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Features Posted on December 11, 2019December 12, 2019

George Hanger: The Life and Times of an Eccentric Nobleman

George Hanger: The Life and Times of an Eccentric Nobleman by Ian Saberton (Claygate, UK: Grosvenor House Publishing, 2018) The “English eccentric” is an instantly recognisable cultural figure the world over, and while it would be wrong to suggest that this Island nation has a monopoly on the production of the eccentric, it is undeniably true […]

by John Knight

Engineering and Technology Posted on December 10, 2019December 9, 2019

Robert Erskine, Surveyor-General of the Continental Army

Robert Erskine was born in Dumfermline, Scotland, to Ralph and Margaret Erskine on September 7, 1735. Ralph Erskine, being a Presbyterian minister, raised Robert to be thrifty, God-loving, determined, and well-educated. In 1748 and then again in 1752 he was enrolled in the University of Edinburgh. There are no records of his performance or if […]

by Bob Ruppert

Features Posted on December 9, 2019December 19, 2019

Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Vol. 13

Naval Documents of the American Revolution, Volume 13, edited by Michael J. Crawford. (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO), 2019. A pdf copy is available for free from the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) website, www.history.navy.mil/research/publications/publications-by-subject/naval-documents-of-the-american-revolution.html.) Naval Documents of the American Revolution is a thirteen-volume (and counting) anthology of extracts from American, British, French, and […]

by John K. Robertson

Constitutional Debate Posted on December 7, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: Ray Raphael on the Constitutional Debate about Impeachment

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews award-winning historian, writer, and JAR Associate Editor, Ray Raphael, about the debate during the Constitutional Convention on what would constitute impeachable offenses and the process for removing an official from office. His recent article on the subject is here. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published […]

by Editors

Critical Thinking Posted on December 5, 2019December 4, 2019

The Engagement at Woodlane: Precursor to the Battle of Iron Works Hill, a Key to the American Victory at Trenton

Their feet were leaving noticeable imprints in the grassy field. It was another two hundred yards to the hedgerow, and then a steep climb up the narrow footpath that snaked around the rising slope of hill in front of them. If they could make it without injury, perhaps there was a chance to dig in […]

by Adam E. Zielinski

Patriots Posted on December 3, 2019December 2, 2019

Shenandoah Martyr: Richard Campbell at War

There is no dignity in being forgotten. A case in point is Virginia Lt. Col. Richard Campbell, a Continental officer who died bravely for his country but lies today in an unmarked grave far from his home. “Killed near the end of the battle at Eutaw Springs,” wrote the authors of a 2017 study of […]

by Gabriel Neville

Features Posted on December 2, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: John L. Smith, Jr. on Thomas Jefferson and French Fries

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews educator, US Army and US Air Force veteran, and JAR contributor, John L. Smith, Jr., about the role Thomas Jefferson may have played in introducing fried potatoes—“French Fries”—to American cuisine. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is […]

by Editors

Culture Posted on November 29, 2019

Thanksgiving: A Week with Martha Bradley, The British Housewife, Day 5

Martha Bradley lived in an age when a prosperous household often brewed its own beer, culturing and storing it in large wooden vessels in basements. Much could go wrong, so the section titled “Of Liquors” in the November chapter of her 1756 publication The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion consisted entirely of […]

by Don N. Hagist

Culture Posted on November 28, 2019December 20, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving! Our week with Martha Bradley, Day 4

In her recipes for November, Martha Bradley included only three for “Confectionary,” all of them jellies or custards. Her pies were savory, and her section on baking discussed only pigeons and larks. No cakes, biscuits, tarts or candies for this month. The desert table, if based strictly on the 1756 The British Housewife: or, the […]

by Don N. Hagist

Culture Posted on November 27, 2019December 20, 2019

Thanksgiving: A Week with Martha Bradley, The British Housewife, Day 3

To accompany our roast, Martha Bradley in her 1756 work The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion included recipes for stews, savory pies, dinner puddings, soups, sauces, and savory jellies called cullisses. She did not neglect side dishes of vegetables, one of which was the Savoy cabbage: Forced Savoys Chuse a Couple of […]

by Don N. Hagist

Culture Posted on November 26, 2019December 20, 2019

Thanksgiving: A Week with Martha Bradley, The British Housewife, Day 2

Yesterday, Martha Bradley, in her 1756 publication The British Housewife: or, the Cook, Housekeeper’s, and Gardiner’s Companion, explained to us the various poultry available in the month of November. Rather than presenting separate recipes for each bird, her November section on “Cookery” offered this one: To roast Fowls in the Italian Way. Chuse for this Dish […]

by Don N. Hagist

Culture Posted on November 25, 2019December 20, 2019

Thanksgiving: A Week With Martha Bradley, The British Housewife

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 […]

by Don N. Hagist

Features Posted on November 23, 2019November 23, 2019

The Week on Dispatches: Roberto Oscar Flores de Apodaca on Prayer and Thanksgiving of the Common Soldier

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 […]

by Editors

Engineering and Technology Posted on November 21, 2019January 2, 2020

Bernard Romans and the First Attempt at Fortifying the Hudson River

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, . . […]

by George F. Reasor

Constitutional Debate Posted on November 19, 2019November 25, 2019

Impeachment: The Framers Debate and Discuss

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 […]

by Ray Raphael

Features Posted on November 18, 2019November 17, 2019

Washington’s Revolutionary War Generals

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 […]

by Gene Procknow

Features Posted on November 17, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: Jim Piecuch on Women and Revolutionary-Era Armies

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. […]

by Editors

Letters and Correspondence Posted on November 14, 2019November 13, 2019

The Officers’ Spirited Memorial: A Prelude to the Newburgh Conspiracy

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 […]

by David Head

Critical Thinking Posted on November 13, 2019November 12, 2019

Uplifting Moments in American Revolution History

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 […]

by Editors

Espionage and Cryptography Posted on November 12, 2019December 5, 2019

Captain John De Treville: Continental Officer and British Spy

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 […]

by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.

Features Posted on November 9, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: Louis Arthur Norton on the battle between the Bonhomme Richard and Serapis

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 […]

by Editors

Critical Thinking Posted on November 7, 2019November 5, 2019

Lexington and Concord: A Case Study in Leadership and Direct Action

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 […]

by Patrick Naughton

Features Posted on November 6, 2019November 5, 2019

The Rise of Thomas Paine and the Case of the Officers of Excise

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 […]

by Jett Conner

Historic Sites Posted on November 5, 2019November 4, 2019

Valley Forge’s Threshold: The Encampment at Gulph Mills

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 […]

by Sheilah Vance

Critical Thinking Posted on November 4, 2019November 3, 2019

The Lewes Lighthouse Legend Re-examined and Re-interpreted

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 […]

by William H. J. Manthorpe, Jr.

Conflict & War Posted on November 3, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: Eric Sterner on the Gdnadenhutten Massacre

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 […]

by Editors

Economics Posted on October 31, 2019October 30, 2019

Isaac Roosevelt: Merchant, Federalist, Banker, New Yorker

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 […]

by Keith Muchowski

Pension Records Posted on October 29, 2019October 28, 2019

A Reprieve for John Sutherland, a Poor Silly Creature

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 […]

by Don N. Hagist

Law Posted on October 28, 2019October 27, 2019

Courts-Martial of the Corps of Light Infantry, 1779

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 […]

by Michael J. F. Sheehan

Features Posted on October 26, 2019

This Week on Dispatchers: Frederic C. Detwiller on the Mysterious “Monsr Dubuq”

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 […]

by Editors

Espionage and Cryptography Posted on October 24, 2019October 23, 2019

Enoch Crosby: A Hudson Valley Spy in Fact and Fiction

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 […]

by Charles Dewey

Conflict & War Posted on October 22, 2019October 24, 2019

“The Americans Have Hoisted Their Standard of Liberty at Salem”

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 […]

by Jeff Dacus

Features Posted on October 21, 2019

North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders

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, […]

by Timothy Symington

Constitutional Debate Posted on October 19, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: Andrew Schocket on Who Mattered in Early America?

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 […]

by Editors

People Posted on October 17, 2019October 17, 2019

Joshua Barney, the Hyder-Ally‘s Triumph, and its Aftermath

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 […]

by Louis Arthur Norton

Letters and Correspondence Posted on October 16, 2019October 16, 2019

Catharine Macaulay: Her Final Gifts to America and France, 1787–1791

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 […]

by Bob Ruppert

The War Years (1775-1783) Posted on October 15, 2019October 14, 2019

Picking Up the Pieces: Virginia’s “Eighteen-Months Men” of 1780–81

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 […]

by Michael Cecere

Features Posted on October 14, 2019October 21, 2019

Contest for Liberty: Military Leadership in the Continental Army, 1775–1783

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 […]

by Patrick H. Hannum

Features Posted on October 11, 2019

This Week on Dispatches: John G. McCurdy on the Quartering Act

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 […]

by Editors