After seven years of fighting in the Revolutionary War, Otho Holland Williams returned home. It was the Spring of 1782. When he left Frederick, Maryland, in 1775 he was the first lieutenant in a company of riflemen; now he was back from a long campaign in the Carolinas and was receiving a commission as a […]
The eighth straight uniform volume of selected articles from the previous calendar year is now available. The articles in the Journal of the American Revolution Annual Volume 2022 range from the Constitutional debate over the electoral college and impeachment procedures and the numerical strength of Washington’s army during the Philadelphia campaign to inoculation of smallpox, […]
In the Spring of 1776, as the American Revolution was underway the movement of the Colonies towards independence was just starting to gain steam. In the Second Continental Congress, John Adams, with an eye towards the future, championed a resolution that would allow each of the “united colonies” to assume the powers of government and […]
There was much discussion over the impeachment process during the Constitution’s ratifying debates. Federalists argued that the ability to impeach an individual gave disproportionate power to the House of Representatives, while Antifederalists favored more provisions to prevent tyranny from taking root. Some individuals liked the idea of having a body other than the Senate try […]
This month we asked our contributors, which person, for whom no image is known to exist, would you like to discover a full-length portrait of? Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy Sir William Howe. Robert S. Davis Thomas Brown, the Loyalist for whom more has been written than anyone else in Revolutionary War Georgia, although an article in […]
The American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade.[1] Before then, there was virtually no antislavery activity in any of the thirteen colonies of North America, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world. There was some limited antislavery dialogue in England, but its abolitionist movement […]
The Bliss Family roots run deep in Connecticut. Born in England around 1618, Thomas Bliss became a founder of Hartford and Norwich, Connecticut before passing away in 1688 in Norwich. His name is marked along with several others on a lone stone obelisk in the original Norwich Founders Cemetery, erected in the nineteenth century. Thomas […]
“The Chiefs Now in This City:” Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America by Colin G. Calloway (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021) BOOK REVIEW: In London in 1710, the four “Indian kings” went to see several plays and operas, as well as a Punch and Judy show. When they famously attended an operatic performance […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian M. Andrew Holowchak on interpreting the distinctions Thomas Jefferson made between rebellion, revolution, and treason. 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 be easily accessed on […]
It has been said of Edward Hand that he was “the stuff of which the hard core” of Washington’s army was made.[1] Indeed, he may have been the most unsung Patriot military hero of the American Revolution. On the second day of 1777, Hand organized a remarkable defensive action along the road from Princeton to Trenton, […]
William Goforth played significant roles in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the age of the American Revolution and the Early Republic and he stands out across the centuries as a man who lived by enlightened values. Yet even though he corresponded or directly cooperated with several very famous counterparts—the likes of Benjamin Franklin, John […]
“Dear Brother,” wrote Thomas Plumb from Newport, Rhode Island, on February 22, 1777, “this comes with my kind Love to you and hope these lines will find you, my Wife, Child & all Enquiring Friends in as good Health as they do Leave me at this Present time.”[1] Plumb has been in Rhode Island for […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Marine Corps veteran and JAR contributor James M. Deitch on his analysis of the 23rd, 25th, and 27th Grievances of the Declaration of Independence. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
Jefferson’s views on rebellion and revolution, when they are addressed, are often largely misapprehended in the secondary literature. One reason for the confusion is that rebellion and revolution are sometimes judged to be equivalent, or nearly so, and thus are often uncritically lumped together, or are viewed merely as symptoms of liberalism, taken too far. […]
There are many, many founding fathers in the story of America’s Revolution and unfortunately only a few are really known to the general public. Yet without those who are less known, there would have been no revolution. One of those men was the official secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson. He was the sole […]
BOOK REVIEW: Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World by Richard Middleton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022). It says something about an historical figure’s renown when his or her biography uses only their last name as its title. Napoleon, Lincoln, and Churchill are in this historical “club,” and with them, should be included […]
