Most scholars of the American Revolution do their research in libraries and digital archives. Google Books, JSTOR, American Archives and Founders Online are among the hottest mostly-free online resources for serious exploration. While I love deep-archive diving as much as the next professional, I also find great joy in the occasional shallow or leisurely swims […]
The crevices and stony outcroppings of Devil’s Den, a 1,756-acre nature preserve in Weston and Redding, Connecticut, can provide shelter for hikers during an unexpected rainstorm. Or, as was the case for some women and children 236 years ago, the perfect place to hide during a British invasion. It was shortly before sunset on April […]
When one thinks of a telescopic sight on a rifle one does not think of the Revolutionary War. However strange, there was one documented rifle with a telescopic sight. It was conceived and test fired by a very improbable rifleman: Charles Willson Peale. Charles Willson Peale (1741-1827) was the most prominent American portrait painter of […]
In the fall of 1774, just before adjourning, the First Continental Congress outlined the Articles of Association, an aggressive plan of economic resistance to Great Britain that included nonconsumption, nonimportation and nonexportation. These boycotts were to be enforced by local committees and supplant Colonial governments. Westchester, New York Reverend Samuel Seabury responded with a series […]
Dear Mr. History: I’m familiar with General John Glover and believe he is an unsung hero (except for Billias’s book over 50 years ago). From his exploits as the first privateer to holding off the flanking force at Pell’s Point and managing the boat lifts from Brooklyn and crossing the Delaware, among other efforts, he […]
George Rockingham Gilmer wrote a heroic saga of the life, service, and sacrifices of Austin Dabney, an African American Georgia Revolutionary War hero. He first published it anonymously in 1849 and reprinted it under his name in a pamphlet in 1851 and in George White’s Historical Collections of Georgia in 1854. Gilmer included it in […]
“The day will be most memorable in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever […]
In 1779 General George Washington and British Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton were locked in a stalemate around New York City. Clinton desperately wanted to lure Washington into a climactic battle that would destroy the Continental Army but his forces were not strong enough to fight Washington on his own ground. Clinton attacked Connecticut in an […]
Myth: “In 1776, when Maryland instructed its delegates to the Continental Congress to vote against independence, Chase launched a successful campaign to persuade the Maryland assembly to reverse its position. In the next two days he rode one hundred miles and arrived in Philadelphia just in time to sign the Declaration of Independence.” –American National […]
Journal of the American Revolution (#allthingsliberty) continues to publish a flurry of exciting articles and, in June, we welcomed six new contributors — Robert M. Dunkerly, Daniel Tortora, Elizabeth M. Covart, Cathryn J. Prince, Michael Barbieri and Jeff Dacus. In June, we also shared the exciting news that a commemorative **print** edition of Journal of […]
Get your holiday shopping lists ready. A very special limited PRINT edition of Journal of the American Revolution will be available to our readers this November! The folks behind allthingsliberty.com have joined forces with Ertel Publishing, the former publisher of American Revolution magazine, to produce a special commemorative volume. The details of the print edition […]
Most of us learned the song “Yankee Doodle Dandy” as schoolchildren, and many of us puzzled over the reference to macaroni in its lyrics. How could one confuse a feather for pasta, and did they even have macaroni back then? The short answer is, “yes,” but short answers are rarely as interesting as long ones. […]
I recently asked our readers via Facebook who they’d most like to see interviewed next and T.H. Breen was among the handful of historians named (hat tip to Matthew Kroelinger). Breen is the William Smith Mason Professor of American History at Northwestern University and a specialist on the American revolution. He is the author of […]
I started with an innocent question about the British Parliament’s Quartering Act of 1774: Did American Patriots list that law as one of the “Intolerable Acts” that led them to outright rebellion against Great Britain? Some of the Revolutionary histories I’d read said that was one of the five Intolerable Acts, along with the Boston […]
A Frontier Crossroads Today a remote and quiet corner of South Carolina, Ninety Six was once a bustling center of activity, and one of the most important sites in the state at the start of the Revolution. It began as a trading post that saw service in both the Cherokee War of the 1750s and […]
In January I made a list of the 10 best, in my opinion, Revolutionary War films. I neglected to include a film that deserves to be in the top half of that list; Mary Silliman’s War. This 1994 film is based on the true story of Mary Silliman and her husband, General Gold Selleck Silliman […]
On Sunday, September 28, 1975, six hundred Revolutionary War reenactors appeared in Winslow, Maine. Some paddled the eighteen miles up the Kennebec River from Augusta in four flat-bottomed boats called bateaux. Others walked part of the journey by land, or took wheeled transportation and emerged from their gas guzzling muscle cars. Their destination was Fort […]
On February 25, 1781, the Continental cavalry of Lieutenant Colonel Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee’s Legion and Brigadier Andrew Pickens’s militia encountered several hundred loyalists commanded by Colonel John Pyle at Holt’s Race Paths in North Carolina. Pretending that he was British Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton, and his Continentals the similarly clad troops of Tarleton’s […]
Yesterday marked the 170th anniversary of the commemoration of the Bunker Hill Monument. It took the Bunker Hill Monument Association, thousands of individual donors, a craft and bake sale organized by Sarah Josepha Hale, a large donation from philanthropist Judah Touro, and seventeen years to complete construction of the 221-foot tall obelisk, the first major […]
Myth: During the so-called Battle of Bunker Hill, Israel Putnam (some say William Prescott) issued a command: “Do not fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” Displaying great courage and discipline in the face of advancing Redcoats, the untested patriots stood their ground and withheld their fire until they could gaze into the […]
This time, we’re going to visit the farm country of Pennsylvania, settled by German-speaking immigrants who formed a fairly cohesive community starting in the 1680s, as war convulsed their homeland. They comprised almost half of Pennsylvania’s population, and were supportive of the American Revolution, volunteering to serve in numbers even greater than the Congress asked […]
While curating the collection of American Revolution newspapers featured in Reporting the Revolutionary War, I stumbled upon a rare 18th century American newspaper loaded with mystery and intrigue. Most newspapers of the era are well documented and catalogued by academic research institutions, but this one seemed to have slipped through the cracks for more than […]
Sometime around midnight on May 1, 1779, British soldiers smashed through the wooden door of General Gold Selleck Silliman’s Fairfield, Connecticut home. They snatched him and his eldest son, William, from their beds. The soldiers, accompanied by eight armed Tories, confiscated the general’s fusee, a pair of his pistols, his sword, and three hats (one […]
A bit of time in the summer of 1777 nearly turned the conception of a United States into a stillborn notion. It is commonly accepted that the alliances with other European powers gave the American colonies the impetus to see their struggle through and those alliances resulted, in large part, from the surrender of General […]
When studying the American Revolution, there are several books that provide an overview of the events and people of that epic period in American history. A reader can choose from a popular history such as Bruce Lancaster’s “From Lexington to Liberty” or a deep study that provides an abundance of facts and background information such […]
Google Gordon S. Wood and you’ll find dozens of well-earned introductions: One of the foremost scholars on the American Revolution… One of the most esteemed historians… One of the most important authors… One of the most distinguished, celebrated, prominent… “Gordon S. Wood is more than an American historian. He is almost an American institution,” wrote […]
Questions about the validity of the Molly Pitcher legend bring up a broader gap in our understanding of military affairs during the era of the American Revolution: we have anecdotal evidence that soldiers’ wives were sometimes on the battlefield, but we don’t really know if this was common or rare, accepted or anomalous, sanctioned or […]
Dear Mr. History: Everyone knows Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury, and let’s be honest, this nation is more of his vision than any other Founder’s. But beyond the financial stuff– wasn’t he a pretty brave soldier, too? Didn’t he figure at White Plains and Yorktown? Sincerely, a reader from Warren, Pennsylvania. […]
September 8, 1781 Francis Marion is best known for his leadership in the partisan war of 1780-1781, during which he and his volunteer militia harassed British troops and the Loyalist militia in South Carolina, first disrupting the British occupation of the state and later helping to clear royal forces from a considerable area. Once this […]
In traveling upriver on his raid to Richmond in early January 1781, General Benedict Arnold disembarked his army at Westover on the James River where they confiscated enough horses for the advance party and set up camp. Westover was actually a large plantation owned by Mary Willing Byrd. She was the widow of William Byrd […]
Journal of the American Revolution (#allthingsliberty) reached its 100-article milestone in May, unofficially coming of age in the world of online publishing. Almost every weekday for 20 straight weeks, we have published entertaining and educational content about the most important event in American history. If you’re one of our loyal readers, spending an average of […]
Over the course of time, many fashions change. The hem lines on women’s skirts rise and fall, folks give up hula-hooping for jogging, and emus replace llamas as the trendy exotic livestock to raise. So it is with food fashions, as well. Reading “receipt books” – cookbooks – of the Revolutionary era, one is struck […]
Myth: The Federalist Nos. 10 and 51, written by James Madison, provided the closing case in the ratification debates. Opponents of the proposed federal Constitution argued that republican governments invariably failed if attempted over too large an area, but Madison contended a republic would work better in a large country than in a small one […]
Fought on June 28, 1778, the Battle of Monmouth is correctly remembered as one of the largest battles of the American Revolution, and the last major engagement fought in the North. But almost no one remembers that a smaller clash took place on roughly the same ground eighteen months earlier. Although a much smaller and […]
To celebrate Memorial Day weekend and the 100-article anniversary of Journal of the American Revolution, we are giving away three signed copies of Reporting the Revolutionary War: Before It Was History, It Was News (Sourcebooks, 2012) by Todd Andrlik. Plus, each winner will also receive a faux leather writing journal. To enter, simply leave a […]
Dear Mr. History: Does General von Steuben deserve the fantastic amount of fame he gets for training the Continental Army at Valley Forge? The Continentals had been fighting for over two years by the time he showed up, so why did they need training? What was Steuben’s true impact? Sincerely, Stumped About Steuben Dear Stumped: […]
In 1765 Parliament instituted a Stamp Act for the North American colonies, which proved wildly unpopular from Savannah to Halifax, and ultimately unworkable. The following year, there was a change of government in London. The new ministers repealed the Stamp Act, and across the ocean there was great rejoicing. However, those ministers also proposed a […]
The primary dispute between Britain and her North American mainland colonies in the 1760s and early 1770s has often been summed up in four words: “no taxation without representation.” American Whigs declared they were loyal to the British king and constitution, but that part of that unwritten constitution was that subjects (or at least wealthy […]
One of the most striking aspects of the Battle of Camden is the vast amount of material that was written about it. Officers and soldiers who fought in Revolutionary War battles always wrote something about their experiences, but in regard to the Battle of Camden, they wrote much more than they did about other battles: […]
