The 1774 colonial census for Litchfield, Connecticut lists 2,554 people living in this western New England town. Of these, just forty-five are people of color, including those of African origin described as “negroes” and indigenous Americans counted as “Indians.” Among fifteen “negro” males, eight are under twenty years old and seven are above.[1] During the […]
The following timeline narrative attempts to unite previously disjointed events and occurrences regarding the first four days of the Continental army’s six-month stay at Valley Forge in Pennsylvania. For clarification purposes, all references to “Valley Forge” are for the winter cantonment and not the iron forge on Valley Creek for which the encampment was named. Temperatures […]
David Williams, John Paulding, and Isaac Van Wart were celebrated as heroes during their lifetime, vaulted to fame by George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, and lionized in popular ballads and the play The Glory of Columbia: Her Yeomanry.[1] Historian Mercy Otis Warren adored John André’s Captors, writing in 1805 that their names “ought never to […]
The fabulous news of the victory at Yorktown was announced in the small town of Stamford, Connecticut, on the coast of Long Island Sound on October 27, 1781. Surely steeple bells clamored and there were prayers of thanksgiving at the Congregational meetinghouses. Soldiers stationed in Stamford were marched to a small hill half a mile […]
George Washington and various of his generals had their doubts about the effectiveness of volunteer militia units as the Revolutionary War intensified. The solution was to create a regular army of “Continental” units. These were to be made up of men willing to commit to serve for the long term, and led by experienced officers […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews writer and historian Bill Bleyer on sifting fact from fiction about the legendary Culper Spy Ring. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be easily accessed on the […]
When you are a spy, you want to go unnoticed. With a colorful name like Hercules Mulligan, that can sometimes be difficult, especially if you are also a prominent businessman in British-occupied Manhattan during the American Revolution. Recent popular history has focused heavily on the Culper Ring, but Mulligan was not one of the Culpers. […]
The efforts of a group of self-taught Patriot spies who would later become known as the Culper Spy Ring played an important role in winning independence from Great Britain. But their story still has many missing pieces, and unfortunately legend and even unsubstantiated speculation have filled the gaps. From experience in the French and Indian […]
Spies. They lived in the shadows playing a very dangerous, life-or-death game while they served in various roles of espionage for the patriot cause during the American Revolution. Some of them were forgotten before the war ended, as was the case during World War II and the Cold War when these secretive figures, and everyone […]
It is well known that George Washington was Nathanael Greene’s mentor in many ways, but luckily for many of us he did not completely share Washington’s personal discipline regarding intelligence activities in his official papers. With the exception of the Culper Ring, where the case officer for the network, Benjamin Tallmadge, often kept copies of […]
It took only a few moments for the British works and their military supplies to go up in smoke. The British had just purchased 300 tons of hay as well as 275 sheaves of oats from local farmers on Long Island to support their large garrison around the City of New York. The British were […]
A.H. Ritchie’s 1856 engraving entitled “Washington and His Generals” is a creative, imaginary scene, as the dozens of generals shown assembled never congregated in such numbers in one place. For some odd reason, Ritchie depicted Maj. Gen. Charles Lee standing closest at the table with Washington, rather than the loyal and important Maj. Gen. Nathanael Greene. […]
“Connecticut: Still Revolutionary,” is the official slogan of Connecticut’s tourism program since about 2014. As a historian who worked in architecture as the son of an architect, I have often been fascinated by the wealth of historic homes still standing in Connecticut. There are hundreds upon hundreds from the eighteenth century, among which a handful stand […]
Television series and popular books such as TURN: Washington’s Spies and Alexander Rose’s Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring recreate and immortalize the exploits of intelligence officers and spymasters such as Maj. Benjamin Tallmadge, Lt. Caleb Brewster, and Maj. John André. In the late summer of 1778, Washington’s intelligence services did provide him with reports […]
John Andre’s body hung in silence for thirty minutes before being taken down. It was placed carefully in a simple open coffin crudely painted black. The guard detail then withdrew and the “country people” of the villages around Tappan respectfully filed past his corpse. It was estimated upwards of 2,000 viewed his execution, a remarkable […]
Book Review: General Washington’s Commando: Benjamin Tallmadge in the Revolutionary War by Richard F. Welch. Jefferson (McFarland & Company, 2014). While most historians agree that American victory in the Revolutionary War would not have been possible without George Washington’s military leadership, it is less frequently noted that Washington could not have exercised effective command without […]
Benjamin Tallmadge is currently enjoying a burst of posthumous fame. Most of the attention given him in recent publications and the AMC series Turn centers around his intelligence activities, a logical choice considering his organization of the Culper Ring and pivotal role in exploding the Arnold plot. But the attention paid to the espionage part […]
Danger, secrets, intrigue and revenge were all part of the Culper spy ring, and the new AMC series “Turn,” premiering April 6 (Sundays 9/8 central), offers a fascinating look into how these intrepid American spies helped win the Revolutionary War. AMC provided Journal of the American Revolution an early screening of the first three episodes. […]
