Author: John R. Maass

John R. Maass is a historian and educator with the U.S. Army. He received a PhD in early American history from the Ohio State University. He is the author of The Road to Yorktown: Jefferson, Lafayette, and the British Invasion of Virginia (2015), and more recently From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the Revolutionary War (2025).

 Reviews Posted on

Backcountry Resistance: South Carolina’s Militia and the Fight for American Independence

BOOK REVIEW: Backcountry Resistance: South Carolina’s Militia and the Fight for American Independence by Carl P. Borick. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2026) $27.99 hardcover As students of the Revolutionary War in the American South know, Carl Borick is the author of the definitive study of the 1780 Siege of Charleston, South Carolina, titled […]

by John R. Maass
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Critical Thinking Posted on

“We Will Cross at Ely’s Ford Today”: Is the Yorktown Campaign Historical Marker at the Right Location?

In the months prior to the Revolutionary War’s culminating siege at Yorktown and Gloucester Point, Virginia in 1781, the embattled Old Dominion was the scene of an intense campaign of maneuvers and raids. These operations pitted the young Maj. Gen. the Marquis de Lafayette, commanding a small, hard-pressed but determined American force, against Lt. Gen. […]

by John R. Maass
Autobiography and Biography Posted on

Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World

BOOK REVIEW: Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World by Richard Middleton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022). It says something about an historical figure’s renown when his or her biography uses only their last name as its title. Napoleon, Lincoln, and Churchill are in this historical “club,” and with them, should be included […]

by John R. Maass
Battles Posted on

March to Independence: The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies, 1775–1776

BOOK REVIEW: March to Independence: The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies, 1775-1776 by Michael Cecere (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme Publishing for Journal of the American Revolution Books, 2021) Historian Michael Cecere has written an overview of the coming of the Revolutionary War in the South, from the months immediately leading up to the outbreak of fighting to […]

by John R. Maass
Features Posted on

Review: Crisis at the Chesapeake

BOOK REVIEW: Crisis at the Chesapeake: The Royal Navy and the Struggle for America, 1755-1783 by Quintin Barry (Warwick, UK: Helion and Company, 2021) Although the main title of this book implies a focus on the 1781 naval operations in the Yorktown campaign, the subtitle is more accurate: a comprehensive look at the Revolutionary War and the […]

by John R. Maass