Timothy Matlack, Scribe of the Declaration of Independence
The scribe of the Declaration of Independence—and perhaps the first man to read it in public—was born on March 28, 1736 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. His family moved to Philadelphia eight years later....
View ArticleThe Abandoned American Offensive After Yorktown: the Attack That Never Was
After a British army surrendered at Yorktown in October 1781, it took weeks for news of the disaster to reach London, and several weeks more for the British to decide their next move. Gen. George...
View Article“We Will Cross at Ely’s Ford Today”: Is the Yorktown Campaign Historical...
In the months prior to the Revolutionary War’s culminating siege at Yorktown and Gloucester Point, Virginia in 1781, the embattled Old Dominion was the scene of an intense campaign of maneuvers and...
View ArticleJefferson and Madison Letters: Should a Constitution Last Forever?
One day in the late winter of 1788 in Paris, the Marquis de Lafayette and two other champions of republicanism, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine, held a little “convention of our own,” according to...
View ArticleA Granddaughter’s Grief: Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis and George Washington
The life of Eleanor “Nelly” Parke Custis Lewis was one of privilege and loss. After the premature death of her father, John “Jacky” Parke Custis, in 1781, Nelly and her younger brother, George...
View ArticleAmerica’s Forgotten Founder: Comte Charles Gravier de Vergennes
Historians generally agree on who were America’s principal Founders, but the roll call invariably omits the name of one individual without whose steadfast assistance the United States would have been...
View ArticleContinental Army Brevets
In 1865, at the close of the Civil War, 1,367 men were breveted as a major or a brigadier general by the United States Senate. These honorary promotions were in addition to 583 who were already serving...
View ArticleDr. James Craik and George Washington: Compatriots-in-Arms, Old and Intimate...
James Craik was born in Scotland, circa 1727, on the 1,400-acre estate of his father William Craik, member of the British parliament. He attended Edinburgh medical school; the first medical school in...
View Article“To Render Ourselves Impregnable”: The Defenses of Annapolis during the...
The city of Annapolis has never been attacked in its long history, but it has nonetheless played an important role in American conflicts, with the American Revolution being no exception. While the...
View ArticleAdam Custine—a Fighter for American Independence and Reforms in France
In George Washington’s Mount Vernon mansion many visitors take note of the key presented by Lafayette to the first American president, formerly used in the Bastille prison in Paris. Few visitors invest...
View ArticleThe Quest for the Fourteenth State
Many followers of the history of the American Revolution are aware of the attempted invasion of Canada by Colonial forces in late 1775. The attack failed, and American designs on Canada were thwarted,...
View ArticleThe Marquis de Lafayette in Delaware
The last surviving major general of the American Revolution was French aristocrat Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert Du Motier, the marquis de Lafayette. Invited by President James Monroe to help...
View ArticleDid Charles Lee Disobey George Washington’s Attack Order at Monmouth?
The court martial of Maj. Gen. Charles Lee, who had been George Washington’s second in command during the Monmouth campaign, centered on three charges against him for his conduct during the Battle of...
View ArticleThe Revolutionary Battle of Petersburg
When one mentions the Battle of Petersburg in Civil-War-centric Virginia, the immediate reaction is Ulysses S. Grant versus Robert E. Lee in 1864 and 1865. True. But the first Battle of Petersburg was...
View Article“Earned By Veteran Intrepidity”: Spencer’s Ordinary, June 26, 1781
Captain Johann Ewald had much to thank the Almighty for.[1] A heroic stand on the picket line before Norfolk, Virginia, parried an American thrust and covered the captain and his men with glory, but it...
View ArticleCaptain Luke Day: A Forgotten Leader of “Shays’s Rebellion”
While Daniel Shays (1747-1825) has basked posthumously in the glory of leading the 1786-87 populist rebellion that bears his name, Luke Day (1743-1801) was a co-commander of the forces on the ground...
View ArticleThe Battle of Green Spring: A Footnote on the Road to Yorktown
Ensign Ebenezer Denny calculated that he went from a green officer to a combat veteran in all of four minutes. Yet in those harsh two hundred and forty seconds he felt like anything but a leader of men...
View ArticleThe Battle of Gloucester, 1777
BOOK REVIEW: The Battle of Gloucester 1777 by Garry Wheeler Stone and Paul W. Schopp (Yardley, PA: Westhome Publishing, 2022) Garry Wheeler Stone’s and Paul W. Schopp’s The Battle of Gloucester 1777...
View ArticleOn the Road Again: En Train De Marcher—Frenchmen Travel Through Delaware
If you ask an outsider about the State of Delaware, they are likely to respond, “Dela-where?” “Do you mean Delaware County???” A few may reply, “Yeah. I think I passed through there once on my way to...
View ArticleDid George Washington Swear at Charles Lee During the Battle of Monmouth?
The scene is one of the most famous in the annals of the American Revolutionary War. The commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, Gen. George Washington, confronts his second-in-command, Charles...
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