This March brings the 241st Anniversary of the pivotal battle of Guilford Courthouse, NC. While this battle is of immense importance to the Southern Campaign, several smaller battles leading up to it have been largely overlooked. Through February and early March of 1781, detachments of the American and British armies maneuvered across the modern-day counties of Alamance, Guilford, Orange, Chatham, and Caswell. This is the first of a series of three articles.
Having unsuccessfully chased General Nathaniel Greene’s small, ragged army across North Carolina, British forces under Lord Charles Cornwallis moved to the state capital at Hillsborough to announce their liberation of the state and call Loyalists to come forward and support them. Greene’s army retreated across the Dan River into Virginia, where he awaited supplies and reinforcements.
On January 17, 1781, General Daniel Morgan and his mixed force of Continental soldiers and militia defeated the British under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton. This victory for the patriots in northwestern South Carolina had major implications on the southern theater and the main British force under General Lord Charles Cornwallis. The battle, named after the use of the fields in which it was fought, Cowpens, also included one of the only instances in American history of a successful double envelopment.
On Sunday, at 7 p.m. EDT, Emerging Revolutionary War will be joined by American Battlefield Trust’s Kristopher White, Deputy Director of Education and Daniel Davis, Education Manager, in a discussion about the history and preservation of the Battle of Cowpens.
Round out your January weekend by joining us on our Facebook page for this live historian happy hour.
From November 2, 1777 until early-December, General George Washington and the Continental Army occupied a defensive position at White Marsh, approximately 13 miles northwest of Philadelphia. In early December, a series of small skirmishes erupted along the American lines in the last actions of the campaigning season of 1777. Frustrated by Washington’s refusal to emerge from his entrenchments, Sir William Howe led his British columns back to their winter abode in Philadelphia.
Washington moved the army shortly thereafter toward Valley Forge and their winter cantonment, arriving in that vicinity on December 19. As Washington prepared for the winter of 1777-1778 you can also start the preparations to follow this route with Emerging Revolutionary War on the weekend of November 11 – 13, 2022 on the Rise of the American Army: Valley Forge and the Battle of Monmouth Bus Tour. To secure your spot and further information, click here (or the link on the banner at the top of this page).
Our monthly recap of what our good friend and fellow historian Tom Hand has written on his blog, AmericanaCorner.
The Legacy of Paul Revere November 2, 2021
Paul Revere began his famous ride from Boston to Concord, around 11:00pm on April 18, 1775, informing the residents and militiamen that the British were on the march. He arrived in Lexington, a town about 10 miles from Boston, around midnight. Read more here.
Lexington and Concord: Minutemen in Arms November 9, 2021
The Battles of Lexington and Concord, fought on April 19, 1775, marked the start of America’s war for independence from England. The story of that fight is an inspiring account of how everyday Americans came together to resist the power of Great Britain. Read more here.
Lexington and Concord: The Shot Heard Round the World November 16, 2021
The fight between our Minutemen and the British regulars at Lexington was over in a matter of minutes, and the British began the seven-mile march to Concord. By now, reports of the shooting had reached the minutemen in the surrounding area, and they began to assemble. A bad day for the British was about to begin. Read more here.
The Battle of Bunker Hill November 23, 2021
The Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on June 17, 1775, is one of the most iconic and familiar events in American history. It was our first pitched battle against the British army and, although technically a defeat, the efforts of the American militiamen were inspirational. Read more here.
When one thinks of December 1776 in American Revolutionary War history, one’s mind immediately goes to Washington crossing the Delaware River and the Battle of Trenton, fought on December 26th. Historians refer to that engagement as the beginning of the “Ten Crucial Days” that culminated with the American victory at the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777.
However, days prior, American militia under Colonel Samuel Griffin fought an engagement with Hessian troops under the command of Colonel Carl von Donop. The actions occurred on December 22 and 23, 1776. Although the American forces were pushed out of their positions, the end result was the occupation of Bordentown by Donop and his troops, approximately 10 miles from their fellow Hessian comrades at Trenton.
To discuss these engagements, collectively known as the Battle of Iron Works Hill, Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes historian Adam Zelinski to “Rev War Revelry.” Zelinski is a writer and published historian and has worked on various projects with the American Battlefield Trust and the American Revolution Museum in Philadelphia. He will also speak on some exciting news coming out of the Iron Works battlefield too.
Emerging Revolutionary War looks forward to you tuning in, this Sunday, at 7 p.m. EST on our Facebook page as we discuss another component of the 1776 campaign season as we prepare for our inaugural bus tour of the Trenton and Princeton battlefields next month (only 4 tickets left!). If you can’t make it on Sunday night, you will be able to find it later (along with all our videos) on our YouTube page.
On January 3, 1777, George Washington’s forces struck the British outside the town of Princeton, New Jersey. The battle culminated a ten-day period that would be crucial to the survival and eventual victory of American independence.
As Emerging Revolutionary War builds up to the first annual bus tour of the Trenton and Princeton in November, this “Rev War Revelry” will provide some of the background of this engagement. Joining Emerging Revolutionary War on this installment of the “Revelry” will be historian and Princeton Battlefield History Educator Will Krakower.
Join us, this Sunday, at 7pm EST on our Facebook page for this great discussion on the Battle of Princeton and the history around it.
While delegates to the Second Continental Congress debated the matter of Independence in 1776, the British brought the war to Charleston, South Carolina. Defense of the city focused on Fort Sullivan, on Sullivan’s Island at the northern mouth of Charleston Harbor. Major General Henry Clinton, commanding an Army expedition against the Americans, was determined to exploit the fort’s vulnerabilities. He ultimately failed, but his effort, or lack thereof, prompted a British newspaper to craft a little ditty taunting the poor general.
The Star-Spangled Banner and the burning of Washington City are the enduring legacies of the 1814 Chesapeake Campaign. These two events provide contrasting impressions of the American experience in the War of 1812. One conjures up an image of an American flag resiliently flying above Fort McHenry’s ramparts, denying the British entry into Baltimore. The other marks a low point in the American war effort, when politicians fled the nation’s capital followed by British soldiers, who burned many government buildings in the new nation’s capital city.
War along the Chesapeake Bay was not a limited episode in the War of 1812. There, Americans and British soldiers waged a hard and destructive war against one another. They fought pitched battles at Bladensburg and North Point. This campaign, remembered in popular memory for the creation of a national anthem and the burning of a nation’s capital, is more complex than just these two events.
Join Emerging Revolutionary War historians and guest historians John Nathan McDonald and George Best as we discuss the causes, movements, and impact of the 1814 Chesapeake Campaign. So, with your favorite beverage log onto our ERW Facebook page for the next historian happy hour as we discuss the obscure War of 1812 this Sunday, May 30, at 7 pm.
Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Jeremiah DeGennaro, Historic Site Manager for Alamance Battleground
In the summer of 1773, Josiah Quincy made a trip to North Carolina. A well-known lawyer and Son of Liberty in Boston, Quincy headed south with the aim of gauging support for a coming revolution, and establishing correspondence with those who were “warmly attached to the cause of American freedom.” Quincy was received by many of the movers and shakers of North Carolina politics. The same men who hosted him—Cornelius Harnett, William Hooper, Robert Howe, and others—later became influential figures in the American Revolution. But upon his arrival, Quincy was quite curious about a different group of North Carolinians: the Regulators. Years before, this group of poor and middling farmers in backcountry North Carolina organized a grassroots movement that called for an end of government corruption, reformation of the rigged justice system controlled by elite “courthouse rings,” and progressive taxation in which citizens paid according to their wealth. At their peak they had thousands of supporters. Their detractors called it a rebellion. In 1773, it had been less than two years since they had been defeated at the Battle of Alamance by Governor William Tryon and his volunteer militia, the movement abruptly crushed. Quincy must have been curious about the motives of former Regulators as potential allies to what he called the “Cause of America.” How warmly attached to the cause of American freedom were they?
He spoke to three different sources, all with firsthand knowledge of events. He sat through a 3-hour lecture against the Regulators by Robert Howe, who commanded the artillery that devastated the Regulators at Alamance. The next day, Quincy met Colonel William Dry for breakfast. Quincy identified Dry as “a friend to the Regulators…he gave me an entire different account of things.” After hearing a few different accounts of the now-defunct Regulators, Quincy abandoned the topic, noting in his journal: “I am now left to form my own opinion.”
On this date in 1775, an early victory was secured for the American cause along the western shore of Lake Champlain in New York. Led by Colonel Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen, over eighty men surprised and overwhelmed Fort Ticonderoga’s garrison, capturing the strategic stronghold and much needed supplies and cannon for the Americans. On May 22, the Pennsylvania Packet reported on the news received from the north:
On Wednesday evening last arrived here, John Brown, Esq; from Ticonderoga, express to the General Congress, from whom we learn, that on the beginning of this instant, a company of about fifty men, from Connecticut, and the western part of Massachusetts, and joined by upwards of one hundred from Bennington, in New-York government, and the adjacent towns, proceeded to the eastern side of Lake Champlain, and on the night before the 11th current, crossed the Lake, with 85 men, (not being able to obtain craft to transport the rest,) and about daybreak invested the fort, whose gate, contrary to expectation, they found shut, but the wicker open, through which, with the Indian war whoop, all that could, entered one by one, others scaling the wall on both sides of the gate, and instantly secured and disarmed the sentries, and pressed into the parade, where they formed the hollow square; but immediately quitting that order, they rushed into the several barracks on three sides of the fort, and seized on the garrison [commanded by Captain William Delaplace], consisting of two officers, and upwards of forty privates, whom they brought out, disarmed, put under guard, and have since sent prisoners to Hartford, in Connecticut. All this was performed in about ten minutes, without the loss of a life, or a drop of blood on our side, and but very little on that of the King’s troops.
In the fort were found about thirty barrels of flour, a few barrels of pork, seventy odd chests of leaden ball, computed at three hundred tons, about ten barrels of powder in bad condition, near two hundred pieces of ordnances of all sizes, from eighteen pounders downwards, at Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which last place, being held only by a corporal and eight men, falls of course into our hands.
By this sudden expedition, planned by some principal persons in the four neighboring colonies, that important pass is now in the hands of the Americans, where we trust the wisdom of the Grand Continental Congress, will take effectual measures to secure it….
The story of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga is as confusing as it is epic. Arnold, a Connecticut man, held a colonel’s commission to take the fort from the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, but he rode ahead to be part of the action without the men he was ordered to raise for the expedition; and Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys of the Hampshire Grants were anti-New York and in search of their own glory after being asked to join a separately organized assault on the fort by Colonel Edward Mott sanctioned by Connecticut.
Ethan Allen demands the surrender of Fort Ticonderoga in this dramatized illustration. NYPL
The irony of all of this is that each plan formulated by those involved was done entirely without the advice or consent of New York, the very colony whose boundaries the fort was within. This occurred all during the commencement of the Second Continental Congress when New York was still weary of escalating hostilities with the King. Regardless of the awkward and unconcerted circumstances, it is undeniable that the fort’s capture helped secure victory for the Americans during the siege of Boston when fifty-eight pieces of ordnance were transported to assist General Washington in driving the British out of the city. Whether or not Allen heroically demanded Capt. Delaplace to surrender, “In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!” as is remembered (he almost definitely did not), is an entirely different question.
Emerging Revolutionary War Era 