Archive Results For: American Revolution
Book Review – ‘The US Navy: A concise history’ by Johan Francke
In this concise history, Craig L. Symonds describes, among other issues, the role played by political decisions and political debate in the formation of the US Navy and, similarly, the influence of technological innovation. For the supporters of maritime policy, the importance of the navy was a matter of projecting state power and self-confidence. Others […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | WW2 | American Revolution | Post WW2 | American Civil War | Eighteenth Century | Nineteenth Century | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C) | Twentieth Century
Subjects include: Navies
Book Review – ‘Revolutions Without Borders: The call to liberty in the Atlantic world’ by Gavin Murray-Miller
The ‘Age of Atlantic Revolutions’ is the veritable substance of history. It marked a period rife with political upheavals that transformed the world and larger-than-life figures shrouded in the allure of romantic mythology. As Janet Polasky herself admits in her latest book Revolutions Without Borders, the late-eighteenth century appeared ‘an era when anything seemed possible’. Polasky […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | American Revolution | Eighteenth Century | French Revolution | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Miscellaneous | Strategy & Diplomacy
Book Review-‘Congress Buys a Navy: Politics, economics, and the rise of American naval power, 1881–1921’by P. E. Pedisich
Pedisich (former Admiral Stephen B. Luce Chair of Naval Strategy, US Naval War College) has written a legislative history of the US Navy from the Progressive Era of American history to just after the end of the First World War. The navy, in the period from the end of the Civil War in 1865 until […] Read More
Filed under: WW1 | Interwar | American Revolution | American Civil War | Other (Nineteenth C) | Other (Eighteenth C)
Subjects include: Navies
Book Review-‘Poseidon’s Curse: British naval impressment and Atlantic origins of the American Revolution’ by C. P. Magra
British naval impressment has been a subject of scholarly debate and fascination for well over a century now, and recently this subject has become even more heated. The scholars currently engaging in this debate generally fall into two camps. On one side are those who examine the subject from an administrative point of view and […] Read More
Filed under: American Revolution | Other (Nineteenth C) | Press Gangs
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea
Book Review – ‘True Yankees: The South Seas and the discovery of American identity’ by John H. Schroeder
In the years between 1783 (the Peace of Paris) and 1844 (the Treaty of Wangxi), Americans participated actively in the Old China or Indies trade. Hundreds of Americans traversed the Great South Sea, the term commonly used to describe the vast expanse of oceans, lands and peoples between the Cape of Good Hope and the […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | American Revolution | Indian Ocean | Pacific
Subjects include: Manpower & Life at Sea | Merchant Marines | Miscellaneous
Notes: Corrigenda
I have to correct, with apology, three accidental slips in the notes on T. D. Ledward’s Bounty letters that appeared in the November 2018 issue1. The first (n22) is that Albemarle Bertie’s final rank was full admiral and baronet, not knighted vice-admiral. The second (n54) is that neither Bligh’s bible nor prayerbook are in the National Maritime […] Read More
Filed under: American Revolution | Eighteenth Century | French Revolution | Pacific
Subjects include: Science & Exploration
Notes: Captain Bligh’s Glasses
In 1939, on the death of Lieutenant Commander George Frederick Glennie, the National Maritime Museum (NMM) received from his widow a fine, oval, silver-mounted Georgian reading glass, which folds into protective tortoiseshell covers (REL0026, figure 1). It measures 76 x 52 x 20 millimetres and the lens hinges out sideways from one of the mounts on […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | American Revolution | Eighteenth Century | French Revolution | Pacific
Subjects include: Science & Exploration
The Influence of the Theories of John Clerk of Eldin on British Fleet Tactics, 1782–1805
This article is a fundamental re-examination of the published work of John Clerk of Eldin and the influence it had on fleet commanders of the Royal Navy from 1782. While previous assessments have alluded to the potential for some influence, the general conclusion has been that any influence was limited; although some have dismissed it […] Read More
Filed under: Nelson | Seven Years’ War | American Revolution | French Revolution
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics
The Race to the Chesapeake between Destouches and Arbuthnot, March 1781
A systematic examination of the reasons why the British fleet won the race against the French to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay in advance of the battle of Cape Henry on 16 March 1781. Read More
Filed under: American Revolution
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics
‘Avarice and Rapacity’ and ‘Treasonable Correspondence’ in ‘an Emporium for All the World’: The British capture of St Eustatius, 1781
In the Revolutionary War the American rebels relied on supplies of munitions, especially gunpowder, from Europe. To circumvent the embargo and avoid seizure by the British, many of those supplies were routed through the neutral Dutch West Indian island of St Eustatius. To cut off supplies to the Americans, the British invaded and occupied that […] Read More
Filed under: American Revolution | Caribbean
Subjects include: Strategy & Diplomacy
Note: New Light on the Battle Off the Virginia Capes: Graves vs Hood
A new version of the narrative describing the battle off the Virginia Capes, in which the logs of Hood’s ships are investigated to find the truth. Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | American Revolution
Subjects include: Battles & Tactics | Navies
Naval Resources and the British Defeat at Yorktown, 1781
Although most of the blame for the disaster at Yorktown fell on the generals, the role of the navy was equally crucial. Had the fleet converged on Chesapeake Bay in sufficient numbers, the army of Lord Cornwallis would have been rescued and the war perhaps ended differently. Responsibility for this failure has never been adequately […] Read More
Filed under: Atlantic | American Revolution
Subjects include: Administration | Battles & Tactics | Biography | Strategy & Diplomacy