A01=Kevin J. Dellape
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
American History
American Revolution
Anglican
Author_Kevin J. Dellape
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BGX
Category=DNBX
Category=HBJK
Category=HBTV
Category=NHK
Category=NHTV
Christianity
COP=United States
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
History
Language_English
PA=Available
Pennsylvania
Price_€50 to €100
PS=Active
Religion
softlaunch
Product details
- ISBN 9781611461435
- Weight: 463g
- Dimensions: 157 x 238mm
- Publication Date: 24 Oct 2013
- Publisher: Associated University Presses
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
America’s First Chaplain is a biography of the life of Philadelphia’s Jacob Duché, the Anglican minister who offered the most famous prayer and wrote one of the most infamous letters of the American Revolution. For the prayer to open the First Continental Congress, Duché was declared a national hero and named the first chaplain to the newly independent American Congress. For the letter written to George Washington imploring the general to encourage Congress to rescind independence, he was accused of high treason and sent into exile. As a result of this apparently irreconcilable contradiction in the minister’s behavior, many of his contemporaries and most historians have assumed he was weak, that in the moment of crisis – his imprisonment by British authorities during their occupation of Philadelphia - he cut a deal with the British for his own safety. The evidence gathered from the life of Jacob Duché, however, points to a very different conclusion, one that reveals the immense complexity of the American Revolution and the havoc it wreaked on the lives of the people who experienced it. The story of this deeply religious rector of Christ Church and St. Peter’s reveals the human side of the Revolution, a story that includes great accomplishment and great tragedy. It also provides insight into the complicated nature of Pennsylvania’s “democratic” revolution, the unique difficulties faced by Anglican leaders during the revolution, and the weakness of simplistic categorizations such as patriot or loyalist. For more than two centuries two events – a prayer and a letter - have obscured our view of the extraordinary life lying in the background. This biography attempts to reinterpret the prayer and the letter in light of the man behind them and in the process to uncover the real significance of both as well as to gain a glimpse into the complexity and contradictions of the American Revolution.
Kevin J. Dellape is an instructor of history at Penn State Altoona and an instructor of history and political science at Saint Francis University.
