BOOK REVIEW: Heart of American Darkness: Bewilderment and Horror on the Early Frontier by Robert G. Parkinson (New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2024. $35.00, hardcover) Robert G. Parkinson, a history professor, chronicles the pre- to post-American Revolutionary War events in the Ohio Valley through the experiences of two families—the Native Shickellamys and […]
The idea that no one is above the law is a long-held and repeated precept of American constitutionalism. Its roots go back to the philosophical and historical foundations of western political thought. Holding a prominent place in this history is the thirteenth-century English Magna Carta. Although it does not explicitly use the phrase, the document—a […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor David Kindy on the discovery of a thirteen-star American flag that was flown during the American Revolution, a very rare and important artifact. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
The strategic economic importance of Cape Henry, at the juncture between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay, was recognized early on in the American colonies with a recommendation that building a lighthouse at that location would be “of great Advantage to the Trade of this Bay.”[1] It took almost half of a century to […]
BOOK REVIEW: George Washington’s Momentous Year: Twelve Months that Transformed the Revolution—Volume 1, The Philadelphia Campaign by Gary Ecelbarger (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2004. $32.50, hardcover) Gary Ecelbarger is a skilled writer who weaves an interesting account of Gen. George Washington’s leadership and campaign management challenges in this, the first of a planned two-volume analysis. […]
In 1991, Queen Elizabeth II gave an address to a joint session of the United States Congress, the first address of its kind delivered by a British monarch. As part of her remarks, she reflected on the end of the American Revolution and eventual partnership between the United States and the United Kingdom. “Some people […]
“On the 18th of June, the British army, now under the command of Clinton, evacuated Philadelphia for New-York. The figure they made on the road had something the air of the sublime; for their baggage, loaded horses, and carriages, formed a line not less than twelve miles in length. General Washington, whose eye, like that […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Soldiers Fell Like Autumn Leaves: The Battle of the Wabash, The United States’ Greatest Defeat in the Wars Against Indigenous Peoples by Rick M. Schoenfield. (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2024. $32.50 Hardcover) In The Soldiers Fell Like Autumn Leaves, author and historian Rick M. Schoenfield presents a unique perspective on an often-forgotten […]
John Clark Ridpath wrote in 1898, The pre-revolutionists are the Titans of human history; the revolutionists proper are only heroes; and the post revolutionists are too frequently dwarfs and weaklings. This signifies that civilization advances by revolutionary stages, and that history sends out her tallest and best sons to explore the line of march and […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and educator, Linda J. Rice, the James S. Reid / Standard Products Professor of Humanities and Professor of English at Ohio University, about using Newbery Award-winning books to teach students about the American Revolution. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern […]
Christopher Gadsden arrived as a South Carolina delegate to the Second Continental Congress three weeks after fighting at Lexington and Concord lit the tinder for the American Revolution. He succinctly captured the backlash of collective anxiety when he created the iconic flag of a coiled and agitated rattlesnake conspicuously warning Britain of the ramifications with […]
In 1902, the new owner of a furnished house in Medford, Massachusetts, was rummaging through the accoutrements and amenities of his recent acquisition. John O’Callaghan then noticed a box with an unusual inscription: “Here’s our family flag from the war.” Intrigued, O’Callaghan opened the container and found a frayed flag. As he unfolded the red, […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor David Otersen on Parliament’s reaction to the American contention that they were not subject to the legislative authority of Great Britain, a bedrock principle of eighteenth-century British constitutionalism. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, […]
“If one is to truly love a country, one must be acquainted with its history and what it took for that country to stand today. In this particular field, I was, and I believe still am, lacking. After reading and studying My Brother Sam is Dead, however, I have come to a better understanding of […]
We asked our contributors for their favorite quotation about the Declaration of Independence, by a person who was alive when it was announced. David Price John Haslet, officer in the Delaware Regiment: “I congratulate you, sir, on this important day, which restores to every American his birthright—a day which every freeman will record with gratitude, […]
James III of England, although born as the rightful and lawful heir to the English throne, never became King of England. In early 1689, while he was still an infant, Parliament, after having declared that his father, James II, had abdicated the throne, proceeded to inaugurate William of Orange and his wife Mary as the […]
TELEVISION REVIEW: Franklin. Directed by Tim Van Patten. Written by Kirk Ellis and Howard Korder. Featuring Michael Douglas, Noah Jupe, Daniel Mays, and Eddie Marsan. Released April 12–May 17, 2024. Apple TV+. Franklin, as a television miniseries, is well done. Rarely do we see this time period—the eighteenth century—televised. This eight-hour program has spectacular production […]
In April 1775, Isaac Bissell was a crucial link between the Patriots of Massachusetts and the government of neighboring Connecticut. His actions contributed to alerting many communities along the Atlantic coast about the outbreak of war in Lexington. Nevertheless, through a chain of circumstances, Isaac Bissell’s name has been overwritten in history books.[1] This story […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and author Jason Cherry on his new book, William Trent: Factor of Ambition. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be easily accessed on the […]
As Founding Fathers of the United States met in Philadelphia to declare that “all men are created equal,” Thomas Craik Jr. was born into a family of people enslaved by Dr. James Craik on his Maryland plantations.[1] This was not unusual at the time; many of the colonial landed gentry relied upon slave labor to […]
As the American Bicentennial approached, the Smithsonian Magazine in April 1973 ran a story by Richard W. O’Donnell about Paul Revere not being the only messenger who rode to warn Massachusetts colonists on the night of April 18, 1775, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” outlined. Revere did not complete his ride and when […]
General histories of the Battle of Connecticut Farms, New Jersey, that was fought on June 7, 1780 tend to miss their mark with the very first shots. The intrusion of local myth impacts our understanding of the sequence of battle and distorts some of its key elements. In the process, the battalion that suffered nearly […]
BOOK REVIEW: William Trent: Factor of Ambition by Jason A. Cherry. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Sunberry Press, 2024. $34.95 Paper) Independent historian Jason A. Cherry has turned an interest in the activities of an unfamiliar western merchant during the antebellum colonial period into a fascinating and interesting book. His biography William Trent: Factor of Ambition details the […]
On Saturday, June 17, 1775, Abigail Adams and her seven-year-old son, John Quincy, stood on Penn’s Hill near her home in Braintree, Massachusetts. They watched sulfuric smoke cloud the sky and heard cannon thunder across Boston Harbor from British ships in the Mystic and Charles Rivers bombarding colonial forces who had built a redoubt on […]
Thomas Waters of Georgia was present in crucial events of the American Revolution in Georgia and South Carolina. He represented as an individual the problems of class and conscience affected by British efforts to restore the rebelling Southern colonies by “Americanizing” the war, what has been called the Southern Strategy. After 1778, the King’s ministers […]
BOOK REVIEW: The Unexpected Abigail Adams: A Woman “Not Apt to Be Intimidated” by John L. Smith, Jr. (Westholme, 2024, $32.50 hardcover) “I will never consent to have our sex considered an inferior point of light. Let each planet shine in their own orbit, God and nature intended it so—if man is Lord, woman is […]
In January 1792 forty-three-year-old Arthur Bowler left Halifax, Nova Scotia, on his second Transatlantic journey. Captured in Africa almost thirty years earlier, enslaved in Newport, Rhode Island, for nearly twenty years, a free man for ten, he was returning to Africa. He left fragmentary clues buried in archives on three continents which illuminate an “ordinary” […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor William Caldwell on Patrick Ferguson and what he supposedly said in the run-up to the Battle of Kings Mountain. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web […]
Benjamin Franklin died at his home in Philadelphia at eleven o’clock p.m. on April 17, 1790; he was eighty-four years old. On June 4, Benjamin Vaughan, a doctor, Member of Parliament and friend of Franklin, wrote to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, another friend of Franklin. In his letter that arrived on June 10, he […]
In George Washington’s Mount Vernon mansion many visitors take note of the key presented by Lafayette to the first American president, formerly used in the Bastille prison in Paris. Few visitors invest much time to look at a tea set on display in the exhibition and fewer still will wonder about who made Martha and […]
A good story spreads like glitter on a craft table: one spill and suddenly it’s everywhere. Readers picking up almost any history book about the American Revolution in the southern colonies will learn about the 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain and the plot point of British Major Patrick Ferguson threatening the Patriots of the southern […]
When Bryan McSweeny stepped ashore on Staten Island in August 1776, it must have looked like a paradise. He had spent the previous three years in Jamaica, in a tropical climate that was often fatal to Europeans; now, he saw a verdant landscape and felt temperatures similar to his native town of Macroom in County […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian, author, and JAR contributor David Price about the important diary of Albigence Waldo that provides important information about Valley Forge and the Continental army. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
Just sixty days after the start of armed hostilities at Lexington Green, the Continental Congress’s decision to invade Canada resulted in one of the worst defeats in the War for Independence.[1] While exact casualty figures are difficult to discern, likely half of the American forces sent north were killed in battle, wounded, captured, or died […]
BOOK REVIEW: Antiquity and Loyalist Dissent in Revolutionary America, 1765-1776 by Daniel R. Moy (Anthem Press, 2024. $110.00) Daniel R. Moy’s Antiquity and Loyalist Dissent in Revolutionary America attempts to analyze ideological warfare between Whigs and Tories, with particular attention to ancient Greco-Roman and Mediterranean influences. Moy, currently a lecturer at the University of Virginia […]
Ten days before General Daniel Morgan’s momentous victory at Cowpens, a battle, or rather to some, a skirmish took place beyond the peripherals of the Continental army on the Eastern Seaboard. Though all but forgotten by the majority of history books and locals, this action was the bloodiest Revolutionary War battle fought in modern-day Alabama […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Timothy Symington about his new book, “Huzza!” Toasting a New Nation, 1760–1815. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be easily accessed on the […]
As an integral part of the American governing system, the United States Congress added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution on December 15, 1791. Whether by accident or design, that same year the British House of Commons also approved the Constitutional Act of 1791 as the governing structure for its newly acquired territory of […]
BOOK REVIEW: Freedom: The Enduring Importance of the American Revolution by Jack D. Warren, Jr. and the American Revolution Institute of The Society of the Cincinnati (Essex, CT: Lyons Press, 2023. $59.95 cloth) George Washington walked away from power when he resigned his commission to the Continental Congress in December 1783. King George III, on […]
