Autumn is when many North Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, a tradition that dates back to the Reformation in England in the sixteenth century. Journal of the American Revolution has a tradition of presenting articles about food during the week of Thanksgiving in the United States. In 1756, Martha Bradley published a weekly series of pamphlets titled […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews PhD student Roberto Oscar Flores de Apodaca on recovering the religious life of the common soldier through prayer bills. 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 on […]
Lord Stirling was not happy. The American brigadier general[1] was on a mission from George Washington to inspect the newly built fortifications in the Hudson Highlands of New York. As he sarcastically wrote Washington in early June 1776 the Westermost Battery is a streight line constructed by Mr Romans at a very great Expence, . . […]
Author’s Note: Selections from all resolutions and working drafts are italicized. Most of what we know about the framers’ discussions comes from James Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787; material from Madison’s notes is identified by quotation marks or indented block quotes. The best print source, annotated by Adrienne Koch and […]
Washington’s Revolutionary War Generals by Stephen R. Taaffe. Campaigns and Commanders Series, Volume 68. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2019). Selection, promotion and performance of Revolutionary War generals is a critically under-researched aspect of the rebellion. In his second book on the Revolutionary War, Stephen R. Taaffe closes this gap in scholarship with his evaluation of […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR associate editor, Jim Piecuch who elaborates on his article about the suggestion for a British “Female Corp” and the role of women in the British and Continental armies during the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. […]
The officers of the Continental Army were sullen. It was December 1782, and they were stationed in and around Newburgh, New York, and neighboring New Windsor, where some 10,000 soldiers, the bulk of Gen. George Washington’s force, kept an eye on the British in New York City and waited to learn whether the war would […]
For every historian, there’s an event that makes them feel good every time they read about it. We asked our contributors: What event from the American Revolution and Founding Era (approximately 1765-1805) do you find most uplifting? Adam E. Zielinski General Washington’s speech to his troops on December 31, 1776. The army was about to […]
In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie De Treville, was a South Carolina Continental artillery officer and prisoner of war on parole. He was also a British spy. On at least four occasions, from June 1780 to January […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews maritime historian and long-time JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on the celebrated battle between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis off Flamborough Head, England, on September 23, 1779. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast […]
The British approach to its American colony in 1775 offers valuable lessons for historians and military professionals in the synthesis between the levels of wartime leadership and their effect on direct action at the tactical level. As such, it is worthwhile to reflect on the British experience in 1775, and how guidance from strategic and […]
The Rise of Thomas Paine and the Case of the Officers of Excise by Paul Myles (Lewes: The Thomas Paine Society UK, 2018) When John Adams noticed in the American Crisis II, which first appeared in January 1777, Thomas Paine’s comment that he had never published “a syllable in England in my life,” the declaration might have raised […]
William Trego’s painting The March to Valley Forge is iconic. Where the Continental Army marched from has been largely overlooked. That march was from The Conshohocken or Gulph Hills, in Upper Merion Township, about seven miles from Valley Forge, where the army encamped from December 13 to 19, 1777. As one historian noted, “These grounds were […]
Those who write “local history” without documenting or citing their sources may as well be writing historical fiction. There may be some truth in what they write, but it is hard to sort out fact from fiction in local and family stories. Even experienced historians who ordinarily provide citations to primary sources—documents, letters and first […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Eric Sterner about the Gnadenhutten Massacre, the murder of ninety-six Delaware Indians—men, women, and children—at a Moravian Mission settlement in Ohio by Pennsylvania Militia and settlers in 1782. A complex and tragic story that embodies the prejudices, cultural clashes, and brutality of the western frontier during the […]
On Saturday September 17, 1938 New York governor Herbert H. Lehman and 5,000 others assembled in Poughkeepsie to observe the sesquicentennial of the Empire State’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution. One hundred and fifty years previously delegates had gathered in that Hudson Valley hamlet to debate whether New York should ratify that document and thus […]
John Sutherland had intended only to visit his brother, and now he sat in confinement, awaiting a death sentence. It was not a likely fate for the forty-one-year-old private soldier who had always borne “a very good Character” during his eighteen years in the army, except for an occasional bout of intoxication, a common vice […]
Orderly books are great sources of information for military historians. Their contents are a treasure, and include everything from general and regimental orders, returns, lists, troops movements, guard postings, and the day to day activities of the men themselves. They also include the results of courts- martial, giving insight into what a particular soldier did […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews architect and preservationist Frederic C. Detwiller on the enigmatic French engineer, “Monsr Dubuq,” who was one of the first French nationals to assist the American cause. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts […]
James Fenimore Cooper published his wildly popular second novel, The Spy: a Tale of the Neutral Ground, in 1821. The book tells the story of Harvey Birch, a Patriot spy operating in the “Neutral Ground,” an uncontrolled region north of New York City that included Westchester County. Not long after Cooper published his novel, a […]
The skirmishes at Lexington and Concord are often considered the beginning of the American Revolution, a violent change in the controversy between Great Britain and thirteen of its North American colonies. John Adams opined that the Revolution started many years before: “But what do We mean by the American Revolution? Do We mean the American […]
North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders, edited by Jeff Broadwater and Troy L. Kickler (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2019) The Old North State has its own Revolutionary War heroes, and although not totally ignored, their fame has been obscured on the national stage due to the more famous stories of Adams of Massachusetts, […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Andrew Schocket, professor of history at Bowling Green State University about the original research he and two of his students, Kinzey M. McLaren-Czerr and Colin J. Spicer, conducted to establish that free women and children were included in the population counts for congressional representation. Thousands of readers like […]
One of the most colorful men to seek and earn an officer’s commission in the Continental Navy was Joshua Barney. He was a man with little formal education or military experience; a mariner who had natural gifts of seamanship, leadership, and courage. Barney took part in thirty-five Revolutionary War naval engagements and lost only five […]
In September 1787, Mrs. Mercy Otis Warren informed Catharine Macaulay of the results of the Federal Convention in Philadelphia. She was guardedly optimistic. Macaulay, upon receiving the letter, responded immediately: Indeed I have expected with much impatience the result of the deliberations of your convention . . . I find in the propositions they are […]
The first half of 1780 had gone disastrously for Virginia. The surrender of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln’s army at Charleston and the destruction of Col. Abraham Buford’s detachment of Virginia continentals at the Waxhaws virtually eliminated Virginia’s continental line. A force that once boasted sixteen regiments and thousands of men was now reduced to a handful of […]
Contest for Liberty: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783 by Seanegan P. Sculley (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2019) Seanegan P. Sculley’s recent book, Contest for Liberty: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775-1783, is organized into five chapters with a substantive introduction and a short conclusion. Each chapter addresses one of the five elements selected […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and author John G. McCurdy, professor of history at Eastern Michigan University, about the quartering act, the subject of his recent book, Quarters: The Accommodation of the British Army and the Coming of the American Revolution. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the […]
Georgia’s fragile independence within the new American republic was shattered on December 29, 1778, when British troops attacked Savannah. Despite clear signs that the British were coming, the capital of the state on that December morning was caught by surprise. Panic set in as the redcoats approached the city. State officials and soldiers fled for […]
We recently ran an article about monuments commemorating the American Revolution. We asked our contributors: If you could commission a monument, what would you commemorate and where would it be located? They provided a wide range of worthy candidates. Nancy K. Loane On December 19, 1777, over 400 women—and an unknown number of children—struggled into […]
The amazing story of Benoni Simmons’s military service in the American Revolution spans some fourteen years, perhaps the longest term of service by anyone in that conflict. More so, his astounding dedication to the cause of independence despite his grievous wounds make him a true American hero.[1] Benoni Simmons was born August 4, 1755, the […]
Revolutionary Networks: The Business and Politics of Printing the News, 1763-1789 by Joseph M. Adelman (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) An explosion of new media! News editors and writers under attack for their views! Increasing media polarization along partisan lines. Readers expecting the news to be free. Newspapers teetering on the edge of profitability. A […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Gabriel “Gabe” Neville on the Clove Road between northern New Jersey and New York and its strategic importance during 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 […]
In 1984, Ross Perot purchased a copy of the 1297 reissuance of the Magna Carta from the Brudenell family who had held the document for centuries. In 1988, it became a permanent fixture of the National Archives Museum where it stayed in the rotunda along with the American charters of freedom for several years. Nearly […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? For my thirteenth birthday, I was given a history book on the Kings and Queens of England. Like all kids, I was more interested in the pictures than the text. One painting, in particular, fascinated me: The British army attacking Bunker Hill by Howard Pyle. […]
James W. Whitall (1717-1808) was a prominent Quaker businessman and farmer in the southern region of New Jersey. In 1739 he married Ann Cooper (1716-1797), a devout, no-nonsense Quaker, and together they built a house situated on a farm consisting of over four hundred acres of land along the Delaware River in Red Bank, New […]
Housed in the Medfield Historical Society is a rare collection of prayer bills containing the prayers of thanksgiving from Massachusetts soldiers and their families during the American Revolution. These commonplace slips of paper include fascinating stories and spiritual requests of ordinary Continental soldiers. One of these late-eighteenth-century prayer notes was written by a veteran named […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews distinguished historian, Mark Edward Lender, about his new book, Cabal! The Plot Against General Washington, the first modern examination of the war-time attempt to remove George Washington from command. A fascinating story that leads to an ultimate “what if?” in American history. Thousands of readers like you enjoy […]
India, the fabled land of rubies, diamonds, gold, tigers, and mystery, captured the imagination of the British people in the mid 1700s. Robert Clive provided fodder for gossip when he returned to England in 1760 with a reported “£1,200,000 in cash, bills, and jewels. He is said to be the richest subject in the three […]
