For the past two years I have had the good fortune to be heading up a project to gather, for eventual publication, the correspondence of one of the more colorful officers on the British side, Francis Lord Rawdon. Rawdon was an Irishman, one of a handful of young officers who catapulted to command ahead of […]
She was neither beautiful nor wealthy. Nor was Benjamin Franklin’s wife educated or intellectual. Nevertheless in 1724 he proposed to Deborah Read while renting a room from her father, the carpenter John Read of Philadelphia. Was it simply youthful passion that attracted him or did the eighteen-year-old printer ask for Deborah’s hand because she had […]
BOOK REVIEW: Our Dear Bought Liberty: Catholics and Religious Toleration in Early America by Michael D. Breidenbach (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2021) Most Americans in pre-revolutionary times had a strong dislike of Catholicism. They believed it to be a religion of ignorance, a religion of tyranny, and the religion of the enemy. The ever-opinionated John […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Todd W. Braisted on Israel Putnam and William Tryon trying to influence Hessian forces around Kingsbridge, New York, with dueling proclamations. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
“The great End and Business therefore of Philosophy, is to make us truly happy; and this is the End ultimately pursued through all the Arts and Sciences, they are only so many Means of our Happiness.”—Rev. Dr. Samuel Johnson, An Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, 1731. “ETHICS, which explains & directs the Temper & […]
Mit Complimenten Aweissen (put him off with compliments) Arthur Lee, one of the American Commissioners stationed in Paris, was appointed minister to the Prussian Court of King Frederick the Great in the Spring of 1777. He departed Paris on May 19 and arrived in Berlin on the evening of June 4. The next day, he informed […]
BOOK REVIEW: Fort Ticonderoga, The Last Campaigns, War in the North 1777-1783 by Mark Edward Lender (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2022) Mark Edward Lender’s recent book on Fort Ticonderoga provides a well-written and well-researched narrative that addresses the final campaigns and operations involving the fort and its surrounding environs. During the initial phases of the American Revolution, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews US Army chaplain Brian Koyn on how modern emotional intelligence research can provide insight on how George Washington successfully handled the Newburgh Conspiracy. 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. […]
In Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774), Jefferson wrote of King George III’s unwillingness to use his “negative” to veto unjust proposals. Two years later, Jefferson echoed this sentiment in his first draft of Declaration of Independence. Here, Jefferson listed a “long train of abuses & usurpations,” at the hand of King George […]
The Articles of Confederation described the first government of the new United States. As one may imagine from understanding the later debates on the Constitution in 1787, there were a number of points of contention on the Articles that were later re-argued for the Constitution. But there was one issue in the debate on the […]
BOOK REVIEW: Informing a Nation: The Newspaper Presidency of Thomas Jefferson by Mel Laracey (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2021) In Informing a Nation: The Newspaper Presidency of Thomas Jefferson, Mel Laracey examines Jefferson’s relationship with the National Intelligencer and Washington Advertiser and the way Jefferson used the newspaper to exert influence during his presidency. Although […]
As the year 1777 drew to a close, the region around the city of New York had been under British control for a year. Although the British position was strong, the recent surrender of a British army at Saratoga dramatically changed the prospects of the war ending any time soon. Troops in the New York […]
Upon the death of his grandfather on May 31, 1740, Frederick William II of the House of Hohenzollern became the King of Prussia. Over the next forty-six years, he pursued two goals: modernizing Prussia and reuniting the lands that had once been part of Prussia. In his youth he received a classical education including exposure […]
BOOK REVIEW: A Very Fine Regiment: The 47th Foot during the American War of Independence, 1773-1783 by Paul Knight. (Warwick, UK: Helion Publishing, 2022) The author, Paul Knight, produced a history of the 47th Regiment in the broader context of evolution of the regiments in the British Army. This is a very dense work filled with […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Rhode Island and Revolutionary War historian Christian McBurney on uncovering the extraordinary story of a man from North Carolina who traveled north in 1779 in order to obtain slaves and how his scheme was thwarted by the courts, setting a legal precedent in Rhode Island. New episodes of […]
General George Washington stood in front of his assembled officers, reading glasses in hand, and stated, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind, in the service of my country.”[1] These words uttered on March 15, 1783, in the recently constructed Temple of […]
BOOK REVIEW: Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution by Eric Jay Dolan (New York, NY: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2022) Marine historian Eric Jay Dolin, the author of Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates (2018) and Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (2007), has added to our understanding of […]
