Year: 2018

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
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
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
Features Posted on

The “Parson’s Cause:” Thomas Jefferson’s Teacher, Patrick Henry, and Religious Freedom

As Tidewater lands played out, exhausted from repeated tobacco plantings, or were encumbered by inheritance, the established church moved with young planters like Peter Jefferson into the Piedmont. One hundred thirty miles from the colonial capital Williamsburg and “planted close under the southwest mountains,” James Maury preached the gospel of the Church of England in […]

by John Grady
Reviews Posted on

American Hannibal: The Extraordinary Account of Revolutionary War Hero Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens

Book Review: American Hannibal: The Extraordinary Account of Revolutionary War Hero Daniel Morgan at the Battle of Cowpens by Jim Stempel (Tucson, AZ: Penmore Press, 2017). [BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON] Although it seems like common sense to regard the country’s founding as something of enduring importance, according to statistics Jim Stempel cites from the American […]

by Kelly Mielke
Features Posted on

Jedediah Huntington of Connecticut

Brigadier General Jedediah Huntington is an overlooked yet very interesting patriot leader from Connecticut who grew up with Benedict Arnold, fought in several battles, and became close to General Washington toward the end of the war. Huntington was born in 1743 into a wealthy merchant household headed by Jabez Huntington, who owned a fleet of […]

by Damien Cregeau
Features Posted on

Antoine Felix Wuibert: The French “Forrest Gump” of the American Revolution

Antoine Félix Wuibert was one of the earliest foreign volunteers to the War of the American Revolution, arriving even before the United States pronounced its independence from Britain.  Although commissioned as an officer of engineers, he served his newly-adopted nation in a variety of roles throughout the entirety of the war, popping up in key […]

by Larrie D. Ferreiro
Features Posted on

Contributor Close-up: Patrick H. Hannum

About Patrick H. Hannum Patrick H. Hannum is currently serving as an associate professor in the Joint and Combined Warfighting School, Joint Forces Staff College, National Defense University, Norfolk, Virginia where he specializes in operational-level warfare and Phase II Joint Professional Military Education. He completed twenty-nine years of active service in the United States Marine […]

by Editors
Reviews Posted on

Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, December 25, 1776-January 3, 1777

Book Review: Mark Maloy. Victory or Death: The Battles of Trenton and Princeton, December 25, 1776-January 3, 1777. Emerging Revolutionary War Series. (El Dorado Hills, California: Savas Beatie LLC, 2017). [BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON] Almost entirely covered by modern development, urbanized Revolutionary War battle sites such as Brooklyn or Germantown are tough to locate […]

by Gene Procknow
Features Posted on

Marylanders Bear the Palm: Manpower and Experience as Elements of Extraordinary Military Success

During the American Revolutionary War, the soldiers of the Maryland Line rapidly gained a reputation in the Continental Army for reliability in combat, a reputation that has lasted to this day.  Contemporaries attested to the Marylanders’ tenacity as early as their first engagement, the Battle of Long Island in August of 1776:  “all [the Americans] […]

by R. J. Rockefeller
Reviews Posted on

Two Recent Reviews of Titles from the Journal of the American Revolution Books Series

Two outstanding reviews of titles in the Journal of the American Revolution Books Series were recently published. In the Spring 2018 issue of Army History (https://history.army.mil/armyhistory/AH-Magazine/2018AH_spring/index.html), historian Gregory J. W. Urwin reviewed The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War by J. L. Bell. Prof. Urwin writes, “J. L. Bell’s The Road to […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

Revolutionary Rookies

Performing as a general atop an independent command is the most difficult military assignment and for which prior experience critically fosters improved strategic and tactical decision-making. Many people think that the Revolutionary War British generals were highly experienced while the Rebel generals, although possessing battle proficiency as junior officers, principally gained their military strategy and […]

by Gene Procknow
Features Posted on

Thadeuz Kosciusko and the American Legacy in Europe

Monarchy everywhere fundamentally detested the American colonists. They expected subjects to respect the crown and abide established class rule. They resented our insubordination and they resented our “peasant” assertions of rights. While history records altruistic anecdotes about France aiding the American cause, the primary motive for any support of the American colonists in the war […]

by John E. Happ
Features Posted on

Patrick Tonyn: Britain’s Most Effective Revolutionary-Era Royal Governor

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 […]

by Jim Piecuch
Features Posted on

The General, the Corporal, and the Anecdote: Jacob Francis and Israel Putnam

On August 18, 1832, a seventy-eight-year-old New Jersey man named Jacob Francis went before Hunterdon County officials and described his military service in the Revolutionary War. His affidavit became the core of his application for a federal government pension available to surviving veterans.[1] According to Francis, he had joined the Continental Army besieging Boston in […]

by J. L. Bell
Culture Posted on

The Second Battle of Cowpens: South Carolina vs. Winchester, Virginia

On January 17, 1781, at Cowpens, South Carolina, Gen. Daniel Morgan solidified his position as an iconic Revolutionary War figure with his decisive victory over Lt. Col. Banister Tarleton. This victory over the aggressive and capable Tarleton had significant consequences for the war in the southern colonies and contributed to Gen. Charles Cornwallis’s risky decision […]

by Patrick H. Hannum