The weeks of bloody maneuvering and fighting along the Delaware River at Fort Mercer, Fort Mifflin, and Gloucester receive but scant attention in the literature of the American Revolution. The same is true for the five-day Whitemarsh operation and other important events in December 1777. This period of the war began when Gen. Sir William […]
The Institute’s historical programs manager, Andrew Outten, discusses a 1773 register of British Army officers, annotated with casualties suffered during the first battles of the Revolution—most notably at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Beginning in 1740, the British Army published annual books listing officers serving within the army’s various regiments, along with their dates of […]
Elizabeth Chew and Melina Testin of the South Carolina Historical Society discuss a rare orderly book kept by Capt. Barnard Elliot of the Fourth South Carolina Regiment, which was incorporated into the Continental Army on June 18, 1776—ten days before the Battle of Sullivan’s Island—and disbanded on January 1, 1781. Drawing from the orderly book, […]
To kick off our eight-year-long 250th anniversary celebrations of the American Revolution, this panel discussion highlights the Battles of Lexington and Concord and the beginning of the American Revolution. Panelists include historians J.L. Bell discussing the prelude of the two events of April 19, 1775; Alexander Cain highlighting the engagements through the perspectives of the […]
Historian Alex Burns, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Franciscan University of Steubenville, places the common enlisted man during the American Revolution at center stage by discussing their experiences during the war. Drawing from his archival research on the American, British and Prussian armies, Dr. Burns shows how the infantryman throughout the eighteenth century played […]
For eight grueling years, American and British military forces struggled in a bloody war over colonial independence. This conflict also ensnared Native American warriors and the armies and navies of France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and several German principalities. From frozen Canada to tropical Florida and as far west as the Mississippi River, the Revolutionary […]
For this special lecture, Dennis Conrad, Ph.D., editor of The Nathanael Greene Papers, discusses the leadership of Gen. Nathanael Greene in the South during the American Revolution, along with events that led to the critical Battle of Guilford Courthouse on March 15, 1781. This lecture was part of our larger two-day battlefield tour program exploring […]
For this special lecture, Dr. Ricardo Herrera of the U.S. Army War College explores the events that led to the Battle of Monmouth, along with the subsequent global nature of the American Revolution and its impact on British strategy for the remainder of the conflict. This lecture was part of our larger two-day battlefield tour program […]
In 1774, Gen. Henry Clinton embarked on a “martial grand tour,” visiting the battlefields of Europe with his friend, the military theorist Henry Lloyd. What the two observed on their travels would change the British approach to the war that broke out in North America the following year. From his practical and theoretical study of […]
Compared to events in the East, the American Revolutionary War in the West has received sparse attention despite its major impact on the geographical extent of the United States after the war. In 1779, in response to George Rogers Clark conquering the Illinois country and Spain entering the war, Lord George Germain set in motion […]
When one considers the effects of war on the environment, their thoughts probably turn to modern events such as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The American Revolution, however, also had a major impact on the natural world in the eighteenth century. At Valley Forge, […]
For nearly a decade, Red Bank Battlefield Park, N.J., has been the focus of a series of archaeological studies investigating the Hessian attack on Fort Mercer on October 22, 1777, during the Philadelphia campaign. During a public archaeology program conducted in the summer of 2022, a mass burial space was discovered and is thought to […]
Historical Programs Manager Andrew Outten discusses two maps produced by British cartographer William Faden depicting the Battle of Brandywine. William Faden is well known for his maps of major battles of the Revolutionary War. Unusually, he produced two maps of the Battle of Brandywine, one in 1778 and the other in 1784. Each map shows […]
When Nathanael Greene was appointed commander of the southern Continental forces in the fall of 1780, he wrote to George Washington that he would be forced to fight “a kind of partisan war,” until he could raise an army large enough to contend with the British. Greene’s strategy was to check the main British army […]
During the last engagement in the 1776 northern campaign season, Gen. Benedict Arnold burned the remaining vessels of his American fleet in Lake Champlain to prevent capture by the British. In 2020, the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program funded an archeological survey project of this area, now classified as a Revolutionary War battlefield […]
Fortification and siege doctrine were a critical component of any eighteenth-century military. Drawing mainly from the Siege of Yorktown, Dr. Glenn F. Williams of the U.S. Army Center of Military History explores the intricacies and technical expertise required to carry out an effective and successful siege in the Revolutionary War. This lecture focuses on eighteenth-century […]
Following the successful expulsion of American forces from Canada in 1776, the British forces were determined to end the rebellion and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy. They were to send General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of […]
Although battlefield burial is seldom covered by modern historians, following almost any military engagement, corpses needed to be buried. Who was responsible for disposing of these corpses? How can we tell who buried whom? Were officers and other ranks buried together or separate? Historian Robert Selig answers these and related questions about burying the dead […]
Parker’s Revenge, the scene of intense fighting between the retreating British and militia on April 19, 1775, is the site of recent archaeological discoveries. Because contemporary documents reveal little about this fight, an archaeological survey was needed to reveal clues left behind in the soil. Meg Watters and her team, using ground penetrating radar and […]
Nathaniel Philbrick brings a fresh perspective to the Battle of Bunker Hill. The real central character in this battle is Boston—where vigilantes fill the streets with a sinister and frightening violence, even as calmer patriots struggle to see their way to rebellion. The core of Philbrick’s lecture, building on his book Bunker Hill: A City, a […]
In summer of 1776, George Washington suffered many crushing defeats and lost 90 percent of the army under his command. British and Hessian forces had recovered much of New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island. By late November, thousands of Americans took an oath of allegiance to George III. Leaders on both sides believed that […]
In August 1781, British commander Lord Cornwallis moved his troops to Yorktown, Virginia, hoping he could more easily receive supplies and reinforcements via the York River, near the Chesapeake Bay. Professor Osman details the events that followed, leading to the allied victory at Yorktown. The allied Franco-American forces, most under the command of the comte […]