Silas Deane, Revolutionary War Diplomat and Politician

Silas Deane, Revolutionary War Diplomat and Politician PDF Author: Milton C. Van Vlack
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786472529
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Silas Deane was the victim of one of the most vicious character assassination conspiracies ever carried out in the Revolutionary War era. Even after almost two and a half centuries, he remains in the eyes of many modern historians, "worse than Arnold," his boyhood friend. This is very wrong. Because Deane was such a capable individual in his endeavors very early in the war, he became the political target of envious others with quite different abilities and philosophies. Even so, his political strength kept growing and in 1776 Congress appointed him America's first secret agent to secure military supplies from France for Washington's army. This biography is written on the man himself and on the malicious and largely successful lies and intrigues by his rivals. The work does not downplay the contributions of his contemporaries, especially those of his close friend throughout, Benjamin Franklin, but shows exactly where specific credit should be placed. A lot of credit for the new nation's success belongs to him.

Silas Deane, Revolutionary War Diplomat and Politician

Silas Deane, Revolutionary War Diplomat and Politician PDF Author: Milton C. Van Vlack
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786472529
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Get Book Here

Book Description
Silas Deane was the victim of one of the most vicious character assassination conspiracies ever carried out in the Revolutionary War era. Even after almost two and a half centuries, he remains in the eyes of many modern historians, "worse than Arnold," his boyhood friend. This is very wrong. Because Deane was such a capable individual in his endeavors very early in the war, he became the political target of envious others with quite different abilities and philosophies. Even so, his political strength kept growing and in 1776 Congress appointed him America's first secret agent to secure military supplies from France for Washington's army. This biography is written on the man himself and on the malicious and largely successful lies and intrigues by his rivals. The work does not downplay the contributions of his contemporaries, especially those of his close friend throughout, Benjamin Franklin, but shows exactly where specific credit should be placed. A lot of credit for the new nation's success belongs to him.

Unlikely Allies

Unlikely Allies PDF Author: Joel Richard Paul
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1594484872
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 417

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Book Description
From the author of Without Precedent and Indivisible, the gripping true story of how three men used espionage, betrayal, and sexual deception to help win the American Revolution. Unlikely Allies is the story of three remarkable historical figures. Silas Deane was a Connecticut merchant and delegate to the Continental Congress as the American colonies struggled to break with England. Caron de Beaumarchais was a successful playwright who wrote The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. And the flamboyant and mysterious Chevalier d'Éon⁠—officer, diplomat, and sometime spy⁠—was the talk of London and Paris. Is the Chevalier a man or a woman? When Deane is sent to France to convince the French government to support the revolutionary cause, he enlists the help of Beaumarchais. Together, they successfully smuggle weapons, ammunition, and supplies to New England just in time for the crucial Battle of Saratoga, which turned the tide of the American Revolution. And the catalyst for Louis XVI's support of the Americans against England was the Chevalier d'Éon, whose decision to declare herself a woman helped to lead to the Franco-American alliance. These three people spin a fascinating web of political intrigue and international politics that stretches across oceans as they ricochet from Versailles to Georgian London to the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall) in Philadelphia. Each man has his own reasons for wanting to see America triumph over the British, and each contends daily with the certainty that no one is what they seem. The line between friends and enemies is blurred, spies lurk in every corner, and the only way to survive is to trust no one. An edge-of-your-seat story full of fascinating characters and lavish with period detail and sense of place, Unlikely Allies is Revolutionary history in all of its juicy, lurid glory.

Edward Bancroft

Edward Bancroft PDF Author: Thomas J. Schaeper
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300118422
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Looks at the life of the American scientist and man of letters who led a secret life in Great Britain as British agent working against both the American colonies and the French during the Revolutionary War.

Brief Memoirs of John and Walter Deane

Brief Memoirs of John and Walter Deane PDF Author: William Reed Deane
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

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Book Description


After the Fact

After the Fact PDF Author: James West Davidson
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1256

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Book Description
Under the historians eye, the puzzles of the past turn and reveal themselves. Here are good stories well told, displaying the essential fascination of scholarship in action and what it can accomplish.

The Trumbull Papers

The Trumbull Papers PDF Author: Jonathan Trumbull
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Connecticut
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description


Commonweal

Commonweal PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Periodicals
Languages : en
Pages : 674

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Book Description


Homegrown Terror

Homegrown Terror PDF Author: Eric D. Lehman
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
ISBN: 0819573302
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
This lively biography of America’s most famous traitor offers a new perspective on his terrible legacy as well as life in Revolutionary Era Connecticut. On September 6, 1781, Connecticut native Benedict Arnold and a force of 1,700 British soldiers and loyalists took Fort Griswold and burnt New London to the ground. The brutality of the invasion galvanized the new nation, and “Remember New London!” would become a rallying cry for troops under General Lafayette. In Homegrown Terror, Eric D. Lehman chronicles the events leading up to the attack and highlights this key transformation in Arnold—the point where he went from betraying his comrades to massacring his neighbors and destroying their homes. This defining incident forever marked him as a symbol of evil, turning an antiheroic story about weakness of character and missed opportunity into one about the nature of treachery itself. Homegrown Terror draws upon a variety of primary sources and perspectives, from the traitor himself to his former comrades like Jonathan Trumbull and Silas Deane, to the murdered Colonel Ledyard. Rethinking Benedict Arnold through the lens of this terrible episode, Lehman sheds light on the ethics of the dawning nation, and the way colonial America responded to betrayal and terror.

A Great Improvisation

A Great Improvisation PDF Author: Stacy Schiff
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
ISBN: 1429907991
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Soon to be a streaming series ● In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.

For Liberty and Glory

For Liberty and Glory PDF Author: James R. Gaines
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393061383
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 580

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Book Description
In a single, thrilling narrative, Gaines tells the story of the American and French Revolutions--and their leaders--and provides fascinating insights into George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette and their personal transformations.