In June 1783, while a formal peace agreement was being negotiated in Paris, what British arms had not been able to accomplish was effectively achieved by the very soldiers who had sworn to protect and maintain the American government. A military insurrection unfolded on streets of the national capital of Philadelphia, the only successful insurrection […]
Ensign Ebenezer Denny calculated that he went from a green officer to a combat veteran in all of four minutes. Yet in those harsh two hundred and forty seconds he felt like anything but a leader of men in battle. Adrenaline alone was no match against hard marching amidst the brutal Virginia heat with a […]
The threat of resigning one’s military commission under protest is almost a matter of tradition. If your leaders made a decision you did not think was in the best interest of either yourself or your comrades, you offered up your resignation. It was a matter of honor. Should your resignation be received, you found yourself […]
“Few people know the predicament we are in,” wrote George Washington, while he expressed the Continental army’s dire circumstances.[1] By January 1776, just six months into the Revolutionary War, the Continental army faced a crisis outside Boston. This particular crisis, not caused by a British attack, was a personnel issue. “Search the volumes of history through,” […]
