In the spring of 1841, a correspondent from the Hartford Courant went to East Windsor, Connecticut looking for an elderly man who was a bit of a local celebrity. The Courant, which had originated as a weekly newspaper in 1764, played a large influential role in affecting the opinions of many within Connecticut during the […]
The American War of Independence produced many dramatic episodes, but none surpassed the campaign that Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, conducted in North Carolina during the first three months of 1781 for hair-raising suspense and heartbreak. Things got off to a bad start for the British on January 17, 1781, at the Battle of […]
On the pages of the Journal of the American Revolution there have been articles on the best and worst generals of the Revolutionary War. It is not a question of the best or worst but rather how could a group of amateur generals leading a force of civilians abruptly turned into fighting men defeat a […]
Virginia’s role in helping to spearhead disestablishment and religious freedom has not received the treatment it deserves although it was, itself, a moving force behind Virginia’s entrée into the revolution. It was, in fact, Virginia which ultimately spearheaded and codified separation of church and state, after a reform movement which itself played a significant role […]
The Battle of Valcour Island was, in many ways, a waterborne version of the Battle of Bunker Hill: a greatly superior British force rushed, with little forethought or planning, into a fight against Americans making a stand on ground (or water) of their choosing. After a long and bloody battle, the British drove the American […]
Even under the strange, somewhat inept leadership of Loyalist Col. John Moore, the task of hampering Spartanburg’s Fair Forest role as a Patriot stronghold should have been straightforward. What could not have been known is what would happen when the frontier’s best sharpshooter teamed up with three lovely, most remarkable of women along with a […]
In July 1776, two hundred and forty years ago this year, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring the United Colonies to be the United States. Three months later, on the waters of Lake Champlain, a naval battle took place that would, as much as any event in the war, make that declaration […]
A re-evaluation from a British perspective in the light of The Cornwallis Papers Relying mostly on inferences drawn from my commentary in The Cornwallis Papers,[1] I shall seek to demonstrate that Britain’s grand strategy for reducing the southern colonies was at least in part sound and it may well have achieved a lasting measure of success […]
Book review: George Washington’s Secret Spy War: The Making of America’s First Spymaster by John A. Nagy (St. Martin’s Press, September 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Revolutionary War era spying has received a great deal of attention over the past decade. The “Culper Ring,” which provided George Washington with intelligence operating out of New York City […]
Did George Washington grow hemp? Yes. Hemp was a well-known, multi-purpose crop. Did George Washington smoke hemp? There’s absolutely zero evidence that he grew it or used it for recreational purposes. Now that we have the essentials out of the way, we can have a thoughtful look at this subject once and for all. In […]
Best known in this country for his role in the in the Yorktown Campaign of the American Revolution, the Duc de Lauzun (April 13, 1747 –December 31, 1793) has often been dismissed as a man who loved the ladies and grumbled about Rochambeau. Lauzun deserves a much closer look. He was a dedicated and (usually) […]
On July 15, 1775, less than two weeks after he arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take command of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington penned this entry in his expense notebook: To 333 1/3 Dollars give to —— ——* to enduce him to go into the Town of Boston; to establish a secret correspondence for […]
Historians today strive to interpret the past with a fresh, hip outlook. Long before there was talk about making history accessible and fun, Major John André of the British Army was chronicling events of the American Revolution in a style that provided mass market appeal. Affair of Honor Between the summers of 1777 and 1778, […]
The Fourth Amendment The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to […]
A re-evaluation from a British perspective in the light of The Cornwallis Papers It was in 1975, when I was researching the American Revolution, that I came upon the Cornwallis papers in the UK National Archives. I was much surprised that, despite the passage of almost 200 years and the vast extent of literature on the […]
“Pennies make dollars” is a phrase that has been around a long time and we all know what it means. But, how many pennies does it take to make a dollar? Silly question you may say—it’s one-hundred, of course. That’s the right answer for today’s America, but that would not necessarily be the right answer […]
By the end of the war, James McKay had earned quite a reputation for severity against the Loyalists. So much so that, even in Georgia, site of the most vicious private fighting, McKay was sanctioned for brutality. Even with the sanction, many of the people defended his actions as appropriate while others agreed the vengeful […]
Mr. Duncan McDougall, a merchant from German Flats area of New York’s Mohawk Valley, joined Capt. Joseph Bloomfield’s company of the 3rd New Jersey Regiment on June 27, 1776, as a volunteer (with the pseudo rank of “cadet”).[1] This was well into the campaign year, so he was walking into an already functioning unit. McDougall […]
Prior to the end of 1776, there was no militia or minuteman company established in Colonial Pennsylvania. The Provincial government was ruled by the Quakers under the William Penn family in Pennsylvania, since its land grant in the 1600’s. [1] The Quaker religion, being pacifist, would not allow a person to bear arms or provide […]
One of the most enjoyable aspects of researching the history of the American Revolution is the process of looking beneath and/or beyond those events and factoids that survive simply because they are a “given.” “Givens” are the greatest indicators of opportunities to search for missing pieces to any historical puzzle and new questions are the […]
Young Samuel Webb was a legend in his time, a hero of the American Revolution.[1] Some said he was “raised with three silver spoons” engraved with the initials of his three prominent Connecticut families (Webb, Deane, and Saltonstall). Others said he was a good friend, an active, gregarious, and literate young man who wrote engaging […]
The Stamp Act of 1765 is closely associated with Lord George Grenville, First Lord of the Treasury and the Prime Minister of England. However, there were other members of the British Government who played a roll in the direct construction and enactment of the Act. Some of them were Charles Jenkinson, Senior Secretary of the […]
Book review: “Most Blessed of the Patriarchs:” Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of Imagination by Annette Gordon-Reed and Peter S. Onuf (Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2016). [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Since the death of one of the Revolution’s foremost patriots and author of the Declaration of Independence, Americans have grappled with Thomas Jefferson’s legacy. Undoubtedly one […]
The last, dying words of many of history’s renowned figures were often inconsistently recorded. Those identified below from people who were famous during the Revolutionary War time period certainly demonstrate that fact. While some can be relied upon for accuracy, the literature reveals that for others various additions and omissions took place over time, and […]
In early morning fog on April 15, 1775, just days before the momentous clash at Lexington and Concord, two innocent-looking vessels appeared off Cape Jellison in Penobscot Bay a few hundred yards from Fort Pownal (present-day Stockton Springs, Maine). The fort’s gunner, Jonathan Lowder, looked out upon the waters and saw two schooners. They turned out […]
On May 10, 1769 Parliament had voted to repeal all of the Townshend Acts except one – the tax on Tea. It was another four years before this law became a catalyst for open rebellion. Why was this Act left in place when the others were repealed? In the 1760s, the United Company of Merchants […]
Book review: Fatal Sunday: George Washington, the Monmouth Campaign, and the Politics of Battle, by Mark Edward Lender and Garry Wheeler Stone (University of Oklahoma Press, 2016). [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] The Battle of Monmouth, fought in New Jersey on June 28, 1778, between the American and British armies, has been the subject of several books, all […]
John Paul Jones tends to overshadow the study of the American Revolution at sea. While his accolades are well deserved, Jones earned many of them with John Peck Rathbun at his side. An American-born merchant captain who joined the Continental Navy at its beginning, Rathbun’s exploits are as daring as Jones’s, but less well known. […]
“What say you now, Sir Peter Parker!”[1] The high and mighty will sometimes do seemingly odd things in order to make a point. Like, for instance, having oneself rowed into a channel in front of Fort Moultrie to see if the water’s depth was sufficient to accommodate an attacking ship. The date was May 27, […]
Scalping, the removal of the scalp from the head often for use as a trophy, is usually regarded as a uniquely sanguineous Indian practice confined to America’s distant colonial past. However, little remembered today is the important role the practice played during the Revolutionary War. While traditionally seen by colonials as a symbol of Indian […]
Historian Oliver Morton Dickerson was studying American colonial newspapers when he noticed identical articles appearing in newspapers in New York, Pennsylvania, Boston, elsewhere in the colonies and in England. It was an anonymous column called A Journal of the Times. The Journal covered daily events in Boston from September of 1768 through August of 1769 […]
John Johnson was the only white son of the Anglo-Irish immigrant William Johnson, the superintendent of Northern Indians, who gained considerable fame, fortune and a knighthood by commanding the 1755 action at Lake George, defeating a French and Canadien expedition and capturing its commander. William gained further recognition and notoriety by assuming command of the […]
America’s early finances were, in a word, messy. The states took on enormous debt to fund the Revolutionary War while the national government chartered by the Articles of Confederation issued bonds, took out foreign loans, and even benefitted from personal gifts, all while it had no power to collect taxes. “It was the price of […]
The story repeated itself time and again across the southern districts of Georgia. Alarms raised loudly across a broad area with tales of imminent Indian raids and McGirth’s banditti coming from every direction against every plantation. The men would arm themselves and hunker down to protect home and family from these raiders. However, while the […]
For a high ranking British official about to be captured by Rebel forces, it was an ominous portent of future treatment. Surrounded at the frontier outpost of Fort Sackville on the Wabash River, Detroit Lt. Gov. Henry Hamilton received a less than cordial demand for surrender on the morning of February 24, 1779. In an […]
He was arguably the greatest “anti-Hero” produced by either side during the Revolutionary War. From Washington Irving to Mel Gibson, so much has been written about the career of Banastre Tarleton that it is difficult, even today, to separate man from myth. Yet many of the most persistent and damning indictments of him are also […]
Part of the highly revisionist history of the American Revolution that developed in nineteenth century was an apparent obsession with identifying individual sharpshooter heroes who had brought down key individuals during the war’s important battles. Never mind that no one made any such claims when the events actually occurred, no forensic techniques existed to analyze […]
Book review: Valiant Ambition. George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick (Viking Books. 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Nathaniel Philbrick’s most recent offering, Valiant Ambition, tackles the difficult task of constructing a dual study of two very dissimilar men: George Washington, who led and personified the cause of independence, and […]
Brig. Gen. William “Scotch Willie” Maxwell usually receives scant attention in books covering the American Revolution. If the author mentions Maxwell at all, the cursory biographical sketch usually focuses on his nickname, his heavy drinking, and his Irish origin. This colorful portrayal does not give credit to Maxwell’s many contributions during the war, most significantly […]