John Adams was certain he made a mistake by going to church. Philadelphia’s yellow fever outbreak only ended in November 1793. On Sunday, December 22, Adams attended a Presbyterian service in the morning and an Episcopalian service in the afternoon, “but I am not Sure it is prudent to go to Church or to Meeting […]
The Colonists’ American Revolution: Preserving English Liberty, 1607-1783, by Guy Chet (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2020) To my way of thinking, when we try to understand people and events in the past, we benefit more from channeling their understanding of their actions and beliefs, rather than identifying motivating forces that were hidden from them at […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews espionage expert, former CIA operations officer, and JAR contributor Ken Daigler on General Nathanael Greene and his use of spies to provide intelligence on British intentions in the South. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, […]
When the major European powers began to use light troops in the mid-eighteenth century, they typically employed them in a manner of war that the French labeled as la petite guerre. Troops participating in la petite guerre operated separately from the main army, often using speed and maneuver for quick attacks and ambushes in support of […]
Common wisdom paints William Allen, a wealthy and prominent Pennsylvanian, as a traitor to the cause of American independence. As the revolution grew, the politically powerful Allen, unwilling to break entirely with Britain, retired from public life, while three of his sons—attainted of treason and forced into exile—had much of their property confiscated. Despite their […]
Introduction This article supplements one relating to royal militia commanders in the South Carolina Backcountry that appeared in the Journal of the American Revolution on November 30, 2020. SOUTH CAROLINA MID- AND LOWCOUNTRY Commanding Officers Elias Ball Sr. A brother-in-law of Thomas Gaillard (see below), Elias Ball Sr. was of a prominent local family owning […]
Introduction After the British capture of Charlestown in mid May 1780 the Crown hoped to raise substantial numbers of militia not only to maintain the King’s peace in the South Carolina Backcountry but also to participate eventually in the invasion of the province to the north. Yet the formation of regiments was by no means […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Joseph E. Wroblewski about the chance encounter of two legendary figures of American independence, John Paul Jones and Thaddeus Kosciuskzo, in postwar Warsaw. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and the JAR Dispatches web site. […]
Despite Cicero’s significant reputation and widespread readership, little scholarship has focused upon Cicero’s reputation and oratorical practices’ influence upon the Founding Generation. Once Cicero delivered his orations at the court case of Roscius of Ameria, he was considered a prodigy of oratory. His career quickly took off, with him ascending each rank of a Roman […]
Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution by Donald F. Johnson (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) Several cities in Revolutionary America were taken by British forces and the residents found themselves in an unexpected predicament. Many welcomed the return of law and order and a stable economy under British rule; the […]
One of the most famous or notorious of Tory partisans in the American Revolution was the New Jersey soldier and spy James Moody. Moody had tried to stay quietly neutral at the beginning of the war, but his refusal to sign a loyalty oath to the Patriot government of William Livingston had enraged his Patriot […]
Lt. General Earl Cornwallis, the British general officer commanding in the south, arrived at Petersburg in the morning of May 20, 1781, having marched from Wilmington, North Carolina at the close of the winter campaign. Under his command were his own corps of 1,780 men,[1] Major General Phillips’ (now dead) of 3,500, and a reinforcement […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Eric Wiser tells the fascinating story of notorious Loyalist partisan and British spy, Cornelius Hatfield, who operated in northern New Jersey and New York, escaped from capture and eventually settled in London following the war. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening […]
By noon on Saturday, September 20, 1777, Gen. William Howe watched his window of opportunity to cross the shallowing upper fords of the Philadelphia sector of the Schuylkill River slam shut upon his 14,000-man army. Gen. George Washington and 9,000 Continentals and militia blocked the seven closest river crossings to Howe’s forces which had been […]
Friday, June 19, 2020, proved an interesting day in Virginia. The governor, two days prior, issued an executive order declaring June 19, “Juneteenth” a state holiday in honor of the end of slavery in the State of Texas when Federal troops landed at Galveston and issued and executive order freeing all slaves in that state […]
It was late 1775, and William Legge, the 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, was looking out the window of his office in Whitehall, London, thinking of his enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. His letters were partly responsible for the outbreak of open warfare in America. Now a sarcastic poem in a London newspaper was […]
There were four bodies that directly influenced England’s relationship with her American colonies; they were the King (a body of one), the Privy Council (advisers to the king), Parliament, and the least known, the Board of Trade and Plantations. This article is about the role and responsibilities of the Board leading up to the accession […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Pulitzer-prize winning historian Thomas E. Ricks on his new book, First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country, recently reviewed in JAR. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
It is well known that George Washington was Nathanael Greene’s mentor in many ways, but luckily for many of us he did not completely share Washington’s personal discipline regarding intelligence activities in his official papers. With the exception of the Culper Ring, where the case officer for the network, Benjamin Tallmadge, often kept copies of […]
First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned From the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country by Thomas E. Ricks (New York, NY: Harper Colins Publishers, 2020) Author Thomas E. Ricks (Churchill and Orwell, 2017; Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006) started his work on First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned From the […]
At the Bethlehem Hospital near Valley Forge on November 21, 1777, John Ettwein visited a “Narragansett Indian in great distress about his soul, at the near approach of death.” On March 18, 1778, Ettwein noted the passage of a company of New England soldiers that included “a few Stockbridge Indians.” Ettwein was one of many […]
It took only a few moments for the British works and their military supplies to go up in smoke. The British had just purchased 300 tons of hay as well as 275 sheaves of oats from local farmers on Long Island to support their large garrison around the City of New York. The British were […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian, retired Air Force officer, and JAR contributor Mark R. Anderson on his research into the causes of Ethan Allen’s early defeat at Montreal. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a […]
In the last two decades, the Electoral College has come under harsh, though derivative, criticism as a result of the presidential elections in 2000 and 2016. Comparing the Electoral College at its inception to the Electoral College of 2020 is a distortion. For one, the twelfth amendment ended the practice of affording the presidency and […]
The Routledge Guide to Paine’s Rights of Man by Frances A. Chiu (London & New York: Routledge, 2020) The American Revolution, John Adams famously wrote in 1818, was begun in the “minds and hearts of the people” before the American Revolutionary War began.[1] It was a suggestion that the Revolution was unique and the result of […]
This month we asked our contributors: If George Washington had not run for President in 1789, who would you like to have had as a candidate (regardless of whether they were eligible based on the rules of time)? Michael J. F. Sheehan Dr. Benjamin Franklin, aside from Washington, was the only person in America […]
Thomas Machin claimed to be a British-trained engineer. His record of achievements in the United States suggests the claim was true. Most of his past, however, remains largely unknown and what is known is both mysterious and controversial. And, yet, he was one on whom Gen. George Washington placed a huge wager in 1776 by […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews postgraduate historian student and JAR contributor Travis Copeland on his recent article about the Battle of Shallow Ford, North Carolina, which pitched Patriot militia against Loyalist militia. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast […]
A previous article featured ten graves of Americans who served in the Revolutionary War, chosen primarily because of their elaborate monuments. Most of them were for high-ranking leaders: generals and admirals. Here we present ten gravesites of common soldiers, including seven individual gravesites and three mass graves. It is based largely on my own knowledge […]
During the Revolutionary War, Pittsburgh was a place of constant political and economic intrigue, double-dealing, subversion, back-stabbing, disloyalty, and treachery. One of the earliest and most jaw-droppingly ambitious plans to secure the city for the British came from the mind of Dr. John Connolly.[1] Word of his “plot” spread widely across the colonies in 1775 […]
Alexander Hamilton’s life has been documented extensively and his exploits as an adult are well known. His early childhood, however, has long been a subject of debate and, until recently, was largely shrouded in obscurity. Evidence published by historian Michael Newton in 2019 has provided new insights into Alexander Hamilton’s formative years. Despite this new […]
The Trials of Allegiance: Treason, Juries, and the American Revolution by Carlton F. W. Larson (New York : Oxford University Press, 2019) Whether you describe the American Revolution as a civil war or an insurgency, the result for many families and friends was the same: split loyalties. This reality has caused University of California Law Professor Carlton […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor John E. Happ on the enigmatic Pierre-Augustin Beaumarchais. Best known today for his plays, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, he became a key player in French support of the American cause, primarily with organizing clandestine arms shipments to the fledgling Continental army. […]
During the American War of Independence, the British Army officer corps routinely relegated its surgeons and physicians to a secondary status among its ranks. A few regimental surgeons made contributions to medical science, but the vast majority were relatively unknown both in their time and today.[1] American military doctors fared a bit better, but are mostly […]
Although it may not have been fatal, scabies brought more patients to British Army hospitals during the Seven Years’ War than any other condition, according to British Army surgeon Donald Monro. Its cause was known to be “Little Insects Lodged in the Skin, which Many Authors Affirm They Have Seen in the Pustules by the […]
We are pleased to announce that all six of the on-going series of uniform annual volumes, beginning with 2015, are now once again available. Some of the volumes have been hard to come by, but we have now arranged to have these books automatically replenished going forward—something that was not possible just a few months […]
The vast eastern province of Massachusetts, now the state of Maine, was the site of some important military events during the Revolutionary War. Several involved British naval lieutenant Henry Mowat, who would be called the “Villain of Falmouth,” “Mad Henry,” “The Execrable Monster” and the “Miscreant of the Revolutionary War.” Mowat spent most of his […]
The 10 Key Campaigns of the American Revolution edited by Edward G. Lengel (Washington, D.C: Regnery, 2020). Edward Lengel begins this book with a remarkable claim. He writes, “The American War for Independence remains—now, nearly 250 years since its onset—a relatively new field of study.” This will initially strike many readers as a wild assertion. How […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor and University of Wisconsin-Madison employee Alex White on discovering his ancestor’s experience as an officer in the Continental Army who was captured and paroled by the British. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
