*** All JAR Articles ***

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Memorials Posted on

The Glorious Career and Unfortunate Death of John Laurens

George Washington surrounded himself with the best and the brightest young men involved in the revolutionary cause. Alexander Hamilton, Tench Tilghman, Robert Harrison, the Marquis de Lafayette, James McHenry, and John Fitzgerald were a few of the talented people that served alongside Washington in his “family” at various times. One of them, John Laurens of […]

by Jeff Dacus
Culture Posted on

The Dorchester Heights Memorial, South Boston, and the Celebration of Evacuation Day

On my way to Boston’s Logan Airport a while ago a taxi driver pointed towards Boston Harbor and started telling me about a Revolutionary War monument located behind South Boston High School. As an Irish-American transplant from Chicago, green-colored Red Sox hats and the reputation of the South Boston Irish are very real manifestations of […]

by John E. Happ
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Features Posted on

Dying to Celebrate

During the American Revolution, hundreds of civilians and military men on both sides were killed or injured by accidents. A number of these occurred during occasions which were supposed to be joyous. One of the earliest was Robert Jewell. Samuel Rowland Fisher heard of his death in 1781, and remembered he had been keeper of […]

by Joseph Lee Boyle
12
Reviews Posted on

Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero

Book Review: Founding Martyr: The Life and Death of Dr. Joseph Warren, the American Revolution’s Lost Hero by Christian Di Spigna (Crown Publishing: 2018). BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON As a fan of Dr. Joseph Warren and having researched him thoroughly for my own two Revolutionary War books,[1] I was interested to see what new […]

by Derek W. Beck
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Reviews Posted on

The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century: A Social and Cultural History

Book Review: The American Farmer in the Eighteenth Century: A Social and Cultural History by Richard L. Bushman (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, May 2018). BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON Farming is hard work, always has been. Farmers make their livelihoods cultivating the earth and typically shun the limelight. Students exposed to the colonial and […]

by Titus Belgard
1
News Posted on

New Additions to the JAR Team

Managing Editor Don N. Hagist is pleased to announce two new additions to the Journal of the American Revolution’s editorial team. Adrian Rutt, who most recently contributed a review of Justifying Revolution, provides his expertise in copy editing and academic publishing to ensure that JAR articles meet the journal’s overall editorial standards. In addition, Adrian will weigh in […]

by Editors
Features Posted on

A Second Bonaparte: Searching for the Character of Alexander Hamilton

Thomas Jefferson, that American Sphinx,[1] is perhaps Alexander Hamilton’s only rival within the high pantheon of the founding generation for enigma. Hamilton’s character recalls Giambologna’s The Rape of the Sabine Women, a spiraling marble Renaissance masterpiece resident in Florence’s Piazza Signoria, featuring three intertwined figures that can only be captured conclusively from a host of vantage […]

by Steven C. Hertler
11
Features Posted on

Unlocking the Mystery of Ten Revolutionary Generals’ Signatures

Documents that contain the original signatures of more than one Continental Army general are rare.  During the eight years of the Revolutionary War, generals penned thousands of pages of military orders, official correspondence, and private letters. The vast preponderance of these signed documents are in archives and museums, but some are cherished and preserved in […]

by Gene Procknow
Reviews Posted on

Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America’s Founding Father

Book review: Young Washington: How Wilderness and War Forged America’s Founding Father by Peter Stark (HarperCollins, 2018). BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON Peter Stark’s account of George Washington during the French and Indian War from 1753 to 1758 offers an entertaining portrait of Washington during those early years of his military career, but he gives […]

by Benjamin Huggins
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Primary Sources Posted on

War Horses Gone Astray

The American Revolution’s armies got their horsepower from horses. These animals carried cavalrymen into battle, pulled cannons, carts and wagons of all description, hauled baggage on their backs, moved messengers swiftly over countless miles, and brought officers and gentlemen to wherever they needed to be. And they ran off sometimes. Advertising in the era’s newspapers […]

by Don N. Hagist
3
Reviews Posted on

Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American War for Independence

Book Review: Justifying Revolution: Law, Virtue, and Violence in the American War for Independence, Glenn A. Moots and Phillip Hamilton, eds. (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018) BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON   For many, the story of the American Revolution is simple and straightforward: in an effort to break the chains of tyranny and unrepresentative […]

by Adrian Rutt
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Conflict & War Posted on

The Canadian Patriot Experience

The American Revolution was in effect a civil war. It included all the heightened acrimony associated with one. In what became the United States, there was hostility and outright violence between those supporting the rebellion (“Patriots”) and those against it (“Loyalists”). Soldiers and families alike faced social ostracism, physical danger, loss of property, and for […]

by Richard J. Werther
1
Reviews Posted on

American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolutionary Era

Book Review: American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era by Craig Bruce Smith (University of North Carolina Press, 2018) BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON In American Honor: The Creation of the Nation’s Ideals during the Revolutionary Era, Craig Bruce Smith, a professor of history at William Woods University, traces the role that […]

by Alec D. Rogers
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Critical Thinking Posted on

Morris’s Misidentification: Miscasting Thomas Jefferson as an Obsessive Compulsive Personality

The characters and contributions of Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton are collectively sketched by historian Richard B. Morris in, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries. Amid descriptions of Hamilton’s grandiose ambitions, Washington’s sullen stiffness, Adams’s humble origins, and Franklin’s protean diplomacy, […]

by Steven C. Hertler
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Politics During the War (1775-1783) Posted on

Continental Army Lieutenant Generals: The Rank that Never Was

As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, George Washington was involved in many battles, both military and political, during the revolution.  A battle with both military and political aspects was Washington’s effort to obtain army lieutenant generals. Although often identified as a lieutenant general (or even a major general) himself, Washington was a full general.[1] Despite a […]

by William M. Welsch
Conflict & War Posted on

Maintaining Normalcy in British-Occupied Brookhaven, Eastern Long Island, New York

In August 1776, the Crown’s disciplined forces easily displaced the unprepared Continental resistance in the Battle of Long Island, also known as the Battle of Brooklyn. It was a decisive British victory, and the surviving Patriots retreated westward across the East River and onto York Island. By September, the British army firmly occupied Long Island […]

by Matthew M. Montelione
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Conflict & War Posted on

The Revolutionary War’s Most Enigmatic Naval Captain: Pierre Landais

One American Revolutionary War naval captain, Pierre Landais, appeared paranoid and somewhat deranged. Landais was a French merchantman lieutenant who trafficked arms to America for entrepreneur Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.[1] Beaumarchais created a fictitious trading enterprise called Hortalez et Cie that channeled French arms to the Americans via colonial West Indian entrepôrts.[2] Once there, the arms […]

by Louis Arthur Norton
2
Features Posted on

Thomas Paine: Britain, America, & France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution

Book Review: Thomas Paine: Britain, America, & France in the Age of Enlightenment and Revolution by J.C.D. Clark (Oxford University Press, 2018, 485 pages) BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON British historian J.C.D Clark sets out in his newly published book on Thomas Paine to reevaluate Paine and his contributions to the “age of revolution” by examining […]

by Jett Conner
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Reviews Posted on

The Indian World of George Washington

Book Review: The Indian World of George Washington by Colin G. Calloway (Oxford University Press, 2018) BUY THIS BOOK FROM AMAZON In writing The Indian World of George Washington Colin Calloway set off to rectify a shortcoming in American history. According to him, “American history has largely forgotten what Washington knew. Narratives of national expansion and Indian […]

by Eric Sterner
Features Posted on

Struggle for a Lighthouse: The Raids to Destroy the Boston Light

In the days following the British pyrrhic victory of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, Gen. George Washington, in his new role as commander-in-chief, assumed the leadership of approximately 14,000 troops.  While Washington’s army laid siege to Boston, the town’s British garrison of some 7,000 soldiers, sailors and marines were stretched thin as they attempted […]

by Andrew A. Zellers-Frederick
5
Features Posted on

Happy Fourth of July! . . . and a Question

For something special this Independence Day, we asked JAR contributors a simple but thought-provoking question. Their answers are insightful and remind us of the broad range of people and events that transformed thirteen British colonies into the United States of America. How would you answer this question: If there was another national holiday, in addition […]

by Editors