When Bryan McSweeny stepped ashore on Staten Island in August 1776, it must have looked like a paradise. He had spent the previous three years in Jamaica, in a tropical climate that was often fatal to Europeans; now, he saw a verdant landscape and felt temperatures similar to his native town of Macroom in County […]
If the gunfire at Lexington and Concord was the “shot heard round the world,” the phrases in the Declaration of Independence were the words read around the world. In the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson declared America an independent nation, rooting his ideas in political theory and justifying them with a list of grievances.[1] After the Declaration was […]
Occupied America: British Military Rule and the Experience of Revolution by Donald F. Johnson (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) Several cities in Revolutionary America were taken by British forces and the residents found themselves in an unexpected predicament. Many welcomed the return of law and order and a stable economy under British rule; the […]
The Rebel and the Tory: Ethan Allen, Philip Skene, and the Dawn of Vermont by John J. Duff, H. Nicholas Muller III, and Gary G. Shattuck (Vermont Historical Society: Barre, VT, 2020) Every polity requires a founding saga to help form its societal identity. Oft recounted, Vermont’s foundation story starts with a group of democratic, yeoman […]
On Saturday September 17, 1938 New York governor Herbert H. Lehman and 5,000 others assembled in Poughkeepsie to observe the sesquicentennial of the Empire State’s ratification of the U.S. Constitution. One hundred and fifty years previously delegates had gathered in that Hudson Valley hamlet to debate whether New York should ratify that document and thus […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor, independent researcher, and living historian Philip D. Weaver on the story of New York Captain Joel Pratt and his court-martial. As your host Brady Crytzer says, “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the interview. . . .” New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Sunday […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Michael J. Sheehan, contributor and senior historian at the Stony Point Battlefield State Historic Site, about misconceptions and stories about the battle, and its significance to the American war effort. As your host Brady Crytzer says, “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the interview. . . .” New episodes of […]
On one Sunday morning in late April 1775, news arrived in Spencertown, New York, of the occurrences at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. This alarm caught the attention of the local militia company, commanded by Capt. Adam Howley. Fifteen of that company volunteered to go to Boston. One of them, Joel Pratt, was elected captain of […]
In this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews St. Louis University doctoral candidate Cho-Chien Feng about what the American Revolution meant to Loyalists after the war. He also discusses how he became interested in the American Revolution and the broader idea of political loyalism. As Brady notes, Feng is inspiring: born in Taiwan, he learned English, […]
The Declaration of Dependence signed by 547 New York City Loyalists in November 1776 was not the only such declaration written and signed by loyal inhabitants of the colony of New York soon after British military forces established their presence in the region. At least three others are known to exist, bearing a total of 3,414 […]
The American Revolution produced different meanings for Patriots and Loyalists. After the end of the Revolutionary war, the pressing issue was no longer the problem of independence or the Imperial Crisis, but the problem of nationhood, and how this newly created nation should be run. Arthur Shaffer argued that the fact that “a diverse group […]
Our ancestors often believed in fate, and so do I. It was fate one day that brought me to the Fraunces Tavern in New York City. Fate that day that the waiter overheard me talking to my daughter. Fate that that same waiter told me of the museum on the top floor of the Fraunces […]
One of the hallmarks of Journal of the American Revolution is its ability to bring lesser-known yet compelling events of the War for Independence to the public’s knowledge. Great battles and campaigns that altered the course of the war are always at the forefront of history, but smaller, more obscure actions often bore witness to […]
Early in the morning of July 16, 1779, Gen. Anthony Wayne and his Corps of Light Infantry successfully stormed the British works at Stony Point, launching the rocky peninsula on the Hudson River into the American memory. Having served as both a garrison and a western landing of the King’s Ferry for nearly the entirety […]
Editor’s Note: This is part one of a five-part series. Part two. Part three. The “Diary” of Lieutenant James McMichael first appeared in 1890 in the Pennsylvania Archives series 2, volume 15. It reappeared in volume 16 of The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography in 1892. Both versions are available online at Hathitrust and […]
By March of 1778 Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam, “Old Put” to his men, was exhausted.[1] He had been writing to General Washington for months begging for retirement. His wife had died recently in his encampment and the general was worn out from his impossible assignments. His two under-strength brigades had been working in the ice, […]
Continental Army general George Washington sat atop his horse ignoring the “smart skirmish” raging around him.[1] He could have joined his soldiers in attacking the Hessian troops “very much allarm’d” by the Americans’ “sudent appeerence before their works.” [2] Instead, Washington focused on the fortifications just beyond the Germans. The skirmish that occurred on July […]
Outmaneuvering and overwhelming the Patriots during the 1776 Battle of Brooklyn, the British won a huge victory by executing a daring night march around the Patriots’ left flank. Patriot commander Maj. Gen. Israel Putnam is heavily criticized for not guarding a vital pass that allowed British forces to surround the advance units of the Continental […]
With the clash of arms that began the American Revolution, Capt. Barent J. Ten Eyck, of the Albany County Militia, served as courier for the Committee of Safety, Correspondence, and Protection in Albany, NY. The first week of May 1775, the “worthy” Ten Eyck delivered a letter of solidarity to the Massachusetts Committee of Safety […]
The war on the New York frontier did not end with Burgoyne’s surrender at Saratoga in October 1777. Year after year the conflict raged on, taking on the characteristics of a civil war. This conflict was not fought by grand armies facing off in titanic struggles, but rather initiated by British Loyalists garrisoned in western […]
Everybody has heard of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. On the other hand, mention Mount Independence and one usually encounters the puzzled lowering of eyebrows and cocking of the head to the side. Most will be quite surprised to learn how that rocky thumb of land on the Vermont shore opposite Ticonderoga actually played a […]
The soldiers from several German principalities who were contracted to supplement the British army in America are often called mercenaries, a misnomer propagated during the war itself to vilify these soldiers and enhance the impression of British oppression. Although the British government did pay for these soldiers, they paid the German princes who then sent […]
Desertion was as much a problem for the British army as it was for the American. Once the war began, however, British officers seldom placed ads for deserters in newspapers. This may be because the British army was largely confined to areas around major cities where information about deserters could be circulated in army orders, […]
Almost every day, I drive past a Revolutionary War roadside marker. It commemorates a house that served as the headquarters of patriot Gen. Israel Putnam in 1777. Putnam occupied the elegant brick building briefly while he mustered militia to oppose a British incursion up the Hudson River. The enemy raid was intended to relieve Burgoyne’s […]
“I have nothing to send you but love. I hope I shall have some money soon.”[1] So wrote Lt. Joseph Hodgkins from his “Camp on Long Island” to his wife, Sarah, back home in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The letter was dated June 10, 1776, so Sarah’s husband had already been away from his wife and family […]
From the beginning, the American army knew south-facing Fort Ticonderoga did little to protect against an attack coming up Lake Champlain from British-controlled Canada.[1] To address the problem, they decided to fortify the north-facing peninsula, called East Point or Rattlesnake Hill, that poked out into the lake across from Ticonderoga. During the summer of 1776, […]
A great deal of the American Revolution took place in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley. The region was home to a number of forts, skirmishes, battles, and encampments; one site, King’s Ferry, can lay claim to having hosted all of the above. Actually two sites separated by the Hudson River, Stony Point and Verplanck Point […]
A soldier writes his wife: Mount Independence, June 8, 1777 I heartily embrace the opportunity to write to you, hoping that these will find you and yours in good health as I am now. I have been vary hearty since I left home. I herd last week that you were all well. Mr. Church said […]
In late October of 1777, America celebrated its first capture of a British Army; General Horatio Gates had defeated General Sir John Burgoyne near the village of Saratoga in upstate New York. The prisoners, known as the Convention Army after the semi-treaty that effected their surrender, were moved to a camp outside of Boston. By […]
Henry Livingston, or Harry as he was more commonly known, was born on November 9, 1750. He was a son of Judge Robert Livingston and his wife Margaret Beekman Livingston. Harry was the namesake of Margaret’s father Colonel Henry Beekman. As a child Henry was prone to uncontrolled fits of rage. As he matured to […]
According to some local sources, “Long island was the Thermopylae of the Revolution and the Pennsylvania Germans were its Spartans.”[1] While laden with hyperbole and bias, this is the claim made about the Northampton County Flying Camp battalion under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Peter Kichline.[2] Kichline’s battalion, made up of four companies—two of which […]
On June 4, 1766, the New York Sons of Liberty gathered in a field, later known as the Commons, to celebrate the birthday of the King and the repeal of the Stamp Act. They erected a large mast with twelve tar barrels at its top and twenty-five cords of wood at its base.[1] The crowd […]
Control of the Hudson River was important strategically during the American Revolution. The river, along with lakes George and Champlain, was a potential invasion route from Canada. It also was a physical separator of the colonies. Men as well as supplies crossed the river. To split off the northern colonies from the South and interrupt […]
In the early morning hours of July 16, 1779, Brigadier General Anthony Wayne and the Continental Corps of Light Infantry successfully stormed and carried the British works and garrison at Stony Point on the Hudson River. Not long after, gunners from the Continental Artillery turned the captured guns across the river to fire upon the […]
On the southern tip of Manhattan Island is a small oval area called Bowling Green. On this site on March 21, 1770 a statue, sculpted by Joseph Wilton, of King George III was erected. It was commissioned on June 23, 1766 by the New York General Assembly because of “the innumerable and singular Benefits received […]
“We are hellishly frightened,” Gouverneur Morris wrote to a friend on October 8, 1777.[1] Morris was attending to the business of the New York State legislature in Kingston, a town one hundred miles north of New York City. The old Dutch village had that year, by default, become the state’s capital. Morris and his colleagues […]
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world…He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our […]
The evacuation of Fort Ticonderoga in July, 1777, is a well-known incident of the American Revolution. Directly related to it is the Battle of Hubbardton, the only Revolutionary War battle fought in Vermont.[1] Often, sources of information found on one incident will add to the knowledge of the other and such is the case with […]
In November 1776, a British army under Lieutenant-General Sir William Howe was on the offensive, having successfully driven American forces off of Manhattan island and the surrounding regions east and north of New York City. The remnants of General George Washington’s defeated army had retreated across the Hudson River to the apparent safety of Bergen […]
