On January 4, 1881, historian James Watts de Peyster delivered an address to the New-York Historical Society in New York City. The lengthy oration dealt with the Battle of Kings Mountain, fought on October 7, 1780, in South Carolina, where the Revolutionaries achieved a decisive victory over a force composed of Loyalists. Although de Peyster […]
This article supplements one of mine that appeared in the Journal of the American Revolutionin November 2016.[1] Based partly on The Cornwallis Papers,[2] it provides a wide-ranging set of reappraisals compartmentalised under the sub-headings below. James Paterson Paterson, as he signed his surname, had been appointed Lt. Colonel of the 63rd Regiment on June 15, […]
Many people involved in the American Revolution played but a short role in the long war. A John Babcock, for example, apparently served as an ensign in Capt. Peter Ruttan’s Company of the 4th Battalion, New Jersey Volunteers, but was taken prisoner previous to his actually being commissioned, and he never served again. All that […]
The United States pension and land bounty records furnish us with a multitude of fascinating stories. It is important, however, to weight them against other information, as there is often much more to the real story. Such is the case with Private Zacheus Holmes of Massachusetts; his pension application gives just a tease of his […]
