Tag: Patrick Henry

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This Week on Dispatches: Alexandra I. Griffeth on Patrick Henry and Hanover County, Virginia

On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews history student and Virginia Army National Guard employee Alexandra I. Griffeth about historic sites in Hanover County, Virginia, associated with Patrick Henry. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Amazon Music, and the JAR Dispatches web site. Dispatches […]

by Editors
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Partisan Politics and the Laws Which Shaped the First Congress

Every ten years the United States engages in the process of re-apportionment, wherein each state with more than one House seat redraws their Congressional districts. Simultaneously, every re-districting cycle partisans, activists, and pundits alike all bewail the harmful effects of gerrymandering on the process. Far from a modern phenomenon, partisan politics has always had a […]

by Samuel T. Lair
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George Washington’s 1775 Leadership Advice to William Woodford: Did He Listen?

Gen. George Washington’s well-crafted November 10, 1775 letter to Col. William Woodford contains some timeless pearls of military wisdom, guidance, and advice.[1] Washington’s instructive response to an earlier letter from Woodford reveals a set of basic leadership principles that remain in official United States Army doctrine to this day. This enduring leadership lesson leads one […]

by Patrick H. Hannum and Frederick R. Kienle
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Cicero and the American Revolution

Despite Cicero’s significant reputation and widespread readership, little scholarship has focused upon Cicero’s reputation and oratorical practices’ influence upon the Founding Generation. Once Cicero delivered his orations at the court case of Roscius of Ameria, he was considered a prodigy of oratory. His career quickly took off, with him ascending each rank of a Roman […]

by Paul Meany
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The American Revolution in Alexandria, Virginia: Upheaval in George Washington’s Hometown

Alexandria, Virginia, is well known as George Washington’s hometown, but its role during the American Revolution is not widely understood. Like the rest of Northern Virginia, Alexandria was largely spared the fierce warfare that raged across the country. Nonetheless, the Revolution profoundly affected the community. Founded in 1749 along the Potomac River, Alexandria was a […]

by Kieran J. O'Keefe
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This Week on Dispatches: Michael Cecere on Patrick Henry’s March on Williamsburg

On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor, author, and educator Michael Cecere on his recent article about Patrick Henry’s March on Williamsburg and how that event averted a military confrontation in Virginia. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a free podcast that […]

by Editors
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Williamsburg Becomes an Armed Camp, 1775

No one disputes that the fighting that erupted at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775 ignited a war between Great Britain and her thirteen American colonies. As we all know, the bloodshed of that day in Massachusetts initiated an eight year war that culminated with American independence. It is important to remember, however, that […]

by Michael Cecere
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Officers Who Never Saw Combat

We asked our contributors, “Who is your favorite military officer that never saw any combat?” The intent was to showcase officers who saw no combat during their lives, but some respondents took it to mean only during the American Revolution. William M. Welsch I offer John Dickinson of Delaware and Pennsylvania. Known primarily as a […]

by Editors
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How Robert Morris’s “Magick” Money Saved the American Revolution

The year 1780 ended badly, and the new year boded worse for America’s War of Independence. Maj. Gen. Benedict Arnold’s treason and defection to the British army had left Gen. George Washington’s officer corps in disarray, demoralized. Officers of all ranks eyed each other suspiciously, questioning each other’s decisions, while distrust of officers provoked mutinies […]

by Harlow Giles Unger
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The “Parson’s Cause:” Thomas Jefferson’s Teacher, Patrick Henry, and Religious Freedom

As Tidewater lands played out, exhausted from repeated tobacco plantings, or were encumbered by inheritance, the established church moved with young planters like Peter Jefferson into the Piedmont. One hundred thirty miles from the colonial capital Williamsburg and “planted close under the southwest mountains,” James Maury preached the gospel of the Church of England in […]

by John Grady
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A Posture of Defense: Virginia’s Journey from Nonimportation to Armed Resistance

A month into the historic 1774 meeting of the 1st Continental Congress, delegates John Adams of Massachusetts and Richard Henry Lee of Virginia sparked a heated debate when they proposed that Congress urge each colony to place their militia on a more proper footing.1 Patrick Henry of Virginia forcefully supported these militia proposals, declaring that, […]

by Michael Cecere
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Reaction to the 1775 Gunpowder Episode by the Independent Company of Albemarle County

The Royal Governor’s April 21, 1775 removal from Williamsburg’s Powder Magazine of gunpowder essential to Virginia’s defense caused an immediate furor among Virginians as news spread throughout the colony. The governor’s action was in response to George III’s direction to colonial governors to take control of arms and powder throughout the colonies, direction which had […]

by William W. Reynolds
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Celts in the American Revolution

“Give me liberty or give me death!” shouted Patrick Henry to the members of the Second Virginia Convention in 1775. His words became the first great war cry of the American Revolution. In 1776 this backwoods lawyer was elected governor of Virginia, the largest state in the new American union. Henry was descended from Scottish […]

by Thomas Fleming