Bob examines an antique triangular bayonet, a particularly cruel weapon used during the American Revolution.

The Revolutionary Detective is now online, connecting our Colonial past to the 21st Century. Learn about historian Robert Mayers, his speaking engagements, and most of all about his insightful books.

Bob’s new book, The Forgotten Revolution, is here! Available online-Amazon, from Heritage Books.com-publisher or in bookstores . Battlefields, encampments and sites of many critical events of the revolution have been lost or neglected by history. Man-made changes to terrain have been enormous since that time.  His objective is to revive these forsaken locations with fresh research from original military records and onsite visits.

His quest took many unexpected turns. Analysis of obscure sources ignored by earlier writers yielded many surprises and unknown details were revealed at well known sites. He made detours outside of known boundaries and textbook timelines and found that myths were often created when the winner wrote the history. Little known British, Hessian and Loyalist accounts often reveal more  than the details we have traditionally accepted as authentic.

At each of the places he sought out “witnesses,” people with special local knowledge. They were staff at national and state parks, regimental re-enactors, members of historical societies, private owners who live on the land and descendants of original settlers whose ancestors are buried in local cemeteries. All have become caretakers of local history and they provided him with special insights and information that cannot be found in recorded history.

His book The War Man, published by Westholme, chronicles the life of patriot soldier corporal John Allison, a New York farm boy who joined the Continental Army in 1775 and who fought during the entire eight years of the war. Bob Mayers reconstructs  his campaign life using letters, muster rolls, orderly books, service records, and oral family history. His life before and after the war are equally fascinating. Currently The War Man is successfully selling world wide

Bob is also an expert genealogist. The account of family history portrayed in his book The Allison-Mayers Family History, the Portrait of an American Family. The narrative, published by Heritage Books, goes back 600 years and 19 generations. The work spans medieval England, the Puritan migration, the Revolutionary War and the Industrial Revolution. The book can be used as a template for others seeking their roots.

Mayers has woven local history in with the History of his family providing wonder insights into what life was like for them in the 17^th through 20^th centuries.

                                                         — The New York Genealogical and Biographical Record

The family history and “The War Man” are available online, in bookstores or from the publishers.