Tag Archives: common people

Order in the Court

26 Wednesday Mar 2014

Posted by in Living History, Reenacting, Research

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Female court martial : held upon the conduct of an admirable lady. [London? : s.n., 1757] Lewis Walpole Digital Library 757.03.00.04+

Female court martial : held upon the conduct of an admirable lady.
[London? : s.n., 1757] Lewis Walpole Digital Library 757.03.00.04+

Everything I think I know about courts-martial I learned from the movies (The Caine Mutiny and Breaker Morant, or Paths of Glory) but thankfully I can realize that knowledge is probably not so applicable to Bridget and her context.

Thanks to Yale, it’s easy enough to find the  Rules and Orders for the Continental Army, as set down by the Continental Congress in 1775. I don’t have to know this, the guys know it, but it’s helpful for me to understand what’s happening. I also figure Bridget would have known how the system worked (or should have) since she was part of it, and would have observed life around her. In the same way that I understand the  organizational politics and policies of my workplace, she and the soldiers would have understood the rules and regulations under which they lived and worked.

In the first case, remember the shirt-selling soldiers? Here’s the regulation they were breaking:

“Art. XV. Whatsoever non-commissioned officer or soldier, shall be convicted, at a regimental court-martial, of having sold, or designedly, or through neglect, wasted the ammunition, arms, or provisions, or other military stores, delivered out to him, to be employed in the service of this Continent, shall, if an officer, be reduced to a private centinel; and if a private soldier, shall suffer such punishment as shall be ordered by a regimental court-martial.”

There you have it: they sold provisions or “other military stores” delivered to them to be employed in the service of the Continent, and suffered such punishments as were ordered.

And Bridget? Well, for one thing, she should have known she was subject to the articles, rules, and regulations. She was one of those “all persons whatsoever.”

“Art. XXXII. All suttlers and retailers to a camp, and all persons whatsoever, serving with the continental army in the field, though not inlisted soldiers, are to be subject to the articles, rules, and regulations of the continental army.”

Technically, I cannot find anything stating outright that one could not buy issued goods from the soldiers to whom it had been issued, but since selling it was wrong, receiving was wrong, too.

We know from the final punishment that Bridget probably breaks yet another article:

“Art. XL. No person whatsoever shall use menacing words, signs, or gestures in the presence of a court-martial then sitting, or shall cause any disorder or riot, so as to disturb their proceeding, on the penalty of being punished at the discretion of the said court-martial.”

I think the “the Insolence to the officers of [the 10th Massachusetts] Regiment” may have taken place at the court-martial, given the swiftness of her punishment.

Any old Shirts?

24 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by in Clothing, History, Laundry, Living History, Making Things

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DSC_0041
The photos people have of the Millinery Conference at Williamsburg– well, they’re a little envy-inducing. All the silks gowns on such a beautiful site are a little overwhelming if you like historic costumes, but if I was all about silk gowns it might be harder to do what I am doing.

I did discover a fool-proof way to unnerve the teenager in the living history household. If you get dressed in your 18th-century clothing early enough on a Sunday morning, the child will ask, “Um, Mom? Are you just fitting, or do we have an event?” You get one glorious moment to decide whether or not to torture the child before he figures out that even you are not crazy enough to go to an event in March without stockings.

Bridget’s gown is done, but for the hem, which is turned up and about a quarter sewn. I tried it on yesterday to make sure it fit. I threw most caution to the wind and made up the new Golden Scissors English Gown pattern without making  a muslin because I’d checked my own self-fitted pattern pieces to the English Gown pieces and found them nearly identical. Anything likely to need work– shoulder straps– I knew could be done in the lining and not matter terrifically.

Why, you ask, did I bother with a new pattern? In part because my own has migrated (my backs have been trending too wide of late) and because I needed a solid, step-by-step guide to more correct assembly. The sleeve pleats still annoy me, mostly because they get done on a dress form and not on me, but they allow movement and that really counts. DSC_0047

The stomacher front style is a compromise: I want to be able to wear this at events earlier than 1782, so I’m working on the assumption that Bridget didn’t migrate to the more fashionable center-front closing style in the 1780s because she couldn’t.

The accessories are chosen because they were affordable ways to upgrade appearance: it takes hardly any chintz for a stomacher, and a handkerchief is bright but small. The hat is more common than a bonnet among working women, and the mules were chosen because they appear in an engraving of a crippled soldier and his family. All Sandby’s women wear heeled and buckled shoes in styles not to be found ready-made in my size, so  mules are my compromise.

I still think Bridget looks too clean and too pretty, but until I find fabric I like for a bedgown, this will have to do. The details, should you care for them:

Hat, Burnley and Trowbridge, lined with a Wm Booth remnant, trimmed with B&T ribbon. My hair is out up with straight pins from Dobyns & Martin, and under the hat in a lappet cap with the strings tied on top of my head.

The coral necklace is from In the Long Run, I’ll replace the grey poly ribbon with black silk ribbon once it’s in from Wm Booth.

The neckerchief is from B&T, again, and selected because the pattern was similar to the one worn by the young woman in the Domestick Employment: Washing print.

DSC_0051The gown fabric is from the second floor discount loft at the Lorraine mill store in Pawtucket. It’s 100% cotton, yes, it really does flame, and I’ll just have to be careful. (The women who cook in cotton at OSV are probably vastly more graceful than I, and do not fall into things.) It’s a light brown and white tiny check weave, and looks a great deal like a homespun gingham. I chose it because it tends to wrinkle badly and should show the dirt well: in short, I chose it because I don’t expect it to wear particularly well.

The petticoat is from the last of some ‘madder’ linen Burnley & Trowbridge had a few years ago, and the mules are from them; I think the apron linen was, too, but I can’t remember.

Those shirts are blue and white check from Wm Booth, and I have no idea how they got into my apron. Stop asking, or I’ll get my stick.

Who was Bridget Connor?

26 Wednesday Feb 2014

Posted by in History, Living History, Research

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Detail, James Malton, 1761-1803, A Military Encampment in Hyde Park, 1785, Watercolor with pen in black ink, with traces of graphite on moderately thick, moderately textured, beige, laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection. B2001.2.999

Detail, James Malton, A Military Encampment in Hyde Park, 1785. YCBA Paul Mellon Collection. B2001.2.999

Who knows? She’s hard to find, though I am told and have real hope that the microfilm of the Abbott orderly books that chronicle her misdeeds in wending its way to me down the dirty, salt-and-sand covered highways of southeastern New England.

Where have I looked for her and Francis Connor, whom I presume is her husband?

Francis appears in Soldiers and Sailors of Massachusetts, for seven months’ service. That’s all I can find.

Well, crap, right? This genealogy stuff in Massachusetts is hard work—there are so many more people and towns than we have here in Li’l Rhody—but diligence and method pay off, and when you figure you’ve about exhausted the primary sources you can access for now,[1] you turn to secondary sources.

Lest you think I dislike Deborah Samson, note that I found her life a useful source in thinking about Bridget, as well as Book of Ages and Jane Franklin Mecom’s life. I’ve also been re-reading Holly Mayer’s Belonging to the Army.

Crippled soldier with family. Etching, London (?) ca. 1760. Lewis Walpole Library, 760.00.00.16

Crippled soldier with family. Etching, London (?) ca. 1760. Lewis Walpole Library, 760.00.00.16

The common denominator: poverty, and the resulting lack of choices. This is useful for Bridget, because her story is probably one of necessity. Most women who followed the Continental Army, and worked for it, were from the lowest ranks. [2] These are women who would do what was necessary to survive, and as Mayer notes, “would rather steal than starve.” [3]

I’m not suggesting that Bridget, who would likely have received rations, needed to steal shirts to survive: I rather think she was attempting to leverage her position and profit by ill-gotten gains. But how did she end up in the Army to begin with? Massachusetts in 1782 is not New York in 1780, or Rhode Island in 1778.  What drove her to (presumably) follow Francis Connor?

Late in the war, maintaining troop strength is more difficult. The fervor of patriotism has cooled, and recruiting sergeants find it harder to fill the ranks.[4] There are bounties to be had, and the economy has suffered. Could Francis have been a property-less laborer who enlisted for the bounty? Nothing talks like cash. And, if the couple were tenants somewhere, without Francis’ income, Bridget might not have been able to maintain a home. Laundry doesn’t pay that much.

Why didn’t she stay with family? Could they have been indentured servants? Could they have been immigrants? My guess is that Bridget had no family, and if Francis had family, Bridget got on with them as well as she did with the officers of the 10th. I think she had nowhere to go, no way to survive without Francis.

Did they love each other? Did they like each other? Were they grifting together? I don’t know—but Francis Connor deserts the same day Bridget Connor is expelled from camp, so they’re bound together in some way. No matter what, Bridget was assuredly dependent on Francis.

Knowing so little about them opens up a world of possibilities, and the “opportunity” to do a great deal more research on the context of 18th century Massachusetts populations and enlistments. My best guess is that they’re an unpropertied laboring class couple from Boston, source of many of the relatively unstable and non-homogenous companies that made up the 10th Massachusetts. I also think they don’t have family, and might be former indentured servants. I have guesses about their religion and country of origin, which could be why the records are so hard to find. [5]

Looking for Bridget, and not finding her, leaves me with more and more questions, and I’m happy about that.

[1] She’s in the Abbott Orderly books, at least. Other Orderly Books to follow, as time and funds permit.

[2] Mayer, Belonging to the Army, page 122.

[3] Mayer, page 127

[4] How do you think Deborah Samson got in, passing as a boy? That’s 1782 for you.

[5] The Catholic Diocese of Rhode Island maintains separate historical vital records, and when we cannot find someone in the usual town records, we ask the genealogist if their family is perhaps Catholic or Quaker. Lack of evidence can be a suggestion of faith in my home state. But could these two be Irish Catholic in Massachusetts in 1782? I have no idea, but it seems a great stretch and a great question all at once.

The Birth-Night Ball (a preview)

24 Monday Feb 2014

Posted by in Clothing, Events, Living History, Reenacting

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Fully done up.

Photos by a real photographer won’t be available for another two weeks (patience, Iago, patience) but  Mr S and I had a lovely time, high-heeled shoes excepted. The gowns were dramatic, the gentlemen dandy, and the dancing elegant, if bumpy at the start. There are some videos here, both of the assembled company dancing, and of the lovely minuet demonstration.

Selfie, and ready for bed!

I managed a phone photo just before I crashed into bed, and am generally satisfied with how the dressed-up laundress appeared. Clearly my laundry business is doing very, very well, or I have liberated some earrings from a client. One of the most challenging things about this event (aside from my over-thinking freak outs) was not having a persona to hold onto. We started reenacting as lower-class 18th century types, and spent some time as tenant farmers and maids. Mr S and I do not have clothes for the gentry, but can inch into the middling sorts when we want to.

That’s fine, and it’s comfortable– we’ve not yet really reached all the way down the lower sorts, either–but it does mean that when we’re presented with the opportunity to dress above our station, the need to really understand the new station kicks in, and delays the process.

I’ll finish that silk sacque someday, and sooner rather than later, but I’m glad I held off so I can really get the gown right, as well as the shoes, hair style, and other accessories.

Anachronisms, ahoy!

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Art Rant, Book Review, History

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Deborah Sam[p]son (Gannett), oil on paper by Joseph Stone, 1797. RIHS Museum Collection, Gift of Jesse Metcalf, 1900.6.1

Deborah Sam[p]son (Gannett), oil on paper by Joseph Stone, 1797. RIHS Museum Collection, Gift of Jesse Metcalf, 1900.6.1

There’s a petition circulating in certain government circles in support of a campaign to give Deborah Sam[p]son her very own stamp. This is, in part, fueled by the upcoming 250th anniversary of the founding of Sharon, MA.

I’ve got no problem with that—commemoration is something we humans do and need. And Deborah Samson’s is an interesting story, but possibly not for the reasons cited in the letters from officials who shall remain nameless. They describe her as “a pioneer of promoting women’s rights and eliminating gender barriers” and “a trailblazer for gender equality,” phrases that would have been just about nonsense in the Revolutionary war period.

And that’s my problem with it: the anachronistic representation of a woman’s story, bent to the purposes of the present. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a feminist, I’ve enjoyed Deborah Samson’s story since I read about her as a kid in one book or another, so I sympathize with the Stamp Movement.

What makes me crazy is bad history.

Hannah Snell, as depicted in an excerpt from "The Life and Adventures of a Female Soldier," the narrative of the most famous cross-dressing British soldier of the century. It appeared in Isaiah Thomas's New England Almanack (Boston, 1774). Printers recycled the image on other imprints. American Antiquarian Society.

Hannah Snell, as depicted in an excerpt from “The Life and Adventures of a Female Soldier,” the narrative of the most famous cross-dressing British soldier of the century. It appeared in Isaiah Thomas’s New England Almanack (Boston, 1774). Printers recycled the image on other imprints. American Antiquarian Society.

In Masquerade, Alfred Young tells Sampson’s story well, busting myths that both we—and she—created. (This short bio is a good overall sketch of Deborah’s life. ) What struck me the most about Deborah Samson’s life was the lack of certainty, stability, and material comfort. We’ll never know the specific circumstances that led her to enlist, though Young does yeoman’s work to unearth everything he can about her life and circumstances, and the context in which she lived.

I’m not an unbiased reader—I did get a little shouty on the third floor when I read “trailblazer for gender equality,” and that phrase has lingered and grown tattered as my colleagues and I have chewed it over—but Young’s point about women of the lower sorts is well taken.

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Young about the book:
“In cross-dressing, Deborah was like a good many other plebeian women we are discovering who were in flight: to escape indentured servitude, to avoid the shame of a pregnancy, to get out of the reaches of the law, and so on. But to explain why she carried it off so long, you have to fall back on her skills and resourcefulness.”

So much for that pioneer of promoting women’s rights—Samson was a pioneer in skillful deceit (no mean feat) and in using that deceit to further the main chance, that is, Deborah Samson’s chance. What’s wrong with that? I like that better, and that’s my bias and my interests.

Reading about Deborah Samson helped me think about Bridget Connor and the women like her, probably less skilled and less educated than Samson, probably even more impoverished. It’s a mysterious mix of personality and circumstances that drives us all, but considering what we can know about Deborah Samson helps us understand her not so much as a pioneer for gender equality but as a self-interested human being acting for herself despite the barriers of class, education, and gender. And that can help us understand the people we can know even less about, like Bridget Connor.

For a taste of historical prose, you can find an annotated version of Samson’s story written by Herman Mann here, at Harvard University Library’s digital page delivery system.