TURN Historical Timeline updated for Season 4 (Part One)

Posted on August 5, 2017 Updated on August 5, 2017

As the TURN: Washington’s Spies storyline hurls itself toward the end of the Revolutionary War, its writers seem determined to name-drop as many minor characters and events as they can in the show’s final episodes. (Perhaps they’re making up for lost time, as one of the most common viewer complaints about Season 1 was that it didn’t contain enough espionage or war-related action).

As a result, the Historical Timeline is bigger than ever — with ample room for the tsunami of names and dates that the last two episodes of the series are sure to generate. Even though there’s only two episodes left, there’s a lot of ground to cover if the writers plan to wrap up the stories of all the characters tied to the Culper Ring — so, who knows? The next Timeline update might be even larger than this one!

All “new” events — that is, all events referenced in Season 4 thus far — are in green text.  Click on the image below to enlarge.  You can also visit the blog’s Timeline page to see a chronological list of all events shown on the Timeline with plenty of links to further reading.  As always, if there’s an event that is referenced in the show that you don’t see on the Timeline, let me know and I’ll add it in during the next update!

In general, there’s been less deviation from historical chronology in Season 4 of TURN than there has been in the previous three seasons. Some notable differences between TURN and the factual historical timeline include:

• Peggy and Benedict Arnold’s first child was born in March 1780, meaning that Peggy was nursing a six-month-old infant at the time Benedict fled West Point after his treason was discovered.
• Ann Bates was active as a spy (as a peddler in disguise) from June 1778 through May 1780 — a full year before Washington and Rochambeau began planning the Yorktown Campaign.
• For a nice recap of how TURN combined elements of both the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Line mutinies, which were technically two separate events that took place in January 1780, read J.L. Bell’s review of Season 4 Episode 4, “Nightmare.”
• Just like poor Nathaniel Sackett, Judge Woodhull was killed off long before his time in the fictional universe of TURN. Happily, he not only survived the Revolutionary War, but lived long enough to see his son Abraham get married (which also happened after the war was over).

And with that, it’s off to the races as the penultimate episode airs later tonight (9:00pm Eastern time). See you on Twitter tonight, TURNcoats! And don’t worry — although the crazy summer schedule of Season 4 has thrown off the regular posting rhythm ’round these parts, the blog posts and updates will keep rolling out long after the August 12th finale, so stick around!

-RS