Trusted Writing on History, Travel, Food and Culture Since 1949
American Revolution
Read excerpts from these wonderful books and then vote for your favorite! Here are samples from the seven Finalists for the 2017 George Washington Book Prize.
In celebration of George Washington’s 285th birthday, seven books published in 2016 by the country’s most prominent historians have been named finalists for the George Washington Prize. Read more >>
Badly disguised as Indians, a rowdy group of patriotic vandals kicked a revolution into motion
On the evening of December 16, 1773, in Boston, several score Americans, some badly disguised as Mohawk Indians, their faces smudged with blacksmith’s coal dust, ran down to Griffin’s Wharf, where they boarded three British vessels. Read more >>
It is one of the most familiar incidents in American history, and also one of the least understood in many ways
A little after 9:00 p.m. on March 5, 1770, a detachment of British soldiers fired into a crowd of townspeople on King Street in Boston, in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The result—the “Boston Massacre”—has echoed through the pages of newspapers, pamphlets, and history books ever since. Read more >>
Thomas Paine's Common Sense helped Americans "decide upon the propriety of separation,” as George Washington said.
In May 1775 the Reverend Jonathan Boucher, rowing across the Potomac, met George Washington rowing in the other direction on his way to the Continental Congress. The two conversed briefly on the fate of the colonies, and Boucher asked Washington if he supported independence. Read more >>
To explore the American Revolution through the eyes of John Singleton Copley is to see it with fresh eyes, to understand that it was a civil war with many shades of allegiance.
It's often portrayed as an orderly conflict between Patriots, Tories, and British, but the American Revolution caused much suffering, dislocation, and economic decline, and had major effects on Native Americans and Spanish, French, Dutch, and other colonists worldwide.
Alan Taylor, in his recent American Revolutions: A Continental History, provides an important international context for the War for Independence, a perspective that is too often lacking in general discussions about the conflict. Read more >>
The battle of Monmouth was pivotal in the struggle for independence, enabling George Washington to change the narrative of the war and eventually solidify his own role in our nation's history.
Unlike Saratoga or Yorktown, the battle of Monmouth was not a clear-cut American victory. Read more >>
Important new information on the central figure in the early American republic has surfaced with the publication of new volumes of Jefferson's journals and correspondence.
It became convenient to portray Benedict Arnold as a conniving traitor, but the truth is more complex. The brilliant general often failed to get credit for his military wins, suffered painful wounds, lost his fortune while others profiteered, and finally gave up on the disorganized and often ineffective efforts to win the American Revolution.
We all know the story: how a defiant and undisciplined collection of citizen soldiers banded together to defeat the mightiest army on earth. But as those who lived through the nearly decade-long saga of the American Revolution were well aware, that was not how it actually happened. Read more >>
A new look at a famous Revolutionary figure questions whether history’s long-standing judgment is accurate
AT 9 O’CLOCK ON THE morning of September 25, 1775, a French Canadian habitant banged on the main gate of Montreal. The Americans were coming, he blurted breathlessly to a British officer. Read more >>
America’s first civil war took place during the Revolution, an ultra violent, family-splitting, and often vindictive conflict between patriots and loyalists
On April 22, 1775, three days after a British column marched out of Boston and clashed with militiamen at Lexington and Concord, the news—and the cry of Revolution!—reached Danbury, Connecticut, where 18-year-old Stephen Maples Jarvis was working on the family farm. Read more >>
How Baron von Steuben used a tough winter to make a solid army out of a collection of untrained volunteers
On the first day of December, 1777, a group of four foreign gentlemen landed from the French ship Le Flamand at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Read more >>
How tough Henry Knox hauled a train of cannon over wintry trails to help drive the British away from Boston
Major Patrick Ferguson's instinct of chivalry spared the life of an American officer with “a remarkable large cocked hat” who was reconnoitering at Chadds Ford and came within range of British rifles.
The 70-year-old statesman lived the high life in Paris and pulled off a diplomatic miracle
The Lost Story of Revolutionary War POW’s
Sometime that seismic spring of 1776, 16-year-old Levi Hanford of Norwalk, Connecticut, enrolled in his uncle’s militia company and went to war against the British. He expected to make short work of the enemy. Read more >>
Dorchester Heights, Boston, September 3, 1775 Read more >>
Sharp business skills ensured the first president’s phenomenal success
America’s greatest leader was its first—George Washington. He ran two start-ups, the army and the presidency, and chaired the most important committee meeting in U.S. history, the Constitutional Convention. His agribusiness and real estate portfolio made him America’s richest man. He was as well known as any actress, rapper, or athlete. Men followed him into battle; women longed to dance with him; famous men, almost as great as he was, some of them smarter or better spoken, did what he told them to do. He was the Founding CEO. Read more >>
1741 Born in Norwich, Connecticut.
1758 Enlists in a New York company for service in the French and Indian War. Read more >>
Some of the infuriating questions surrounding the great hero-traitor can be answered by visiting the fields where he fought. The trip will also take you to many of the most beautiful places in the Northeast. Read more >>
On the morning of October 17, 1781, an officer emerged from the British lines holding a white handkerchief
As October began, Gen. Charles Cornwallis and his army of 8,000 redcoats and Hessians knew they were in deep trouble. In late August, after a summer filled with conflicting instructions, they had been ordered to establish a naval base on the Chesapeake. Read more >>
How a lying poseur from Prussia gave America its army
There was a kernel of truth in the drama. Friedrich von Steuben was a Prussian soldier who had served with distinction in the Seven Years’ War and had become an aide-de-camp to Frederick the Great. But he had never advanced beyond the rank of captain. Read more >>
The Revolution’s Second Toughest Job
Benjamin Franklin was far and away the most famous American when he went to France to wheedle help for the newborn American nation, which was having a very grim time of it when he got there late in 1776. Read more >>
I’ve been fighting the war of the American Revolution (on paper, that is, and with none of the suffering the participants endured) off and on since 1962, and my research has included journals, diaries, letters, newspapers, and books on nearly all the campaigns. Read more >>
The French helped us win our Revolution. A few years later we were at war with Napoleon’s navy. The two countries have been falling in and out of love ever since. Why?
Congress serves freedom fries, American military wives talk of freedom kisses, vandals in Bordeaux burn and deface a model of the Statue of Liberty. It’s a good time to remember that American-French relations have had many ups and downs. Read more >>
The Battle of Bunker Hill
Early on the morning of June 17, Gen. Thomas Gage, governor of Massachusetts and commander in chief of British forces in North America, awoke in his Boston home to learn of a serious new threat. Read more >>