海角大神

When revolutionary news traveled at the speed of horseback

Journalism, we are told, is the first rough draft of history. News comes in short, incomplete bursts 鈥� just enough information to change one鈥檚 life, but not enough information to give a full picture of where things are headed.

In 鈥淲hen the Declaration of Independence Was News鈥� historian Emily Sneff explores the early, uncertain days of the American Revolution from the viewpoint of patriots and loyalists, politicians and power brokers, men and women, servants and kings. 鈥淢ost books written about the Declaration have pursued questions about its precedents and authorship, as well as its legacy,鈥� she writes. 鈥淏ut in 1776, when the Declaration was news, it was part of an ever-changing ... amalgam of accurate and inaccurate information, gossip, military intelligence, speculation, and opinion.鈥�

In my own reporting, covering wars and conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, I watched people make life-and-death decisions based on information that could be accurate, inaccurate, or merely gossip. Even eyewitness statements (the gold standard of journalism) can be imperfect, limited, subjective.

What would it have been like to be a rebel battalion commander, a British colonial official, or a patriot or loyalist family, forced to rely on information that might have traveled at the speed of horseback, its value diminishing with each passing hour?

Ambrose Serle, secretary to British Vice Admiral Richard Howe, experienced a kind of whiplash when he and Howe disembarked from the HMS Eagle in New York Harbor on July 12, 1776. The Eagle, he wrote in his journal, 鈥渨as saluted by all the Ships of War in the Harbour, by the Cheers of the Sailors all along the Ships, and by those of the Soldiers on the Shore.鈥�

But then Serle learned about the Declaration of Independence, signed just eight days earlier. 鈥淭he Congress have at length thought it convenient to throw off the Mask.鈥� He added, 鈥溾�橳is impossible to read this Paper, without Horror at the Hypocrisy of these Men, who call GOD to witness the uprightness of their Proceedings.鈥�

Serle鈥檚 response, while understandable, was already out of date. On July 9, the newly designated head of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington, ordered the declaration read to his troops stationed on Manhattan Island. Washington knew it was important for soldiers to know what they were fighting for. As Sneff writes, the Continental Army responded with three huzzahs. A few hours later, a statue of King George III on the Bowling Green at the southern tip of Manhattan was torn down and melted into bullets.

In the following weeks, as news of the declaration spread, it often split communities, in which perhaps one-third of the population identified as patriots, one-third as loyalists, and a third as undecided and simply yearning for a return to peace. This three-way split affected church congregations, and especially the Anglican Church, whose clergy had sworn loyalty oaths to the king. As pressure mounted for clergy to read the Declaration of Independence to their congregations, Anglican clergymen and their families had to choose between their oaths or following the rising clamor for independence.

Jacob Duche, rector of Christ Church, an Anglican congregation in Philadelphia, opted to remove the traditional prayers for the king from the local service, and replace them with a new prayer for 鈥渢he Congress of these United States.鈥� Duche was no fan of independence; he later admitted he simply wanted to protect his congregation from violence.

As Sneff鈥檚 book shows, revolutions are messy affairs. A reader today can hear echoes of revolutionary America鈥檚 ever-changing news environment in our 24-hour media cycle.

鈥淲hen the Declaration of Independence Was News鈥� is a window into that hectic period, and into how individuals made the best decisions they could with the information at hand.