Adventures in British America Papers Found in Scottish Castle Shed Light on Revolutionary War Era

摘要

In the spring of 1999, John W. Kluge, chairman of the Library's James Madison Council, confided to Librarian of Congress James H. Billington that he had learned of a manuscript collection in a Scottish castle that might contain important new information about American history. Kluge told Billington that he had recently been entertained at Ball-indalloch Castle (in Banffshire, northwest of Aberdeen) by his friends, the Laird of Ballindalloch, Clare Macpherson-Grant Russell and her husband, Oliver Russell, who had mentioned to him that the castle tower contained papers of an ancestor―a British Army officer―who had been active in 18th-century America. The Russells indicated to Kluge that they would welcome the advice of Library of Congress experts about the significance of the collection. In due course, this author was dispatched to Ballindalloch Castle on behalf of the Library to examine what turned out to be the archives of Gen. James Grant (1722-1806), the first British governor of East Florida, 1763-1771, and an officer who served in increasingly responsible commands in the French and Indian War and the Ameri- can Revolutionary War. The Grant papers, it was immediately apparent, were a remarkably rich trove which provided an abundance of fresh information about a number of significant episodes in the administrative and military history of the future United States during the Revolutionary Era.