On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Associate Editor and historian, J. L. Bell on Samuel Dyer, a person few have heard of, but whose experiences could have changed history. This is part 1 of a 2-part exploration of this fascinating figure. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern […]
Between heroes like George Washington and villains like Benedict Arnold, the Revolutionary War was full of historical actors of all stripes. But one man in particular defies an easy sorting between hero and villain. Washington’s first adjutant general, Horatio Gates, does not have a secure place in historical memory as either hero or villain. In […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Sugar Act and the American Revolution by Ken Shumate (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme, 2023) In the leadup to the Revolution, several Parliamentary laws evoked the enmity of Americans and pushed them to declare independence. Usually the Stamp Act, Townshend duties, and Tea Act tower over the other laws as they elicited the most dramatic […]
As recounted in a previous article, in October 1774 a sailor named Samuel Dyer returned to Boston, accusing high officers of the British army of holding him captive, interrogating him about the Boston Tea Party, and shipping him off to London in irons. Unable to file a lawsuit for damages, Dyer attacked two army officers […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Mark R. Anderson on an accidental shooting at Fort Anne and its consequences that he uncovered while researching the Canadian campaign. 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 […]
On October 10, 1774, the brigantine Charlotte arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, from London. On board was a sailor named Samuel Dyer, and he told a shocking story, soon reported in the local newspapers. Three months earlier, on July 6, soldiers of the 4th or King’s Own Regiment had grabbed him off the streets of Boston and […]
BOOK REVIEW: Captain John Peck Rathbun, Revolutionary War Naval Hero & Man of the Sea by Frank H. Rathbun (privately published, 2022) John Paul Jones understandably dominates the field when it comes to full-length biographies of Continental Navy commanders. However, there is an excellent biography of the very worthy John Barry by Tim McGrath, and a […]
The 1776 campaign season had ended badly for General George Washington and the Continental Army as the dejected Patriots struggled through foul weather over primitive New Jersey roads as they marched toward Trenton in early December. To compound matters, Washington was faced with certain termination of the conflict if the situation did not dramatically improve. […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews independent Canadian historian and JAR contributor Stuart Lyall Manson on his fascinating research into the political and logistical difficulties of supplying food for American Loyalists who settled in Canada’s Upper Saint Lawrence region after the war. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern […]
A lesser-known action during Gen. John Burgoyne’s 1777 campaign occurred at Ticonderoga and Mount Independence in the days surrounding the first battle at Saratoga in mid-September. What became known as “Brown’s Raid” has commonly been interpreted as playing a key role in the defeat of Burgoyne’s invasion. Such is not necessarily the case and, as […]
BOOK REVIEW: His Masterly Pen: A Biography of Jefferson the Writer by Fred Kaplan (New York City, NY: HarperCollins, 2022) Thomas Jefferson was many things. Some of his best known roles were as Founding Father, president, governor, secretary of state, the only vice president who was of a different political persuasion than the sitting president, foreign […]
In 1901, the American Monthly Magazine published Rev. David Avery’s journal of the 1776 “Northern Campaign.” Avery had served as chaplain for John Patterson’s Massachusetts Regiment (15th Continental) and his chronicle provided an interesting primary source account of the failed campaign in Canada that spring. The printed journal described a minor, but tragic, accident that occurred […]
We have exciting news for our readers! It’s been ten years. It’s time for a change. Soon, things will look different at JAR. Don’t worry—we’ll still have the same great articles, podcast, and other content that you’ve come to rely on as a trusted source for information about the American Revolution and Founding Era. But […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Scott M. Smith on Luke Day who, along with Job Shattuck and Daniel Shays, led the western Massachusetts demonstration against state tax legislation. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
On a special episode of Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author Bob Thompson on his latest book, Revolutionary Roads. 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 the JAR main menu. Thousands of […]
In recent years the operation of the Electoral College, as specified in Article II of the Constitution, has come under repeated attack by Congressional representatives and others throughout the United States. The following material from Section 1 contains what are considered to be the most contentious provisions in this Article. Each State shall appoint, in […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Great New York Fire of 1776: A Lost Story of the American Revolution by Benjamin L. Carp. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023) Questioning long-held beliefs about historical events and their causes creates the most notable monographs among the bounteous publications concerning the Revolutionary-era each year. Prominent recent examples include adding women and […]
Thomas Jefferson has a Thucydidean, or fact-based, approach to the praxis of history. Evidence of that approach appeared early in his life, in his Literary Commonplace Book. There, Jefferson, quoted Henry St. John, Lord Bolingbroke (1678–1751), who wrote of history, rightly practiced. For history to be authentic, Jefferson, continuing to copy Bolingbroke, added that “these […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Chris Yohn, on his research about how settlers in the Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna valley were able to hold the line against British and Indigenous incursions that may have overrun the state and jeopardized both military and government operations in greater Philadelphia and beyond. New episodes of Dispatches […]
In the months following the end of the American Revolutionary War, British authorities in Canada desperately required supplies for refugee Loyalists slated to be resettled in that northern colony. The cross-border market that they targeted to meet these supply demands was ironic. They looked southward to a region of the United States that, during the […]
BOOK REVIEW: From the Battlefield to the Stage: the Many Lives of General John Burgoyne by Norman S. Poser (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023) It has been three decades since the last attempt at an in-depth biography of John Burgoyne. Max Mintz in his 1992 book,The Generals of Saratoga, looked at both Burgoyne and Horatio Gates […]
Captain Johann Ewald had much to thank the Almighty for.[1] A heroic stand on the picket line before Norfolk, Virginia, parried an American thrust and covered the captain and his men with glory, but it had nearly cost him his leg and left him bed bound and bereft of the command of his beloved Jӓgers. […]
The study of intelligence has always suffered from a bias towards the derring-do of spies, stealing of secrets, breaking of codes, and covert action. This is particularly the case with studies of intelligence during the American Revolution.[1] Books and articles on the topic have been premised on an understanding of “intelligence” as effectively limited to […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journey Through American Slavery and Independence by David Waldstreicher (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023) The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley by David Waldstreicher details the short but extraordinary life of Phillis Wheatley, a poet of the American Revolution years. Kidnapped from West Africa as a child and […]
The “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-1777 reversed the momentum of the War for Independence at a moment when what George Washington termed the “glorious Cause” of American independence appeared on the verge of final defeat.[1] During the period from December 25, 1776 through January 3, 1777, beginning with the fabled Christmas night crossing of […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Gene Procknow on the reputation of Ethan Allen as reported in newspapers of the day. 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 […]
Imagine what it would be like to visit London during the waning days of the American Revolution, to hear about attitudes of British officers toward the war and chance to see King George III. Patriot Nathaniel Fanning had this opportunity, and recorded his thoughts and observations in a memoir. Born in Stonington Connecticut on May […]
BOOK REVIEW: George Washington’s Revenge: The 1777 New Jersey Campaign and How General Washington Turned Defeat into the Strategy that Won the Revolution by Arthur Lefkowitz (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2022) The six months following the battles of Trenton and Princeton have long been ill-treated by historians. With Washington perched at Morristown, Howe in New York, […]
Pennsylvania settlers of the Susquehanna West Branch Valley endured extreme hardship through the first years of the revolution. The men and supplies they provided the Continental army left the frontier exposed and vulnerable. Fort Augusta, a traditional timber star-fort and vestige of the French and Indian War, stood in Sunbury at the confluence of the […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews distinguished historian, author, and JAR contributor Benjamin L. Carp on his discovery of two separate encounters between Capt. Abraham Van Dyck and the military justice system. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
Ethan Allen’s prevailing reputation among the general population remains that of a daring hero, but has suffered in the eyes of recent historians. Casual readers, aided by the embellishments of nineteenth-century biographers, remember Vermont’s Allen as the leader of the rebellious but honorable Green Mountain Boys and the conqueror of British-held Fort Ticonderoga. As a […]
BOOK REVIEW: Samuel Elbert and the Age of Revolution in Georgia: 1740-1788 by Clay Outzts (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2022) Professor Clay Ouzts has given Revolutionary War scholars a lengthy but valuable chronicle of the war in the southern department in his book Samuel Elbert and the Age of Revolution in Georgia: 1740-1788. A figure […]
Of the roughly nine hundred men who served at some point in the 8th Virginia Regiment in the Revolutionary War, only fifty-two have identified graves. Several of them are marked with wrong information that needs to be corrected. In some cases, the information is dramatically wrong. Sadly, this review of fifty-two grave markers from just […]
While Daniel Shays (1747-1825) has basked posthumously in the glory of leading the 1786-87 populist rebellion that bears his name, Luke Day (1743-1801) was a co-commander of the forces on the ground that fateful winter. Both Shays and Day were battle-hardened Continental army captains who returned home to rural Massachusetts to find their fellow farmers […]
BOOK REVIEW: Prisoners of the Bashaw: The Nineteen-Month of American Sailors in Tripoli, 1803–1805 by Frederick C. Leiner (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2022) As the dust jacket says, this is the story of “The Nineteen-Month Captivity of American Sailors in Tripoli, 1803-1805.” Frederick C. Leiner, a lawyer by profession, as well as an historian and author of […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor James M. Deitch on whether Hessian commander Johann Rall’s failure at Trenton was due to tactical or personal negligence. 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 […]
Captain Abraham Van Dyck of New York faced military justice twice during the Revolutionary War: first by the British for burning his hometown, and then by his fellow Continental Army officers for killing a Black soldier in camp. In each case, imperfect evidence presents historians with a puzzle. Notably, African American men were central to […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author Norman S. Poser on his new book, From the Battlefield to the Stage: The Many Lives of General John Burgoyne. 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 […]
“When a man chooses a calling, he must do everything that can be done in that calling so that he can never suffer reproach for having done only half of his duty. On this account, I keep among the mottoes in my portfolio, to serve at times as a reminder, the following from Boileau: ‘Honor […]
