This September we welcomed two new writers—Bradley Sussner and Tom Shachtman—and published a flurry of fascinating articles. We are all anxiously awaiting the publication of our latest book series book, John Adams vs Thomas Paine: Rival Plans for the Early Republic by Jett B. Conner. Below are the top 10 most popular articles of September: Roger Sherman: The […]
Thomas Jefferson stood outside the halls of congress late one afternoon. And with the hand that penned the Declaration of Independence, he pointed across the steps and said in a loud voice to those assembled around him “There goes a man who never said a foolish thing in his life”.[1] The Federalist Fisher Ames once […]
This is the story, such as it can be told, of one long forgotten woman in the midst of the revolutionary war, a weaver of homespun cloth who, burdened with crushing grief and guilt, showed a spark of decency, if only for one brief moment, following a deadly skirmish on a hot July day in […]
Just as Nathan Hale is the best known spy of the American Revolution, so James Lafayette is the best known African-American spy of the conflict. However, the “facts” so often repeated in histories of the era regarding both these individuals are heavily based on folklore and oral stories passed along with little or no documented […]
Thomas Penn, the son of founder William Penn, inherited majority control of the proprietorship of the colony of Pennsylvania in 1746. At the time the colony’s legislative body was called the Assembly; it was unicameral, made up of thirty-four popularly elected members and had been autonomous for the first half of the eighteenth century. Penn […]
Book Review: The Dog Head Sword of Succasunna: Forgotten Family Patriots and Loyalists in the Revolutionary War by John Lawrence Brasher (Shelby Printing, 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Artifacts hold a special place in our appreciation for history. When we see, or better still, touch, an object that came from another era, we feel connected to that […]
Generals appointed by the Continental Congress often owed their commissions to their state of residence as the congressmen tried to ensure that the rank of general be equally spread among the colonies based upon population. Five generals were appointed from the state of North Carolina during the Revolution: Francis Nash, James Moore, Robert Howe, Jethro […]
While France and the United States have always exchanged gifts representative of their support of democratic ideals, not all the gifts were between statesman or quite as intentional. The romantic and intimate relations between a French Army officer and a young American woman during the winter of 1782 provided the young U.S. with an excellent […]
In 1871, Jacob Mendes Da Costa published a study of a condition he termed “Irritable Heart” that described a series of symptoms observed among soldiers during the American Civil War that he believed were the result of a cardiac condition stemming from combat.[1] The symptoms that included nightmares, palpitations, headaches and digestive problems were later […]
Lt. Col. Anthony Walton White of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment had a very rocky 1776. His service was peppered with several episodes more indicative of a trouble-making non-commissioned officer than the second highest ranked officer in the regiment. He was a primary instigator of a duel between two junior officers. Granted the duel was […]
Book Review: A Tale of Three Gunboats: Lake Champlain’s Revolutionary War Heritage by Philip Lundeberg, Arthur Cohn, Jennifer Jones, et al. (Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, 2017) [BUY NOW] Sitting on the shore of Lake Champlain a few miles south of Burlington, Vermont, is the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum (LCMM). Like […]
More often than not, the horrific realities of warfare are shielded by bland accounts and cold statistics. When it comes to the Revolutionary War, affairs on the frontier suffer egregiously in that regard, and the grim cost of the conflict is often overshadowed by the epic sweep of affairs on the eastern seaboard. But in […]
In popular understandings of the three Atlantic Revolutions of late eighteenth century, the American Revolution (1765-1783) is often regarded as the least radical and transformative. If the American Revolution was, as Carl Becker put it in 1909, just as much about “who should rule at home,” as it was “home rule,” observers were quick to […]
It was the letter that forced Washington to give up his dream of recapturing New York. Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, encamped with his French army at Phillipsburg on the Hudson River, received it on August 14, 1781 and showed it immediately to Gen. George Washington, whose headquarters was nearby. Written on […]
In the prior year there have been several articles in the Journal of the American Revolution reappraising certain participants involved with the southern campaign. One article included mention of Patrick Ferguson but that piece was general in nature and could not go into detail as to how conclusions were drawn or what evidence might exist […]
Book Review: Fire and Desolation: The Revolutionary War’s 1778 Campaign as Waged from Quebec and Niagara Against the American Frontiers by Gavin K. Watt (Dundurn, 2017) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] With the thousands of works written on the American Revolution, there are still areas where, remarkably, the surface has hardly been scratched. Increasingly, modern studies […]
Jacob Rogers was scared. So scared, in fact, that he—a Loyalist and former lieutenant in the Royal Navy—traveled twelve miles to the Continental Army camp in Cambridge in a frantic bid to gain the protection of Gen. George Washington. In a distressed series of letters, he implored the Committee of Safety and the Massachusetts General […]
What do an American Revolution prisoner of war accused of being a spy, a first born scion of an established wealthy New England family, and Machias Seal Island, a lonely, wind-swept chunk of rock in the Gulf of Maine all have in common? The American Revolution in Maine has been described as a quasi-civil war […]
Pierre-Augustin de Caron, better known by his stage name, Beaumarchais, was a French playwright, financier, and confidant of King Louis XVI. In the spring of 1775, he travelled to London to take care of some business for Comte de Vergennes, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and spend some time with his friend John Wilkes. […]
Book Review: Strong Ground: Mount Independence and the American Revolution by Donald H. Wickman and The Mount Independence Coalition (The Mount Independence Coalition, 2017) [BUY NOW] During colonial times, both British and French settlers perceived Fort Ticonderoga as the most strategic fortification protecting the Northern frontier. On the shores of Lake Champlain in upstate New York, Fort […]
