The House at Penny Ferry, Burnt: Skirmishes on the Mystic
byIn the summer of 1775, American forces had succeeded in bottling up the British army on the Boston peninsula and laying siege to the…
In the summer of 1775, American forces had succeeded in bottling up the British army on the Boston peninsula and laying siege to the…
In late November 1775, just as the bone-chilling New England winter started to settle upon Massachusetts, British General Howe loaded three hundred poor, sick…
“This is My Little Girl That I Was So Afraid the Red Coats Would Get” One important aspect of the Battle of Lexington that…
Over the years, historians have written countless works on the military and political aspects of the Siege of Boston. Unfortunately, little attention has been…
In the spring of 1841, a correspondent from the Hartford Courant went to East Windsor, Connecticut looking for an elderly man who was a…
In early morning fog on April 15, 1775, just days before the momentous clash at Lexington and Concord, two innocent-looking vessels appeared off Cape Jellison…
On June 13, 1775, writing from Crown Point on Lake Champlain, Benedict Arnold reported to the Continental Congress that Britain had only 550 “effective…
When Parliament passed the Boston Port Bill in 1774, in an attempt to break the Massachusetts colonists of their resistance to crown policy, it…
On April 20, 1775, John Hunter Holt announced to the public his recent acquisition of the Norfolk newspaper, the Virginia Gazette or Norfolk Intellingencer….
British Lieutenant Richard Williams was one of the few artists to document the siege of Boston from 1775 through 1776. He created maps, sketches,…
April in Virginia is regarded by many as the best month of the year. Sandwiched between the chilly bluster of March and the growing…
In 1775, the tension between the American colonies and Great Britain escalated into armed conflict at then-little-known places such as Lexington, Concord and Bunker…
On June 23, 1775, the Continental Congress appointed a committee to write a declaration that would explain the military conflict with England to the…
We often see books which boast of an “unknown story” or “secret history” of an era, and the American Revolution remains ripe fodder for…
Billy Flora was cold. That was not surprising. He was crouched in the lee of a pile of shingles next to a burnt out…
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…
On August 14, 1775 some North Carolina colonial men, possibly as many as four dozen or so, met at the Tryon County courthouse. That…
Book Review: The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 By Scott Syfert. Jefferson, NC:…
In the summer of 1775, the British built two warships at St. John, Quebec, on the outlet of Lake Champlain. That fall, the American…
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…
Myth: “The fate of a nation was riding that night,” Longfellow wrote. Fortunately, a heroic rider from Boston woke up the sleepy-eyed farmers just…
At dawn on April 19, 1775, the British detachment of light infantry under Maj. Pitcairn reached Lexington, about two-thirds the way to Concord. There…
I’m a scientist by training. I received my master’s degree from MIT, which is incidentally where I fell in love with Boston’s revolutionary history….
With April 19 nearing, marking the anniversary of the start of the American Revolutionary War (the official regional holiday of Patriot’s Day in New…
On June 18, 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain. American political and military leaders planned to attack the British provinces of…
The failure of the rebellious colonists to capture the fortress of Quebec during their invasion of Canada in 1775 had many causes; ironically, a…
Myth: “Alerted by signal lanterns, express riders Paul Revere and William Dawes eluded British patrols and spurred their horses toward Lexington along separate routes…
While the modern, formalized definition of Thanksgiving as the fourth Thursday in November was not set as a national observance until the time of…
On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress officially announced the creation of the Continental Army, a military force representing all of the colonies…
For as long as there have been dispatches from the front, there have been armchair generals attempting to call the shots from afar. Some…
In mid May 1775, just weeks after the bloody Battle of April Nineteenth had sparked the start of the American Revolution, the perhaps first…
At what point during the American Revolution is it most acceptable to classify colonists as either Patriots or Loyalists? 1776. Before this, many…
Gotta love those redcoats, mechanically marching in neatly aligned ranks into the slaughtering fire of rebel marksmen hidden behind earthworks. This is the iconic…
As the British surveyed the fortifications being built upon Breed’s Hill across the harbor from Boston proper, beside the farmers, shop keepers, tradesmen and…
As we know from our history books, the War for Independence began with the shots fired at Lexington and Concord. Those shots required gunpowder,…
As the struggle between Great Britain and her colonists in the thirteen North American colonies entered a state of armed resistance against British military…
In the fall of 1774, just before adjourning, the First Continental Congress outlined the Articles of Association, an aggressive plan of economic resistance to…
A Frontier Crossroads Today a remote and quiet corner of South Carolina, Ninety Six was once a bustling center of activity, and one of…
On Sunday, September 28, 1975, six hundred Revolutionary War reenactors appeared in Winslow, Maine. Some paddled the eighteen miles up the Kennebec River from…