Congress's Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union (Volume 73)

Campaigns and Commanders

by Holly A. Mayer

Colonel Moses Hazen’s 2nd Canadian Regiment was one of the first “national” regiments in the American army. Created by the Continental Congress, it drew members from Canada, eleven states, and foreign forces. “Congress’s Own” was among the most culturally, ethnically, and regionally diverse of the Continental Army’s regiments—a distinction that makes it an apt reflection of the union that was struggling to create a nation.

The 2nd Canadian, like the larger army, represented and pushed the transition from a colonial, continental alliance to a national association. The problems the regiment raised and encountered underscored the complications of managing a confederation of states and troops.

In this enterprising study of an intriguing and at times “infernal” regiment, Holly A. Mayer marshals personal and official accounts—from the letters and journals of Continentals and congressmen to the pension applications of veterans and their widows—to reveal what the personal passions, hardships, and accommodations of the 2nd Canadian can tell us about the greater military and civil dynamics of the American Revolution. Congress’s Own follows congressmen, commanders, and soldiers through the Revolutionary War as the regiment’s story shifts from tents and trenches to the halls of power and back.

Interweaving insights from borderlands and community studies with military history, Mayer tracks key battles and traces debates that raged within the Revolution’s military and political borderlands wherein subjects became rebels, soldiers, and citizens. Her book offers fresh, vivid accounts of the Revolution that disclose how “Congress’s Own” regiment embodied the dreams, diversity, and divisions within and between the Continental Army, Congress, and the emergent union of states during the War for American Independence.
 

408 pages, Hardcover

Published April 1, 2021

Reviews

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

You might say that my interest in reading a book such as this, dealing with a very obscure military unit (though I do love my obscure military units), was planted from the years that I worked at the U.S. National Archives, and would occasionally shelf-check for a small series of records referred to as "Canadian Volunteer Warrants." Simply speaking, these were the basic records of federal land grants to soldiers who joined the "Patriot" side in the American Revolution, and who won the war but lost the battle; bringing the area around Montreal into the Continental Confederacy.

The story that Prof. Mayer tells is an involved one, but at the core of it are the 1st & 2nd Canadian Regiments, raised during the 1775 invasion of Canada, and filled with men (both English and French speaking), who didn't care for how the so-called "Quebec Act" of 1774 revived many of the privileges of the French gentry class. Thus started an adventure where these men were run out of Canada, along with Benedict Arnold, spent the whole war fighting to return to Canada on their own terms, and who mostly wound up being resettled in upstate New York and Vermont.

This doesn't tell the half of it because, in particular, the 2nd Regiment was a problematic unit. In as much as the Canadian regiments had no state government to support them, the Continental Congress had to enable and provision them, and Congress became collectively unenthusiastic over time with the responsibility; not helped by how the commander of the 2nd, Moses Hazen (a nominal American who had put down roots in Quebec), was really difficult to deal with. Combat effectiveness and personal commitment was what kept this unit alive, though the wonder is that the whole problem wasn't dumped on New York State at some point.

In the end, the actual Canadians in the unit did get some solid recompense, mostly in the form of land grants from the U.S. and New York governments, with Albany looking for people to populate lands stripped from the Seven Nations of the Iroquois. The last laugh might have been had by those members of the regiment who eventually found themselves as officers in the New York Militia fighting, and beating, British forces at the battle of Plattsburgh in 1814. There's probably a streaming mini-series in all this for someone with a good imagination; historical or otherwise!

Apart from that, Prof. Mayer has a lot to say about the building of imagined communities, social frontiers, and the creation of bonds between individuals. This is all of relevant concern, but after a certain point gets labored and repetitive.

So, while not the first book you should read on the subject (I'd suggest Mark Anderson's "The Battle for the Fourteenth Colony"), I certainly found this work worthy of the time invested. Frankly, I'm surprised that it seems to have made so little impact; possibly too much sociology for the readers who want straight-up military history, and too much "drums & trumpets" for the folks mostly concerned with social and political history.

[Eugene A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Offering a unique genre or original interpretative approach to portraying Revolutionary Era history is daunting, as countless American War of Independence books are published yearly. Dr. Holly Mayer creatively addresses the genre innovation challenge in her book Congress’s Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union. Dr. Mayer’s work is, at its core, a regimental history of the Second Canadian Regiment. However, there are many layers to Mayer’s intensively researched monograph. She posits that Congress’s Own, as many soldiers referred to the Second Canadian Regiment, represents a microcosm of the Continental Army for four reasons; the unit uniquely consisted of soldiers from many colonies, as with other regiments, there were constant, intense intra and inter-unit interpersonal disputes among the officers, the Second Canadian represents the general Revolutionary Era historiographic concept of “borderlands” and officers and soldiers experienced trouble getting paid for their service at the end of the war.

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