By Todd DePastino As a historian drawn to veterans’ stories, I sometimes indulge a private daydream. One morning at a Veterans Breakfast Club gathering, just as the coffee is being poured and the conversations begin, the door opens and in walks a small, weathered old man in a dusty colonial militia uniform. He’s bent
A Black Soldier in the Continental Army Boyrereau Brinch, later known as Jeffrey Brace, was born in West Africa around 1742, kidnapped as a teenager, and carried into Atlantic slavery before being sold repeatedly in the Caribbean and New England. In Connecticut, he eventually came into the household of Mary Stiles, a widow in
James Thatcher “On that sad day how many hearts were wrung!” Army surgeon James Thacher, experienced unexpected heartbreak as he watched the army disband at Newburgh, New York, in 1783. In this passage, he recalls veterans parting in poverty and uncertainty and the formidable Baron von Steuben, the stern Prussian drillmaster of Valley Forge,
By Todd DePastino In 1864, the American Experiment was on the brink of extinction as the Civil War tore the country apart. That same year, a Connecticut minister named Elias Brewster Hillard quietly embarked on a search for last living veterans of the American Revolution. Rev Elias Brewster Hillard, 1825-1895. (Find A Grave
By Todd DePastino Baron von Steuben and the Making of a Real Army America has a long tradition of the “citizen-soldier.” The concept is like an equation: they need to balance each other out for it to work. Too much the citizen, then soldiering suffers. Too much the soldier, then the object of the
By Todd DePastino You may have heard the legend of Molly Pitcher, which first appeared in the 1830s as the nation was celebrating the last of the Revolutionary War generation. The nickname “Molly Pitcher” is perfect. “Molly” was 18th century slang for a woman and “Pitcher” conveyed the critical role of water in wartime.
