American War Of Independence Research Articles

Impressment of American sailors: The British-American diplomacy in searching for resolving impressment from the war of 1812 to the webster-Ashburton treaty

Impressment was an infamous part of history in British-American relations in the first half of the XIX century. The Chesapeake-Leonard affair became one of the reasons for the war between the two countries (1812-1814). After its end, the American government made attempts to diplomatically resolve this issue, although they did not result in success. The practice continued, as is shown by the incidents with the Pharos, Juno, Monroe and Telegraph ships. Only long and difficult negotiations between Daniel Webster (United States) and Lord Ashburton (Great Britain) ended this practice in 1842. Based on historical sources and monographs, this article focuses on analyzing the origins of impressment in the British - American relations, the struggle between Great Britain and the United States on the issue of impressment and negotiations between the two countries to abolish this problem. The results of the artile show that the impressment is a special case in the history of Anglo-American relations and the history of maritime security in the 19th century. A nation's honor and sovereignty are factors for the US to constantly fight against this phenomenon. This study contributes to the comprehensive study of Anglo-American relations after the American Revolutionary War to Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

The Echo of Revolution: The Influence of War on Benjamin Rush’s Medical Theory

ABSTRACT During the American War for independence, young and ambitious medical men entered the ranks of the Continental Army. Philadelphia physician and chemistry professor Benjamin Rush was one such American practitioner who went on after the conflict to argue for a uniquely American medical practice. However, Rush’s wartime experiences have largely been treated in a vacuum with little connection to his later medical work. Despite this disconnect, much of Rush’s own writing and teaching directly or indirectly is pulled from wartime experiences. His interpretation of those experiences changed from a means of supporting British medical ideas in the 1770s to challenging them in the 1800s. This change mirrors and engages with other changes in American identity and use of science to craft that identity in the wake of the Revolutionary War.

Writing and Sensory Knowledge in a Rural Clinical Practice

Abstract: This article is a case study of the Connecticut surgeon, Albigence Waldo, which examines the roles that writing, sensory knowledge, and emotions played in his medical practice as a rural clinician in New England before, during, and after the American Revolutionary War. It demonstrates how surgeons of the time used various forms of writing, as well as knowledge gained from experience, sensory impressions, and emotions to inform their approach to patients and practices of healing.

The American War of Independence as Reflected in Polish Textbooks in 20th and 21st Century

Resumen La literatura académica en Polonia todavía no ha intentado mostrar las maneras en que la Guerra de Independencia americana se ha reflejado en los libros de texto de este país, y este artículo no pretende ser exhaustivo. La autora, abordando este tema, ha llevado su análisis al tema de la Revolución americana de los años 1775 a 1783. Examina así los acontecimientos retratados en los textos polacos de los siglos XX y XXI a través del prisma de las trasformaciones de la propia historiografía polaca. El tema de la Revolución americana tiene gran significación en la política educativa de este país. Los asuntos sensibles incluyen el problema de la esclavitud, además del tema de la Constitución, entendida como la pieza más importante de la legislación y logro de la Revolución. Atendiendo a los manuales de texto escolares es bastante evidente que la mirada de los estudiantes ha sido dirigida durante décadas a tres héroes: George Washington, Casimir Pulaski y Tadeusz Kosciuszko. En el artículo también se estudia la participación de representantes de países europeos en la Revolución americana y la actualización de su panteón. Palabras claves Revolución americana, manuales de texto de historia, historiografía polaca, sistema educativo.

Benjamin Rush and his role in the American Revolutionary War

Benjamin Rush and his role in the American Revolutionary War

Martin R. Howard. The fevered flight; a medical history of the American revolution, 1775-1783. Naval Inst Pr, 2023, 276 pp. ISBN-13: 978-1399084826.

In tracing the trajectory of medical treatment during the American revolutionary war and discussing the specifics of each war front, Howard interrogated the several health challenges that plagued the war camps, describing adequately the treatment and surgical methods adopted by the American and British medical departments during the war and the impact of diseases on the native Americans and the black populace, including the unwavering efforts to curb the spread of smallpox and digging out the strategies adopted to curb Covid-19. This most recent pandemic has posed a great challenge to America and the global health system. Thus, this, coupled with the several unique graphical representations of the battlefield activities, a skillful pattern of chapter introduction with a monograph or line of thought creates in the readers the desire to take their minds on a voyage of feasting on every page of this book.

Emotions and Battlefield Medicine in the American Revolutionary War

Abstract This essay examines the expression of emotional states by frontline medics in the American Revolutionary War to understand how doctors felt about their role as caregivers during the Canada Campaign of 1775–76 and the Sullivan-Clinton Expedition of 1779. The first section queries how surgeons managed the emotional strain of caring for wounded and sick soldiers during the Invasion of Quebec. The journals of two doctors who expressed resentment and grief towards the officer corps during the invasion, Samuel Fisk Merrick and Lewis Beebe, are considered. In the second section, the essay focuses on the role that expressions of enthusiasm, particularly what scholars term settler colonial optimism, played in during a total war. Here another pair of doctors, Jabez Campfield and Ebenezer Elmer, afford insight into the hope surrounding land-grabbing felt by medics during the army’s genocidal campaign in western New York and Pennsylvania.

History is written by the losers: Strategy and grand strategy in the aftermath of war

ABSTRACT Strategy is a theory of victory; grand strategy is a theory of security. In the ideal, a state’s strategy and grand strategy are mutually reinforcing. Wartime decisions should leave the state more secure in the aftermath, and peacetime decisions should put the state in a good position in the event of future conflict. Yet for various reasons, strategy and grand strategy often drift apart. This article focuses on one type of decoupling. Victorious states tend to expand their grand strategic ambitions, yet nostalgia encourages them to retain increasingly outmoded strategic concepts. Losers, by contrast, are more likely to have frank conversations about the real opportunities and limits of state power, and the ways in which military action can provide meaningful support. I illustrate the argument with case studies from the British experience in the American War of Independence, and the American experience in the first Persian Gulf War.

Subjugated to Free Independent States of America, Boston Tea Party by Sons of Liberty and Declaration of Independence

This article explores how Native Americans and Africans have historically been treated by Europeans, with a particular emphasis on how both groups have been portrayed as barbaric and primitive in a variety of media, including literature, minstrel shows, newspapers, and advertisements. We'll talk about Native Americans' difficulties and how they gained their independence in this section. European colonization of North America resulted in the displacement of these tribes, who were then forced into reservations and subjected to assimilation strategies that were often violent and betrayed treaties. European assimilation efforts aimed to erase Native American culture, history, and identity through the establishment of boarding schools that forced Native American children to adopt European habits, attire, and language. The method was intended to "kill the Indian, save the man," as institutions such as the Carlisle Indian School illustrated. Despite the hardships and cultural loss inflicted on Native Americans, their experience in boarding schools was critical in developing future Native American leaders and building a sense of pan-Indian identity, thereby refuting the notion of them as a dying race. The article also delves into the influence of British colonial rule on Native Americans, as well as the imposition of taxes without representation, which sparked riots such as the Boston Tea Party. The Continental Congress and the following Declaration of Independence were watershed points in the American Revolution. Furthermore, the Coercive Acts meant to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party, stoked colonial discontent and aided in the commencement of the American Revolutionary War. The article finishes by underlining the significance of these historical events in establishing the identity of the United States and the ongoing struggle for Native Americans' rights and acknowledgment. This in-depth examination of historical events and their interconnectivity sheds light on the complicated and often brutal interactions between Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans, which ultimately influenced the establishment of the United States and its values (Volo, 2003).

Finding the American Revolution in France: François-Jean de Chastellux's Private Papers and Beyond

Abstract: With the exception of the renowned Marquis de Lafayette and, to a lesser extent, General Rochambeau and Admiral de Grasse, French soldiers and officers have historically received little attention in the literary of the American War for Independence. This is due to a number of factors, including restricted or closed access to private archival collections in France. This essay will demonstrate that it is possible, under certain conditions, to study personal, unpublished source material of "forgotten" French officers who participated in the American Revolutionary War, thereby providing new opportunities for research into early American history. To demonstrate the historical significance of such materials, this paper will concentrate on the (mainly) unpublished papers of François-Jean de Chastellux (1734-1788), an influential major general who served directly under Rochambeau. The Chastellux family has preserved his private papers for more than 240 years in their Château de Chastellux. This article details the contents of this private archive as well as the history of its creation and preservation. Additionally, the existence of Chastellux's archive raises questions about the possible existence of similar unpublished French archival collections, which may also offer new perspectives on the American Revolutionary War. Furthermore, in the contemporary digital era, families that choose to preserve their records in private archives may now make them digitally accessible to the academic community. This introduces new circumstances and opportunities for the access and translation of previously inaccessible information.

French Volunteers in Benjamin Franklin's Correspondence: The American Revolution as Mirror of a Military Crisis

Abstract: The French who took part in the American War for Independence have been the subject of many historical studies. However, the correspondence of Benjamin Franklin offers new elements about these numerous volunteers coming from multiple geographical and social backgrounds. In their letters to the American commissioner, military men, nobles, ecclesiastics, surgeons, lawyers, engineers, peasants, and even convicts—most of whom never left the France—explained their motives for crossing the Atlantic Ocean to fight the British army on the side of the Patriots. From that epistolary source emerges also the perception those subjects of Louis XVI had of the Americans and the United States. All this information reveals a French society imbued with many contradictions, such as the public attraction for enemies fought during the Seven Years' War and the glorification of ancestral nobiliary values through a war for the benefit of a young republic.

A “Democrat” from the Start: Theobald Wolfe Tone, Emblematic Founder of Irish Republicanism, Anti-Monarchism, and the “Baneful Influence of England”

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-98), an Irish radical and revolutionary remembered in collective memory as the founding father of Irish republicanism, left behind more writings than all his radical associates combined. A founder of the Society of United Irishmen in 1791, he helped drive their democratic campaign to end religious discriminations in Ireland through a total reform of electoral representation in the Irish parliament. Tone’s adolescence and national identity had been shaped during the American War of Independence, when Irish patriotic culture began to truly question the connection to Britain. When reform campaigns failed, Tone became a separatist first, and a democrat inspired by the French Revolution and Painite republicanism. He conspired with France for a military invasion of Ireland that would support a revolution and achieve independence. The Irish republic he imagined would be free from the “baneful influence of England”, as would be its national symbols which he reconfigured to subvert British dominion. Yet his political language, only recently analysed by scholars, is not driven nor dominated by anti-monarchism. This essay explores that paradox, and how Tone’s vocabulary, in his private writings included, inspired future generations, particularly during the 1916 Rising.

За короля и Отечество! Организация, вооружение, комплектование, обмундирование и снабжение американских лоялистов в войне за независимость США (1775–1783 гг.)

Based on the analysis of previously published documents, reference books, regimental stories, scientific monographs and articles, this article examines organizing, arming, manning, equipping and supplying American loyalists in the American War of Independence (1775-1783).

Tax after the American War of Independence: A Consideration of The Federalist and The Anti-Federalist Papers

Tax after the American War of Independence: A Consideration of The Federalist and The Anti-Federalist Papers

Understanding the disconnection in royal colonial leadership of the british Commanders-in-Chief (1775-1783): Gage, W. Howe, and Clinton

When the British lost their American colonial territories in 1781 at the end of the American Revolutionary War, it was the culmination of events that began during the conclusion of the American Theater of the Seven Years' War (the French and Indian War, 1763). Examples include changing dynamics in British Parliamentary charters, the involvement of American international allies (primarily France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic) seeking retribution for the French and Indian War, shortages of supplies and munitions, misjudgments regarding Loyalist support, and independent British generals failing to coordinate their military offensives. However, one less-discussed example is the disconnection in leadership styles among the three British Commanders-in-Chief of the American Colonies from 1775 to 1783: Thomas Gage, William Howe, and Henry Clinton. This paper assesses their leadership failures as they navigated their varying styles during the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783).

프린스턴 전투에 나타난 조지 워싱턴의 리더십

The Battle of Princeton is a minor battle in the American Revolutionary War. As such, the battle of Princeton is not so important in the process of dealing with the entire Revolutionary War in the existing studies. However, the outcome of the Battle of Princeton gave the British hopes of ending the war prematurely and turning the traitors into Loyalists. Even though Britain lost the battle, it was busy hiding it. A pattern of British arrogance and prejudice that continued throughout the war began as a result of the Battle of Princeton. Existing studies have focused on explaining the battle itself, failing to analyze in detail the leadership shown by Commander-in-Chief George Washington. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to closely analyze George Washington’s leadership while examining in more detail the reality of the Battle of Princeton that took place from the night of January 2nd to the morning of January 3rd. Furthermore, another purpose of this thesis is to compare the leadership of Washington, commander-in-chief of the Independence Army, and Cornwallis, commander of the British Army. The outcome of the Battle of Princeton is of great historical significance. The British had no choice but to tacitly admit that they too could be defeated. The United States, on the other hand, had new hope. It instilled in many Americans a strong belief that with a good leader, victory could be achieved even if the number of troops and munitions was far less than that of the British. Americans were proud to have Washington as their leader, a leader who was humble, communicative, focused on what was important, and able to win by valuing substance over cause. And they were sure that arrogant monarchs, arrogant generals, and arrogant subjects would perish.

From soldiers of fortune into heroes of liberty: The early trans-Atlantic mythologization of Tadeusz Kościuszko and Kazimierz Pułaski

ABSTRACT This article examines the early mythologization of two Polish volunteers who fought in the American Revolutionary War: Kazimierz Pułaski and Tadeusz Kościuszko. By analysing hitherto unexplored contemporary press materials and by using an Atlantic World framework to reassess well known archival sources, the article traces the process through which both men became trans-Atlantic mythical figures. We demonstrate that the two Polish national heroes were incorporated into the American foundation myth as paragons of early republican national values. A close analysis of the mythologization of Kościuszko and Pułaski provides valuable comparative insights into the cultural and political history of the Atlantic World during the Age of Revolution and the early nineteenth century. By centering on Poland-Lithuania in this comparative analysis, the article challenges the normally-accepted geographical contours of the Atlantic World.

The health of Royal Navy sailors in the West Indies during the American War of Independence, 1776–1783

The islands of the West Indies are often considered the most dangerous places for eighteenth century British sailors. Contemporary sources maintain that the level of sickness and mortality in the West Indies crippled the Royal Navy's fleet to such an extent as to render it extremely ineffective during the American Revolutionary War. There can be no doubt that disease, accidents and naval action had an effect on the Royal Navy in the West Indies; however the true extent of the impairment has been grossly exaggerated. This paper seeks to examine the precise effects of disease and mortality on British sailors stationed in the West Indies during the American War of Independence.

Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War

Hessians: German Soldiers in the American Revolutionary War

Analysis on the Reasons for the Failure of Revolutions: A Comparison Between the American Revolutionary War and the American Civil War

The American Revolutionary War aimed for political equality, resulting in the independence of the United States and the retention of the social order. The law established after the movement preserved slavery without making a direct claim. In contrast, the target of the American Civil War was to abolish slavery. It gained legal success but failed to change American society. Treating citizens differently according to their skin colour was banned, however, racial segregation remained in the country. In this paper, the causes of the failure of the two revolutions mentioned above are discussed, focusing on their influences on laws and communities. The principles, aims, and results of the events are compared and contrasted, so as to discover the reasons why revolutions are not able to shape society according to their purposes. Conclusions can be drawn that revolutions do not succeed mainly due to two reasons: either because the laws that line up with the principles of the revolutions are not established as the revolutions themselves do not aim for the principles or because the principles are not carried out in society even if related laws are established, for the domestic force against them is too strong.