It is axiomatic that the American victory at Saratoga was, aside from events at Yorktown, the pivotal military event of the American Revolution. The victory set in motion several actions by various parties with self-serving agendas, but it was the manner in which word of the victory was communicated, something today might well be called […]
BOOK REVIEW: A Very Fine Regiment: The 47th Foot during the American War of Independence, 1773-1783 by Paul Knight. (Warwick, UK: Helion Publishing, 2022) The author, Paul Knight, produced a history of the 47th Regiment in the broader context of evolution of the regiments in the British Army. This is a very dense work filled with […]
Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution by T. Cole Jones (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) In Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution, T. Cole Jones provides an innovative study of the treatment of prisoners of war during […]
Typically, countries at war do not detain enemy prisoners in the backyards of their citizens. During the Revolutionary War Britain’s soon-to-be independent North American colonies proved an exception to this rule. For the fledgling nation, the action was a matter of necessity, one which forced host towns across the colonies to confront the fight for […]
John Row was a British officer in the 9th Regiment of Foot, and he was in love with Jane Innes. For six years their courtship was maintained largely by correspondence due to separations caused by his military obligations. Dozens of their letters survive in the National Archives of Scotland, revealing a touching love story conflicting […]
The British army that Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne surrendered to the American army at Saratoga, New York on October 17, 1777, was first marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts and lodged in barracks. The British component was relocated to Rutland, Massachusetts in 1778, while the German component remained in Cambridge. For several reasons, including concern that a […]
On July 4, 1777, as Lt. Gen. John Burgoyne’s expedition on Lake Champlain prepared for a siege of Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, camp follower Anna Anderson gave birth to a boy, James or affectionately Jamie. He grew up to have two fathers, enlisted man William Anderson and Gen. James Inglis Hamilton, who adopted him in […]
In late October of 1777, America celebrated its first capture of a British Army; General Horatio Gates had defeated General Sir John Burgoyne near the village of Saratoga in upstate New York. The prisoners, known as the Convention Army after the semi-treaty that effected their surrender, were moved to a camp outside of Boston. By […]
