Month: January 2021

 Arts & Literature Posted on

The 2020 JAR Book-of-the-Year

The Journal of the American Revolution is pleased to announce The Boston Massacre: A Family History by Serena Zabin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) as winner of the 2020 Journal of the American Revolution Book-of-the-Year Award. Honorable Mention is awarded to A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution by David […]

by Editors
2
Constitutional Debate Posted on

Partly National, Partly Federal: James Madison, the Amphictyonic Confederacy, and the Republican Balance

Following the Constitutional Convention’s completion of the United States Constitution in the Fall of 1787, many of those involved in its creation embarked on a campaign to ensure its ratification among the several states. The most significant effort was the publication of the Federalist in New York, published anonymously in a long series of newspaper articles […]

by James A. Cornelius
Critical Thinking Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Brian Gerring on “La Petite Guerre” and Native American Irregular Warfare

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews retired Special Forces soldier and educator Brian Gerring on his comparison of European La Petite Guerre, “small war,” and military tactics favored by Native Americans in the eighteenth century. Did the Continental army or militia incorporate tactics used by Native Americans? New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

Review: All at Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolution

All At Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolutionary War by John Dillon. (Warwick, England: Helion & Company Limited, 2019) The rebels in the American colonies were nervous about facing the might of the British Empire when the war began in 1775. The British army was disciplined and well-supplied with war materiel. […]

by Timothy Symington
Features Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Greg Aaron on Lord Dartmouth’s War of Words

Dispatches returns for another season, and on this week’s episode host Brady Crytzer interviews cybersecurity expert and JAR contributor Greg Aaron on Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of the State for the Colonies, and his fateful order to Gen. Thomas Gage, “to arrest and imprison the principal actors & abettors in the Provincial Congress” in Massachusetts, a group that […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

Review: Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution

Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution by Don Hagist. Foreword by Rick Atkinson. (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2020) Back in the 1950s, respected military commentator Walter Millis (1899-1968) stated that British soldiers at the time of the American Revolution represented “a class apart.” They were, “generally speaking, from the least productive elements […]

by James Kirby Martin
2
Espionage and Cryptography Posted on

Congress’s “Committee on Spies” and the Court-Martial Policies of General Washington

In the weeks before it declared independence, the Continental Congress was already hard at work building the institutions it would need to maintain the new republic. In June 1776, a committee was appointed to explore articles that would link the thirteen provincial legislatures in a loose confederation. A second was tasked to consider how the […]

by Richard Willing
2
Patriots Posted on

Plight of the Seamen: Incarceration, Escape, or Secured Freedom

During the Revolutionary War, the British were particularly sensitive to challenges to their maritime sovereignty. Members of the Continental Navy, states’ navy sailors or letter of marque privateers, when taken prisoner, were usually interned onboard prison hulks moored in Wallabout Bay in New York harbor. Seamen captured far from North American shores were often incarcerated […]

by Louis Arthur Norton
People Posted on

James Lovell: Schoolteacher, Prisoner, Patriot

James Lovell, delegate from Massachusetts to the Second Continental Congress and the Confederation Congress from 1777 to 1782, the only member of Congress to be continuously present during those years,[1] is known for being the Secretary for the Committee for Foreign Affairs; for his expertise in cryptography, earning him Edmund Burnett’s description of “decipherer extraordinary to […]

by Jean C. O'Connor
7
Features Posted on

Review: Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era

Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era by Mike Bunn. (Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books, 2020) In Fourteenth Colony, Mike Bunn sheds light on the forgotten British colony of West Florida. The book seeks to “put West Florida back on the map of our historical consciousness” (page xi). Comprising parts of […]

by George Kotlik
Features Posted on

Best of Dispatches: Colin G. Calloway and The Indian World of George Washington

In this week’s program from the Dispatches archives, recorded in February 2019, host Brady Crytzer interviews distinguished historian Colin G. Calloway about his book, The Indian World of George Washington, winner of the 2018 Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year. Later this month, the 2020 Journal of the American Revolution Book Award will be […]

by Editors