Events

For eight grueling years, American and British military forces struggled in a bloody war over colonial independence. This conflict also ensnared Native American warriors and the armies and navies of France, Spain, the Dutch Republic and several German principalities. From frozen Canada to tropical Florida and as far west as the Mississippi River, the Revolutionary War included hundreds of campaigns, battles and skirmishes on land and sea in which soldiers and sailors fought and died for causes, crowns and comrades.

Drawing from his new book, historian John Maass, Ph.D., identifies and highlights six key turning points that were crucial to subsequent American victory. These not only include the obvious military victories such as Trenton and Princeton or Yorktown, but also the harsh conditions of the winter of 1778 and King Louis XVI’s decision to supply Washington’s troops with desperately needed soldiers, arms, money and fleets. These turning points, without which defeat was likely, ensured a victory for the new United States, and established its place among the nations of the world.

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About the Speaker

John Maass, Ph.D., is a military historian and educator at the National Museum of the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir, Va. He is the author of numerous books on Revolutionary War military history, including “That Unhappy Affair”: Horatio Gates and the Battle of Camden (Kershaw County Historical Society, 2001), North Carolina and the French and Indian War: The Spreading Flames of War (The History Press, 2013), The Road to Yorktown: Jefferson, Lafayette, and the British Invasion of Virginia (The History Press, 2015), George Washington’s Virginia (The History Press, 2019), The Battle of Guilford Courthouse: A Most Desperate Engagement (The History Press, 2020), Defending a New Nation, 1783-1811 (U.S. Army Campaigns of the War of 1812, Department of the Army, 2013), and North Carolina: A Military History (Westholme Publishing, 2022), with fellow historian Mark Bradley. Dr. Maass was the Society of the Cincinnati’s first research fellow, having received the Tyree-Lamb Fellowship in 2007. Throughout his time as a fellow in our library, Dr. Maass researched the Revolutionary War and state formation in North Carolina from 1776 through 1789, which contributed to the earning of his Ph.D. from Ohio State University.