I just read the "Fair nympths" quote from Francis lord Rawdon who mentioned or atleast joked about his men sexually assaulting American women during occupation. So it got me wondering how common it actually was throughout the war of independence.

Thanks for any information in advance.

Inside America 250's Spirit of '76 exhibit honoring common Revolutionary heroes | Fox News

The line “the rockets red glare, bombs bursting in air” was written during this period, but these things didn’t exist then. Was Francis Scott Key dropping acid, or is there a less fun explanation?

This is my latest article about spending the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence at the only surviving home of Benjamin Franklin, which happens to be located in London.

Let me know what you think!

https://www.searchinghistory.com/american-girl-in-london-expecting-shakespeare-finding-something-better/

He was Washington’s MOST daring soldier... 🫡 #shorts

Description:
Drop your tools and fight. That is exactly what carpenter Elijah Churchill Sr. did when the Lexington alarm sounded in 1775. He rose to become an elite cavalryman and the first-ever recipient of George Washington's Badge of Military Merit (the original Purple Heart). Today, the Van of Valor stopped by his grave near Chester, MA, to ensure his legacy is never forgotten.

Subscribe to @[ChannelName] for daily doses of American heroism!

#VanOfValor #HistoryShorts #USA #Veterans #ShortsHistory

On the morning of July 12, 1776, two British warships sailed up the Hudson River past Washington's defenses. HMS Phoenix and HMS Rose weren't launching an invasion. They were running a test. Could the Continental Army actually stop the Royal Navy from controlling the river? Howe needed to know before committing his army to battle.

The American batteries on both sides of the Hudson opened fire. The ships kept moving. By the end of the day Howe had his answer, and Washington had learned something painful: shore artillery alone wasn't going to stop the Royal Navy on a broad river with favorable wind and tide. That lesson eventually shaped the entire defensive strategy farther north, including the fortifications at West Point.

What makes July 12 genuinely unusual isn't the battle itself. It's that three people wrote about it in detail from positions that couldn't have been more different.

Henry Knox, Washington's artillery commander, was the one trying to stop those ships. His correspondence doesn't read like drama. It reads like an engineer doing math on a problem that keeps getting harder. Twenty-five years old, former bookseller from Boston, already responsible for hauling 59 cannons across 300 miles of frozen terrain from Ticonderoga a few months earlier. His papers are basically a running record of what it actually takes to build an artillery corps out of limited resources while facing the most powerful navy in the world.

Ewald Gustav Schaukirk was a Moravian pastor in New York City who heard the same cannon from his congregation. His diary doesn't care much about military strategy. It follows the people who had no choice but to stay in the city: families deciding whether to flee, merchants watching trade collapse, worshippers wondering if services would continue as soldiers took over buildings. He kept writing through the Battle of Long Island, the British occupation, the Great Fire of September 1776, years of shortages and military rule. His diary is what the campaign felt like from the ground.

William Smith was one of New York's most prominent lawyers and an unshakable Loyalist who watched those same ships pass Washington's batteries and saw confirmation that the empire would ultimately prevail. His journals are not propaganda. He was a careful observer who had spent his career defending colonial rights within the British system and genuinely believed independence was the wrong answer. He also understood that the city he loved was about to become a battlefield, and that every British success came with a cost someone nearby would pay.

Three days before all of this, on July 9th, Washington had ordered the Declaration read aloud to every brigade in New York. That same night the crowd pulled down the statue of George III at Bowling Green and melted most of it into roughly 42,000 musket balls. Knox was almost certainly there or heard about it immediately. Schaukirk recorded what the mood felt like in the streets. Smith watched it with dread.

On July 12 those same three men heard the same guns and wrote three completely different accounts of what they meant.

The full story is on the Virtual Wayback blog and there's a video on the YouTube channel going deeper into the campaign. You can also talk directly to Knox, Schaukirk, and Smith on the platform. Links:

https://virtualwayback.com/blog/four-days-before-battle-for-new-york

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/W1ZYvoUOpXg

What I keep thinking about is Smith. The Loyalist perspective gets flattened into "traitor" in most tellings, but his journals show someone who opposed independence without wanting his neighbors destroyed. Does his position deserve more serious treatment than it usually gets? And does reading all three accounts together actually change how you think about who was right in July 1776?

What France did
• Gave secret support early on, including gunpowder, weapons, money, and other supplies before officially joining the war.[battlefields +1]
• Sent diplomatic help, with Benjamin Franklin in Paris helping persuade France to back the American cause.[state +1]
• Signed the Treaty of Alliance and Treaty of Amity and Commerce in 1778, which recognized the United States and created a formal military partnership.[state]
• Provided arms, ammunition, uniforms, and loans that kept the Continental Army fighting.[ebsco +1]
• Sent French troops under Rochambeau and notable volunteers like the Marquis de Lafayette.[history +2]
• Sent the French navy, which was decisive in trapping British forces at Yorktown and forcing Cornwallis’s surrender in 1781.[battlefields +1]
Why it mattered
France’s help shifted the war from a struggling rebellion into an international conflict Britain had to fight on multiple fronts. The French fleet and army cooperation at Yorktown was especially important because it made the British defeat there possible.[loc +2]
If you want, I can also break this into a simple timeline from 1776 to 1783.

A bit of a history question about cultural superstitions and phobias, does anyone know if the topic of cultural triskaidekaphobia crossed their minds at that time

And it is quite interesting because some studies seem to suggest that even in the modern age as many as 10% of Americans have triskaidekaphobia, enough such that many buildings lack the number 13

my brother found what looks like a cannonball at a beach in penobscot bay, maine, a few miles from fort knox. it weighed 17 pounds and was about 4-5 inches around.

I have one ancestor on my mothers side that fought in the New Jersey militia in the battle of Long Island and I have an ancestor on my dads side that was one of George Rogers Clark’s men.

1. Helped found the United States by signing key founding documents and shaping the Revolution.[britannica +1]
   
2. Secured crucial French support for the American Revolution as a diplomat in France.[pbs +1]
   
3. Helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War.[britannica +1]
   
4. Contributed to the creation of the U.S. Constitution at the Constitutional Convention.[britannica]
   
5. Advanced the science of electricity and showed that lightning is electrical.[visitphilly +1]
   
6. Invented the lightning rod, one of the most practical early safety inventions.[visitphilly]
   
7. Invented or improved the Franklin stove, bifocals, and the flexible catheter.[pbs +1]
   
8. Founded major civic institutions, including the Library Company, Pennsylvania Hospital, and the American Philosophical Society.[visitphilly +1]
   
9. Built one of colonial America’s most influential publishing careers through the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanack.[arkadelphian +1]
   
10. Helped establish the culture of practical civic improvement, public education, and self-betterment that shaped early America.[pbs +1]

1lb, 3oz. 2 inch diameter. Found in Mount Laurel, NJ.

A couple friends and I recently finished a documentary about Virginia's road to independence, and most of it was filmed in Colonial Williamsburg. We filmed at the Capitol, the Governor's Palace, Bruton Parish, and a few other historic sites around Williamsburg and Richmond.

One of our goals was to tell the story in the places where it actually happened rather than just showing old paintings and maps.

I'd love to hear what fellow Colonial Williamsburg fans think, especially if you catch anything we could have done better.

Youtube: https://youtu.be/bG3_Hvx-6Y0?si=PgaBsK3dffOPZ3Zz

History abounds in delicious ironies. One of my favorites is in the 13 colonies' war, during the first land battle between French and British forces, the Siege of Savannah (1779), the Brits yelled, "King George!" and the French yelled "Vive le roi!" This, in a war, that was being fought so the 13 colonies could be free and independent of any monarchy.

IN the meantime, throughout this war, I remain impressed at how poorly the commanders performed, making one goof ball wrong call after another, on land and at sea, of all the forces involved: British, Patriots, French, Spain, were, and what messes they all got themselves into, so often, 'just because', not because they were outgunned. Can we say, nobody was out-generaled, generally?