Author: David Price

David Price is the author of John Haslet’s World: An Ardent Patriot, the Delaware Blues, and the Spirit of 1776, The Road To Assunpink Creek: Liberty’s Desperate Hour and the Ten Crucial Days of the American Revolution, and Rescuing The Revolution: Unsung Patriot Heroes and the Ten Crucial Days of America’s War for Independence. His Revolutionary War blog "Speaking of Which" is featured at dpauthor.com. A historical interpreter at Washington Crossing Historic Park in Pennsylvania and Princeton Battlefield State Park in New Jersey, David is a contributing author to "An American Revolution Diary: Reliving Ten Crucial Days of 1776-77" on the Princeton Battlefield Society’s website and the recipient of a Sons of the American Revolution Certificate of Appreciation. His work has been recommended by the American Revolution Podcast, the Princeton Battlefield Society, and Ten Crucial Days.org.

 Features Posted on

Lemuel Haynes: An Abolitionist Voice in the Revolution

The Paradox as Context The literature of the Revolution is replete with references to the Founding Fathers’ recognition of the anguishing contradiction between the ideals they ostensibly endorsed in the Declaration of Independence—specifically Thomas Jefferson’s rhetoric about human equality and inalienable rights—and the commitment many of them made to sustaining the institution of human bondage […]

by David Price
Battles Posted on

Hobkirk Hill: A Major Minor Battle

The Battle of Hobkirk Hill (or Hobkirk’s Hill), sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of Camden, remains one of the less prominent engagements of the Revolutionary War, even as John Buchanan’s masterful study of the campaign in the Deep South terms it “a major and controversial battle” in the American effort to reclaim South […]

by David Price
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Battles Posted on

Eutaw Springs and the Ambiguity of Victory

The Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina, on September 8, 1781 was the last major open-field battle of the Revolutionary War and perhaps its most savage. The close-quarter fighting that occurred there ranks among the bloodiest and most intensely contested military encounters in young America’s quest for independence.[1] It has, however, been eclipsed in historical […]

by David Price
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Letters and Correspondence Posted on

Perspectives on the Ten Crucial Days of the Revolution

The “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-1777 reversed the momentum of the War for Independence at a moment when what George Washington termed the “glorious Cause” of American independence appeared on the verge of final defeat.[1] During the period from December 25, 1776 through January 3, 1777, beginning with the fabled Christmas night crossing of […]

by David Price
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Autobiography and Biography Posted on

The Significance of John Cadwalader

In 1776, John Cadwalader was a thirty-four-year-old merchant and prominent member of the Philadelphia gentry who had risen to command the volunteer militia known as the Philadelphia Associators. In his capacity as a militia colonel, he would play a distinctive—and today largely unappreciated—role in what historians have termed the “Ten Crucial Days” of the Revolutionary […]

by David Price
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Battles Posted on

The Battle of Mamaroneck

The Battle of Mamaroneck, known to some as the “Skirmish of Heathcote Hill,” was one of the most obscure military engagements of the Revolution but noteworthy for being the first time in the war that organized infantry units composed entirely of Americans—including Continental Army soldiers—encountered each other. To that extent, it might be regarded as […]

by David Price
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

Thomas Knowlton’s Revolution

The story of Thomas Knowlton in the American Revolution is brief but meaningful. He was only thirty-five at his death, arguably a full-fledged hero in what George Washington termed “the “glorious Cause”[1] of American independence. The Connecticut colonel remains largely obscure in our collective historical consciousness but has been long recognized by serious students of […]

by David Price