On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Tim Abbott on the ordeal of Captain Bezaleel Beebe’s Company of Connecticut Levies who were captured after the battle of Fort Washington and imprisoned aboard a British prison hulk. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, […]
Sergeant Solomon Goodwin of Colonel Philip Burr Bradley’s Regiment of Connecticut Levies kept an orderly book for Capt. Bezaleel Beebe’s Company. On November 16, 1776, he added a poignant, personal note: “This Day was the Day that our friends & fellow Soldiers was either killd or taken who were on York Island. This fatal day […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Tom Hogan on his research into the fate of the American prisoners known as the “Milford Cartel.” 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 […]
As 1776 was ending, a group of about 225 American prisoners was released from the British prisons in New York City to be sent to Patriot-controlled New England.[1] Most of them were enlisted soldiers from Connecticut, but there were also a few from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and several officers.[2] They had so far survived the […]
BOOK REVIEW: Prisoners of the Bashaw: The Nineteen-Month of American Sailors in Tripoli, 1803–1805 by Frederick C. Leiner (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2022) As the dust jacket says, this is the story of “The Nineteen-Month Captivity of American Sailors in Tripoli, 1803-1805.” Frederick C. Leiner, a lawyer by profession, as well as an historian and author of […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Chip Langston on the life of Captain James Morris of the Connecticut Light Infantry who wrote a compelling memoir about his experience during the American Revolution, from the Battle of Long Island and his capture at the Battle of Germantown to his parole and participation in […]
In 1812 when the British attacked the United States for the second time, Captain James Morris of the South Farms District of Litchfield, Connecticut, took quill to parchment to capture his six years of experiences during the Revolutionary War as an officer in Connecticut’s Light Infantry.[1] The light infantry was the battle-hardened, elite fighting force […]
The Battle of Kings Mountain was fought on October 7, 1780 in the upcountry of South Carolina near the border with North Carolina. As the gunsmoke dissipated and Patriot officers rallied their men, they found themselves victorious and in possession of the mountain-top; but still in danger. British General Charles, Lord Cornwallis and his army […]
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 in the waning days of the American Revolution. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every Saturday evening (Eastern United States Time) on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and the JAR Dispatches web site. […]
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 of North Carolina, beating out Samuel Johnson.[1] With the votes tallied, the legislature proclaimed to the Wake Court House in Raleigh that the, “the Honbl. Thomas Burke, Esquire” is requested in “attendance […]
When twenty-three-year-old Capt. Ebenezer Sullivan nobly volunteered himself as a prisoner-exchange hostage in the last weeks of the Canadian invasion, he had no way to foresee the devastating trials and tribulations that he would face as a result of his courageous decision. At the time, he was one of almost five hundred Continentals captured by […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews historian and JAR contributor Louis Arthur Norton on what happened to captured Continental Navy, states’ navies, and privateer sailors and officers when captured by the British. Most were interred onboard prison hulks where many perished, but others attempted to escape. New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]
During the Revolutionary War, the British were particularly sensitive to challenges to their maritime sovereignty. Members of the Continental Navy, states’ navy sailors or letter of marque privateers, when taken prisoner, were usually interned onboard prison hulks moored in Wallabout Bay in New York harbor. Seamen captured far from North American shores were often incarcerated […]
When Ethan Allen described his defeat and capture outside Montreal at Longue Pointe on September 25, 1775, he observed that “it was a motley parcel of soldiery which composed both parties.” The enemy included Canadian Loyalists, British regulars, Indian Department officers, and a few Native warriors. In the autobiographical A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s […]
Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution by T. Cole Jones (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020) In Captives of Liberty: Prisoners of War and the Politics of Vengeance in the American Revolution, T. Cole Jones provides an innovative study of the treatment of prisoners of war during […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews AP History teacher and JAR contributor Kevin A. Conn on the remarkable career of New Jersey Loyalist soldier and spy, James Moody, who carried out daring raids, was captured by Patriots and escaped, and ended up in England after the war. New episodes of Dispatches are available for […]
During the American War of Independence, the British Army officer corps routinely relegated its surgeons and physicians to a secondary status among its ranks. A few regimental surgeons made contributions to medical science, but the vast majority were relatively unknown both in their time and today.[1] American military doctors fared a bit better, but are mostly […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor and University of Wisconsin-Madison employee Alex White on discovering his ancestor’s experience as an officer in the Continental Army who was captured and paroled by the British. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic medical descriptions. Throughout the Revolutionary War, prisoners learned that dysentery accompanied starvation. Confined to the prison ship Jersey in 1781, Christopher Hawkins described rations “not sufficient to satisfy the calls of hunger.” In the next two sentences, Hawkins mentioned that “the bloody flux or dyssenterry” prevailed on the Jersey, from […]
Thomas White, a twenty-two-year-old farmer in Chester County, Pennsylvania, answered the call to fight for the establishment of a new nation. The choice altered his fate irrevocably and nearly cost him his life before taking him to the edge of the frontier to start anew. Thomas White was many things in his seventy-year life: A […]
Edmund Hagen presumably never intended the publication of his daily journal of his 1776 stint as the surgeon on a successful, but ultimately ill-fated, privateer. But it is exactly the fact that his journal contemporaneously records what he at the time regarded as the important facts of the day, rather than retrospectively identifying important events […]
SiriusXM Radio announced today that they will be offering their programs for free through May 15. This means JAR readers who don’t have a SiriusXM radio subscription can hear the monthly program, Revolution Road, featuring JAR contributors interviewed by legendary radio host David Nemo. Revolution Road with guests provided by JAR has been a regular […]
During the American Revolution, many players were removed from the chess board of war as a result of capture. From individual soldiers and sailors to entire armies, captives fell into the hands of the enemy, the largest numbers usually after defeats. Negotiations to repatriate these men varied from fairly successful to complete failures. In fact, […]
Typically, countries at war do not detain enemy prisoners in the backyards of their citizens. During the Revolutionary War Britain’s soon-to-be independent North American colonies proved an exception to this rule. For the fledgling nation, the action was a matter of necessity, one which forced host towns across the colonies to confront the fight for […]
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? It was perhaps inevitable that I would end up studying the Revolution as I grew up in the Boston area and my dad started taking me to visit places like Lexington Green, Old North Bridge, and the Freedom Trail when I was three years […]
Housed in the Medfield Historical Society is a rare collection of prayer bills containing the prayers of thanksgiving from Massachusetts soldiers and their families during the American Revolution. These commonplace slips of paper include fascinating stories and spiritual requests of ordinary Continental soldiers. One of these late-eighteenth-century prayer notes was written by a veteran named […]
“About five weeks after he made his escape from Prospect hill,” Augustine Barrett told the board of inquiry, “he was confined in the Prison Ship at Boston where he continued between 5 & six Months.” Barrett was stating his case to a board of officers convened to settle claims of British soldiers owed paid and […]
John Paul Jones has earned enduring fame in American history for his sailing and fighting exploits during the American Revolution. His influence on the war, however, went far beyond his alleged immortal words while engaging the HMS Serapis with his vessel, the Bonhomme Richard. For a period in 1778, the mere mention of his name caused terror […]
In early 1775, the town major of Quebec decided to pay a visit to Gen. Thomas Gage in Boston. William Dunbar had been an officer in the 44th Regiment of Foot during the French and Indian War, and although he had sold his regimental commission after that conflict ended, he settled in Canada and been […]
In this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews Brian O’Malley about the sudden release of 2,000 “sickly and emaciated” Continental soldiers and sailors in 1776 who had been held captive by the British in the New York City area. This little-known event sparked outrage among even the Loyalists in the region. As your host says, “Sit […]
“But while a confidence trickster, a play actor or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret agent enjoys no such relief. For him, deception is first a matter of self-defense.”—John le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Throughout the Revolution, the American intelligence apparatus […]
Eighteen-year-old Andrew Sherburne’s younger brother, Samuel, guided Sherburne into a room away from the rest of the family to help wash and dress him. As he helped his older brother peel off his ragged, lice-infested clothing, Samuel glimpsed Sherburne’s emaciated body. Shocked, the younger boy fell back. “He having taken off my clothes and seen […]
In this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor and editorial board member Katie Turner Getty about a dark side of the American Revolution, the notorious prison hulk, HMS Jersey. Thousands of American prisoners—some as young as twelve—died daily aboard British prison ships, mostly from disease. Fortunately for historians, a number of survivors wrote […]
The British Army held New York City from 1776 to November 25, 1783. In prisoner exchanges, royal forces in New York periodically released prisoners of war who were “sickly and emaciated.” Sometimes the prisoners numbered a few dozen, sometimes a few hundred. In 1776, however, British military commander Lt. Gen. Sir William Howe released more […]
“There, rebels, there is a cage for you.”[1] Forced to row under guard of British marines, a boatload of captured American sailors approached the forbidding black hulk of the old British warship, HMS Jersey. Nicknamed “The Hell Afloat,”[2] the Jersey and other decommissioned British warships were moored in Wallabout Bay, just off Brooklyn, New York, where […]
For our first post of the New Year—a time when resolutions are announced, new leaves are turned, and anticipation and hope for a fulfilling life renews, it is appropriate that this month we asked our contributors the following question: During the Founding Era, which we’ll consider as 1765 thru 1805, who was the most promising […]
The old man stepped out into the sun, shut his door, and turned north, leaving his home in Gainesville, New York, for the county seat in Batavia; a roundtrip journey that would take him a few days and near fifty miles. Luckily, the weather was cool and clear for the middle June, and he had […]
During the American Revolution children were no strangers to the realities of war, but some would find themselves in the very center of the action. One such case was that of Daniel Granger who began his service in the Continental Army at the age of thirteen. While sending sons and apprentices as substitutes upon receiving […]
New Jersey is known as the “Crossroads of the Revolution” because its location between New York and Philadelphia, as well as its strategic importance for troop movements by both the British and Continental armies, made it a hot bed for Patriot and Loyalist activities. Fighting between these two groups in New Jersey became so intense […]
