Tag: American Revolution

Nathaniel Greene: Washington’s Strategist or Pioneering Operational Artist

On By erwpostIn 1775, Continental Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Southern TheaterLeave a comment

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Ben Powers

Introduction

   Nathaniel Greene is renowned for leading the Southern Department during the American Revolution, achieving significant strategic results against Lords Cornwallis and Rawdon, even though he lost several battles. Historian Theodore Thayer called him “the strategist of the American Revolution.”[1] Greene carefully planned his army’s movements to maximize maneuverability, chose to fight in situations with roughly equal numbers, strengthened support from auxiliary and irregular forces, and put the British in increasingly worse positions. His main goal was to keep his army active—success meant staying in the field and avoiding severe losses. This led Cornwallis to make decisions that resulted in his defeat at Yorktown, Virginia, in October 1781. Greene’s careful coordination of military actions to achieve strategic results hinted at what would later be called “operational art,” a concept later connected to leaders like Napoleon Bonaparte and Soviet theorists.[2] Greene’s skills showed the main elements of operational art, making him more than a strategist—he was an early example of an operational artist.

Some Definitions

  The “operational level of war” is a twentieth-century concept describing military activities between the tactical level (winning battles) and the strategic level (achieving national aims through armed force and other instruments of power). In current doctrine, tactics involve sequencing forces in time and space to accomplish missions like seizing terrain. Strategy is how national leaders and senior commanders use available means to achieve defined ends. The operational level connects these two, as theater commanders sequence campaigns to achieve strategic objectives, a concept relevant for analyzing Greene’s approach.

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Coming Soon: A Dear-Bought Victory: The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston 1775-1776

On By erwpostIn 1775, 1776, Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, Emerging Revolutionary War, Emerging Revolutionary War Series, Memory, Revolutionary War, Uncategorized1 Comment

We’re excited to share one of the 2026 new releases in the Emerging Revolutionary War Series. Published by Savas Beatie, a sneak peek, including the cover, is below.

About the Book:

“I wish we could sell them another hill at the same price we did Bunkers Hill,” Nathanael Greene wrote to the governor of Rhode Island after the battle of June 17, 1775.

Actually fought on Breed’s Hill outside Boston, Massachusetts, the battle of Bunker Hill proved a pyrrhic victory for British forces. Confident in their ability to overwhelm the New England militia that opposed them, long lines of neatly uniformed British infantry and marines swept uphill toward a quickly built earthen redoubt defended by a motely collection of farmers, shopkeepers, and tradesmen.

“Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes!” the colonials urged each other—or did they?

By the end of the fight, the British gained the summit and Colonial forces scattered. One of the patriot leaders, Dr. Joseph Warren, lay dead—one of the first martyrs of the American Revolution. But for the British, the scene was far, far worse: it would be the greatest number of casualties they would ever suffer in any battle of the American Revolution. As British General Henry Clinton commented afterward, “A few more such victories would have surely put an end to British dominion in America.”

The siege of Boston would continue, but the sobering lesson of Bunker Hill changed British strategy—as did the arrival soon thereafter of a new commander-in-chief of Continental forces: General George Washington.

In A Dear-Bought Victory, historians Daniel T. Davis and Phillip S. Greenwalt separate the facts from the myths as they take readers to the slopes of Breed’s Hill and along the Boston siege lines as they explore a battle that continues to hold a place in popular memory unlike few others.

About the Authors:

Daniel T. Davis is the Senior Education Manager at the American Battlefield Trust. He is a graduate of Longwood University with a bachelor’s degree in public history. Dan has worked as a Ranger/Historian at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park and Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. He is the author or co-author of numerous books on the American Civil War. This is his first co-authored book in the Emerging Revolutionary War Series. Dan is a native of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Phillip S. Greenwalt is the co-founder of Emerging Revolutionary War and a full-time contributor to Emerging Civil War. He is a graduate of Wheeling Jesuit University with a bachelor’s degree in history along with graduate degrees in American History and International Studies and Leadership from George Mason University and Arizona State University, respectively. He is the author of co-author of seven books on the American Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Phill has worked for the National Park Service for the last 17 years at numerous natural and cultural sites. He is a native of Baltimore, Maryland.

Liberty’s Words Ringing Hollow: Prince Whipple’s 1779 Petition for Freedom in New Hampshire

On By erwguestIn Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Politics, Revolutionary War, Social HistoryLeave a comment

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes guest historian Dr Lawrence Howard

Many people have not been taught that slavery was practiced in early America’s northern colonies, later states. Though fewer people were enslaved in the north than in the south, where the plantation economy was highly reliant on enslaved labor, people were also held in bondage in the north. Also not often taught is the contribution such enslaved persons made to the success of America’s Founding, though recent scholarship seeks to amend this. This article explores the 1779 Petition to the New Hampshire Government, written by Prince Whipple – born in Africa in 1750 and purchased by William Whipple of Portsmouth, New Hampshire at a young age. In this petition, twenty black men requested emancipation from slavery. The African American petitioners echoed some of the same political ideas that the delegates to the Second Continental Congress had staked their own lives on just three years earlier in the Declaration of Independence, announcing American political independence from Britain.

Moffatt-Ladd House, Portsmouth, NH, Author’s photo.

Continue reading “Liberty’s Words Ringing Hollow: Prince Whipple’s 1779 Petition for Freedom in New Hampshire” →

ERW Recaps Ken Burns’ “American Revolution” -Nightly at 10pm!

On By Rob OrrisonIn 1776, America 250, Memory, Preservation, Rev War RevelryLeave a comment

There is a lot of anticipation on the upcoming Ken Burns’ documentary on the American Revolution. The series will run on PBS starting this Sunday at 8pm and running through Friday. Emerging Revolutionary War invites you to join us each night at 10pm on our Facebook page as we recap each episode with our Emerging Revolutionary War historians. These will be live streams, so join in on the discussion via the chat.

We have seen various previews of the documentary and we are excited about the potential this series might have on generating more public interest in the American Revolution and the 250th anniversary events over the next six years.

Be sure to join us and we hope to see you at 10pm on Sunday night!

“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.

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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. 

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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” →

Founders and Drinkers

On By erwguestIn Civilian, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Revolutionary War, Social History1 Comment

Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Michael Aubrecht

As someone who enjoys the occasional cocktail I am admittedly curious as to the rumored excessive-drinking habits of our Founding Fathers.

After conducting a casual examination, I think it would be fair to say that their wealth, power, and the period in which they lived in made alcohol a mainstay in their daily lives. Most of these gentlemen were the political playboys of their day and we already know that many of them had a penchant for wine, women and song. Today most people assume that the common table wine was the preferred beverage of colonial times and that most folks simply enjoyed it as a compliment to meals.

According to research conducted by Stanton Peele, the Founders had a much broader palette when it came to engaging in the Spirit of ‘76. Simply put, these boys liked to party:

How do we know the Founding Fathers as a group drank a lot? Well, for one thing, we have records of their imbibing. In 1787, two days before they signed off on the Constitution, the 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention partied at a tavern.

According to the bill preserved from the evening, they drank 54 bottles of Madeira, 60 bottles of claret, eight of whiskey, 22 of porter, eight of hard cider, 12 of beer and seven bowls of alcoholic punch. That’s more than two bottles of fruit of the vine, plus a few shots and a lot of punch and beer, for every delegate. Clearly, that’s humanly impossible.

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