Alarming news of violence on the Upper Ohio flooded Pittsburgh in the late summer of 1777. On August 2, Joseph Ogle reported from Wheeling that a Native war party had wounded two men. James Booth, further south in Monongalia County, wrote that a mother and child had been killed and scalped and another captured. Col. […]
On September 15, 1787, as the Constitutional Convention drew to a close, James Madison noted that George Mason, a fellow delegate from Virginia and the principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, had a specific objection to the intended manner in which the Constitution would be amended. Specifically, Madison observed Mason: Thought the plan […]
The Virginia Continental Line had suffered with recruitment since the spring of 1777. Desertion, battlefield casualties, and competition with other state units prevented enough men being recruited to replenish the ranks of Virginia’s fifteen regiments. A new recruiting act, including a limited military draft, had produced fewer than 800 recruits for the Virginia Continental Line […]
When the stamp act crisis arose, a number of American colonial legislatures opposed the measure and sent remonstrances to Parliament objecting to it. Two of those colonies were Virginia and Massachusetts. The methods utilized by each were different and had differing results. The difference may be attributed to what may be called “Patrick Henry’s Hoax”. […]
BOOK REVIEW: For the People, For the Country: Patrick Henry’s Final Political Battle by John A. Ragosta (University of Virginia Press, 2023) Of all the stories of the Revolutionary era in common memory today, few come to mind as readily as Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death” speech. It may be the most […]
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 […]
Hanover County, Virginia is the birthplace of one of the most famous American patriots: Patrick Henry. He spent much of his life in and around Hanover. It was in this county that he learned to practice law, which would make him famous in his own time, as well as the eloquent oratory that would make […]
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 […]
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 […]
We asked our contributors: Which personality of the American Revolution or the founding era (other than Benedict Arnold) is remembered for the wrong reasons, and why? Jason Yonce Silas Deane, like his friend Benedict Arnold, contributed so much to the patriot cause only to fall from grace. His infamous letter to Robert Morris could have […]
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 […]
This month we asked our contributors: If George Washington had not run for President in 1789, who would you like to have had as a candidate (regardless of whether they were eligible based on the rules of time)? Michael J. F. Sheehan Dr. Benjamin Franklin, aside from Washington, was the only person in America […]
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 […]
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 […]
It had been a very hectic week in Williamsburg for Peyton Randolph, the Speaker of Virginia’s House of Burgesses and the President of the Continental Congress. It had begun with a startling alarm in the pre-dawn hours of April 21, 1775. The commotion just outside his house roused the corpulent Speaker from his bed. Like […]
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 […]
The day did not start out well for Andrew Oliver. The recently appointed Stamp Act Distributor for colonial Massachusetts awoke on the morning of August 14, 1765, to learn that his effigy was hanging on an elm tree in Boston by a road that everyone who traveled into town had to pass by. The initials […]
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 […]
There were many attempts, before and during the American Revolution, to avoid armed conflict via negotiation, or to stop the war after it began. I’d like to tell you about one of the early ones, the most serious push for reconciliation to occur between the Stamp Act crisis and the Declaration of Independence.[1] The outcome […]
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 […]
There is a gap in most histories of the United States Navy. The blank space lies between the end of the American Revolution and the re-establishment of the Navy in the 1790s. This is not the product of poor research; it is difficult to write about a Navy that did not exist. After the standing […]
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 […]
I first encountered Patrick Henry in fifth grade. He was the patriot of “Give me liberty, or give me death!” fame—not to be confused with that other “H” patriot, Nathan Hale, who was disappointed because he had only one life to give for his country. More than half a century later, students are still asked […]
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, […]
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 […]
“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 […]
