Video Tag: American Revolution

Charles Stedman’s History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War

Andrew Outten
February 10, 2023

Historical Programs Manager Andrew Outten discusses Charles Stedman’s History of the Origin, Progress, and Termination of the American War that contains detailed annotations made by British general Sir Henry Clinton. Stedman, who served as an officer in the British army for most of the Revolutionary War, wrote a detailed history of the conflict that was published in […]

Misinformation Nation: Foreign News and the Politics of Truth in Revolutionary America

Jordan E. Taylor
November 10, 2022

“Fake news” is nothing new. Just like millions of Americans today, the revolutionaries of the eighteenth century worried that they were entering a “post-truth” era. Their fears, however, were not fixated on social media or clickbait, but rather on peoples’ increasing reliance on reading news gathered from foreign newspapers. News was the lifeblood of early […]

“To Have The Bed Made”: Invisible Labor and the Material Culture of Nursing in the Revolutionary War

Meg Roberts
August 25, 2022

Alongside the surgeons and physicians, the medical care of the thousands of sick and wounded Continental soldiers relied upon the tireless work of army nurses, camp followers, housewives, cooks, laundresses and local families. In contrast to the voluminous records of soldiers’ and military leaders’ wartime experiences, the contribution of women has often been summarized fleetingly […]

Cornwallis: Soldier and Statesman in a Revolutionary World

Richard Middleton
March 2, 2022

Charles Cornwallis was a leading figure in late eighteenth-century Great Britain. His career spanned the American War of Independence, Irish Union, the French Revolutionary Wars and the building of the second British Empire in India. Focusing on the first part of his new major biography, Richard Middleton offers insight into Cornwallis’ time in America  and […]

The Untold War at Sea: America’s Revolutionary Privateers

Kylie Hulbert
February 3, 2022

Action at sea played a critical role in European and Anglo-American conflicts throughout the eighteenth century. Yet the oft-told narrative of the American Revolution tends to focus on battles on American soil or the debates and decisions of the Continental Congress. The Untold War at Sea is the first book to place American privateers and their experiences […]

Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding

Hannah Farber
January 13, 2022

Unassuming but formidable, American maritime insurers used their position at the pinnacle of global trade to shape the new nation. As Hannah Farber demonstrates in her new book Underwriters of the United States: How Insurance Shaped the American Founding, the international information insurers gathered and the capital they generated enabled them to play central roles in state […]

The British Are Coming: The War for America Begins

Rick Atkinson
October 22, 2021

Who can doubt that the creation story of our founding in the American Revolution remains valid, vivid and thrilling? Even in 2021, at a moment when national unity is elusive, when our partisan rancor seems ever more toxic, when the simple concept of truth is assailed, that story informs who we are, where we came […]

Image of Kevin J. Weddle, author of "The Compleat Victory" about the Battle of Saratoga.

The Battle of Saratoga and “the Compleat Victory”

Kevin Weddle
May 6, 2021

Following the successful expulsion of American forces from Canada in 1776, the British forces were determined to end the rebellion and devised what they believed a war-winning strategy. They were to send General John Burgoyne south to rout the Americans and take Albany. When British forces captured Fort Ticonderoga with unexpected ease in July of […]

The executive director of the American Revolution Institute argues that the American Revolution is properly understood as a people’s revolution—a social and cultural transformation driven by the desire of ordinary people for personal independence.

The Future of the American Revolution

Jack D. Warren, Jr.
February 23, 2021

What is the place of the American Revolution in the future we are making? In this lecture presented in the North Carolina Museum of History’s American Revolution Lecture Series (sponsored by the North Carolina Society of the Cincinnati), the executive director of the American Revolution Institute argues that the American Revolution is properly understood as […]

Christy Pichichero discussed the military enlightenement and the French army at the American Revolution Institute.

The American Revolution and the French Military Enlightenment

Christy Pichichero
October 10, 2019

Christy Pichichero illustrates how the French Enlightenment philosophies of foreign officers in the American Revolution informed their perspective of American customs. Selecting the marquis de Chastellux and the comte de Rochambeau—whose memoirs are a part of the Institute’s rich archival collections—among her examples, Dr. Pichichero labels these men “military philosophers” who brought Enlightenment philosophy to […]

Professor Rod Andrew is the author The Life and Times of Andrew Pickens.

Andrew Pickens: War Hero and Founder

Rod Andrew
January 23, 2018

Andrew Pickens (1739–1817) was the hero of many American Revolution victories against British and Loyalist forces. Rod Andrew vividly depicts the hard-fighting South Carolina militia commander founding churches, acquiring slaves, struggling over Indian territorial boundaries on the southern frontier and joining the patriot cause. Combining insights from military and social history, Andrew argues that while […]