On April 7, 1776 American ships began dropping anchors off New London, Connecticut. Esek Hopkins, commander in chief of the new Continental navy, was returning from a successful raid on the town of New Providence on Nassau island in the Bahamas. While there, the Americans had seized eighty-eight desperately needed cannon and fifteen mortars, thousands […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews author and JAR contributor Eric Sterner on the April 1776 engagement between the British vessel Glasgow and the raw Continental navy off Block Island. The battle had surprising implications. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]
On April 18, 1776 Captain Tyringham Howe of His Majesty’s Ship Glasgow arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Two weeks prior, the twenty-gun sloop had engaged a task force from the Continental Navy and given better than she received. Vice Admiral Molyneux Shuldham, who briefly commanded Royal Navy in American waters, expected Glasgow to be carrying dispatches from […]
BOOK REVIEW: Captain John Peck Rathbun, Revolutionary War Naval Hero & Man of the Sea by Frank H. Rathbun (privately published, 2022) John Paul Jones understandably dominates the field when it comes to full-length biographies of Continental Navy commanders. However, there is an excellent biography of the very worthy John Barry by Tim McGrath, and a […]
Georgia did not send a delegation to the first Continental Congress in 1774. The least populous colony of the thirteen British colonies in North America, Georgia was originally settled in 1663 by a group of men on land given to them by Charles I, King of England. They settled the land with the poorer people […]
Thomas Read (1740-1788) began his seafaring career as a merchant captain, sailing for the Philadelphia firm of Willing and Morris in the ship Aurora, alongside his friend John Barry in Black Prince, as we read in Part 1 of this series. In the early stages of the revolution he served as de facto commodore of […]
Thomas Read (1740-1788) was the middle son of the Read family of New Castle, Delaware. His older brother George was a delegate to the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a member of the Marine Committee.[1] His younger brother James was, over the years, paymaster for the first ships of the Continental […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on what happened to captured Continental Navy, states’ navies, and privateer sailors and officers when captured by the British. Most were interred onboard prison hulks where many perished, but others attempted to escape. New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]
During the Revolutionary War, the British were particularly sensitive to challenges to their maritime sovereignty. Members of the Continental Navy, states’ navy sailors or letter of marque privateers, when taken prisoner, were usually interned onboard prison hulks moored in Wallabout Bay in New York harbor. Seamen captured far from North American shores were often incarcerated […]
The so called “whistleblower law” had a salty source. It did not emanate from the shrill sound of a boatswain’s pipe, but rather a Revolutionary War naval episode.[1] Its origin can be traced to the Continental Congress’s 1775 appointment of Esek Hopkins, formerly a merchantman and privateer, as commander-in-chief of the Continental Navy. As a […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews maritime historian and long-time JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on the celebrated battle between the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis off Flamborough Head, England, on September 23, 1779. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast […]
One of the most colorful men to seek and earn an officer’s commission in the Continental Navy was Joshua Barney. He was a man with little formal education or military experience; a mariner who had natural gifts of seamanship, leadership, and courage. Barney took part in thirty-five Revolutionary War naval engagements and lost only five […]
The amazing story of Benoni Simmons’s military service in the American Revolution spans some fourteen years, perhaps the longest term of service by anyone in that conflict. More so, his astounding dedication to the cause of independence despite his grievous wounds make him a true American hero.[1] Benoni Simmons was born August 4, 1755, the […]
Author’s note: Continental Navy midshipman Nathaniel Fanning’s eyewitness account of the American Revolution’s most famous naval battle is among the most detailed available. This article presents his account, rewritten in the third person with some modifications for clarity. A six-knot breeze blew from the south southwest off Flamborough Head as the Continental Navy ship Bonhomme […]
For much of the Revolutionary War, the relative obscurity and isolation of the three Massachusetts counties of York, Cumberland, and Lincoln along the coast of present day Maine protected the inhabitants from British threats. This changed in June 1779, when Gen. Francis McLean and 700 British troops, escorted by a handful of British warships and […]
Today, Jacob Jones’s portrait as a naval officer hangs in the assembly room of the Old State House in Dover, Delaware. It honors his victory in one of the first five naval battles of the War of 1812. That victory was the only one not won by a stronger American frigate; it was between the […]
In the summer of 1775, George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army outside Boston and immediately began the process of organizing his forces. He demanded strength returns of all the regiments and an accounting of supplies available. In August, Washington learned that instead of 308 barrels of gun powder he had been led to […]
When reading the excellent JAR article “The Dark and Heroic Histories of Georgia’s Signers,” I happened to recall another Georgia delegate to the Second Continental Congress who I came across in trying to understand why it took so long for Congress to create the Continental Navy. Johan Joachim Zubly also had a “dark history.” Georgia […]
In this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer and JAR contributor Richard J. Werther discuss the life of Captain Lambert Wickes, the differences between “piracy” and “privateering,” and the origins of the Continental Navy. As your host says, “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the interview. . . .” New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every […]
The Continental Navy. Words that didn’t exactly strike fear into the heart of the mighty British Royal Navy. For most Americans, knowledge of the early American Navy likely begins and ends with the daring exploits of John Paul Jones, starting in 1778. Indeed, it was not the Continental Navy, but the French Navy, that was […]
There is a gap in most histories of the United States Navy. The blank space lies between the end of the American Revolution and the re-establishment of the Navy in the 1790s. This is not the product of poor research; it is difficult to write about a Navy that did not exist. After the standing […]
George Washington realized early in the Revolutionary War that the British Navy provided the King’s army with an advantage in mobility. Not long after taking command of the fledgling army around Boston, Washington took steps to provide his forces with a maritime arm of its own. Several states had organized navies of their own as […]
One American Revolutionary War naval captain, Pierre Landais, appeared paranoid and somewhat deranged. Landais was a French merchantman lieutenant who trafficked arms to America for entrepreneur Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais.[1] Beaumarchais created a fictitious trading enterprise called Hortalez et Cie that channeled French arms to the Americans via colonial West Indian entrepôrts.[2] Once there, the arms […]
Shortly after the onset of the Revolutionary War, Americans started to harass British commercial shipping close-to-home. One ship captain who engaged in this type of naval warfare was Gustavus Conyngham. He was credited with the most ships apprehended, but received little gratitude, remuneration or recognition in maritime history, and in performing his service, he may […]
