Election Fraud and Voter Suppression: 18th-century Style
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…
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Battle of Gwynn’s Island: Lord Dunmore’s Last Stand in Virginia
With the Revolutionary War entering its second year in May of 1776, the focus of most Virginians was not on events to the north…
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A Tale of Two Cities: The Destruction of Falmouth and the Defense of Hampton
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,…
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The Village of Machias Confronts the Royal Navy, June 1775
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…
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A Posture of Defense: Virginia’s Journey from Nonimportation to Armed Resistance
A month into the historic 1774 meeting of the 1st Continental Congress, delegates John Adams of Massachusetts and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia sparked…
The Rise of Virginia’s Independent Militia
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…
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The First Continental Congress Responds to the Intolerable Acts
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…
George Washington Makes the Case for a Boycott
The news that many dreaded reached Virginia in May 1774. The British parliament, determined to punish the inhabitants of Boston for the destruction of…
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Captain Lee’s Genius
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…
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How Lund Washington Saved Mount Vernon
The inhabitants of Alexandria, Virginia, awoke on April 11, 1781 to a disturbing sight. A flotilla of enemy ships that had spent the last…
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Race to the Dan:
“Pushed with Great Expedition”
It had been a tense three weeks in the Carolinas for General Nathanael Greene, the commander of the American southern army. In the wake…
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Virginia on the Eve of Revolution
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,…
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Washington’s Deviation to Virginia
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…