The fighting that raged over miles of Massachusetts countryside on April 19, 1775 finally subsided with the approach of evening. Thousands of Massachusetts militia had converged upon retreating British troops as they made their way back from Concord that fateful spring day and the casualties suffered by the redcoats were shocking. Two hundred and seventy-two […]
The adjectives leveled Benedict Arnold’s way by contemporaries and historians leave little room for doubt. Though he inspired devotion among those serving under him, the man rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Prickly, heavy-handed and arrogant, he seemed to thrive on personal confrontation with those who differed with him. The famous clash between […]
In 1688, King James II of England, a Catholic, was deposed by Mary II, an Anglican, and William III of Orange, a Protestant. The invasion, the battles and the deposition have become known as the Glorious Revolution. In December 1688, James fled to France. The Convention Parliament declared that James’s action was an abdication of […]
In April 1775, Isaac Bissell was a crucial link between the Patriots of Massachusetts and the government of neighboring Connecticut. His actions contributed to alerting many communities along the Atlantic coast about the outbreak of war in Lexington. Nevertheless, through a chain of circumstances, Isaac Bissell’s name has been overwritten in history books.[1] This story […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR associate editor J. L. Bell about his fascinating detective work in determining the identity of an informant who provided Dr. Joseph Warren with critical information about British plans to march on Lexington and Concord. This is “history mystery” at its best. New episodes of […]
During the night of April 18-19, 1775, a force of roughly 700 British soldiers left Boston on a mission to find and destroy rebel military stores in Concord, Massachusetts. What happened on that day is the topic of innumerable books and articles, most of which treat the soldiers as an amorphous mass of men. But […]
This historical chronical is about an unusual multifaceted patriot: a musician, soldier, privateer, author, and dentist. On May 17, 1760, John Greenwood was born to Boston ivory artisan Isaac and Mary Greenwood. Before the lad turned thirteen years old, John was a witness to the so called “Boston Massacre” that killed eighteen-year-old Samuel Maverick, his […]
Rumors roared throughout the Colonies in the spring of 1775. From Watertown, Massachusetts, with an earnest pen, a letter was taken down at 10 a.m. on Wednesday morning, April 19, 1775. Reports had been sent to New London, Rhode Island, and were beginning to extend south to the Carolinas, that, “action had happened between the […]
It was late 1775, and William Legge, the 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, was looking out the window of his office in Whitehall, London, thinking of his enemies on both sides of the Atlantic. His letters were partly responsible for the outbreak of open warfare in America. Now a sarcastic poem in a London newspaper was […]
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 […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews active US Army Major and JAR contributor Patrick Naughton on the narrative created by the Provincial Congress following the events at Lexington and Concord in order to control the message about the American rebellion and the initial British response. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published […]
