Watch & Learn Online

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

In this short video, 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…

Mary Beth Norton, the Mary Donlon Alger Professor Emerita of American History at Cornell University, discusses her new book analyzing the revolutionary change that took place between December 1773 and April 1775—from the Boston Tea Party and the first…

T. Cole Jones, assistant professor of history at Purdue University, discusses his book examining the ways the revolutionary generation dealt with the more than seventeen thousand enemy soldiers captured during the war. The number of enemy prisoners in American custody…

For Veterans Day in 2019, the Institute presents an examination of the experiences of American veterans since the revolutionary generation, held in conjunction with the exhibition America’s First Veterans. The program opens with remarks from Secretary of Veterans Affairs…

Professor John Hardman, former lecturer in modern history at the University of Edinburgh and biographer of King Louis XVI, presents the 2019 George Rogers Clark Lecture on the king’s decision to support the American War for Independence. Louis, he…

Christy Pichichero, associate professor at George Mason University and the 2015 Tyree-Lamb Fellow of the American Revolution Institute, discusses her work on war and the Enlightenment in the context of French experiences during the American Revolution. French officers such…

Historian John Buchanan discusses his long-awaited sequel to The Road to Guilford Courthouse that brings the story of the war in the South to its dramatic conclusion. Nathanael Greene’s Southern Campaign was the most difficult of the war…

Author and historian Albert Zambone discusses his book, Daniel Morgan: A Revolutionary Life. Dr. Zambone speaks about the decisions that shaped Daniel Morgan, a homeless, illiterate teenage laborer who, with ambition, determination and a great deal of luck, became a…

The American Revolution was shaped by clashing ideas about the future of the West and who should control it. As the Stamp Act riled eastern seaports, frontiersmen clashed with the British Empire over another issue: Indian relations. When British officials…

Portraits of American loyalists depicted in the uniforms they wore when they fought against the patriot cause are rare. Emily Parsons discusses a recently acquired oil painting of Colonel James DeLancey of Westchester County, New York, who led several loyalist…

Battlefield clean-up is a topic rarely covered by modern historians. However, following almost any military engagement, corpses need to be buried. Who disposed of these corpses and how can we tell who buried whom? Were officers and other ranks…

Lexington, Valley Forge and Yorktown are familiar, but few Americans have ever heard of the capture of Mobile or the Siege of Pensacola—events that were critical to the outcome of the Revolutionary War, the future of the American South…

Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning musical, has become so popular that it is being used to teach U.S. history in classrooms across the country. But just how historically accurate is Hamilton? And how is the show itself…

Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought the most famous duel in U.S. history on July 11, 1804. Both were original members of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of veteran officers of the Revolutionary War that Hamilton led…

Andrew Pickens (1739–1817), the hard-fighting South Carolina militia commander of the American Revolution, was the hero of many victories against British and Loyalist forces. Rod Andrew, Jr., vividly depicts Pickens as he founds churches, acquires slaves, joins the…

The American colonies broke with the British empire in 1776, but could they remain united even as they fought in a common cause? The people in the colonies had profound differences—religious, social, political and economic—that surfaced in local…

Over the course of the Revolutionary War, tens of thousands of men served in the Continental Army, many of whom formed strong friendships while fighting. Personal connections sustained men within the Continental Army and helped to open new opportunities for…

On August 4, 1781, in Charleston, South Carolina, the British army hanged Col. Isaac Hayne for treason. The death of a patriot in the cause of liberty was not a unique occurrence, but, as historian C.L. Bragg uncovers, the…

Great Britain provoked the American Revolution by pursuing increasingly authoritarian policies to centralize control over its North American colonies. These colonists, fearful of the Crown’s similarly harsh treatment of the Irish, rebelled against the tyranny that likely followed for…

In the early spring of 1775, British army spies located four brass cannon belonging to Boston’s colonial militia that had gone missing months before. British general Thomas Gage drew up plans to regain the weapons, while the Massachusetts patriots…

During the Siege of Charleston in 1780, British forces under General Sir Henry Clinton and Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot captured nearly six thousand American troops, the largest number of prisoners taken during a single operation of the Revolutionary War. Mr. Borick…

At the start of the Revolutionary War, almost any fictitious image could pass as a portrait of an American hero, but George Washington as commander-in-chief warranted extra efforts. American printmakers searched for an accurate likeness of Washington throughout…

Archaeologist Meg Watters discusses the latest discoveries by her team at the site of Parker’s Revenge, the scene of intense fighting between the retreating British and militia on April 19, 1775. A little is known about the fight from…

At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Loyalists traveled to Canada, they sailed for Britain, they journeyed to the Bahamas and…

Ms. Jirka shares two manuscript narratives of the French army’s march to Yorktown in 1781 from the library collections of the American Revolution Institute, written by Henri-Dominique de Palys, chevalier de Montrepos, and Robert Guillaume, baron de Dillon…

Robert Selig traces the epic 1781-1782 march of French forces under the comte de Rochambeau to and from Yorktown, alongside their American allies led by George Washington, as they traveled from Newport, Rhode Island, and West Point, New York…

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…

There were twenty-six colonies, not thirteen, in British America in 1776, and 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…

Rumors of peace after Yorktown brought anxiety to soldiers in the Continental Army. Congress had not paid them for some time, and they would soon return home, many impoverished. The soldiers had sacrificed prime years of their lives in the…

Several important changes in the nature of naval warfare during the American Revolution occurred in the spring of 1778, including the internationalization of the naval war, an increase in the number and effectiveness of Loyalist privateers in American waters, and…

In the early nineteenth century, Americans searched for icons to unite them as a new nation, particularly ones that evoked civic virtue. The only symbols that the fractured and growing nation could agree on were Revolutionary War heroes. Ms. Elliott…

The American War of Independence 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…

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

The British failed in their attempt to suppress the American Revolution in the South in 1776 but returned in 1778 to capture Savannah. In 1780 they took Charleston and launched a campaign to crush the Revolution in the Carolinas and…

The 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia closed with a difficult undertaking ahead of the delegates. The new government could only take effect if nine states ratified the proposed constitution. The men, who had met in closed sessions and exceeded the…