A belated happy Valentine’s Day to all our loyal readers! We hope you enjoyed our action-packed month of articles, which included gripping features about battles, retreats, espionage, mobs, drugs, ambushes, massacres and, oh yeah, our first celebrity interview (Hal Stalmaster, the actor who played Johnny Tremain in the Disney film). Below our the 10 most […]
Throughout the War for American Independence, infantry reigned as the primary martial arm of the conflict. Their principle weapon was the smoothbore musket, followed with the bayonet. A musket had an effective range of approximately eighty yards – meaning a fired musket ball would typically land somewhere on a man sized target at eighty yards.[1] […]
On November 8, 1808, in his eighth State of the Union address, Thomas Jefferson uttered the now famous lines, “For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security.”[1] These words intimate the fears held by many of the founders of a standing […]
How many times does someone get the chance to read through the business correspondence files of one of the Founding Era’s most fascinating personalities? I had the distinct privilege of doing just that while researching an angle of Henry Knox’s Boston bookstore. I learned that Henry sold much more than just books – he sold […]
Many historical accounts over look the impact of American loyalist military leaders and their revolutionary war contributions to the British cause. 50,000 or more soldiers in loyalist combat units actively participated in most major revolutionary battles throughout North America[1]. In addition to much needed combat power, they provided valuable scouting, battlefield intelligence and geographic knowledge. […]
The 38th Regiment of Foot, consisting of about 450 officers and men (not to mention about 60 soldiers’ wives and an unknown number of children) arrived in Boston in the summer of 1774. Along with the 5th Regiment of Foot, they were sent to bolster British military presence in a city where political strife was […]
“Living on the frontier is easy!” said no one, ever. Case in point, on July 3, 1778, over 100 loyalist rangers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John Butler along with a few hundred Seneca warriors descended upon Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania and slaughtered over 300 soldiers at Forty Fort (named after the first 40 settlers […]
Peter Livius, chief justice of the province of Quebec and former justice of New Hampshire, wrote a letter on June 2, 1777 to American Major General John Sullivan in an effort to get Sullivan to turn to the British cause.[1] Livius thought Sullivan was the commander at Fort Ticonderoga.[2] Livius believed Sullivan had lost his […]
It had been a tense three weeks in the Carolinas for General Nathanael Greene, the commander of the American southern army. In the wake of General Daniel Morgan’s decisive victory at Cowpens on January 17th, 1781, General Greene moved to reunite his divided army. While Morgan’s 550 man light corps slowly withdrew northeastward into North […]
On December 8, 1776, British soldiers, supported by a large fleet, easily invaded and occupied Newport, Rhode Island, and the rest of Aquidneck Island. The first commander of the British garrison, Lieutenant General Earl Hugh Percy, immediately turned his attention to British sympathizers, known as Loyalists or Tories, in southeastern New England. Nestled in Earl […]
This article was originally published in Journal of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 (Ertel Publishing, 2013). By Ray Raphael and Benjamin H. Irvin If you have ever studied the American Revolution, chances are you’ve seen the ubiquitous “Take Notice” recruiting poster, beckoning “all brave, healthy, able bodied, and well disposed young men” to “join the […]
Hal Stalmaster is a natural actor, and Walt Disney knew it. In 1956, when Hal was 16 years old, he auditioned for the film “Johnny Tremain.” Adapted for the screen by Walt Disney Productions from the 1943 young adult novel by Esther Forbes, “Johnny Tremain” tells the story of how a teenaged apprentice in Boston […]
The front page of April 18, 1765, Pennsylvania Gazette featured one of the earliest American printings of the Stamp Act. “Printed by B. Franklin, Post-Master, and “D. Hall,” the newspaper offered no critical comment on the new law as threatening people’s liberties. Benjamin Franklin became publisher of the Gazette in 1729. He took on Scottish […]
“…the sword is the most destructive and almost only necessary weapon a dragoon carries.”[1] So wrote Major Richard Call of the 3d Light Dragoons to Governor Thomas Jefferson in March of 1781. At first glance it may seem odd that a light horseman would make such a statement given the wide use of firearms on […]
While the War of American Independence was won on the Eastern seaboard by American and French battling the British, the future of the United States was determined in small, seemingly inconsequential battles in the western theatre. The battles west of the Appalachian Mountains would shape the destiny of the American nation by determining what land would become the United […]
For a few terrifying minutes the air was filled with the sound of gunshots, war-whoops and the screams of the dying. It was over quickly. Within plain sight of Fort Laurens, but beyond musket range, 19 members of a work party were ambushed and overwhelmed by Indians and British. Seventeen were killed outright, their scalped […]
Book Review: The American Revolution through British Eyes: A Documentary Collection Edited by James J. Barnes and Patience P. Barnes. Kent State University Press, 2013. Two volume set, Cloth $250.00; ISBN 978-1-60635-111-6; total of 1304 pp., 6-1/8 x 9-1/8. Use primary sources, they say, If you want to cut through the biases of other historians […]
In his 1936 biography Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda, John C. Miller wrote this about the leader of Boston’s Whig activists: Sam Adams discovered these taverns with their “tippling, nasty, vicious crew” excellent recruiting grounds for the mobs he later raised against the Tories and Crown officers. Adams himself was a familiar figure in Boston […]
When the Royal Navy fleet of warships and transports, carrying a British army of more than 7,000 soldiers, passed New London, Connecticut, on December 6, 1776, the British were just a few days from easily capturing Newport, Rhode Island and bottling up the privateers and commercial vessels from Providence, Bristol, Warren, Swansea and other ports […]
Before, during and after the American Revolution, newspapers from Great Britain were widely consumed on American soil as part of the regular packet ship deliveries of mail and papers. Arguably the most important source of news to the elite readers on both sides of the Atlantic was the London Gazette as it was the official […]
