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The Secrets of Samuel Dyer
As recounted in a previous article, in October 1774 a sailor named Samuel Dyer returned to Boston, accusing high officers of the British army…
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The Return of Samuel Dyer: An Attempted Assassination in Revolutionary Boston
On October 10, 1774, the brigantine Charlotte arrived at Newport, Rhode Island, from London. On board was a sailor named Samuel Dyer, and he told a…
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Who Said, “Don’t Fire Till You See the Whites of Their Eyes”?
“Don’t fire till you see the whites of their eyes!” is one of the most famous quotations to come out of the Revolutionary War. According…
The Declaration of Independence: Did John Hancock Really Say That about his Signature?—and Other Signing Stories
When we picture the Declaration of Independence, most of us immediately think of the document handwritten on parchment and signed at the bottom by…
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Peter Salem? Salem Poor? Who Killed Major John Pitcairn?
Maj. John Pitcairn of the British marines became notorious among New Englanders after the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The…
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The General, the Corporal, and the Anecdote: Jacob Francis and Israel Putnam
On August 18, 1832, a seventy-eight-year-old New Jersey man named Jacob Francis went before Hunterdon County officials and described his military service in the…
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General Washington’s First Spy, and Why His Mission Was Doomed from the Start
On July 15, 1775, less than two weeks after he arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to take command of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington…
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George Baylor: Spirited, Willing and Wrong for the Job
George Baylor (1752-1784) was a young Virginia planter in 1775. He was a son of Col. John Baylor, who had been George Washington’s friend…
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Newton Prince and the Struggle for Liberty
On the 5th of March, 1770, Newton Prince heard Boston’s church bells start to ring. He ran to the door of his house and…
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General Washington and the Body-Snatchers
Among the many challenges Gen. George Washington faced in his first year as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he probably didn’t expect to deal…
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Misinformation, Disinformation, and Gen. Washington’s Gunpowder Supply
In the summer of 1775, Gen. George Washington fell victim to bad information about the Continental Army’s gunpowder supply. When he finally received accurate…
Tracking Down a Musket-Toting Woman
Ray Raphael just described how an Advanced Placement exam in U.S. History asked students to analyze what this image of a musket-toting woman said…
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Did Paul Revere’s Ride Really Matter?
The biggest myth of Paul Revere’s ride may not be that Revere watched for the lantern signal from the North Church spire, as Henry…
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You Won’t Believe How Samuel Adams Recruited Sons of Liberty
In his 1936 biography Sam Adams: Pioneer in Propaganda, John C. Miller wrote this about the leader of Boston’s Whig activists: Sam Adams discovered…
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An Interview with Richard C. Wiggin
Richard C. Wiggin is the author of Embattled Farmers: Campaigns and Profiles of Revolutionary Soldiers from Lincoln, Massachusetts, 1775-1783. This book is a very…
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Washington’s Five Books
On 10 November 1775, slightly more than four months after he had taken command of the American troops besieging Boston, Gen. George Washington sent…
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5 Myths of Tarring and Feathering
1. Myth: Tarring and feathering could be fatal. Busted: The notion that hot tar caused severe, sometimes fatal burns is based on the assumption…
Birth of the “Caucus”
America’s Revolutionary decades produced a new republican system, and with it new republican language. One term that surfaced early in that period and remains…
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“Intolerable Acts”
I started with an innocent question about the British Parliament’s Quartering Act of 1774: Did American Patriots list that law as one of the…
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“No Taxation without Representation” (Part 2)
In 1765 Parliament instituted a Stamp Act for the North American colonies, which proved wildly unpopular from Savannah to Halifax, and ultimately unworkable. The…
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“No Taxation without Representation” (Part 1)
The primary dispute between Britain and her North American mainland colonies in the 1760s and early 1770s has often been summed up in four…