*** All JAR Articles ***

 Espionage and Cryptography Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: William W. Reynolds on the British Naval Signals Missions of 1781

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews retired engineer and JAR contributor William W. Reynolds on how the Americans were able to obtain the British Naval Signals and pass them to French admiral de Grasse during the Yorktown campaign in 1781. Knowing an enemy’s signals could change the outcome of a battle. New episodes of […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

The Impeachment of Senator William Blount—the First in American History

It is easy to suggest that William Blount made no significant contribution to the development of the United States. His achievements, although not negligible, were only on par at best, and far less than many of his more famous contemporaries. Blount served in the North Carolina militia during the American Revolution, but with little acclaim […]

by Andrew A. Zellers-Frederick
Frontier Posted on

Review: Anatomy of a Massacre

Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction of Gnadenhutten, 1782 by Eric Sterner (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2020) Eric Sterner’s Anatomy of a Massacre: The Destruction of Gnadenhutten, 1782, offers readers a deeply insightful illustration of one of eighteenth-century America’s most tragic incidents of frontier violence. Concisely written and incredibly rich in primary research, this work supplies […]

by Megan King
Features Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Louis Arthur Norton on the Plight of the Seamen

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on what happened to captured Continental Navy, states’ navies, and privateer sailors and officers when captured by the British. Most were interred onboard prison hulks where many perished, but others attempted to escape. New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

Nineteenth-Century Remembrances of Black Revolutionary Veterans: Jacob Francis, Massachusetts Continental and New Jersey Militia

Philadelphia Blacks, under the leadership of well-to-do Robert Purvis, organized the Vigilance Committee to aid and assist fugitive slaves in 1837. Purvis’s wife, Harriett Forten Purvis, the daughter of successful Black businessman James Forten, led the Female Vigilant Society. Robert Purvis was referred to by some as the “President of the Underground Railroad.” Also that […]

by John Rees
Features Posted on

Nineteenth-Century Remembrances of Black Revolutionary Veterans: Edward Hector, Bombardier and Wagoner

Nat Turner launched a bloody uprising among enslaved Virginians in Southampton County in 1831 the same year that William Lloyd Garrison of Boston began publishing The Liberator, the most famous anti-slavery newspaper. In 1833, the American Antislavery Society, led by Garrison, was organized in Philadelphia. For the next three decades, the Society campaigned that slavery […]

by John Rees
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

Review: First and Always: A New Portrait of George Washington

First and Always: A New Portrait of George Washington by Peter R. Henriques (University of Virginia Press, 2020). With so many books already written about the Founding Fathers, some believe there is nothing new to be learned about those men. George Mason professor emeritus and George Washington scholar Peter Henriques shows us in First and […]

by Benjamin Huggins
Critical Thinking Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Serena Zabin on The Boston Massacre: A Family History

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian, author, and JAR Book-of-the-Year Award winner, Serena Zabin on her book, The Boston Massacre: A Family History. 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. Dispatches can now be easily accessed […]

by Editors
1
Features Posted on

Nineteenth-Century Remembrances of Black Revolutionary Veterans: Thomas Carney, Maryland Continental Soldier

John Russwurm and Samuel Cornish establish the first African American newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, in New York in 1827. The paper circulated in eleven states, the District of Columbia, Haiti, Europe, and Canada. The same year, Sarah Mapps Douglass, a Black educator and contributor to The Anglo African, an early Black paper, established a school for […]

by John Rees
1
Arts & Literature Posted on

Review: Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution

Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution by Michael D. Hattem (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2021) In his new book, Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution, Michael Hattem provocatively attempts to answer an age-old vexing question for the American Revolutionary Era. In the first half of […]

by Gene Procknow
Arts & Literature Posted on

The 2020 JAR Book-of-the-Year

The Journal of the American Revolution is pleased to announce The Boston Massacre: A Family History by Serena Zabin (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) as winner of the 2020 Journal of the American Revolution Book-of-the-Year Award. Honorable Mention is awarded to A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution by David […]

by Editors
2
Constitutional Debate Posted on

Partly National, Partly Federal: James Madison, the Amphictyonic Confederacy, and the Republican Balance

Following the Constitutional Convention’s completion of the United States Constitution in the Fall of 1787, many of those involved in its creation embarked on a campaign to ensure its ratification among the several states. The most significant effort was the publication of the Federalist in New York, published anonymously in a long series of newspaper articles […]

by James A. Cornelius
Critical Thinking Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Brian Gerring on “La Petite Guerre” and Native American Irregular Warfare

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews retired Special Forces soldier and educator Brian Gerring on his comparison of European La Petite Guerre, “small war,” and military tactics favored by Native Americans in the eighteenth century. Did the Continental army or militia incorporate tactics used by Native Americans? New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

Review: All at Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolution

All At Sea: Naval Support for the British Army During the American Revolutionary War by John Dillon. (Warwick, England: Helion & Company Limited, 2019) The rebels in the American colonies were nervous about facing the might of the British Empire when the war began in 1775. The British army was disciplined and well-supplied with war materiel. […]

by Timothy Symington
Features Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Greg Aaron on Lord Dartmouth’s War of Words

Dispatches returns for another season, and on this week’s episode host Brady Crytzer interviews cybersecurity expert and JAR contributor Greg Aaron on Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of the State for the Colonies, and his fateful order to Gen. Thomas Gage, “to arrest and imprison the principal actors & abettors in the Provincial Congress” in Massachusetts, a group that […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

Review: Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution

Noble Volunteers: The British Soldiers Who Fought the American Revolution by Don Hagist. Foreword by Rick Atkinson. (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2020) Back in the 1950s, respected military commentator Walter Millis (1899-1968) stated that British soldiers at the time of the American Revolution represented “a class apart.” They were, “generally speaking, from the least productive elements […]

by James Kirby Martin
2
Espionage and Cryptography Posted on

Congress’s “Committee on Spies” and the Court-Martial Policies of General Washington

In the weeks before it declared independence, the Continental Congress was already hard at work building the institutions it would need to maintain the new republic. In June 1776, a committee was appointed to explore articles that would link the thirteen provincial legislatures in a loose confederation. A second was tasked to consider how the […]

by Richard Willing
2
Patriots Posted on

Plight of the Seamen: Incarceration, Escape, or Secured Freedom

During the Revolutionary War, the British were particularly sensitive to challenges to their maritime sovereignty. Members of the Continental Navy, states’ navy sailors or letter of marque privateers, when taken prisoner, were usually interned onboard prison hulks moored in Wallabout Bay in New York harbor. Seamen captured far from North American shores were often incarcerated […]

by Louis Arthur Norton
People Posted on

James Lovell: Schoolteacher, Prisoner, Patriot

James Lovell, delegate from Massachusetts to the Second Continental Congress and the Confederation Congress from 1777 to 1782, the only member of Congress to be continuously present during those years,[1] is known for being the Secretary for the Committee for Foreign Affairs; for his expertise in cryptography, earning him Edmund Burnett’s description of “decipherer extraordinary to […]

by Jean C. O'Connor
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Features Posted on

Review: Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era

Fourteenth Colony: The Forgotten Story of the Gulf South During America’s Revolutionary Era by Mike Bunn. (Montgomery, AL: NewSouth Books, 2020) In Fourteenth Colony, Mike Bunn sheds light on the forgotten British colony of West Florida. The book seeks to “put West Florida back on the map of our historical consciousness” (page xi). Comprising parts of […]

by George Kotlik
Features Posted on

Best of Dispatches: Colin G. Calloway and The Indian World of George Washington

In this week’s program from the Dispatches archives, recorded in February 2019, host Brady Crytzer interviews distinguished historian Colin G. Calloway about his book, The Indian World of George Washington, winner of the 2018 Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year. Later this month, the 2020 Journal of the American Revolution Book Award will be […]

by Editors
9
Critical Thinking Posted on

Ethan Allen’s “Motley Parcel of Soldiery” at Montreal

When Ethan Allen described his defeat and capture outside Montreal at Longue Pointe on September 25, 1775, he observed that “it was a motley parcel of soldiery which composed both parties.” The enemy included Canadian Loyalists, British regulars, Indian Department officers, and a few Native warriors. In the autobiographical A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s […]

by Mark R. Anderson
2
Frontier Posted on

Texas and the American Revolution

In discussions on the American Revolutionary War, the contributions of Texas are seldom brought up.[1] But in the 1770s, Texas, inhabited by Spaniards and Native Americans, was a hub of activity. While the signing of the Declaration of Independence occurred on July 4, 1776 in Philadelphia, Tejanos (Texans) manned outposts, guarded New Spain’s claims, and reconnoitered […]

by George Kotlik
Features Posted on

Best of Dispatches: Michael W. Twitty on the Legacy of African American Cuisine

Over the next several weeks, we’ll be looking back in the Dispatches archives to replay a selection of notable interviews. In this episode, first aired in March 2019, host Brady Crytzer interviews writer, culinary historian, and educator Michael W. Twitty, about the legacy and influence of enslaved Africans on American and world culture and cuisine. He is […]

by Editors