*** All JAR Articles ***

 Interviews Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Selden West on a Whaleboat Fight off Connecticut

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Selden West on her research into a fight between Patriot whaleboat crews and the British Navy off Stamford, Connecticut in 1778. New episodes of Dispatchesare available for free every Saturday evening(Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatchescan […]

by Editors
4
The War Years (1775-1783) Posted on

Congress and the Commodore: Esek Hopkins and the Raid on Nassau

On April 7, 1776 American ships began dropping anchors off New London, Connecticut. Esek Hopkins, commander in chief of the new Continental navy, was returning from a successful raid on the town of New Providence on Nassau island in the Bahamas. While there, the Americans had seized eighty-eight desperately needed cannon and fifteen mortars, thousands […]

by Eric Sterner
6
Arts & Literature Posted on

Cato: A Tragedy: The Enduring Theatrical Mystery at Valley Forge

The Valley Forge winter of 1777-78 is an integral part of America’s national narrative.[1] For many citizens, the name “Valley Forge” relates both a physical and intellectual landscape, specific spatial geography in Pennsylvania and a certain emotional acreage representative of the enduring suffering many Americans embraced during the revolution. At the end of that challenging […]

by Shawn David McGhee
3
War at Sea and Waterways (1775–1783) Posted on

A Smart Engagement: A Whaleboat Fight off Stamford, Connecticut, June 24, 1778

Very early on a hot summer’s day in 1778, Moses Mather, Jr., son and namesake of the Patriot minister of Middlesex Parish (today’s Darien), Connecticut, was seventeen years old and sitting in a whaleboat just offshore.[1] Only two years before, whaleboats rarely had been seen in western Long Island Sound. But as enemies on both […]

by Selden West
Reviews Posted on

A Maritime History of the American Revolution

BOOK REVIEW: A Maritime History of the American Revolutionary War: An Atlantic-Wide Conflict Over Independence and Empire by Theodore Corbett (Pen and Sword Maritime, 2023) Theodore Corbett is scholar and university professor who has written a number of local area Revolutionary War histories: on the Hudson River Valley and Saratoga; New Castle, Delaware; Chestertown, Maryland; […]

by William H. J. Manthorpe, Jr.
1
Postwar Politics (>1783) Posted on

The Struggle for Stability: The 1787 Federal Convention

The Articles of Confederation provided inadequate funding and guidance for the thirteen colonies during the American Revolution. After six years of fighting, the war miraculously ended with victory in 1783. The Articles of Confederation did not give the new Congress of the Confederation adequate power to govern the newly created United States of America. Financial […]

by Jane Sinden Spiegel
Interviews Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Gerald Krieger on British Miscalculation of Loyalist Support in the American South

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Gerald Krieger on his research into how the British miscalculated their support among Loyalists in the South. New episodes of Dispatchesare available for free every Saturday evening(Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatchescan now be […]

by Editors
2
Reviews Posted on

Novels, Needleworks, and Empire: Material Entanglements in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

BOOK REVIEW: Novels, Needleworks, and Empire: Material Entanglements in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World by Chloe Wigston Smith (Yale University Press) Novels, Needleworks, and Empire: Material Entanglements in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World by Chloe Wigston Smith details how processes and objects of the domestic life were inherently intertwined with colonialism. Smith argues that while white women […]

by Nichole Louise
Interviews Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Gene Procknow on Henry Clinton’s Plan to End the War

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Gene Procknow on Henry Clinton’s Plan to end the war. New episodes of Dispatchesare available for free every Saturday evening(Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatchescan now be easily accessed on the JAR main menu. […]

by Editors
Reviews Posted on

Huzza!: Toasting a New Nation, 1760–1815

Toasts are a familiar concept, but most people probably do not consider toasts to carry political weight or any real social significance beyond the ritual of bonding and celebration. However, as Timonthy Symington demonstrates in Huzza!: Toasting a New nation, 1760-1815, toasts occupied a place of special significance bolstering public support and creating political ideals […]

by Kelly Mielke
1
The War Years (1775-1783) Posted on

Hugh Hughes and Washington’s Retreat: American Principles and Practicalities

The Livingston mansion was a large frame house with a colonnaded front porch and four marble chimneys.[1] The chimneys were Italian imports and illustrated the worldliness and influence of the house’s prosperous merchant owner, Philip Livingston. Livingston, though, was absent and the house was instead serving as the military headquarters for George Washington’s Continental Army […]

by Ethan King
6
News Posted on

Welcome to the New JAR Site!

Welcome to the New JAR Site! After over ten years without a change, we’ve refreshed our web site. We still have the same great articles, podcast, and content that you’ve come to rely on as a trusted source for information about the American Revolution and Founding Era, but with a new look that should be easier […]

by Editors
1
Reviews Posted on

Seized with the Temper of the Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America

BOOK REVIEW: Seized with the Temper of The Times: Identity and Rebellion in Pre-Revolutionary America by Abby Chandler (Westholme, 2023) In the past fifteen years or so, there has been, happily, an explosion of books published on battles and other military aspects of the American Revolutionary War. In the same time frame, far fewer books […]

by Christian McBurney
Books and Publications Posted on

This Week on Dispatches: Jude Pfister on John Marshall, Historian

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Jude Pfisteron John Marshall’s magisterial biography of George Washington. New episodes of Dispatchesare available for free every Saturday evening(Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatchescan now be easily accessed on the JAR main menu. Thousands of readers […]

by Editors
Law Posted on

A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation

BOOK REVIEW: A Republic of Scoundrels: The Schemers, Intriguers, and Adventurers Who Created a New American Nation edited by David Head and Timothy C. Hemmis (New York, NY: Pegasus Books, 2023) Many believe that books written with rigorous academic care are not enjoyable and appropriate only for wonkish readers. Editors and essayists David Head and Timothy C. […]

by Gene Procknow
Critical Thinking Posted on

Permanent Losses and New Gains During the 1778 Valley Forge Encampment

The traditional story of Valley Forge tells of an encampment where a weakened and stripped-down army of 11,000 men endured the hardships of a winter cantonment rife with depravations. Overcoming crippling deficiencies and benefitting from superb training by the first Inspector General of the United States, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the army got healthy and […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
Letters and Correspondence Posted on

Love, American (Revolution) Style: the Romances of Otho Holland Williams

The senate chamber of the Maryland State House was more crowded than usual. It was December 23, 1783. Congress had recently relocated to Annapolis, and now George Washington was in town to fulfill a promise he made eight years earlier. “I went with several others to see Gen. Washington resign his Commission,” Annapolis socialite Mary […]

by Derrick E. Lapp
Medicine Posted on

The Fevered Fight: A Medical History of the American Revolution, 1775–1783

BOOK REVIEW: The Fevered Fight: A Medical History of the American Revolution, 1775-1783 by Martin R. Howard (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2023) Medical care was at the center of the Revolution. When the War for American Independence began, the British army summoned its physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and purveyors to tend to the men who sickened and […]

by John Gilbert McCurdy
Critical Thinking Posted on

Rediscovering Charles Thomson’s Forgotten Service to Early American Historiography

George Washington’s perseverance kept the American army in the field long enough to win negotiated independence, and later saw him through the first presidency under the Constitution. Benjamin Franklin’s ingenuity and sagacity guided the formation of the young nation before it yet realized it could be a country of its own. Thomas Jefferson’s eloquence gave […]

by Daniel L. Wright
Politics During the War (1775-1783) Posted on

The Times That Try Men’s Souls: The Adams, the Quincy’s, and the Battle for Loyalty in the American Revolution

BOOK REVIEW: The Times That Try Men’s Souls: The Adams, the Quincys, and the Battle for Loyalty in the American Revolution by Joyce Lee Malcolm. (New York, NY: Pegasus Books, 2023) “All wars are dangerous and painful . . . But the very worst war, that can sever family relationships and bonds of friendship, that touches even those […]

by Timothy Symington
Arts & Literature Posted on

Major Peter Charles L’Enfant: Artist and Engineer of the Revolution

Major Peter L’Enfant is most well-known for his 1791 “wholly new” plan for the Federal City that would become Washington, DC. Fewer are aware of his previous experience during the Revolutionary War where he served as an aide-de-camp, engineer, and sometimes as an artist and light infantry officer. This military service, coupled with his fine […]

by Douglas R. Dorney, Jr.
Economics Posted on

The Continental Dollar: How the American Revolution Was Financed with Paper Money

BOOK REVIEW: The Continental Dollar: How the American Revolution Was Financed with Paper Money by Farley Grubb (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2023) Economists and historians have been telling us the wrong story about Continental currency for two centuries. Continental money did not lose its value because Congress printed too much of it. In fact, […]

by Gabriel Neville
Law Posted on

Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions

BOOK REVIEW: Democracy in Darkness: Secrecy and Transparency in the Age of Revolutions  by Katlyn Marie Carter (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2023) In our age of freedom of information acts, C-Span, and a never-ending news cycle, we tend to equate transparent government with democracy and sensible public policy. In Democracy in Darkness, however, […]

by Jeff Broadwater
Engineering and Technology Posted on

Illuminating the Republic: Maritime Safety and the Federalist Vision of Empire

The national government under the Federal Constitution effectively began its reign on April 6, 1789, as an invisible and unremarkable presence in the lives of most ordinary Americans.[1] The army boasted about 750 men stationed mainly on the western frontier, there were no national buildings, roads or even construction sites, while few federal bureaucrats and […]

by Shawn David McGhee