On a Friday morning in 1764, a nineteen-year-old Abigail Smith sent some tobacco to her betrothed: one John Adams esquire, a country lawyer from Braintree.[1] Abigail was a parson’s daughter from nearby Weymouth, a young lady already brimming with the spiritedness and pragmatic optimism for which she would eventually become famous. But she didn’t send […]
BOOK REVIEW: New Hampshire and Independence: Rediscovered Writings from the Sons of the American Revolution edited by William Edmund Fahey (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2026). $34.99 Cloth, $24.99 Paperback The guidelines set for submissions to the Journal of the American Revolution ensure the articles exhibit the best practices of today’s historiography. They mandate that the […]
John Trumbull of Connecticut today is rightfully famous as a painter of Revolutionary War scenes. Some of his best paintings were enlarged by him and painted in the rotunda in the United States Capitol, where they can be viewed to this day. Less familiar is that Trumbull twice came under fire at the Battle of […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Drew Palmer on how Francis Marion’s daring raid on the Great Savannah in 1780, began the legend of the “Swamp Fox.” New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
Although the Revolutionary War was winding down by the year 1782, there was still raiding across Long Island Sound between the British-Loyalists forces on Long Island and the Patriot forces in Connecticut. The raids which engaged both soldiers and citizens alike were often revenge seeking, creating a somewhat civil war between factions in the region. […]
BOOK REVIEW: The American Revolution at 250: Twenty-Four Historians Reflect on the Founding edited by Francis D. Cogliano (University of Virginia Press, 2026) $32.95 hardcover The 250th anniversary of the American Revolution has engendered a crowded commemorative landscape. This volume, The American Revolution at 250: Twenty-Four Historians Reflect on the Founding is University of Virginia […]
In the story of the Revolutionary War in the south, William Hill has long enjoyed the reputation of a true hero of the backcountry. Very early in the southern conflict, Hill picked up the banner of revolution and led efforts to defeat the Loyalist and British forces in rural northwestern South Carolina. In a time […]
On July 19, 1788, as Federalist and Anti-Federalist delegates at the sharply divided New York ratifying convention debated the relative merits of the Constitution, Alexander Hamilton wrote to James Madison. The New York convention sought to include a series of conditions and amendments before ratifying, and Hamilton solicited Madison’s opinion as to whether New York […]
BOOK REVIEW: Major General Richard Montgomery: The Making of an American Hero by Michael P. Gabriel. (McFarland, 2026) $49.95 paperback Michael P. Gabriel has released the second edition of his biography of Brig. Gen. Richard Montgomery, a British-born Patriot who sought a quiet life of farming only to take up arms once more against the […]
Monday, November 17, 1777. The men started their march north through Westchester County at six o’clock, more than an hour after nightfall. The afternoon’s clouds had given way to wind and freezing rain. After a few hours the sleet turned to snow. Roughly one hundred men marched in silence. Their green coats disappeared in the […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Gabriel Neville on how before the Revolution the colony of Virginia took steps to take possession of the western frontier. After the war, they set those plans in motion. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on […]
Henry Laurens is recognized by scholars of revolutionary history as the president of the Second Continental Congress during the Valley Forge winter and as a peace commissioner at the close of the American Revolution. He is also known to a broader audience, thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton, as the father of John Laurens, the fiercely […]
Francis Marion has long been celebrated as one of America’s best partisan guerrilla commanders. The nature of Marion’s tactics, such as hit and run raids, speed and surprise, and the use of violence of action, continues to captivate people. His nighttime surprise attack against Loyalist militia at Black Mingo Creek on September 17, 1780, along […]
Major Abraham Kirkpatrick was not one to mince words. “There is a few of them Damned Cherokees,” he reported in July 1784, “near 40 men, settled on Siota about the old Chillicoffee Towns . . . These is the Villains that killed the family at the blue licks,” he continued, “as is still doing mischeif […]
BOOK REVIEW: Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America by Karin Wulf (Oxford University Press, 2025). $35.00 Hardcover. In Lineage: Genealogy and the Power of Connection in Early America, Karin Wulf explores the ways in which people of the foundational era represented their family histories and what we can learn about the […]
Introduction The actions of the cavalry at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781 have been particularly difficult to understand. Previous researchers have struggled to explain the actions of the cavalry under Lt. Col. William Washington while accounting for his seeming to be in multiple places on the battlefield at different times.[1] During research […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author Steven Bier on what he found out when researching the Hessian troops who fought at the Battle of Trenton, the subject of his new book. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon […]
As anyone who studies history will know, history is seldom a linear account of one fact after another. It’s a series of stories that reveal how we see ourselves. Sometimes, intentionally or no, the telling of those stories blurs the lines between truth and fiction. In my region of North Carolina, there is a story […]
In May 1775, a letter was sent to British General Thomas Gage in Boston the likes of which had never been received before. The letter certainly looked harmless enough. It was very short, and it didn’t say anything important at all—it simply requested the delivery of some papers. But this mysterious letter contained far more […]
Worcester, Massachusetts, claims to be the site of the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence in New England. A bronze star and plaque on the sidewalk in front of Worcester’s City Hall commemorates the event. The plaque reads: Here July 14, 1776 the Declaration of Independence was first publicly read in New England […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Michael Adelberg on the attempt to jail Loyalists in Monmouth County, New Jersey, and the eventual jail break by prisoners in 1781. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday evening(Eastern United States Time), first on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
Located along the western coast of the Hudson River just north of New York City, Orange County New York[1] was an active theater of war in the northern department. Large mountain ranges abutting both sides of the river gave the region the name of the Highlands, and provided a strategic barrier between New York City […]
BOOK REVIEW: Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution by Chris Mackowski, (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, LLC, 2026) $16.95 Paperback Chris Mackowski’s Atlas of Independence positions John Adams as just that, a self-sacrificing man who attempts to direct his “reluctant colleagues” towards America’s independence. Mackowski is pretty plain in his argument […]
A British writer wrote in 1781 that it was through individual obscure events that the conduct of the American Revolution was demonstrated across the whole continent.[1] The Battle of the Burke County Jail, fought in Georgia on January 26, 1779, was such an incident. This small but brutal gunfight brought to a head the political […]
Let’s start with what was lost: the 1691 Massachusetts charter, which merged Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth into a single royal colony. The document contains 9,755 words, but here’s the gist of it:[1] The Crown appointed a governor, but he would not govern alone. “Upon every last Wednesday in the Month of May, every yeare for […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Great Contradiction: The Tragic Side of the American Founding by Joseph J. Ellis (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025) $31.00 hardcover. The latest book by Founding Brothers author Joseph J. Ellis brings the reader back to the meaning of what he has referred to as “The Cause,” that is, the ideals […]
Understanding the important role played by the Dutch Republic[1] in the American Revolution is challenging. Few scholarly books and articles provide substantive details, and the role of the Dutch Republic is rarely adequately addressed in general histories of the period.[2] Nonetheless, the Dutch did play an important role—albeit a reluctant one—in aiding the united American […]
Though Quakers were admonished by their religious leaders to remain neutral and refrain from participation in the American Revolution, some did lend active support to one side or the other. One man who did so paid the ultimate price for his involvement. When the British army occupied Philadelphia in the Fall of 1777, they built […]
BOOK REVIEW: Siege: The Canadian Campaign in the American Revolution, 1775-1776 by Donald Grady Shomette (Heritage Books, 2025) Two volumes, paperback, $77.00 In its first year, the American Revolution was unstoppable. The outbreak of war at Lexington and Concord was followed by the capture of Fort Ticonderoga and victories at Moore’s Creek Bridge (North Carolina), […]
The two sieges of Fort Morris have remained comparatively obscure events in the historiography of the 1778 British invasion of Georgia. Overshadowed by the larger-scale capture of Savannah, the sieges were nonetheless impactful events in the intensifying war in the southern states. With the eventual surrender of the fort, the British army and navy consolidated […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Scott Syfert on what we can reliably know about North Carolina’s Mecklenburg Declaration even though the original document has been lost. Was this the first Declaration of Independence and did any of its language end up in the Declaration of Independence written and signed in […]
Richard Cranch was born on October 26, 1726, in Kingsbridge, Devon, England, the youngest of seven children.[1] The Cranch family had lived in Devon for centuries and had been involved in woolen manufacture for many years. Cranch was apprenticed as a wool-card maker, and emigrated to Boston on the ship Wilmington, arriving on November 2, […]
Since 2014, the Journal of the American Revolution has recognized the new adult nonfiction volume that best mirrors the mission of the journal with its national Book-of-the-Year Award. This year the editors are pleased to announce a winner and two runners-up. All three books are outstanding contributions to the history of the Revolutionary and Founding […]
May 2025 will bring the 250th anniversary of a unique if obscure Revolutionary war event in Charlotte, North Carolina: the much beloved, much maligned, “first” declaration of independence in the American colonies: the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 (or “MeckDec” as the locals call it). The MeckDec tale and associated celebrations have ebbed and […]
BOOK REVIEW: Belonging: An Intimate History of Slavery and Family in Early New England by Gloria McCahon Whiting. (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) $39.95 hardcover. Massachusetts had no large plantations due to its harsh winters and rocky soil, and without the ability for cash crops to be grown successfully, the demand for enslaved […]
As the Revolutionary War began, the fledgling Continental and state governments were faced the huge burden of holding and provisioning thousands of captured enemy soldiers and insurgent Loyalists. In 1776, prisons were improvised across the states—with the infamous Simsbury Mine in Connecticut as the most notable example.[1] By the end of the year, a chain […]
Brevet Major General Peter Muhlenberg woke up in the ruins of Fort Littleton on the morning of March 6, 1784, mounted his horse, and continued his journey through the snow-covered mountains of western Pennsylvania.[1] With him were a servant, a pack horse, and a German veteran of Casimir Pulaski’s Legion.[2] They rode to Bedford, site […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Home Front: Revolutionary Households, Military Occupation, and the Making of American Independence by Lauren Duval (Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press) $45.00 hardcover The Home Front by Lauren Duval, published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture in conjunction with the University of North Carolina Press, offers a comprehensive […]
The Race to the Dan is the name given to the campaign of maneuver and retreat that followed the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781.[1] The major event in the campaign was the single confrontation of the opposing armies at the fords of the Catawba River on February 1. In the traditional view of […]