The life of Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis Lewis was one of privilege and loss. After the premature death of her father, John “Jacky” Parke Custis, in 1781, Nelly and her younger brother, George Washington “Wash” Custis, were sent to Mount Vernon to live with their paternal grandmother, Martha, and her husband George Washington. Under the […]
Historians generally agree on who were America’s principal Founders, but the roll call invariably omits the name of one individual without whose steadfast assistance the United States would have been unlikely to have gained independence. Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes, France’s foreign minister throughout the long, desperate war, was a crucial player in America’s victory […]
George Washington was famously taciturn, often a man of few words in public gatherings. And though his published works are sparse in comparison to many of his fellow founders, he nevertheless left a voluminous written record of correspondence and diary entries that is still being parsed today.[1] It was while commanding the Continental Army that […]
George Washington was a colonel in the Virginia militia, master of Mount Vernon, founding father, commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, first president of the United States, and Father of his Country. The nation’s capital, many other towns and thousands of streets carry the Washington name. Yet, George Washington “was far less powerful in the tiny […]
Quotes about indigenous Native Americans are brimming with paradoxes. Benjamin Franklin praised their martial skills and the political structure of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy yet labeled them “ignorant savages.” John Adams chastised the French utilization of native warriors in the French and Indian Wars while Philip Schuyler wooed Oneida warriors with false promises of equality and […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer presents a talk he gave on the great Indigenous leader Guyasuta, who witnessed the fall of Indian America—when Native Peoples lost their political influence to determine the course of North American expansion. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, […]
In June 1783, while a formal peace agreement was being negotiated in Paris, what British arms had not been able to accomplish was effectively achieved by the very soldiers who had sworn to protect and maintain the American government. A military insurrection unfolded on streets of the national capital of Philadelphia, the only successful insurrection […]
George Washington’s confrontation with Maj. Gen. Charles Lee on a near hundred-degree afternoon, two miles west of Monmouth Courthouse on Sunday, June 28, 1778, ranks as one of the most iconic moments in battle during the Revolutionary War. It has been depicted in numerous paintings and sketches beginning in the 1800s, frequented Revolutionary War and […]
James Craik was born in Scotland, circa 1727, on the 1,400-acre estate of his father William Craik, member of the British parliament. He attended Edinburgh medical school; the first medical school in the English-speaking world. After graduation Dr. Craik served in the British army in the West Indies. Leaving the army, he set up medical […]
The idea that no one is above the law is a long-held and repeated precept of American constitutionalism. Its roots go back to the philosophical and historical foundations of western political thought. Holding a prominent place in this history is the thirteenth-century English Magna Carta. Although it does not explicitly use the phrase, the document—a […]
BOOK REVIEW: George Washington’s Momentous Year: Twelve Months that Transformed the Revolution—Volume 1, The Philadelphia Campaign by Gary Ecelbarger (Yardley, PA: Westholme Publishing, 2004. $32.50, hardcover) Gary Ecelbarger is a skilled writer who weaves an interesting account of Gen. George Washington’s leadership and campaign management challenges in this, the first of a planned two-volume analysis. […]
As Founding Fathers of the United States met in Philadelphia to declare that “all men are created equal,” Thomas Craik Jr. was born into a family of people enslaved by Dr. James Craik on his Maryland plantations.[1] This was not unusual at the time; many of the colonial landed gentry relied upon slave labor to […]
BOOK REVIEW: A Revolutionary Friendship: Washington, Jefferson, and the American Republic by Francis D. Cogliano (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2024. $37.95 Cloth) Comparative founder profiles are a crowded book genre with numerous volumes depicting any combination of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin as rivals, friends, or brothers. Professor […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Benjamin George on how George Washington used information tactically and strategically to manipulate the course of the war. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now […]
The standard interpretation of the Continental Army in the dark and waning months of 1776 often features ragged soldiers, devoid of clothing and basic human comforts, facing harsh winter conditions while encamped in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, prior to crossing the Delaware River. Dramatic imagery of cold and discomfort, with regiments, or what was left of […]
Information has been as powerful a weapon as any in the history of warfare. Modern militaries continue to grapple with the power of information by developing and incorporating specific information strategies into their warfighting arsenals. In 2017, the U.S. military established information as a warfighting function to define and harness “the military role of information […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Shawn David McGhee on the mystery of George Washington’s “Rules of Civility.” New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches can now be easily accessed on […]
Tucked away in George Washington’s papers rests a thirty-five-page handwritten folio labeled “Forms of Writing.”[1] In Washington’s neat and ornate cursive, the first roughly two-thirds of this artifact are comprised of carefully copied examples of legal mechanisms such as promissory notes, bills of exchange, short- and long-form wills, and, ominously, a “Form of a Servants […]
Between heroes like George Washington and villains like Benedict Arnold, the Revolutionary War was full of historical actors of all stripes. But one man in particular defies an easy sorting between hero and villain. Washington’s first adjutant general, Horatio Gates, does not have a secure place in historical memory as either hero or villain. In […]
Major General Nathanael Greene’s military career presents a paradox to historians: how could a Quaker, unlearned in the art of war, become one of America’s foremost Revolutionary War generals? While historians have extensively studied Greene’s exercise of tactics and operations, Greene’s formulation and execution of grand strategy—the linking of economic, governance and security objectives with […]
Dressed in defiance, Col. George Washington arrived at each session of the Second Continental Congress donning a new buff and blue uniform he helped design with fellow Virginian George Mason.[1] Washington, a staunch but cautious Whig, fully embraced the American cause and, incredibly, his military exploits from the French and Indian War roughly two decades […]
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 […]
Maj. Gen. Charles Lee’s substantial literary contributions to the American independence movement have been overshadowed by his challenging Gen. George Washington for Continental Army leadership and the 1860 discovery of a potentially treasonous document.[1] Initially, Revolutionary Era Americans viewed Charles Lee as a highly accomplished military officer and a learned scholar and admired his ardently-argued […]
In 1776, John Cadwalader was a thirty-four-year-old merchant and prominent member of the Philadelphia gentry who had risen to command the volunteer militia known as the Philadelphia Associators. In his capacity as a militia colonel, he would play a distinctive—and today largely unappreciated—role in what historians have termed the “Ten Crucial Days” of the Revolutionary […]
The surrender of the British Army at Yorktown in 1781 was implemented by the three-party Articles of Capitulation (“the Articles”), one of the most important documents of the Revolutionary War, since the surrender eventually led to the Peace of Paris (1783) and American independence. Curiosity as to the current location of the original Articles, i.e., […]
“Permit me to thank you, in the most affectionate manner, for the kind wishes you have so happily expressed for me and the partner of all my domestic enjoyments. Be assured, we can never forget our friend at Morven.” George Washington[1] To whom was George Washington writing and why did he offer, “in the most […]
Every ten years the United States engages in the process of re-apportionment, wherein each state with more than one House seat redraws their Congressional districts. Simultaneously, every re-districting cycle partisans, activists, and pundits alike all bewail the harmful effects of gerrymandering on the process. Far from a modern phenomenon, partisan politics has always had a […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews US Army chaplain Brian Koyn on how modern emotional intelligence research can provide insight on how George Washington successfully handled the Newburgh Conspiracy. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. […]
General George Washington stood in front of his assembled officers, reading glasses in hand, and stated, “Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind, in the service of my country.”[1] These words uttered on March 15, 1783, in the recently constructed Temple of […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews long-time JAR contributor Patrick H. Hannum and his co-author Frederick R. Keinle on George Washington’s leadership advice to Col. William Woodford—and whether Woodford took heed. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and […]
Gen. George Washington’s well-crafted November 10, 1775 letter to Col. William Woodford contains some timeless pearls of military wisdom, guidance, and advice.[1] Washington’s instructive response to an earlier letter from Woodford reveals a set of basic leadership principles that remain in official United States Army doctrine to this day. This enduring leadership lesson leads one […]
In June 1921, George Washington, the victor of Yorktown, arrived in London. His journey across the storm-tossed Atlantic had not been without difficulty, and when he landed on British shores there were some concerns over his condition. But after a careful check and a clean bill of health he was able to proceed to the […]
The scene is one of the most famous in the annals of the American Revolutionary War. The commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington, confronts his second-in-command, Charles Lee, in the midst of a retreat by Continental Army forces during the Battle of Monmouth Court House on June 28, 1778. Washington arrives at the […]
In 1817, as popular sentiment finally forced Connecticut to adopt a new constitution separating church and state, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams: “I join you therefore in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood [Connecticut] is at length broken up, and that a Protestant popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews college student and JAR contributor Alexander Lenarchyk on his discovery that Washington mused on the idea of needing an “asylum” should the war go terribly wrong. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, […]
George Washington’s appointment as commander of the Continental Army filled him with doubt from the start. In his address to the Continental Congress on June 16, 1775, Washington described himself in the best light while at the same time signaling doubt. He declared himself humble to accept the position and explained that he did so […]
BOOK REVIEW: Washington at the Plow: The Founding Father and the Question of Slavery by Bruce A. Ragsdale (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2021) In Washington at the Plow: The Founding Father and the Question of Slavery, Bruce Ragsdale provides an in-depth examination of George Washington’s passion for agriculture and the way it changed his […]
Since James Thomas Flexner’s 1974 Pulitzer recognition for his biography of George Washington, one of the axioms of the American founding is that the general, George Washington, was the “indispensable man.”[1] The selection, therefore, of Washington as the commander of the Continental Army was undoubtedly among the most critical decisions in the history of the […]
Mount Vernon was George Washington’s lifetime project, from his inheritance of the property in the mid-1700s until his death in 1799. It was his prized home and final resting place. Today it’s one of the most visited historic sites in the country. This was my first time at Mount Vernon, and I was eager to learn […]
