184 Washington Defuses the Newburgh Conspiracy + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
Release Date: 03/09/2020
199 Who Was Alexander Hamilton?
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
In this episode of ITPL, we focus on Alexander Hamilton. You may have noticed that Hamilton has become the hottest Founder in recent years – and it’s all due to the smash Broadway hit, “Hamilton: The Musical.”
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198 The Civil War Draft Riots
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, we take a look at a significant but often overlooked event during the Civil War, the Draft Riots of July 1863. Protests against drafting men into the Union Army broke out in many places, but the worst occurred in New York City. For four days rampaging crowds tore the city apart, destroying property and leading to the deaths of more than 100 people, including 11 African Americans who were lynched. To this day, the Draft Riots remain the largest civil uprising in US history.
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197 Brutality & Lawlessness: America's First Great Police Scandal
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the first great police scandal in US history. It occurred in the mid-1890s in New York City when an investigation into the NYPD exposed widespread corruption and brutality. To tell us about this scandal, I speak with historian Daniel Czitrom author of New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era. It’s a story that makes clear that policing in the US has always been controversial.
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196 The Molly Maguires
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at a legendary labor uprising by a mysterious group known as the Molly Maguires. They were Irish and Irish American coal miners in Pennsylvania in the 1870s who used vigilante violence to fight back against the powerful and exploitative mine owners. But in the end, the mine owners used their dominance over the political and legal establishment to see to it that 20 men, most of whom were likely innocent, were executed by hanging. Feature Story: The Molly Maguires Hanged On Thursday June 21, 1877 – 143...
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195 Where Have You Gone, Robert F. Kennedy?
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week I speak with author Larry Tye about his biography, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of A Liberal Icon (2016, Random House). Tye is the author of many best-selling biographies and he’s at his best in this new look at RFK. One of the myths he’s eager to dispel is the notion that there were two, polar opposite Bobby Kennedys – the bad boy in the 1950s who worked for Sen. Joseph McCarthy and later waged war on organized labor and the saintly good guy in the mid-1960s who fought for social justice.
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194 The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at one of the most deadly incidents of anti-black violence in US history: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. White mobs rampaged through Tulsa, Oklahoma’s African American neighborhood and burned it to the ground, killing between 100 and 300 black residents in the process. The incident was quickly covered up and driven from public memory. But in the 1990s activists and scholars began to unearth the shocking truth.
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193 The Pullman Strike of 1894 + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the Pullman Strike of 1894. It began as a protest over wage cuts in the midst of a severe economic depression and quickly grew to virtually paralyze the nation’s railroad system. Eventually, President Grover Cleveland sent in the military and smashed the strike. The workers lost the strike, but they did gain a new spokesperson – socialist Eugene Debs – who would play an influential role in American society in the decades to
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192 The Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1920
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the history podcast, I speak with historian Nancy Bristow about her book, "American Pandemic: The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic." In November 1918, even as millions of Americans and Europeans celebrated the end of World War I, their communities were being ravaged by a global influenza pandemic. Over the course of almost three years, somewhere between 50 and 100 million people were killed in the pandemic, including nearly 700,000 Americans.
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191 Coxey’s Army and the Original March On Washington + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the original March on Washington. “Coxey’s Army” was a group of 500 men who amidst a terrible economic depression in 1894, marched from Ohio to the nation’s capital to demand that Congress provide employment through public works projects. They were turned away, but many of the Populist ideas that inspired them were enacted into law in the coming decades.
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190 The Story of Earth Day + This Week in US History
In The Past Lane - The Podcast About History and Why It Matters
This week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at the origins of Earth Day 50 years ago this week, and the two high profile environmental disasters in 1969 that helped to inspire it, the Santa Barbara, CA oil spill and the an oil fire on the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, OH. In the years that followed, the US enacted landmark environmental legislation ranging from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species Act.
info_outlineThis week at In The Past Lane, the American History podcast, we take a look at one of the most perilous moments during the American Revolution: The Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783 that threatened to plunge the new republic into civil war. That is until George Washington intervened and defused the would-be revolt among officers of the Continental Army.
And we also take a look at some key events that occurred this week in US history, like the 1862 battle between the ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia and FDR’s first fireside chat in 1933. And birthdays, including
March 10, 1867 - progressive reformer and nurse Lillian Wald
March 12, 1922 novelist and poet, Jack Kerouac
March 15, 1767 - the seventh President of the United States, Andrew Jackson
Feature Story: George Washington Defuses the Newburgh Conspiracy
On March 15, 1783 – 237 years ago this week - Gen. George Washington arrived at Newburgh, NY, which was the winter quarters of Continental Army. A peace treaty with England had yet to be signed, but combat between American and British forces had ended sixteen months earlier in October 1781 with the British surrender at Yorktown. But the mood among the men and officers was decidedly not celebratory. They were angry at Congress for not paying them and for providing poor provisions. They felt disrespected and ignored by the national government.
But Washington had not come to Newburgh to cheer them up. He had come to thwart a scheme that threatened to destroy the young republic that had just earned its independence. One of the key figures in that scheme – what came to be called the Newburgh Conspiracy - was Major John Armstrong, aide de camp to Washington’s chief rival, Horatio Gates. Five days earlier, Armstrong had issued an inflammatory address in which he said the time for politely pleading with Congress to fulfill its obligations to the army had come to an end. The officers of the army, said Armstrong, should issue an ultimatum. If Congress did not act, the army would either disband, leaving the nation vulnerable to renewed British attack, or it would refuse to disband once a peace treaty had been signed. This latter option was a thinly veiled threat of a military coup.
When Washington learned of Armstrong’s address and talk of mutiny among the officer corps, he sent a message urging the men to keep their cool and not do anything rash. He sympathized with the men and understood their anger, but he also feared that any unauthorized action could lead to civil war and the end of the American republic. Washington, like most of the Founders, knew that many revolutions in history were followed by a civil war, as the factions that had united against a common foe turned on each other.
To defuse this perilous situation, Washington called a meeting of the officers at Newburgh for March 15 to discuss the matter, implying that he would not be in attendance.
One can only imagine their surprise when, as their meeting was getting under way, in strode General Washington. The atmosphere was tense. A hush fell over the room and Washington began to speak, urging the men to resist the call to mutiny. For if they did act illegally, they would squander all the good will they had accumulated during the war:
“Let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures, which viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity, and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained; let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress.… By thus determining — & thus acting, you will pursue the plain & direct road to the attainment of your wishes. You will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice. You will give one more
distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism & patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings…”
When he finished, Washington reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter. But as he scanned the text, he fumbled for his reading glasses, saying to the officers, “Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown old in the service of my country and now find that I am growing blind.” With that offhand reference to his personal sacrifice on behalf of the American cause, many in the room began to cry and the anger subsided. Washington had snuffed out the Newburgh Conspiracy.
Three days later, Washington wrote to Congress to assure them that the crisis was over.
Who exactly was behind the Newburgh Conspiracy and how serious was the talk of mutiny and insurrection, remains a mystery. But the crisis was significant for several reasons. One, it revealed how weak and ineffective the national government was under the Articles of Confederation, and therefore it played a role in spurring on the movement for what became the Constitutional Convention four years later. Second, the crisis provided one of several moments in this period where the leadership of George Washington proved critical. As one biographer put it, Washington was the “indispensable man” who at every critical moment in the nation’s founding, provided the steady hand, dignified demeanor, and selfless leadership that helped maintain unity and dedication to the common cause.
For more information about the In The Past Lane podcast, head to our website, www.InThePastLane.com
Music for This Episode
Jay Graham, ITPL Intro (JayGMusic.com)
The Joy Drops, “Track 23,” Not Drunk (Free Music Archive)
Borrtex, “Perception” (Free Music Archive)
Blue Dot Sessions, "Pat Dog" (Free Music Archive)
Jon Luc Hefferman, “Winter Trek” (Free Music Archive)
The Bell, “I Am History” (Free Music Archive)
Production Credits
Executive Producer: Lulu Spencer
Graphic Designer: Maggie Cellucci
Website by: ERI Design
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© In The Past Lane, 2020
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