Historian Alex Burns, Ph.D., assistant professor of history at Franciscan University of Steubenville, places the common enlisted man during the American Revolution at center stage by discussing their experiences during the war. Drawing from his archival research on the…

Historian Wayne E. Lee of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill discusses Indigenous warfare before and during the American Revolution. Throughout the Revolution, Indigenous warriors sought to surprise their targets, and the size of the target varied with the…

Between December 12–19, 1777, Gen. George Washington and his Continental Army encamped in the towering hills of Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania, fifteen miles from Philadelphia. Known as the threshold to Valley Forge, the Gulph Mills Encampment is often forgotten or…

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…

Historian Thomas E. Chávez focuses our attention on Spanish participation throughout the American Revolution through a discussion of Spain’s grand strategy during the war; the contributions to the Spanish war effort of Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis, a Spanish…

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution, the Institute’s deputy director and curator, Emily Parsons, discusses an American-made hanger sword carried during the early months of the Revolutionary War by James Taylor, a…

The Institute’s library director, Thomas Lannon, discusses the orderly book of Edmund Bancroft. Initially a non-commissioned officer in Col. William Prescott’s Regiment from May-December 1775, Edmund Bancroft was likely a participant at the Battle of Bunker…

The marquis de Lafayette’s farewell tour of the United States produced a staggering number of images of the general, from original oil portraits commissioned by government entities and wealthy individuals to prints mass produced for sale at public events…

The Institute’s museum collections and operations manager, Paul Newman, for a Lunch Bite object talk highlighting a recent acquisition for our museum collections: a Chinese porcelain punch bowl depicting the Battle of the Saintes. Produced around 1783, the punch…

According to his 1833 pension letter and other contemporary accounts, Wallace had a seemingly fascinating career throughout the Revolution. Having allegedly served as a sergeant from 1776 through the end of the war, Wallace claimed to have participated in nearly…

To commemorate the 250th anniversary of the beginning of the American Revolution, the Institute’s deputy director and curator, Emily Parsons, discusses an American-made hanger sword carried during the early months of the Revolutionary War by James Taylor, a…

At the end of the American Revolution, sixty thousand Americans loyal to the British cause fled the United States and became refugees throughout the British Empire. Loyalists traveled to Canada, sailed for Britain, and journeyed to the Bahamas and the…

American general Benedict Arnold secretly conspired with the enemy to surrender West Point and George Washington. Disaster for the Americans was thwarted only when Arnold’s co-conspirator, John André, was captured with plans of the West Point fortifications in…

The Oneida nation was the only one of the Iroquois Confederacy to ally with the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Congress formally honored the Oneida in 1794 for their service to the American cause, yet over time the Oneida sacrifice…

Professor Cornell delves into the complicated history and interpretation of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. He argues that the amendment neither guarantees the right to own guns nor simply protects the rights of states to maintain militias…

In this segment of Collections Corner, the Institute’s research services librarian, Rachel Nellis, highlights a rare map from our Robert Charles Lawrence Fergusson Collection, Carte des Etats-Unis de l’Amerique suivant le Traité de Paix de 1783, engraved…

Deputy Director and Curator Emily Parsons discusses an allegorical portrait from our museum collections. Completed in 1783 by Parisian artist Nicolas René Jollain, the painting depicts Thomas François Lenormand de Victot, a fallen French naval officer from the Revolutionary…

It’s back to school season! To celebrate, this month’s Collections Corner features the Institute’s director of education, Stacia Smith, discussing The Patriot’s Monitor, an 1810 American primer written by Rev. Ignatius Thomson of Pomfret, Vermont. As…

Coping with the sunset that followed Louis XIV’s death, battered by a string of costly military defeats, and influenced by the intellectual currents of the Enlightenment, the French army was primed for reform in the mid-eighteenth century. Scholar…

The Society of the Cincinnati’s Eagle insignia has been the most recognizable symbol of the organization and its members for more than two hundred years. Designed in 1783 by Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, the double-sided gold insignia bears…

On the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the American Revolution, the marquis de Lafayette embarked on a tour of the United States, returning for a final time to the country he helped established and whose republican form of government…

Diplomacy and entertaining have always gone hand in hand in the nation’s capital. Anderson House, headquarters of the Society of the Cincinnati, has played a historic role in that story during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—but one…

Explore our exhibition Saving Soldiers: Medical Practice in the Revolutionary War in this short video tour featuring a few highlight objects. Drawn principally from the Institute’s collections of rare books, manuscripts, portraits and artifacts, Saving Soldiers examined medical practice…