BOOK REVIEW: March to Independence: The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies, 1775-1776 by Michael Cecere (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme Publishing for Journal of the American Revolution…
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“We have every reason to believe,” proclaimed the North Carolina Council of Safety, that “the emissaries of [the British] government are making use of…
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The Race to the Dan is a famous part of the Southern War of the American Revolution, a strategic retreat by Gen Nathanael Greene,…
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Many early histories of the War of Regulation, which culminated in the May 16, 1771 Battle of Alamance, paint a picture of a Regulator…
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A search for scapegoats is certain to follow a lost war, and in the wake of the British disaster at Yorktown in October 1781…
Rumors roared throughout the Colonies in the spring of 1775. From Watertown, Massachusetts, with an earnest pen, a letter was taken down at 10…
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Travis Copeland on the capture of North Carolina’s Patriot governor Thomas Burke by Loyalists…
When the vote came on Tuesday, July 26, 1781, before the House’s evening adjournment, it was Thomas Burke’s turn to hold the Executive office…
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Fort Tryon Park, sixty-seven acres just north of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan, is a bucolic refuge among the skyscrapers of New York…
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On November 21, 1789, the people of the state of North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution. On May 29, 1790, the people of…
It is easy to suggest that William Blount made no significant contribution to the development of the United States. His achievements, although not negligible,…
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In September 1780, writing from Hillsborough, North Carolina, just one month after the disastrous defeat at Camden, Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates penned a disconcerted…
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Leaving Colonel Francis Lord Rawdon to command in the field from Georgetown to Augusta, Lt. Gen. Charles Earl Cornwallis, the British General Officer Commanding…
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In late June 1780 a messenger arrived in Charleston, South Carolina, with intelligence for Lt. Gen. Charles, Earl Cornwallis. The messenger, Capt. John La Boularderie…
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North Carolina’s Revolutionary Founders, edited by Jeff Broadwater and Troy L. Kickler (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2019) The Old North…
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Georgia’s fragile independence within the new American republic was shattered on December 29, 1778, when British troops attacked Savannah. Despite clear signs that the…
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During the American Revolution, Bergen County, New Jersey, was flooded with combatants from all over America, many of whom had never been to the…
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Andrew Waters on the course of the campaign through the Carolinas, including Cowpens and other key…
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Besides dealing with events elsewhere, this article relates in particular the plight of the Carolina loyalists and the way in which British ascendancy in…
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The Road to Charleston, Nathanael Greene and the American Revolution by John Buchanan (University Press of Virginia, 2019) John Buchanan’s latest account of the southern theater…
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Jordi Ferragut Mesquida, better known by his anglicized name George Farragut, was the only known Spanish volunteer who fought under the American flag in…
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During the southern campaigns the British used two kinds of cipher, each kind being markedly different from the other. The First Kind of Cipher: The…
As Daniel Morgan collected his prisoners on the morning of January 17, 1781, he knew Charles, Lord Cornwallis, could not be far behind. “The…
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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…
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No British officer was more reviled by Patriots in the South during the American Revolution than Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Based partly on fact…
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The October 7, 1780 Battle of Kings Mountain is likely familiar to those even casually interested in the American Revolution. For those who look…
If the headline of a January or February 1776 edition of any North American Tory newspaper read, “Norfolk, Virginia, Sacked by North Carolina and…
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Strong in the memories of North Carolina veterans of the Revolution were images of Tory (Americans loyal to the British government) terrorists, mounted on…
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On January 10, 1776, the British governor of North Carolina, Josiah Martin, then bobbing on the HMS Scorpion off Wilmington, appointed just over two…
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The American War of Independence produced many dramatic episodes, but none surpassed the campaign that Lt. Gen. Charles, Second Earl Cornwallis, conducted in North…
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One of the most enjoyable aspects of researching the history of the American Revolution is the process of looking beneath and/or beyond those events…
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Known primarily through a mix of fact and legend as the most notorious Patriot of the southern campaigns, Paddy Carr was also claimed to…
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On March 10, 1782, Colonel David Fanning led a band of vengeful Loyalists on a path of slaughter and arson in northern Randolph County,…
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I plan to write about how the Tory guerrilla David Fanning changed after being made a Loyalist Colonel and given his own red coat,…
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Had he made it through the war, John McClure’s name would likely draw equal fame and respect as the nation’s most celebrated southern patriots….
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When news of Lord Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown on October 19, 1781 arrived in southeastern North Carolina well into November, the war there did…
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On August 14, 1775 some North Carolina colonial men, possibly as many as four dozen or so, met at the Tryon County courthouse. That…
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Book Review: The First American Declaration of Independence? The Disputed History of the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 20, 1775 By Scott Syfert. Jefferson, NC:…
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It had been a tense three weeks in the Carolinas for General Nathanael Greene, the commander of the American southern army. In the wake…