Tobias Lear: Tobias Lear served as personal aide and private secretary to George Washington from 1786 to 1799. He was present at the First President’s death and controversially handled Washington’s papers after his passing. In 1801, Lear went into diplomacy at the appointment of President Jefferson, then joined the War Department.
Elias Boudinot: Statesman Elias Boudinot served as New Jersey’s delegate to the Continental Congress. After the Revolution, he served as its Congressman and then was appointed Director of the U.S. Mint.
John Trumbull was an artist known for paintings of people and events in the American Revolution. Serving in the Continental Army in the early months of the conflict, he went on to create famous history works and portraits of his era’s leading figures and critical moments from the war.
Studies taken from the pages of American Spirit Magazine. Learn more about Phyllis Wheatley and the Brewster Sisters.
His decision went against his family’s and his country’s wishes, but it turned out to be a fortuitous one for the Patriots. Lafayette played a key role in securing America’s independence from England and won the hearts of Americans, who would lovingly refer to the Frenchman as “our marquis” long after he returned home. But while some worry that the marquis has faded from modern America’s consciousness, his admirers hoped to revive Lafayette’s memory with events surrounding his 250th birthday. Th...
Legal scholar and teacher George Wythe influenced such figures as Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall and James Monroe with his brilliant mind and Enlightenment views on government and the law. He was delegate to Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1806 he died at age 80, potentially poisoned by his own grandnephew.
George Mason was an important Virginia statesman known for his writing of the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which called for guaranteed liberties for the people and served as a model for the American Constitution and Bill of Rights. It was the lack of a Bill of Rights, among other issues, that motivated Mason to famously decline to sign the original Constitution.
The Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in New York honors over 15,000 Americans who were held captive on British ships during the Revolution. Twice as many soldiers died in these conditions than in the battles of the Revolution, mostly of disease, starvation, and violence. After falling into disrepair in the 1930s, the Monument has since been restored and was rededicated in 2008.
Members of the Oneida American Indian nation served as scouts, guides, and soldiers in New York during the Revolution, including critically in the Battle of Saratoga. They earned recognition from the Continental Congress for their support. Despite promises to protect their land and autonomy, colonists took over their lands after the end of the war, pushing the Oneidas onto reservations.
In the earliest years of the U.S. government, the man whom many considered the second-most powerful man in the nation was neither a landowning Southern gentleman nor an experienced Northern statesman. Instead, the unofficial title belonged to Caribbean-born Alexander Hamilton. His career followed a steep trajectory as he progressed from George Washington’s trusted aide-de-camp to co-author of the Federalist Papers to the first Secretary of the Treasury. This ascent from obscurity to an intensive...
On August 27, 1776, the British handed the Continental Army a decisive defeat at the Battle of Long Island, effectively forcing General George Washington and his troops out of New York City until the end of the war. Of the approximately 10,000 Americans who fought in the two-day battle, more than 1,000 were captured. It was a monumental victory for the British, but it posed one problem—where would they keep all of their prisoners?
Mercy Otis Warren galvanized the Patriot cause with her satirical anti-British poems, plays and pamphlets, and her astute observations helped guide many Founding Fathers in their pursuit of freedom.
Both the British and the Patriots assigned African-Americans to a variety of roles, including manual labor and specialized work such as carpentry, metal work, guiding and piloting. Others served as orderlies, cooks and servants. They also served as combat soldiers in both the British army and in bands of Loyalist irregulars. The Patriot side, however, was divided over the issue of arming slaves. The Southern states strenuously opposed it, fearing it would lead to slave uprisings. At first, they ...
The John Stark House in Manchester, New Hampshire, catalogs the legacy of General John Stark and his wife Molly, who lived there from 1760-1765. General Stark, a hero of the Revolution, was a veteran of battles like Bunker Hill and Bennington. The Molly Stark Chapter of DAR, named in honor of his brave wife, maintains the restored home today to showcase 1700s living to the public.
British-born officer Horatio Gates, a veteran of the French and Indian Wars, moved to the colonies at the eve of the Revolution. He quickly rose up the ranks to become a major general and led his troops to major victories at Saratoga and other battles. Conflicts with George Washington and subsequent defeats led him to be relieved of command in 1780. Later, he served in the New York legislature.
Read nearly any history of the American Revolution and you’re almost sure to encounter the name Joseph Plumb Martin. A young private in the Connecticut militia, Martin was fairly well-educated and kept a journal of his service throughout the war. First published in 1830 as A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Danger and Suffering of a Revolutionary Soldier, Interspersed with Anecdotes of Incidents that Occurred Within His Own Observation, Martin’s diary was re-discovered in the 1950s. The live...
A Scottish immigrant to the Colonies in 1750, Hugh Mercer served as a commander in the French and Indian War and then led the 3rd Virginia Regiment of the Continental Army in the Revolution. Merecr was also a physician who treated members of George Washington’s family. He died of bayonet injuries sustained in battle in 1777.
Louis Cook, born Nia-man-rigounant to an African father and a Abenaki mother, was a Commissioned Officer in the Continental army. While living in Quebec, he offered his services to General Washington in 1775, and became the highest ranking officer of Black and American Indian descent in the war when he made Lieutenant Colonel in 1779.
The first woman to receive a military pension, Margaret Corbin or “Captain Molly” as she was known went from widow to soldier at the Battle of Fort Washington. There, she took over a cannon previously manned by her husband, who earlier perished in the fight, and sustained injuries from grapeshot in the process. She was the only woman to serve as a guard in West Point’s Corps of Invalids.
The military leadership of Isaac Shelby led to the triumph of the Continental Army at King’s Mountain, North Carolina in 1780, a serious blow to the British hold on the South. Following the Revolution, Shelby helped secure statehood for Kentucky and became its first governor.
Nancy Hart was a fierce frontierswoman who defended the Georgia backcountry from British loyalists through her own intrepid methods. Legend has it that Hart spied on British military camps and even may have captured and killed several soldiers.
William Shepard:Revolution where he served with distinction. Following the war, he went into government, and is best known for leading a controversial defense of the Springfield, MA artillery against Shay’s Rebellion.
William Richardson Davie was a military officer in the Revolutionary War and the 10th Governor of North Carolina from 1798 to 1799. He was a member of the Federalist Party and served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention as a representative of the state of North Carolina.
Timothy Smith, a Quaker, had his commitment to pacifism tested when the Revolutionary War started in 1775. Believing that war and conflict were against God’s wishes, Quakers disowned some of Smith’s extended family members for bearing arms or supporting war measures. At age 32, Smith decided to remain faithful to his religion while demonstrating allegiance to the Patriot cause by joining the Continental Army in a non-combatant role: as a teamster responsible for transporting vital supplies to mi...
Frances Wright is believed to be the first American woman to speak publicly for gender equality when she did so in 1828.
Philip Mazzei was an Italian-born wine merchant, surgeon, and horticulturist. A close friend of Thomas Jefferson, he spoke publicly, promoting Jefferson’s ideals of religious freedom first in churches and later as a pamphleteer. The famous doctrine “all men are created equal” was likely inspired by Mazzei. During the war, Mazzei assisted abroad in Italy, sharing political rumblings and even acquiring weaponry to send back to the Continental Army.
In the late 18th century, Joseph Antoine Decuir became one of the wealthiest planters in Louisiana’s Pointe Coupee Parish. But that’s not why his name deserves to live on: The son of French immigrants to Louisiana, Joseph served in the Spanish army that aided the Colonies in their fight for independence and earned status as a Revolutionary Patriot.
Eleazer Blake joined the Continental Army in 1777, and witnessed the battles of Bunker Hill, Monmouth, and Saratoga, the burning of Charlestown, Mass., and winter at Valley Forge and served in Rhode Island too. Blake is known for keeping a detailed diary during the war – detailing his wartime activities and news of battles.
Robert Morris was a merchant and Founding Father who signed the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution. Morris served as the Superintendent of Finance of the United States, becoming known as the “Financier of the Revolution.”
Captain John Trevett played a leading role in the Continental Marines’ first amphibious landing
