Excerpt from Extracts From the Diary of Christopher Marshall: Kept in Philadelphia and Lancaster, During the American Revolution, 1774-1781 Christopher Marshall, from whose Diary, called by him a "Remembrancer," the following extracts have been made, was by birthright a member of the Society of Friends, being of one of the oldest families of English origin in the Province of Pennsylvania. His sympathy with the cause of American liberty caused his exclusion from the religious denomination to which he had belonged. This expulsion will explain and perhaps excuse the severity of his views respecting the political conduct of some of his fellow citizens. His associates were among the most prominent Whigs of the country, by whom, it is evident, that he was held in high esteem. I have been unable to ascertain the exact date of his death, but as his will was dated in 1796, and proved on the 3d of May in 1797, I think that his decease probably occurred in the early part of the latter year. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

No Single vision for the future of America existed after the Revolution. In light of social and economic changes, America's scope shifted from community-mindedness-the very heart of the republican ideal-to economic individualism. In Moral Visions and Material Ambittions, A. Kristen Foster describes how eager young entrepreneurs in Philadelphia manipulated America's moral vision of a classical republic to facilitate their own material ambitions, fostered by the free market economy that arose between 1776 and 1836. As market developments changed economic relationships in the city, men and women used the Revolutions's republican language to help explain what was happening to them, and in the process they helped redefine class structure in Philadelphia. This study explores the ways Philadelphians used the Revolution and its powerful language of liberty and equality to impose meaning on their lives, as an expanding market irreversibly changed social and econimic relationships in their city and, eventually, throughout the rest of the country. Book jacket.

On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read aloud to a crowd gathered outside the Pennsylvania State House. It was engrossed on vellum later in the month, and delegates began signing the finely penned document in early August. The man who read the Declaration and later embossed it--the man with perhaps the most famous penmanship in American history--was Timothy Matlack, a Philadelphia beer bottler who strongly believed in the American cause. A disowned Quaker and the grandson of an indentured servant, he rose from obscurity to become a delegate to Congress. He led a militia battalion at Princeton during the Revolutionary War; his unflagging dedication earned him the admiration of men like Thomas Jefferson and Richard Henry Lee. Also in 1776 Matlack and his radical allies drafted the Pennsylvania Constitution, which has been described as the most democratic in America. This biography is a full account of an American patriot.

Refuting commonly held myths about the American Revolution, this comprehensive history of the colonial army's winter encampment of 1777-1778 reveals the events that occurred both inside and outside the camp boundaries, discussing interactions between the soldiers and local civilians, divisions within the army, the political and military strategies of George Washington, and their implications in terms of the future of the United States. Reprint.

When the Revolutionary War began, the odds of a united, continental effort to resist the British seemed nearly impossible. Few on either side of the Atlantic expected thirteen colonies to stick together in a war against their cultural cousins. In this pathbreaking book, Robert Parkinson argues that to unify the patriot side, political and communications leaders linked British tyranny to colonial prejudices, stereotypes, and fears about insurrectionary slaves and violent Indians. Manipulating newspaper networks, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and their fellow agitators broadcast stories of British agents inciting African Americans and Indians to take up arms against the American rebellion. Using rhetoric like "domestic insurrectionists" and "merciless savages," the founding fathers rallied the people around a common enemy and made racial prejudice a cornerstone of the new Republic. In a fresh reading of the founding moment, Parkinson demonstrates the dual projection of the "common cause." Patriots through both an ideological appeal to popular rights and a wartime movement against a host of British-recruited slaves and Indians forged a racialized, exclusionary model of American citizenship.

The fascinating true story of two Revolutionary-era teenagers who defied their Loyalist families to marry radical patriots, Henry Knox and Benedict Arnold—“an effortless read and a fresh perspective on the American Revolution” (Shelf Awareness). When Peggy Shippen, the celebrated blonde belle of Philadelphia, married American military hero Benedict Arnold in 1779, she anticipated a life of fame and fortune, but financial debts and political intrigues prompted her to conspire with her treasonous husband against George Washington and the American Revolution. In spite of her commendable efforts to rehabilitate her husband’s name, Peggy Shippen continues to be remembered as a traitor bride. Peggy’s patriotic counterpart was Lucy Flucker, the spirited and voluptuous brunette, who in 1774 defied her wealthy Tory parents by marrying a poor Boston bookbinder simply for love. When her husband, Henry Knox, later became a famous general in the American Revolutionary War, Lucy faithfully followed him through Washington’s army camps where she birthed and lost babies, befriended Martha Washington, was praised for her social skills, and secured her legacy as an admired patriot wife. And yet, as esteemed biographer Nancy Rubin Stuart reveals, a closer look at the lives of both spirited women reveals that neither was simply a “traitor” or “patriot.” In Defiant Brides, the first dual biography of both Peggy Shippen Arnold and Lucy Flucker Knox, Stuart has crafted a rich portrait of two rebellious women who defied expectations and struggled—publicly and privately—in a volatile political moment in early America. Drawing from never-before-published correspondence, Stuart traces the evolution of these women from passionate teenage brides to mature matrons, bringing both women from the sidelines of history to its vital center. Readers will be enthralled by Stuart’s dramatic account of the epic lives of these defiant brides, which begin with romance, are complicated by politics, and involve spies, disappointments, heroic deeds, tragedies, and personal triumphs.