When they heard the news in 1757, some New Englanders smirked. Others grew angry. The British were mounting a major expedition against the powerful French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, next to Nova Scotia. Sometimes called “the Gibraltar of the North,” Louisbourg was the key to the French empire in North America. New […]
After his exploits during the French and Indian War, Robert Rogers (1732-1795) was indisputably the most famous military leader born in the thirteen colonies; however, he played only a cameo role in the Revolution because both the British and American commanders-in-chief, Thomas Gage and George Washington, not only scorned him but actually arrested him for […]
On May 7, 1757, Thomas Pownall sailed from England for Boston to take his post as the governor of Massachusetts. Aboard the ship was George Lord Howe, an army officer. The two men developed a friendship over the three month voyage. On July 8, 1758, Lord Howe, a brigadier general, led the right center column […]
Thomas Pownall was appointed “Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief in and over . . . the Province of the Massachusetts Bay” on February 25, 1757. He had some advantages that other governors did not have when taking office: first, he had a great deal of experience in the colonies, having travelled extensively through many of them; second, […]
In the wake of the Seven Years’ War in North America, the costly British triumph seemed complete. Thus, when a coda to the Seven Years’ War erupted in the interior of North America, it came as an unwelcome shock to the British Empire. War broke out anew, nominally led by the Ottawa chieftain Pontiac, who […]
In this article I address the absurdity of Cornwallis’s decision to march from Wilmington, North Carolina, to Virginia and the light thrown on it by The Cornwallis Papers.[1] The central enigma of the Southern Campaigns, it had until their publication never been able to be satisfactorily resolved. Lt. Gen. Charles Earl Cornwallis, the British General […]
Frontier Rebels: The Fight for Independence in the American West, 1765-1776, by Patrick Spero (W.W. Norton & Company, 2018) In most standard histories of the Revolution, affairs in the west are often seen, somewhat understandably, as little more than a sideshow to the rebellion that unfolded on the eastern seaboard. Recent years, however, have fortunately […]
Armies are tasked with enforcing government policies. When it came time for the British military to enforce parliamentary policies concerning the American colonies, however, some members of the army and navy found themselves unable to answer the call because they disagreed with their government. A number of officers across all grades, who were distinguished for […]
