Talk:Theodosia Bartow Prevost

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"ardent Patriot"[edit]

The article sources its description of her as an "ardent" Patriot to Isenberg's 2007 biography of Aaron Burr. In fact the description on the cited page (65) is "But Theodosia, for one, was not unsympathetic to Washington's aims"; in other pages she calls Theodosia "a closet patriot" and "an unabashed patriot". These don't seem to me to justify a description like "ardent", particularly since Isenberg is at pains over several pages to stress the fine line Theodosia had to walk while living behind Patriot lines during the war, remaining on warm enough terms with Patriot leaders to avoid confiscation of all her property but also remaining Loyalist enough so as not to be answerable to her husband, her family or the Crown after the war if it had ended with a British victory—something the article breezes past in a single sentence. I'm going to temper the description of her political leanings, and also edit the description of her first husband as a Loyalist officer, something which, in the military context of the Revolutionary War, almost always describes Americans or amateur soldiers who fought in provincial or militia formations. Jacques Prevost was a lifelong professional soldier with a commission in the regular British Army, specifically the Royal American Regiment, the British Army's 60th Regiment of Foot, which remained part of the army establishment (as the King's Royal Rifle Corps) until the 1960s. Binabik80 (talk) 16:43, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]