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HMS Roebuck on the Delaware
byThe Royal Navy was designed not just protect the island of Britain and its commerce, but to project Great Britain’s power across the seas….
William Howe
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Johann Gottlieb Rall: Tactical Negligence or Personal Negligence at Trenton?
by“When a man chooses a calling, he must do everything that can be done in that calling so that he can never suffer reproach…
Winning Hearts and Minds: Pardons and Oaths of Allegiance
by“I, A. B.do promise and declare that I will remain in a peaceable Obedience to His Majesty, and will not take up Arms, nor…
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The Significance of John Cadwalader
byIn 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…
3
Cooch’s Bridge, Delaware’s Only Revolutionary War Battle
byOn December 5, 2018, the State of Delaware announced that it had acquired the historic property at Cooch’s Bridge, site of the only Revolutionary…
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George Washington and the First Mandatory Immunization
byThe debate over mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 has led to many articles referring to how George Washington handled a similar issue, this one involving…
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Terrain and Tactics: Detailed Perspectives From William Howe’s War Plan of 1776
byThe objective of the 1776 British campaign was straightforward: capture New York and crush the American rebellion. The plan was the brainchild of British…
The Howe Dynasty
byBOOK REVIEW: The Howe Dynasty: The Untold Story of a Military Family and the Women Behind Britain’s Wars for America by Julie Flavell (Liveright, 2021) In…
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Why Did the Signers of the Declaration Engage in this Treasonous Act?
bySpeaking on Independence Day, 1821, John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the Unites States and the son of John Adams, a signer of the…
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Morale Manipulation as the Central Strategic Imperative in the American Revolutionary War
byMost people think of wartime propaganda as atrocity stories about the enemy. But commanders also disseminate false and true information in hopes of boosting…
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The Troubled Relationship Between Clinton and Cornwallis and their “War” after the War
byA search for scapegoats is certain to follow a lost war, and in the wake of the British disaster at Yorktown in October 1781…
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A Howe Woman Celebrates the Glory of the First of June, 1794
byThe letters of Caroline Howe in the British Library have for the first time revealed the private life of her brother, Adm. Richard Lord…
James Lovell: Schoolteacher, Prisoner, Patriot
byJames Lovell, delegate from Massachusetts to the Second Continental Congress and the Confederation Congress from 1777 to 1782, the only member of Congress to…
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The Feint That Never Happened: Unheralded Turning Point of the Philadelphia Campaign
byBy noon on Saturday, September 20, 1777, Gen. William Howe watched his window of opportunity to cross the shallowing upper fords of the Philadelphia…
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Lord Dartmouth’s War of Words, 1775
byIt was late 1775, and William Legge, the 2nd Earl of Dartmouth, was looking out the window of his office in Whitehall, London, thinking…
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What Killed Prisoners of War?—A Medical Investigation
byEditor’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…
2
A Visit to Fort Mifflin on the Delaware
byThe walls grew weak; and fast and hot Against them pour’d the ceaseless shot With unabating fury sent, From battery to battlement; And thunder-like…
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Washington’s Head of Elk Reconnaissance: A New Letter (and and Old Receipt)
byThe Philadelphia Campaign of 1777 took definitive shape when Gen. William Howe successfully landed his 16,000 officers and men near Head of Elk (now…
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Aggressive-Minded Gamblers: Washington, Howe, and the Days Between Battles, September 12–16, 1777
byOn Tuesday afternoon, September 16, 1777—five days after the Battle of Brandywine—George Washington and most of his 11,000-member Continental army stood atop the South…
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Smoking the Smallpox Sufferers
byAt about midnight on September 29, 1792, Ashley Bowen and his young assistant, Tucker Huy, heard a carriage clatter up the Boston Road and…
This Week on Dispatches: Gabriel Neville on the Historic Clove Road and Its Role during the Revolution
byOn this week’s Dispatches host Brady Crytzer interviews JAR contributor Gabriel “Gabe” Neville on the Clove Road between northern New Jersey and New York and…
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The Last Vestige of the Clove Road
byWith no actionable intelligence, General Washington had to guess where British Maj. Gen. William Howe was taking his army. So in July 1777, he…
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Another Three Loyalist Declarations Signed in the Fall of 1776
byThe Declaration of Dependence signed by 547 New York City Loyalists in November 1776 was not the only such declaration written and signed by loyal…
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Caught Between the Lines: Eastchester, New York, During the American Revolution
byWhen one thinks of the American Revolution, the places that most quickly come to mind are Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Valley Forge, Yorktown. Yet…
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1776—The Horror Show
byThe British Army held New York City from 1776 to November 25, 1783. In prisoner exchanges, royal forces in New York periodically released prisoners…
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A Phantom at Middle Brook: Washington in the New Jersey Short Hills
byMost of the stories told of George Washington are tales of complete fiction. He never chopped down a cherry tree, at least not in…
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Revolutionary Rookies
byPerforming as a general atop an independent command is the most difficult military assignment and for which prior experience critically fosters improved strategic and…
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Washington Plays Hardball with the Howes
bySummering on Long Island in 1776 was no vacation for Gen. George Washington. As commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, he was attempting to build…
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Washington’s Second Christmas Day Attack
byFrom the intelligence provided by his New York and New Jersey spies, General Washington believed, early in 1777, that General Howe would eventually strike…
The Three Guides
byIn November 1776, a British army under Lieutenant-General Sir William Howe was on the offensive, having successfully driven American forces off of Manhattan island…
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Washington’s Belated Admission
by“This is a most unfortunate affair and has given me great Mortification as we have lost not only two thousand Men that were there,…
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Top 10 British Losers
byThe American Revolutionary War was a war Britain seemingly should have won. Its failure is popularly blamed upon the incompetence of the political and…
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British Spy Plot to Capture
Fort Ticonderoga in 1777
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Peter Livius, chief justice of the province of Quebec and former justice of New Hampshire, wrote a letter on June 2, 1777 to American…
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10 Fateful Hits and Misses
byMilitary leaders since Alexander the Great have often preferred to command their battle formations from the most forward ranks. “Leading from the front,” as…