The Overflowing of Friendship: Love Between Men and the Creation of the American Republic by Richard Godbeer

Author:Richard Godbeer [Godbeer, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, United States, General, Social Science, Gender Studies, LGBTQ+ Studies, Gay Studies, Americas (North; Central; South; West Indies)
ISBN: 9780801891205
Google: Vs3-DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: JHU Press
Published: 2009-01-12T00:13:04.568522+00:00

Contemporaries were well aware that Continental army officers described themselves as “brothers” in a “family” that was tight-knit, loving, and supportive. New England dramatist Royall Tyler addressed this sense of kinship among patriot officers in The Contrast, a play first performed in April 1787 at the John Street Theater in New York City. Colonel Manly, who has just arrived in New York, declines an invitation to “see the city” with a foppish character named Billy Dimple, even though the latter is “known to almost every family in town,” on the grounds that he has business to attend to and that his own “family” will “be anxious to hear from [him].” Maria, a young lady with secret designs on the officer, concludes from this remark that he must be married and so asks him, “How did you leave your lady, sir?” But Charlotte, Manly’s sister, assures Maria that it is “only an odd way he has of expressing himself.” Colonel Manly himself goes on to explain: “I call my late soldiers my family. Those who were not in the field in the late glorious contest, and those who were, have their respective merits; but, I confess, my old brother-soldiers are dearer to me than the former description. Friendships made in adversity are lasting; our countrymen may forget us, but that is no reason why we should forget one another.” Indeed, Colonel Manly is in New York “to solicit the honorable Congress, that a number of my brave old soldiers may be put upon the pension-list, who were, at first, not judged to be so materially wounded as to need the public assistance.” He is there, in other words, to take care of his “family.”52

When officers referred to themselves as fellow members of a military family, they conferred on their relationships with one another a meaning and status that paralleled those of a domestic household. As we have already seen, the family served in early American society not only as the basic unit of social identity but also as a fundamental point of reference for understanding any kind of relationship.53 In the past, familial imagery had been used most commonly and conventionally to evoke the authority exercised by fathers and husbands, but American revolutionaries were much more interested in the ties of brotherhood. In a manifesto issued by George Washington in 1778 on behalf of the Continental army, the general declared that patriots “invite[d] all nations to mutual friendship and brotherly love.” The commander-in-chief’s choice of words was deliberate and part of a larger rhetorical strategy that had taken shape during the decade preceding Independence. As early as 1768, faced with a parent country that had confounded their expectations and trust, John Dickinson envisaged “a band of brothers” joined in “righteous contest,” “cemented by the dearest ties” and “that sympathetic ardor which animates good men confederated in a good cause.” Six years later, another opponent of British policies also envisaged “patriots and heroes” joined as “a band of brothers.”54

As Americans became disenchanted

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.