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 […]
I had the opportunity to visit the grave of the Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de LaFayette recently. As the American colonists were seeking to take more local control over their own affairs from the British, fighting against “taxation without representation,” and fighting for “the separation of church and State,” many people outside of America […]
As the sun set, Saturday, August 24, 1776, three American schooners, a sloop-of-war, and six gondolas sailed north from Crown Point toward the widest part of Lake Champlain. Brig. Gen. Benedict Arnold aboard the schooner Royal Savage had been ordered by Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates to position his fleet at a narrows on the lake […]
On March 14, 1778, Gen. George Washington sent the following recommendation to Congress concerning Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski, who on February 28 had resigned as Commander of Horse: The Count, however, far from being disgusted with the service, is led by his thirst for glory, and zeal for the cause of Liberty, to solicit farther […]
Book Review: Revolution Against Empire: Taxes, Politics and the Origins of American Independence by Justin du Rivage (Yale University Press, 2017) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] The typical narrative of the American Revolution generally posits 1763, which marked the end of the Seven Years’ War, as the beginning of the end for the British colonies in America.[1] That […]
In the early morning of May 30, 1777, my distant grandfather Sgt. Simon Giffin of Wethersfield, Connecticut left his home and followed the dirt trail over Rocky Hill and down to the Village Green. After three months of training and recruiting he had been called to muster with his regiment, the 9th Connecticut commanded by […]
George Washington biographies abound and the number continues to grow with at least fifteen new memoirs published in 2017. In fact, historian and Washington biographer Ron Chernow estimates that over nine hundred George Washington biographies have been written since the first by Mason Locke (Parson) Weems in 1800, a year after the General’s death.[1] By […]
On September 25, 1777, the day before British Gen. William Howe’s army triumphantly marched into the newly designated American capital of Philadelphia,[1] two of his officers were upstairs at Hull’s Tavern in New York City, resolving differences they had developed during the course of a trans-Atlantic voyage that had only ended earlier that day. A […]
On an October day in 1820, a fourteen-year-old African American boy trudged along a rural lane near the town of Barkhamsted, Connecticut. Two hundred miles from home, in a strange place he had never visited before, the boy tugged at a string trailing behind him. Tagging along at the other end was his father, Bristol […]
I recently attended the Third Annual Conference of the American Revolution Mohawk Valley Conference in Fort Plain, New York where I met an eighty-seven-year-old gentleman named Skip Barshied. Previously he had sent me a letter telling me of the large number of artifacts that he collected at the site of Fort Paris in Stone Arabia, […]
In a cemetery behind the Salem United Church of Christ, in Reamstown, Lancaster County, a boulder stands: This grinding bowl from East Cocalico is placed to Commemorate ITS MAKER THE AMERICAN INDIAN AND The Boulder, Three other local figures, who lived abreast of the loftier Traditions of their time, light and race: THE SOLDIER of […]
As events would prove, the autumn campaign was a very risky venture indeed, yet despite the operational difficulties attending it Cornwallis saw no option but to go on to the offensive after his victory at the Battle of Camden, South Carolina, on August 16, 1780. As he had explained to Clinton, “It may be doubted […]
Book review: Dunmore’s War: The Last Conflict of America’s Colonial Era by Glenn Williams (Westholme, 2017) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] In 1763, King George III issued a proclamation essentially declaring the regions west of the Allegheny off limits to settlement by whites. As it took responsibility for territories once claimed by France, Britain hoped to […]
Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, Franklin and, to a much greater extent, lesser notables such as Reed, Rush, Morris and dozens more profoundly understood what it would take to keep an army together, but it may well be that their wives and daughters knew something that they did not. A group of ‘knotty matrons’ proposed a […]
In 1775 London was the largest, most prosperous and economically important city in the world. [1] Though it was Britain’s capital, politically and economically it remained aloof from the rest of the Kingdom. Uniquely governed by an independent Corporation, it had declared itself a “commune” as early as 1191 and held a constitutional position of […]
It is not often the site of a Revolutionary War battle is rediscovered. It is even more unusual that the probable site is in between New Jersey’s largest trash dump and the loud rushing traffic of its most crowded highway. New research indicates that the site of the Battle of Bennett’s Island is either just […]
The conflict in the south is often referred to as a civil war, pitting family members against each other. I haven’t really found too many instances of close family against each other; maybe Edward Lacey or James Habersham are good examples. But it is common to find entire families serving together in the district regiments. […]
“This is My Little Girl That I Was So Afraid the Red Coats Would Get” One important aspect of the Battle of Lexington that has been often overlooked by historians is the psychological and physical impact upon the civilian populace. Hours before the engagement, at approximately six o’clock in the evening of April 18, 1775, […]
As I summarized in The ‘Battle at McIntire’s Farm’, on October 3, 1780 Lord Cornwallis sent Maj. John Doyle on a foraging party north from Charlotte with over 500 men and 40 wagons. Capt. James Thompson, Lt. Francis Bradley and twelve other Patriots ambushed them at McIntire’s, killing several of the British then harassing Doyle’s […]
Based preponderantly on The Cornwallis Papers,[1] this article describes in part Cornwallis’s last days in Virginia, his brief sojourn in New York, and events thereafter leading up to his arrival in London. Immediately after the capitulation of Yorktown and Gloucester Cornwallis began to write his letter of October 20, 1781 reporting the outcome of the […]
Book review: Theaters of the American Revolution: Northern, Middle, Southern, Western, Naval by James Kirby Martin, Mark Edward Lender, Edward G. Lengel, Charles Neimeyer, Jim Piecuch and David Preston (Westholme Publishing, 2017) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] The concept of a global war divided into distinct geographic theaters, each with its own unique characteristics is well established […]
During the hot, humid Philadelphia summer of 1776, the writing of the Declaration of Independence was just another Congressional housekeeping chore which the delegates decided would have to be done to explain to people everywhere why the vote for American independence had just happened. As Thomas Jefferson later described it: “an appeal to the tribunal […]
Setting aside the question of whether or not the American Revolution was as radical as Gordon Wood famously argued that it was, at least two fundamental changes occurred west of the Appalachian Mountains in the last quarter of the eighteenth century that had little to do with the political revolution in the east.[1] Stephen Aron, […]
The fourth and final season of the TV series TURN: Washington’s Spies premiers Saturday, June 17. We had the pleasure of interviewing Alexander Rose, whose book about the Culper spy ring inspired the series. Your book Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring is the best known of several recent works on spycraft […]
