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 […]
The 3rd New Jersey in New-York: Stories from “The Jersey Greys” of 1776. by Philip D. Weaver (Highland, NY: Continental Consulting, 2020) The plundering of Johnson Hall. What to do about the loyalist Lady Johnson. A duel set-up. Marching to Fort Stanwix/Schuyler. The defection and escape of Lieutenant McMichael. A riot on Christmas. Five boxes […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor, author, and educator Michael Cecere on his recent article about Patrick Henry’s March on Williamsburg and how that event averted a military confrontation in Virginia. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that […]
Beyond Florida’s state boundaries the history of New Smyrna is seldom mentioned.[1] Well known to the locals of New Smyrna Beach, the region’s settlement by European colonists dates to 1768 when Scottish physician Andrew Turnbull led a colonization effort to Britain’s far flung outpost in North America. After a trip to Asia Minor and the Mediterranean, […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? I was always a Civil War nut as a kid. As I started getting some books on that, I also picked up some on the Revolution as a side interest. By 1975, I was between schools and first got into living history. It was […]
In July 1780, after three and half months at sea, nearly 6,000 thousand men[1] and supplies crammed on four frigates, seven ships of the line, and thirty-six transport vessels, sailed into Narragansett Bay. Ludwig von Closen of the Royal Deux-Ponts was dispatched to alert Gen. George Washington that the French allies had arrived. Washington quickly […]
Franklin & Washington: The Founding Partnership by Edward J. Larson (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2020) George Washington and Early Republic scholar Edward J. Larson (author of The Return of George Washington: Uniting the States, 1783-1789 and A Magnificent Catastrophe: The Tumultuous Election of 1800, America’s First Presidential Campaign) has produced a new work focusing on […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and former White House webmaster, Jane Hampton Cook on Abigail Adams’s advice to her husband John to “Remember the Ladies”—consider the voices of women during the debate over how a new country should be governed—an early act in recommending the vote to both women and men. Thousands […]
In the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, as the British Army repositioned its forces from western frontier posts into American cities, many Americans seethed against quartering troops in urban centers. Animosity with the military occupation was rampant but was not the universal reaction in every location. In two cities, colonial anger ranged from vituperative […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? As a little kid growing up in very rural Chenango County, New York, I remember the astonishment my classmates and I felt when our teacher told us we lived in the Mid-Atlantic.“Uh- Uh,” shouted twenty 4th graders. “We live in New England!!!” It didn’t […]
Women in all states won the universal right to vote one hundred years ago through the ratification of the United States Constitution’s 19th Amendment in 1920. Though women in Seneca Falls, New York, launched the women’s rights movement in 1848 when they claimed that the Declaration of Independence applied to women in the Declaration of […]
The Founding of Thomas Jefferson’s University, edited by John A. Ragosta, Peter S. Onuf, and Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy, (University of Virginia Press, 2019). Revered by many for years, the University of Virginia boasts both of its academic reputation as well as its distinctive founder, Thomas Jefferson. As the collection of essays that comprise The Founding […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews VMI and University of Maryland, Baltimore graduate Derrick E. Lapp on the “Bunker Hill Effect” on decision making in the Continental Army early in the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast […]
This list presents the graves of ten soldiers who made remarkable contributions to the founding of the United States and who have a headstone or memorial that is unique in its design. Each of the tombs or graves on the list are in the eastern United States. After George Washington, this list is not in […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? I got into history in 5th grade when my mom bought me a Civil War computer game from the school book fair. I got into the Revolution later that summer when my family finally got cable and I watched an American Revolution documentary on […]
It may have been Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s patriotic paean that belatedly canonized a heroic horseman as a key figure of the American Revolution, but it was John Singleton Copley who provided posterity with the definitive visual representation of the famous midnight rider. Seven years before Paul Revere spread the alarm through every Middlesex village and farm—and […]
General Peter Muhlenberg: A Virginia Officer of the Continental Line by Michael Cecere (Yardley, Pa: Westholme, 2020) “The General, mounted upon a white horse, tall and commanding in his figure, was very conspicuous at the head of his men…many of the [enemy] soldiers (German enlistments being for life,) remembered their former comrade, and the cry ran […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Kim Burdick about l’Expédition Particulière, the codename for the French fleet that sailed from Europe to support the American war effort following the Treaty of Amity and Friendship. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Christopher Warren, historian and Curator of American History in the Rare Book & Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, on his recent article in JAR discussing important documents of the American Revolution that are held in the collection. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published […]
The walls grew weak; and fast and hot Against them pour’d the ceaseless shot With unabating fury sent, From battery to battlement; And thunder-like the pealing din Rose from each heated culverin Lord Byron, “The Siege of Corinth,” VI The enthusiast in search of the storied Revolutionary War bastion on the west bank of the […]
It is often believed or reported that the 2nd New York Regiment of 1775, commanded by Col. Goose Van Schaick, morphed into the 1st New York that started late in 1776 as part of the third establishment of the Continental Army. This unit would continue through the derangement (better known today as “downsizing”) of the […]
The role of Connecticut’s Sons of Liberty is one that exemplifies the state’s rich history of self-governance and fiercely independent spirit. Their swift reaction to the passage of the Stamp Act of 1765 shattered the political landscape of Connecticut, known ironically as “the land of steady habits.” Later, a few select Sons and their respective […]
The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution by Lindsay M. Chervinsky (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2020) In his slim volume on George Washington’s presidency, Forrest McDonald concluded that Washington had actually “done little in his own right, had often opposed the best measures of his subordinates, and had taken […]
The coming of the American Revolution traumatized the North American frontier, and many old orders were left shattered in its wake. While historians often focus on the establishment of a new nation, few recognize the destruction of one of the continent’s oldest superpowers. The battle of Oriskany in New York’s Mohawk River Valley stands out […]
The Widow Washington: The Life of Mary Washington by Martha Saxton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) Historians who have studied Mary Ball Washington described her in a not so favorable light. She was overbearing, overprotective, selfish, imposing, and crude; it is from her that historians have credited George Washington’s desire to escape the clutches […]
In January 1764, a “speckled monster” struck Boston, forcing businesses to shutter and residents to isolate themselves in their homes or flee the city for months. Not until summer did the threat lift enough to allow Bostonians to resume some semblance of normalcy. So what was this “monster” that disrupted the lives, work and routines […]
Thomas Pownall, the eldest son of William and Sarah Pownall, was born on September 4, 1722 in Lincoln, England. His father, a country gentleman, died when he was thirteen. Pownall attended the Lincoln grammar school until 1740 and then Trinity College, Cambridge from which he graduated in 1743. Two years earlier, his younger brother, John, […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Jeff Dacus on how Light Horse Harry Lee and Francis Marion were able to successfully capture British Fort Watson using a siege tower designed by Maj. Hezekiah Maham. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
It had been a very hectic week in Williamsburg for Peyton Randolph, the Speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and the President of the Continental Congress. It had begun with a startling alarm in the pre-dawn hours of April 21, 1775. The commotion just outside his house roused the corpulent Speaker from his bed. Like […]
This article supplements one of mine that appeared in the Journal of the American Revolutionin November 2016.[1] Based partly on The Cornwallis Papers,[2] it provides a wide-ranging set of reappraisals compartmentalised under the sub-headings below. James Paterson Paterson, as he signed his surname, had been appointed Lt. Colonel of the 63rd Regiment on June 15, […]
This article continues an examination of the journal kept by Dr. Edmund Hagen of Scarborough, Maine, begun in “Dispatch’t to America’: the Journal of Dr. Edmund Hagen, Privateer and Prisoner of War.” This second article presents and examines the second half of Dr. Edmund Hagen’s journal, dealing with Hagen’s experience on board the prison ship […]
