Upcoming Magazine Article on General Heath

Tidewater Historian is back after a bit of a hiatus! For the past several weeks, I have been busy working on a book manuscript, which has consumed a great deal of time. More importantly, my wife and I are expecting our first child to be born within the next few weeks, so we have also been busy preparing for that! Anyways, I wanted to post a quick update about my ongoing research on Maj. Gen. William Heath (1737-1814) - shown here - who was a top commander in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. Since most of his wartime work was done in the administrative and diplomatic realms, he is not nearly as well known as the likes of Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, and Daniel Morgan. Nevertheless, his wartime service was highly significant and worthy of greater attention and recognition.

My interest in General Heath stems from a family connection I have with him - he and I are distant cousins (third cousins, nine times removed to be exact). As such, I enjoy learning about his Revolutionary War career and his specific contributions to American Independence. Fortunately, an article I wrote on General Heath will appear in the upcoming September/October issue of Patriots of the American Revolution Magazine. I have published a piece with them before (on Maj. Gen. Edward Hand) and really like the magazine's format and commitment to chronicling Revolutionary War history. The article on General Heath will appear in the "My Patriot Ancestor" section of the magazine.

While General Heath is not a well-known Continental Army commander, his battlefield leadership during the Battles of Lexington and Concord, his work lobbying state governments for troops and supplies, and his diplomatic leadership working with the French during the war's later stages certainly played important roles in securing a successful outcome for the Patriot cause. I look forward to seeing the article in print and thank the staff at Patriots of the American Revolution for running it!

Upcoming Revolutionary War Magazine Articles

Tidewater Historian is back after a short hiatus! I spent the bulk of November, December, and early January completing some writing projects and tending to my wife (who is pregnant with our first child), so please forgive the lack of posts lately. Anyways, I am pleased to announce that I will have two articles published in upcoming issues of "Patriots of the American Revolution" magazine. "Patriots" is great, up-and-coming publication that fills an important void in the world of magazines devoted to American history. While we have many great Civil War magazines in circulation, there has not been as much out there devoted to the American Revolution, so kudos to "Patriots" editor Tim Jacob and his team for providing this great resource!

Anyways, the first article that will be published is a biographical piece on Maj. Gen. Edward Hand (1744-1802), who served as George Washington's adjutant general during the Battle of Yorktown. General Hand was one of those rare military leaders during that era who could function equally well as either a combat commander or an administrator, so he had a quite eventful career during the war. I have several friends who are Hand descendants, and had the privilege last fall of speaking at their family reunion held in Hand's hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Thus, I am quite interested in doing more research and writing on General Hand and will keep you posted as more of my work on him appears in print.

The second article (that will be published in a separate issue) is a biographical piece on my distant cousin, Maj. Gen. William Heath (1737-1814) of Massachusetts. Like General Hand, William Heath worked closely with George Washington over the course of the war. However, Heath was more effective as an administrator than a combat commander during the conflict, and was best known for the challenging job of managing British John Burgoyne's surrendered convention army following the Battle of Saratoga. As with General Hand, I plan on doing more research and writing on General Heath in the future.

Ultimately, I really enjoy highlighting the work of Continental Army commanders who served faithfully during the conflict, but are not as well known to history as some of their peers (i.e. Daniel Morgan, Nathanael Greene). If you happen to come across "Patriots of the American Revolution" while visiting your local Barnes & Noble or other bookstore, please take a look!