On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews architect and JAR contributor David M. Griffin on his research to determine the possible appearance and location of a series of Continental forts in Brooklyn that formed a defensive line protecting New York City during the Battle of Long Island. New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]
In the early years of the nineteenth century, the founders of the new American Republic were lurching forward from the shockingly successful outcome of their increasingly remote Revolution, and finding themselves immersed in the uncharted waters of nation-building. The political landscape was inflamed by passionate partisanship and varying, often vituperatively expressed visions of what course […]
The debate over mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 has led to many articles referring to how George Washington handled a similar issue, this one involving smallpox, with the Continental Army early in the American Revolution. With the advantage of hindsight, the decision Washington made to fully inoculate (not vaccinate) his army may today seem obvious, but […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents, 1773-1783 by Joseph J. Ellis (New York, NY: Liveright Publishing, 2021) Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph J. Ellis’s examines the evolving meaning of the American Revolution in his newest work, The Cause: The American Revolution and its Discontents. The events that history refers to as the Revolution […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian, decorated Marine veteran, and JAR contributor Patrick Hannum on the historic meeting between George Washington, French admiral, Comte de Grasse, and French general Comte de Rochambeau during the Yorktown campaign. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, […]
Considered the last major battle of the American Revolution, Yorktown is synonymous with American victory. It was the beginning of the end of the war, and a crucial moment of triumph for the fledgling United States of America. On a short trip to Virginia, I was inundated with history from all periods of the country’s […]
Book Review: Redemption from Tyranny: Herman Husband’s American Revolution by Bruce E. Stewart (Charlottesville, VA and London: University of Virginia Press, 2020) On a spring day in 1775, two Pennsylvania judges placed an exorbitant bond on a participant in a public protest against the British government. The judges were not simply Loyalists trying to put […]
On October 19, 1781, Gen. George Washington attained his apex as a soldier. Straddling a spirited charger at the head of a formidable Franco-American army, Washington watched impassively as 6,000 humiliated British, German, and Loyalist soldiers under the command of Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, emerged from their fortifications to lay down their arms […]
BOOK REVIEW: Minds and Hearts: The Story of James Otis Jr. and Mercy Otis Warren by Jeffrey Hacker (Amherst, MA: Bright Leaf/University of Massachusetts Press, 2021) James Otis and his sister Mercy Otis Warren belong on any list of underappreciated founding-era Americans. James was described by none less than John Adams as being “the earliest and […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historians and JAR contributors Michael C. Harris and Gary Ecelbarger on their important work to better determine the numerical strength of the Continental Army during the 1777 Philadelphia Campaign. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]
A recent home improvement project led to the Home Depot located at 2324 Elson Green Avenue, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The area is in the middle of the expansion of the old narrow two-lane country Princess Anne Road, into a modern six lane highway with access lanes needed to support the growing private and commercial vehicle […]
The objective of the 1776 British campaign was straightforward: capture New York and crush the American rebellion. The plan was the brainchild of British commander-in-chief Gen. William Howe and the Secretary of State for the American Department George Germain. Howe had every reason to think he would make quick work of it. His invasion was […]
BOOK REVIEW: George Washington: The Political Rise of America’s Founding Father by David O. Stewart (New York, NY: Dutton, Penguin Random House, 2021) One of the most recent biographies of the first president got this reviewer comparing the majestic and physically intimidating George Washington with the short but brilliant fictional character Tyrion Lannister from the series […]
The planned capture of New York City in 1776 by British forces set the stage for what was to become the largest battle of the Revolutionary War period. British and Hessian forces were able to defeat their American opponents easily in open conflict in the early stages of the Battle of Long Island in 1776. […]
Antoine Louis Claude Destutt, comte de Tracy (1754–1836) was a famous French Enlightenment philosopher. Thomas Jefferson admired him, and was so impressed with his writings that he translated one of his works into English and published it. In 1811, Jefferson completed his translation of Destutt de Tracy’s Commentary on Montesquieu, writing in thepreface: Montesquieu’s immortal […]
Introduction Perhaps the most important facet for understanding and appreciating a military campaign is a solid grasp of the composition of the armies engaged in it; the quantity of troops shares equal importance to the identity and quality of them. The multitude of books and monographs dedicated to the 1777 Philadelphia campaign, whether in part […]
BOOK REVIEW: Ill-Fated Frontier: Peril and Possibilities in the Early American West by Samuel A. Forman (Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2021) Samuel A. Forman, author of Dr. Joseph Warren: The Boston Tea Party, Bunker Hill, and the Birth of American Liberty, was asked if he was related to Samuel S. Forman, who chronicled a trek to the western […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor David Price on the brief, but memorable, contribution of Thomas Knowlton to the American cause. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now […]
