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 […]