On May 7, 1757, Thomas Pownall sailed from England for Boston to take his post as the governor of Massachusetts. Aboard the ship was George Lord Howe, an army officer. The two men developed a friendship over the three month voyage. On July 8, 1758, Lord Howe, a brigadier general, led the right center column […]
In September 1780, writing from Hillsborough, North Carolina, just one month after the disastrous defeat at Camden, Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates penned a disconcerted letter to Thomas Jefferson, the then governor of Virginia, broadly sketching the situation in the colonial South: “Should Wilmington in this State and Portsmo[uth] in Yours, be the posts they intend […]
At the dawn of the American Revolution, France and Britain had been coexisting under a treaty of friendship since about 1765. Traded like properties on a monopoly board, the Seven Years War (1756 to 1764) won Britain new colonies in such places as Spanish Florida and the Caribbean, and also French trading posts in far-off […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Damien Cregeau about ten notable graves and memorials honoring Patriots, from George Washington to Joseph Plumb Martin. 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 […]
Following the American surrender at Charleston on May 12, 1780, the Continental Army’s “Southern Department” was in disarray. Taken prisoner that day were 245 officers and 2,326 enlisted, including Maj. Gen. Benjamin Lincoln, the Southern Department’s commander-in-chief, along with militia and armed citizens, the most American prisoners surrendered at one time during the American Revolution.[1] […]
The Shores of Tripoli: A Strategy Game by Kevin Bertram (Fort Circle Games: Washington, DC) Recently I was fortunate to be asked to review a game about the Barbary Pirates who caused a considerable amount of trouble for Thomas Jefferson and the naval forces of the young United States. The game, The Shores of Tripoli, is […]
According to Andrew Jackson O’ Shaughnessy, the San Juan Expedition was among “the most ambitious enterprises of the American Revolutionary War.”[1] In 1779, after Spain’s formal entry into the war, the British aimed at striking Spanish interests in Central America. They would invade by first securing control of the San Juan River in present-day Nicaragua. Their […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Rand Mirante on the history of Fort Mifflin, the Revolutionary War-era fort on the Delaware River that is preserved as a U.S. National Historic Landmark. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic medical descriptions. Throughout the Revolutionary War, prisoners learned that dysentery accompanied starvation. Confined to the prison ship Jersey in 1781, Christopher Hawkins described rations “not sufficient to satisfy the calls of hunger.” In the next two sentences, Hawkins mentioned that “the bloody flux or dyssenterry” prevailed on the Jersey, from […]
We often think that the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia, and the surrender ceremony of October 19, 1781, was the effective end to fighting in the American Revolution. There were smaller skirmishes in isolated places, and some fights, but the two main armies never fought again. Yet the surrender allowed the French navy to return to […]
In October 1774, in a stunning and radical move, delegates of the First Continental Congress signed a pledge for the thirteen mainland colonies not to participate in the African slave trade. Perhaps equally astounding, Americans largely complied, turning the pledge into an outright ban. Congress’s ban and widespread compliance with it during the Revolutionary War […]
The first article of this series discussed the increasing chorus of American Patriots in New England raising their voices against the African slave trade. This article focuses on the Middle and Southern Colonies, as well as a few select thinkers from Philadelphia. Those who opposed the African slave trade in colonies ruled by royal governors […]
The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the slave trade and then slavery itself had to start somewhere, and a strong argument can be made that it started with the thirteen American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain, then […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Philip D. Weaver on his research on the 3rd New Jersey Regiment, the “Jersey Greys,” and their activities in New York in 1776. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast […]
Not all primary sources are created equal. We venerate the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Suetonius for providing us with a contemporary history of Imperial Rome. But does it tell us more about the lives of ordinary Romans than examining the graffiti on the walls of Pompeii? Similarly, the executive documents of Congress or […]
Thomas White, a twenty-two-year-old farmer in Chester County, Pennsylvania, answered the call to fight for the establishment of a new nation. The choice altered his fate irrevocably and nearly cost him his life before taking him to the edge of the frontier to start anew. Thomas White was many things in his seventy-year life: A […]
Aside from being outmanned by the best army in the world when the American Revolution started, it was clear that the American forces were lacking specific skill sets, gaps which had to be addressed in order to assure victory. Early on, Congress identified several functions, the major ones being engineering and artillery, in which a […]
This month we asked our contributors for their favorite witty quote from the era of the American Revolution. The responses are widely varied and wholly entertaining. John Concannon Captain Sir James Wallace of the Rose: “You, Abraham Whipple, on the 10th of June, 1772, burned His Majesty’s vessel, the Gaspee, and I will hang you […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Director of Education for Slater Memorial Museum and JAR contributor Dayne Rugh on his recent article about the Sons of Liberty in Connecticut. 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 […]
John L. Smith, Jr. introduced readers of the Journal of the American Revolution to Margaret Eustace in his article, “The Scandalous Divorce Case that Influenced the Declaration of Independence.” She had a second act in the American Revolution. In Georgia, late in the war, she made a name for herself. In November 1772, Thomas Jefferson represented Eustace’s […]
Thomas Pownall was appointed “Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over . . . the Province of the Massachusetts Bay” on February 25, 1757. He had some advantages that other governors did not have when taking office: first, he had a great deal of experience in the colonies, having travelled extensively through many of them; second, […]
If you draw a 150-mile radius around New York City, you’ll find so many locations relevant to the American Revolution that it’s almost overwhelming. There are nearly endless day trips to be had (for those fortunate enough to have a motor vehicle), which is especially welcome during this time when real long-distance travel is for […]
