In 1783, the officers of the Continental Army created the Society of the Cincinnati. This veterans' organization was to preserve the memory of the revolutionary struggle and pursue the officers' common interest in outstanding pay and pensions. Henry Knox and Frederick Steuben were the society's chief organizers; George Washington himself served as president. Soon, a nationally distributed South Carolina pamphlet accused the Society of treachery; it would lead to the creation of a hereditary nobility in the United States and subvert republicanism into aristocracy; it was a secret government, a puppet of the French monarchy; its charitable fund would be used for bribes. These were only some of the accusations made against the Society. These were, however, unjustified. The author of this book explores why a part of the revolutionary leadership accused another of subversion in the difficult 1780s, and how the political culture of this period predisposed many leading Americans to think of the Cincinnati as a conspiracy.

With unprecedented access to the society's papers and documents, Minor Myers has produced a highly readable history of this fascinating organization, in which he concludes that the Society is an important reminder of the road the American revolutionaries avoided--the road that led from revolution to army coup to military dictatorship--a road taken by most of the armed revolutions of the last two hundred years. tag: The history of how a powerful and potentially subversive group of officers made the choice for liberty during the Revolutionary War