BOOK REVIEW: Robert Morris: Inside the Revolution by Robert M. Morris (Waterville, OR: Trine Day LLC, 2022) Entrepreneur and inventor Robert M. Morris (no relation to the book’s subject) is the perfect channel to present the story of the American Revolution’s “forgotten” hero, Robert Morris. George Washington is Father of the Nation, James Madison is […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews museum curator and JAR contributor Colin Zimmerman about the Battle of Crosswicks, New Jersey, a small but critical battle before the clash at Monmouth. 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 […]
As a collateral descendant of Daniel Hitchcock (first cousin, nine times removed), I have always been fascinated by the short but important life of this colonel from Providence, Rhode Island, who was taken by illness following the Battle of Princeton at the young age of thirty-seven. Likely because there is neither an existing house nor […]
On April 1, 2015, Queen Elizabeth II announced the creation of the Georgian Papers Programme. It is a ten-year project to transcribe, digitize, conserve, catalogue, and disseminate close to 425,000 pages related to England’s Hanoverian monarchs located in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle. Most of the papers are personal and official correspondence—the remaining are […]
BOOK REVIEW: Leading Like the Swamp Fox: The Leadership Lessons of Francis Marion by Kevin Dougherty and Steven D. Smith (Philadelphia: Casemate Publishers, 2022) The past decade has seen a resurgence of interest in Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion, the Continental officer turned partisan commander who, along with Thomas Sumter, Andrew Pickens, and several lesser-known officers, […]
Sir Henry Clinton inherited an unmitigated strategic disaster when he assumed command of the Crown Forces in North America during the spring of 1778. Previous campaigns had taught the newly-minted command-in-chief that if there was to be a complete victory for the British, it needed to be in a thoroughly decisive action on the battlefield […]
“In war, as in medicine, natural causes not under our control, do much.” Gen. Horatio Gates wrote this about the terrain that so heavily influenced his victory at Saratoga in 1777. Another natural cause that heavily influenced events of the American Revolution was weather. Here are ten instances where unexpectedly uncooperative weather had a major […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Aaron J. Palmer on the social and political significance of the 1775 duel between the elite Henry Laurens and the up-start John Faucheraud Grimké. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon […]
“Permit me to thank you, in the most affectionate manner, for the kind wishes you have so happily expressed for me and the partner of all my domestic enjoyments. Be assured, we can never forget our friend at Morven.” George Washington[1] To whom was George Washington writing and why did he offer, “in the most […]
It is widely acknowledged that the military alliance between the United States and France, established in 1778, was responsible not only for a number of American victories over the British, but also for the end of the Revolutionary War. While much has been written about this topic as well as the events that occurred between […]
BOOK REVIEW: Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York by David N. Gellman (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2022) America’s Founders are routinely criticized for creating a republic that tolerated, and often defended, African slavery, but at least one of the Founders, New York’s John Jay, inaugurated a family tradition of anti-slavery […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews museum professional and JAR contributor Victor J. DiSanto on his research into the men who captured British spy John André after his rendezvous with Benedict Arnold. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
The most common storm that the British navy and army encountered at sea and on land during the American War of Independence was the nor’easter. Nor’easters usually develop in the latitudes between Georgia and New Jersey within 100 miles east or west of the East Coast. These storms Progress generally northeastward and typically attain maximum […]
Charles Town, the metropolis of the South (today Charleston, South Carolina), was a leading location for duels in the late eighteenth century. One detailed example reveals much about the practice and about honor in general. In this case, an elite gentleman used every means available to him to defend his honor and police the bounds […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews best-selling author and historian Nancy Rubin Stuart on what made Benjamin Franklin and Deborah Read’s marriage one of the more unusual among prominent Americans of the Revolutionary era. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon […]
The January 6, 2021 assault on the Capital rocked America, but it was by no means the largest, or even the most threatening, armed rebellion in the post-Revolutionary War era. In 1786 and 1787, Daniel Shays, a middle-class farmer and decorated Continental Army captain, was one of several leaders of as many as four thousand […]
For more than 200 years, people have debated the character and motives of the three men who captured Major John André on September 23, 1780, frequently misidentifying them as Skinners. The military service of David Williams, John Paulding, and Isaac Van Wart as well as the records of five of their comrades during the American […]
BOOK REVIEW: Feeding Washington’s Army: Surviving the Valley Forge Winter of 1778 byRicardo A. Herrera (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2022) The myth of the Valley Forge winter encampment is that the Continental Army went through terrible conditions and heroically came out as a much more disciplined force in the end. […]
We expect writers for the Journal of the American Revolution to use primary sources—things written as close as possible to the time of the events that they describe. Sometimes even primary sources contain inaccuracies that can be spotted and resolved only by cross-referencing other primary sources. One example lies in the records of a criminal trial […]
Every ten years the United States engages in the process of re-apportionment, wherein each state with more than one House seat redraws their Congressional districts. Simultaneously, every re-districting cycle partisans, activists, and pundits alike all bewail the harmful effects of gerrymandering on the process. Far from a modern phenomenon, partisan politics has always had a […]
Today, July 4, Americans celebrate independence from Great Britain, independence that was proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence. This is an important thing to commemorate, and July 4 is a good day to do it – even though many of the things that are celebrated did not occur on that date. Over the years JAR […]
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 […]
After seven years of fighting in the Revolutionary War, Otho Holland Williams returned home. It was the Spring of 1782. When he left Frederick, Maryland, in 1775 he was the first lieutenant in a company of riflemen; now he was back from a long campaign in the Carolinas and was receiving a commission as a […]
