Noble Undertaking

Volume 1: The Continental Congress and the American Revolution, 1774–78

Brian Deming

• Publisher: Casemate
• Year: 2025
• Edition: 0
• eBook ISBN:
  9781955041409
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Details the Continental Congress's transformation from diplomatic assembly to revolutionary leadership, overcoming crises to unite a fledgling nation. Beginning as a convention of delegates groping for an honorable way to mend ties with Great Britain, the Continental Congress developed into an assembly saddled with the task of ushering in a new nation while managing a war. This book examines the crises that bombarded Congress over those eventful years and explains how this collection of mostly well-off men with much to lose came to lead a rebellion. Wasting hours, days, weeks, in debates that went nowhere, delegates squabbled, complained, compromised, acted courageously one day, foolishly the next. The account follows Congress as delegates fled Philadelphia, in the face of a British threat, to set up shop in Baltimore and later York, Pennsylvania. Documents and letter enable the reader to eavesdrop on the thoughts of delegates as they raged at the British, moaned about their colleagues, cheered morsels of happy news, and sent off pleas for someone—anyone—to come take their place. For many, serving in Congress meant mostly drudgery, frustration, and anxiety, all while far from home. Yet this feeble government succeeded. Without a constitution, it kept the fragile union together. Without taxing authority, it financed the war and maintained an army in the field. Its diplomatic team, despite treachery and ineptitude, engineered a critical alliance. In 1778, as Congress returned to Philadelphia from York, the war was far from over. Indeed, it was not even half over. But the path to an honorable peace was in view. Congress, for all its many flaws, astonished the world by bringing forth a new republic and setting it on course for a promising destiny.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Introduction
• Maps
• Chapter 1 - Eyes of Millions Are Upon Us
• Chpater 2 - Excited No Terror
• Chapter 3 - Eats Little, Drinks Little, Sleeps Little, Thinks Much
• Chapter 4 - A State of Nature
• Chapter 5 - We Will Never Submit
• Chapter 6 - Too Saucy & Provoking
• Chapter 7 - The Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress
• Chapter 8 - No Harum Starum Ranting Swearing Fellow
• Chapter 9 - Perfidious Double-Faced Congress
• Chapter 10 - Spirited Manifesto
• Chapter 11 - Their Rights as Dear as Our Own
• Chapter 12 - The Child Was Not Yet Weaned
• Chapter 13 - To Begin the World Over Again
• Chapter 14 - Motives of Glory as Well as Interest
• Chapter 15 - We Cannot Make Events
• Chapter 16 - Knaves Imposing upon Fools
• Chapter 17 - Comfort and Cheer the Spirits
• Chapter 18 - Boots and Spurs
• Chapter 19 - Singular and Delicate
• Chapter 20 - Perfidy & Tyranny
• Chapter 21 - The Most Silent M an in France
• Chapter 22 - Too Many Members to Keep Secrets
• Chapter 23 - Excrement of Expiring Genius & Poli tical Phrenzy
• Chapter 24 - Our Little Handfull
• Chapter 25 - Dismal & Melancoly
• Chapter 26 - Violent, Seditious, Treasonable
• Chapter 27 - Great and Interesting Consequences
• Chapter 28 - Worst of All Possible Places
• Chapter 29 - Laying the Foundation of Future Evils
• Chapter 30 - A Great Expenditure of Liquor, Powder &c
• Chapter 31 - A Painful Dilemma
• Chapter 32 - The Wretched Spectator of a Ruin’d Army
• Chapter 33 - Marks of Deliberation & Design
• Chapter 34 - Calculated to Deceive
• Chapter 35 - Women Running, Children Crying, Delegates Flying
• Chapter 36 - A Dead Weight on Us
• Chapter 37 - Very Curious and Extraordinary
• Chapter 38 - Essential to Our Very Existence
• Chapter 39 - Men Cursing, Women Shrieking, Children Squalling
• Chapter 40 - We Must Change Our Mode of Conduct
• Chapter 41 - Too Important to Be Trifled With
• Chapter 42 - My Heart Is Full, My Eyes Overflow
• Chapter 43 - A Most Shameful Deficiency
• Chapter 44 - I Schall Be Laughed At
• Chapter 45 - Fire Cake & Water
• Chapter 46 - Most Wicked, Diabolical Baseness
• Chapter 47 - Ridiculous, Undeserved and Unmerited
• Chapter 48 - You Damned Poltroon
• Chapter 49 - The Sluttish Manner of Washing Our Linnen
• Chapter 50 - Preventing Every Wish of My Heart
• Endnotes
• Acknowledgments
• Bibliography
• Index