December 2022
Lecture – “As long as I have served, I have not left a battlefield in such deep sorrow”: The Archaeology of a Mass Burial Discovered at Red Bank Battlefield
For nearly a decade, Red Bank Battlefield Park, N.J., has been the focus of a series of archaeological studies investigating the Hessian attack on Fort Mercer on October 22, 1777, during the Philadelphia campaign. During a public archaeology program conducted in the summer of 2022, a mass burial space was discovered and is thought to contain remains of Hessian soldiers who lost their lives in the attack. Wade P. Catts, lead archaeologist for the study, discusses how they made the…
Find out more »Author’s Talk – The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution
With a smallpox epidemic raging during the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington was forced to order the mandatory inoculation of the Continental Army. Washington, however, did not have to convince fearful colonists to protect themselves against smallpox—they were the ones demanding it. In his new book, The Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution, Andrew Wehrman, professor of history at Central Michigan University, discusses how inoculation became the most sought-after medical procedure of the eighteenth century…
Find out more »Lunch Bite – A Presentation Sword Awarded to Commodore Joshua Barney
Join Museum Collections and Operations Manager Paul Newman as he discusses a presentation sword awarded to Commodore Joshua Barney (1759-1818) by the city of Washington, D.C., for his service at the Battle of Bladensburg, fought on August 24, 1814. Barney, who was a veteran of the Revolutionary War and an original member of the Society of the Cincinnati, commanded sailors, marines and militiamen in a spirited fight on that summer’s day north-east of the nation’s capital in the face of…
Find out more »January 2023
Lecture – Environmental Legacies: How the War of Independence Affected the Natural World in Predictable and Surprising Ways
When one considers the effects of war on the environment, their thoughts probably turn to modern events such as the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the use of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The American Revolution, however, also had a major impact on the natural world in the eighteenth century. At Valley Forge, during the winter of 1777-1778, Continental soldiers cut down over 127,000 trees to build their log huts, leading to short-term and long-term effects of deforestation.…
Find out more »Lunch Bite – A Captured British Light Dragoon Carbine
Join Deputy Director and Curator Emily Parsons for a discussion of a British Pattern 1756 light dragoon carbine and the winding road it took to seeing action in the American Revolution. In May 1776, just two months after the British had evacuated Boston, a Massachusetts privateer captured an armed British transport ship, the Hope, near Boston Harbor. The enemy ship was filled with arms and equipment meant for the king’s troops, including one thousand carbines, several cannon and nearly fifteen…
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