Non-Profit Dedicated to Historical Education of the American Revolution and the Colonial Period
By early 1777, Danbury, Connecticut served as a major supply depot that included food, clothing, dry goods, and necessary materials for the Continental Army’s survival. Washington’s main army was at winter quarters in and around Morristown, New Jersey. A large contingency of men were also stationed in the Lower Hudson Valley, at Peekskill, New York, …
The Battle of White Marsh, December 5 – 8, 1777, also known as the White Marsh Affair or Battle of Edge Hill, was a series of large, heated skirmishes that occurred over three days between the main armies of General George Washington and British General William Howe. This series of clashes between opposing forces was …
The Battle of Longue Pointe, September 25, 1775, was a dismal attempt by the Americans to take Montreal on September 25, 1775. From beginning to end, the defeat was a total fiasco. A small force of Canadian militia and Continental troops were organized and lead by a civilian adviser, future Vermont hero Ethan Allen. He …
The Siege of Fort St. Jean by the American invasion force into Canada had taken so long, that by the time the fort fell, the American army was worn out, devastated by disease and dwindling supplies; a foreshadow of the doomed effort by the American rebellion to claim the 14th colony. Fort St. Jean, or …
The Invasion of Canada Did Not Go Well for the Americans From the time the Americans were defeated before the walls of Quebec City on a blizzard evening of December 31, 1775, until the last of a devastated rebel force gave up Canada in mid June, 1776, the entire episode of a new nation trying …
The Battle of Gloucester, fought on August 8, 1775, between the British sloop of war HMS Falcon and Gloucester townspeople, resulted in a resounding American victory. Many British seamen and marines were captured, with casualties on both sides, before the British warship broke off the fight and departed. The result of the clash proved to …
Labeled a battle, what occurred along the Delaware River in the late afternoon on November 25, 1777 was actually a forty-five-minute skirmish; albeit the British force suffered a larger than usual number of casualties for a minor clash of arms. Considered an American victory, militarily, it was not significant. But politically, it proved worth noting …
Desperation, suspicion, coercion, passion, vengeance, obstinance, and courage; it was all there, each contributing their fair share in a preview to the first naval battle of the American Revolution – the Battle of Machias, June 11-12, 1775. It was not an epic fleet battle of first rates and frigates clobbering each other with massive broadsides. …
Fought between May 27 and 28, 1775, on the islands off northeastern Boston, it is also known as the Battle of Noodle’s Island or Battle of Hog Island. It was the American Revolution’s second military action of open warfare within the region; the Battle of Lexington and Concord being the first on April 19th. It …
The raid on the frontier settlement of German Flatts occurred on September 17, 1778, at present day Herkimer, in central upstate New York on the Mohawk River. It was enacted by British partisan forces of Loyalists and four nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Confederation, mainly Mohawk and Seneca, under the overall command of Mohawk Chief …
The Cherry Valley Massacre, November 11, 1778, was one of three major attacks in 1778 on American ‘rebel’ wilderness settlements and military outposts. British Loyalists and Native American forces, particularly four tribes of the Iroquois Nation Confederation; Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga ascended on the New York settlement, destroying it while killing and capturing many …
Skoi Yase Heoweh gnogek Once a Home, Now a Memory: Iroquoian In the spring of 1779, Major General John Sullivan was selected to lead an expedition against the Iroquois Nation that was launched later that summer. Most of the Native American Confederation (known as the Longhouse Confederation) had aligned with the British. The campaign was budgeted by …
The Siege of Fort Vincennes, February 22 – 24, 1779, was a desperate attack by approximately 200 Virginia militia and French Volunteers to maintain the American momentum established in 1778; capturing British forts and settlements in the far western regions from Kentucky to the upper Mississippi River Valley. Colonel George Rogers Clark, older brother of …
General John Sullivan of New Hampshire commanded troops in most of the American Revolution’s major battles. An ardent loyalist turned patriot; he was a member of the First New Hampshire Provincial Congress. He was voted to represent his state at the First and Second Continental Congress where he was commissioned as a Brigadier General, even …
The Battle of Rhode Island began on August 9, 1778 with an American siege of the British garrison at Newport, Rhode Island. It ending twenty days later on August 29th with the Americans in full retreat and a British attack on their rear-guard. America and France’s first joint effort in the American Revolution had ended …