Jim Piecuch earned his BA and MA degrees in history at the University of New Hampshire and his PhD at the College of William and Mary. He is a former history professor and has written several articles on colonial and Revolutionary history. He is also the author of several books including: The Battle of Camden: A Documentary History (History Press, 2006); Three Peoples, One King: Loyalists, Indians, and Slaves in the Revolutionary South (University of South Carolina Press, 2008); Cavalry of the American Revolution (Westholme, 2012), and General Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution in the South, co-authored with Gregory Massey (University of South Carolina Press, 2012).
During the first four years of the War for Independence, the British-held province of East Florida was a large and painful thorn in the side of the southern states. Under the leadership of royal governor Patrick Tonyn, a former army officer, East Florida became a haven for Loyalists fleeing from Georgia and the Carolinas. Tonyn […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America by Kostya Kennedy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2025) The story of Paul Revere’s ride through the Massachusetts countryside on the night of April 18-19, 1775, to warn that British troops were on the march, is so familiar that people might believe there […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Constitution’s Penman: Gouverneur Morris and the Creation of America’s Basic Charter by Dennis C. Rasmussen (University Press of Kansas, 2023) The Constitution stands as the foundation of the United States’ government and political system, a point on which all Americans can agree even as they dispute how the document should be interpreted. […]
On January 4, 1881, historian James Watts de Peyster delivered an address to the New-York Historical Society in New York City. The lengthy oration dealt with the Battle of Kings Mountain, fought on October 7, 1780, in South Carolina, where the Revolutionaries achieved a decisive victory over a force composed of Loyalists. Although de Peyster […]
General Anthony Wayne was one of the most capable generals in the Continental Army and is perhaps best remembered for his successful surprise attack that captured the British post at Stony Point, New York, on July 16, 1779. Wayne also suffered his share of reverses, most notably at Paoli, Pennsylvania, on the night of September 20-21, […]
BOOK REVIEW: James Colbert and his Chickasaw Legacy by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. and Guy B. Braden (St. Louis, MO: THGC Publishing, 2022) The history of the American Revolution is filled with shadowy figures, about whom little is known, though scattered documents provide fragments of information and hint at their importance. One such individual was James […]
BOOK REVIEW: Leading Like the Swamp Fox: The Leadership Lessons of Francis Marion by Kevin Dougherty and Steven D. Smith (Philadelphia: Casemate Publishers, 2022) The past decade has seen a resurgence of interest in Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, the Continental officer turned partisan commander who, along with Thomas Sumter, Andrew Pickens, and several lesser-known officers, […]
Book Review: Cavalry in the Wilderness: Cavalry in the Western Theater of the American Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. (St. Louis, MO: THGC Publishing, 2021) As author Steven L. Kling, Jr., notes in the preface to Cavalry in the Wilderness, until recently cavalry operations in the American Revolution […]
The thought of allowing women to serve in combat was considered ridiculous only a few decades ago in most western nations; it was an even more bizarre concept during the American Revolution. Although both the British and Continental armies accepted the presence of female camp followers—usually the wives of soldiers—and issued them rations as compensation […]
Light-Horse Harry Lee: The Rise and Fall of a Revolutionary Hero and the Father of Robert E. Lee by Ryan Cole. (Washington, DC: Regnery History, 2019) Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army, politician, and bankrupt businessman, has been the subject of renewed interest among historians and biographers in recent years. After […]
At nine o’clock on the morning of May 6, 1778, Continental soldiers at Valley Forge emerged from their huts to hear their regimental chaplains announce the American alliance with France. This was followed by the troops forming in ranks for a review by General George Washington, the firing of muskets by Washington’s guard, a thirteen-gun […]
Even among historians of the American Revolution, the name of East Florida’s royal governor, Patrick Tonyn, is all but unknown. However, Tonyn proved himself to be the crown’s most effective governor in mainland North America during the Revolutionary era. Tonyn’s leadership was not only instrumental in maintaining British control of East Florida, but he also […]
Two months after Spain entered the American Revolutionary War on June 21, 1779, the governor of Spanish Louisiana, Don Bernardo de Galvez, launched an invasion of the British province of West Florida on August 27. The defenders, consisting of two British infantry regiments, a detachment of the Royal Artillery, two understrength provincial battalions, a regiment […]
As the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia moved closer to open rebellion against Great Britain in the summer of 1775, leaders of the revolutionary movement found themselves facing a host of potential threats. In addition to the numerous loyalists in both colonies, the tribes of pro-British Indians on their frontiers, and the possibility of […]
Book review: The Swamp Fox: How Francis Marion Saved the American Revolution, by John Oller (Da Capo Press, 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Given the important role that Francis Marion played in the American Revolution, it is surprising that no biography of the famous South Carolinian has been published since Robert D. Bass’s The Swamp Fox: […]
Book review: Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle, by Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] The Battle of Monmouth, fought in New Jersey on June 28, 1778, between the American and British armies, has been the subject of several books, all […]
In March 1778, several hundred South Carolina Loyalists began a march to the British province of East Florida to seek refuge from persecution and assist the British. Their successful effort threw the Whigs of South Carolina and Georgia into a panic and provided a valuable accession of military manpower to East Florida. The Loyalists’ actions […]
Book Review: The Queen’s American Rangers by Donald J. Gara (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2015). There have been very few studies of specific Revolutionary War units, an unusual situation given the number of Civil War unit histories. This is a field where a diligent historian can illuminate particular aspects of a regiment’s service as well as its […]
Book Review: General Washington’s Commando: Benjamin Tallmadge in the Revolutionary War by Richard F. Welch. Jefferson (McFarland & Company, 2014). While most historians agree that American victory in the Revolutionary War would not have been possible without George Washington’s military leadership, it is less frequently noted that Washington could not have exercised effective command without […]
When British Lieutenant General Sir Henry Clinton began operations against Charleston in March 1780, he decided not to call upon the Loyalists in the South Carolina backcountry to assist him. Although employing Loyalists to aid the regular army was a key element of British strategy in the South, Clinton believed that they would be endangered […]
The Revolutionary War brought a substantial number of European noblemen to North America, a region that lacked a hereditary aristocracy. Although most of these members of the nobility held genuine titles, a handful pretended to be of noble birth to enhance their stature in America. But what exactly did a noble title signify, how were […]
Book Review: The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 By Scott Syfert. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014. Paperback. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-7864-7559-9. Pp. x, 250. Index, bibliography, maps and illustrations. For more than two centuries, controversy has surrounded the issue of whether or not a group of […]
During 1780 and 1781, Brigadier General Francis Marion earned a reputation as the “Swamp Fox,” a virtually unbeatable partisan commander who foiled British efforts to pacify South Carolina and who defeated or evaded every British attempt to destroy his force. It was not until 1782 that Marion finally encountered an opponent capable of beating his […]
Americans have traditionally viewed the War for Independence as a revolt against the authority of Britain’s King George III. That is certainly true on the surface; witness Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence, in which he identified George III as the chief author of the colonists’ miseries. “The history of the present King […]
The historical debate concerning the Loyalists in the Revolutionary South has generally focused on matters such as the Loyalists’ numbers and motivations. While these are issues deserve study, one aspect of the Loyalists’ role in the southern campaign has received far less attention: that of leadership. The British government’s “Southern Strategy” depended to a great […]
On February 25, 1781, the Continental cavalry of Lieutenant Colonel Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s Legion and Brigadier Andrew Pickens’s militia encountered several hundred loyalists commanded by Colonel John Pyle at Holt’s Race Paths in North Carolina. Pretending that he was British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, and his Continentals the similarly clad troops of Tarleton’s […]
September 8, 1781 Francis Marion is best known for his leadership in the partisan war of 1780-1781, during which he and his volunteer militia harassed British troops and the Loyalist militia in South Carolina, first disrupting the British occupation of the state and later helping to clear royal forces from a considerable area. Once this […]
One of the most striking aspects of the Battle of Camden is the vast amount of material that was written about it. Officers and soldiers who fought in Revolutionary War battles always wrote something about their experiences, but in regard to the Battle of Camden, they wrote much more than they did about other battles: […]