Talk:New Jersey in the American Revolution

Related articles need mention, expansion
Hello. Two related articles should be mentioned and the articles themselves should be expanded: Battle of Fort Lee is pretty scant on detail, and the Baylor Massacre was a small battle that should probably be mentioned in a paragraph regarding several of the smaller battles. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 23:27, 23 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Another: Battle of Paulus Hook --ChrisRuvolo (t) 23:38, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Paulus Hook, I added a short mention. I also set up a yearly system of sections for better organization of the article. AndyZ 00:20, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Baylor Massacre was added. AndyZ 00:23, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Expansion and inclusion of Battle of Fort Lee is done. AndyZ 00:38, 24 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Awesome work, thanks. --ChrisRuvolo (t) 01:28, 24 January 2006 (UTC)
 * Got more to add:


 * Battle of Millstone (see )
 * Battle of Bound Brook, April 13, 1777
 * Battle of Short Hills, June, 1777 (see this site for information)
 * Battle of Connecticut Farms, June 6,1780 (all from here)
 * Just another note, the "battle" at Fort Lee wasn't really a battle, more like a hasty evacuation. Also the article should include the encampment at Morristown, New Jersey. AndyZ 02:09, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Tone of Article
This article has been very helpful in pointing me in the right directions for some of my research and I am grateful to the people who put it together, that said I hope I don’t come off as too contrarian in the assertion that many instances of the article (including the opening paragraph) read more like “how New Jersey aided the Patriot war effort” than “what happened in New Jersey before, during, and after the War of Independence” and I find this somewhat objectionable given the sectarian nature of much of the fighting which occurred in the state, it has been referred to in local sources as a “civil war” within the larger conflict and my geographical proximity to multiple historical markers and monuments which stand in remembrance to instances where colonists massacred and fought each other, rather than British vs. Colonist affairs, leads me to believe this is the case and that the number of loyalists within New Jersey (local or “refugees”) has been somewhat underestimated in the historiography of the conflict.

That said, my issue isn’t so much a claim of POV or bias - that the loyalist side should be more thoroughly represented (I think that’s a separate - though worthy - argument) - but rather that the direction of the article as it stands largely omits this major dynamic of “New Jersey in the American Revolution” and because of the omission of the internal strife in favor of a focus on New Jersey’s place within the larger conflict, the article somewhat fails to cover its subject-matter sufficiently.

To illustrate somewhat the importance of this sectarianism on New Jersey both before and after the war, note that in this very article that one of the instances of revolutionary direct action which took place in New Jersey was the raiding of the cellars of a loyalist, a fellow colonist, compare that with the much-more famous Boston Tea Party in which the tea belonged to the East India Company. I would argue this is a very early indicator that the ‘civil’ dynamic of the conflict in New Jersey was at least somewhat extant in irregular levels even before the beginning of hostilities in earnest. And to illustrate the subsequent impact on the state in terms of folklore and remembrance, even the Jersey Devil has its roots in the bloody nature of the fighting strife in the South. The “Leeds Devil” being the original moniker- the Leeds being a prominent loyalist family that came into conflict with others in the local community, just to keep it brief, tales of the Leeds being “devils” (and their family crest being some arrangement of winged dragons) - are digested through a few generations before emerging as the modern ‘Jersey Devil’ - folklore is often born out of such times of hardship.

I wouldn’t be so bold as to say that this should be the focus of the article - because THAT would preclude the bigger picture - but I DO think that these political tensions and the extreme character they would eventually develop within the state should form an under-current through which the rest of the events involving the state are viewed, this is context that I believe is missing from the article in its current form.

I write this here as a way to ‘open the floor’ to discussion of the topic I’ve brought up because I don’t want to make changes to the article that may cause my intentions to be misinterpreted, and I wouldn’t want to make changes or add information anyway without first seeking the guidance and approval of those more experienced with this website. Additionally, I don’t want to take the time to revise anything in the article only for it to be reverted later and spark some kind of bias-tinged dispute as sometimes occurs in sensitive matters of history on the internet, I don’t often wade into this side of wikipedia and am really only doing so because of my interest in this specific topic. 2601:87:4400:BEC0:A42B:8CFA:BDF3:E730 (talk) 19:41, 14 August 2020 (UTC) trollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrollingtrolling — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.180.13.251 (talk) 19:50, 20 October 2021 (UTC)