Christian McBurney is author of six books on the American Revolutionary War, including Dark Voyage: An American Privateer's War on Britain's African Slave Trade, Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee & Richard Prescott, and The Rhode Island Campaign: The First French and American Operation in the Revolutionary War. He is president of the George Washington American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia and is the founder of the online journal, Small State, Big History, devoted to the history of Rhode Island. He practices law in Washington, DC. For more information on his books, see christianmcburney.com.
The 1st Rhode Island Regiment, famously known as the “Black Regiment,” is renowned for its key role in helping to repel three enemy charges at the Battle of Rhode Island on August 29, 1778. What is not widely appreciated is that Rhode Island’s two Continental Army regiments were multi-racial before the famous “Black Regiment” was […]
I recently came across the recollections of Simeon Thayer, who served from 1777 to 1781 as a major in Rhode Island Continental Army regiments. He was one of the outstanding military figures from Rhode Island during the war. His recollections start with him as a teenager during the French and Indian War serving in Maj. […]
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 […]
BOOK REVIEW: Revolutionary Blacks, Discovering the Frank Brothers, Freeborn Men of Color, Soldiers of Independence by Shirley L. Green (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2023) This captivating book tells a new American story. It is the first book to detail the life, challenges, fears and hopes of a Black soldier in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary […]
Two important books in the twenty-first century have focused on the impact of terrifying smallpox contagions on the American Revolutionary War.[1] Understandably, most of their stories are about smallpox infecting soldiers on land. As the two books relate, smallpox wrought havoc on Benedict Arnold’s small army outside Quebec in 1775 and 1776, and likely killed […]
BOOK REVIEW: Captain John Peck Rathbun, Revolutionary War Naval Hero & Man of the Sea by Frank H. Rathbun (privately published, 2022) John Paul Jones understandably dominates the field when it comes to full-length biographies of Continental Navy commanders. However, there is an excellent biography of the very worthy John Barry by Tim McGrath, and a […]
Throughout the churning tides of 1776 and 1777, John Brown, a prominent a prominent merchant from Providence, Rhode Island, amassed a fortune by investing in privateers. Through reviewing a comprehensive list of his privateers and their values, along with a list of the captures made by some of his privateers, and the values of the […]
The American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade.[1] Before then, there was virtually no antislavery activity in any of the thirteen colonies of North America, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world. There was some limited antislavery dialogue in England, but its abolitionist movement […]
The scene is one of the most famous in the annals of the American Revolutionary War. The commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington, confronts his second-in-command, Charles Lee, in the midst of a retreat by Continental Army forces during the Battle of Monmouth Court House on June 28, 1778. Washington arrives at the […]
Last spring, the Varnum Memorial Armory Museum in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, announced its discovery of a handwritten letter from a formerly enslaved man who had gained his freedom by enlisting in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment during the Revolutionary War. The letter, written in 1781, is one of only a few known existing letters […]
In my study of Major General Charles Lee, who commanded Continental Army troops at the fascinating Battle of Monmouth Court House, I argue that his post-battle convictions for failing to attack the enemy and for an unwarranted retreat were unjustified. I further argue that most of the blame for the retreat should have fallen on […]
In October 1774, in a stunning and radical move, delegates of the First Continental Congress signed a pledge for the thirteen mainland colonies not to participate in the African slave trade. Perhaps equally astounding, Americans largely complied, turning the pledge into an outright ban. Congress’s ban and widespread compliance with it during the Revolutionary War […]
The first article of this series discussed the increasing chorus of American Patriots in New England raising their voices against the African slave trade. This article focuses on the Middle and Southern Colonies, as well as a few select thinkers from Philadelphia. Those who opposed the African slave trade in colonies ruled by royal governors […]
The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the slave trade and then slavery itself had to start somewhere, and a strong argument can be made that it started with the thirteen American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain, then […]
Major General Charles Lee visited Newport, Rhode Island, in late December 1775, where he—controversially—insisted that local Loyalists take an oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress. This approach, and a similar one he took in New York City shortly thereafter, created concern in Congress on how best to handle Loyalists. But by mid-1778, Lee had changed […]
Charles Lee served as second-in-command of the Continental Army, subordinate only to George Washington. Born in England, Lee was the best-educated and most widely-read of all the Continental Army generals. He also had the most military experience, first serving as a British officer in the French and Indian War and later as a soldier of […]
It is not often the site of a Revolutionary War battle is rediscovered. It is even more unusual that the probable site is in between New Jersey’s largest trash dump and the loud rushing traffic of its most crowded highway. New research indicates that the site of the Battle of Bennett’s Island is either just […]
Book review: From Slaves to Soldiers: The 1st Rhode Island Regiment in the American Revolution by Robert A. Geake (Westholme, 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Author Robert A. Geake, an established author of early Rhode Island history making his first foray into the Revolutionary War, writes of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment of the Continental Army, […]
Book review: Brothers at Arms: American Independence and the Men of France and Spain Who Saved It (Knopf, 2016) by Larrie D. Ferreiro. [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] American students of the Revolutionary War may not like to hear it, but author Larrie D. Ferreiro, in his excellent new book, persuasively argues that the United States […]
With helpful research from two stalwart Journal of the American Revolution authors, Todd Braisted and J. L. Bell, I have concluded that Richard Stockton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence for New Jersey, while not a traitor to the Patriot cause, should not be celebrated as a great Whig hero. New Jersey treats Stockton […]
A Story of Resistance to the Universal Draft In Rhode Island, as in the rest of New England during the Revolutionary War, a key Patriot institution was the universal draft. Rhode Island required all white men between the ages of sixteen and sixty to serve in the militia, backed by state courts and other state […]
Book Review: Renegade Revolutionary: The Life of Charles Lee by Phillip Pappas (New York University Press, 2014). Prior to 2013, there had not been a major biography of Charles Lee since 1968. Then, within the span of a year, from 2013 to 2014, two major biographies of Lee were released, as well as my book, […]
On July 10, 1780, a French fleet of seven ships of the line and four frigates under Admiral Chevalier de Ternay, along with thirty-six transport vessels carrying about 6,000 French soldiers commanded by Lieutenant General Comte de Rochambeau and their supplies, arrived off of Newport, Rhode Island. The plan was to use the port town […]
With the recent popularity of spies in the Revolutionary War, led by AMC’s TURN cable television series and the bestselling book George Washington’s Secret Six: the Spy Ring that Saved the American Revolution, the impact that spies had on the outcome of campaigns and other aspects of the war has sometimes been exaggerated. I focus […]
Some twelve years ago, as I was walking along Boston’s Freedom Trail with my family, I noticed an obelisk and monument in the front yard of King’s Chapel. As I peered closer at it, I read the title to the inscription: In Memory of THE CHEVALIER DE SAINT SAUVEUR first Chamberlin of his Royal Highness, […]
While researching my book Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott (Westholme, 2014), I was thrilled to learn that the Continental Congress had passed a resolution directing that an “elegant sword” be awarded to Lieutenant Colonel William Barton for planning and executing the spectacular cross-bay raid that led to […]
After a British fleet of seventy-one warships and transports entered Narragansett Bay on December 7, 1776, and the next day landed soldiers that occupied Newport, Rhode Island, as well as the rest of Aquidneck Island, the Royal Navy had an excellent port for its ships to spend the winter. In addition, the fleet’s commander, Commodore […]
I write the following book reviews to promote a small, but well-respected, outfit specializing in publishing Revolutionary War books (as well as other nonfiction works): Westholme Publishing of Yardley, Pennsylvania. Full disclosure: Westholme has published two Revolutionary War books of mine (see author’s biography below). Westholme provides a terrific service to those interested in studying […]
On December 8, 1776, British soldiers, supported by a large fleet, easily invaded and occupied Newport, Rhode Island, and the rest of Aquidneck Island. The first commander of the British garrison, Lieutenant General Earl Hugh Percy, immediately turned his attention to British sympathizers, known as Loyalists or Tories, in southeastern New England. Nestled in Earl […]
When the Royal Navy fleet of warships and transports, carrying a British army of more than 7,000 soldiers, passed New London, Connecticut, on December 6, 1776, the British were just a few days from easily capturing Newport, Rhode Island and bottling up the privateers and commercial vessels from Providence, Bristol, Warren, Swansea and other ports […]
In 1781, British forces operating in Canada set their eyes on kidnapping prominent Americans in Vermont and upstate New York. These patriot leaders had stirred up opposition to efforts to draw Vermont into British Canada. At the time, General Frederick Haldimand, the Governor of the Province of Quebec (which at that time included what is […]
In my recent book, Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott (Westholme Publishing, 2013), I focus on two of the outstanding kidnappings of the Revolutionary War. The first was the stunning capture of Major General Charles Lee, second-in-command of the Continental army, by Lieutenant Colonel William Harcourt and […]
