WATCH: Read the Revolution with Holly Mayer
On Sept. 30, 2021, Dr. Holly A. Mayer kicked off the 2021-22 season of the Museum's Read the Revolution Speaker Series with a discussion on her new book, Congress’s Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union.
Created by the Continental Congress as one of the first "national" regiments in 1776, Colonel Moses Hazen's 2nd Canadian Regiment, nicknamed "Congress's Own," drew members from Canada, 11 American states, and foreign forces. In her talk, Mayer discussed how this culturally, ethnically, and regionally diverse regiment’s story is a reflection of the union that was struggling to create a nation. She also explored the regiment’s story as it shifts back and forth from the soldiers’ tents and trenches to the statesmen’s halls of power, offering vivid accounts of the Revolution that reveal how “Congress’s Own” regiment embodied the aspirations, diversity, and divisions within and between the Continental Army, Congress, and the emergent union of states during the War for American Independence.
About Dr. Holly A Mayer
Holly A. Mayer is Professor Emerita of History at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and currently serves as the 2021-2022 Charles Boal Ewing Chair in Military History at the United States Military Academy, West Point. In 2016-2017, she was the Harold K. Johnson Chair of Military History at the U.S. Army War College. Her interest in the social, cultural, and military histories of late 18th-century North America inform her latest book, Congress’s Own: A Canadian Regiment, the Continental Army, and American Union (University of Oklahoma Press, 2021), as well as her earlier book, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community during the American Revolution (University of South Carolina Press, 1996). In addition to authoring various journal and anthology essays, Mayer was co-editor (with David E. Shi) of For the Record: A Documentary History of America (W.W. Norton & Company, multiple editions). She is currently wrapping up work as editor of the anthology Women Waging War in the American Revolution, which is under contract with the University of Virginia Press.