Ides of War: George Washington and the Newburgh Crisis - Hardcover

by Stephen Howard Browne (Author)

History tells us that on a day when the forces of civil government confront the forces of military might, no one knows what may follow. Americans believe that they have avoided this moment, that whatever other challengesthe country has faced, at least it never has had to deal with the prospects of a coup d etat. Stephen Howard Brownemaintains that this view is mistaken, that in fact the United States faced such a crisis, at the very moment when thecountry announced its arrival on the world scene in the spring of 1783 in a rustic meeting hall along the Hudson River near Newburgh, New York. The crisis was resolved by George Washington, commander in chief of the U.S. Army, in an address he delivered to a roomful of restive and deeply disaffected officers.

Author Biography

Stephen Howard Browne is a professor of rhetorical studies in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Thomas Jefferson's Call for Nationhood: The First Inaugural Address; Angelina Grimké Rhetoric, Identity, and the Radical Imagination; and Edmund Burke and the Discourse of Virtue. Browne has been named a distinguished scholar by the National Communication Association and recognized with its Diamond Anniversary Award. He is also the recipient of Penn State's Class of 1933 Award for Distinction in the Humanities.