In 1865, at the close of the Civil War, 1,367 men were breveted as a major or a brigadier general by the United States Senate. These honorary promotions were in addition to 583 who were already serving as generals, many in a brevet rank. Confusion abounded. As an example, at the war’s close, Ranald S. […]
The American Revolution came as a fire storm. No section of America was untouched or unaltered. The British Colonists who were in open rebellion against the crown in 1775 found themselves embroiled in a conflict that would last well beyond the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The war cost them dearly—in resources, […]
It has been said of Edward Hand that he was “the stuff of which the hard core” of Washington’s army was made.[1] Indeed, he may have been the most unsung Patriot military hero of the American Revolution. On the second day of 1777, Hand organized a remarkable defensive action along the road from Princeton to Trenton, […]
In 1777, the third year of the American War for Independence, little had gone in the favor of the Patriots especially in the borderlands. They controlled Fort Pitt and several other outposts, but they were far from the main fighting; the region was considered a backwater theater. British governor of Detroit Henry Hamilton issued a […]
On October 19, 1781, Gen. George Washington attained his apex as a soldier. Straddling a spirited charger at the head of a formidable Franco-American army, Washington watched impassively as 6,000 humiliated British, German, and Loyalist soldiers under the command of Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, emerged from their fortifications to lay down their arms […]
The settlers who chose to make their homes in the upper Ohio in the mid to late eighteenth century faced a wide variety of challenges to survive in this backcountry, ranging from the distance to centers of trade and population to the difficulty in practicing agriculture in old-growth forests. That this frontier, the area surrounding […]
“They are remarkably stout and hardy men,” thought army surgeon James Thacher, “Dressed in white frocks, or rifle shirts, and round hats.” The robust constitutions and rugged appearance of the reinforcements that arrived at Boston in the summer of 1775 occasioned no small stir in the army camps ringing Boston. Dressed in a curious amalgam […]
The story of the Revolutionary War tends to focus on operations and events east of the Appalachian Mountains, with good reason as most of the war took place in at area. West of the mountains, the story of George Rogers Clark in the Ohio Valley is famous and found in many history books. The expedition […]
In June 1777, Henry Hamilton, the British lieutenant governor for Quebec and Superintendent for Indian Affairs at Detroit, held a council at Detroit with all who would attend. His goal was simple: mobilize the western Indian nations to attack Americans all along the Ohio frontier, just as the Six Nations were doing along the northern […]
Documents that contain the original signatures of more than one Continental Army general are rare. During the eight years of the Revolutionary War, generals penned thousands of pages of military orders, official correspondence, and private letters. The vast preponderance of these signed documents are in archives and museums, but some are cherished and preserved in […]
