Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Revolutionary War
The British commander-in-chief at the beginning of the Revolution was popular and conscientious, but events were beyond his control.
On October 10, 1775, Lieutenant General Thomas Gage took his last salute as commander in chief of His Majesty’s forces in North America and the next day sailed for England aboard the transport Pallas .
As the fourth ice age of the Pleistocene epoch receded some eleven thousand years ago, an almost impenetrable forest of oak, elm, birch, maple, and pine trees sprang up between the coast of New England and the shores of the Mississippi.
Warren took the lead in creating the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Refusing to leave Boston like the other radical leaders, he died in the fighting on Breed's Hill in 1775
John Singleton Copley painted Dr. Joseph Warren circa 1765. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Personal charm and affability are traits not commonly associated with revolutionaries, and rarely has an agent of social upheaval been held in such universal esteem by his contemporaries as was Dr. Joseph Warren. He seems to have been a man nearly everyone liked, and his qualities come down to us in those dignified adjectives of the eighteenth century—gentle, noble, generous. So it is difficult to know if it was because of these characteristics or in spite of them that he was one of a handful of provincials most feared by British officialdom.
What was it like to actually be there in April, 1775?
This is how the participants, American and British, remembered it
Overcoming painful ailments, Greene emerged from the Revolution with a military reputation second only to that of George Washington.
The American who emerged from the Revolution with a military reputation second only to that of George Washington was a Quaker with a physical affliction that had caused him to be rejected as an officer by the men in his militia company.
A site for a proposed hydroelectric project also was the site of a grim Revolutionary War battle.
George Washington had his Martha; John Adams had his Abigail—and Henry Knox had his Lucy. Or did Lucy have him? She was high-strung, demanding, and stubborn, but she loved him unto death
One moonless spring night in 1775 a young couple crept quietly out of their house on Cornhill in Boston and ran for a waiting carriage. It bore them away through dark streets toward Boston Neck.
Forty years ago a Boston banker suggested that the Battle of Lexington had become a myth, and later evidence proves him right
When Benjamin Franklin came home from France in diplomatic triumph, he left behind a lovely, highborn lady mourning the miles between them.
Scores of towns and counties all over the nation honor some heroics largely invented by Parson Weems
General Washington wanted Benedict Arnold taken alive, right in the heart of British-held New York.
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