Author: Don N. Hagist

Don N. Hagist, managing editor of Journal of the American Revolution, is an independent researcher specializing in the demographics and material culture of the British Army in the American Revolution. He maintains a blog about British common soldiers (http://redcoat76.blogspot.com) and has published a number of articles in academic journals. His books include The Revolution's Last Men: the Soldiers Behind the Photographs (Westholme Publishing, 2015), British Soldiers, American War (Westholme Publishing, 2012), A British Soldier’s Story: Roger Lamb’s Narrative of the American Revolution (Ballindalloch Press, 2004), General Orders: Rhode Island (Heritage Books, 2001) and Wives, Slaves and Servant Girls (Westholme, 2016). Don works as an engineering consultant in Rhode Island, and also writes for several well-known syndicated and freelance cartoonists. He can be contacted at dhagist@mail.com.

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Top 10 Women Writers

Although half the population was female, writings by women make up only a small portion of the available literature on the American Revolution. There are, nonetheless, quite a number of published tracts to inform and entertain the researcher seeking a woman’s perspective on the events of the era. This list presents only a few, in […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Dessert: Send it to Table

What to serve for desert after a Thanksgiving meal? Pumpkin pie, obviously. Unfortunately for the revolutionary-era aspiring chef in America, pumpkins are plentiful but pie-making recipes using them have yet to be published. Indeed, one of the most widely-printed British cookbooks said that “The Pumpkin is a very ordinary Fruit, and is principally the Food […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Top 10 Marriages Gone Bad

Every now and then I meet someone who thinks that people “back then” were all highly religious and led straight-laced, pious lives. Those people haven’t read newspapers of the era. Legal notices appeared frequently in which husbands and wives absolved themselves of responsibility for the debts and dissipations of spouses who’d abandoned them. Sometimes competing […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Mrs. Middleton Takes Prisoners

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 […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Dogs of War Gone Astray

The article “Unleashing the Dogs of War” gave just a few examples of the canine presence that was quite widespread in the armies of the American Revolution. Newspaper advertisements reveal that dogs were common companions of British officers while also making it clear that these pets often found themselves unleashed. The ads tell us much […]

by Don N. Hagist
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The Fate of British Regulars

I read with interest Thomas Fleming’s article, “The Fate of Regulars.” Readers may be interested to know that British soldiers had much better prospects when the conflict ended than their American counterparts. With a professional standing army that had been in existence for nearly 100 years, Great Britain had long since grappled with and resolved […]

by Don N. Hagist