While many books have been written on the naval history of the Revolution, this is one of the first to treat it in its entirety as an Atlantic-wide conflict. While its geographical scope is vast, it features overlooked aspects of the war in which sloops and barges fought, actions which proved to be as decisive as the familiar ship of the line confrontations. It is also history from the bottom up, emphasizing the role of the crew as much the not always heroic officers. From naval perspective the rebellious colonies did not gain a military victory, though Benjamin Franklin was able to secure their independence at the peace table in Europe. The final chapter on the Royal Navy’s evacuation of white and black loyalists, will be examined in more detail in the author’s forthcoming Pen & Sword book.
Although Africans and African Americans have been left out of most accounts of the Revolutionary years, this book pieces together their emerging path toward freedom. From Britain came the Great Awakening, the advent of evangelism in America, which would provide slaves with hope for future freedom. In 1775, black emancipation commenced in Chesapeake Bay with Lord Dunmores proclamation and the resulting fleet, which attracted blacks, creating the first mass emancipation of slaves in British colonial history. At the end of the War for Independence, the British evacuations of loyal subjects from 1782 to 1785 were the turning point in the Emancipation Revolution. A majority of free and enslaved blacks would remain where the Royal Navy transports landed them in Jamaica, the Bahamas, Nova Scotia, or Britain. Blacks love of freedom is concluded with the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British Empire.
Though New Castle did not see any battles during the American Revolution, it was the Delaware's Colonial capital, and at it was at the center of the rebellion in the state. Its village green, still present today, served as a venue for early forums where colonists aired their grievances with the British government. Though it was considered more radical and inclined towards rebellion than the rest of Delaware, the city was also home to a sizable Loyalist community. When the city was occupied by the British in 1777, Loyalists from other colonies flocked to the relative safety of the city. However, after their departure, New Castle was still plagued by "refugees" who were essentially Loyalist privateers that preyed on the coastal communities of the Delaware Bay. Historian Ted Corbett charts the history of this community in its days leading up to the Revolution, through the conflict and into the early years of the Republic when Delaware struggled to set up its new government.
Calls for independence shook the wealthy gentry with their grand mansions in Chestertown and their patchwork of prosperous Kent County plantations and farms. It was in the interest of the upper echelons of Kent County society to remain loyal to the Crown. Yet the Revolutionary spirit did ignite, as Chestertown protested parliament's duty on tea and sent flour to aid the poor in the closed port of Boston. While militia was raised, Kent County's true value to Washington was as a key breadbasket for his Continental army. Still, the revolutionaries found it difficult to gain a firm foothold. Religious and social tensions created a charged atmosphere as Loyalists burned rebel mills to the ground only to be in turn attacked by rebel mobs. Author Theodore Corbett unravels the complexities of a community thrust into war.
The Battle of Saratoga in 1777 ended with British general John Burgoyne’s troops surrendering to the American rebel army commanded by General Horatio Gates. Historians have long seen Burgoyne’s defeat as a turning point in the American Revolution because it convinced France to join the war on the side of the colonies, thus ensuring American victory. But that traditional view of Saratoga overlooks the complexity of the situation on the ground. Setting the battle in its social and political context, Theodore Corbett examines Saratoga and its aftermath as part of ongoing conflicts among the settlers of the Hudson and Champlain valleys of New York, Canada, and Vermont. This long, more local view reveals that the American victory actually resolved very little. In transcending traditional military history, Corbett examines the roles not only of enlisted Patriot and Redcoat soldiers but also of landowners, tenant farmers, townspeople, American Indians, Loyalists, and African Americans. He begins the story in the 1760s, when the first large influx of white settlers arrived in the New York and New England backcountry. Ethnic and religious strife marked relations among the colonists from the outset. Conflicting claims issued by New York and New Hampshire to the area that eventually became Vermont turned the skirmishes into a veritable civil war. These pre-Revolution conflicts—which determined allegiances during the Revolution—were not affected by the military outcome of the Battle of Saratoga. After Burgoyne’s defeat, the British retained control of the upper Hudson-Champlain valley and mobilized Loyalists and Native allies to continue successful raids there even after the Revolution. The civil strife among the colonists continued into the 1780s, as the American victory gave way to violent strife amounting to class warfare. Corbett ends his story with conflicts over debt in Vermont, New Hampshire, and finally Massachusetts, where the sack of Stockbridge—part of Shays’s Rebellion in 1787—was the last of the civil disruptions that had roiled the landscape for the previous twenty years. No Turning Point complicates and enriches our understanding of the difficult birth of the United States as a nation.
Entrenched on Florida's Atlantic Coast since the sixteenth century, the Spanish presidio of St. Augustine was a prime target for piracy. For the colonial governors of Great Britain, France and Spain, privateering--and its rogue form, piracy--was a type of warfare used to enhance the limited resources of their colonies. While the citizens of St. Augustine were victims of this guerrilla war, they also struck back at their enemies using privateers such as Francisco Menendez, whose attacks on British ships strengthened his reputation and sustained the city. Historian Theodore Corbett recounts this dark and turbulent history, from the first sacking of the city by Francis Drake, through the pirate raids of the 1680s to the height of St. Augustine's privateering in the eighteenth century.
This study focuses upon the rise and demise of the American resorts of Ballston Spa and Caldwell on Lake George, and Saratoga Springs. The author argues that resorts such as these created and recreated themselves to keep pace with changing times.
Touching and Emotional Correspondence of the Former President with Alice, Theodore III, Kermit, Ethel, Archibald, and Quentin From Their Early Childhood Until Their Adulthood
Touching and Emotional Correspondence of the Former President with Alice, Theodore III, Kermit, Ethel, Archibald, and Quentin From Their Early Childhood Until Their Adulthood
This eBook edition of "Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt" has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Most of the letters in this book were written by Theodore Roosevelt to his children during a period of more than twenty years. A few others are included which he wrote to friends or relatives about the children. He began to write to them in their early childhood, and continued to do so regularly till they reached maturity. Whenever he was separated from them, in the Spanish War, or on a hunting trip, or because they were at school, he sent them these messages of constant thought and love, for they were never for a moment out of his mind and heart. Long before they were able to read he sent them what they called "picture letters," with crude drawings of his own illustrations of the written text, drawings precisely adapted to the childish imagination and intelligence. That the little recipients cherished these delightful missives is shown by the tender care with which they preserved them from destruction. They are in good condition after many years of loving usage. A few of them are reproduced on these pages—written at different periods as each new child appeared in the household.
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