*** All JAR Articles ***

 Law Posted on

A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation

BOOK REVIEW: A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation edited by David Head and Timothy C. Hemmis (New York, NY: Pegasus Books, 2023) Many believe that books written with rigorous academic care are not enjoyable and appropriate only for wonkish readers. Editors and essayists David Head and Timothy C. […]

by Gene Procknow
Critical Thinking Posted on

Permanent Losses and New Gains During the 1778 Valley Forge Encampment

The traditional story of Valley Forge tells of an encampment where a weakened and stripped-down army of 11,000 men endured the hardships of a winter cantonment rife with depravations. Overcoming crippling deficiencies and benefitting from superb training by the first Inspector General of the United States, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the army got healthy and […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
Letters and Correspondence Posted on

Love, American (Revolution) Style: the Romances of Otho Holland Williams

The senate chamber of the Maryland State House was more crowded than usual. It was December 23, 1783. Congress had recently relocated to Annapolis, and now George Washington was in town to fulfill a promise he made eight years earlier. “I went with several others to see Gen. Washington resign his Commission,” Annapolis socialite Mary […]

by Derrick E. Lapp
Medicine Posted on

The Fevered Fight: A Medical History of the American Revolution, 1775–1783

BOOK REVIEW: The Fevered Fight: A Medical History of the American Revolution, 1775-1783 by Martin R. Howard (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2023) Medical care was at the center of the Revolution. When the War for American Independence began, the British army summoned its physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and purveyors to tend to the men who sickened and […]

by John Gilbert McCurdy
Critical Thinking Posted on

Rediscovering Charles Thomson’s Forgotten Service to Early American Historiography

George Washington’s perseverance kept the American army in the field long enough to win negotiated independence, and later saw him through the first presidency under the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin’s ingenuity and sagacity guided the formation of the young nation before it yet realized it could be a country of its own. Thomas Jefferson’s eloquence gave […]

by Daniel L. Wright
Politics During the War (1775-1783) Posted on

The Times That Try Men’s Souls: The Adams, the Quincy’s, and the Battle for Loyalty in the American Revolution

BOOK REVIEW: The Times That Try Men’s Souls: The Adams, the Quincys, and the Battle for Loyalty in the American Revolution by Joyce Lee Malcolm. (New York, NY: Pegasus Books, 2023) “All wars are dangerous and painful . . . But the very worst war, that can sever family relationships and bonds of friendship, that touches even those […]

by Timothy Symington
Arts & Literature Posted on

Major Peter Charles L’Enfant: Artist and Engineer of the Revolution

Major Peter L’Enfant is most well-known for his 1791 “wholly new” plan for the Federal City that would become Washington, DC. Fewer are aware of his previous experience during the Revolutionary War where he served as an aide-de-camp, engineer, and sometimes as an artist and light infantry officer. This military service, coupled with his fine […]

by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.
Economics Posted on

The Continental Dollar: How the American Revolution Was Financed with Paper Money

BOOK REVIEW: The Continental Dollar: How the American Revolution Was Financed with Paper Money by Farley Grubb (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023) Economists and historians have been telling us the wrong story about Continental currency for two centuries. Continental money did not lose its value because Congress printed too much of it. In fact, […]

by Gabriel Neville
Law Posted on

Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions

BOOK REVIEW: Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions  by Katlyn Marie Carter (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023) In our age of freedom of information acts, C-Span, and a never-ending news cycle, we tend to equate transparent government with democracy and sensible public policy. In Democracy in Darkness, however, […]

by Jeff Broadwater
Engineering and Technology Posted on

Illuminating the Republic: Maritime Safety and the Federalist Vision of Empire

The national government under the Federal Constitution effectively began its reign on April 6, 1789, as an invisible and unremarkable presence in the lives of most ordinary Americans.[1] The army boasted about 750 men stationed mainly on the western frontier, there were no national buildings, roads or even construction sites, while few federal bureaucrats and […]

by Shawn David McGhee
Loyalists Posted on

Dishonored Americans: The Political Death of Loyalists in Revolutionary America

BOOK REVIEW: Dishonored Americans: The Political Death of Loyalists in Revolutionary America by Timothy Compeau (University of Virginia Press, 2023) Early American scholars treated Loyalists of the American Revolution as bystanders and stereotypical villains in the story. This was part of a larger attempt to unify American colonists during and after the war. Some Loyalists wrote […]

by Kelsey DeFord
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

“The Utility of Our Business:” Samuel Holland, Surveyor-General

With the end of the Seven Years’ War, Great Britain found itself in possession of vast new territories. The government looked on these holdings as a means to reduce the enormous debt built up during the war but, when it came to utilizing those resources, existing “salutary neglect” policies and practices simply did not suffice. […]

by Michael Barbieri
Critical Thinking Posted on

A Demographic View of South Carolina Revolutionary War Soldiers, 1775–1783

Over the past few years, three demographic studies of North Carolina and Georgia Revolutionary War pension applicants have been completed (North Carolina militia, North Carolina Line, Georgia). A similar study of South Carolina soldiers who served in the Continental Line, state troops, and militia provides compiled demographic data of those who served in that state, […]

by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Shirley L. Green on the Frank Brothers and the 1st Rhode Island Regiment

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews history professor and author Shirley L. Greenabout her new book, Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence. New episodes of Dispatchesare available for free every Saturday evening(Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatchescan now […]

by Editors
Diplomacy Posted on

Don Diego de Gardoqui: Hero of the Revolution, Schemer Against the Republic

When Don Diego Gardoqui stepped onto Philadelphia’s docks in May 1785, he was a hero of the American Revolution. A merchant from Bilbao, Spain, Gardoqui, forty-nine, had early on in the war transformed his trade connections with Massachusetts into a pipeline for delivering the arms and supplies desperately needed by American troops. Following the war, […]

by Tyson Reeder
Critical Thinking Posted on

John Adams Above the Fray: The Original Foreign Policy President

The “whole of [President John] Adams’s single term was absorbed, to a degree unequaled in any other American presidency, with a single problem”: a diplomatic crisis with France.[1] Some Federalists must have been surprised that France, the United States’s greatest ally during the Revolution, became its greatest enemy within a generation. Not Adams: As a […]

by Max Schreiber
Politics During the War (1775-1783) Posted on

George Washington Versus the Continental Army: Showdown at the New Windsor Cantonment, 1782–1783

BOOK REVIEW: George Washington Versus the Continental Army Showdown at the New Windsor Cantonment, 1782-1783 by Michael S. McGurty (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2023) Except for the dangerous Newburgh Conspiracy, historians overlook the Continental Army’s activities in the Hudson Valley during the last year of the American War for Independence. Michael S. McGurty […]

by Gene Procknow
Historic Sites Posted on

Securing the Bells

“Remove all public bells, in Philadelphia, to a place of security.”—Continental Congress Resolution, Sept. 14, 1777 The British Army commanded by Gen. Sir William Howe landed on the western shore of Elk River in Cecil County, Maryland, on August 25, 1777, with the objective of occupying Philadelphia, capital of the recently declared independent United States. […]

by William W. Reynolds
Books and Publications Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Novia Liu on John Adams’s Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Novia Liuon her examination of John Adams’s Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States, a response to Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot’s letter criticizing the US state constitutions. New episodes of Dispatchesare available for free every Saturday evening(Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]

by Editors
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

The Lionkeeper of Algiers: How an American Captive Rose to Power in Barbary and Saved His Homeland from War

BOOK REVIEW: The Lionkeeper of Algiers: How an American Captive Rose to Power in Barbary and Saved His Homeland from War by Des Ekin (Essex, CT: Prometheus Books, 2023) The war with the Barbary States is often referred to as the first war of the new United States, post-Revolution. President Thomas Jefferson has been given credit […]

by Timothy Symington
Reviews Posted on

Revolutionary Blacks: Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence

BOOK REVIEW: Revolutionary Blacks, Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence by Shirley L. Green (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2023) This captivating book tells a new American story. It is the first book to detail the life, challenges, fears and hopes of a Black soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary […]

by Christian McBurney
Constitutional Debate Posted on

Early Presidential Elections: The Questionable Use of Electors to Correct Voter Imbalances

An important issue that the Congressional delegates faced when drafting the Constitution was how to create an equitable balance in voting rights between the larger states (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia) and the smaller ones (Delaware, Georgia, New Hampshire). Although the delegates were sworn to secrecy throughout their debates (May through September 1787), once the debates were […]

by Marvin L. Simner