the ties. The 5000 letters sent to each other over these years challenge your revisionist history. If you pine to be a subject rather than a free man then get the F*ck out.
And in the end another remarkable myth gets put away?! Gee, what other myths are you referring to? Filthy Left wing trash.
Franco| 11.23.10 @ 12:39PM
Pray, what the hell are you smoking?
Simon Templar| 11.23.10 @ 1:21PM
Sweet Virginia tobacco rolled on the sweet thighs of the Daughters of the American Revolution! Once again, you Franco, can kiss my rebel American ass. Apparently a cogent argument and critical response is not good enough. It is easier to dismiss conservatives now with the old tired lefty charge of insanity. That was a favorite in your motherland, Russia, remember?
Simon Templar| 11.23.10 @ 1:45PM
Oh, by the way..I always know that I hit a nerve with you trolls and have said something quite dangerous..thanks for the response and charge of insanity. I noticed you jumped right on my comment rather than any of the others.
REB| 11.24.10 @ 12:07AM
S.T.....amen brother! Spoken like a true rebel and patriot,live free or die tryin!
JR| 11.26.10 @ 2:46AM
You have got to be the simplest mind I have ever come across. It amazes me that people like yourself can control themselves long enough to stop chewing and spitting snuff to use a keyboard, good for you.
As for your comments its called doing serious history. The science of history writing entails that you read ALL sources not only the ones that make you feel all nice inside. As John Adams aptly put it, "Facts are stubborn things". Apparently so are you.
The fact is that you have not read 5000 letters much less have read anything at all. This book certainly does describe a very huge part of our history and you cant make it go away by scribbling it away with crayons as you want to do.
You say that "I do not remember not reading about the loyalist as a child in school or being under the impression that at the beginning of the revolution people were trying to achieve reforms and petitioning their King". Thats the whole point. What you were taught in those idiot factories (aka public schools) was not serious history. Based on your comments those idiot factories seemed to do a great job. You should forget what you were taught in that little house on the prairie school house you went to for high school.
Virginia was home to a large number of loyalists and the first continental congress never even considered independence only boycotts and addressing grievances. Even the second congress gradually worked its way to voting for independence.
If anyone is a pinko commy its you. You seem to be satisfied to be spoon fed the propaganda by Big Brother. Just like Soviet Russia that gave their citizens the kind of history that made it seemed they were living in paradise and that there was never any opposition. You would love Stalin!
You really need to read books, I mean the serious kind with footnotes and a bibliography instead of the ones with large pictures and the ones that have pop up features.
You are no conservative. Conservatives are not scared like you are to look at our whole history in its entirety. You need to leave serious history to others and go back to reading MAD Magazine and watching Larry the Cable Guy.
gummy bear| 12.5.10 @ 10:17PM
hahaha your funny
Occam's Tool| 5.4.11 @ 7:50PM
Simon, agree again. Awesome.
Boy Howdee| 11.23.10 @ 6:30PM
This is, quite frankly, folderall to anyone except those who simply chose and choose to not pay attention. All the points noted above I was taught by my 5th-grade (public) educational level.
As we study the miracles that did, indeed, make victory seem almost assured (after the fact, of course) we may well see how divine providence played a role (even as Pharoah's heart needed to be hardened, so did King George's) we must also realize and recognize that in many ways the outcome is merely a vote away from changing.
At any rate, I'm wondering if modern public (and private) education has been so battered and betrayed as to portray the RW history as something that needs debunking?
Thorvald| 11.23.10 @ 8:42AM
Today's liberals are the dirty spawn of the loyalist remnant, from their geographic distribution, to their skin color, to their wretched reflexive state of being as subjects. Let them have their own country. Not Londonistan, but Bostonistan.
Louis Jenkins| 11.23.10 @ 8:42AM
At any given time no more than 3% served in the fight for freedom. But it was enough to give King George a new insight to America. Thank God for those 3% ers. Cow Pens, Kings Mountain, and lastly Yorktown sealed the Britisher's fate.
Petronius| 11.23.10 @ 9:23AM
I always point to the perfidy of the War Office on this issue. With a majority of British troops busy subduing the Indian subcontinent and shipping tied up in transport and supply thereof, the American Revolution would have been a slam dunk failure had the situation been otherwise.
And things were no different in 1812 with the bulk of British forces marching against Napoleon the second time. So much for the confounded wars.
Where the British really screwed the pooch was in cabinet. Had Lord North and the Privy Council done a deal and handed the greater lights of the Continental Congress Peerages, and had Parliament acted to grant seats in the Commons to the Colonies, there would be no United States. But whether it was here, India, Australia, Africa, or the islands, the attitude towards all British possessions from London was treatment similar to that of a bastard child in those times.
I would be writing this in French unless my ancestors had stayed in Germany, where they would have perished in 1914 War and this space would be blank.
And I will continue to lift my glass to those Gentlemen Scholars and polymaths, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Mason, Webster; and to Washington and his soldiers, who believed they deserved better. We are now faced with another despotic government in Washington D.C. who hold the belief that we deserve only what they want us to have. Watch this space.
A. C. Santore| 11.23.10 @ 10:27AM
When will we learn? It is at least as hard to predict the past as it is to predict the future.
Christopher| 11.23.10 @ 10:04AM
Boston, New York, Philadelphia. The ruling class of its day, and today. They were, and still are, for high taxes, big government, and contemptuous of the "rabble" in the countryside that had guns and religion. Savannah and Charleston at least saw the light.
Sheila| 11.23.10 @ 10:12AM
Excellent and timely posting, Mr. Srodes. I will send a copy of this to my son's teachers and principal at his Christian school, who received an angry epistle from me last week about the Abeka U.S. history book's distortions and blatant falsehoods (essentially that blacks were the moving force behind the Revolution and Benjamin Banneker designed D.C. - Pierre L'Enfant, where are you?!).
Simon Templar| 11.23.10 @ 11:34AM
My god..you are amazingly ignorant and arrogant at the same time. Beck just finished a whole television series on how blacks played a huge role in the revolution and how their contribution has been left wing white washed out of the history books. Well while you are writing you kids christain school you might also include the lie that our founding fathers were atheist and deist and desired a country devoid of religious expression and belief in both the public and private sectors. Never mind all the christian and religious references in statues, paintings, sculptor, etc. ALL over Washington in every building. That's one of your favorites.
Sheila| 11.23.10 @ 12:10PM
"In this discussion centering on William F. Buckley at AltRight, a commenter TS1709 provides a good description of 'respectable conservatism':
The most odious doctrine of his (much lauded by the left) was to keep the conservative movement "under control" and "respectable" by exiling and /or excoriating those who dared to go beyond a certain line of discourse. I cannot even begin to conceive why one would be deferential to the sensibilities of those whose objective is to destroy you and your beliefs. However, for a social fop such as WF Buckley whose vanity required the acceptance of the "Eastern Establishment" it was sufficient justification for the purges.''
The above is pretty much the same as my own idea of 'respectables', as the first sentence describes. The respectables are very image-conscious, and very quick to 'shush' and censor and even pronounce anathema on those of the right who violate the 'respectable' norms, as per liberal standards. Violate political correctness in any important way, and you will be drummed out of 'conservatism' and labeled a racist. The respectables worry lest your political incorrectness taint them and their spotless image."
Simon Templar| 11.23.10 @ 1:40PM
No one said you were a racist..what a twit! What you are is a socialist troll posing as conservative trying to spread dissent and propaganda. The following was taken from the book, The Naked Communist, outlining 45 objectives of American communist. Here are a few I found relevant to our discussion. This was placed in the congressional record in 1953.
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
Let me add another for clarification.
31.a- Write articles claiming that Americans never wanted a self governing Republic but rather a majority loved being subjects to a tyrannical monarchy and only wished for limited reforms. Rewite history books and make the claim that the American Revolution was the work of a misguided, probably mentally ill minority of firebrands, extremist, and self serving aristocrats and land owners.
Louis Jenkins| 11.23.10 @ 3:47PM
At least you're using a good document Simon. I was beginning to wonder if anyone else had even heard of it.
Douglas| 11.23.10 @ 2:26PM
You sounded smart in your earlier posts. Now you sound pathetic and wounded. Beck has his head up the PC crowd's a$$ trying to rally the minorities to his side.
Simon Templar| 11.24.10 @ 1:53AM
Funny how people particularly trolls hear what they want to hear...is there a sound for idiocy cause its coming loud and clear from your drivel.
Yeah, Beck really gives a rats ass what politically correct people yhink..that has got to be the most rudiculous statement I have ever read on this site. You might have said Reagan actually loved communism and had a secret love affair with Gorbechev. Go away troll.
Occam's Tool| 5.4.11 @ 7:51PM
Love ya, Simon. Beautiful.
motiger76| 11.23.10 @ 11:38AM
If only we could ship our own modern day Euro-wannabes up to Canada. I'm willing to trade their citizenship for British Columbia.
MoeBlotz| 11.23.10 @ 11:41AM
The book about Tories might sell in Kingston,Ontario as well.
Samuel Adams| 11.23.10 @ 12:03PM
Mainly, we fought for cold beer. The vile Poms still drink it warm to this day. They well deserved the thrashing they got.
Simon Templar| 11.23.10 @ 2:05PM
Yes, Sam, that pretty much sums it up! LOL!
Yosemeti Sam| 11.23.10 @ 12:58PM
Oy vey - so many books imbued with so many parallax takes on so many specks from HISTORY.
serfer62| 11.23.10 @ 2:44PM
Petronbuis, your getting the war of 1812 mixed up with The Revolution.
Any reading of history will show that Independence was a result of no no no from King George and after a year plus of fighting.
Also it wasn't the British armie's to lose, they could never have won due to the emence area of America & the tiny Brit army. The army staff knew this, the king's advisors knew this but the elites denied it and demanded survatitude...hmmm DC are you listening?
Anthony| 11.23.10 @ 3:57PM
If not for that silly royal family business, Americans, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen could have formed some dynamic nation. It's too late now but maybe the future will bring some sanity to the western world.
Tom| 11.23.10 @ 5:09PM
A lot of this I learned in Jr. Hi. Aren't they teaching any history today. As I read on it dawned on me this is just another "historian" letting us know how lousy America is and shouldn't be.
REB| 11.24.10 @ 12:19AM
With respect Anthony......Americans, Englishmen, Scotsmen, Welshmen, and Irishmen could have formed some dynamic nation.)
WE DID...along with people from all civilized(and a few not) lands who wanted liberty and opportunity...shes called America and despite all her shortcomings shes still dynamic and beautiful and a heck of alot nicer than that stuffy old england ever was!
Vic| 11.24.10 @ 1:43AM
Its too bad those early Americans were drug kicking and screaming into the idea of liberty. They braved the mighty Atlantic and hostility of the wilderness to be better subjects to the crown.
I suppose if any of this claptrap has any truth to it, things have not changed that much in America. Communists ideologues are a minority in this country, but our government goes along its merry way toward totalitarianism in spite of us. The more things change, the more they stay the same?
mkv to avi converter| 11.24.10 @ 3:42AM
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David March| 11.24.10 @ 10:46AM
It sounds like the author instead of writing a book that debunks the Myths of the Revolutionary War, has gone to once again reaffirm all the myths of the war.
Speaking as a Canadian, this is not the type of book I’d pick up if I wanted to do a serious reading of what happened during the war.
gary siebel| 11.24.10 @ 9:13PM
Because the nobility never transplanted itself to America, and probably would not have been able to take root even if it had done so, the Limeys and Loyalists were doomed in the long run, regardless. They still haven't gotten rid of the aristocracy in England.
Once the decision to fight was made, the economic causes became secondary. The source of the problem clearly was the aristocracy itself, so it had to go. It was just a matter of Common Sense. Franklin was a Loyalist, until he wasn't. So, too, it was for many of the Founders, who would have preferred one thing (King and Crown), but decided to go with the other.
dlmstl| 11.25.10 @ 12:13AM
Thanks for the review. It's on my Christmas list.
While doing some family geneaolgical research I discovered my wife's grandfather and great uncles were loyalist in upstate NY. It must have been rough after the war. They got land grants in Ontario, Canada and moved there. It was not long before the next generation moved back and went west to IL and WI. The older ones stayed in Canada. We have photos of the various tombstones. I am also trying to find out more about their activities during the war. I think the author is correct in pointing out that the rancor between the Loyalists and the Patriots may have exceded that experienced during the Civil War. It is an interesting angle that needs to be explored more.
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