Historical Program Videos

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…

Throughout the punishing winter at Valley Forge, Gen. George Washington preserved the Continental Army while also forging it into an effective fighting force. This achievement not only reflected military leadership but also deft political action that allowed the commander-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…

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…

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…

With a smallpox epidemic raging during the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington was forced to order the mandatory inoculation of the Continental Army. Washington, however, did not have to convince fearful colonists to protect themselves against smallpox—they were the…

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…

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…

Following its catastrophic defeat in the Seven Years’ War, the French military undertook a comprehensive series of reforms affecting everything from warship design to soldiers’ uniforms, which dramatically altered the army’s appearance. This uniform provided unheard-of amenities for…

“Fake news” is nothing new. Just like millions of Americans today, the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century worried that they were entering a “post-truth” era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on…

Drawing from his book, An Empire on the Edge, a 2015 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History, historian Nick Bunker delivers the annual George Rogers Clark lecture and re-examines the Boston Tea Party and the onset of the…

Women participated in the American Revolution in complex and varied ways, and the Revolution transformed their place in the new nation. This panel discussion convenes several contributors to a new anthology, Women Waging War in the American Revolution, and will…

George Washington, hero of the French and Indian War, commander in chief of the Continental Army and first president of the United States, died on December 14, 1799. Shortly thereafter, the myth-making surrounding Washington began and has persisted today…

At the start of the Revolutionary War, independence had its limits as patriots were surrounded by indigenous peoples and loyalists throughout the northern regions that straddled the colonial borders, and these foreign neighbors were far from inactive during the Revolution…

Historian Christian McBurney discusses the harrowing voyage of the Marlborough, an American privateer vessel that sailed across the Atlantic to attack British slave trading posts and ships on the coast of West Africa during the Revolutionary War. His new ground…

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…

Alongside the surgeons and physicians, the medical care of the thousands of sick and wounded Continental soldiers relied upon the tireless work of army nurses, camp followers, housewives, cooks, laundresses and local families. In contrast to the voluminous records of…

During the Revolutionary War, the Habsburg monarchy, the largest continental European power of the eighteenth century, never formally recognized the United States, but its ruling and mercantile elites saw opportunity, especially for commerce. Bringing together materials from nearly fifty international…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In this new history of the Continental Army’s Grand Forage of 1778, award-winning military historian Ricardo A. Herrera uncovers what daily life was like for soldiers during the darkest and coldest days of the American Revolution: the Valley…

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…

Disease was a major part of everyday life in the American colonies, especially during the Revolutionary War. For every soldier dying of wounds in the war, seven died of infections including smallpox, malaria and typhus. Doctors were influenced by ancient…

On June 9, 1772, a group of prominent Rhode Islanders rowed out to the British schooner Gaspee, which had run aground six miles south of Providence while on an anti-smuggling patrol. After threatening and shooting its commanding officer, the…

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…

Between 1776 and 1783, Great Britain hired an estimated thirty thousand German soldiers to fight in its war against the American rebels. Collectively known as Hessians, the soldiers and accompanying civilians, including hundreds of women and children, spent extended periods…

The American Revolution was a watershed in the principles of government between centuries of monarchical and aristocratic rule and free societies based on moral principles that shaped the Revolutionary ideal of universal equality. Professor Thompson, author of America’s Revolutionary…

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…

Dr. Joseph Warren, a respected physician and architect of the Revolutionary movement, was one of the most important figures in early American history—and might have gone on to lead the country had he not been killed at Bunker Hill…

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…

In 1775, the British army seethed within Boston as the Continental Army besieged the city, compelling thousands of civilians to flee to the surrounding countryside. General George Washington and the Massachusetts Provincial Congress coordinated efforts to support the influx of…

Charles Cornwallis was a leading figure in late eighteenth-century Great Britain. His career spanned the American War of Independence, Irish Union, the French Revolutionary Wars and the building of the second British Empire in India. Focusing on the first…

By October 1777, British forces occupied Philadelphia. Yet an elaborate American defense of the Delaware River crippled the British supply lines and threatened their ability to hold the city.  Historian Jim Mc Intyre discusses the massive effort by the Crown…

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…

Action at sea played a critical role in European and Anglo-American conflicts throughout the eighteenth century. Yet the oft-told narrative of the American Revolution tends to focus on battles on American soil or the debates and decisions of…

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…

Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. As Hannah Farber demonstrates in her new book Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding, the…

George Washington and his Continental Army braving the frigid winter at Valley Forge forms an iconic image in the popular history of the American Revolution. Such winter camps were also a critical factor in waging and winning the War of…

George Washington and his cabinet issued the Neutrality Proclamation in 1793 to shield the United States from European warfare. This proclamation owed its existence to numerous sources, including Washington’s military experiences and European diplomatic precedents. A lesser known, but…

Who can doubt that the creation story of our founding in the American Revolution remains valid, vivid and thrilling? Even in 2021, at a moment when national unity is elusive, when our partisan rancor seems ever more toxic, when the…

For most of the eighteenth century, British Protestantism was driven neither by the primacy of denominations nor by fundamental discord between them. Instead, it thrived as part of a complex transatlantic system that bound religious institutions to imperial politics. As…

Years before shots rang out at Lexington and Concord, backcountry settlers in the North Carolina Piedmont launched their own defiant bid for economic independence and political liberty. The Regulator Rebellion of 1766-1771 arose from the conflict created by competing…

In January 1785, a young African American woman named Elizabeth was put on board the Lucretia in New York Harbor, bound for Charleston, where she would be sold to her fifth master in just twenty-two years. Leaving behind a…

The American Revolution marked the beginning of an age of democratic revolutions that swept over France and challenged the old order throughout the Atlantic world. The French officers who served in the American War of Independence, whether as idealistic volunteers…

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…

The first president is remembered for leading the Continental Army to victory, presiding over the Constitutional Convention and forging a new nation, but less well known is the story of his involvement in the establishment of a capital city and…

Serena Zabin, professor of history and director of the American studies program at Carleton College, discusses her book on the personal and political conflicts that erupted in the Boston Massacre. Following the British troops dispatched from Ireland to Boston in…

Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections and constitutional challenges—and finding congressional help lacking—George Washington decided he needed a group of advisors. Washington modeled his new cabinet on the councils of war he had led as commander of the…

What is the place of the American Revolution in the future we are making?

In this lecture presented in the North Carolina Museum of History’s American Revolution Lecture Series (sponsored by the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati), the…

Executive Director Jack Warren discusses America’s First Veterans, a book published by the American Revolution Institute of the Society of the Cincinnati. Using eighty-five manuscripts, rare books, prints, broadsides, paintings and other artifacts, America’s First Veterans introduces…

David and Ginger Hildebrand perform eighteenth-century songs—including ballads, marches, and songs inspired by women—in costume with period instruments for our 2020 Independence Day concert. The Hildebrands have performed for our traditional “Second Day of July” concert for…

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…

Mary Beth Norton discusses her book, 1774: The Long Year of Revolution, analyzing the revolutionary change that took place between December 1773 and April 1775—from the Boston Tea Party to the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In those months…

Prisoners of war presented an enormous challenge for patriot forces during the American Revolution. Patriots captured more than seventeen thousand enemy soldiers during the war. At times the prisoners in American hands outnumbered the Continental Army. At the outset of…

For Veterans Day 2019, the Institute presented an examination of the experiences of American veterans from the Revolutionary generation to our own time. Held in conjunction with our exhibition America’s First Veterans, the program opened with remarks from Secretary…

Aid sent by Louis XVI tipped the scales in favor of a Patriot victory in the War for American Independence. However, this assistance was far from assured. John Hardman argues that the French monarch possessed sharp political insight and talent…

Christy Pichichero illustrates how the French Enlightenment philosophies of foreign officers in the American Revolution informed their perspective of American customs. Selecting the marquis de Chastellux and the comte de Rochambeau—whose memoirs are a part of the Institute’s…

John Buchanan discusses his book about the dramatic conclusion of the American Revolution in the South led by Major General Nathanael Greene. Greene’s Southern Campaign was the most difficult of the war. Insufficient manpower a constant problem, Greene attempted…

Daniel Morgan, one of America’s greatest battlefield commanders, arose from humble beginnings. Following a fight with his father, Morgan left home as an illiterate teenage laborer. Through ambition, determination and a great deal of luck, he became a landowner…

Patrick Spero examines the overlooked conflict between the Black Boys of Pennsylvania, Native American forces and the British Empire prior to the American Revolution. As the Stamp Act riled eastern seaports, frontiersmen clashed with the British Empire over another issue…

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…

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…

Kathleen DuVal illuminates the American Revolution on the Spanish borderlands—recounting clashes between the Spanish and British forces over the territory along the Gulf of Mexico. The capture of Mobile and the Siege of Pensacola were critical to the outcome…

Four scholars who contributed to Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is Restaging America’s Past dissect the musical’s phenomenon and what it means for our understanding of America’s past. Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning…

The Hamilton-Burr duel has become one of the most infamous altercations in U.S. history.  Officers in the Revolutionary War and original members of the Society of the Cincinnati—Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr squared off in Weehawken, New…

George Washington’s Farewell Address is an essential document for the Republic. Its message, a “warning from a parting friend,” remains starkly relevant to a modern audience. By the end of his second term, President Washington was viciously attacked in…

Andrew Pickens (1739–1817) was the hero of many American Revolution victories against British and Loyalist forces. Rod Andrew vividly depicts the hard-fighting South Carolina militia commander founding churches, acquiring slaves, struggling over Indian territorial boundaries on the southern…

“Was the American Revolution inevitable?” is a complex question posed by Robert Allison in the 2017 George Rogers Clark Lecture. The achievement of independence hinged upon the cooperation of colonists from diverse backgrounds to unite in a common cause. The…

Rachel Engl charts social community—the ways individuals initiated and maintained casual and intimate relationships—in the Continental Army. Over the course of the Revolutionary War, tens of thousands of men served in the Continental Army, many of whom formed…

Col. Isaac Hayne was hung for treason on August 4, 1781, in Charleston, South Carolina, by the British army. The death of a patriot for the cause of liberty was not a unique occurrence, but the unusually well-documented events…

Andrew O’Shaughnessy argues that the drive to centralize control over its growing empire led Britain to adopt authoritarian policies to govern its American colonies and was one of the main causes of the American Revolution. Britain’s North American…

The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War unfolds a vignette from the beginning of the American Revolution. In the early spring of 1775, British army spies located four brass cannon belonging to Boston’s colonial…

American prisoners in the revolutionary South held captive by the British forces were a logistical and financial burden that contributed to their failure in the South. During the Siege of Charleston in 1780, British forces under General Sir Henry Clinton…

Prints of an imagined George Washington circulated around the country in the late eighteenth century as Americans yearned for images of their new leaders. At the start of the Revolutionary War, almost any fictitious image could pass as a portrait…

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…

Global migration of American Loyalists following the Revolutionary War is a topic easily overlooked by scholars and educators as they trace the path of the victorious Patriot forces. However, at the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal…

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 epic march to Yorktown undertaken by the French and patriot forces was the largest troop movement in the Revolutionary War. From 1781-1782 French forces marched under the command of the comte de Rochambeau to and from Yorktown, alongside…

The experience of young soldiers in the Revolutionary War was shaped by their drive to achieve personal independence and autonomy. The war offered an entire generation of young men unusual opportunities for social advancement, honor and distinction, but diverted those…

In British America in 1776, there were twenty-six, not thirteen colonies—the majority of the colonies outside the mainland were in the Caribbean. Even though they shared many important similarities and connections with the mainland colonies, they did not…

In March of 1783, the Newburgh Conspiracy threatened to derail the fragile calm at the end of the Revolutionary War. The rumors of peace after Yorktown brought anxiety to soldiers in the Continental Army. The Continental Congress had not paid…

Dennis Conrad recounts the significant alterations the Continental Navy underwent during the American Revolution in the spring of 1778. Naval warfare in the Revolutionary War took place in the Atlantic and beyond—stretching as far away as the Mediterranean Sea…

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…

The Revolutionary War portraits that adorn the U.S. Capitol serve a purpose beyond artistic decoration. In the early nineteenth century, Americans searched for icons to unite them as a new nation, particularly ones that evoked civic virtue. The only…

The American Revolution was a home-front war that brought scarcity, bloodshed and danger into the life of every American, women included. While men left to fight, women shouldered greater responsibility as they maintained their farms alone and tried to…

In addition to objecting to taxation without representation, Bostonians protested the Tea Act of 1773 in part because it forced them to pay a tax on top of the monopoly prices set by the East India Company. They also opposed…

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…

Gordon Wood examines the virtues of George Washington that aided the Chief Commander of the Continental Army and first President of the United States to shape the young country. Wood highlights Washington’s concerns with his reputation—citing his letters…

Why did the British government pass the Stamp Act, the Townshend Duties, the Tea Act and the Intolerable Acts? Why did they pass a series of measures seemingly calculated to offend and provoke North American colonists? These measures cannot be…

Did events in the Massachusetts colony make the American Revolution inevitable? The people of Massachusetts had more power over their own government than anyone else in the British empire. As the British crown raised taxes on American goods and soldiers…

The American Revolution in the South is neglected in many accounts of the period, Walter Edgar explains, but it involved some of the most vicious battles and intense partisan struggles of the entire war. The British failed in their first…

The ratification of the Constitution is usually treated as an afterthought. There are dozens of books about the Federal Convention, and history textbooks conventionally deal with debates in the convention, but few studies deal with the critical process through which…