The eighth straight uniform volume of selected articles from the previous calendar year is now available. The articles in the Journal of the American Revolution Annual Volume 2022 range from the Constitutional debate over the electoral college and impeachment procedures and the numerical strength of Washington’s army during the Philadelphia campaign to inoculation of smallpox, […]
In the Spring of 1776, as the American Revolution was underway the movement of the Colonies towards independence was just starting to gain steam. In the Second Continental Congress, John Adams, with an eye towards the future, championed a resolution that would allow each of the “united colonies” to assume the powers of government and […]
There was much discussion over the impeachment process during the Constitution’s ratifying debates. Federalists argued that the ability to impeach an individual gave disproportionate power to the House of Representatives, while Antifederalists favored more provisions to prevent tyranny from taking root. Some individuals liked the idea of having a body other than the Senate try […]
This month we asked our contributors, which person, for whom no image is known to exist, would you like to discover a full-length portrait of? Andrew J. O’Shaughnessy Sir William Howe. Robert S. Davis Thomas Brown, the Loyalist for whom more has been written than anyone else in Revolutionary War Georgia, although an article in […]
The American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade.[1] Before then, there was virtually no antislavery activity in any of the thirteen colonies of North America, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world. There was some limited antislavery dialogue in England, but its abolitionist movement […]
The Bliss Family roots run deep in Connecticut. Born in England around 1618, Thomas Bliss became a founder of Hartford and Norwich, Connecticut before passing away in 1688 in Norwich. His name is marked along with several others on a lone stone obelisk in the original Norwich Founders Cemetery, erected in the nineteenth century. Thomas […]
“The Chiefs Now in This City:” Indians and the Urban Frontier in Early America by Colin G. Calloway (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2021) BOOK REVIEW: In London in 1710, the four “Indian kings” went to see several plays and operas, as well as a Punch and Judy show. When they famously attended an operatic performance […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian M. Andrew Holowchak on interpreting the distinctions Thomas Jefferson made between rebellion, revolution, and treason. 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 […]
It has been said of Edward Hand that he was “the stuff of which the hard core” of Washington’s army was made.[1] Indeed, he may have been the most unsung Patriot military hero of the American Revolution. On the second day of 1777, Hand organized a remarkable defensive action along the road from Princeton to Trenton, […]
William Goforth played significant roles in New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio in the age of the American Revolution and the Early Republic and he stands out across the centuries as a man who lived by enlightened values. Yet even though he corresponded or directly cooperated with several very famous counterparts—the likes of Benjamin Franklin, John […]
“Dear Brother,” wrote Thomas Plumb from Newport, Rhode Island, on February 22, 1777, “this comes with my kind Love to you and hope these lines will find you, my Wife, Child & all Enquiring Friends in as good Health as they do Leave me at this Present time.”[1] Plumb has been in Rhode Island for […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Marine Corps veteran and JAR contributor James M. Deitch on his analysis of the 23rd, 25th, and 27th Grievances of the Declaration of Independence. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the […]
Jefferson’s views on rebellion and revolution, when they are addressed, are often largely misapprehended in the secondary literature. One reason for the confusion is that rebellion and revolution are sometimes judged to be equivalent, or nearly so, and thus are often uncritically lumped together, or are viewed merely as symptoms of liberalism, taken too far. […]
There are many, many founding fathers in the story of America’s Revolution and unfortunately only a few are really known to the general public. Yet without those who are less known, there would have been no revolution. One of those men was the official secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thomson. He was the sole […]
BOOK REVIEW: Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World by Richard Middleton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022). It says something about an historical figure’s renown when his or her biography uses only their last name as its title. Napoleon, Lincoln, and Churchill are in this historical “club,” and with them, should be included […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews long-time JAR contributor Patrick H. Hannum and his co-author Frederick R. Keinle on George Washington’s leadership advice to Col. William Woodford—and whether Woodford took heed. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
In the summer and fall of 1776, the decrepit fortifications at Ticonderoga and the area surrounding it became one of the top five population centers in North America—ultimately numbering 12,000 or more. In early July, a brigade under the command of New Hampshire’s John Stark began building fortifications on the forested, 300-acre rocky peninsula across […]
“He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.”[1] As with the 25th grievance in the Declaration of Independence, in the 27th grievance Thomas Jefferson carefully constructed […]
When Thomas Jefferson wrote the twenty-seven grievances against the King listed in the Declaration of Independence, he did so with the intention of encapsulating the sentiment and objections that colonists felt about their current situation. It was a collective account of their grievances and their interpretation of the unfairness of how they were being treated […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR managing editor Don N. Hagist on the demographics of the British soldiers who marched to Concord on April 19, 1775. 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 […]
Benjamin Franklin was a man of many talents and titles. He was a printer, writer, scientist, inventor, politician, diplomat, and philosopher, among other things. But did you know he was also a firefighter? In 1736, Franklin helped found the Union Fire Company of Philadelphia, one of the first volunteer fire departments in America. He was […]
During the night of April 18-19, 1775, a force of roughly 700 British soldiers left Boston on a mission to find and destroy rebel military stores in Concord, Massachusetts. What happened on that day is the topic of innumerable books and articles, most of which treat the soldiers as an amorphous mass of men. But […]
Louis-Dominique Éthis de Corny (1736–1790),Commissioner of War, came to America aboard the French warship Hermione along with Maj. Gen. Marie Jean Paul Joseph du Motier Marquis de Lafayette in April 1780. Corny’s assignment was to procure everything necessary for the arrival of the expédition particulière, the army of about 5800 troops under Lieutenant General Jean Baptiste […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Travis Copeland about a watershed moment in North Carolina’s independence movement, the attack on Fort Johnston. 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 […]
This month, we asked our contributors to name their favorite new book (published within the last two years) on the American Revolution or America’s founding era. Lars. D. H. Hedbor While there has been a lot of terrific original scholarship around the American Revolution published in the past two years, and some simply spectacular historical […]
Gen. George Washington’s well-crafted November 10, 1775 letter to Col. William Woodford contains some timeless pearls of military wisdom, guidance, and advice.[1] Washington’s instructive response to an earlier letter from Woodford reveals a set of basic leadership principles that remain in official United States Army doctrine to this day. This enduring leadership lesson leads one […]
“One of the most creditable actions of this war in which an American privateer was engaged took place on September 6, 1781.”—Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History of American Privateers Comdr. Charles Stirling intently inspected the distant ship headed toward his command, HMS Savage, a sixteen-gun sloop of war cruising thirty-five miles off Charleston, South Carolina. […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Timothy C. Hemmis, Assistant Professor of History, Texas A&M University–Central Texas, on his recent article about violence between militia and Native Americans on the western frontier during the American Revolution and its influence on the course of the war. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every […]
William Franklin, son of Benjamin Franklin, was the last Royal Governor of New Jersey, from 1763 to 1776. He is usually identified in U. S. History texts negatively as an ardent Loyalist and opponent of the American War of Independence. Historian Larry Gerlach offers a different view: “He was one of the most popular and […]
On a trip to the southern colonies in 1773, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts visited the coastal region of North Carolina. He was introduced to North Carolina Patriot leadership, toured coastal Fort Johnston, and visually inspected the disposition and military capabilities of the South. It was on this southern tour that Quincy, a Boston born Patriot […]
Three pounds was a lot money for a working man in Scotland in the mid-1770s. More than two months’ pay for a laborer, it was. What better enticement for men from the highlands of Scotland to flock to recruiting officers raising a new corps, the 71st Regiment of Foot, in late 1775 and early 1776? […]
The Declaration of Independence, viewed by thousands each year, is one of the most revered documents in American history. Housed in a hermetically sealed glass enclosed frame located in the National Archives, it contains principles “both universal and eternal,” that are said to form the bedrock for American democracy. The first celebration of its importance took […]
In 1777, the third year of the American War for Independence, little had gone in the favor of the Patriots especially in the borderlands. They controlled Fort Pitt and several other outposts, but they were far from the main fighting; the region was considered a backwater theater. British governor of Detroit Henry Hamilton issued a […]
BOOK REVIEW: These Distinguished Corps: British Grenadier and Light Infantry Battalions in the American Revolution by Don N. Hagist. (Warwick, England: Helion & Company, Limited, 2021) Don N. Hagist, author of British Soldiers, American War: Voices of the American Revolution (2012) and Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution (2020), has given Revolutionary War […]
On June 30, 1775, the Pennsylvania General Assembly recognized the direct threat Philadelphia faced should the Royal Navy take control of the Delaware and acted to further strengthen their defenses with the creation of the Pennsylvania Committee of Safety. By September this new committee implemented preliminary resolutions to inhibit the Royal Navy’s ability to reach […]
The Fraunces Tavern Museum announced on March 22 that War at Saber Point: Banastre Tarleton and the British Legion by John Knight (Westholme Publishing) will be awarded the 2022 Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award Honorable Mention on April 25 at an awards banquet. The 2022 award was given to The Compleat Victory: Saratoga and the American Revolution […]
This historical chronical is about an unusual multifaceted patriot: a musician, soldier, privateer, author, and dentist. On May 17, 1760, John Greenwood was born to Boston ivory artisan Isaac and Mary Greenwood. Before the lad turned thirteen years old, John was a witness to the so called “Boston Massacre” that killed eighteen-year-old Samuel Maverick, his […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews independent historian and JAR contributor Mark R. Anderson on the fate of King George III’s bust in Montreal in light of the more famous incident with the statue of the king in New York City at the start of the American Revolution. New episodes of Dispatches are […]
In June 1921, George Washington, the victor of Yorktown, arrived in London. His journey across the storm-tossed Atlantic had not been without difficulty, and when he landed on British shores there were some concerns over his condition. But after a careful check and a clean bill of health he was able to proceed to the […]
