Abstract
The Society of the Cincinnati is an organization of descendants of commissioned officers of the Continental Army or Continental Navy and commissioned officers of the French Army or Navy, who served in the United States during the War of the American Revolution. At the urging of General Henry Knox, a group of Continental officers established the Society of the Cincinnati on 13 May 1783, at Newburgh, New York. Their initial idea was to help preserve the bonds that had been forged during the Revolution. Later constituent societies were established in each of the thirteen original states and in France and a fund for war widows and indigent soldiers established. The Society of the Cincinnati was the first veterans' organization to be established in the United States and it is also among the oldest patriotic-hereditary societies active in the world today. General George Washington served as the Society's first President-General from 1783 until his death in 1799. This fraternal bond between French and American soldiers and sailors is nowhere better exemplified than in the history of Newport and it is for that reason that this double issue of Newport History is published. What follows is a selection from the variety of articles that record both current scholarship and samples of past approaches to local history on this theme. They are works that reflect the tastes and interests of their own times as well as of the events of the historical period that they describe.
Recommended Citation
Hattendorf, John B.
(2003)
"The French Connection in Newport during the American Revolution: An Overview,"
Newport History: Journal of the Newport Historical Society: Vol. 72:
Iss.
249, Article 2.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/newporthistory/vol72/iss249/2