All posts by Phil Holland

It’s out!

It’s out! A Guide to the Battle of Bennington and the Bennington Monument, 56 pages long and illustrated with 37 color maps, photographs, and artworks, was published on Battle Day itself (August 16) by West Mountain Press and is now available in outlets in Bennington and Manchester, Vermont, and online through the Northshire Bookstore (northshire.com). A local paper quoted me as follows: “I thought,” says Holland, “that visitors to Bennington – and all of us who live here, for that matter – needed a popular guide to a battle that helped shape the course of American history. The more I learned about it myself, the more fascinated I became. The personalities, tactics, and the way the fighting played out in real time – if I were making a movie of it, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

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I had a great time researching it, writing it, finding the images I wanted to use, and playing a bit part in putting it all together – the major role once again went to Leslie Noyes, who designed a really attractive book. She also suggested my hiring the drone photographer (David Barnum) who took the top cover photo of the landscape around the Monument and a great one inside closer up. Now, to sell them (you may also order direct from me: $12.95 plus $3.99 first-class shipping, payable by check to me at 72 Grouse Lane, Shaftsbury, VT 05262; VT residents add 78 cents sales tax).

I promised a bibliography. Here it is:

This bibliography is divided into four parts: 1) on the Battle and related matters 2) on Daniel Redding 3) On the Bennington Monument 4) on Grandma Moses.

  1. On the Battle and related matters:

Anburey, Thomas, Travels through the interior parts of America, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1923.

Barker, Tom, “Loyalism in Rensselaer County,” The Symposium on the Battle of Bennington, Hoosick Township Historical Society, October, 2000, http://www.hoosickhistory.com/shortstories/BattleSymposium.htm

Barbieri, Michael, “Bennington Fatally Delays Burgoyne,” Journal of the American Revolution, June 11, 2013, https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/06/bennington-fatally-delays-burgoyne/

Bassett, T. D. Seymour, “Vermont’s Nineteenth-Century Civil Religion,” Proceedings of the Vermont Historical Society, Winter-Spring, 1999, vol. 67, nos. I & 2, pp. 27-53, https://vermonthistory.org/journal/misc/CivilReligion.pdf

“Battle of Bennington,” Bennington Banner, Nov. 28, 1889, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84022639/1889-11-28/ed-1/seq-2/

Bennington Battlefield State Historic Site, http://nysparks.com/historic-sites/12/details.aspx

Bennington, Postcard History Series, Bennington Historical Society and Bennington Museum, Acadia Publishing, Charleston, S.C., 2014.

Corbett, Theodore, No Turning Point, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 2012.

Cubbison, Douglas R., Burgoyne and the Saratoga Campaign: His Papers, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK, 2014.

Foster, Herbert D., and Thomas W. Streeter, “Stark’s Independent Command At Bennington,” Proceedings of the New York State Historical Association, vol. 5 (1905), pp. 24-95, Published by the New York State Historical Association, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42889850

Gabriel, Michael P., “I Did Not Hear a Single Shot Fired”: A Reevaluation of Lieutenant-Colonel Heinrich Breymann’s March to Bennington,” Hessians: Journal of the Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, August 2013, vol. 16, p. 37. http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/91969017/did-not-hear-single-shot-fired-reevaluation-lieutenant-colonel-heinrich-breymanns-march-benningtonhttp://eds.b.ebscohost.com.hrt-proxy.libraries.vsc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=3&sid=9b8714a9-708e-4a8b-9a53-d23acb6ae84f%40sessionmgr105&hid=126

Gabriel, Michael P., “We Were at the Bennington Battle,” Walloomsack Review, vol. 4, pp. 30-46.

Gabriel, Michael P., The Battle of Bennington: Soldiers and Civilians, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2012.

Hadden, James Murray, Hadden’s journal and orderly books: a journal kept in Canada and upon Burgoyne’s campaign in 1776 and 1777, Albany, N.Y., J. Munsell’s Sons, 1884, https://archive.org/details/haddensjournalor00hadd

Hall, Hiland, and Hall, N.B., Vermont Historical Magazine, pp. 136-181, http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~vtwindha/vhg1/0135_bennington.htm

Houghton, George Frederick, and James Davie Butler, Addresses on the Battle of Benningtonand the Services of Col. Seth Warner, Burlington, VT, 1849, Leopold Classic Library.

Ingrao, Charles W., The Hessian mercenary state: ideas, institutions, and reform under Frederick II, 1760-1785 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)

Kelleher, Sean, “Q&A: Douglas Cubbison on British General Burgoyne,” The New York History Blog, June 27, 2012, http://newyorkhistoryblog.org/2012/06/27/qa-douglas-cubbison-on-british-general-burgoyne/

Ketchum, Richard M, Saratoga, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1997.

http://www.littlebrownjug.net

“Lorimier, Claude-Nicolas-Guillaume De,” Dictionary of Canadian Biographyhttp://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/lorimier_claude_nicolas_guillaume_de_6E.html

Lowell, Edward J. (1884), The Hessians, New York: Harper & Brothers

Luzader, John F., Saratoga: A Military History of the Decisive Campaign of the American Revolution, Savas Beatie LLC, New York, 2010.

Miles, Lion G, “The Loyalists at the Battle of Bennington,” The Symposium on the Battle of Bennington, Hoosick Township Historical Society, October, 2000, http://www.hoosickhistory.com/shortstories/BattleSymposium.htm

Mintz, Max M., The Generals of Saratoga, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1992.

“The Northern Journey of Jefferson and Madison,” National Archives, Founders Online, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-20-02-0173-0001

Parks, Joe, “New York’s Part in the Battle of Bennington,” The Symposium on the Battle of Bennington, Hoosick Township Historical Society, October, 2000, http://www.hoosickhistory.com/shortstories/BattleSymposium.htm

Riedesel, Friederike Charlotte Luise von Massow, Memoirs, letters, and journals of Major General Riedesel, Chapel Hill, 1965.

Riedesel, Friedrich Adolf, Memoirs, letters, and journals of Major Heneral Riedesel, New York, 1969.

Regiment von Riedesel, http://vonriedesel.weebly.com/history.html

Rindfleisch, Bryan, “The Stockbridge-Mohican Community, 1775-1783, Journal of the American Revolution, Feb. 3, 2016,

https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/02/the-stockbridge-mohican-community-1775-1783/

Rose, Ben Z., John Stark, Maverick General, Treeline Press, 2007.

Saratoga National Historical Park, https://www.nps.gov/sara/index.htm

Smith, Richard B., The Revolutionary War in Bennington County, A History and Guide, The History Press, Charleston, SC, 2008.

Stark, Caleb,

Stevens, Lauren R., “The Hoosic Matters: A Brief History of the Hoosac Valley,” http://www.williamstownhistoricalmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Hoosic-History-12_2014.pdf

Sultzman, Lee, “Mahican History,” http://www.dickshovel.com/Mahican.html

Tokar, Major John A., “Logistics and the Defeat of Gentleman Johnny,”

Stephenson, Michael, Patriot Battles, Harper Collins, New York, 2007.

http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/julaug00/ms516.htm

Valosin, William, and Eric Schnitzer, personal communication, July 2016.

Ward, Christopher, The War of the Revolution, 1952.

Wasmus, J.F., An Eyewitness Account of the American Revolution and New England Life: The Journal of J.F. Wasmus, German Company Surgeon, 1776-1783, trans. Helga Doblin, ed. Mary C. Lynn, Praeger, Westport, VT. 1990.

Webler, Robert M., “German (So Called Hessian) Soldiers Who Remained In Massachusetts And Neighboring States, Particularly After The Battles Of Bennington And Saratoga,Hessians: Journal of the Johannes Schwalm Historical Association, http://jsha.org/articles/082-088_Webler.pdf

  1. On Daniel Redding

Bennington Museum archives, Bennington VT.

Burleigh, H.C., “The Sad Story of the Reddens,” https://archive.org/stream/hcbreddensbyburleigh/hcbreddensbyburleigh_djvu.txt

Metcalfe, Wynn, personal communication, Aug. 1, 2016.

Spargo, John, The Story of David Redding Who Was Hanged, Bennington Historical Society, Bennington VT, 1945.

Watt, Gavin, personal communication

  1. On the Bennington Monument:

The American Architect and Building News, vol. 18, no. 504, August 22, 1885. https://books.google.com/books?id=xBQvAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=entasis+bennington+battle+monument&source=bl&ots=8nDb6TtDEe&sig=XAh6i6sm74tnf3j81QBBgwxt6qM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiup7eWwJvNAhUKVz4KHdEfBuAQ6AEINjAE#v=onepage&q=entasis%20bennington%20battle%20monument&f=false

“Battle Monument” in SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VT-01-BE23.

http://benningtonbattlemonument.com

Bennington Museum archives.

Chicote, Marylou, personal communication, July 2016.

Gordon, John Steele, Washington’s Monument, Bloomsbury, NY, 2016.

Laying of the Cornerstone (program, August 16, 1887), Bennington VT.

Resch, Tyler, Bennington’s Battle Monument: Massive and Lofty, Beech Seal Press, Bennington, VT, 1993.

Spargo, John, The Bennington battle monument; its story and its meaning,” The Tuttle Company, Rutland, VT, 1925. https://archive.org/stream/benningtonbattle00spar/benningtonbattle00spar_djvu.txt

Weeks, Lyman H., “Description of the Monument,” Bennington Banner, Aug. 18, 1887.

  1. On Grandma Moses:

Cotter, Holland, “The Fenimore Art Museum Reconsiders an American Idol Named Grandma Moses,” The New York Times, Aug. 4, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/arts/design/04mose.html

Grandma Moses, American Modern, Shelburne Museum, Bennington Museum, Skira Rizzoli, New York, 2016.

Franklin, Jamie, personal communication, July 22, 2016.

“Grandma Moses to Give DAR Painting of Famous Battle,” Prescott Evening Courier, Oct. 19, 1953, https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=XV4nAAAAIBAJ&sjid=608DAAAAIBAJ&pg=4558%2C5048917

 Kallir, Jane, et al., Grandma Moses in the 21st Century, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2001.

Kallir, Otto, Grandma Moses, Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1973.

Marling, Karal Ann, Designs on the Heart, the Homemade Art of Grandma Moses, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 2006.

Robertson, Mary Ann (Grandma Moses), Grandma Moses, My Life’s History, Harper, New York. 1952.

Peter Schjeldahl, “The Original,” The New Yorker, May 28, 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

The Battle of Bennington is Coming!

I haven’t been posting, because I’ve been writing a book. It’s A Guide to the Battle of Bennington & the Bennington Monument (West Mountain Press), scheduled for publication on Battle Day, August 16. I wrote it with visitors to Bennington in mind, but we all need to revisit our history now and then. It’s quite a stirring story – if I were making a movie of the Battle, I wouldn’t change a thing. With the help of my terrific designer Leslie Noyes, I’ve tried to make the book visually appealing. Here’s what the cover looks like:

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The book will be available at outlets in Bennington County and through direct ordering. I’ll be posting information about how to get hold of it as soon as I have it in hand next week. In the meantime, I’m going to be speaking about it on VPR’s “Vermont edition” tomorrow (Thursday, August 11) at 12:35 pm.

“Render Unto Larry’s”

On July 16, 2009, the International Herald Tribune (now the International New York Times) published a little confessional essay of mine in its Op-Ed pages. I received compliments from a couple of American subscribers at Anatolia College in Greece, where I was teaching English, a piece of fan mail from a woman in Amsterdam, and a check from the IHT. End of story.

Until a week ago, when I mentioned “Render Unto Larry’s” to my girlfriend Amelia. She googled it in my presence. A link to its original appearance was the top hit. But not the only one.

“What this?” she asked. “‘Holland’s purpose in telling the general public’… It’s from a site called Course Hero.”
“What’s going on?” I wondered out loud.

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Lower down in the search results we found the answer: there was my essay listed in the Table of Contents of the 2nd edition of Back to the Lake: A Reader for Writers, ed. Thomas Cooley, an anthology published by Norton in 2011 for the college market. The rest of the links came from various student papers and study guides that had made their way online. We could access online only the Table of Contents of the antholakelogy, but I was able to see the names of some heavy hitters (Dillard, Russo, E.B. White) in proximity to my own. The publisher had neglected to inform me that I had become a classic author. I suppose the Times had given permission to reprint my piece. No mysterious royalty payments have arrived in my bank account. I was the last to know.

The student search results were more productive: “‘Render Unto Larry’s,’ Strategies and Structures,” for example, by Alexia Hankerson for Course Hero. I could only view 2/3 of the first page without paying for further access, but Hankerson seems to be helping others with their homework (for a fee). “Holland’s purpose for telling the general public about ‘the first time’ he confessed to stealing from Larry’s is because it was more difficult the first time he wanted to make amends.” The thrill of seeing my name in the third person, as a man with a purpose no less, quickly faded as the sentence grew murky, beginning at “is because.” It doesn’t speak very well for Course Hero, I’m afraid, but it is perhaps to be expected from a site which offers students 7 million course-specific, crowd-sourced study documents, one dedicated to my Larry’s piece as taught in English 103 at Northern Illinois University.

Wait, there’s more. A student named Schmicker (location, somewhere in cyberspace) wrote his first paper on my essay. He summarized it well, then said, “Reading this story, many memories from my childhood came back to me, but one in particular stood out.” My commentator was another juvenile thief, it seems, even younger than I was. He went on to tell his own story of transgression and deliverance, which shows the influence of Holland on Schmicker. Perhaps he was a student at Illinois Valley Community College (I seem to be well liked in Illinois), which assigned my essay in English 1001 in the fall term of (no year given). Meanwhile, at Sowela Technical Community College in Lake Charles, Louisiana, students were called on to discuss Holland’s use of dialogue and point of view as they relate to the definition of the narrative essay. After learning about the “success story” formula used by Franklin in his Autobiography, they are told that “one reading which uses a variation on this pattern is Phil Holland’s ‘Render unto Larry’s’.”  Franklin is actually in my story in the form of the face with pursed lips on the hundred dollar bill.

“Larry’s” also shows up as a 3-page homework assignment in Miss Abram’s honors English class at Wissahickon High in a suburb of Philadelphia. Miss Abram assigned, besides essays on me, Shakespeare, and other distinguished authors, the following intriguing paper topic:

Write a one-paragraph essay proving the thesis below. Pick two sins and give examples from the text that prove your thesis. Thesis: The members of St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception Church are very sinful, indeed.

Kinky! Especially for a public school. But I see now that the assignment refers to an article in the Onion that also landed in Narrative.

Amelia clicked on another link and found “Larry’s” coupled with an essay by Toni Morrison at St. Clair County Community College in Port Huron, Michigan. The next entry transported us to the English 103 syllabus at McCook Community College in McCook (pop. 7,698), Nebraska.

And there the trail ended, in the middle of the Great Plains.

I ordered a second-hand copy of Back to the Lake. It just arrived. I see that it is not unlike the anthology that I have been using this term at the Bennington branch of the Community College of Vermont, except that I am in it. There is even a brief biography, lifted, it seems, from the website of TESOL Macedonia-Thrace, on whose board I once sat. And, of course, my essay is accompanied by a battery of thoughtful study questions about Holland’s purpose, point of view, etc.

Before you rush to order Back to the Lake, I must advise you to seek out the 2nd edition; “Render Unto Larry’s” has unfortunately disappeared from the 3rd. Sic transit gloria.

 

 

 

Live from the Woods, with Kiwis

I know, I haven’t posted in a long time. I’m not sure if I’ve ever had blog visitors other than my children and my girlfriend, though I have not lacked for comments. I have had 285 of those, all but a few (from my children and my girlfriend) automated come-ons from web-services inviting me to get SEO help (Search Engine Optimization) or the like. Some are encouraging:

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Spam, spam, spam, spam, bacon and spam… (we’re back live). Nonetheless, having just paid my annual domain fee, I thought I’d better post something.

Chopping trees in the backyard – I mean, when I was in junior high school – I am doing it still, though I don’t call it the backyard anymore. That’s what it is, though (even in the absence of a front yard), and this will be the second time I have cleared it (with a chain saw, not a hatchet). Most of the trees are around 25 years old, 5 or 6 inches in diameter at breast height, and straight and tall from competition. Many of them are resprouts from trees that I cut in the mid-80s, when they must have been 30 or 40 years old, having begun their lives when the pasture was let go after World War II by the man who owned the farm, Horace Galusha. The children didn’t want to keep farming, and the daughter who stayed and outlived her parents (and who is still living) gradually sold off most of the land, including 23.5 acres of woodland on the lower slopes of West Mountain to us in 1983.

The time had come to cope with the hardy kiwi vines that had been left to run riot in the forest for 20 years. I had built them an arbor when they were young, but in those days this plant did not come with a “Warning: Hardy kiwifruit may become invasive in certain areas of the Northeast – particularly on calcareous soils – smothering neighboring trees and other forest species.” That’s from the Cornell University Extension service. The hardy kiwi is what they call a “vigorous grower.” Vines may grow 10 or even 20 feet per year; do the math. There were warnings as early as 1890, but after a burst of interest in the late 19th century on some estates in the Berkshires, the species languished, until becoming a favorite of homesteaders (I have read with a certain pride) in the 70s and 80s. The woman who sold us our land gave us two seedlings in little peat pots, one male one female (as required). I prepared a bed with lots of old cow manure and built an arbor from purchased cedar posts. We had a few harvests before we left for Greece: the fruits, the size of large grapes, mature in late September and soften after picking. They’re not fuzzy like the larger supermarket kiwi (no peeling required), but they have the same beautiful green flesh with rays in cross section and tiny black seeds. They have a tangy sweetness and intense kiwi flavor that have made them a specialty item at certain alternative-fruit-forward farmstands, though I have yet to see them at the Bennington Farmer’s Market.

And now I am Hercules battling vigorous twisting serpents with scales and whips. I saw and slash, lop and cut and prune and pull and almost fall… but I am winning the battle! The other day a vine that I was dragging swung around and knocked the cap right off my head with an audible pop. I retrieved my cap and that vine is now on its back up on one of my brush piles.

I had to cut 20 trees to bring the vines down from where they had climbed into the forest. I cut the trunks off at 6 feet in case I decide to use them as posts for a new arbor. The rest of those trees is now stacked in another woodpile. I still have some pruning to do, but I have already taken to heart the professional’s advice, “You can’t prune a kiwi too much.” We’ll see. It would be fun to have a kiwi orchard. The fruit and jam, made from the fruit I could reach, were a hit this past season.

This property has, like the Hundred Acre Wood in Winnie-the-Pooh, various features, among them the sledding slop, which my son cleared with me last fall, which has a view of the Monument and Mt. Greylock from the top; the lower spriphoto 2ng, which gushes from the mountainside, forms a year-round pool, then begins a seasonal brook 150 yards from the house along a trail through the woods, our first trail as it was our first drinking water; the beautiful, rugged sitting-rock that dominates a slope along the trail where there used to be a glade or small wet meadow large enough for a woodcock to make its nuptial flights there in our earliest years when the forest was younger – now it is closed in, but I have been reclaiming the open area (I cut four trees there today), the better to let the bulbs I planted by the rock last fall, as Holly used to do, get sunlight enough to become established, and to create a temple (to her memory) in the woods. There are purple crocuses there now, with other flowers on the way. If this were a West Mountain theme park, that would be Holly’s Rock on the Heritage Trail. Nearer to the house are the four garden plots, and I am going to give the asparagus trenches prepared 30 years ago a try this year with 25 crowns of Purple Passion from Jophoto 3hnny’s. The outhouse (with no front door and a window filled with marbles); the henhouse and goat shed attached to it; the cabin, restoration of which I began last year and is this year’s project; the woodpiles, crazily multiplying in every direction; the lawn with its flat stones and solar panels; the house, now with a stone wall in front; the boulder with its high vault of maples; the standing-stone trail to the largest, highest glacial boulder just over our line and thence to the upper spring, our never-failing gravity-fed water source; the figure 8 trail to the top of the property and around down across the seasonal brook back toward the house or field, depending on whether you cut over through the beeches by the huge oak not far from the house, though still in the woods, which was the first shrine: I clear-cut the small trees around the base of it in a circle, now restored; the field itself, the forest temple above it once home to a camping adventure; the maple woods and broad main trail above the Ketterers leading back up to the meadow-that-was and Holly’s Rock. Those are the major points of interest in this Wood – other than the woods themselves.

 

Firewood Abounding

I guess I should explain the woodpiles. I have 21 of them. I counted them today, taking as one pile one stack of firewood piled 3 to 4 feet high on rails with cribbing at both ends, that is, with towers of half-round, cross-piled logs to bookend each pile. Each stack contains one-third to one-half cord of wood, so I figure that I have at least 8 cords on hand. That is what I should have: 4 to burn this winter and 4 to season for next year.photo-15

Last week I visited the man who grew up on the farm of which these 23.5 acres were a modest part. In his boyhood (be was born in 1925) this land, now mostly woodland, was pasture for sheep and cows. The woodlot was elsewhere on the property, and they took 30 cords of firewood out of it each year: 10 for the family house, 10 for his grandfather’s house across the road, and 10 for sugaring. His father always had it stacked a year ahead of time, too. He would have had nearly 60 cords laid up at this time of year, which puts my 8 cords in perspective. All that wood would have been cut before chain-saws and splitters, moreover. I do split with a maul myself, but my woodpiles are child’s play compared to the cords of the past.

I am not much of a quant, but let me do a little arithmetic. My woodbox holds roughly 40 pieces of firewood. It’s 10 or so cubic feet. That works out to 500 pieces of firewood per cord. That means I have cut, split (as needed), and stacked around 4000 pieces of firewood since October of last year. I had to cut most of those trees down anyway, and the biggest ones, an oak, a black birch, a red maple, and two beeches, had outgrown their welcome in the backyard.

I have come to know my wood well during these encounters. When a cord and a half gets stacked on my front porch over Christmas (I am expecting the help of elves), I imagine playing the 16-foot-long pile like a xylophone, according to the day’s needs: selecting a fanfare of split red maple for the first fire of the morning, then variations on the theme of heat with maple rounders or pieces of black birch, giving way to well-seasoned oak or (depending on the temperature outside) a riff of hot-burning hornbeam, and then in late afternoon, when the fire has died down, a piece of popple or paper birch to quickly reignite it for the evening burn.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection.  I love to have mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me of my pleasing work. 

Everyone who heats with wood knows who wrote those words. The guy had a small house by a pond, and an open hearth instead of a stove. And he too used his wood strategically:

Hard green wood just cut, though I used but little of that, answered my purpose better than any other.  I sometimes left a good fire when I went to take a walk in a winter afternoon; and when I returned three or four hours afterward, it would be still alive and glowing.  My house was not empty though I was gone.  It was as if I had a cheerful housekeeper behind.  It was I and Fire that lived there.

I too can see, and smile at, some of my piles out the kitchen window, but I haven’t developed that same intimacy with this not-yet-arrived winter’s god of fire yet, especially during the sweet, mild December days we’ve been having lately. It is 6 pm, and the biscuit fire I laid this morning has long gone ouphoto-14t. I may or may not light another one this evening. But I remember how close I felt to Fire last February. That was more like survival than housekeeping, though. I am ready!