Month: May 2018

3
Conflict & War Posted on

Demise of the Albemarle Barracks: A Report to the Quartermaster General

The British army that Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to the American army at Saratoga, New York on October 17, 1777, was first marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts and lodged in barracks.  The British component was relocated to Rutland, Massachusetts in 1778, while the German component remained in Cambridge.  For several reasons, including concern that a […]

by William W. Reynolds
3
Features Posted on

Interview: Sarah Jane Marsh

Today, May 29, 2018, Disney Hyperion is introducing young readers to the American Revolution with Thomas Paine and the Dangerous Word, an eighty-page picture book biography written by Sarah Jane Marsh[1] and illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham. The story focuses on Paine’s resilient early life and his call for independence through his famous pamphlet Common Sense. I […]

by Jett Conner
10
Features Posted on

Sumter’s Rounds: The Ill-Fated Campaign of Thomas Sumter, February–March 1781

In February 1781, Thomas Sumter emerged from his three-month convalescence to begin his next campaign in the South Carolina interior. Having been wounded seriously in the back, chest, and shoulder at the Battle of the Blackstocks, leading his militia army against a combined force of British regulars and volunteers commanded by the notorious Lt. Col. […]

by Andrew Waters
4
Features Posted on

Patriots Against Loyalists on Eastern Long Island, 1775–1776

In 1775, within weeks of the violent clashes at Lexington and Concord, Patriots throughout the colonies established Committees of Observation to thwart Loyalists from assisting the anticipated British war effort. In the township of Brookhaven in Suffolk County on eastern Long Island, New York, the Committee of Observation was spearheaded by William Floyd, a wealthy […]

by Matthew M. Montelione
Features Posted on

The 2018 Annual Volume is In!

Our fourth annual volume of the Journal of the American Revolution is available for immediate purchase. Featuring some of the best historical research and writing from the previous year, this annual volume contains thirty-eight articles, including “The Setauket Raid, December 1777” by Phillip R. Giffin, “The 3rd New Jersey Regiment’s Plundering of Johnson Hall” by […]

by Editors
2
Conflict & War Posted on

Fiddlers Who Deserted

Drums, fifes, and bands provided martial music ranging from battlefield signals to ceremonious pomp. The drummers, fifers, and musicians might also provide casual entertainment for their comrades, but some soldiers played other instruments. The most common non-military instrument to appear in deserter advertisements was the fiddle (or violin); it was the most common among non-military […]

by Editors
1
Conflict & War Posted on

Musicians Who Deserted

There were drummers, there were fifers, and then there were men who had general musical talent, capable of playing several instruments. Many British, American and German regiments, and other military organizations, had bands of music. These bands, which might consist of six to twelve men, were separate entities from the regiment’s drummers and fifers. In […]

by Editors
5
Conflict & War Posted on

Fifers Who Deserted

Fifes provided a melodic complement to the drums that provided cadence and conveyed signals to armies in the American Revolution. Like drummers, fifers were not always boys; some men spent their entire military careers playing the fife, showing the importance to the army of that skill. Fifers were not as numerous as drummers in most […]

by Editors
Conflict & War Posted on

Drummers Who Deserted

Primary sources are essential for the best historical scholarship and writing. This week we will be examining advertisements for deserters who played instruments in the armed forces during the American Revolution. Every army and navy involved in the American Revolution used drums for signaling, and the image of the drummer boy is among the conflict’s […]

by Editors
14
Diplomacy Posted on

The First Countries to Diplomatically Recognize the United States

“Diplomacy is seduction in guise …”, whispered Benjamin Franklin to his fellow commissioner John Adams. “One improves with practice.” Although the quote isn’t real and was written into the script of the HBO/Playtone miniseries John Adams, the spirit of the words rang very true when it came to the infant “United American-States”[1] trying to find […]

by John L. Smith, Jr.
Features Posted on

Standing Armies: The Constitutional Debate

Introduction Few ideas were more widely accepted in early America than that of the danger of peacetime standing armies.[1] This anti-standing army sentiment motivated colonial opposition to post-French and Indian War British policies, intensified after the Boston Massacre, influenced the writings of most founding fathers, and remained politically relevant well after the Revolutionary War ended. […]

by Griffin Bovée
1
Features Posted on

The Battle of Beaufort

South Carolina, by several measures, was the most affluent and economically important pre-revolutionary British colony in North America. Largely agrarian and sparsely settled, it contained plantations that used slave labor to grow the valuable cash crops of indigo and rice for European, Caribbean, and American markets. Indigo, used to make blue dye, was one of […]

by Louis Arthur Norton