The “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-1777 reversed the tide of war just when Washington’s army appeared near collapse. Beginning with the Christmas night crossing of the Delaware River, Washington recorded his first three significant victories over the British and their Hessian auxiliaries under the overall command of Maj. Gen. William Howe and the […]
The “Ten Crucial Days” winter campaign of 1776-1777 reversed the momentum of the War for Independence at a moment when what George Washington termed the “glorious Cause” of American independence appeared on the verge of final defeat.[1] During the period from December 25, 1776 through January 3, 1777, beginning with the fabled Christmas night crossing of […]
In 1776, John Cadwalader was a thirty-four-year-old merchant and prominent member of the Philadelphia gentry who had risen to command the volunteer militia known as the Philadelphia Associators. In his capacity as a militia colonel, he would play a distinctive—and today largely unappreciated—role in what historians have termed the “Ten Crucial Days” of the Revolutionary […]
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 […]
As a collateral descendant of Daniel Hitchcock (first cousin, nine times removed), I have always been fascinated by the short but important life of this colonel from Providence, Rhode Island, who was taken by illness following the Battle of Princeton at the young age of thirty-seven. Likely because there is neither an existing house nor […]
It has been said of Edward Hand that he was “the stuff of which the hard core” of Washington’s army was made.[1] Indeed, he may have been the most unsung Patriot military hero of the American Revolution. On the second day of 1777, Hand organized a remarkable defensive action along the road from Princeton to Trenton, […]
Born in Straw Dungiven, County Londonderry, Ireland,[1] thirty-year-old John Haslet was the young, widowed minister of Ballykelly Presbyterian Church. Arriving in America in 1757, he became a captain in the Pennsylvania militia and participated in the November 26, 1758 action at Fort Duquesne. Twenty years later, he would be killed at the Battle of Princeton. Russ […]
