Colonial America Events

At dawn, the British began to land on the shore, an advance guard of 4,000 British and Hessian troops landing first. Inland, opposing them, was a brigade of some 750 men under the command...

Before dawn on November 16, the British and Hessian troops moved out. Knyphausen and his troops were ferried across the Harlem River on flatboats and landed on Manhattan. The flatboatmen ...

Cornet Francis Geary (1752-1776), son of Admiral Sir Francis Geary, and a party of eight troopers of the 16th (Queen's) Light Dragoons were engaged in a scouting mission when fired upon b...

On December 25, 1776, Washington and a small army of 2,400 men crossed the Delaware River at McKonkey's Ferry, Pennsylvania on their way to attack the Hessian garrison of about 900 in Tre...

An outpost was set up by the Hessians at a cooper shop on Pennington Road about one mile north-west of Trenton. George Washington himself led the assault, riding in front of his soldiers....

Final preparation for the attack was begun on December 23. On December 24 Washington ordered that each man be provided with three days rations and that they keep their blankets handy. He ...

The Battle of Princeton (January 3, 1777) was a battle in which General Washington's revolutionary forces defeated British forces near Princeton, New Jersey. The site is administered as a...

Meigs Raid (also known as the Battle of Sag Harbor) was a guerrilla raid by American forces on the British at Sag Harbor, New York on May 23, 1777 during the American Revolutionary War in...

The 1777 Battle of Ticonderoga occurred between 2 and 6 July 1777 at Fort Ticonderoga, near the southern end of Lake Champlain in the state of New York. In military maneuvers that more cl...

The Battle of Oriskany, fought on August 6, 1777, was one of the bloodiest battles in the American Revolutionary War and a significant engagement of the Saratoga campaign. Early in the si...

The Battle of Bennington was a battle of the American Revolutionary War that took place on August 16, 1777, in Walloomsac, New York, about 10 miles (16 km) from its namesake Bennington, V...

September 11 began with a heavy fog, which provided cover for the British troops. Washington received contradictory reports about the British troop movements and continued to believe that...

The Battle of the Clouds (also known as the Battle of Warren, Battle of Whitehorse Tavern, or the Battle of Goshen) was an engagement of the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revoluti...

The Battle of Paoli (also known as the Battle of Paoli Tavern or the Paoli Massacre) was a battle in the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War fought on September 21, 17...

A thick fog clouded the battlefield throughout the day. The vanguard of Sullivan's column, on Germantown Road, launched the battle when they opened fire on the British pickets of light...

After the capture of Philadelphia on September 26, 1777, and of the failure of the American surprise attack against the British camp at the Battle of Germantown on October 4, the American...

The Battle of White Marsh was a battle of the Philadelphia campaign of the American Revolutionary War fought December 5–8, 1777, in the area surrounding White Marsh, Pennsylvania. The bat...

With the winter setting in the prospects for campaigning being greatly diminished, General George Washington sought quarters for his men. Washington and his troops had just fought what wa...

France entered the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) in 1778, and assisted in the victory of the Americans seeking independence from Britain (realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris). ...

Early on the morning of April 19, Elbert took the galleys down the river to attack the British ships, which were already ranged in their order of battle. The galleys likely initiated the ...

The formalities completed, Ranger turned sharply and fired a broadside at the following Drake. The British were unable to reply immediately- and when they did, they found they had a serio...

On May 20, the British launched their attack. The militia scattered at the sight of the British troops, not offering any resistance and failing to notify Lafayette of the attack. On Ridge...

In 1778 the settlement of Cobleskill, New York consisted of twenty families living in farms spread out along Cobleskill Creek. As it was on the frontier with Iroquois territory, the settl...

Lee, as Washington's senior subordinate, was initially appointed commander of the advance force, but turned it down because of his doubts about the plan. However, when the force was incre...

In the spring of 1778 an invasion of British East Florida was organized by Georgia Governor John Houstoun and Continental Army General Robert Howe. However, the two men could not agree on...

The Illinois campaign was a series of events in the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) in which a small force of Virginia militiamen led by George Rogers Clark seized control of sever...

Gunfire was exchanged over the next several days. After the initial flurry of shooting, Boone—who reemerged as the natural leader even though as a captain he was outranked by Major Smith ...

On September 17, 1778 during the American Revolution, German Flatts was attacked by Loyalists and Iroquois. A force of several hundred men from Butler's Rangers under the command of Wi...

On September 22, 1778, Gen. Sir Henry Clinton ordered Maj. Gen. Sir Charles Grey, Maj. Gen. The Marquess Charles Cornwallis,and Brigadier General Edward Mathews to mobilize troops in an e...

The Battle of Chestnut Neck was a battle fought in New Jersey during the American Revolutionary War. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, Chestnut Neck was a busy thriving trade ...

Boyd was apparently unaware that he was being followed so closely, and his camp, while guards were posted, was not particularly alert. Pickens advanced, leading the center, while his left...

On the afternoon of March 3, a rider galloped into the American camp, warning of the British approach. While the exact amount of time they had to deploy is uncertain, the relatively hurri...

The opening move in Britain's "southern strategy" to win control of its rebellious colonies in the American Revolutionary War was the December 1778 capture of Savannah, Georgia. This heig...

Washington’s plan called for a two-pronged, pincer-type, nighttime attack on the fortifications to be carried out by 1,200 men of his Corps of Light Infantry. According to 18th Century mi...

Later that day, riders from Peenpack reached the village of Goshen, telling of Brant's raid and the destruction of the town. A militia formed immediately, under the reluctant command of L...

On August 11, about 250 American militia advanced from their fortified camp and occupied a recently abandoned battery about a quarter mile (400 m) from the British fort. As expected, a so...

At four o'clock on the afternoon of August 8, 1779, Major Henry Lee, with four hundred infantry and a troop of dismounted dragoons started from New Bridge (now River Edge, New Jersey), on...

During the next day the scouting party spotted a group of four Indians along the trail and a brief gun fight occurred. One Indian was killed, and Boyd and Parker started to return to Sull...

From Fort Detroit, Captain Henry Bird of the 8th Regiment of Foot led an American Indian army of 1000 men, accompanied by a 150 white men (Regulars of the 8th and 47th Regiments, Detroit ...

On March 1, Gálvez sent a letter to Durnford offering to accept his surrender, which was politely rejected. Gálvez began setting up gun batteries around the fort the next day. Durnford wr...

On May 29, 1780, Tarleton caught up with Buford in the Waxhaws, at a crossroads in what is now Buford, South Carolina. Governor Rutledge, alerted to Tarleton's advance, had already separa...

When the cavalry leading the Patriot column approached, the guards posted on the road fired their weapons and retreated to join their main body. After an initial cavalry charge, the Patri...

Sumter decided on a plan of attack of assaulting the camp in three mounted detachments. The initial assault was made early in the morning where Winn's and Davie's men completely routed Br...

Both armies advanced at each other just after dawn. The British troops opened the battle, when the right flank fired a volley into the militia regiments, causing a significant number of c...

Arnold and André finally met on September 21 at Joshua Hett Smith's house. On the morning of September 22, James Livingston, the colonel in charge of the outpost at Verplanck's Point, fir...

Benedict Arnold and John André finally met on September 21 at Joshua Hett Smith's house. On the morning of September 22, James Livingston, the colonel in charge of the defense outpost at ...

The battle opened on October 7, 1780, around 3 pm when 900 Patriots (including John Crockett, the father of Davy Crockett), approached the steep base of King's Mountain at dawn. The rebel...

Morgan's strategy worked perfectly. The British drove in successive lines, anticipating victory only to encounter another, stronger line after exerting themselves and suffering casualties...

On January 31, Cornwallis began to move his army despite the heavy rain fearing any further delay would cause him to lose his chance of destroying Greene's army. Some six weeks after the ...