JUN 2026

 Our Next Meeting is Tuesday, June 16.

In-person attendance only: Our next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, June 16. We will be meeting in person at the Mount Vernon Inn, south of Alexandria, Virginia, at 6 p.m. (social hour) and 6:40 p.m. (dinner). If you plan to attend, please let me (Christian McBurney) know by clicking on the red box below and completing the survey.  This survey will also inform me of your main course selection (salmon or meatloaf). (If the red box below does not work for you, just reply to this email and provide me the information.) I need a dinner count by Friday June 12, so please let me know by then. You must pay at the door. Our dinner rate is $40 per dinner. Checks are preferred but cash is fine. Write your check to: ARRT.

No Zoom Meeting. This meeting will not be available by Zoom. I am travelling and will not be in the area June 16 (rats, the topic seems like a fascinating one!).

This is our last meeting this Spring season. I will let you know our Fall meeting times in my next announcement relating to our annual dues.

Our speaker will be John Maass, who will cover his book The Battles of Spencer’s Ordinary and Green Spring, 1781, part of Westholme’s Small Battles series. In The Battles of Spencer’s Ordinary and Green Spring, 1781, historian John Maass demonstrates how these overlooked but significant actions reveal a key aspect of the Yorktown campaign. In late June, surprised near a crossroads tavern (also called an ordinary) not far from Williamsburg, British commander John Graves Simcoe and his seasoned subordinate, Johann Ewald, with a mix of Queen’s Rangers, Hessians, and Loyalists, were able to avoid being enveloped, holding off Lafayette’s advanced force long enough for them to be able to fall back into Cornwallis’s main army. Ten days later, on July 6, the British turned the tables, surprising General Anthony Wayne near the Green Spring plantation, forcing Wayne to lead a spirited defense until Lafayette’s main force could arrive and enact a successful retreat for his troops. Full of major characters and exemplary of the smaller battles that helped shape the American Revolution, this volume offers the most detailed look at these two engagements to date.


John R. Maass is a historian and educator at the National Museum of the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He received a BA in history from Washington & Lee University, an MA in U.S. history from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a PhD in early U.S. history from the Ohio State University. He served as an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve (80th Division). He is the author of several books, including George Washington’s Virginia (2017). His most recent book is From Trenton to Yorktown: Turning Points of the Revolutionary War, which was recently named as a finalist in the Military History Matters Book Awards 2026.