Georgia did not send a delegation to the first Continental Congress in 1774. The least populous colony of the thirteen British colonies in North America, Georgia was originally settled in 1663 by a group of men on land given to them by Charles I, King of England. They settled the land with the poorer people […]
Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), a French philosopher, once said that the definition of a traitor was “a patriot whose cause was lost.” In the time of the American Revolution, it could well be said of those who were considered Loyalists, that a “Loyalist was a patriot whose cause was lost.” Born in Switzerland in 1724, Hans […]
Those who study the Revolution in the northeast have some familiarity with the Crown Point Road that ran from the Fort at #4 in Charlestown, New Hampshire, to the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga. Built during the French and Indian War, the road provided a route across Vermont for troops and supplies moving from […]
Algernon Sidney was a seventeenth-century British political theorist, Member of Parliament, and Whig politician who was executed for treason on December 7, 1683, during the reign of Charles II. At his trial, the most incriminating evidence presented by the prosecution was a series of anti-monarchical passages from a seized manuscript of Sidney’s reformist treatise, Discourses […]
BOOK REVIEW: Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade by Christian McBurney (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2022) In Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade, author Christian McBurney recounts the voyage of a Rhode Island merchant’s privateer ship Marlborough to the West Coast of Africa to attack and disrupt British […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Eric Sterner about an important international repercussion of the British war in America: the organization of neutral states led by Russia to counter with force if necessary British attempts to control international trade on the seas. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free […]
James Thacher’s contribution to the history of smallpox and to the Revolutionary War has not been fully appreciated. In the historical scholarship, his tireless efforts against the disease have been acknowledged but only in passing.[1] Under extremely trying conditions, Thacher and his colleagues cared for those stricken with the virus and inoculated both combatants and […]
On December 12, 1781, a motion to end the war with the American colonies and to grant them their independence was introduced in the House of Commons. In the debate which followed, twenty-three men spoke. The debate did not end until 2:00 in the morning. A vote was then called; the outcome was 220 against the […]
Like a rock dropped into a smooth pond, the American Revolution spread ripples across the European world. French and Spanish entry into the war amplified those ripples to reach the distant shores of the Baltic and White Seas. In 1780, Russia reacted and threatened to upend the entire strategic balance in Europe, which would have […]
Throughout the churning tides of 1776 and 1777, John Brown, a prominent a prominent merchant from Providence, Rhode Island, amassed a fortune by investing in privateers. Through reviewing a comprehensive list of his privateers and their values, along with a list of the captures made by some of his privateers, and the values of the […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Shawn David McGhee explains how a plot was devised to unseat Vice President John Adams on partisan lines during the 1792 election. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
The first objective in Lt. Gen. Earl Cornwallis’s first invasion of North Carolina was the capture of Charlotte. He intended to establish a post there, not only to control adjacent territory, but also to facilitate his communication with the south as he advanced farther. At daybreak on September 7, 1780, accompanied by two 3-pounders, Cornwallis […]
Recently, JAR interviewed author Stephen L. Kling, Jr. about the American Revolutionary War in the West Museum Exhibit at the St. Charles County Heritage Museum in St. Peters, Missouri. How did the ‘American Revolutionary War in the West’ museum exhibit come about? The exhibit grew out of an earlier book I wrote on the Battle […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Patrick H. Hannum on his research to determine the leadership and deployment of Virginia’s military companies in 1775, as dictated by the Third Virginia Convention force structure. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]
Scholars typically cast the outcome of the second presidential election as either a forgone conclusion or a non-event.[1] After all, George Washington ran unchallenged and once again received unanimous support from the Electoral College.[2] Shifting academic focus from the first magistrate to the second, however, reframes the 1792 contest as a struggle for the soul […]
General Anthony Wayne was one of the most capable generals in the Continental Army and is perhaps best remembered for his successful surprise attack that captured the British post at Stony Point, New York, on July 16, 1779. Wayne also suffered his share of reverses, most notably at Paoli, Pennsylvania, on the night of September 20-21, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews actor, research, and JAR contributor, Sarah Swift on her research on the service record of Loyalist Samuel Babcock and the surprising connections she uncovered. 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 […]
“The King had evidently consented to the repeal, and then disavowed his Ministers.”—Horace Walpole, Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third In early 1766, in response to American violent resistance to the taxation levied by the Stamp Act of 1765, British leaders were concerned with determining “the best mode of restoring order & […]
The American Revolution was perhaps America’s first civil war—a dispute that forced neighbors to choose between country and King; to declare themselves Patriots or Loyalists. Modern Americans might be tempted to only focus on the Patriots’ side of events, but I have discovered that by investigating the Loyalists, an ensemble of characters with connections to […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Sewing Girl’s Tale: A Story of Crime and Consequences in Revolutionary America by John Wood Sweet (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2022) It is one of the great ironies of historical studies that the people who were most numerous are the ones about whom, as individuals, the least information survives. The ordinary […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor William W. Reynolds on his examination of the surrender documents from Yorktown discovering differences between the original papers and subsequent copies. 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 1776, John Cadwalader was a thirty-four-year-old merchant and prominent member of the Philadelphia gentry who had risen to command the volunteer militia known as the Philadelphia Associators. In his capacity as a militia colonel, he would play a distinctive—and today largely unappreciated—role in what historians have termed the “Ten Crucial Days” of the Revolutionary […]
Marinus Willett was born the son of a Quaker, Edward Willett, on July 31, 1740, in Jamaica, Long Island (now part of Queens). After spending his early years on a farm in Jamaica, he relocated to a place known then as Cedar Grove, along the East River and now part of New York City. This […]
BOOK REVIEW: James Colbert and his Chickasaw Legacy by Stephen L. Kling, Jr. and Guy B. Braden (St. Louis, MO: THGC Publishing, 2022) The history of the American Revolution is filled with shadowy figures, about whom little is known, though scattered documents provide fragments of information and hint at their importance. One such individual was James […]
The graphic below outlines the force structure created by the Third Virginia Convention in August 1775 and identifies the district and county or counties where companies formed, unit commanders, and where and when the companies assembled, served or operated in 1775. The initial intent of this research was to identify the regular companies that served […]
During the Revolutionary War, several men refused commissions as generals in the Continental Army. Seth Pomeroy and John Whitcomb were unable to accept the honor due to ill health. John Philip de Haas concentrated on his business after distinguished service as a colonel. One officer, John Cadwalader of Pennsylvania, not only turned the down the […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Battle of Gloucester 1777 by Garry Wheeler Stone and Paul W. Schopp (Yardley, PA: Westhome Publishing, 2022) Garry Wheeler Stone’s and Paul W. Schopp’s The Battle of Gloucester 1777 comes to us as a part of Westholme Publishing’s new Small Battles series. The 152-page book highlights the small action that took place outside […]
The surrender of the British Army at Yorktown in 1781 was implemented by the three-party Articles of Capitulation (“the Articles”), one of the most important documents of the Revolutionary War, since the surrender eventually led to the Peace of Paris (1783) and American independence. Curiosity as to the current location of the original Articles, i.e., […]
David Williams, John Paulding, and Isaac Van Wart were celebrated as heroes during their lifetime, vaulted to fame by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, and lionized in popular ballads and the play The Glory of Columbia: Her Yeomanry.[1] Historian Mercy Otis Warren adored John André’s Captors, writing in 1805 that their names “ought never to […]
Following the surrender of General Cornwallis at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, the House of Commons began to debate whether or not the war should continue. There were three separate attempts over a period of two and a half months to end the war. This article presents the first attempt, that is, the first motion, […]
Students of history will no doubt have John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin at the top of their mind when recalling the great leaders of early America and the story of American independence. The thoughtful and considered utility of the words contained within the Declaration of Independence and Constitution cannot be understated. […]
BOOK REVIEW: American Revolutionary War in the South: Further Reflections from a British Perspective in the Light of the Cornwallis Papers. Vol. 2 by Ian Tolworth Saberton (Surrey: Grosvenor House Publishing Co., 2022) Building upon expertise gained by editing Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis’s 1780 and 1781 official papers from the southern theater of the Revolutionary […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews emeritus professor of history and JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on the use of capital punishment and revenge killings as a penalty or deterrent for desertion, espionage, atrocities, or loyalty to one side or the other during the American Revolution. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free […]
During the American Revolution, some of the hardest-fought and most bitter battles occurred in the land of the Six Nations, the Iroquois lands stretching from the Hudson River on the east to Lake Erie in the west of what is now upstate, central and western New York State. Both the Americans and British were campaigning […]
If you ask an outsider about the State of Delaware, they are likely to respond, “Dela-where?” “Do you mean Delaware County???” A few may reply, “Yeah. I think I passed through there once on my way to D.C.” If asked about the French history of the state, others may shrug, saying, “Sure. That’s the DuPont […]
BOOK REVIEW: Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War by Friederike Baer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2022) Writing a detailed, authoritative account of the British Army’s German troops has always been a tough climb requiring a combination of several advanced skills. Much of the source material has remained untranslated into English either in whole or […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Damien Cregeau on the contributions of Daniel Hitchcock, a Rhode Island officer who led New England troops in key early battles of the Revolution, including Second Trenton and Princeton, but had his career cut short by disease. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every […]
“War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.”[1] The application of justice during the Revolutionary War deserves scrutiny. Historic records related to people condemned to death during this period reflect society’s norm for justice, deterrence, and often vengeance. Countless men on both sides of the conflict were executed for treachery, betrayal, or perfidy. Several examples […]
One of the most insightful monologues in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton musical comes from King George, who raps to the following effect: Well, now that you have your freedom, do you have any idea what to do next? To most Americans at the time of the War for Independence, of course, the King’s question was the […]
