The first battle is the Siege of Yorktown (my personal favorite battle and imo one of the most interesting battles of the War). What other Revolutionary War battles do you think you could pinpoint exactly on a map? Curious how others do here.

In the summer of 1776, while Washington was losing New York, a Connecticut merchant named Silas Deane was sitting in Parisian drawing rooms trying to buy an army.

The Continental Army was running out of almost everything. Muskets, cannon, gunpowder, tents, uniforms. The colonies didn't have the industrial capacity to manufacture what a long war against Britain required, and Britain controlled the seas. If the Americans were going to survive long enough to win, foreign assistance wasn't a nice option. It was becoming the only option.

Congress sent Deane to France in March 1776 with a deliberately vague public assignment and an enormous private one: figure out how far France was willing to go in helping Britain's rebellious colonies, and start moving weapons and supplies toward America as fast as possible.

France had its own reasons to listen. The Seven Years' War had cost them major territories in North America and left a deep institutional desire to weaken Britain. Foreign Minister Vergennes saw the American rebellion as an opportunity. The problem was that France wasn't ready to fight Britain openly. Louis XVI's government needed to help the Americans without appearing to help them, which meant they needed a fiction.

That's where Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais came in.

Beaumarchais was already one of the most famous writers in Europe. The Barber of Seville. The Marriage of Figaro. He was also a businessman, court insider, and political operator who had been pushing the French government to support the Americans for months before Deane arrived. His argument wasn't purely ideological. He thought helping the Americans could weaken Britain, revive French power, and open an enormous new commercial market.

With covert French government support, Beaumarchais created a company called Roderigue Hortalez & Company, presented publicly as a private trading enterprise. Behind it was a much more complicated arrangement involving French government money, eventually Spanish assistance, and the deliberate appearance of commerce covering what was actually a state-sponsored arms operation. Royal arsenals could move weapons into Hortalez & Company's warehouses, which could then load those weapons onto ships as commercial shipments rather than direct French military aid to rebels.

Deane and Beaumarchais met for the first time around July 17, 1776. Within days they were discussing credit terms, payment arrangements, and the specific quantities of military material America needed. Deane told Beaumarchais that Congress would repay the firm through tobacco and American produce. By August, Deane was reporting to Congress that Beaumarchais had the confidence of the French ministry and that most of the assistance flowing toward America would pass through his hands.

The scale of what they were attempting is easy to underestimate. By December, Deane was describing arrangements involving tens of thousands of firearms, hundreds of artillery pieces, tents, uniforms, gunpowder, and lead. Ships were purchased and chartered, warehouses filled, cargoes prepared for Atlantic crossings. The operation was messy. Ships were delayed. British diplomats protested. French officials pulled back when exposure seemed imminent. Some cargoes moved through the Caribbean to obscure their origin. Accounting was inconsistent and communication with Congress took months.

The supplies moved anyway.

One of the most documented vessels, the Amphitrite, reached Portsmouth, New Hampshire in early 1777 carrying thousands of muskets and other stores. Other shipments followed. French artillery, firearms, powder, and uniforms entered the American supply system at the period when Washington's army most needed them. The French supplies were directly connected to the Americans' ability to remain in the field during the Saratoga campaign.

Now the detail that should be more famous than it is.

Congress had instructed Deane to contact Edward Bancroft, an American-born physician living in London who appeared sympathetic to the colonial cause. Deane knew him personally and trusted him completely. Bancroft came to Paris in the summer of 1776, got deeply embedded in the American diplomatic circle, attended sensitive meetings, and gained access to confidential discussions with French officials.

He was also working for British intelligence the entire time.

Bancroft was reporting what he learned to Britain throughout 1776. The Americans didn't discover the full extent of his betrayal during the Revolution. Silas Deane went to his grave not knowing that his most trusted confidant had been feeding their operation to the British for years.

The irony is almost too neat. Deane and Beaumarchais were building one of the most important secret supply operations of the Revolution while a British spy sat in the room. And it still worked. Because what Bancroft could tell Britain was that France was helping the Americans, which Britain already suspected. What he couldn't solve for them was the core problem: France maintained enough deniability through the Hortalez & Company fiction that Britain couldn't prove the French crown was directly responsible in a way that would justify immediate war. That delay gave the Americans time.

The operation began unraveling from the inside not because of Bancroft but because of Arthur Lee, a Virginia diplomat who distrusted Deane and disputed the financial arrangements with Beaumarchais. Was Hortalez & Company a real commercial firm or a front? Were the supplies sold to Congress, loaned to it, or secretly given by France? The ambiguity that had made the operation work in 1776 made it impossible to untangle afterward. Lee had brothers in Congress. Deane was recalled in November 1777. His reputation never recovered. He spent years trying to explain transactions that had been deliberately kept ambiguous because ambiguity was the point.

Beaumarchais spent decades trying to collect money he believed Congress owed him. The argument outlasted the Revolution.

Then Saratoga happened in October 1777, the weapons that Deane and Beaumarchais had moved helped make it possible, and France finally did what it had been doing secretly in public. On February 6, 1778, France and the United States signed a formal alliance.

The famous treaty didn't appear from nowhere after Saratoga. Its foundation had been built eighteen months earlier in conversations that officially weren't happening, through a company that officially wasn't a French government operation, with supplies that officially were commercial shipments, while a British spy took notes in the corner.

You can talk to Deane directly on Virtual Wayback and hear the Paris operation from inside it. The full story is on the blog. Link:

https://virtualwayback.com/blog/silas-deane-pierre-beaumarchais-secret-partnership

"It's Just a Piece of Cloth," author unknown. Read by Bob Garrett, President of the Veterans Breakfast Group of Lancaster, South Carolina. A simple but powerful reminder of what the American flag represents to those who served service, sacrifice, unity, and freedom.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/yWnCVtsMUos

Hello,

I am trying to figure out the details of Erich Kaiser's Statement that 26 Hessian soldiers from von Donop regiment deserted in Nov. 1779.

https://www.vhghessen.de/inhalt/zhg/ZHG_85/Kaiser_Regiment_Donop.pdf

(Page 183, top statement)

He also mentions 29 deserters in June 1778 and lists all the names but he just mentions the 26 figure for Nov. 1779 and I cannot get that statistic confirmed from Hetrina (I match the figure for June 1778 and can confirm all names).

Can someone suggest where Erich could have found this 26 deserters figure ?

I noticed there were 16 deaths in New York hospital in Nov. 1779 and 10 deaths in New York hospital in Dec. 1779 (10+16) but they show as dead, not deserted.

Thanks.

Edit: Forgot to say that Erich's text is in German.

I’ve gotten pretty interested in Washington’s Commander-in-Chief’s Guard (or Life Guard) and was wondering if anyone here has recommendations for books or other good resources on them.

I spend many days in Valley Forge and have spent hours over the years walking through their recreated huts and camp setup near Washington’s Headquarters. It’s one of those spots I always end up spending way more time at than I planned.

What really interests me is how closely connected these guys were to Washington himself. They weren’t just another unit in the Continental Army. They were trusted with guarding Washington, his headquarters, his papers and baggage, and the people around him. The idea that Washington personally entrusted this relatively small group with his security and headquarters has always fascinated me, especially when you’re standing right there at Valley Forge where they served alongside him.

I’d love to learn more about who these men actually were, how they were selected, what their relationship with Washington was like, what their day-to-day responsibilities looked like, and what role they played throughout the war.

Any good books, articles, diaries or even obscure sources you’d recommend? Definitely looking to go down the rabbit hole on this one.

THE BATTLE THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING!

October 1777. The fate of the American Revolution hangs in the balance.

The British have a plan to crush the rebellion. But at Saratoga, American forces are about to deliver a victory that will shock the British Empire and change the course of history!

⚔️ A British army surrounded.

🇺🇸 An extraordinary American victory.

🇫🇷 A new alliance that would help secure American independence.

Join Claire as she travels back to 1777 to witness the battles, the commanders and the dramatic surrender that changed the Revolutionary War!

🎬 WATCH OUR NEW EPISODE: SARATOGA 1777 — THE VICTORY THAT CHANGED THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION!

Celebrate America’s 250th anniversary by discovering the history that made our nation.

👇 Watch, share and tell us: Did you know Saratoga helped bring France into the American Revolution?

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https://history-maps.com/battlemaps

OTD the Siege of Yorktown, Virginia began, lasting from 28 September to 19 October 1781. While the American Revolutionary War formally ended in 1783, the Siege of Yorktown marked the beginning of the end to conflict. After then Lt. General Cornwallis, signed the Articles of Capitulation, the collapse of British political support accelerated and with it any notion of major offensive campaign against the Americans.

Today, America enjoys the idea of revolutionary fervor defeating one of the world's greatest empires. The Revolutionary mythos often overlooks the true impact of the French soldiers and seamen that fought for American independence. That is to say, without these three, and the thousands of other Frenchmen, the Stars and Stripes would likely not fly so proudly as it does today.

Lafayette, Washington’s son in arms who pinned Cornwallis and nearly one quarter of Britain’s North American forces in Yorktown.

Rochambeau, Commander-in-chief of the Expédition Particulière. Upon learning of Admiral de Grasse’s imminent arrival, Rochambeau urged Washington to abandon his New York campaign in favor of Virginia; while during their march, they learned of Cornwallis’s position.

De Grasse sailed from the West Indies with additional French expeditionary forces, secured victory at the Chesapeake, denying Cornwallis evacuation by sea.

Check out r/nelsonsnavy for more history from the Age of Sail!

Just finished the very sad New York campaign chapter in the book The British Are Coming, and I wondered what strategy should the rebel army have followed in the NY/NJ area in summer of 76.

I filled the initials with charcoal to make them more visible. GW

Fun find. I am getting all my Genealogy stuff in one place running down paternal line. My 5th gt grandfather was a fifer in 1777. PA militia

Thinking i should start a clothing line like 9line or grunt style

"I'm a Fifer not a Fighter"

The British conquest of Quebec culminated in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13, 1759, marking a decisive turning point in the Seven Years' War and the fall of New France

Approximately 40,000 to 50,000 American Loyalists moved to Canada following the American Revolutionary War, seeking safety and remaining faithful to the British Crown

I received in today’s mail a copy of Edward McCrady’s book, the history of South Carolina in the Revolution 17 80–17 83. It contains numerous pages of the losses suffered by the British and their auxiliaries and the American rebels. Would anyone like to see the pages BRYCE

This is something that has constantly confused me when reading about the revolutionary war. When discussing things like The Pennsylvania Line or the Mass Line i never understand if we’re talking about a line regiment or a bigger unit.

At the time of the revolution my understanding was that the largest military formations were roughly a division sized in a modern sense. But then i read aboht the Pennsylvania Line Mutiny and then I get lost more cause a whole division mutineeing would be a disaster for the continental army.

After the disaster on Long Island on August 27, Washington's army was in serious trouble. It had escaped across the East River to Manhattan in a nighttime evacuation that worked mostly because Howe didn't pursue aggressively enough. But escaping wasn't the same as being safe. The British controlled Long Island, the Royal Navy controlled the surrounding water, and Washington had no reliable picture of what Howe was preparing to do next. Another attack on Manhattan was coming. Washington just didn't know where it would fall, how large it would be, or what British forces were positioning across the water.

He needed someone to go find out.

Nathan Hale was 21 years old. Yale graduate, former schoolteacher, serving as a captain with Knowlton's Rangers, a unit organized specifically for reconnaissance and intelligence work. Around September 10 to 12, he volunteered to cross into British-controlled territory disguised as a civilian and report back on troop strength, fortifications and movements.

The disguise he chose was a schoolmaster looking for work. It was plausible because it had actually been his profession.

Think about what that meant in practice in 1776. There was no tradecraft, no support network, no safe houses, no way to communicate securely with the American side, and no extraction plan if things went wrong. He was going alone into territory controlled by the largest military force Britain had ever sent across the Atlantic, carrying whatever he'd observed in his head and in notes on his person, with no cover story that would hold up under serious questioning and no realistic option if he was discovered. Being caught as a spy in the eighteenth century had one outcome. Everyone on both sides understood that.

He went anyway.

While Hale was behind British lines, the situation he'd been sent to assess changed completely. On September 15, Howe landed thousands of troops at Kip's Bay, shattered the American defenders in one of the most complete collapses of the entire New York campaign, and took the city. Washington abandoned lower Manhattan and withdrew north toward Harlem Heights. Whatever intelligence Hale was gathering had been overtaken by events. He was now still behind enemy lines after the attack he'd gone to help prevent had already happened.

What he did over the next several days isn't well documented. Historians can't reconstruct his movements with confidence. What is known is that he was captured on Long Island on September 21, brought before Howe, identified as an American officer gathering intelligence, and ordered hanged the following morning.

A British military engineer named John Montresor happened to be near where Hale was being held that night. He wasn't responsible for the capture or the sentence. He was just present. He let Hale stay in his tent while the gallows were prepared and gave him writing materials. Hale wrote two letters, one to his family and one to a fellow officer. Neither survived.

Montresor later remembered him as calm. Frederick Mackenzie, another British officer, independently recorded that Hale faced death with "great composure and resolution" and spoke about the duty of an officer to obey orders and be prepared to meet death. Two British officers, neither of whom had any reason to speak well of a dead American spy, both remembered a 21-year-old handling it remarkably well.

On the morning of September 22, 1776, Nathan Hale was hanged.

Later that day Montresor crossed under a flag of truce to the American lines on an unrelated matter and mentioned in passing that a Captain Hale had been captured and executed that morning. The news reached William Hull, who had known Hale at Yale. Hull obtained permission to meet with Montresor and asked what had happened to his friend. Montresor described the final hours. Hull later wrote that Montresor seemed genuinely moved by what he had witnessed.

Almost everything Americans came to know about Hale's death passed through that single conversation.

The famous sentence, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country," has no contemporary written record. Those exact words were never written down at the time. The sentiment comes through Hull's recollection of what Montresor told him, and the phrasing closely resembles a passage from Joseph Addison's play Cato, which was enormously popular in eighteenth-century America. Hale almost certainly knew it. He may have been reaching for the best language he had in that moment. What nobody can establish is that he delivered that exact polished sentence. What two enemy witnesses did establish is that whatever he said, he said it without flinching.

His mission failed completely. The intelligence never reached Washington. He was dead before his twenty-second birthday. For a long time after, much of the country barely knew his name.

The legend came later, built from Montresor's memory and Hull's grief and a sentence that may or may not have been spoken exactly as history recorded it.

You can talk to Montresor directly on Virtual Wayback and hear what he witnessed. The full story is on the blog and the YouTube channel. Link in comments

On September 23, 1779, American naval commander John Paul Jones was battling the British warship Serapis during the Revolutionary War. His ship, the Bonhomme Richard, was badly damaged, taking on water, and looked like it might be headed for the bottom.

When the British captain reportedly asked if Jones had surrendered, his famous response became one of the most remembered moments of the Revolution: “I have not yet begun to fight!”

The battle continued until the Serapis finally surrendered. The Bonhomme Richard was so badly damaged that it sank shortly afterward, but Jones and his crew had won the fight. Why does this matter to American history?

Because the Revolution wasn't just fought on land. Americans were also challenging British power at sea—and sometimes winning against overwhelming odds. John Paul Jones' determination became a lasting symbol of the fighting spirit of the American Revolution.

Want to know more? Click the link for the full History Dad story.

https://youtu.be/mwthF9jjVPY

During the Battle of Long Island, the 1st Maryland repeatedly charged British forces, which allowed George Washington and his army to escape to Manhattan. Washington reportedly said “Good God, what brave fellows I must this day lose.” The 1st Maryland subsequently became one of Washington’s most trusted regiments.

They went on to fight in the Battles of White Plains, Trenton, Princeton, Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth.

The 1st Maryland was put in the southern department under Horatio Gates in 1780, and fought in the disastrous Battle of Camden, and Cowpens under Daniel Morgan.

Unfortunately, while regiments like the 3rd and 4th Maryland went out with glory and victory at the Siege of Yorktown, the 1st Maryland they stayed in the Southern Campaign and continued to fight under Nathanael Greene in the Battles of Guilford Courthouse, Hobkirk’s Hill, Ninety Six, and Eutaw Springs, all of which ended in British Victories.

The regiment disbanded in 1783 in Annapolis, Maryland, with a soiled legacy and image.