American Revolution and Revolutionary War

Mention Rhode Island during the American Revolution, and two things come to mind: the 1772 burning of the Gaspee, and the famous 1st Rhode Island Regiment initially composed largely of …
Read More

The popularity of spies in the Revolutionary War, led by AMC’s TURN cable television series and the bestselling book George Washington’s Secret Six: The Spy Ring that Saved the American …
Read More

As a collateral descendant of Daniel Hitchcock (first cousin, nine times removed), I have always been fascinated by the short but important life of this colonel from Providence, Rhode Island, …
Read More

[From the Editor: John K. Robertson, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who holds a PhD., has just released his second reference book on Rhode Island …
Read More

Occasionally taking rest breaks to play his violin or to sip tea in the stifling summer heat in Philadelphia, in 1776, Thomas Jefferson struggles to discover the precise mix of …
Read More

Rhode Island’s role in the American Revolutionary War that raged from 1775 to 1783 is wide-ranging and complicated. It is yet another example of how Rhode Island’s history is way …
Read More

I am pleased to announce the release of my latest book!

The book is entitled Dark Voyage: An American Privateer’s War on Britain’s African Slave Trade (Westholme, 2022). The book …
Read More

Marian Mathison Desrosiers, The Banisters of Rhode Island in the American Revolution: Liberty and the Costs of Loyalties (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2021).

In 2017, Marian Mathison Desrosiers, formerly a …
Read More

This article is being published on the 250th anniversary of the seizure of the Gaspee.

“In a certain sense, the War for Independence began at sea when patriots clashed with …
Read More

In researching my last book entitled Citizen Soldiers, I came upon many references and stories of those American prisoners who suffered terribly in the makeshift jails of urban confinement or …
Read More