Month: February 2022

 Newspapers Posted on

William Hunter: Finding Free Speech—A British Soldier’s Son Who Became an Early American

BOOK REVIEW: William Hunter: Finding Free Speech—A British Soldier’s Son Who Became an Early American by Eugene A. Procknow (Mechanicsburg, PA: Sunbury Press, Inc., 2022) An unknown, virtually invisible figure finds his historical reputation established in William Hunter: Finding Free Speech—A British Soldier’s Son Who Became an Early American. Eugene A. Procknow, frequent contributor to the Journal […]

by Timothy Symington
Features Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Alexander Lenarchyk on Washington’s Asylum

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews college student and JAR contributor Alexander Lenarchyk on his discovery that Washington mused on the idea of needing an “asylum” should the war go terribly wrong. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]

by Editors
2
Letters and Correspondence Posted on

Johnson Cook: Patriot Warrior

In the fall of 1796, just months before George Washington’s presidency ended, thirty-six-year-old Revolutionary War veteran Johnson Cook (1760-1848), a Connecticut native, petitioned the president for financial assistance and entreated him to spare Cook from living out his final days “neglected.” In his two-page manuscript letter to Washington, written on October 1, 1796, from Marietta […]

by Adrina Garbooshian-Huggins
Critical Thinking Posted on

A Demographic View of the Georgia Continental Line and Militia: 1775–1783

To complement my two studies of the North Carolina Continental Line and militia/state troops, I’ve researched the demographics of the Georgia Continental Line and militia using Federal pension applications.[1] The colony of Georgia at the beginning of the Revolutionary War consisted only of a series of counties along the Savannah River running from the Atlantic coast […]

by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.
Constitutional Debate Posted on

Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution

BOOK REVIEW: Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution by Gordon S. Wood. (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021) The eminent historian and author Gordon S. Wood has turned a series of recent lectures into his latest work, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution. The focus of the book is what Wood considers […]

by Timothy Symington
1
Prewar Politics (<1775) Posted on

Rev. George Whitefield’s Influence on Colonial Chaplains in the American Revolution

Rev. George Whitefield (1714-1770) was an ordained Church of England priest with an exceptional speaking voice who in his lifetime swayed countless people towards historic Christianity. In a time of the liberalization of historic Protestant Christianity, Whitefield preached the simple biblical message of the Protestant Reformation, that people could not reach God or merit God’s […]

by Kenneth E. Lawson
9
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

African Americans and Native Americans of the Revolutionary War Era Who Should Be Better Remembered

We regularly ask our contributors questions about the American Revolution and founding era. This month we’ve asked them to tell us about an African American or Native American associated with the 1765-1805 era who does NOT have a Wikipedia entry, but who should. Lars D. H. Hedbor The Marquis de Rouvray, who commanded the regiment of […]

by Editors
2
Political Philosophy Posted on

Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History

BOOK REVIEW: Religion and the American Revolution: An Imperial History by Katherine Carté (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press/Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 2021) Dwight Eisenhower once said that “our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don’t care what it […]

by Gabriel Neville
2
Books and Publications Posted on

Natural History in Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary America

In the second half of the 1700s, French natural historian Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, formulated what would be dubbed the “New World degeneracy” or the “American degeneracy” theory. His work, Histoire Naturelle, Générale et Particulière, included a vast array of facts about natural history from around the world as well as the Count’s many […]

by Matteo Giuliani
Features Posted on

Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders

BOOK REVIEW:  Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders by Dennis C. Rasmussen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021) I feel dutybound to confess something, before I tempt the reader further into this review of Dennis C. Rasmussen’s Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders. I am somewhat embittered—envious even. […]

by Geoff Smock