The Journal of the American Revolution is pleased to announce Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution by John Gilbert McCurdy as winner of the 2019 Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award (Cornell University Press). The Honorable Mention is awarded to The Will of […]
On February 6, 1778, France signed two treaties with the United States, one of Amity and Commerce, the other, a defensive Alliance.[1] In them, France recognized the absolute sovereignty and independence of the United States. On March 10, the Foreign Minister of France, the comte de Vergennes, sent a dispatch that included a copy of the […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? It was perhaps inevitable that I would end up studying the Revolution as I grew up in the Boston area and my dad started taking me to visit places like Lexington Green, Old North Bridge, and the Freedom Trail when I was three years […]
John Morgan and William Shippen, Jr. stood shoulder to shoulder in the crowd outside of old Westminster Hall on September 22, 1761. They were awaiting the appearance of the empire’s new king, George III, and queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz—their new king and queen. The two men were a few of the vast throng the likes […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Dean Caivano, Lecturer of Political Science at California State University, Stanislaus, on the growing resistance to tyranny as colonists reacted to the prospects of their lives being reduced to a state of political and economic domination by Parliament and the Crown. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published […]
In the fall of 1771, the South Carolina rice merchant Henry Laurens sailed to Britain with his teenaged sons. They toured the countryside and settled in London, where Laurens conducted business and oversaw the loading of ships to America. He also wanted to give his sons an education, placing them with men who would help […]
In the wake of the Seven Years’ War in North America, the costly British triumph seemed complete. Thus, when a coda to the Seven Years’ War erupted in the interior of North America, it came as an unwelcome shock to the British Empire. War broke out anew, nominally led by the Ottawa chieftain Pontiac, who […]
Charles Lee served as second-in-command of the Continental Army, subordinate only to George Washington. Born in England, Lee was the best-educated and most widely-read of all the Continental Army generals. He also had the most military experience, first serving as a British officer in the French and Indian War and later as a soldier of […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews William Manthorpe, a former naval intelligence officer, government senior executive, and professor who specializes on the naval history of Delaware, on unraveling the legend of who burned the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse during the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of […]
“Unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place,” Gen. George Washington wrote from Valley Forge on December 23, 1777,[1] to Henry Laurens, the recently-appointed president of the Continental Congress, “the Army must inevitably be reduced to one or the other of these three things. Starve—dissolve—or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence.” A week later, […]
Hamilton Versus Wall Street: The Core Principles of the American System of Economics by Nancy Bradeen Spannaus (Bloomington: iUniverse, 2019) “The purpose of this book,” Ms. Spannaus declares, “is simple: to establish once and for all that the first U.S. Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton, was the founder of an American System of Economics which provided the […]
In 1774, as tensions between colonials and Native Americans living along the upper Ohio River grew, settlers either fled east of the mountains or forted up. During the summer, Maj. Angus McDonald of the Virginia militia marched over the Appalachians to Wheeling on the Ohio River and joined the locals like Ebenezer Zane, the town’s founder, […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and University of Central Florida historian David Head on his recent article about events leading up to the Newburgh Conspiracy. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to the […]
At about midnight on September 29, 1792, Ashley Bowen and his young assistant, Tucker Huy, heard a carriage clatter up the Boston Road and arrive at the Marblehead gate. Upon learning the “coach-full of men” had come from Boston, Bowen brooked no complaints when he approached the carriage and informed the passengers, “You must be […]
The Journal of the American Revolution is pleased to announce the five finalists for the 2019 JAR Book-of-the-Year Award. In alphabetical order: The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777 by Rick Atkinson (Henry Holt and Company) Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution by John […]
The threat of continued oppression and an encroaching condition of slavery was central to the American colonists’ call for separation from Great Britain and the corresponding shift to direct resistance. While the lack of effective political representation was crucial, importantly the colonists held other more acute concerns than the issue of representation in Parliament. Crucially, […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Steven Neill on William Pitt’s 1767 proposal to tax the East India Company and strengthen trade with the American colonies and how the company influenced Parliament’s decision to set aside Pitt’s plan. Instead, Parliament decided to levy taxes on the colonies through the Townshend Acts. Thousands of […]
One would expect that a country that had been at war for five years would welcome its first ally with open arms. We might have mental images of civic officials leading throngs of eager citizens to greet the allies or of platoons of soldiers firing salutes. It didn’t happen. No government officials, no military officers […]
