Documents and Letters Intended to Illustrate the Revolutionary Incidents of Queens County (1846) is a documentary compilation of primary sources relating to events in Queens County, New York during the American Revolutionary War.
The work brings together letters, official records, personal accounts, and local documents that shed light on how the war unfolded at the county level. Rather than presenting a continuous narrative, it functions as an edited source collection intended to preserve and make accessible contemporary testimony from the Revolutionary period.
A central focus of the volume is the experience of local communities under British occupation and shifting control, including the impact of military movements, loyalist activity, and Continental operations in the region. Queens County, situated near New York City, was a strategically sensitive area that saw frequent disruption and political division during the war.
The documents highlight the interaction between civilian life and military authority, including issues such as requisitioning of supplies, troop quartering, loyalty oaths, and local governance under wartime conditions. These sources help reconstruct how ordinary residents experienced the conflict in practical and personal terms.
The compilation also reflects the broader historiographical interest of the mid-19th century in preserving local Revolutionary War memory, often emphasizing documentary authenticity and firsthand accounts as a way of reconstructing early American history.
