Michael Cecere is a retired history teacher who resides in Williamsburg, Virginia, with his wife, Susan. Originally from Maine, he taught high school and college level American History for thirty years in Fairfax County and Gloucester County, Virginia. The author of twenty-five books and numerous articles on the American Revolution and Revolutionary War, he continues to research and write in retirement. When he is not writing, Mr. Cecere volunteers and works at Colonial Williamsburg, sometimes as a tobacco farmer, other times as a soldier or colonial dancer. He also attends Revolutionary War reenactments and lectures at historic sites and gatherings.
For most of 1781, the inhabitants of Williamsburg lived in a constant state of anxiety. Already economically devastated by the loss of the state capital, which was moved to Richmond in April 1780, city residents lived under threat of British attack for most of 1781. The arrival of the infamous American traitor, Benedict Arnold, at […]
“Virginia Makes the Poorest Figure of Any State”: The Virginia Infantry at the Valley Forge Encampment, 1777-1778 by Joseph Lee Boyle (Clearfield, 2019) Joseph Lee Boyle is a man with a mission, one which his thirty-two years of service with the National Park Service has prepared him nicely for. The former park historian at one of […]
It had been a very hectic week in Williamsburg for Peyton Randolph, the Speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and the President of the Continental Congress. It had begun with a startling alarm in the pre-dawn hours of April 21, 1775. The commotion just outside his house roused the corpulent Speaker from his bed. Like […]
No one disputes that the fighting that erupted at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 ignited a war between Great Britain and her thirteen American colonies. As we all know, the bloodshed of that day in Massachusetts initiated an eight year war that culminated with American independence. It is important to remember, however, that […]
A visitor to Williamsburg prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War would have discovered a city of just 1,900 inhabitants, roughly 900 of whom were white and free and the remaining 1,000 black and mostly enslaved.1 These were the year-round inhabitants who lived in the several hundred wooden and brick dwellings that sat upon […]
The history of the American Revolution is rife with heroic tales and amazing myths of patriotic American heroes that offer inspiring and entertaining stories. Sadly however, many of these stories have little basis in fact or documentation to support their occurrence. Some are completely fabricated while others are the result of misreported or misunderstood accounts. […]
Col. Josiah Parker of Virginia was at a loss at what to do. He had just arrived outside the British outpost at Great Bridge in early March 1781 with 300 Virginia militia hoping to take the enemy garrison of 120 men, but upon an inspection of the works he determined that an assault would be […]
The first half of 1780 had gone disastrously for Virginia. The surrender of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln’s army at Charleston and the destruction of Col. Abraham Buford’s detachment of Virginia continentals at the Waxhaws virtually eliminated Virginia’s continental line. A force that once boasted sixteen regiments and thousands of men was now reduced to a handful of […]
Aside from Gen. Anthony Wayne’s successful assault upon a British garrison at Stony Point in July, military activity in the first eight months of 1779 had been rather limited. Major Henry Lee, known as Light Horse Harry Lee to future generations, sought to change this in mid-August with a raid upon a British post less […]
For much of the Revolutionary War, the relative obscurity and isolation of the three Massachusetts counties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln along the coast of present day Maine protected the inhabitants from British threats. This changed in June 1779, when Gen. Francis McLean and 700 British troops, escorted by a handful of British warships and […]
Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life by Albert Louis Zambone (Westholme Publishing, 2018) Few figures in the American Revolution contributed more towards victory over Great Britain than Daniel Morgan of Virginia. His leadership in two of the most significant engagements of the Revolutionary War, the battles of Saratoga and Cowpens, as well as his bold conduct […]
In addition to museums and historical sites, a way to learn about Revolutionary War history is to attend a reenactment. There are many, large and small, all over the country. Each year commanders of reenactment organizations throughout the country select two events that they will all support, insuring an especially large turnout of participants, and, […]
I attended a new program at the Capitol in Colonial Williamsburg recently called Resolved. I have long missed the days when the reconstructed Capitol was filled with burgesses debating the issues of the day while visitors entered the chamber to witness these debates. When I heard the focus of this new program was centered on […]
The other day I became indirectly embroiled in a disagreement about what belonged on a historic road sign that was to be posted to commemorate a local battle during the Revolutionary War. The folks in charge seemed determined to include information on the sign that I felt, and still feel, was not properly sourced or […]
There was certainly no love lost between two of the three Virginia gentlemen from Prince William County who stood for office in the county’s 1761 election for the House of Burgesses. Five years earlier, in 1756, Henry Peyton’s petition to the House of Burgess accusing Henry Lee II of electoral misconduct (specifically that “he had […]
With the Revolutionary War entering its second year in May of 1776, the focus of most Virginians was not on events to the north in Massachusetts, but rather, in Williamsburg and Norfolk. On May 15, the 5th Virginia Convention in Williamsburg (comprised of delegates from all the counties) voted unanimously to support independence from Great […]
Destruction of Falmouth (modern day Portland, Maine) On October 8, 1775, a British naval squadron of four ships, led by the lightly armed vessel Canceaux, sailed from Boston Harbor.1 The squadron’s commander, Lieutenant Henry Mowat, had orders from Admiral Samuel Graves, to “chastise” a number of coastal settlements north of Boston. Ten towns were identified as […]
The winter of 1774-75 had been difficult for the colonists nestled near the falls of the Machias River on the far eastern edge of Massachusetts (present day Maine). First settled in 1763, the small village of Machias, just 30 miles from the border of Canada, was a lonely outpost on the rocky coast. Heavily dependent […]
A month into the historic 1774 meeting of the 1st Continental Congress, delegates John Adams of Massachusetts and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia sparked a heated debate when they proposed that Congress urge each colony to place their militia on a more proper footing.1 Patrick Henry of Virginia forcefully supported these militia proposals, declaring that, […]
Like thousands of colonists in British North America, Virginians were alarmed in the summer of 1774 by news of Parliament’s harsh reaction to the Boston Tea Party (which occurred months earlier in December 1773). Disturbed by the military occupation of Boston, the closure of Boston Harbor, and the suspension of Massachusetts’s charter and colonial government, […]
The summer of 1774 was eventful for the colonists of British North America. News of Parliament’s harsh measures against Massachusetts, and particularly Boston, for the destruction of East India tea back in December 1773, produced much anxiety and sympathy for the Bostonians from their fellow colonists. Many agreed with Edmund Pendleton, a moderate member of […]
The news that many dreaded reached Virginia in May 1774. The British parliament, determined to punish the inhabitants of Boston for the destruction of thousands of pounds of tea in December 1773, closed Boston Harbor to all commerce until restitution was paid to the East India Company and the King’s treasury. The sum included the […]
Captain Henry Lee III’s promotion to Major in April, 1778, capped a year of impressive service for the 22 year old cavalry officer from Virginia. Lee and the rest of Colonel Theodorick Bland’s 1st Continental Dragoon Regiment had joined General Washington’s army in New Jersey fifteen months earlier. As commander of a troop of cavalry […]
The inhabitants of Alexandria, Virginia, awoke on April 11, 1781 to a disturbing sight. A flotilla of enemy ships that had spent the last ten days pillaging property on both sides of the Potomac River many miles to the south, had suddenly arrived off of Alexandria. One observer in Alexandria counted, “three Ships, two Brigs […]
It had been a tense three weeks in the Carolinas for General Nathanael Greene, the commander of the American southern army. In the wake of General Daniel Morgan’s decisive victory at Cowpens on January 17th, 1781, General Greene moved to reunite his divided army. While Morgan’s 550 man light corps slowly withdrew northeastward into North […]
Parliament’s passage of the 1765 Stamp Act is rightly viewed by many as a key moment in the American Revolution. This new “internal” tax, which the British parliament adopted so that the American colonists would pay their “fair share” of Great Britain’s massive French and Indian War debt, (and also contribute to ongoing military expenses), […]
General Washington received the disappointing news on August 14, 1781. Comte De Grasse’s powerful French fleet of nearly thirty warships was not sailing for New York as Washington had long hoped, but was instead destined for the Chesapeake Bay. Washington’s plan for an allied attack on British held New York City depended heavily on the […]
