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Juan de Miralles and the American Revolution
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
In the Presbyterian burying ground at George Washington's encampment in Morristown, New Jersey, on April 29, 1780, Roman Catholic burial rites were performed for a distinguished emissary from Cuba. Dr. James Thacher, army surgeon, recorded the obsequies in his Journal thus:
His Excellency General Washington, with several other general officers and members of Congress, attended the funeral solemnities, and walked as chief mourners. The other officers of the army, and numerous respectable citizens, formed a splendid procession, extending about one mile. The pall-bearers were six field officers, and the coffin was borne on the shoulders of four officers of the artillery in full uniform… A Spanish priest performed service at the grave, in the Roman Catholic form. The coffin was inclosed in a box of plank, and all the profusion of pomp and grandeur were deposited in the silent grave, in the common burying-ground, near the church at Morristown.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1973
References
1 Thacher, James M. D., Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783.(Hartford, Silas Andrus and Son, 1854). p.193.Google Scholar
2 Quoted in Pumpelly, J.C., “Colonel Alexander Scammel and Don Juan de Miralles.-A Reminiscence of Morristown in the Trying Days of 1780,” Morristown, N. J., The True Banner, April 30, 1890).Google Scholar
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4 Ibid., pp. 10-11. The translation from the Spanish of Portell Vilá's work, here and elsewhere, is by the present author.
5 Ibid., pp.12–13.
6 Young , Eleanor. Robert Morris, Forgotten Patriot (N. Y., Macmillan, 1950). p. 85.Google Scholar
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11 Ibid., Washington to Henry Laurens from Middlebrook, Feb. 17, 1779, XIV: 129.
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16 Mellick, pp. 485–86.
17 Writings of George Washington, from “ Hd. Qrs., Middle brook, May 18, 1779; ” XV: 99–100.
18 Ibid., letter of July 9 [-11], 1799; XV: 405.
19 Ibid., XVI: 161
20 Ibid., letter from West Point, “August 28[-29], 1779;” XVI: 199.
21 Journals of the Continental Congress 1774–1789, ed. by Worthington Chauncey Ford, 1909 (Washington, Government Printing Office): XV (1779) : 1083–84. Cf. also George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent (Boston, Little, Brown, 1875): X: 221.
22 Report of conference between Washington and Luzerne at West Point, September 16, 1779, Writings of George Washington: XVI: 296–98.
23 Journals of the Continental Congress, XV (1779): 1113. Cf. also congratulatory letter from Washington to Jay, “West-Point, October 7, 1779,;“ Writings of George Washington: XVI: 425 and n. 97.
24 Writings of George Washington: XVI: 470.
25 Ibid., letter to Gouverneur Morris, from “West-point, November 6, 1779. ” XVII: 80.
26 Portell Vilá, Historia, I: 84. The Journals of the Continental Congress during 1779 show that the colonies, being themselves short of rations, were cool to Miralles’ pleas that grain be shipped to hungry Havana.
27 Writings of George Washington, XVII: 225–26 and n. 85.
28 Ibid., letter from “Head Quarters, Morris Town, February 27, 1780;” XVIII: 55–57. Portell Vilá, in his Juan de Miralles, pages 16–17, values the aid from Cuba at more than one half million pesos, and numbers into the thousands the English prisoners taken by expeditions from Havana.
29 Ibid., XVIII: 58.
30 Flexner, James Thomas, George Washington in the American Revolution 1775–1783 (Boston-Toronto, Little, Brown, 1967, 1968). p. 346.Google Scholar
31 Writings of George Washington, Washington to John Mitchell from Morristown, April 8, 1780: XVIII: 233–34.
32 Thacher, pp. 191–92.
33 Writings of George Washington, XVIII: 301–12.
34 Ibid., from “Morris-Town,” XVIII: 347.
35 Ibid., from “Head Quarters, Morris Town, April 30, 1780,” XVIII: 317.
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37 Portell Vitá, Historia, I: 92.
38 Cf.Joseph, Joseph James and McCadden, Helen Matzke , Father Félix Varela, Torchbearer From Cuba (New York, United States Catholic Historical Society, 1969).Google Scholar chapter 1 and 2.
39 Historia, I: 91.
40 For the continuing George Washington legend in Latin America, cf.Morales Carbo, Carlos Rosas M, Bolívar, Wáshington y la Amírica (Lima, Peru, “La Moderna,” 1939).Google Scholar