On January 20, 1781, near New Windsor in the Hudson Highlands of New York, Dr. Samuel Adams wrote a brief entry in the diary he had kept throughout his service as a surgeon attached to the Continental Army’s artillery: “inoculated my waiter and three children of Mr. Smith for the smallpox.”[1] Adams did not seem […]
Celebrated for his stirring words in the Declaration of Independence, and having profited upon the popularity since, Thomas Jefferson was now America’s chief magistrate—and its most self-satisfied citizen. To him, the Washington and Adams years had been a “reign of witches”—a sudden reversion from the ideals he had laid out in that document—a dark age […]
Those familiar with American history know that the Articles of Confederation served as the first constitution of the unified states during the American Revolution. A foundational document, it begins by establishing the name of the confederation of colonies as “The United States of America.” The creation of the Articles is intimately tied with the drafting […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author, attorney, and JAR contributor, Christian M. McBurney on the enigmatic General Charles Lee and his role in imposing an oath of allegiance on Newport, Rhode Island, Tories in 1775. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
In 1796 Daniel Hylton, a wealthy Virginian farmer, brought a suit before the United States Supreme Court arguing that a federal tax on carriages violated a constitutional distinction between direct and indirect taxation. While the Constitution granted Congress unlimited authority to pass indirect taxes on imported goods, the framers insisted that direct taxes on property […]
As far back as the eleventh century B.C. attackers confronted by fortified cities and towns, castles, and forts, used siege towers to elevate their own soldiers to heights equal to the defenders. The Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese all used such weapons to defeat enemies situated behind high walls. These machines of war provided the […]
The participation of the French on the side of the newly declared independent American colonies is widely acknowledged as the factor that tipped the balance in the American Revolution and ultimately led to the defeat of the British. This alliance, actually two alliances—one of commerce and one of military cooperation—was concluded in early 1778, but […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the American Revolution? The North American War of Independence has been a passion of mine for a long time. I enjoy learning about lesser-known Revolutionary-era topics. Sharing the information I discover with the broader public informs people of forgotten, and often significant, events from history which contributes […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews teacher and JAR contributor Geoff Smock on Thomas Jefferson’s enlightenment-influenced views on pandemics, the French Revolution, Shays’ Rebellion, and other events of his time. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a […]
Remonstrance Against the Renewal Rhode Island merchants, prompted by the January letter from Boston merchants, requested that Governor Hopkins call a special meeting of the General Assembly. The merchants needed little prompting; they had already drafted preliminary essays explaining the economic problems caused by the Sugar Act. In fact, newspapers had for months been full […]
“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” is one of the most famous quotations to come out of the Revolutionary War. According to hallowed American tradition, the provincial commander at the Battle of Bunker Hill bellowed those words to his soldiers, warning them to preserve their gunpowder until their muskets could do the […]
No one disputes that the fighting that erupted at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 ignited a war between Great Britain and her thirteen American colonies. As we all know, the bloodshed of that day in Massachusetts initiated an eight year war that culminated with American independence. It is important to remember, however, that […]
The Boston Massacre: A Family History by Serena Zabin. (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020) The significant other of this particular reviewer saw him reading yet another book about the Revolution, and still another book about the Boston Massacre. “Haven’t you learned enough about it?” she asked. This reviewer honestly did not jump into Serena Zabin’s recent […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews professor and librarian Keith Muchowski on Rufus King, forgotten founder. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to the writing in JAR, and features both contributors to the journal and other […]
The writings abridged below, all asserting reasons against the renewal of the Sugar Act, mark the end of the long period of the colonies being “led by a thread.” They were the opening salvo to a decade of protest against British attempts to draw a revenue from the North American colonies. Reasons against the renewal […]
This month we asked our contributors: What is your favorite digitized collection of primary source material? There is a treasure trove of resources available to researchers! Bettina A. Norton The Smithsonian Institutions’s Inventory of American Paintings. Like everything about the wonderful Smithsonian, it is free. Michael Cecere The Hathi Trust Digital Library. If there is […]
A.H. Ritchie’s 1856 engraving entitled “Washington and His Generals” is a creative, imaginary scene, as the dozens of generals shown assembled never congregated in such numbers in one place. For some odd reason, Ritchie depicted Maj. Gen. Charles Lee standing closest at the table with Washington, rather than the loyal and important Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene. […]
Sailing Under John Paul Jones: The Memoir of Continental Navy Midshipman Nathaniel Fanning, 1778-1783, edited by Louis Arthur Norton. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2019) Contrary to popular narratives, the American Revolution was not restricted to fighting in the Americas. The war was fought on many fronts including India and Europe. Nathaniel Fanning reminds us […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author, land conservationist, and JAR contributor Andrew Waters on how Nathanael Greene and Thomas Sumter fought against British control of South Carolina. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to […]
In early 1764, four British colonies in North America protested the enforcement and planned renewal of the about-to-expire Sugar Act of 1733 (also known as the Molasses Act of 1733)—an act that levied duties on foreign sugar, rum and molasses. Each protest was a statement of reasons against the renewal. These protests—lodged before passage of […]
George Rogers Clark and William Croghan: A Story of the Revolution, Settlement, and Early Life at Locust Grove by Gwynne Tuell Potts (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2020) “The phenomenon of fame confounds and fascinates, indiscriminately raising some to glory while consigning apparent equals to exile.” This is Gwynne Tuell Potts’s insight in her new book […]
A visitor to Williamsburg prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War would have discovered a city of just 1,900 inhabitants, roughly 900 of whom were white and free and the remaining 1,000 black and mostly enslaved.1 These were the year-round inhabitants who lived in the several hundred wooden and brick dwellings that sat upon […]
The Quaker and the Gamecock: Nathanael Greene, Thomas Sumter, and the Revolutionary War for the Soul of the South by Andrew Waters (Casemate, 2019) Among America’s great historical sites is the fort that still sits in the Charleston harbor where the first shots of the Civil War were fired. But while Fort Sumter is known to […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews White House historian and author Lindsay M. Chervinsky about her new book on George Washington and the creation of the Cabinet of the United States. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts […]
On the 170th anniversary of Washington’s Birthday in 1902, the Delaware Society of the Cincinnati formed a procession of dignitaries and marched up Quaker Hill, the southwestern residential area of Wilmington. The ceremony continued to West Street, a north-south avenue named after an early settler. They stopped in the middle of a row of houses […]
Author Eliot Pattison’s new book is The King’s Beast: A Mystery of the American Revolution (Counterpoint, 2020), sixth in his Bone Rattler series set in Revolutionary America. We asked the author about his historical novel and the research behind it. The entire Bone Rattler Series takes place around the era of the American Revolution. What drives […]
In 1813, Thomas Jefferson received a letter from Marguerite Brazier Bonneville, a French emigre and Thomas Paine’s former caretaker. Bonneville asked the former president if she could publish Paine and Jefferson’s correspondence. Paine had left most of his estate including all of his personal papers to her in his will when he died in 1809. […]
Every now and then, one comes across a pension application of an old soldier that includes extraordinary detail. Occasionally the application includes a journal or memoir, as in the case of Connecticut’s Isaac Grant or Virginia’s William Tiller. Tiller’s journal is full of detail, but unfortunately few muster rolls for his regiment exist, making certain […]
From 1952 until 1967, a popular American television show featured a panel of celebrities trying to guess a secret about a non-celebrity guest. The guest’s secret might be a remarkable or unusual talent, achievement or other attribute. On April 26, 1961, the show hosted Delia and Bertie Harris, sisters from Knoxville, Tennessee.[1] They were both […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews history teacher and JAR contributor Matthew Reardon on the Loyalist raid up the Connecticut River in 1782 when the war was essentially over. The Connecticut coastline was contested for the duration of the American Revolution in what is called the “whaleboat wars.” Thousands of readers like you enjoy the […]
The exceedingly rare mezzotint of His Excellency George Washington Esqr (above) listed by Charles Hart as no. 1 in his Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington, a seminal work published in 1904, has long been considered by collectors as the most prized of all the portraits of Washington. Among other reasons, it is the first engraved […]
George Washington’s Nemesis: The Outrageous Treason and Unfair Court-Martial of Major General Charles Lee during the Revolutionary War by Christian McBurney (El Dorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie, 2019) It is interesting that popular culture can effectively present an inaccurate version of history. Paul Revere sent the misleading picture of Capt. Thomas Preston ordering his forces to […]
“A Most Dreadful Voyage” was how the captain of British supply ship Blue Mountain Valley described his mission to North America in the fall and winter of 1775–1776. The ship’s young Scottish captain, James Dempster, was an experienced merchant sailor with voyages to China, India, and the West Indies.[1] The mission Dempster embarked on when Blue […]
Just weeks after war broke out at Lexington and Concord, Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, working in grudging consort,captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain, as well as the settlement of Skenesborough (now Whitehall) at the southern end of the lake. Under orders from Arnold, Eleazer Oswald also captured a small vessel there. Oswald reported: “We […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor George Kotlik on the British invasion of Spanish Bahamas at the close of the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to the writing in […]
An epidemic that violently attacks public health—that sickens and takes lives; that cripples our economy; that forces us into our homes; that turns cities into ghost towns—may be unprecedented to the present generation of Americans, but was as commonplace to the Revolutionary generation as was revolution itself. The War of Independence, Shays’ Rebellion, the French […]
If January and February 1778 was Brig. Gen. Casimir Pulaski’s “Winter of his Discontent,”[1] then October through December 1778 was his “Autumn of Despair.” Following what has been called the “Massacre of the Pulaski Legion” at Egg Harbor, New Jersey, on October 15, 1778,[2] the Legion returned to Trenton, awaiting orders. On October 26, Pulaski […]
This story is the unfortunate flip side of “Top Ten Revolutionary War Patriot Homes in Connecticut”: the most significant Connecticut houses demolished in the 1800s or 1900s. Not included, of course, are the plethora of homes burned by the British in their raids on the Connecticut coast, including New Haven and Fairfield, in July 1779; […]
The Rebel and the Tory: Ethan Allen, Philip Skene, and the Dawn of Vermont by John J. Duff, H. Nicholas Muller III, and Gary G. Shattuck (Vermont Historical Society: Barre, VT, 2020) Every polity requires a founding saga to help form its societal identity. Oft recounted, Vermont’s foundation story starts with a group of democratic, yeoman […]
