Don N. Hagist is managing editor of Journal of the American Revolution (allthingsliberty.com). His historical studies focus on presenting an accurate picture of individual soldiers and their families, especially those of the British army who served in America. This research is done using exclusively primary sources, mostly from archives in North America and Europe. He is a consultant for the PBS documentary The American Revolution produced by Ken Burns, and has written several recent books including Noble Volunteers: the British Soldiers who fought the American Revolution (Westholme, 2020), The Revolution’s Last Men: The Soldiers behind the Photographs (Westholme, 2015) and These Distinguished Corps: British Grenadier and Light Infantry Battalions in the American Revolution (Helion, 2022). Don is an engineer for a major medical device manufacturer, and also writes for several well-known syndicated cartoonists.
George Washington is credited with being a great spy master, and the feats of his Culper spy ring have become famous. How did he learn this clandestine craft? Although he had military experience, prior to 1775 he hadn’t served in the headquarters and staff positions that were usually the hub of intelligence gathering activities. But […]
Wives of British soldiers were allowed to accompany their husbands overseas, much like spouses of military personnel often do today. Unlike modern militaries, however, wives of soldiers often lived in the barracks and encampments, and accompanied their husbands on campaigns. Although not under the contractual obligations of an enlistment, wives were fed by the army […]
A chapter in Henrietta Overing Auchmuty’s life has been overlooked by history. Perhaps she would’ve wanted it that way, for it is a story of romance turned into heartbreak and bitterness. Born on June 13, 1760, Henrietta Overing was the daughter of prominent Newport distiller and sugar refiner Henry John Overing.[1] As a member of […]
Book Review: The Dog Head Sword of Succasunna: Forgotten Family Patriots and Loyalists in the Revolutionary War by John Lawrence Brasher (Shelby Printing, 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Artifacts hold a special place in our appreciation for history. When we see, or better still, touch, an object that came from another era, we feel connected to that […]
Bunker Hill is one of the best-known battles of the American Revolution, recognized by name even among those who know little about the war.[1] In spite of this recognition, many important facts of the battle are overshadowed by misconceptions and romantic images. Undeniably, it was a British victory won at a cost so great that […]
Book review: Scars of Independence: America’s Violent Birth by Holger Hoock (Crown, 2017) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Wars take an awful human toll, no matter how just the cause. Regardless of the ideological, economic or other reasons that a war is fought, and regardless of how much humanity as a whole might benefit from the […]
Duncan Grant was proud of his wife. She was someone to write home about, and that’s exactly what he did. In a letter to his father, he boasted that she kept him “more like a gentleman than a Soldier.” That was quite a compliment; if it was true, Margaret Grant must have been quite an […]
Book review: Hector Maclean: The Writings of a Loyalist-Era Military Settler in Nova Scotia by Jo Currie, Keith Mercer, John G. Reid (Gaspereau Press, 2015) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] Recent scholarship has placed more focus on the plight of Loyalists who were displaced from their homes and livelihoods in the United States, and the struggles they […]
Attacking at night, during a snowstorm: genius or folly? For Gen. Richard Montgomery at Quebec on December 31, 1775, it was a fatal disaster, but for Gen. George Washington at Trenton, New Jersey on December 26, 1776, it was a stroke of tactical brilliance that resulted in a complete and game-changing victory. There were many […]
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 […]
John Fisher hung from a tree. “Near the high road” from Fostertown to Mount Holly, New Jersey, he was in plain sight to the soldiers who marched past.[1] He hung there as an example of what deserters could expect, especially if they were caught bearing arms for the enemy. The impact Fisher’s dangling corpse had […]
Book review: Musket Ball and Small Shot Identification: A Guide by Daniel M. Sivilich (Oklahoma Press, 2016) [BUY NOW ON AMAZON] The title of this book makes it sound like a highly technical tract interesting only to those doing very sophisticated analysis or hoping to attach significance to a relatively featureless object. How much can be said about […]
After a few years of editing articles for this journal, it’s become apparent that the ranks of British officers sometimes confuse people. By “sometimes” I mean “often.” And not without reason. Although titles like colonel and captain are familiar to us all, the roles associated with these ranks, and the fact that an individual could […]
On Saturday, December 17, 1774, the 10th Regiment of Foot marched out of Boston and into the Massachusetts countryside “to give the men a little exercise.”[1] The British government’s response to the Boston Tea Party had included sending ten British army regiments, elements of two others, a contingent of artillery and a battalion of Marines […]
An internet search for Conrad Heyer will reveal that he was a Revolutionary War soldier who crossed the Delaware with George Washington. In fact, you’ll find a variation of this sentence repeated on page after page almost word for word: “He served in the Continental Army under George Washington during the Revolutionary War, crossing the […]
It was November. Sergeant Williams was cold, and he knew it would be getting colder. He had no warm clothing, no money to purchase any, and he wasn’t able to get a part-time job to earn some extra cash. He needed help, and so he did the most sensible thing a man in his circumstances […]
William Whitlow loved his wife, and she loved him. Others knew it too; fellow soldiers in the 44th Regiment of Foot, in which Whitlow was a private soldier, said that “there was not a happier Couple in the Regiment.” By September of 1779 they had a child together, and all must have seemed right in […]
The British army that fought in the opening engagements of the American Revolution in 1775 was not a wartime army, it was a peacetime army that suddenly found itself involved in a war. It was composed entirely of volunteer, professional soldiers, but not many among them had prior combat experience. This is true at the […]
Book Review: Igniting the American Revolution: 1773-1775 by Derek W. Beck (Sourcebooks, October 2015) Books about the origins of the American Revolution are plentiful. Although they vary greatly in quality, almost any bookstore or library has a volume or two on hand that covers the basics: the British government imposed unjust taxes that American colonists refused […]
Book Review: Revolution: Mapping the Road to American Independence 1755-1783 by Paul E. Cohen and Richard H. Brown (W. Norton & Company, 2015) Maps are an essential component to the study of history. While modern maps are useful, it’s also insightful to look at the maps that were available when historic events occurred. Not only do […]
A browse through the eighteenth century newspapers turns up more than just political news, op-eds and want ads. Sometimes there’s marital mud-slinging of the sort that we’ve come to expect only from television and the internet. Although we’re tempted to think of our forebears as more refined and moralistic than today, there was no shortage […]
Almost every student of the Revolutionary War has heard of Deborah Sampson, the Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man and served for over a year as a Continental soldier.[1] As fascinating as her case is, it was exceedingly unusual; although some historians have attempted to prove that many women served in the ranks […]
When researching the Revolutionary War one is constantly keeping an eye out for primary source materials. Some of those sources are the very same books read by the people we study, including the wide range of books on military science published during the seventeen hundreds. Thomas Simes was one of the most prolific military writers […]
By the time he arrived in Boston with the 44th Regiment of Foot, Martin Hurley was an experienced soldier. He’d joined the army in 1767, and learned the military trade well enough to be put into the regiment’s grenadier company, men distinguished by their martial competence as well as their tall stature.[1] The 44th was […]
Wars were fought by soldiers, but it is the campaigns and commanders that are remembered and studied. This is a shame because the soldiers had a remarkable range of fascinating experiences, often more exciting than those of the policymakers they served. And yet, the farther back in history one goes, the fewer personal stories of […]
Book Review: Spies in Revolutionary Rhode Island by Christian M. McBurney. History Press, 2014. ISBN 978-1626197244, softcover, 158 pages, illustrated. The last few years have seen a surge of interest in Revolutionary War spying, with several new books and even television shows being produced. Much of this new literature, whether factual or fanciful, is focused […]
I often caution researchers that data tells us what, not why. This is particularly true of material like muster rolls that give us information about individual soldiers moving through their careers – when they enlisted, transfers between companies and regiments, and eventual departure from the army. We see, for example, that a man deserted on […]
How did you know today was Thanksgiving Day? Well, it is a national holiday and all, but besides that, how did you know? Odds are you just, well, knew, because everyone’s been talking about it for at least a few weeks, if for no other reason. But even months ago, if you wanted to know, […]
It probably started out as a good party, but as sometimes happens when merriment is mixed with a little too much alcohol, it ended badly. The one redeeming factor was that key events went on record, leaving us with valuable insights into the lives of soldiers and their wives during the American Revolution. By November […]
An essential part of a gentleman’s possessions was a good library, containing books on a variety of subjects to reinforce a well-rounded classical education. Besides books on agriculture, literature, history, geography and arts, a selection of military books were a likely part of this library. In an era of militias officered by the gentleman class, […]
Some time ago we saw the story of Mrs. Middleton, the wife of a British soldier, who took several Americans prisoner at the battle of Trois Rivieres in 1776.[1] Mrs. Middleton was one of several thousand wives who accompanied their British soldier husbands to America, or married them in America, and experienced the hardships and […]
A frequent discovery when reading 18th Century newspapers is the runaway ads. In an era when people could be owned by or contractually bound to others, individuals who absconded were often advertised by their masters. These ads give us amazing descriptions of individuals and show the society’s remarkable diversity of physical attributes, demographics, personalities, situations […]
Book Review: The New Nation: The Creation of the United States in Paintings and Eyewitness Accounts The art of Mort Künstler, text by Edward G. Lengel. Sterling Publishing, 2014, ISBN: 1-4549-0773-8, ISBN13: 9781454907732, 9×10 hardcover, 208 color pages. We learn history through documents, but pictures make it come alive. It is unfortunate that relatively few […]
Book Review: Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities during the War for Independence by Ken Miller (Cornell University Press, 2014; order on Amazon) A glance at the title gives the impression that this book is about prisoners of war – which would be fine, because there isn’t enough modern literature on that subject pertaining […]
I was recently asked to speak about Elizabeth Burgin, an American woman who risked her life helping prisoners of war during the American Revolution. I’d never heard of her, but thanks to the magic of the internet I was quickly able to locate the key primary sources about her, and a large number of articles […]
The army that attempted to subdue rebellion in America in the 1770s and 1780s consisted primarily of soldiers from the British regular army. Although supplemented by German regiments, regiments raised in America composed of colonists, and other auxiliaries, most garrisons and campaign forces were composed largely of career soldiers who had enlisted in Great Britain […]
Read the newspapers published during the American Revolution, and you’ll find descriptions of deserters. It doesn’t matter which newspaper, or whether it was published in an American-held or British-held location; men deserted from the American, British, French and German regiments serving in America, and their officers sometimes advertised rewards for their return. Looking deeper into […]
Put a large army in a rural community overseas, and some problems are bound to occur. Such was the case when thousands of British and German soldiers descended on Staten Island at the beginning of July 1776. The army was composed largely of professional career soldiers, but there was always a fringe that defied discipline. […]
Book Review: Protecting the Empire’s Frontier: Officers of the 18th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Foot during Its North American Service, 1767-1776. Steven M. Baule. Ohio University Press, 2014. PDF: 978-0-8214-4464-1; Hardcover: 978-0-8214-2054-6; Paperback: 978-0-8214-2055-3. 372 pages, 6 × 9″, maps. Link. This year’s prestigious Fraunces Tavern Museum Book Award went to The Men Who Lost […]