Tag: John Graves Simcoe

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The Revolutionary Battle of Petersburg

When one mentions the Battle of Petersburg in Civil-War-centric Virginia, the immediate reaction is Ulysses S. Grant versus Robert E. Lee in 1864 and 1865. True. But the first Battle of Petersburg was a revolutionary encounter on April 25, 1781, between the Americans and their British adversaries. And instead of Grant and Lee, the leaders […]

by William M. Welsch
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Attended with Disagreeable Consequences: Cross-Border Shopping for Loyalist Provisions, 1783–1784

In the months following the end of the American Revolutionary War, British authorities in Canada desperately required supplies for refugee Loyalists slated to be resettled in that northern colony. The cross-border market that they targeted to meet these supply demands was ironic. They looked southward to a region of the United States that, during the […]

by Stuart Lyall Manson
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A Misguided Attempt to Populate Upper Canada with Loyalists after the Revolution

Following the American Revolution, and to achieve a more appropriate governing climate, the British Parliament issued the Constitutional Act of 1791 which created, out of a single province, “two separate Canadas, each having a representative government with an elected assembly of its own.” The French-speaking sector became known as Lower Canada while the English-speaking sector […]

by Marvin L. Simner
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Skirmish at James’s Plantation: Victory and Defeat for Benedict Arnold in Virginia

A recent home improvement project led to the Home Depot located at 2324 Elson Green Avenue, Virginia Beach, Virginia. The area is in the middle of the expansion of the old narrow two-lane country Princess Anne Road, into a modern six lane highway with access lanes needed to support the growing private and commercial vehicle […]

by Patrick H. Hannum and Christopher Pieczynski
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This Week on Dispatches: Joseph Wroblewski on the Queen’s Rangers during the British Occupation of Philadelphia

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews educator and JAR contributor Joseph Wroblewski on the operations of the Queen’s Rangers during the British occupation of Philadelphia in 1777–1778. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that puts a voice to the writing […]

by Editors
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Revisiting B. E. Griffiths: Former Slave, Queen’s Ranger, and “Son of Africa”

In a recent article, Todd Braisted reconstructed the remarkable story of a black Loyalist soldier, “Trumpeter Barney” of the Queen’s Rangers.[1] Through meticulous archival work, Braisted established that Barney, a runaway slave who joined the British at the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1780, was the same man as Barnard E. Griffiths, who was […]

by Stephen Brumwell
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Bernard E. Griffiths: Trumpeter Barney of the Queen’s Rangers, Chelsea Pensioner—and Freed Slave

The period of the American Revolution does not afford many accounts of individual rank and file soldiers’ exploits, particularly on the side British side. The filing of some 80,000 pension applications in the United States makes it much easier to learn of a soldier’s activities during the war, whether it be the mundane task of […]

by Todd W. Braisted
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An Iconic Artifact Re-examined

Sometimes taking a closer look at an iconic and widely accepted primary source artifact can lead to unanticipated insights. And sometimes those unanticipated insights call for re-examination of long held beliefs. Such is the case of the watercolor of Yorktown viewed from Gloucester Point during the 1781 siege of Yorktown shown above.[1] For almost a […]

by Norman Fuss