Congress Creates the Marine Corps, November 10, 1775

On By Eric SternerIn 1775, America 250, Armies, Continental Congress, Memory, Navy, UncategorizedLeave a comment
The Commission of Captain Samuel Nicholas, the first American Marine. (USMC)

Today marks the 250th birthday of the Marine Corps. November 10, 1775 was a milestone in the creation of American naval power, but the birthday story is a little more complicated.

The Continental Congress resolved to create a navy under its auspices on October 13, 1775, but much work remained to build American naval power to a point where it might serve a strategic purpose.  Individual colonies had already begun creating naval forces and George Washington had leased ships under the army’s authority.  Thus, the resolution served as more of milestone on a long road, rather than a fresh beginning.  

On October 30, the Continental Congress considered the reports of its naval committee and confirmed recommendations for two vessels of 14 and 10 guns.  Moreover, it resolved to add two more ships to its burgeoning navy, one of 20 guns and one carrying up to 36 guns.  It also added four new members to the naval committee, bringing it to a total of seven.  Stephen Hopkins (RI), Joseph Hewes (NC), Richard Henry Lee (VA), and John Adams (MA) joined John Langdon (NH), Silas Deane (CT), and Christopher Gadsden (SC).[1]  On November 2, Congress gave the naval committee authority to call on the treasury for up to $100,000 to acquire a navy and delegated to the committee the authority to recruit officers and seamen, offering them prize money in the amount of one-half the value of all warships and one-third the value of transports made prizes.[2]  It also took up a petition from a Committee of Safety in Passamaquoddy, Nova Scotia to join the association represented by the Continental Congress.  Naturally, Congress appointed a committee—Silas Deane, John Jay, Stephen Hopkins, John Langdon, and John Adams to consider the matter.  The naval expansion and Passamaquoddy petition sparked a new round of thinking about American naval power.

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“Void of Common Sense” George Washington and Guy Fawkes Day, 1775

On By Rob OrrisonIn 1775, America 2501 Comment

In November 1775, as the American colonies were deep in rebellion against Britain, General George Washington faced not only the British army but also the task of shaping a new American identity. One revealing moment came on November 5, 1775, when Washington, then commander-in-chief of the Continental Army, issued an order forbidding his soldiers from celebrating Guy Fawkes Day, also known as Pope’s Day in colonial New England. This event—often overlooked in histories of the Revolution—offers insight into Washington’s leadership, his moral sensibilities, and his vision for the cause of American independence.

Guy Fawkes Night at Windsor Castle, 1775

Guy Fawkes Day had long been an English and colonial holiday commemorating the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Catholic conspirator Guy Fawkes attempted to blow up Parliament and assassinate King James I. In Protestant England and its colonies, November 5 became a day of noisy anti-Catholic demonstrations, bonfires, and the burning of effigies of the Pope and Fawkes. In Boston and other colonial towns, rival street gangs—often from the North and South Ends—would parade effigies, fight, and engage in destructive celebrations. It was, in short, a day of raucous Protestant triumphalism and sectarian hatred.

By 1775, however, the American Revolution had changed the stakes. The Continental Army, drawn from thirteen diverse colonies, was fighting not merely as British subjects in revolt but as Americans united against tyranny. Washington recognized that this unity could not rest on religious prejudice. Moreover, the colonies were seeking crucial support from Catholic France and from Catholic Canadians in Quebec. Anti-Catholic displays risked alienating potential allies. Thus, on November 5, 1775, Washington issued a General Order that firmly condemned the planned festivities.

John Fitzgerald, an Irish Catholic immigrated to Alexandria in 1773. He became good friends with Washington and like many other Catholics, provided great service to Washington. For a time he served as an aide-de-camp to Washington.

Washington’s order read, in part, that “at such a juncture, and in such circumstances, to be insulting their religion is so monstrous, as not to be suffered or excused.” He called on his troops to remember that “we are contending for the rights of mankind” and that the cause required dignity and respect for all faiths. The general’s tone combined moral rebuke with strategic foresight. By discouraging Pope’s Day, he sought to replace narrow sectarian loyalties with a broader, inclusive patriotism.

This moment also reflects Washington’s character and leadership style. He understood the importance of discipline and order in an army composed largely of volunteers. The elimination of destructive, drunken celebrations helped reinforce his insistence on professionalism. But more importantly, Washington saw the American cause as grounded in universal principles of liberty and justice—principles incompatible with the kind of bigotry Pope’s Day embodied.

In retrospect, Washington’s handling of Guy Fawkes Day in 1775 stands as an early statement of religious tolerance in American political life. His decision to forbid anti-Catholic celebrations prefigured later American commitments to freedom of conscience and the separation of church and state. What might have seemed a minor disciplinary order was, in fact, a symbolic act of leadership: it transformed an old English custom of division into an American lesson in unity. Through it, Washington began to shape not just an army, but a nation.

Early Preservation at Fort Ticonderoga

On By erwguestIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, Emerging Revolutionary War, French and Indian War, Preservation, Revolutionary War1 Comment

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Evan Portman

Most historians credit Ann Pamela Cunningham with kickstarting the historic preservation movement with her purchase of Mount Vernon in 1858. However, preservation of historic sites began long before the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. In fact, the storied walls of Fort Ticonderoga became the object of a preservation movement 38 years before the Ladies’ Association purchased George Washington’s ancestral home.

Fort Ticonderoga—known as the Gibraltar of North America—played an integral role in both the French and Indian War and the American Revolution. The fort was originally constructed by the French in 1755 on a portage known to the Iroquois as ticonderoga, meaning a “land between two waters.” Fort Carillon, as it was known to the French, stood strategically between Lake Champlain and Lake George, thereby controlling both the Hudson River Valley and St. Lawrence River Valley. On July 8, 1758, an outnumbered French army successfully defended the fort against British forces in the bloodiest battle of the French and Indian War.[1] However, the following year British General Jeffery Amherst captured the fort and renamed it Fort Ticonderoga.[2]

By the American Revolution, the fort had fallen into disrepair but was still guarded by a small British garrison. In 1775, it was the scene of one of the most famous dramas in American history. On May 10, Col. Benedict Arnold and Col. Ethan Allen led a combined force of the Green Mountain Boys and Massachusetts and Connecticut militiamen across Lake Champlain to capture the fort. “Come out you old Rat!” Allen famously cried to the fort’s commander, Capt. William Delaplace, and demanded he surrender the garrison “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.”[3] Delaplace agreed, and Ticonderoga quickly fell into American hands.

Continue reading “Early Preservation at Fort Ticonderoga” →

Coming Soon: Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution

On By Chris MackowskiIn Uncategorized1 Comment

We’re excited to share a sneak-peak of our next upcoming title in the Emerging Revolutionary War Series, published by Savas Beatie:

About the Book:

“The man to whom the country is most indebted for the great measure of independence is Mr. John Adams…. I call him the Atlas of American independence.”

So attested one of the delegates to the Second Continental Congress, moved to support independence after months of angst, indecision, dithering, and fear. Thomas Jefferson called Adams “our colossus on the floor,” arguing with power, passion, and persuasive force of reason why America needed to take the extraordinary step to break from the British Empire and set up an independent nation.

Born of humble means outside Boston, Massachusetts, Adams’s work ethic led him to become one of the colony’s most successful attorneys. Yet he burned with a powerful ambition and yearned for more. “I never shall shine, till some animating Occasion calls forth all my Powers,” he fretted.

Festering tension in Boston with British soldiers and taxation and trade policies—tension that spread across all thirteen colonies—provided the occasion Adam longed for, and soon he found himself at the center of the storm, thrust onto the national stage where all his “Powers” transformed him into the intellectual architect of American independence. Perhaps more than any other American, he rose to the historical moment, urging his contemporaries into the unknown future.

But his efforts came at tremendous cost: long separations from his beloved children and “dearest friend” and wife, Abigail, who forged for herself a role as long-distance political counselor even as she managed affairs on the family farm in a way nearly unprecedented for 18th century America.

“The times alone have destined me to fame,” Adams wrote. Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution offers a reader-friendly overview of Adams’s seminal role in that tumultuous Founding time.

About the Author:

Chris Mackowski, Ph.D., is a writing professor in St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication. He is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Emerging Civil War and advisory editor for Emerging Revolutionary War.

He has written, co-written, or edited more than thirty books.

Rev War Revelry: Lafayette Returns

On By Kevin PawlakIn Rev War RevelryLeave a comment

Join us for our next ERW Revelry on November 2 at 7 pm with author and historian Elizabeth Reese as we delve into her book, Marquis de Lafayette Returns: A Tour of America’s National Capital Region. Reese’s book explores the farewell tour of the beloved Revolutionary War hero, the Marquis de Lafayette, and his journey through Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland during his grand return to the United States in 1824–1825.

In Marquis de Lafayette Returns, Reese traces Lafayette’s final visit to the young United States. Amid a contentious election season, Lafayette was embraced by Americans as a living link to the Revolution—a symbol of the ideals for which they strived.

Elizabeth Reese is a Maryland native who has spent more than a decade interpreting history at sites like Hamilton Grange National Memorial and the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center. Her writing has appeared in TIME, The New York Times, the Journal of the American Revolution, and her talks have been featured on C-SPAN. She currently serves as Senior Manager of Public Programs & Interpretation at Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House and is completing her M.A. in American History from Gettysburg College.

This Revelry is pre-recorded and will be posted to our Facebook page at 7pm on November 2, 2025. It will then be posted to our Spotify and You Tube Channels.

Book Review: War Without Mercy: Liberty or Death in the American Revolution by Mark Edward Lender and James Kirby Martin (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2025).

On By Eric SternerIn Armies, Book Review, Campaigns, Revolutionary War1 Comment

War Without Mercy: Liberty or Death in the American Revolution by Mark Edward Lender and the late James Kirby Martin is an enlightening and innovative look at violence and norms during the American Revolution.  The authors waste no time getting to the point: they want to know why the war reached a point in which seemingly boundless levels of violence were embraced by all sides without regard to emerging standards of international law nominally intended to govern the use of force in warfare, collectively referred to as jus in bello, a Latin phrase essentially referring to the legal conduct of a war or justice in war.  (Jus ad bellum refers to the legality of initiating a war.  Collectively, they are key components of just war theory.  Lender and Martin focus on jus in bello, particularly as it refers to legal or moral constraints on violence.)

                  War Without Mercy lays out the basic concepts of jus in bello as it was understood in the late 18thcentury.  While historians often attribute the origins of modern international law to Hugo Grotius, Lender and Martin take Emer de Vattel’s landmark 1758 work “The Law of Nations” as the baseline text relevant to the American Revolution.  Vattel offered limits on the conduct of military operations, clearly delineating concepts such as combatants, non-combatants, and proportionality.  In general, he tried to narrow the scope of war so that it remained the domain of organized governments and outside the domain of broader society.  Elites on both sides of the Atlantic had often read Vattel’s work, or were at least familiar with the ideas it contained, and War Without Mercy demonstrates that many of them sought to honor its principles, for moral, professional, and practical reasons.  

                  That said, Lender and Martin argue that violence committed outside of the purview of elite-led revolutionary governments and the Continental Army (usually) characterized the war.  The vast majority of fighting during the American Revolution occurred in small battles, skirmishes, and raids that resembled mob and gang violence directed at people out of uniform more than organized martial conduct.  In that context, it routinely violated concepts of jus in bello.   In addition to outlining earlier studies making that case, War Without Mercy examines the war in New Jersey, the western theater, the New York frontier, and the south.  While those regions saw significant battles or campaigns, the day-to-day war was fought between small units of militia or irregulars with an occasional admixture of regulars or Continentals.  In each case, Lender and Martin examine the escalation of events over the course of the war and the reasons each side tended toward “existential warfare,” essentially, war to the death in which the alternative to victory was total destruction. Given such high stakes, any constraints on means were self-defeating.  No combatants could run the risk of losing the war by being charitable towards their enemies.  Outrage sparked outrage.  Thus, violence escalated like a ratchet as each side retaliated for perceived wrongs.  It was a possibility several prominent patriots recognized before the fighting began.  Indeed, James Lovell predicted it in his 1771 speech commemorating the Boston Massacre.  War Without Mercy attributes the beginning of the cycle to the rebels, who quickly turned to intimidation, the threat of violence, and outright violence to silence loyalists and establish local political control as British colonial government collapsed.

                  One chapter examines Benedict Arnold’s raid on New London, CT.  Lender and Martin consider the offensive and the Battle of Groton Heights, as the assault on Fort Griswold defending the River Thames was known, in the context of jus in bello.  In general, despite the destruction of New London and the bloody results at Fort Griswold, they find the raid consistent with Vattel’s law of war.  As a major privateering base, New London made itself a legitimate target of war and Arnold strove to limit damage to private property that did not contribute to the American war effort.  The bloodletting at Fort Griswold was more the result of the fog of war, weak command and control, and the natural challenges of suddenly attempting to restrain men in the midst of intense combat.  The New London raid, however, does demonstrate the blurring of lines between combatant and non-combatant, legitimate and non-legitimate objects of military operations, under the doctrine of jus in bello, as the war progressed and intensified.  Lender and Martin liken it to the difficult decisions facing RAF Bomber Command during World War II, when it shifted from ineffective attempts to bomb specific targets to area bombing.

                  War Without Mercy is a must read.  Revolutionary War library shelves are rife with biographies, battle studies, and political narratives.   Fewer books place the American Revolution in the wider study of warfare and its evolution.  By considering the war in the context of emerging principles of jus in bello and the rapid escalation to existential warfare, Lender and Martin are bringing a new analytical perspective to the study of the American Revolution.  It’s a vital interpretation of the war’s nature.

William Billings: Patriot, composer, leather-tanner

On By erwguestIn Civilian, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian David Stowe.

William Billings looked like an oaf, wrote poetry, snuffed small fistfuls of tobacco in company, taught himself to write music, was a street-cleaner, was an artist.

-David McKay and Richard Crawford, William Billings of Boston (1980)

I knew I wanted to write a book about William Billings. I just wasn’t sure which kind would be possible. I’ve been writing about the quirky Boston composer since my second book, How Sweet the Sound (2004) and always find more to say about him. His colorful adaptation of a Hebrew psalm to the American Revolutionary cause helped fuel my interest in what became Song of Exile: The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137 (2016).

So how did I come to write a historical novel about him? 

Partly because I came to the end of my sources and didn’t have nearly enough to tell the story I thought he deserved. There were many parts of Billings’s experience, including the most important ones, I’d never have access to. But his life was too rich and interesting to leave alone. So I was left with no choice but to make it up.

There were some other, possibly better reasons. One had to do with audience. 

Continue reading “William Billings: Patriot, composer, leather-tanner” →

An Englishman’s Journal of the Revolutionary War: The Journals of Nicholas Cresswell 1774-1777

On By erwguestIn 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, Civilian, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Revolutionary War2 Comments

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Kenneth Bancroft

“Nothing but War is talked of…This cannot be redressing grievances, it is open rebellion…”1

250 years ago on October 20, 1775 a 25 year old Englishman wrote these words in Alexandria, Virginia, noting that “everything is in confusion…soon they will declare Independence.”2.Nicholas Cresswell had arrived in America a year and a half prior to that entry in a journal that he kept to chronicle his venture to “shape his course in the world” and set up a new life inVirginia, “as I like the situation of that Colony the best.”3 He was aware of grumblings from colonials, but his focus was on land and his adventure had him traveling and trading with the Native Americans in the Ohio country and experiencing the slave culture in the colonies, especially the horrific sugar plantations in Barbados.

But what his journal is most known for is his observations and critique of the revolutionary world from Virginia to New York in 1774 through 1777. Cresswell’s misfortune, among others, was that he arrived in America seeking opportunity just as the Imperial Crisis over the Intolerable Acts had began. News of, and reaction to the closure of the port of Boston frequently disrupted his schemes and social life. As an Englishman still loyal to the Crown, his Revolutionary War journal offers a unique outsider look at the costs of the conflict in the country and towns as opposed to the more common tomes of soldier life.

“No prospect of getting home this winter, as I am suspected of being a Spy.”4 Cresswell’s tenure in America was tenuous. Unsuccessful in trying to establish himself with land and basically broke, he blamed his misfortune on the “Liberty Mad”5 political climate that considered him a ‘Tory’ who would not commit to the cause. His penchant for getting into drunken political arguments did not help and kept getting him in trouble with local Committees of Safety.

“Am determined to make my escape the first opportunity.”6 By that point Cresswell knew it was time to forgo his quest and return to England, but the question was how, especially with non- importation measures and the war closing ports. What followed next for Cresswell was an amazing account of encounters with revolutionary notables and locations such as Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and British General Howe in Philadelphia, Williamsburg, and New York respectively. Ultimately, Cresswell was able to secure passage back to England where he reluctantly picked up where he left off by order of his father to “shear or bind corn.”7

1 Nicholas Cresswell, The Journals of Nicholas Cresswell, 1774-1777, (North Charleston, South Carolina: reprinted 2024), 97.

2 Ibid, 97.

3 Ibid, 3.

4 Ibid, 101.

5 Ibid, 47.

6 Ibid, 143.

7 Ibid, 214.

The Journals of Nicholas Cresswell was first published in 1924 and offers a candid account of the American Revolution from a viewpoint not typically explored. Its accounts of mustering militia, salt shortages, political pulpits, and anti-Tory riots and fights add color to our revolutionary origins. Add to that Cresswell’s experiences with the Native Americans in the Ohio country and the plantations in Barbados which further inform our understanding of our colonial past. Join Cresswell’s journey! To read more about Cresswell’s journey click here. The blog is an online platform and resource to follow his daily posts as they occurred 250 years ago. Keyword search features and research links are featured as well. Follow along on Facebook, too, at Nicholas Cresswell Journals.

Sovereign Love: Remembering Major Andre

On By erwguestIn British Leadership, Civilian, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Revolutionary War, Social HistoryLeave a comment

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Avellina Balestri

As I have increased research and work on my American Revolution trilogy All Ye That Pass By, I have noticed a trend towards making this particular season between the anniversary of Nathan Hale’s hanging (September 22, 1776) and John Andre’s hanging (October 2, 1780) into a strange sort of macabre festival I have dubbed “Hangemtide.” I suppose one could consider it a sort of Halloween for historical enthusiasts, as the autumnal chill starts to creep into the air, greenery dies, and horror releases hit the market. But a strange pseudo-religious reality I have observed is a tendency to treat these hangings as secular passion plays of a kind, connected by a secular Advent calendar of daily memorials, with the overarching takeaway being a strange sense of catharsis for the salvation of a newborn nation.

As a Catholic, I very well know the thematic beats, and I can sense them in an unsettling way in these commemorations. We must have our scapegoat; a man, or two, must die so the nation might live in our origin myth. But though the narrative may comfortably place Hale as the first Christ-figure, it uncomfortably assures that Andre is the second. We as the audience, while intended to shed tears for the first, are meant to bay for the blood of the second. Perhaps we may pity him in passing moments, but never so much that we truly desire him to be spared. His death is a foregone conclusion of the ritual which must be affirmed. We are recalling the traditional readings on Passion Sunday, and hardly realize it. We have, perhaps, lost the much greater plot of Christianity, that in the death of each, the other perishes, and in every death, we partake, in the killing and the dying, and in every human catastrophe, there is planted the original Passion Tree, no less in the past than in the present. History is not safe from our iniquity, nor from grace breaking in upon it, oftentimes painfully.

Touching back upon the historical events being remembered according to our national needs, I have often gently chided friends involved in “Hangentide” that I am ever on call to be the defense lawyer Major Andre never got should they wish to shuttle me into the past on circuit. I do not intend to make that defense the core of my current thesis, but put simply, I believe that if he had received a proper legal defense, Andre may well have had his sentence reduced based on extenuating circumstances. But that was not to be, because it could not be, not in the narrative as it is presented to us over and over again. This was a necessary death; a payment to Justice itself. It is language used to mask what was essentially a revenge hanging for both Hale’s execution at the hands of Crown forces and Arnold’s betrayal of the revolution for hard cold coin. The true foundation stone of “Hangemtide” is a satisfaction we are meant to share in nearly 250-year-old retribution. It is meant to, in some way, bring the country together through our most primal tribal instinct. But does it?

Continue reading “Sovereign Love: Remembering Major Andre” →

An October 1775 Birthday for the Continental Navy

On By Eric SternerIn 1775, Continental Congress, NavyLeave a comment
Unity vs. Margaretta, 12 June 1775 by Robert Lambdin (Naval History and Heritage Command). Margaretta was a Royal Navy vessel captured off Machias, then part of Massachusetts but now in Maine. The image illustrates the relatively small sizes of vessels involved in creating the early American navy.

During the first six months of the American rebellion, the colonies inched toward some means of dealing with Britain’s naval superiority.  Over the summer the Americans had already waged a sort of whaleboat war among the estuaries and islands around Boston, mainly to deprive the British army couped up there of forage and fodder.  Efforts escalated as the war continued.  A confrontation between small Royal Navy vessels and the Massachusetts town of Machias over the summer serendipitously resulted in a small Massachusetts Navy created by capture in June 1775.[1]  In June, Rhode Island’s General Assembly voted to charter two ships and outfit them for naval operations to protect the colony’s trade, essentially by contesting the Royal Navy’s control of Narragansett Bay.[2]  In September, Colonel John Glover in the Continental Army offered his fishing schooner, Hannah, as a charter to wage war on the sea.  George Washington naturally accepted, limiting its operations to capturing unarmed supply ships serving the British army.[3]  The army had essentially created its own navy out of necessity.

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