Review: Crisis at the Chesapeake
byBOOK REVIEW: Crisis at the Chesapeake: The Royal Navy and the Struggle for America, 1755-1783 by Quintin Barry (Warwick, UK: Helion and Company, 2021) Although the…
Royal Navy
This Week on Dispatches: William H. J. Manthorpe, Jr. on the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse and Historical Accuracy
byOn this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews William Manthorpe, a former naval intelligence officer, government senior executive, and professor who specializes on the naval…
This Week on Dispatches: Alexander R. Cain on Privateering During the Siege of Boston
byOn this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews author and maritime historian Alexander R. Cain about his recent article on how New England privateers supported…
3
Top 5 Explosions of the Revolutionary War
byDuring the era of the American Revolution, cannons did not fire exploding projectiles, so the image of explosions on the battlefield doesn’t apply. Mortars…
5
The Battle between Bonhomme Richard and Serapis
byAuthor’s note: Continental Navy midshipman Nathaniel Fanning’s eyewitness account of the American Revolution’s most famous naval battle is among the most detailed available. This…
2
The Braunschweig : A German-Flagged Ship on Lake Champlain, 1777?
by“The Radeau was magnificently decked out today; from her two masts were flying the English flag and in honor of the nation of Braunschweig,…
9
Captain Lambert Wickes and “Gunboat Diplomacy, American Revolution Style”
byThe Continental Navy. Words that didn’t exactly strike fear into the heart of the mighty British Royal Navy. For most Americans, knowledge of the…
3
Henry Laurens in England, 1771–1772
byOn October 9, 1771, a ship arrived at the southwestern tip of England. The Earl of Halifax had spent twenty nine days crossing the Atlantic…
Struggle for a Lighthouse: The Raids to Destroy the Boston Light
byIn the days following the British pyrrhic victory of Bunker Hill on June 17, 1775, Gen. George Washington, in his new role as commander-in-chief,…
28
Invading America: The Flatboats that Landed Thousands of British Troops on American Beaches
byAmphibious operations, which involve landing troops and supplies from the sea to the land, are extremely difficult and require special techniques, close coordination between…
4
“Strange Mismanagement”: The Capture of HMS Syren
byAfter a British fleet of seventy-one warships and transports entered Narragansett Bay on December 7, 1776, and the next day landed soldiers that occupied…
8
The First Naval Skirmish of the Revolution
byIn mid May 1775, just weeks after the bloody Battle of April Nineteenth had sparked the start of the American Revolution, the perhaps first…