Restoring the Importance of Our American History...Understanding it Better
Friday, March 28 (6:30pm) – Sunday, March 30, 2025 (12:30pm)
Tour registration:
Conference only: $295
Conference + Bus Tour: $470HQ: Glen Allen (Greater Richmond), Virginia
“America’s Premier Conference on the American Revolution – Always In-Person, Never on Zoom”™
Friday, September 20, 2024 (8am to 5pm)
Led by: Jim Rowe and Bruce Venter
Departure: Fort Ticonderoga parking lot
Tour Registration: $150.00
America’s History, LLC will again partner with Fort Ticonderoga to offer a one-day Revolutionary War bus tour.
After leaving Fort Ticonderoga, our tour will start in Bennington, Vermont. On the way to the headquarters of the “Bennington Mob” otherwise known as the Green Mountain Boys we’ll discuss the major characters we’ll meet on today’s tour. Background on the Hampshire Grants dispute, between the settlers led by Ethan Allen and New York officials, will set the stage for what happens on May 10, 1775. In Bennington, we’ll see several landmark sites associated with Ethan Allen like the Catamount Tavern, as the plot to capture Fort Ticonderoga unfolds.
[Read more…]
The year 1780 was a pivotal turning point in British strategy as London renewed its effort to crush the American rebellion. The British high command decided to concentrate its efforts in the Southern colonies, where reinforcements from the local Loyalist population was much anticipated. Charleston was captured in May, bagging an American army of 5,000 men. Maj. Gen. Horatio Gates’ army was routed at Camden in August. Lt. Gen Charles Lord Cornwallis thought the war should move north to Virginia, a source of men and supplies for the Rebels. Cornwallis’s strategy would trigger the battles of Kings Mountain, Cowpens, and Guilford Courthouse in late 1780 and early 1781.
At our opening “meet and greet” on Wednesday evening, Ed Lengel will provide a brief lecture on the August 16, 1780 Battle of Camden, which shattered—for a time, at least—the military reputation of General Horatio Gates and seemed to forever destroy patriot hopes in the Carolinas. As our bus departs the following morning, Ed will set the stage for the unlikely series of battles that completely reversed the course of war in the south. [Read more…]
With the release of A. Wilson Greene’s A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg Volume 1, America’s History LLC is proud to offer a companion tour led by the author. Will Greene’s book covers the Petersburg Campaign from its inception on June 15 through the Battle of the Crater. This period entails the first three Union offensives against the Cockade City and will roughly coincide with the outline of the tour.
The First Offensive, June 15-18, involved wide-ranging attacks that pushed back two Confederate defense lines. On Day 1 our tour will cover those four bitter days of fighting, including the preliminary engagement at Baylor’s Farm. Prepare for extensive walking through seldom seen portions of Petersburg National Battlefield, far removed from the tour road.
The Second Offensive, June 22-24, encompassed movements across the Jerusalem Plank Road toward the Petersburg (& Weldon) Railroad. Little of this ground is preserved, but we will make a couple of stops to explain the course of the combat. The bulk of our second day will be spent following the massive Wilson-Kautz cavalry raid, including visits to battlefields at Staunton River Bridge, Sappony Church, and Reams Station.
The Third Offensive unfolded on both sides of the James River. The First Deep Bottom operation north of the James preceded the infamous Battle of the Crater, both of which we will visit on Day 3.
Parts of the tour will involve a good deal of walking, some of which is off trails, so attendees who wish to participate in all of the tour stops should be prepared with the appropriate footwear. [Read more…]
America’s History LLC is proud to continue its partnership with Fort Ticonderoga by again offering a special one-day tour. For the first time, a tour will be offered prior to the Fort’s War College of the Seven Years’ War. Our tour leader, Dr. David Preston, is also the keynote speaker at this year’s War College.
Dr. Preston recently completed a report, based on new archival research, entitled “Colonial Saratoga: War and Peace on the Borderlands of Early America” commissioned by the Saratoga National Historical Park. The NPS Historic Resource Study explores Saratoga’s colonial background and its development as a logistical hub for British operations from 1755 to 1760. Fort Hardy and other British posts in the Hudson-Lake George corridor crucially anchored road networks, bateaux routes, warehouses, and barracks, all of which enabled British armies to project their power deep into the continent’s interior in unprecedented ways. [Read more…]
The year 1778 was a pivotal turning point in British strategy as London revised its effort to crush the American rebellion. The British decided to abandon Philadelphia, which they had occupied since September 1777, and de-emphasize the war in the northern colonies. Instead the British would redeploy much of its army to other parts of the empire and to the American South, where they hoped the local Loyalist population would rally to support the redcoats. First, however, the British needed to get their army from Philadelphia to New York. The Royal Navy lacked the shipping to transport all of Lt. Gen. Henry Clinton’s troops, animals, and equipment as well as throngs of fearful Tories—so on 18 June Clinton and some 20,000 British, Hessian, and loyalist troops, along with many civilians, prepared to march across New Jersey to New York City. Emerging from Valley Forge, George Washington’s Continental Army gave chase, and on 28 June the rival forces clashed on a blistering hot day at Monmouth Court House (now Freehold) in central New Jersey. The Battle of Monmouth was the longest single day of combat of the war—an engagement with profound political implications for the patriot cause and for General Washington personally. [Read more…]
Friday, November 8 – Sunday, November 10, 2019
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Led by Edward G. Lengel and others
Registration Fee: Conference $250.00
Download Conference Agenda
The America’s History 2017 Tour Calendar is HERE!!!!!!
For those of you who are compiling your wishlist of historical tours in 2017, you can start planning now!
The America’s History LLC 2017 tour calendar is complete with dates and locations. Upcoming tours in 2017 include:
You can also PRINT THE CALENDAR!!!
We are still compiling tour details and will be adding online payments to individual tours as we complete and publish the individual tour pages. You don’t have to wait for us to publish the tour pages to get more information. Just give Bruce Venter a call at 703-785-4373!
Wednesday, Ocbober 28 (7pm) to Saturday, October 31 (5pm), 2015
Headquarters – Augusta, Georgia
Our Tour Leader: Steve Rauch
Registration Fee: $475
The battles of Kettle Creek, Briar Creek, Augusta, Vann’s Ford, Carr’s Fort and other Georgia backcountry sites are far from household names in the lexicon of Revolutionary War battle sites. Far less famous than Saratoga, Trenton, Princeton, or Yorktown, these Georgia battles and skirmishes, nevertheless, tell a great story about how the war was fought and won in the hilly country and pine forests of this southern state. The heroes may be unsung, but experiencing the ground over which these events occurred is well worth the time.
On our first day we will travel to Kettle Creek battlefield, the site of one of the most important battles fought in Georgia during the Revolutionary War. On the way to Kettle Creek we will discuss the campaign of 1779, including the actions at Vann Creek and Carr’s Fort. Kettle Creek was fought on February 14, 1779, when a force of 400 Patriots led by Andrew Pickens, surprised and defeated a force of Loyalists twice their number. The battle disrupted the British “southern strategy” aimed at pacifying the South by separating it from the Middle and Northern colonies. The battle demonstrated the determination of the Patriots; it was a reminder to the Loyalist forces that they were not safe in the open country, away from bases controlled by the British army. We will extensively walk this pristine battlefield. Our afternoon stop will be at the Elijah Clark State Park to discuss the 1780 Wilkes County punitive expedition after Clarke’s attack on Augusta.
Wednesday, October 8 (7:30pm) – Saturday, October 11 (5:00pm)
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Our Tour Leader: A. Wilson Greene
Registration Fee: $495
If Gettysburg marked the Confederate high water mark in the east in July 1863, by September the smashing Southern victory at Chickamauga proved the cause was very much alive. But the celebration was short-lived once Ulysses S. Grant pushed Braxton Bragg’s army off Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain. One of the best preserved and oldest Civil War core battlefields in the country is Chickamauga with an amazing array of artillery. Our tour will show you two great battlefields: Chickamauga and Chattanooga as well as a host of lesser known sites associated with these campaigns. There will be plenty of time to discuss the lost opportunities and critical decisions made by a unique cast of characters on both sides.
On the first day of our tour we will follow Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’ Army of the Cumberland as it crosses the Tennessee River at Shellmound, Bridgeport, and Battle Creek, Tennessee. We’ll ascend Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain. We will stop at McClemore’s Cove to study how Confederate General Braxton Bragg missed an opportunity to beat the Federals. Then we’ll proceed to Bragg’s headquarters in Lafayette, Georgia to review his operational plans for the campaign. We will conclude the day with several stops on the Chickamauga battlefield highlighting the September 18-19 actions.
