Jeffrey A. Denman

Between five and six thousand enslaved Black laborers had fled to the British lines at Yorktown and Gloucester, and they performed the most backbreaking work—construction of the fortifications. But their fate was about to take an even more terrible turn. Infected with smallpox and combined with dwindling provisions, they no longer were a valuable asset to the British. Cornwallis forced them out of camp and beyond the British lines, where they either died or fell into the hand

The middle of December proved to be increasingly arduous for the troops. Surgeon James Thacher reported in his diary that he arrived “on the 14th” in “this wilderness” and he encountered “the snow on the ground . . . about two feet deep, and the weather extremely cold. The soldiers are destitute of both tents and blankets and some are actually barefooted and almost naked. Our only defense against the inclemency of the weather, consists of brush-wood thrown together. Our lodg

Pennsylvania and western New Jersey Quakers had endured much for their cause. The men who were exiled to Virginia, for example, suffered deprivation, loneliness, and loss, as did the families they left behind. It was clear that the civil liberties of the exiles had been violated, but in times of extreme duress and fear of the unknown, democratic ideals are all too often tossed to the wind. Quakers paid a high price for their "liberty of conscience," while Pennsylvania's leade

Key Quaker diarist in Philadelphia On the day the British landed in Maryland, another event was revealing itself that would have catastrophic consequences for Quakers. On August 25, 1777, the Continental Congress received an unusual letter from Major General John Sullivan. Three days prior, while on Staten Island, Sullivan had searched the baggage of one of his officers whom he believed had defected to British lines. Sullivan reported that he “found a Number of papers of Inte

Paine's Attack on the Quakers in American Crisis II In the Second American Crisis, Paine led an unremitting attack on the Quakers, distorting their December 20 epistle to suit his needs and those of the revolutionary government. He attacked their alleged affinity with the British government, citing the epistle as "a publication evidently intended to promote sedition and treason," which was clearly not a sound portrayal of the document. The "happy constitution" that the Quaker