▸ Age of Revolutions

The Capture of Fort Ticonderoga, May 10, 1775

Ethan Allen and his Vermont militia, the Green Mountain Boys, accompanied by Benedict Arnold, captured Fort Ticonderoga in New York from its small British garrison on May 10, 1775, in the second major engagement of the American Revolution, only three weeks following the battles at Lexington and Concord.

Ethan Allen and Captain de la Place. May 1775. The capture of Fort Ticonderoga, New York. Copy of engraving after Alonzo Chappel.

A plan of Fort Ticonderoga in July 1758 during the Seven Years War. (111-SC-94756)

Visitors can get a birds-eye view of Fort Ticonderoga from Mt. Defiance. Mt. Defiance, New York. Photo by Katie Armstrong

Controlling the southern end of Lake Champlain, the fort had been a strategic linchpin during the earlier French and Indian Wars but had later fallen into disrepair.  However, the artillery pieces captured with the fort would prove key months later, when they were removed and used to break the siege of Boston, liberating it from British occupation.

Some facts you may not have known about the British Army during the Revolutionary War

55% of the soldiers had been involved in some sort of skilled trade before signing up.

The British Army taught it’s recruits to read and write

It was an all-volunteer army (except for a couple of rare instances)

The idea that recruiters would get a man drunk to sign up is a complete myth. In reality new recruits had four days to back out of their decision after joining up.

It was a multi-cultural army. Much of the army was recruited from the British Isles (Ireland, Scotland,Wales, Britain), but recruiters were also busy in Europe. A fairly large number of soldiers in the regular British Army were of German ethnicity. They served with the British Army, not as part of the Hessian forces.

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HISTORY MEME | 1 OUT OF 1 WAR | THE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR

Uniforms of the Papal States at the end of the Napoleonic Wars

Widely regarded as the most worthless army in Europe at the time, the Papal States nonetheless were able to uniform their army in a fairly impressive fashion. Their dress seems to have followed the French pattern in their cut and style. These prints by pioneer uniformologist Richard Knötel show these uniforms c. 1816. Click on the print to see the which soldiers are which from left to right.

The Book of Negroes miniseries premiers tonight on CBC TV, and we’ve got books for all ages that tell the incredible true story of the Black Loyalists, and provide the facts behind the bestselling novel. 

Ruth Holmes Whitehead’s oeuvre, Black Loyalists, is based on 10 years of writing and research, and played a major role in Lawrence Hill’s novel. He even provided a cover quote:

Insightful, engaging, and steeped in years of research, Black Loyalists is a must read for all who care about the intersection of Canadian, American, British, and African history. — Lawrence Hill, author of The Book of Negroes

Black Loyalists has been nominated for and won many historical writing awards, and Ruth was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia for her important contribution to the province’s history in December 2014.

In this, the first (and only) book to tell the story of the Black Loyalists for young people, author Wanda Taylor explains the horror and the history of settling Birchtown, Nova Scotia in an educational and accessible way, while also stressing their enduring spirit despite decades of hardship.

Birchtown and the Black Loyalists includes informative sidebars, highlighted glossary terms, recommended further reading, historic timeline, index, and dozens of historical and contemporary images. Suitable for ages 8-12.

For those interested, here is a podcast on the Haitian Revolution from the BBC Radio 4 with Melvyn Bragg and his guests: Tim Lockley (Reader in American Studies at the University of Warwick), Karen Salt (Fellow in History in the School of Language and Literature at the University of Aberdeen) and Kate Hodgson (Postdoctoral Fellow in French at the University of Liverpool). 

This is a very interesting discussion and I believe it goes on to show very well how reductive it would be to see the Haitian Revolution exclusively as a conflict between masters and slaves, when in reality, it also opposed different European empires (notably the French, the English and the Spanish). As we have often highlighted in this blog, the Haitian Revolution, was indeed a Revolution, with a capital “R,” which completely challenged ideas about liberty, race and freedom in all sides of the Atlantic. 

Many thanks to the author of pastimperfect (which is an excellent, informative and exceedingly well-written blog that you should all follow!) for mentioning this to us!

OTDIH January 5, 1780 Benedict Arnold and a force of Loyalists (including the Queen’s Rangers under the command of John Graves Simcoe) captured Richmond, Virginia with hardly a shot being fired.

On January 1st Arnold set off on a campaign up the James River, burning plantations and villages along the banks. On the 4th he landed below the city at a local plantation, and on the 5th he marched against the city which was only lightly defended with a few hundred local militia. 

The militia fired a volley at the approaching British, and then fled. (In their defense they were vastly outnumbered and had no bayonets with which to withstand the bayonets of the attacking British). 

Arnold wrote Jefferson a letter in which he stated that he would leave the city unharmed if Jefferson would not destroy the city’s military stores and tobacco, but instead turn them over. Jefferson wrote an incredibly testy letter back to Arnold (perhaps an unwise move given the relative bargaining power of the two sides), which Arnold received on the 6th.

Arnold promptly set about taking what he wanted anyway and burning the city down. In addition to the military supplies many private residences were looted and destroyed and much additional material was taken. 

Arnold then departed the city on the evening of the sixth and continued along the James River, attacking and burning plantations and confiscating property and slaves (including the plantation and 40 slaves belonging to Benjamin Harrison V who was a signer of the Declaration of Independence). Along the way Arnold’s larger, slower column was attacked by smaller bands of Patriot militia, but they weren’t able to stop or curtail Arnold’s movements completely, just weaken and frustrate him.

On May 9, 1754 Benjamin Franklin printed an issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette with a cartoon showing a snake representing the colonies, and the caption “Join, or Die”. It would become one of the most well-known political images of the Revolutionary era, perhaps only second to Paul Revere’s engraving of the Boston Masacre.

It would be reprinted over and over, especially in the years leading up to the opening of hostilities on April 19, 1775. 

The discerning viewer will note only eight segments. That’s because Franklin pictured all of New England as one segment, Delaware was then still part of Pennsylvania, and Georgia was left out entirely.

General George Washington and Aide-de-Camp Alexander Hamilton