James Craik was born in Scotland, circa 1727, on the 1,400-acre estate of his father William Craik, member of the British parliament. He attended Edinburgh medical school; the first medical school in the English-speaking world. After graduation Dr. Craik served in the British army in the West Indies. Leaving the army, he set up medical […]
BOOK REVIEW: Captain John Peck Rathbun, Revolutionary War Naval Hero & Man of the Sea by Frank H. Rathbun (privately published, 2022) John Paul Jones understandably dominates the field when it comes to full-length biographies of Continental Navy commanders. However, there is an excellent biography of the very worthy John Barry by Tim McGrath, and a […]
BOOK REVIEW: Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade by Christian McBurney (Yardley, PA: Westholme, 2022) In Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade, author Christian McBurney recounts the voyage of a Rhode Island merchant’s privateer ship Marlborough to the West Coast of Africa to attack and disrupt British […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Damien Cregeau on the contributions of Daniel Hitchcock, a Rhode Island officer who led New England troops in key early battles of the Revolution, including Second Trenton and Princeton, but had his career cut short by disease. New episodes of Dispatches are available for free every […]
On this week’s Dispatches, host Brady Crytzer interviews Rhode Island and Revolutionary War historian Christian McBurney on uncovering the extraordinary story of a man from North Carolina who traveled north in 1779 in order to obtain slaves and how his scheme was thwarted by the courts, setting a legal precedent in Rhode Island. New episodes of […]
The American Revolution spurred the world’s first significant movement to abolish slavery and the African slave trade.[1] Before then, there was virtually no antislavery activity in any of the thirteen colonies of North America, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world. There was some limited antislavery dialogue in England, but its abolitionist movement […]
Louis-Dominique Éthis de Corny (1736–1790),Commissioner of War, came to America aboard the French warship Hermione along with Maj. Gen. Marie Jean Paul Joseph du Motier Marquis de Lafayette in April 1780. Corny’s assignment was to procure everything necessary for the arrival of the expédition particulière, the army of about 5800 troops under Lieutenant General Jean Baptiste […]
Silas Talbot was a remarkable Revolutionary War notable who was astute and tactically flexible. He was at various times an artisan, entrepreneur, privateer, Rhode Island Militia officer, Continental Army officer, Continental Navy officer, United States Navy captain and United States Congressman. Talbot’s multifarious vocations, extraordinary exploits and changing fortunes reflect the intrepidity of one unusual […]
When General Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur Comte de Rochambeau arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, on July 10, 1780 with over 5800 troops, most of the officers and men could not speak or read English. Admiral Charles Louis d’Arsac, Chevalier de Ternay’s fleet brought a printing press, probably aboard Rochambeau’s flagship Ville de Paris or the […]
On November 21, 1789, the people of the state of North Carolina ratified the United States Constitution. On May 29, 1790, the people of the State of Rhode Island also ratified the U.S. Constitution. Yet, despite the good-faith acts of these two states and their citizens, the respective admission into the United States of both […]
Editor’s note: Originally published in JAR in May 2013, this important article about the contribution of African Americans to our nation’s liberty was written by the late Thomas Fleming (1927–2017). African Americans participated in the American Revolution from its first day. That is another reason why it is shameful that for a long time, they […]
In my study of Major General Charles Lee, who commanded Continental Army troops at the fascinating Battle of Monmouth Court House, I argue that his post-battle convictions for failing to attack the enemy and for an unwarranted retreat were unjustified. I further argue that most of the blame for the retreat should have fallen on […]
The American Revolution changed the way Americans viewed one of the world’s great tragedies: the African slave trade. The long march to end the slave trade and then slavery itself had to start somewhere, and a strong argument can be made that it started with the thirteen American colonies gaining independence from Great Britain, then […]
Following American success at Saratoga in the autumn of 1777, French King Louis XVI signed the Treaty of Amity and Friendship, establishing open French assistance to the American cause. In May 1780 nearly 6,000 soldiers and sailors left the Port of Brest in northwest France and sailed across the Atlantic, arriving in Rhode Island in […]
On this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author, attorney, and JAR contributor, Christian M. McBurney on the enigmatic General Charles Lee and his role in imposing an oath of allegiance on Newport, Rhode Island, Tories in 1775. Thousands of readers like you enjoy the articles published by the Journal of the American Revolution. Dispatches is a […]
Major General Charles Lee visited Newport, Rhode Island, in late December 1775, where he—controversially—insisted that local Loyalists take an oath of allegiance to the Continental Congress. This approach, and a similar one he took in New York City shortly thereafter, created concern in Congress on how best to handle Loyalists. But by mid-1778, Lee had changed […]
One would expect that a country that had been at war for five years would welcome its first ally with open arms. We might have mental images of civic officials leading throngs of eager citizens to greet the allies or of platoons of soldiers firing salutes. It didn’t happen. No government officials, no military officers […]
During the era of the American Revolution, cannons did not fire exploding projectiles, so the image of explosions on the battlefield doesn’t apply. Mortars and howitzers did loft exploding shells in high arcs, but these were used almost exclusively against fixed positions like forts and towns. Sieges and a few other actions included a fair […]
With but few exceptions,[1] it has usually been surmised by historians that the 1772 attack on the Royal Navy schooner Gaspee was a spontaneous response to the accidental grounding of the King’s vessel, allowing its opportunistic destruction by angry Rhode Island colonists. But was this really such a serendipitous event? What is presented here is […]
The American Revolution was fought from Maine to Illinois, hundreds of military encounters occurring in what eventually became the United States of America. Among those events were two skirmishes on Prudence Island, a large island in Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, on January 12 and January 13, 1776. Although small events that did not alter […]
The Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island is the only Jewish house of worship that survives from the American colonial period. Built at the threshold of America’s Revolutionary period, it survived the war and the damaging occupation of Newport by British troops. After the war, the congregation returned and the synagogue formed the focal point […]
The organization of the Militia in colonial Rhode Island[1] was established by law. Five county regiments and the number of companies in each town were specified.[2] Annually the General Assembly approved the locally elected officers for the trained bands (companies of militia) at its session in May or the next session in June. In 1771, […]
A Story of Resistance to the Universal Draft In Rhode Island, as in the rest of New England during the Revolutionary War, a key Patriot institution was the universal draft. Rhode Island required all white men between the ages of sixteen and sixty to serve in the militia, backed by state courts and other state […]
The Traditional Narrative of the Gaspee Affair Patriot fervor seemed to have cooled in the months and years following the Boston Massacre in 1770. All of the taxes of the 1760s had been repealed, save on tea, and the famous Boston Tea Party was still more than one year off. The Admiralty had purchased several […]
On July 10, 1780, a French fleet of seven ships of the line and four frigates under Admiral Chevalier de Ternay, along with thirty-six transport vessels carrying about 6,000 French soldiers commanded by Lieutenant General Comte de Rochambeau and their supplies, arrived off of Newport, Rhode Island. The plan was to use the port town […]
The outcome of a war depends on far more than individual battles, but the battles are compelling to study; everyone has a favorite. The impacts of each one are numerous, and we can pontificate endless “what if” scenarios regarding the outcomes. There were, nonetheless, several battles that changed the momentum of the American Revolution – […]
