From the intelligence provided by his New York and New Jersey spies, General Washington believed, early in 1777, that General Howe would eventually strike at Philadelphia though he knew not when or whether he would travel by land or sea. In a letter dated July 24, 1777, from Col. Matthias Ogden, he was informed that […]
Does saying so make it so? Perhaps, if said convincingly and repeatedly. But sometimes it’s fair to ask: Who says so? And how do they know? It is said that George Washington ordered the first number of Thomas Paine’s The American Crisis series to be read to his ragged troops before boarding boats to cross […]
On August 25, 1777 General William Howe with 17,000 men landed at Head of Elk, Maryland; he was 57 miles south of the city of Philadelphia. Over the next month, he battled the Continental Army at Brandywine Creek and the South Valley Hills before marching into Philadelphia on September 26. Because he planned to spend […]
In 1758, just before returning home from the French and Indian War, George Washington ran for a seat in Virginia’s House of Burgesses. Given his social standing and renown, the office was his for the taking, and on the day of the election he treated the 397 men who showed up at the poll to […]
Most early portraits of George Washington represent him as serious and even dour, and more than a few contemporaries described the man as aloof. It is thus perhaps surprising to learn that he actually possessed a fine sense of humor. David Humphreys, Washington’s own secretary and official biographer, wrote c. 1788 that “grave & majestic […]
George Washington did not chop down a cherry tree and carve wooden teeth from it. Maybe one of the most enduring myths in American history is that George Washington had wooden teeth. It seems to never go away, generation after generation. Well, not only did the first president not have wooden teeth, you could also […]
The best portraits are perhaps those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature; and we are not certain that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are […]
Abraham Van Buskirk was Bergen County’s leading Loyalist at the onset of the American Revolution. A prominent “Practitioner of Physic” with an income of £ 200 per annum, Van Buskirk lived in Teaneck, across the New Bridge from John Zabriskie.[1] Both men were officers in the Bergen County Militia, Zabriskie a lieutenant colonel and Van […]
Among the many challenges Gen. George Washington faced in his first year as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he probably didn’t expect to deal with grave-robbing. But on 1 September 1775 his general orders included this admonition: Complaint has been made to the General, that the body of a Soldier of Col. [Benjamin Ruggles] Woodbridge’s […]
In a previous article I said that there are “times when a gun would have come in real handy” but there were no guns to be found.[1] Well the flip side to that coin is when guns aren’t so useful—at least not to you—and those incidents generally involve guns that are being aimed at you. […]
On March 11, 1776, George Washington, headquartered at the Vassal mansion in Cambridge, Massachusetts, issued the following General Order to his officers: “The General is desirous of selecting a particular number of men as a guard for himself and baggage. The Colonel or Commanding Officer of each of the established regiments, the artillery and riflemen […]
In the summer of 1775, Gen. George Washington fell victim to bad information about the Continental Army’s gunpowder supply. When he finally received accurate data, it left him temporarily speechless, fearful of a British attack, and unable to carry out his plans to free Boston. Nearly two hundred years later, a historian created a counter-narrative […]
There are two versions of how the plot to murder George Washington first came to light in June 1776, precisely at the moment a large British invasion fleet was descending on New York harbor. In one, as fellow soldiers restrained him, private Thomas Hickey was forced to watch as suspected poisonous peas destined for his […]
Crotchety old John Adams had finally had enough. It was bad enough that after George Washington’s battlefield victories at Trenton and Princeton, the idol worshipping of the general had already started in America. Ironically, John Adams was the delegate who introduced George Washington’s name in Congress to be the commander of the new army. But […]
When George Washington returned to Mount Vernon in the last days of 1783, he became the new Cincinnatus. Roman senators in the fifth-century B.C. made the farmer Cincinnatus a dictator during a national crisis, but after the war was over he voluntarily resigned his position and returned to his plow. Similarly, Washington laid down his […]
The news that many dreaded reached Virginia in May 1774. The British parliament, determined to punish the inhabitants of Boston for the destruction of thousands of pounds of tea in December 1773, closed Boston Harbor to all commerce until restitution was paid to the East India Company and the King’s treasury. The sum included the […]
George Washington was a slave owner for his entire life, a fact that surprises many of his fellow citizens more than 200 years after his death. When they find out, people respond to this information in surprising ways. A visitor from California to a historic site in Virginia sat down in shock when upon learning […]
On the afternoon of April 5, 1778, four feisty women, accompanied by an escort, Israel Morris, boarded their coach in British-occupied Philadelphia and set out for a visit with General George Washington. The journey took the four friends—Elizabeth Drinker, Susanna Jones, Phebe Pemberton, and Mary Pleasants—twenty miles or so from Philadelphia to the Continental Army, […]
They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid. Micah 4:4 Out at Flushing Landing on Long Island in late 1769, until at least 1779 (apparently little affected by the intervening British invasion of 1776), William Prince advertised for sale “many Thousands of a nice […]
After the Americans’ stunning victory at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, King Louis XVI ordered his ministers to negotiate a formal alliance between France and the United States. Conrad Alexander Gérard of France and Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee of the United States negotiated the terms of the Franco-American alliance in the Treaty […]
Washington’s desperate situation in December 1776 and the critical victories at Trenton and Princeton have been described often and in great detail. His lack of support from the New Jersey militia is often highlighted, along with the fact that the few militiamen who turned out did not cross to Trenton on Christmas night due to […]
“This is a most unfortunate affair and has given me great Mortification as we have lost not only two thousand Men that were there, but a good deal of Artillery, & some of the best Arms we had.” So wrote General George Washington to his brother John Augustine Washington in November 1776.[1] The fall of […]
It was an unfortunate expedient, but one that had grown unavoidable. On September 8, 1776, George Washington penned a lengthy report to Congress in which he detailed the pending decision to abandon New York City. Although Washington acknowledged that quitting New York would clearly have an adverse affect on the American war effort, he summed […]
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. […]
He may have beaten the British, but by the time George Washington became president, his sweet tooth (singular tooth)[i] for tasty desserts had not yet been conquered. Puddings, jellies and pies had been commonplace dessert offerings when George and Martha entertained at Mount Vernon, which they did before and after the War for Independence. But […]
I write the following book reviews to promote a small, but well-respected, outfit specializing in publishing Revolutionary War books (as well as other nonfiction works): Westholme Publishing of Yardley, Pennsylvania. Full disclosure: Westholme has published two Revolutionary War books of mine (see author’s biography below). Westholme provides a terrific service to those interested in studying […]
This article was originally published in Journal of the American Revolution, Vol. 1 (Ertel Publishing, 2013). Solving “the Most Astounding” Mystery of the American Revolution In early spring 1773, readers of the Boston Gazette came across an ambitious business proposal when they opened the March 22 issue. New York printer and bookseller James Rivington, then […]
In my recent book, Kidnapping the Enemy: The Special Operations to Capture Generals Charles Lee and Richard Prescott (Westholme Publishing, 2013), I focus on two of the outstanding kidnappings of the Revolutionary War. The first was the stunning capture of Major General Charles Lee, second-in-command of the Continental army, by Lieutenant Colonel William Harcourt and […]
In your opinion, what was George Washington’s biggest blunder of the war? Its impact, if any? Washington’s whole approach to the defense of New York was one of history’s great debacles: lack of imagination about the British landing, failure to supervise subordinates in preparing the Brooklyn defenses, boxing himself into Brooklyn Heights with no […]
On 10 November 1775, slightly more than four months after he had taken command of the American troops besieging Boston, Gen. George Washington sent a list of books to an old military colleague in Virginia. William Woodford (1734–1780) had just been reappointed an officer for their home colony. Woodford complained about the “inexperience” of his […]
In early February 1780, General George Washington’s main army was encamped at Jockey Hollow, New Jersey. But the general maintained his headquarters about three miles away in Morristown, at the house of the widow Theodosia Ford. That separation enticed the British high command into undertaking an operation that, if successful, would cripple the Continental Army […]
Thanks to the porous state of the British lines around Philadelphia and the industry of General Washington’s secret agents, there is little doubt that American officers at Valley Forge were aware of the dramas that a British Army theater company known as Howe’s Strolling Players presented at the Southwark Theater during 1777-78. The Americans considered […]
On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress officially announced the creation of the Continental Army, a military force representing all of the colonies resisting British authority in North America. The following day the Congress named the army’s commander. George Washington, a planter and Congressional delegate from Virginia, would become the commander-in-chief, taking command of […]
“Congress Does Not Trust Me. I Cannot Continue Thus.” These are two of the most important sentences George Washington ever spoke. Almost instantly they destroyed a plot aimed at ruining his reputation and forcing him into humiliated retirement. At least as important, the words marked the big Virginian’s emergence as a political leader with talents […]
The famous painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 is permanently etched in many minds. It graces the covers of countless books and magazines often with great attention paid to the subsequent Battle of Trenton. But just how did Washington’s army cross the river? The collector’s print edition of Journal […]
Mason Locke Weems, better known as Parson Weems, considered himself an historian. But, he was far more interested in pleasing people than he was with writing history. His exaggerations and fabrications of fact led one commentator to remark that Weems had “a touch of the confidence man in him.” Weems was born in 1759 and […]
In April 1775, reports about the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord took five days to reach Philadelphia and nearly three weeks to reach Charleston, South Carolina. It wasn’t yet immortalized in history books as the start of the Revolutionary War. It was breaking news.[1] In July 1776, the Declaration of Independence took at least two […]
General Washington received the disappointing news on August 14, 1781. Comte De Grasse’s powerful French fleet of nearly thirty warships was not sailing for New York as Washington had long hoped, but was instead destined for the Chesapeake Bay. Washington’s plan for an allied attack on British held New York City depended heavily on the […]
Military leaders since Alexander the Great have often preferred to command their battle formations from the most forward ranks. “Leading from the front,” as the practice is often known, puts officers in outstanding positions to observe the action and inspire their soldiers. It also puts them in excellent positions to end up dead. Many officers […]