The massacre of defenseless men at Fort Griswold symbolizes the brutal ending of our Revolutionary War and the suffering involved in winning our independence.
“I have not yet begun to fight!”
The Revolutionary War was shaped by ideas of honor and glory. No one pursued them more aggressively than John Paul Jones, a young Scotsman who arrived in America only months before the war began. With an naval officer’s commission bestowed by the Continental Congress, which had neither a fleet nor the faintest hope of waging a successful war at sea against the world’s greatest naval power, he set out in pursuit of fame. He was relentless. The French alliance opened French ports to American privateers and warships of the Continental Navy,...
Above: Marion Crossing the Peedee, William Tylee Ranney, 1851, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas
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