Author: Gary Ecelbarger

Gary Ecelbarger has written seven books, co-written three others and is also the author of two dozen essays, journal and magazine articles about past events and personalities in American history. He claims ten direct-line ancestors who served as Patriot soldiers in the American Revolution. Born and raised in Western NY, ten miles upriver from Niagara Falls, Ecelbarger obtained his M.S. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has lived in Virginia for over twenty years with his wife and three children. He is currently writing a single-year campaign biography of George Washington.

1
The War Years (1775-1783) Posted on

The Monmouth Campaign by the Numbers

A British cannonball decapitated James McNair, a Continental artillerist, at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778. Thomas Bliss, another American cannoneer, was captured that day. Col. John Durkee, commanding Varnum’s brigade, escaped death that Sunday but his right hand was permanently disabled from a wound received in the morning. Col. Henry Livingston, commanding […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
3
Critical Thinking Posted on

George Washington Confronts Charles Lee: Fresh Insights into the Mammoth Moment at Monmouth

George Washington’s confrontation with Maj. Gen. Charles Lee on a near hundred-degree afternoon, two miles west of Monmouth Courthouse on Sunday, June 28, 1778, ranks as one of the most iconic moments in battle during the Revolutionary War. It has been depicted in numerous paintings and sketches beginning in the 1800s, frequented Revolutionary War and […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
Critical Thinking Posted on

Permanent Losses and New Gains During the 1778 Valley Forge Encampment

The traditional story of Valley Forge tells of an encampment where a weakened and stripped-down army of 11,000 men endured the hardships of a winter cantonment rife with depravations. Overcoming crippling deficiencies and benefitting from superb training by the first Inspector General of the United States, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the army got healthy and […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
2
Conflict & War Posted on

The First Four Days at Valley Forge

The following timeline narrative attempts to unite previously disjointed events and occurrences regarding the first four days of the Continental army’s six-month stay at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. For clarification purposes, all references to “Valley Forge” are for the winter cantonment and not the iron forge on Valley Creek for which the encampment was named. Temperatures […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
1
Critical Thinking Posted on

The Feint That Never Happened: Unheralded Turning Point of the Philadelphia Campaign

By noon on Saturday, September 20, 1777, Gen. William Howe watched his window of opportunity to cross the shallowing upper fords of the Philadelphia sector of the Schuylkill River slam shut upon his 14,000-man army. Gen. George Washington and 9,000 Continentals and militia blocked the seven closest river crossings to Howe’s forces which had been […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
2
Historic Sites Posted on

George Washington’s 1777 Wilmington, Delaware, Headquarters: Insights to an Unmarked Site

On the 170th anniversary of Washington’s Birthday in 1902, the Delaware Society of the Cincinnati formed a procession of dignitaries and marched up Quaker Hill, the southwestern residential area of Wilmington. The ceremony continued to West Street, a north-south avenue named after an early settler. They stopped in the middle of a row of houses […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
2
Historic Sites Posted on

Washington’s Head of Elk Reconnaissance: A New Letter (and and Old Receipt)

The Philadelphia Campaign of 1777 took definitive shape when Gen. William Howe successfully landed his 16,000 officers and men near Head of Elk (now Elkton), Maryland, on August 25, 1777, the very day that Washington set up his headquarters at a house atop Quaker Hill in the southwestern portion of Wilmington, Delaware, while his advanced […]

by Gary Ecelbarger
5
Critical Thinking Posted on

Aggressive-Minded Gamblers: Washington, Howe, and the Days Between Battles, September 12–16, 1777

On Tuesday afternoon, September 16, 1777—five days after the Battle of Brandywine—George Washington and most of his 11,000-member Continental army stood atop the South Valley Hills in Chester County, Pennsylvania, ill-prepared to repel the approach of 14,000 British, Hessians and Loyalists composing Sir William Howe’s Crown Forces. Aside from skirmishing on the flanks, a fierce, […]

by Gary Ecelbarger