The mention of Beaufort, North Carolina, does not typically bring to mind any significant activity of the American Revolution. Only the most serious students of the war are likely to have studied the role Beaufort played. The action there offered no turning point and no clash between well-known commanders or sizable forces, but in the […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR Contributor Eric Sterner about frontiersman Samuel Brady and his rescue of Jane Stoops from an Indigenous war party. While the event may be true, did it happen the way the later stories recalled? New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern […]
One day in the late winter of 1788 in Paris, the Marquis de Lafayette and two other champions of republicanism, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, held a little “convention of our own,” according to Lafayette. They were discussing the latest news from America about the debates taking place over ratifying the Constitution of 1787.[1] Jefferson […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR Contributor David P. Ervin on the 13th Virginia Regiment’s controversial redeployment from the western frontier to the east to join the main Continental army. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]
The bloody events of April 19, 1775 at Lexington and Concord marked the opening of the Revolutionary War, at least in New England. But how did the colonies outside of New England? It turns out, most reacted similarly. New York When the inhabitants of New York City learned about the bloody clash in Massachusetts on […]
BOOK REVIEW: Under Alien Skies: Environment, Suffering, and the Defeat of the British Military in Revolutionary America by Vaughn Scribner (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2024) $29.95 Paperback Historians’ interest in the environment has remade our understanding of the past in recent years. We are now more inclined to appreciate the role that […]
Lord North officially presented the second Coercive Act entitled the Bill for Regulating the Government of the Massachusetts’ colony on April 15, 1774. It was read for the first time, ordered to be published and commented on by some of the members of the House. On April 22, the bill was read for a second […]
The American Revolution west of the Appalachians produced a number of stories, which in their constant retelling evolved into legends. They created a unique frontier mythology. Just as ancient Greece had Achilles and Odysseus, America west of the Appalachians had Daniel Boone and Simon Kenton. An American officer and frontier scout, Samuel Brady, became one […]
BOOK REVIEW: Virginia in the American Revolution by Charles A. Mills (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2025) $24.95 paperback Why were Revolutionary War events in Virginia significant, and what was it like to reside in the rebelling colony? Charles A. Mills, a historian and prolific author, answers these questions in his new book on Virginia’s […]
In the year 1775, two days after the spring equinox, a meeting was held in Pennsylvania’s York County of over one hundred freemen and an agreement was written to bind them into an Association. The agreement, now in the Rare Book Room of the York County History Center in York, Pennsylvania, read as follows: The […]
The Paradox as Context The literature of the Revolution is replete with references to the Founding Fathers’ recognition of the anguishing contradiction between the ideals they ostensibly endorsed in the Declaration of Independence—specifically Thomas Jefferson’s rhetoric about human equality and inalienable rights—and the commitment many of them made to sustaining the institution of human bondage […]
BOOK REVIEW: John Hancock: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence by Willard Sterne Randall (Dutton, 2025). Trends of historical research over the past few decades have steadily moved away from the “Great Man” study of the past that produced a slew of works on singular characters of important periods in favor of […]
On August 14, 1765, the town of Boston was in turmoil. At the entrance to the city, two large effigies were hanging from a great tree. The first effigy was that of John Stuart, the Earl of Bute, whilst the second was that of Andrew Oliver, a local stamp collector. Their two likenesses had been […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian JAR Contributor Elizabeth Reese about the life of George Washington’s granddaughter, Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis, whose life began to spiral after the President’s passing. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening (Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon […]
“He is one of those who fought in the Revolutionary War for that Independence which the people of this Country now enjoy. That whilst his country had need of his services . . . he did not remain at home ‘idle in his cabin,’ but went wherever his country call[ed], & his General dared to […]
“I am drove almost to death for money. We are rich poor cursed rascals. By God, alter our measures or we shall be a hiss, a proverb, and a bye word, and derision upon earth.” Ethan Allen writing to Ira Allen, August 18, 1786.[1] How could two renowned, high-ranking men from Vermont’s Revolutionary period, the […]
The fighting that raged over miles of Massachusetts countryside on April 19, 1775 finally subsided with the approach of evening. Thousands of Massachusetts militia had converged upon retreating British troops as they made their way back from Concord that fateful spring day and the casualties suffered by the redcoats were shocking. Two hundred and seventy-two […]
BOOK REVIEW: Shots Heard Round the World: American, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War by John Ferling. (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025) $40.00 Hardcover. John Ferling gives readers another history of the American Revolution with his 2025 work, Shots Heard Round the World: America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War. Despite that label in this […]
Among the foreign-born leaders who played crucial roles in the American Revolution, Hungarian-born Colonel Commandant Michael Kovats de Fabriczy stands out for his significant, yet often overlooked, contributions to the Continental Army.[1] Kovats played a key role in the establishment and development of the cavalry, overseeing the recruitment, training, and organization of regular cavalry units. […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and distinguished professor Franklin D. Rausch on an early, pivotal battle between Patiots (Whigs) and Loyalists in South Carolina, with the Loyalists trying to dislodge the Whigs from their strong point at Savages’ Old Fields. The battle was instrumental in drawing up the lines of what […]
The life of Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis Lewis was one of privilege and loss. After the premature death of her father, John “Jacky” Parke Custis, in 1781, Nelly and her younger brother, George Washington “Wash” Custis, were sent to Mount Vernon to live with their paternal grandmother, Martha, and her husband George Washington. Under the […]
Nathanael Greene famously wrote of his experience during the Southern Campaign that “The whole Country is in Danger of being laid Waste by the Whigs and Tories who pursue each other with as much relentless Fury as Beasts of Prey.” Historian John Pancake comments that “This observation was made by Nathanael Greene, a man already […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 by Rick Atkinson (Crown, 2025) $42.00 Hardcover The revolt that led to the loss of its thirteen Atlantic coast colonies was one of the slowest moving train wrecks in the storied history of the British Empire. Beginning as early […]
Alarming news of violence on the Upper Ohio flooded Pittsburgh in the late summer of 1777. On August 2, Joseph Ogle reported from Wheeling that a Native war party had wounded two men. James Booth, further south in Monongalia County, wrote that a mother and child had been killed and scalped and another captured. Col. […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Molly Fortune, chief executive officer of South Carolina’s 250th anniversary initiatives, including the publication of the first volume of the Francis Marion Papers. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening (Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
Ebenezer Lathrop’s company of militia which marched from Norwich, Connecticut, to Stillwater, New York, in the autumn of 1777 makes an excellent case study to understand Connecticut’s militia forces in the middle of the American War of Independence. When Connecticut raised companies that Fall to serve with Gen. Horatio Gates’s army, most were formed by […]
If you’ve travelled on US Interstate 90 in New York between Albany and Rome, New York, you may have noticed the words FORT PLAIN emblazoned on a hillside rising up on one side of the highway. It would be easy to assume that this just announces the town of Fort Plain, but for the Revolutionary […]
This month we asked our contributors to tell us about an artifact from the 1765-1805 era known to have existed well into the nineteenth century, that has since been stolen or gone missing. J.L. Bell In the mid-1800s James Ward Hall of Cavendish, Vermont, told Henry B. Atherton about a “military cap with its three […]
Agrippa Hull was a free black man who enlisted in the Continental Army from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and served for six and a half years until the end of hostilities. In early 2024 the Museum & Archives of the Stockbridge Library Association acquired, through private sale, Agrippa Hull’s certificate of discharge from the Continental Army, dated […]
BOOK REVIEW: From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the American Revolution by John R. Maass (Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2025) $30.00 hardcover. John R. Maass produced a very readable and enjoyable narrative with the publication of his recent text. In his introduction the author points out that warfare remains an important component of human […]
Historians generally agree on who were America’s principal Founders, but the roll call invariably omits the name of one individual without whose steadfast assistance the United States would have been unlikely to have gained independence. Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes, France’s foreign minister throughout the long, desperate war, was a crucial player in America’s victory […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Michael Cecere about how each colony prepared its militia as war with Great Britain became more of a possibility in 1774 and 1775. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening (Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google […]
Until 1765, there were no medical schools in the American colonies. In the words of one historian, a man aspiring to the medical profession was obliged to acquire his training as an apprentice to an older doctor. Beginning usually at fifteen years of age, he took care of the physician’s office and his horse, and […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Ride: Paul Revere and the Night that Saved America by Kostya Kennedy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2025) The story of Paul Revere’s ride through the Massachusetts countryside on the night of April 18-19, 1775, to warn that British troops were on the march, is so familiar that people might believe there […]
The Revolutionary War in the Ohio and Upper Mississippi River Valleys is generally looked upon as a side show to the main conflict along the Atlantic Seaboard. However, the impact of the forces in the Old Northwest Territory was much greater than their small size could have anticipated. Historian Pauline Peyton posited that had the […]
In 1776, the Declaration of Independence charted a new autonomous path for thirteen of Britain’s North American colonies. One of the document’s many allegations was that British authorities had “excited domestic insurrections amongst us.”[1] While its context largely pointed towards Native Americans, another inspiration for this grievance may have been the embodying of Loyalist regiments […]
BOOK REVIEW: Threshold to Valley Forge: The Six Days of the Gulph Mills Encampment by Sheilah D. Vance (Havertown, PA: Brookline Books, 2025) $24.95 Paperback. As the crow flies, the region west of Matson’s Ford and known as “The Gulph” loomed a mere dozen miles northwest of Philadelphia. The nearly weeklong encampment of George Washington […]
As part of the British empire, none of the thirteen American colonies maintained a standing army of the sort Great Britain and the other European powers had. American colonists looked to their own militia and when necessary, the British army and navy, for their defense. The French and Indian War of the 1750s and 1760s, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Jude Pfister. The Federalist Papers stand amongst the most important documents from the Revolutionary era, and they are being reevaluated for a new era. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening (Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
