No, I have not lost my mind. Of course, the Americans won their freedom from British rule. However, what started in 1775, as an American rebellion against British rule in the thirteen colonies evolved into a far-reaching global war among world’s most powerful nations. Fighting between Britain and American allies including France, Spain and The […]
The British defeat at Yorktown in October 1781 did little to convince those fighting that peace was near. Gen. George Washington pleaded with his French naval ally, Admiral de Grasse, for a campaign against other British strongholds, perhaps in the Carolinas. When Grasse, instead, returned to the Caribbean, Washington began planning for his 1782 campaign […]
On March 10, 1782, Colonel David Fanning led a band of vengeful Loyalists on a path of slaughter and arson in northern Randolph County, North Carolina, his Bloody Sabbath house-calls. Most of our information about this episode has been from E. W. Caruthers’s 1854 Revolutionary Incidents and Fanning’s own Narrative, first published in 1861, thirty-six […]
Captain Jonathan Carver’s Reconnaissance Captain Jonathan Carver was hired in August 1766 as a surveyor and draughtsman by Major Robert Rogers, the newly appointed governor-commandant of British Fort Michilimackinac. Rogers instructed Carver to familiarize himself with the northern Mississippi River basin and western Lake Superior region’s geography, prepare a map of the area and then, […]
“The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it,” said the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.[1] Benjamin Franklin had a lifetime of experience with the Press and knew well how to use it. In the spring of 1782, five months after Yorktown, Franklin was in Paris working on the […]
In the minds of many people the surrender at Yorktown in the fall of 1781 brought the Revolutionary War to a close. However, the war in the South was not over. Charleston and Savannah were occupied by the enemy. Physical possession and control of territory would be important in any peace negotiations. In consequence, Major […]
When de Grasse’s fleet left Yorktown for the Caribbean on November 4, 1781, he was already planning how to pursue the second objective of the July 17, 1781, de Grasse/Saavedra Conventions. The objectives that he had agreed to with the Secretary of State and General Bureau for the Spanish Indies, Don Francisco Saavedra, were “to […]
In my recent book, Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott (Westholme Publishing, 2013), I focus on two of the outstanding kidnappings of the Revolutionary War. The first was the stunning capture of Major General Charles Lee, second-in-command of the Continental army, by Lieutenant Colonel William Harcourt and […]
The American Revolution was fought not only by soldiers, seamen and politicians; it was also fought by civilians. Some of these civilians bore arms; others provided supplies; still others such as Haym Salomon fought with their wits and their administrative skills.
