I must confess that much of my recent interest in the American Revolution has been fueled by several fascinating web pages that exist on the world wide web, or Internet. This short article will provide readers with a short overview of several important sites, along with URL addresses so that you can get in touch with some terrific information.

Michael Meals Rev War Links Pages

Address: http://www.uconect.net/~histnact/revwar/revwar.html

Mike Meals is a re-enactor in the 2nd Connecticut Regiment whose hobbies are re-enacting the American Revolution, researching historic Fort Griswold, and working on his web page. This page is a virtual "Yellow Pages" of all the known sites that have anything to do with the American Revolution. His efforts have earned him a Four Star American War Library Award for best military world wide web site. There have been over 22,000 hits on this page since January 11, 1996, which attests to the popularity of this page.

Among the categories that one will find in the index are segments devoted to the following: Lost Links Page, Rev War Reenactor, Rev War Sites (i.e. parks and battlefields), Rev War Documents (on-line copies of historical documents), Miscellaneous Other Items, and Relevant News Groups (electronic bulletin boards). A viewer need simply click on one of the above subjects to reveal links and descriptions of relevant web pages under the particular category.

For example, I clicked on the link to Rev War Reenactor and found a sub-heading for American units, British Units and Merchants. Clicking on the Merchants sub-heading, it revealed the names, descriptions and web sites links to nearly a dozen or more companies that sell equipment and furnishings for re-enactors. Included in this section was a link to James Townsen & Sons (http://www.jastown.com) which is one of the best suppliers for 18th Century reenactors equipment. The Twnsend page is in fact a "virtual catalog" with color pictures of their wares and e-mail links for ordering, etc. This makes ordering equipment extemely easy.

Next, I decide to look up some information on reenactment units in the Midwest ( and mine in particular), so I clicked on the Rev War Reenactors heading and found that the 17th Light Dragoons, Simcoe's Queen's Rangers and the 55th Regiment of Foot were all based in the Chicago area. Undoubtedly information on Continental units is available under the American sub heading. I should point out that many reenactment units have their own web pages that are linked to Michael Meals page, so if you are looking for information on a speciflc unit and don,t know how to reach them, start here.

Moving back to the first page of this site, I decided to take a look at Rev War Sites to see what was available. Here I found a listing of everything by state, accompanied in may cases by color pictures of sites and reenactment units. The web site is worth a visit for this page alone, if nothing else. Alas, many of the individual "site" sites were simplistic and not too informative, however, if one were planning to visit a particular state, this would be a good page to consult in order to lay out an itinerary.

Here are some examples of sites found under the State of Pennsylvania sub heading:

Bucks County PA Home Page- containing phots and sites info on the Revolutionary War

Washington Crossing Historic Park- where Washington crossed the Delaware on his way to Trenton and Princeton in 1776.

David Library of the American Revolution

The Moland House (Washington's HQ in 1777)

Philadelphia Historic District

Independence National Historic Park (Philadelphia)

Paoli Massacre Site

Valley Forge National Historical Park

Valley Forge Historical Society

Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial

At any rate, there are similar state listings for all the original 13 colonies.

The American Rev War Home Page

Address: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/bcortez/revwar/revwar.html

This page was created by another reenactor named Brian Cortez who serves in the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment. This page has earned a four start Magellan rating, which means that it is one of the more creative and interesting pages on the internet. While the content is similar to Michael Meals' page (Brian provides a link to Michael's page), the focus is more on hard core reenacting. Here one can find a master list of every known reenactment unit for the American Revolutionary War period.

My only complaint is that this list lacks addresses and names of people to contact in each regiment, making it difficult to contact, say the British Guards Regiment, if that were your interest. However, this is but a small nit to pick on an otherwise excellent source of information.

Units are listed by British and American groupings; and are further collated by state. By clicking on the state, you can find the reenactment units that are in your area. Brian provides you with a capsule history of the unit, if available, as well as address and contact. It must have been a tremendous undertaking to get this data collected and Brian deserves a 21 gun salute for his efforts.

On of the best categories on the site is titled, "The History and Research Area" and it provides links to various history related sites, including on-line historical documents, mailing lists and news groups that are available via the internet. Subcatagories include:

Historians Guide to E-mail and Internet Resources

Links to Michael Meals web page

18th Century Personalities On-line (Washington, Franklin and Nathan Hale)

On-line Research Archives (link to Amazon Bookstore, various university libraries, historical sites)

On-line Documents (Keigwin-Matthews Collection of early American newspapers)

18th Century Resources Page

Brigade of the American Revolution Home

Page address: http://www.brigade.org/

This is the home page of the BAR and includes much of the information discussed In the article on page 10 of this issue. It includes membership information, publications, the 1997 schedule of events, and information on how to contact the organization.

The Discriminating General Home

Page address: http://www.mnsi.net/~dgeneral

This company creates reproduction uniforms and equipment for the period covering 1743 to 1856. Their creations are museum-quality and in fact that is probably their main clientele. You can buy a Pattern 1768 Grenadier Bearskin hat for $295.00 plus shipping. Also offered are complete uniforms for an officer of the 34th Regiment of Foot, the 7th Regt (Royal Fusiliers) uniform and a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. Pricey stuff, but very authentic-looking. The Discriminating General also has articles about various regiments, flags and uniforms and is well worth the visit by historians, wargamers and reenactors alike..

Don HagistBookseller

address: http://www3.edgenet.net/dhagist/

Don is a member of the BAR and has an extensive catalog of books .pertauning to the American Revolution War period. I was particularly interested to see that Don has access to diaries and other first hand accounts that would be of great use in reseach.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly there are many other flne web pages out on the internet and I apologize for leaving so many of them out. I would encourage readers to let me know if they have discovered any other web pages worthy of mention. This medium changes almost daily, so there is likely to be more available down the road. In short, the internet has opened up vast resources of historical information for historians, reenactors and wargamers and it can only aid us in better understanding our chosen period of interest.

This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
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