Category: Conflict & War

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The Loyal Queens County Troop of Horse

 There is a coatee from the collection of the Bayville Historical Museum that is presently stored within the Oyster Bay Historical Society Archive that appears to be a genuine uniform from the American Revolution. It is speculated to have belonged to a soldier from the Loyalist militia of Queens County, New York and possibly that […]

by David M. Griffin
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Cricket Hill and Gwynn’s Island: Captain Arundel’s Only Fight

In researching the little-known Battle of Cricket Hill/Gwynn’s Island that took place on July 9-10, 1776, in what was then Gloucester County and today Matthews County, Virginia, available surviving records document only one Patriot casualty. While this is not unusual for many of the smaller, lesser known and infrequently studied engagements, the details of this […]

by Patrick H. Hannum
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Patrick Ferguson’s Fortification Proposals In South Carolina

In May 1780, British Maj. Patrick Ferguson outlined a plan for constructing fortifications and securing the province of South Carolina. His proposals hinged on fortifying the junctions of major land and water routes from Charlestown (today Charleston) to prominent villages across the interior. Although known primarily for his design of a breech-loading rifle, Ferguson had […]

by Brian Mabelitini
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Lord Dunmore’s Ethiopian Regiment

European colonial powers often employed enslaved Black soldiers in the New World to combat their enemies. In the late 1600s and early 1700s, Spain freed, trained, and armed fugitive slaves from Georgia and the Carolinas. Britain was an exception. Except for employing enslaved Jamaicans in the failed 1741 effort to conquer the Spanish city of […]

by Andrew Lawler
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Scott’s Levies: The Virginia Detachments, 1779-1780

The Virginia Continental Line had suffered with recruitment since the spring of 1777. Desertion, battlefield casualties, and competition with other state units prevented enough men being recruited to replenish the ranks of Virginia’s fifteen regiments. A new recruiting act, including a limited military draft, had produced fewer than 800 recruits for the Virginia Continental Line […]

by John Settle
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The Short War of James Wilcox, 33rd Regiment of Foot

The British army did a lot of recruiting in 1775 and 1776. After the government committed to using force to quell the rebellion in America, the War Office increased the authorized size of each regiment deployed overseas by 50 percent—from 360 private soldiers to 540. Part of this increase was accomplished by transferring soldiers from […]

by Don N. Hagist
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Thunderstruck: The Treaty of Paris Reaches the Frontier

For Maj. Arent Schuyler De Peyster, his assignment as commandant of British forces at Detroit was growing increasingly frustrating. For years, British officers at Detroit had encouraged Indian allies to strike the American backcountry, rendering the frontier a scorched arc stretching from Pennsylvania to Kentucky. But by the late summer of 1782, De Peyster was […]

by Joshua Shepherd
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The Westmoreland Rangers and “The Suffering Fruntears”

Warfare during the American Revolution could be brutal; this brutality took on entirely new dimensions in the frontier, and could be devastating, unrelenting, and all-pervading. Threats came in many forms—isolation, starvation, exposure; labor took countless forms as well, demanding never-ending toil and dogged perseverance. Like many whose charge was to defend America’s back door, the […]

by Robert Guy
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Ramsour’s Mill, June 20, 1780: The End of Cornwallis’ Loyalist Illusion

Following the surrender of the major coastal capital of Charlestown, South Carolina (present-day Charleston) to the joint army-navy expeditionary force led by Maj. Gen. Sir Henry Clinton and Vice Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot in May 1780, British land forces began to fan out across the Carolina interior to reestablish Royal control. When Clinton returned to New […]

by Scott Syfert
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This Week on Dispatches Christopher Pieczynski on Cape Henry during the American Revolution

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews associate professor of history and JAR contributor Christopher Pieczynski on the strategic importance of Cape Henry and access to Chesapeake Bay during the American Revolution. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]

by Editors
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“To Render Ourselves Impregnable”: The Defenses of Annapolis during the American Revolution

The city of Annapolis has never been attacked in its long history, but it has nonetheless played an important role in American conflicts, with the American Revolution being no exception. While the British never attempted to capture the city, extensive fortifications were built around Annapolis to hold off a possible British attack. What were the […]

by Raphael Corletta
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Till the Extinction of This Rebellion: George Rogers Clark, Frontier Warfare, an the Illinois Campaign of 1778-1779

BOOK REVIEW: Till the Extinction of This Rebellion: George Rogers Clark, Frontier Warfare, and the Illinois Campaign of 1778–1779 by Eric Sterner (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2024. $29.95, cloth) In Till the Extinction of This Rebellion: George Rogers Clark, Frontier Warfare, and the Illinois Campaign of 1778–1779, Eric Sterner presents a focused overview of one […]

by Brady J. Crytzer
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George Washington’s Momentous Year: Volume 1, The Philadelphia Campaign

BOOK REVIEW: George Washington’s Momentous Year: Twelve Months that Transformed the Revolution—Volume 1, The Philadelphia Campaign by Gary Ecelbarger (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2004. $32.50, hardcover) Gary Ecelbarger is a skilled writer who weaves an interesting account of Gen. George Washington’s leadership and campaign management challenges in this, the first of a planned two-volume analysis. […]

by Patrick H. Hannum
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Jean Marie Cardinal: Revolutionary War Hero?

As the American Bicentennial approached, the Smithsonian Magazine in April 1973 ran a story by Richard W. O’Donnell about Paul Revere not being the only messenger who rode to warn Massachusetts colonists on the night of April 18, 1775, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride” outlined. Revere did not complete his ride and when […]

by Steven M. Baule
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William Trent: Factor of Ambition

BOOK REVIEW: William Trent: Factor of Ambition by Jason A. Cherry. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Sunberry Press, 2024. $34.95 Paper) Independent historian Jason A. Cherry has turned an interest in the activities of an unfamiliar western merchant during the antebellum colonial period into a fascinating and interesting book. His biography William Trent: Factor of Ambition details the […]

by Timothy Symington
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John Warren’s Loss of His Brother Joseph Warren

On Saturday, June 17, 1775, Abigail Adams and her seven-year-old son, John Quincy, stood on Penn’s Hill near her home in Braintree, Massachusetts. They watched sulfuric smoke cloud the sky and heard cannon thunder across Boston Harbor from British ships in the Mystic and Charles Rivers bombarding colonial forces who had built a redoubt on […]

by Salina B. Baker
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Fighting in the Shadowlands: Loyalist Colonel Thomas Waters and the Southern Strategy

Thomas Waters of Georgia was present in crucial events of the American Revolution in Georgia and South Carolina. He represented as an individual the problems of class and conscience affected by British efforts to restore the rebelling Southern colonies by “Americanizing” the war, what has been called the Southern Strategy. After 1778, the King’s ministers […]

by Robert Scott Davis