American Revolution Posters, Prints & Charts, pg 6/7
for social studies classrooms, history buffs and reenactors.

James Madison
Francis Marion
John Marshall
George Mason

Daniel Morgan
James Monroe
Richard Montgomery
Robert Morris

James Madison Giclee Print

James Madison (D-R)
(4th US President, 1809-17)
b. 3-16-1751; Port Conway, King George, VA
d. 6-28-1836, Montpilier, VA

James Madison is called the “Father of the Constitution” and drafted of the Bill of Rights. He was also the primary author of the Federalist Papers, a series of 85 essays published in newspapers explaining to the public how the proposed Constitution would work.

Dolley Madison, Wife of President James Madison, Poster

FYI - Madison married Dolley Payne Todd, a widow with a son, in 1793. Dolley Madison is best remembered for saving a portrait of George Washington from burning in the White House during the War of 1812.

• Marbury v. Madison - Supreme Court Landmark Decisions poster

Francis Marion
b. 2-26-1732; Georgetown, SC
d. 2-27-1795

Francis Marion, known as the “Swamp Fox”, and working with the South Carolina militia and the Continental Army, was a persistent adversary of the British in their occupation of South Carolina in 1780 and 1781. His irregular methods of warfare makes him one of the fathers of modern guerrilla warfare, and he considered one the precursors to the United States Army Rangers.

• Francis Marion at Amazon

John Marshall Giclee Print

John Marshall
b. 9-24-1755; Germantown, Colony of Virginia
d. 7-6-1835

John Marshall, who was to become the 4th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and shaped constitutional law, served in the Continental Army and was friends with George Washington.

• The Life of John Marshall, A. J. Beveridge

George Mason of Virginia, with His Signature, Giclee Print

George Mason
b. 12-11-1725; Fairfax County, Colony of Virginia
d. 11-7-1792; Virginia

George Mason was a Virginia delegate to the US Constitutional Convention and along with James Madison considered a “Father of the Bill of Rights.”

Mason, an anti-federalist, advocated a weak central government divided into three parts (executive, legislative and judicial), with political power remaining with the states, as well as the disestablishment of the church.

James Monroe Giclee Print

James Monroe (D-R)
(5th US President, 1817-25)
b. 4-28-1758; Westmoreland Co., Colony of Virginia
d. 7-4-1831; NY, NY

James Monroe, the last Founding Father to become president, was wounded in the shoulder in the Battle of Trenton. According to Wikipedia Monroe is portraited as the man holding the flag in the famous painting Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Robert Morris
b. 1-31-1734; Liverpool, England
d. 5-8-1806; Philadelphia

Robert Morris, known as the “Financier of the American Revolution” started life in the colonies as an apprentice in a counting house. By the time of the Revolution he was a rich man, a commercial and social leader in Philadelphia.

Morris organized a clandestine trading network to arm the American rebels, joined the Second Continental Congress, and with Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Washington, ran the executive branches of the revolutionary government for years. Morris' business acumen financed two crucial victories — Valley Forge and the culminating battle at Yorktown that defeated Cornwallis and ended the war.

• Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution
• more Declaration of Independence signers

Thomas Paine
b. 1-29-1737; Thetford, Norfolk, England
d. 6-8-1809; NYC

Thomas Paine, considered a Founding Father, was a radical political writer and freethinker.

The Rights of Man

FYI - Paine, who promoted Deism - a religious expression of scientific rationalism - was acquainted with William Blake the English mystic, artist and poet.

Thomas Paine quotes ~
• “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind.”
• “Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.”
• “There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required.”
• “THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
• “It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”

Molly Pitcher, a nickname given to a woman who may have fought in the American Revolutionary War, and may or may not refer to Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley (b. c. 1754 - 1832), wife of Revolutionary War soldier William Hays.

The name Molly Pitcher is based on actions of real women who carried water to men on the battlefield during the war. This water was not for drinking, as is popularly believed, but for swabbing the cannons.

Kazimierz Pulaski
b. 3-4-1745; Warsaw, Poland
d. 10-11-1779; Georgia

Kazimierz Pulaski, a Polish nobelman and cavalry soldier of fortune, was recruited by Lafayette and recommended to Washington by Benjamin Franklin. Pulaski saved the life of Washington in the Battle of Brandywine, and died of wounds incurred during the Battle of Savannah. Pulaski is known as the “father of American cavalry”.

FYI ~ several places in the US are named after Pulaski - towns in Tennessee, Iowa, Wisconsin, & New York; counties in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia.

Israel Putnam
b. 1-7-1718; Danvers, MA
d. 5-29-1790; Brooklyn, CT

At the beginning of the Revolutionary War Israel Putnam was a well to do farmer and inn keeper who had been a member of Roger's Rangers.