The next NJARRT meeting takes place on October 10, 2024 with a return visit from Christian McBurney who will be talking about the Battle of Rhode Island.
The meeting will take place in the auditorium of Morristown National Historical Park museum at 30 Washington Place, Morristown NJ at 7pm and also on zoom.
Those interested in the zoom link may request it by sending an email to [email protected] no later than 5pm on October 9.
Synopsis
The Battle of Rhode Island
One of the most underrated battles of the North occurred in Rhode Island, on Aquidneck Island, north of Newport, on August 29. 1778. The Rhode Island Campaign of July and August 1778 was the first time the Americans and their new French allies cooperated militarily. They sought to capture the British garrison in Newport, which had they succeeded, following the American victory at Saratoga, might have ended the war. But the campaign did not go well for the Americans and French, mostly due to an unexpected hurricane that forced the French expeditionary force to Boston.
When Major General John Sullivan’s American army lifted its siege and retreated to the northern part of Aquidneck Island, Major General Robert Pigot sent a column of British soldiers up the East Road and a column of Hessians and Loyalists up the West Road. What followed was a series of battles where the Continental army fought well. It included the First Rhode Island Regiment, known as the “Black Regiment,” which was composed mostly of enslaved men who had earned their freedom by enlisting.
McBurney will bring a new perspective to the battle based on recent discoveries and will show ten battle maps.
Christian McBurney is the author of six books on the American Revolutionary War, including The Rhode Island Campaign: The First American and French Operation in the Revolutionary War (Westholme, 2011).
He has spoken multiple times on CSPAN’s Book TV, at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., at the Rhode Island Historical Society, and at the Fraunces Tavern Museum. He is the President of the American Revolution Round Table of the District of Columbia at Mount Vernon.
