Glenn Beck Accused Redcoats of Burning Churches ("VANITY")

N/A | 8/28/2010 | Me

[the OlLine Rebel]

I didn't see any comments about Glenn Beck's 1st words on his Friday TV show.

He talked about the "Black Robe Regiment", and said that Brits largely blamed churches/preachers for fomenting the Revolution.

Then he said as a result, when the Redcoats came here upon the war starting, they burned churches because of this. Then he said they even "locked up people inside and burned them".

[the OlLine Rebel]

Where is Beck getting this? I'm just a casual lay "fan" of the AmRevWar, but I've never seen any reference to Redcoats particularly burning churches, and certainly not with people inside.

Is he believing the "Patriot" scenario?

I'm not saying a few of these couldn't have happened - but a regular "campaign" of sorts to burn churches, especially with civilians there?

Does anyone have salient comments on this?

I hope he's not getting...unreliable.

[the OlLine Rebel]

If any RevWar people can enlighten me on this point, I’d appreciate it.

[mnehring]

I know it happened in the battle of Bround Brook. Read the journal of Johann Ewald. British Major John Simcoe burned the Dutch Reformed Church.

[cranked]

You need to have watched his Friday Glenn Beck Show.....can probably be found via the internet.

[TommyDale]

Let me ask the obvious... where did you attend school?

Beck has had guests for weeks who have brought evidence of history that we were never taught in school. It is all documented, and he even shows the books and interviewed the authors.

[Rockingham]

I think that Beck took a scene from Mel Gibson’s fictionalized “The Patriot” as true. There is no evidence that the British burned American churches during the Revolution. Beck’s larger point — the hostility of the British to American religious freedom — is well-founded though. For example, in New York, the British seized non-Anglican churches and used them as barracks and prisons during the Revolution.

[Ripliancum]

You really need to read history. Burning churches happened all over the place during the Revolutionary war.

If you’re not into reading boring history texts, you might watch Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot”, it’s in there too.

[KansasGirl]

ping

[mnehring]

There is no evidence that the British burned American churches during the Revolution.

Where do you get that from? In addition to the very famous Bround Brook incident, the Scots actually called the American Revolution the "Presbyterian Revolution" because the British, early on, burned over 50 Presbyterian churches. "To the privations, hardships and cruelties of the war the Presbyterians were pre-eminently exposed. In them the very essence of rebellion was supposed to be concentrated, and by the wanton plunderings and excesses of the marauding parties they suffered severely. Their Presbyterianism was prima facie evidence of guilt. A house that had a large Bible and David’s Psalms in meter in it was supposed, as a matter of course, to be tenanted by rebels." - W.P. Breed, Episcopalian minister in Philadelphia

[TommyDale]

Look up the British Raid on Danbury. Oh, wait — let me do it for you. They burned several churches, at least one was Episcopalian. However, they did not burn the Anglican church.

http://www.skyweb.net/~channy/danraid.html

[TommyDale]

I suspect there is some anti-Beck bias here. Get over it, folks.

[Ripliancum]

Not so. The burnings happened. Here’s just a couple of examples, there are many more:

“This beautiful church was built in 1745 as the church of Prince William Parish. It was burned by the British in May 1779. “
http://www.gloryway.com/old_sheldon_church.htm

“Red House Presbyterian Church... The first building, one of three successive wooden frame structures, was burned in 1781 by British soldiers during the Revolutionary War.”
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ncccha/memoranda/churches/redhousechurch/redhousechurch.html

[mnehring]

"Nor was this an isolated incident; throughout the northern Colonies, dissident churches were systematically abused. The Presbyterian church at Newtown, Long Island, had its steeple sawed off, and was used as a prison and guardhouse. Later, it was torn down completely, and its boards used for the construction of soldier huts. In New Jersey, the church at Princeton was stripped of its pews and gallery for fuel, and the churches at Elizabeth and Mount Holly were burned. In New York City, the Presbyterian churches were made into prisons, or used by British officers for stabling their horses." Many Presbyterian ministers lost their homes and property. Bancroft describes one incident, "One Huck, a captain of British militia, fired [i.e. "set aflame"] the library and dwelling-house of the clergy man at William’s plantation in the upper part of South Carolina, and burned every Bible into which the Scotch Irsh translation of the psalms was bound." - Boettner, op. cit., p. 384

[Kirkwood]

The British burned entire cities, so yes, they certainly did burn churches.

[skeeter]

From what I’ve read, most atrocities against the colonists where perpetrated in what was then the west by the British indian allies, presumably with English approval.

[count-your-change]

Maybe the “Patriot” writers were reliving a Nazi church burning in France.
Beck should find of interest the treatment after the war of those who remained loyal to the British crown. Not everyone felt the revolution was the best thing to have take place.

[count-your-change]

With the people inside?

[SunkenCiv]

Those wily British. :')

Google

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Don’t think that war back then was genteel. The French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Rebellion, just before the Revolution, were insanely murderous affairs, with no quarter and butchery of the wounded, sometimes of women and children who were not enslaved. And many of the participants in the Revolution were veterans of those events.

Beck probably got his idea from the movie The Patriot, which depicted an occupied church being burned (itself based on a WWII event), but otherwise there is no documented Revolutionary War case of that. This is not to say that there weren’t plenty of other war crimes on both sides - mostly shooting of enemy soldiers who wanted to surrender.

[FR_addict]

Found these two Churches.

A Dutch reformed Church was burned in the Battle of Bound Brook

http://www.njskylands.com/hsBoundBrook.htm

October 28 * British Major John Simcoe leads raid through Elizabethtown to Bound Brook burning the Dutch Reformed Church and Court House at Millstone (then called Somerset Court House), an unsuccessful attempt to draw the militia into an ambush.

Another Church on the same web site mentioned:
“James Buckmeter
16 Aug 2009, 19:10
My ancestor, Matthias Wade was in the Essex militia and participated in the battle of Springfield, one of the last revolutionary battles. One result of the battle was the burning of the church (Connecticut Farms) and the loss of church records, including Wade family history. There were apparently two Wade family members between Benjamin (the original Wade) and Matthias, but records for them are quite confusing since they apparently had the same names, married women with same names and had children with same names. Benjamin and Matthias are well documented though.
I learn a little more year to year. “