Prisoners of the Bashaw
byBOOK 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…
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…
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…
In 1812 when the British attacked the United States for the second time, Captain James Morris of the South Farms District of Litchfield, Connecticut,…
The Battle of Kings Mountain was fought on October 7, 1780 in the upcountry of South Carolina near the border with North Carolina. As…
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…
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…
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,…
During the Revolutionary War, the British were particularly sensitive to challenges to their maritime sovereignty. Members of the Continental Navy, states’ navy sailors or…
When Ethan Allen described his defeat and capture outside Montreal at Longue Pointe on September 25, 1775, he observed that “it was a motley…
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)…
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…
During the American War of Independence, the British Army officer corps routinely relegated its surgeons and physicians to a secondary status among its ranks….
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
During the American Revolution, many players were removed from the chess board of war as a result of capture. From individual soldiers and sailors…
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…
What inspired you to start researching and writing about the Revolution? It was perhaps inevitable that I would end up studying the Revolution as…
Housed in the Medfield Historical Society is a rare collection of prayer bills containing the prayers of thanksgiving from Massachusetts soldiers and their families…
“About five weeks after he made his escape from Prospect hill,” Augustine Barrett told the board of inquiry, “he was confined in the Prison…
John Paul Jones has earned enduring fame in American history for his sailing and fighting exploits during the American Revolution. His influence on the…
In early 1775, the town major of Quebec decided to pay a visit to Gen. Thomas Gage in Boston. William Dunbar had been an…
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…
“But while a confidence trickster, a play actor or a gambler can return from his performance to the ranks of his admirers, the secret…
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….
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…
The British Army held New York City from 1776 to November 25, 1783. In prisoner exchanges, royal forces in New York periodically released prisoners…
“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…
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…
The old man stepped out into the sun, shut his door, and turned north, leaving his home in Gainesville, New York, for the county…
During the American Revolution children were no strangers to the realities of war, but some would find themselves in the very center of the…
New Jersey is known as the “Crossroads of the Revolution” because its location between New York and Philadelphia, as well as its strategic importance…
“The prisoner of war is one of the most tragic figures in any conflict.”Larry G. Bowman[1] Various studies have placed the number of Americans…
When a party is formed within the State which ceases to obey the sovereign and is strong enough to make a stand against him,…
Co-authored with Don N. Hagist An inevitable facet of warfare is prisoners. During the American Revolution, thousands of soldiers and sailors were captured by…
I was recently asked to speak about Elizabeth Burgin, an American woman who risked her life helping prisoners of war during the American Revolution….