A Forgotten Civil War

Spent my Tuesday drive time running back through Legends of the Old West’s outstanding five-part podcast on the Hatfield-McCoy Feud. That 25-year conflict evolved out of the divide between neighbors — and among families —  that characterized the household war in western Virginia in the 1860s. While it’s by far the most famous example of this kind of conflict, it’s far from unusual. And it’s not unprecedented in American history.

As I delve deep into irregular warfare in the American Civil War, I am repeatedly cast back to America’s First Civil War….

Fort Stanwix National Historical Monument has posted a three-part blog series on A Forgotten Civil War — the bitter struggle in the Mohawk Valley during the American Revolution. Many residents of the Valley remained loyal to the Crown, and were run out of their homes by the Patriots (or Rebels) as war broke out in 1775. They fled to Canada. Many of them would return in arms, allied with Iroquois who were also displaced, conducting slashing, destructive raids as they tried to reclaim their homes — or at least destroy their enemies’ ability to enjoy them.

From “Wolves of the Mohawk Valley” by Don Troiani.

The Fort Stanwix Blog sets the frame:

During the nation’s bicentennial in 1976, the idea of us being a UNITED States was very important, and therefore, a rosy picture was sometimes painted in celebrations and histories of our fight for independence from Great Britain. In this picture, the colonists were largely depicted as being united in their desire for independence, and while colonists remaining loyal to Great Britain were not dismissed entirely, they were largely ignored and their stories and role in the revolution downplayed. As we begin celebrating the 250th anniversary of our nation’s Independence, things have changed considerably. Historians now fully acknowledge the fact that the United States’ first true “Civil War” occurred during the American Revolution, with many colonists openly supporting the British in many ways.

Nowhere was the civil war nature of things more evident than in the Mohawk Valley, where most of the combatants were former white and Indian friends, neighbors, and family members. What follows is the story of one such Mohawk Valley resident. He was not one of the famous people of the Revolution, not even in the Mohawk Valley. He was simply an ordinary person thrust into very uncertain and scary times. In this regard, he is not unlike many of us living our everyday lives in the world today. While ultimately this man would become a “Loyalist” and support the British Government, his story also illustrates that the path to becoming a “Rebel” or a “Loyalist” was far from straightforward.

Part I

Part II

Part III

The dark and  bitter tale of the civil war in the Mohawk Valley is well recounted in Bloody Mohawk: The French and Indian War & American Revolution on New York’s Frontier, which should be on every Frontier Partisans reading list.