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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 …
The Framers of America’s Constitution had an almost hysterical fear of standing armies, and of governments backed by them. A standing army of professionals, they were sure, would eventually do one of two things: agitate for foreign military adventures to keep itself employed, or turn against its civilian masters to create a military dictatorship. To …
The raid and capture of Turtle Bay Depot, New York City, on July 20, 1775, a British military storehouse and magazine, was another cog in the wheel that churned towards a war upon which there was no going back. It was a bold and decisive move by leaders of the militant branch of the New …
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 …
If we had destroyed all the men of North America, we should have enough to do to conquer the women. British officer commenting on American Camp Followers Hardened by the rigors of military life, women who lived in the camps and marched with the army were, or became, “as tough as nails.” To the British …
Colonial leaders always had misgivings about black enlistments in militias during pre-Revolutionary War years and later among those who fought for American Independence. Though there was a large population of available African Americans to fill the ranks of colonial enlistments, the number one fear both north and south was the apprehension that slaves trained in …
History treats the feats by men as fact; whereas woman’s accomplishments are legends. Women’s actions come with an accompanying tag line ‘fact or fiction,’ or are described by highlighting the myth. More often than not, a women’s achievements are either downplayed, or left out of history entirely. There is a simple reason for this; men …
From a flat bar of soft iron, hand forged into a gun barrel; laboriously bored and rifled… in a shop long since silent, fashioned a rifle which changed the whole course of world history. — Captain John G. W. Dillin, The Kentucky Rifle How, since the 15th century and right up to the American Revolution, did weapon manufacturers …
June 10, 1778, has been referred to as the ‘bloodiest day,’ in the history of Lycoming County; a span of settlements along the west branch of the Susquehanna River of northcentral Pennsylvania. The Plum Tree Massacre was one of three separate attacks in one day on settlers by a war party of Iroquois and Loyalists. …
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 …