The Institute’s deputy director and curator, Emily Parsons, discusses Society of the Cincinnati Eagles of the twentieth century. The Eagle insignia of the Society of the Cincinnati is one of the most historic American medals and has been worn by members at meetings, dinners, ceremonies, and other events for more than two hundred years. Designed […]
Larz Anderson, the great grandson of a Revolutionary War officer, was a devoted member of the Society of the Cincinnati. Upon his death in 1937, his widow, Isabel, oversaw the gift of their Washington, D.C. home, Anderson House, to the Society of the Cincinnati. Formalized in 1938, the Andersons’ gift provided the organization with the […]
Museum Collections and Operations Manager Paul Newman discusses a diplomatic uniform made for Larz Anderson by Davies & Son of London, England, for his appointment as the U.S. minister to Belgium in 1911. At the time, U.S. diplomats were prescribed to wear civilian suits, however as it was normal for diplomats to be presented before […]
Historical Programs Manager Andrew Outten discusses Charles Stedman’s History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War that contains detailed annotations made by British general Sir Henry Clinton. Stedman, who served as an officer in the British army for most of the Revolutionary War, wrote a detailed history of the conflict that was published in […]
Deputy Director and Curator Emily Parsons for a discussion of a British Pattern 1756 light dragoon carbine and the winding road it took to seeing action in the American Revolution. In May 1776, just two months after the British had evacuated Boston, a Massachusetts privateer captured an armed British transport ship, the Hope, near Boston Harbor. […]
Museum Collections and Operations Manager Paul Newman discusses a presentation sword awarded to Commodore Joshua Barney (1759-1818) by the city of Washington, D.C., for his service at the Battle of Bladensburg, fought on August 24, 1814. Barney, who was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati, […]
Research Services Librarian Rachel Nellis discusses the art of satire and Matthew and Mary Darly, the English husband and wife print shop owners and caricaturists. This Lunch Bite explores the Darly’s careers and focuses on their series of four 1778 prints satirizing the British Carlisle Peace Commission—a failed attempt to negotiate a peace with Congress. […]
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 […]
The Institute’s historical programs manager, Andrew Outten, discusses a pair of holster pistols that was owned by Gen. Nathanael Greene and given to his aide-de-camp, Nathaniel Pendleton, who served under Greene during the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War. The brass box-lock pistols were made about 1782 by William Grice and Charles Freeth of Birmingham, […]
The Institute’s deputy director and curator, Emily Parsons, discusses Dr. James Tilton’s Society of the Cincinnati Eagle insignia and 1813 medical treatise. James Tilton served in the Revolutionary War first as a military physician for the Delaware Regiment and later as a Continental Army hospital physician. During the brutal winter encampment at Morristown in 1779-1780, […]
Museum Collections and Operations Manager Paul Newman discusses a portrait of Capt. Francis Lord Rawdon by Hugh Douglas Hamilton, ca 1777. Lord Rawdon, an Irish-born officer in the British army, saw extensive service in the northern and southern theaters of the Revolutionary War and took part in almost every major battle. This Lunch Bite focuses […]
Library Director Ellen McCallister Clark discusses Benjamin Rush’s Directions for Preserving the Health of Soldiers from our library collections and a feature of our exhibition, Saving Soldiers: Medical Practice in the Revolutionary War. Published in 1778, Directions for Preserving the Health of Soldiers reflected the ambition of physicians as well as American leaders to apply the insights […]
Research Services Librarian Rachel Nellis discusses Mercy Otis Warren’s Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous, published in 1790, that contains two plays and several allegorical or satirical poems on the Revolution that were dedicated to George Washington and praised by Alexander Hamilton.
Historical Programs Manager Andrew Outten discusses a German military jaeger rifle. The soldiers who comprised the German auxiliary forces that supported Great Britain during the Revolutionary War were a formidable foe. They were well trained and highly disciplined. Among these German auxiliaries were specialized corps of light infantry soldiers known as jaegers. With backgrounds as […]
Museum Collections and Operations Manager Paul Newman discusses a portrait of General Sir William Green, Baronet, by George Carter, ca 1784. As the chief engineer for Gibraltar prior to and during the Franco-Spanish siege of the British territory, it was Green who designed, lobbied for and oversaw the construction of greater defenses of the Rock. […]
Librarian Rachel Nellis discusses Herman Mann’s The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady, a 1797 biography of Deborah Sampson, a soldier in the Massachusetts Line and one of the first female pensioners of the American Revolution. Mixing fact with romantic inventions, the book was published to support Deborah’s application for a pension, […]
American loyalist Colonel James DeLancey of Westchester County, New York, who led several loyalist cavalry and infantry units during the American Revolution is the subject of this portrait ca. 1778-1782 attributed to itinerant artist John Durand. Portraits of American loyalists depicted in the uniforms they wore when they fought against the patriot cause are rare. Emily […]
French narratives of the march to Yorktown from the American Revolution Institute’s collection—written by Henri-Dominique de Palys, chevalier de Montrepos, and Robert Guillaume, baron de Dillon—are highlighted in this presentation by Rachel Jirka, an Institute librarian. The narratives detail the French army’s march to Yorktown in 1781 and provide insight into the French experience marching […]