American Revolutionary War: Difference between revisions
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Washington worked closely with the soldiers and navy that France would send to America, primarily through [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Lafayette]] on his staff. French assistance made critical contributions required to defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.<ref>[[#davis75|Davis 1975]], pp. 203, 303, 391</ref> The final elements for US victory over Britain and US independence was assured by direct military intervention from France, as well as ongoing French supply and commercial trade over the final three years of the war.<ref>[[#higginbotham1983|Higginbotham 1983]] [1971], pp. 188–98</ref> |
Washington worked closely with the soldiers and navy that France would send to America, primarily through [[Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette|Lafayette]] on his staff. French assistance made critical contributions required to defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.<ref>[[#davis75|Davis 1975]], pp. 203, 303, 391</ref> The final elements for US victory over Britain and US independence was assured by direct military intervention from France, as well as ongoing French supply and commercial trade over the final three years of the war.<ref>[[#higginbotham1983|Higginbotham 1983]] [1971], pp. 188–98</ref> |
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;American logistics |
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Generally throughout the Revolution, inadequate provisioning of the Continental Army led to serious difficulty in maintaining a force in the field. From July 1779 to July 1780, the Army shrunk from twenty-six thousand men to less than fifteen thousand. Only the most committed of revolutionaries persisted throughout the conflict, although some numbers reentered service after leaving at end-of-enlistment, desertion, or mutiny amnesty. Several factors contributed: lack of food regularly distributed in ration quantity, inadequate or no pay, and in 1780-81 the harshest winter of the war.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 178</ref> |
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Overall, the problem was fundamentally a financial one. The Continental currency depreciated, inflation accelerated.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 186</ref> The British government maintained a financial campaign counterfeiting a flood of paper currency in Continental dollars to sabotage the war effort.<ref>[[#baack|Baack, “Economics of American Revolutionary War”]]</ref> Continental currency became worthless, state treasuries were empty, towns went bankrupt, and the marketplace was paralyzed by Quartermaster and Commissary certificates<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 186</ref>.{{efn|For instance, cattle-feeders could not use Congressional certificates to buy yearlings to fatten, nor would grain sellers honor them for feed. States netted as little as 10% their annual revenues in inflated Continental dollars, the rest in certificates that could not be used to pay their state requisitions to Congress to fund the Army.}} Both Congress and states shared in the failure of the “specific supplies” system that Congress undertook by committee. From the standpoint of legislation, states did not tell Congressional Boards nor their delegates in Congress what they had, and Congress requisitioned the states for food in resolves that were only published in Philadelphia newspapers. Congressional requisitions to each state were proportionately based on wealth and population, but those formulas did not match the ability to respond in each state.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 182-3</ref>{{efn|Requisitions for wheat to Connecticut had no effect because there was little wheat production there. Pennsylvania had to import its requisitions of bacon and salt from other states with inflated currency. Congressional orders for salted beef and pork were placed after marketing season, so states had to obtain the supplies through hording speculators. The previous year’s drought in Rhode Island had killed all the state’s cattle. The 1780 harvest was poor in New York. Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay was effectively blockaded.}} |
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[[File:The American Soldier, 1776-1.jpg|alt= a ship's landing with a ship in the background; in the middle ground barrels and boxes staged for awaiting Conestoga wagons, adjacent artillery pieces lined up; in the foreground military, civilian and laborer figures consulting and at their tasks|thumb|upright=1.0|<center> Continental Army provisioning suffered from inadequate finances, markets and transportation</center>]] |
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Even during the emergency of war with national survival at issue, American colonial traditions of local self-government thwarted efforts to supply a national "standing army".{{efn|Congress tried to motivate the Quartermaster and Commissary Departments in the Continental Army independently from local politics by compensating them on commission. That led to local charges of corruption by local profiteers and others on Puritanical principles.}} States interfered with shipments of army provisions, Continental Army and Navy supply officials were drafted into state militias, and local magistrates would not enforce impressment when farmers withheld food from the military for speculators.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 220</ref> States either could not or refused to cooperate with Congress, civilians everywhere resisted and then refused to participate in markets to supply and provision the army. When Continental, state or local officials were given authority to impress goods for army use without compensation, it was either actively resisted or only half-heartedly attempted.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 186-7</ref> State provincialism also played a part.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 185</ref>{{efn|State requisition laws were designed to minimize the pain of local citizenry and to maximize delay to the Continental Army. In the worst case by law, a requisition passed in October 1780 was to begin county implementation February 1781, with fifty days for individual farmers to comply, and another 30 days of appeal time. Regardless of legislated schedules, in many cases local officials refused to pressure their voting neighbors. They accepted their salaries, “without ever supposing it incumbent on them to discharge the duties thereof” according to Deputy Quartermaster Edward Carrington, April 1781.}} |
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As a matter of administration and logistics, the most serious aspect limiting military supply was the immense difficulty in acquiring provisions and transportation. Middlemen and speculators bought up food before it reached market, adding their margins to state expense. French regiments in Maryland and Connecticut paid in gold and silver, preempting state purchase of army requisitions in Continental dollars or worse, by certificates.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 186</ref> Even when states gathered supply, there was no administrative means provided to take it to the Continental Army. Unaccessed food rotted in state depositories.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 181</ref> The most serious related event was the mutiny of the Continental Pennsylvania Line in January 1781, followed by that of the New Jersey Line later the same month. The two mutinies followed one years' service without pay of any kind, along with a sporadic supply of inadequate food and clothing.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 179</ref> |
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Congressional delegates feared for the future of their revolution and the nation's independence. Among the correspondents of George Washington pleading in his daily correspondence for Continental Army support, a Nationalist movement developed within every state. State commissioners met in a Hartford Convention from 11 to 22 November 1780, recommending an end to the administrative Boards of mixed Congressional and civilian advisors. Nationalist majorities in state legislatures increased their Congressional delegations with numbers of former Continental Army officers.<ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 203</ref>{{efn|These included Generals [[John Sullivan (general)|John Sullivan]] (NH), [[Ezekiel Cornell]] and [[James Mitchell Varnum]] (RI), and other staunch nationalists were returned such as clergyman [[John Witherspoon]] (NJ).}} The Nationalist caucus in Congress replaced the Boards with independent executive Secretaries of Foreign Affairs, Finance, War, and Marine (Oceans). Unfortunately these were likewise mostly secretarial posts accumulating reports to submit to Congress for action. <ref>[[#carp1990|Carp 1990]], p 187,203</ref> |
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Late in the war, Congress hoped that shifting direct responsibility onto the state legislatures for each state militia Line regiment in Continental service would result in better provisioning. It asked individual state legislatures to equip their own troops and pay upkeep for their own citizen soldiers in the Continental Army. When the war ended, the United States had spent $37 million at the national level and $114 million at the state level. The United States finally solved its debt problems in the 1790s when Congress assumed all state war debt to attach the states to the [[Constitution of the United States]]' central government, and it founded the [[First Bank of the United States]] to establish the good faith and credit of the United States.<ref>[[#jensen|Jensen 2004]], p 379</ref> |
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=== British strategy === |
=== British strategy === |
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* {{cite book |last=Babits |first=Lawrence E. |title=A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8078-8766-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bUpBDwAAQBAJ&vq=Tarleton |ref=babits}} |
* {{cite book |last=Babits |first=Lawrence E. |title=A Devil of a Whipping: The Battle of Cowpens |publisher=Univ of North Carolina Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-8078-8766-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bUpBDwAAQBAJ&vq=Tarleton |ref=babits}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Stone |first=Bailey |title=The Genesis of the French Revolution: A Global Historical Interpretation |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-5214-4570-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UAZAhYVJwlUC |ref=stone1994}} |
* {{cite book |last=Stone |first=Bailey |title=The Genesis of the French Revolution: A Global Historical Interpretation |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-5214-4570-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UAZAhYVJwlUC |ref=stone1994}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Jasanoff |first=Maya |title=Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World |author-link= |publisher=Vintage Books |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4000-7547-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uGKsn09oVwQC |ref=jasanoff2012}} |
* {{cite book |last=Jasanoff |first=Maya |title=Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World |author-link= |publisher=Vintage Books |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4000-7547-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uGKsn09oVwQC |ref=jasanoff2012}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Jefferson |first=Thomas |title=The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4: October 1780 to February 1781 |editor=Julian P. Boyd |author-link=Thomas Jefferson |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-6911-8469-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W_5ZDwAAQBAJ |ref=jefferson1780}} |
* {{cite book |last=Jefferson |first=Thomas |title=The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4: October 1780 to February 1781 |editor=Julian P. Boyd |author-link=Thomas Jefferson |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2018 |isbn=978-0-6911-8469-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W_5ZDwAAQBAJ |ref=jefferson1780}} |
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⚫ | * {{cite book |last=Jensen |first=Merrill |title=The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution 1763–1776 |url=https://www.amazon.com/Founding-Nation-American-Revolution-1763-1776/dp/0872207056 |author-link= |publisher=Hackett Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-87220-705-9 |ref= |
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* {{cite book |last=Johnston |first=Henry Phelps |title=The Battle of Harlem Heights |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1897 |url=https://archive.org/details/battleofharlemhe00john_0/page/n10/mode/2up |ref=johnston1897}} |
* {{cite book |last=Johnston |first=Henry Phelps |title=The Battle of Harlem Heights |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1897 |url=https://archive.org/details/battleofharlemhe00john_0/page/n10/mode/2up |ref=johnston1897}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Howard |title = Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations to 1913 |publisher = Scholarly Resources Inc. |year=2002 |page = 5 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TFyLOUrdGFwC&dq=crucible+of+power&printsec=frontcover#PPP1,M1 |isbn = 978-0-8420-2916-2 |ref=jones2002}} |
* {{cite book |last=Jones |first=Howard |title = Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations to 1913 |publisher = Scholarly Resources Inc. |year=2002 |page = 5 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=TFyLOUrdGFwC&dq=crucible+of+power&printsec=frontcover#PPP1,M1 |isbn = 978-0-8420-2916-2 |ref=jones2002}} |
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These are some of the standard works about the war in general that are not listed above; books about specific campaigns, battles, units, and individuals can be found in those articles. |
These are some of the standard works about the war in general that are not listed above; books about specific campaigns, battles, units, and individuals can be found in those articles. |
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* {{cite book |last=Andrews |first=Charles McLean |title=Guide to the materials for American history, to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain |author-link= |publisher=Washington, D.C. : Carnegie Institution of Washington |year=1912 |isbn= |url=https://archive.org/details/b31359759_0002 |ref=none}} |
* {{cite book |last=Andrews |first=Charles McLean |title=Guide to the materials for American history, to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain |author-link= |publisher=Washington, D.C. : Carnegie Institution of Washington |year=1912 |isbn= |url=https://archive.org/details/b31359759_0002 |ref=none}} |
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* [[George Bancroft|Bancroft, George]]. ''History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent.'' (1854–78), vol. 7–10. |
* [[George Bancroft|Bancroft, George]]. ''History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent.'' (1854–78), vol. 7–10. |
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* Billias, George Athan. ''George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership'', 1994, scholarly studies of key generals on each side. |
* Billias, George Athan. ''George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership'', 1994, scholarly studies of key generals on each side. |
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* {{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Alan |title=Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0226101552 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-c7-udZhrvgC |ref=none}} |
* {{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=Alan |title=Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2012 |isbn=978-0226101552 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-c7-udZhrvgC |ref=none}} |
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* {{Cite journal |jstor=2716777|title = Black Immigrants into Nova Scotia, 1776–1815 |journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume = 58|issue = 3|pages = 253–270|last1 = Grant|first1 = John N.|year = 1973 |doi =10.2307/2716777 |ref=none}} |
* {{Cite journal |jstor=2716777|title = Black Immigrants into Nova Scotia, 1776–1815 |journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume = 58|issue = 3|pages = 253–270|last1 = Grant|first1 = John N.|year = 1973 |doi =10.2307/2716777 |ref=none}} |
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⚫ | * {{cite book |last=Jensen |first=Merrill |title=The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution 1763–1776 |url=https://www.amazon.com/Founding-Nation-American-Revolution-1763-1776/dp/0872207056 |author-link= |publisher=Hackett Publishing |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-87220-705-9 |ref=none}} |
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* {{cite book |last=Johnston |first=Henry Phelps |url=https://archive.org/details/yorktowncampaign00johnrich |page= 34 |title=The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis, 1781|location=New York|publisher=Harper & Bros |year=1881 |oclc=426009 |ref=none}} |
* {{cite book |last=Johnston |first=Henry Phelps |url=https://archive.org/details/yorktowncampaign00johnrich |page= 34 |title=The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis, 1781|location=New York|publisher=Harper & Bros |year=1881 |oclc=426009 |ref=none}} |
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* {{cite journal |last=Kaplan |first=Rodger |date=January 1990 |title=The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations during the American Revolution |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |publisher= Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture |volume=47 |issue=1 |jstor=2938043 |pages=115–138 |doi=10.2307/2938043 |ref=none}} |
* {{cite journal |last=Kaplan |first=Rodger |date=January 1990 |title=The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations during the American Revolution |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |publisher= Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture |volume=47 |issue=1 |jstor=2938043 |pages=115–138 |doi=10.2307/2938043 |ref=none}} |
Revision as of 20:40, 12 October 2020
American Revolutionary War | |||||||||
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Left, Continental infantry at Redoubt 10, Yorktown; Washington rallying the broken center at Monmouth; USS Bonhomme Richard captured HMS Serapis | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
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Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
Peyton Randolph George Washington Horatio Gates Nathanael Greene Henry Knox John Sullivan Benedict Arnold[e] Lafayette George Rogers Clark Bernardo de Gálvez Rochambeau full list... |
King George III Lord George Germain Thomas Gage William Howe Henry Clinton John Burgoyne Charles Cornwallis Benedict Arnold[f] Henry Hamilton Banastre Tarleton full list... | ||||||||
Strength | |||||||||
United States: Unknown |
Great Britain: 13,000[25] | ||||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||||
United States: French & Spanish overseas:[31]
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Great Britain: |
The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was initiated by the thirteen original colonies in Congress against the Kingdom of Great Britain over their objection to Parliament's direct taxation and its lack of colonial representation.[p] From their founding in the 1600s, the colonies were largely left to govern themselves. When France left North America in 1763, the British Empire expanded, and the elected part of the colonial legislatures challenged how the new expenses should be paid. The new 1765 Stamp Act provoked an unrest that led to the 1773 Boston Tea Party. When Parliament answered with punitive measures on Massachusetts, twelve colonies responded with the First Continental Congress to boycott British goods.[q]
In June 1775, the Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington to create a Continental Army and oversee the capture of Boston. When their Olive Branch Petition to King and Parliament was rejected, the Patriots attacked British Quebec but failed. In July 1776, Congress unanimously passed the Declaration of Independence. Hopes of a quick settlement were increased by a substantial element within Parliament who opposed Lord North's "coercion policy" in the colonies.[r] However the new British commander in chief, General Sir William Howe launched a counter-offensive, capturing New York City. Washington retaliated with harassing attacks at Trenton and Princeton. Howe's 1777–1778 Philadelphia campaign captured that city, but the British were defeated at Saratoga in October 1777. At Valley Forge that winter, Washington built a professional army. American victory at Saratoga had dramatic consequences for the war. A few of the European "Enlightened rulers", especially the Dutch with a former colony in New York, supported the American rebellion with funds, provisions and arms via Sint Eustatius, a Dutch port in the Leeward Islands. But at the American victory at Saratoga capturing a British army, the French feared an early "American settlement" that would strengthen Britain.
Saratoga proved the Continental Army was capable of winning independence. The French saw an opportunity to weaken their British rivals and gain a new trading partner that would be militarily dependent on them. They made two treaties with Congress, the first for trade, and the second to protect that trade in the 1788 Treaty of Alliance.[s] In 1779, the war by Congress for independence from Britain,[58] gained more collateral help. The forty-five year-old Bourbon Family Pact between French and Spanish royalty was activated by their Aranjuez Convention. They began a war for global imperial expansion against Britain, including a Spanish Gibraltar. The Bourbons were cobelligerents with Congress against Britain for the next eighteen months.[59]
In North America, Spanish Louisiana Governor Bernardo Gálvez routed British forces from Spanish territory. The Spanish and American privateers supplied the 1779 Virginia militia conquest of Western Quebec (later the US Northwest Territory).[60] Gálvez then expelled British forces from Mobile and Pensacola, cutting off British military assistance to American Indian allies in the interior southeast. Howe's replacement, General Sir Henry Clinton, then mounted a 1778 "Southern strategy" from Charleston. After initial success taking Savannah, their losses at King's Mountain and Cowpens led to the British southern army retreat to Yorktown where it was besieged by Franco-American forces. A decisive French naval victory brought the October 1781 surrender of the second British army lost in the American Revolution. Shooting war between Britain and France allied with Spain continued for another two years.[t]
But at Yorktown, the British lost their will to contest American independence. The Tory government fell, replaced by Whig Lord Rockingham. George III promised American independence, and Anglo-American talks began. The Preliminary Peace was signed in November, and in December 1782, George III spoke from the British throne for US independence, trade, and peace between the two countries. In April 1783, Congress accepted the British-proposed treaty that met its peace demands including independence, British evacuation, territory to the Mississippi River, river navigation, and Newfoundland fishing rights. On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed between Great Britain and the United States. Formal exchange of the treaties ratified by both Congress and Parliament were exchanged in Paris the following spring.
Background and political developments
In the three years 1607–1609, English Jamestown, French Quebec and Spanish Santa Fe were established as North American outposts of three European powers in their ongoing conflict and imperial competition.[63] At the edges of each North American sphere of influence, frontier settlements were interspersed in a babble of languages. From the first English settlement in Virginia north were Algonkin, Iroquoian, Siouan, French and English. Southerly were Iroquoian speakers in the Appalachian Mountains, Souian on the Atlantic coast, Muskegan in the southeast to the Mississippi, Spanish at the Gulf, and English on the seaboard. Just west of the Mississippi River were Siouan, French and Spanish.[64]
Early English settlement in Virginia and Massachusetts under Elizabeth I and successor James I pointedly recruited veterans from European religious wars in the Eighty Years' War, such as Virginia's Captain John Smith. These brought “hard war” tactics against every foe, whether native, nation-state or pirate, and they effectively schooled their successors in each British North American colony.[65][u]
Just a decade before the Revolution, the North American French and Indian War spread to Europe and their imperial territories as the Seven Years’ War.[67] At the 1763 Peace of Paris ending it, France was removed from North America, Spain expanded north and east to the Mississippi River, and the British formally abandoned the Stuart King colonial charters “from sea to sea”, accepting a western boundary of the “middle of the Mississippi River” with free navigation on it “to the open sea”. The Europeans changed their maps and everything on the American continent was disrupted: military alliances, trade networks, and any former economic stability.[68] The coming American Revolutionary War was set amidst this already unsettled world.
- Taxation and legislation
From their founding in the 17th century, the colonies were largely allowed to govern themselves; unlike the Spanish Americas, native-born property owners were allowed to participate in colonial government. Although London managed external affairs, the colonists funded militia for defense against New France and their indigenous allies. Once this threat ended with the eviction of France from North America in 1763, disputes arose between Parliament and the colonies as to how these expenses should be paid.[69] With Britain's enlarged North American empire, the earlier Navigation Acts were expanded from mercantile regulation and repurposed for additional revenue.[70]
Parliament sought to expand British American settlement north into Nova Scotia and south into Florida as a hedge against French and Spanish designs respectively. At the Proclamation Line of 1763, British policy was to limit Indian warfare to increase their trade revenue directly to the Crown. But maintaining the frontier peace for interior trade required policing against illicit colonial settlement. And that required British garrisons in the formerly French forts ceded by the Indians. Limiting colonial westward expansion was to be paid for by the Americans themselves by the 1764 Sugar Act and the 1765 Stamp Act.[71]
Most of the frontier garrison expense was to be paid by the Sugar Act, which also renewed provisions of the old 1733 Molasses Act.[72] The economic effect was crippling for New England.[73][v]
Stamp Act monies were expected to be relatively small, an estimated 16% of American frontier expense. But with the passage of the Stamp Act, an innovative direct tax was placed on official documents. That provoked further unrest among colonists of every description who bought land, practiced law, read newspapers, or gambled with cards or dice.[75][w] The taxes had to be paid in scarce gold or silver, not in colonial legislature paper money.[77]
Most dangerously for the Englishman's right to jury trial, the Stamp Act extended Admiralty Court jurisdiction beyond the high seas to violations in colonial ports, with the accused to stand trial in London. The accumulating discontent with Royal collections agents and Admiralty justice culminated in the 1773 Boston Tea Party.[78][x] The colonial legislatures argued the Stamp Act was illegal, since only they had the representative right to impose local taxes within their jurisdictions.[80] They also claimed that their rights as Englishmen protected them from taxes imposed by a body in which they had no actual representation.[81] Prime Minister George Grenville's defense to the effect that the colonies had a "virtual representation" in Parliament was dismissed on both sides of the Atlantic.[82] Although the Chatham ministry of Whig William Pitt the Elder repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 to widespread rejoicing, it simultaneously re-affirmed Parliament's right to tax the colonies in the future.[83]
The 1767 Townshend Acts instituted new taxes on tea, lead, glass, and paper, but collection proved increasingly difficult. With the new revenue taxes came an enforcement policy from Parliament meant expressly for the American colonies and their widespread smuggling among the islands held by the Dutch, French, Spanish, and even other British colonies in the Caribbean Sea. The “Writs of Assistance” allowed British agent to arbitrarily conduct searches without warrants.
The Writs had been challenged in a ruling by James Otis Sr. in the Superior Court of Massachusetts. But on appeal to London the next year in 1762, Writs of Assistance for the colonies were upheld. For five years after the renewed 1767 enforcement, the Writs were challenged again in all thirteen colonial courts. In eight superior colonial courts they were refused. Where the colonial plaintiffs won, they were subsequently all overturned again in London.[84]
When the British royal authorities seized the sloop Liberty in 1768 on suspicion of smuggling, it triggered a riot in Boston. Relations between Parliament and the colonies worsened after Lord North became Prime Minister in January 1770, an office he held until just after the British defeat at Yorktown. He pursued tougher policies, including a threat to charge colonists with treason, although there was no support for this in Parliament; tensions then escalated in March 1770 when British troops fired on rock-throwing civilians in Boston.[85]
After the 1772 Gaspee Affair when a customs vessel was destroyed in Rhode Island, Parliament repealed all taxes other than that on tea. Partly designed to undercut illegal imports, it was also recognized as another attempt to assert their right to tax the colonies, so it did nothing to quiet opposition.[86] Following the Sons of Liberty protest at the Boston Tea Party in December 1773, Parliament passed a series of measures called the Intolerable Acts. While intended to narrowly punish Massachusetts, they were widely viewed as a threat to the liberty of all the colonies and gained widespread support among the Patriots in America and among the Whig Opposition in Parliament.[87]
- Colonial response
The elected members in the Royal colonial legislatures, those who represented the smaller landowners in the lower-house assemblies, responded by establishing ad hoc provincial legislatures, variously called Congresses, Conventions and Conferences. They effectively removed Crown control within their respective colonies. Twelve sent representatives to the First Continental Congress to develop a joint American response to the crisis.[88] [y] It passed a compact declaring a trade boycott against Britain.[89][z]
While the Congress also affirmed that Parliament had no authority over internal American matters, they also acquiesced to trade regulations for the benefit of the empire.[aa] Awaiting some measure of reconciliation from Parliament and the King's Tory government, Congress authorized the extralegal committees and conventions of the colonial legislatures to enforce the Congressional boycott. In the event, the boycott was effective, as imports from Britain dropped by 97% in 1775 compared to 1774.[91]
Parliament refused to yield to Congressional proposals. In 1775, it declared Massachusetts to be in a state of rebellion and enforced a blockade of the colony.[92] It then passed the Restraining Acts of 1775 aimed at limiting colonial trade to the British West Indies and the British Isles. New England ships were barred from the Newfoundland cod fisheries. These increasing tensions led to a mutual scramble for ordnance between royal governors and the elected assemblies. British raids on colonial powder magazines pushed the assemblies towards open war. Each assembly was required by law to defend them for the purpose of providing arms and ammunition for frontier defense.[93] Thomas Gage was appointed the British Commander-in-Chief for North America. As military governor of Massachusetts he was ordered to disarm the local militias on April 14, 1775.[94] On April 19, the Battles of Lexington and Concord were fought between Massachusetts militia and British regulars, with scores of casualties.
- Political reactions
After fighting began, Congress launched an Olive Branch Petition in another attempt to avert war. George III rejected the offer as insincere because Congress also made contingency plans for muskets and gunpowder.[95] The King answered militia resistance at Bunker Hill with a Proclamation of Rebellion, which further provoked the Patriot faction in Congress.[96] Parliament rejected coercive measures on the colonies by 170 votes. The tentative Whig majority there feared an aggressive policy would drive the Americans towards independence.[97] Tories stiffened their resistance to compromise,[98] and the King himself began micromanaging the war effort.[99] The Irish Parliament pledged to send troops to America, and Irish Catholics were allowed to enlist in the army for the first time.[100][ac]
The initial hostilities in Boston caused a pause in British activity, they remained in New York City awaiting more troops.[102] That inactive response gave the Patriots a political advantage in the colonial assemblies, and the British lost control over every former colony.[103] The army in the British Isles had been deliberately kept small since 1688 to prevent abuses of power by the King.[104] To prepare for war overseas, Parliament signed treaties of subsidy with small German states for additional troops.[105] Within a year it had sent an army of 32,000 men to America.[106][ad]
At the onset of the war, the Second Continental Congress realized that they would need foreign alliances and intelligence-gathering capability to defeat a world power like Britain. To this end, they formed the Committee of Secret Correspondence which operated from 1775 to 1776 for "the sole purpose of corresponding with our friends in Great Britain and other parts of the world". Through secret correspondence the Committee shared information and forged alliances with persons in France, England and throughout America. It employed secret agents in Europe to gather foreign intelligence, conduct undercover operations, analyze foreign publications, and initiate American propaganda campaigns to gain Patriot support.[107] Members included Thomas Paine, the committee's secretary, and Silas Deane who was instrumental in securing French aid in Paris.[108][ae]
Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense boosted public support for independence throughout the thirteen colonies, and it was widely reprinted.[110] At the rejection of the Olive Branch Petition, Congress appointed the Committee of Five consisting of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman and Robert Livingston[111] to draft a Declaration of Independence to politically separate the United States from Britain. The document argued for government by consent of the governed on the authority of the people of the thirteen colonies as "one people", along with a long list indicting George III as violating English rights.[112] On July 2, Congress voted for independence, and it published the declaration on July 4[113] which George Washington read to assembled troops in New York City on July 9.[114] Later that evening a mob tore down a lead statue of the King, which was later melted down into musket balls.[115]
At this point, the American Revolution passed from its "colonial war" stage as thirteen colonies in Congress contesting the economic rules of empire with the Mother Country, to a second stage, one of civil war. The self-proclaimed states through their delegates assembled in Congress engaged in a military, political, and economic struggle against Great Britain. Politically and militarily, there were in every colony and county, a mix of Patriots (Whigs) and Loyalists (Tories) who now went to war against their neighbors.[116]
Patriots were those who supported independence from Britain in their states and a new national union in Congress. Loyalists remained faithful to British imperial rule. Loyalists were usually minorities in each population, the appointed colonial officials, licensed merchants, Anglican churchmen, and the politically traditional. They were concentrated around port cities, on the New England Iroquois frontier and in the South near Cherokee settlement.[117] Tories saw any subjects of the King who pretended to remove their ruler for whatever reasons as committing treason, and George III was encouraged to convict those responsible with the death penalty.[118]
In each state legislature, Patriots responded to the Loyalist challenge by passing Test Laws that required all residents to swear allegiance to their state.[119] These were meant to identify neutrals or to drive opponents of independence into self-exile. Failure to take the oath meant possible imprisonment, forced exile, or even death.[120] American Tories were barred from public office, forbidden from practicing medicine and law, or forced to pay increased taxes. Some could not execute wills or become guardians.[121] Congress enabled states to confiscate Loyalist property to fund the war.[122]
War in America
As the American Revolutionary War was to unfold in North America, there were two principal campaign theaters within the thirteen states, and a smaller but strategically important one west of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi River and north to the Great Lakes. The full-on military campaigning began in the states north of Maryland, and fighting was most frequent and severest there between 1775 and 1778. Patriots achieved several strategic victories in the South, the British lost their first army at Saratoga, and the French entered the war as a US ally.
After wintering at Valley Forge, from the 1778 Battle of Monmouth, Washington stalemated British initiatives into a series of raids, containing the British army in New York City. In 1778, Spanish-supplied Virginia Col. George Rogers Clark, Francophone settlers and their Indian allies conquered Western Quebec, the US Northwest Territory. Starting in 1779, the British initiated a southern strategy to begin at Savannah, gather Loyalist support, and reoccupy Patriot-controlled territory north to the Chesapeake Bay. The Americans lost an army in their greatest defeat at Charleston in 1780. British maneuvering north led to a combined American and French force cornering a second British army at Battle of Yorktown, and their surrender effectively ended the Revolutionary War.[123]
Early engagements
Sir Thomas Gage, the British Commander-in-Chief in America 1763-1775 and sitting Governor of Massachusetts, gathered intelligence of a Patriot plan to destroy stores of militia ordnance at Concord. He set out to secure the stores there by way of Lexington to capture John Hancock and Samuel Adams, the two principal provocateurs of the rebellion. The operation was to commence before midnight while completing their objectives and retreating to Boston before multitudes of patriot militias could respond. However, the patriots had a good intelligence network of their own, which Paul Revere had helped organize. Subsequently, the Patriots learned of Gage's intentions before he could act, where Revere quickly dispatched this information and alerted Captain John Parker and the patriot forces in Concord.[124]
Fighting broke out during the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, when patriots fired the first shot forcing the British troops to conduct a fighting withdrawal to Boston. Overnight, the local militia converged on and laid siege to Boston.[125] On May 25, 4,500 British reinforcements arrived with generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton.[126] During the Battle of Bunker Hill the British seized the Charlestown Peninsula on June 17 with a frontal assault costing many officer casualties to American rifle snipers.[127] Surviving British commanders were dismayed at the costly attack which had gained them little,[128] and Gage appealed to London stressing the need for a large army to suppress the revolt.[129] Total British losses killed and wounded exceeded 1,000, leading Howe to replace Gage.[130]
Congressional leader John Adams of Massachusetts nominated Virginia delegate George Washington for commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in June 1775. He had previously commanded Virginia militia regiments in British combat commands during the French and Indian War.[131] Washington proceeded to Boston to assume field command of the ongoing Siege of Boston on July 3.[132] Howe made no effort to attack in a standoff with Washington,[133] who made no plan to assault the city.[134] Instead, the Americans fortified Dorchester Heights. In early March 1776, Colonel Henry Knox arrived with heavy artillery captured from a raid on Fort Ticonderoga.[135] Under cover of darkness Washington placed his artillery atop Dorchester Heights March 5,[136] threatening Boston and the British ships in the harbor. Howe did not want another battle like Gage's Bunker Hill, so he evacuated Boston. The British were permitted to withdraw without further casualties on March 17, and they sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Washington then moved his army south to New York.[137]
Beginning in August 1775, American Privateers had begun to raid villages in Nova Scotia, first at Saint John, then Charlottetown and Yarmouth. They continued in 1776 at Canso and then a land assault on Fort Cumberland.
Meanwhile, British officials in Quebec began negotiating with Indian tribes to support them,[138] while the Americans urged them to maintain neutrality.[139] In April 1775, Congress feared an Anglo-Indian attack from Canada and authorized an invasion of Quebec. Quebec had a largely Francophone population and had been under British rule for only 12 years.[140][af] A Massachusetts sponsored uprising in Nova Scotia had been disbursed in November, but The Americans expected that they would welcome liberation from the British.[141] The second American expedition into the former French territory was defeated at the Battle of Quebec on December 31.[142] After a loose siege, the Americans withdrew on May 6, 1776.[143] An American failed counter-attack on June 8 ended their operations in Quebec.[144] However, British pursuit was blocked by American ships on Lake Champlain until they were cleared on October 11 at the Battle of Valcour Island. The American troops were forced to withdraw to Ticonderoga, ending the campaign. The invasion cost the Patriots their support in British public opinion,[145] and their aggressive anti-Loyalist policies had diluted Canadian support.[146] No further Patriot attempts to invade were subsequently made.[147]
In Virginia, Royal Governor Lord Dunmore had attempted to disarm the militia as tensions increased, although no fighting broke out.[148] He issued a proclamation on November 7, 1775, promising freedom for slaves who fled their Patriot masters to fight for the Crown.[149] Dunmore's troops were repulsed at the Battle of Great Bridge, and Dunmore fled to British ships anchored off the nearby port at Norfolk. The Third Virginia Convention refused to disband its militia or accept martial law. Speaker Peyton Randolph in the last Royal Virginia Assembly session did not make a response to Lord Dunmore concerning Parliament's Conciliatory Resolution. Negotiations failed in part because Randolph was also President of the Virginia Conventions, and he deferred to Congress, where he was also President. Dunmore ordered the ship's crews to burn Norfolk on January 1, 1776.[150]
Fighting broke out on November 19 in South Carolina between Loyalist and Patriot militias,[151] and the Loyalists were subsequently driven out of the colony.[152] Loyalists were recruited in North Carolina to reassert colonial rule in the South, but they were decisively defeated and Loyalist sentiment was subdued.[153] A troop of British regulars set out to reconquer South Carolina and launched an attack on Charleston during the Battle of Sullivan's Island, on June 28, 1776,[154] but it failed and left the South in Patriot control until 1780.[155]
Shortages in Patriot gunpowder led Congress to authorize an expedition against the Bahamas colony in the British West Indies to secure additional ordnance there.[156] On March 3, 1776, the Americans landed and engaged the British at the Battle of Nassau, but the local militia offered no resistance.[157] The expedition confiscated what supplies they could and sailed for home on March 17.[158] The squadron reached New London, Connecticut, on April 8, after a brief skirmish during the Battle of Block Island with the Royal Navy frigate HMS Glasgow on April 6.[159]
British New York counter-offensive
After regrouping at Halifax, William Howe determined to take the fight to the Americans.[160] He set sail in June 1776 and began landing troops on Staten Island near the entrance to New York Harbor on July 2. The Americans rejected Howe's informal attempt to negotiate peace July 30.[161] Facing off against the British at New York City, Washington realized that he needed advance information to deal with disciplined British regular troops. On August 12, 1776, Thomas Knowlton was given orders to form an elite group for reconnaissance and secret missions. Knowlton's Rangers became the Army's first intelligence unit.[162]
When Washington split his army to positions on Manhattan Island and across the East River in western Long Island,[163] on August 27 at the Battle of Long Island Howe outflanked Washington and forced him back to Brooklyn Heights, but he did not attempt to encircle Washington's forces.[164] Through the night of August 28, General Henry Knox bombarded the British. On August 29, an American council of war all agreed to retreat to Manhattan. Washington quickly had his troops assembled and ferried them across the East River to Manhattan on flat-bottomed freight boats without any losses in men or ordnance, with General Thomas Mifflin's regiments in the rear guard.[165]
The Staten Island Peace Conference failed to negotiate peace as the British delegates did not have authority to recognize independence to meet the rebel demands.[166] Howe seized control of New York City on September 15 and unsuccessfully engaged the Americans the following day.[167] He failed to encircle the Americans at the Battle of Pell's Point, then the Americans successfully withdrew. Howe declined to close with Washington's army on October 28 at the Battle of White Plains, but instead concentrated his efforts on a hill that was of no strategic value.[168]
Washington's retreat had left his remaining forces isolated, and the British captured their Fort Washington on November 16. The British victory there took 3,000 prisoners and amounted to Washington's most disastrous defeat.[169] Washington's remaining army on Long Island fell back four days later.[170] Henry Clinton wanted to pursue Washington's disorganized army, but he was required to commit 6,000 troops to first capture Newport, Rhode Island in an operation that he had opposed.[171] The American prisoners were subsequently sent to the infamous prison ships where more American soldiers and sailors died of disease and neglect than died in every battle of the war combined.[172] Charles Cornwallis pursued Washington, but Howe ordered him to halt and Washington marched away unmolested.[173]
The outlook was bleak for the American cause; the reduced army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men and that number would be reduced further when enlistments expired at the end of the year.[174] Popular support wavered, morale ebbed away, and Congress abandoned Philadelphia.[175] Loyalist activity surged in the wake of the American defeat, especially in New York.[176] Once Washington was driven out of New York, he realized that he would need more than military might and amateur spies to defeat the British and earnestly made efforts to professionalize military intelligence with the aid of Benjamin Tallmadge. They created the Culper spy ring of six men.[ag]
News of the campaign was well received in Britain with festivities held in London, public support reached a peak,[178] and the King awarded the Order of the Bath to Howe. The successes led to predictions that the British could win within a year.[179] Strategic deficiencies among Patriot forces were evident by Washington's dividing a numerically weaker army in the face of a stronger one, inexperienced staff misreading the situation, and their troops fleeing in the face of enemy fire.[180] In the meantime, the British entered winter quarters and were in a good place to resume campaigning.[181]
On the night of December 25–26, 1776, Washington crossed the ice-choked Delaware River and surprised and overwhelmed Colonel Johann Rall and the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, and taking 900 prisoners.[182][ah] The decisive victory rescued the army's flagging morale, dispelled much of the fear for professional Hessian "mercenaries"[184] and gave a new hope to the Patriot cause.[185] Cornwallis marched to retake Trenton, but his efforts were repulsed in the Battle of the Assunpink Creek on January 2.[186] Washington outmaneuvered Cornwallis that night and defeated his rearguard the following day. The two victories contributed to convincing the French that the Americans were worthwhile allies.[187] Washington entered winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey on January 6,[188] though a prolonged guerrilla conflict continued.[189] Howe made no attempt to attack, much to Washington's amazement.[190]
British northern strategy fails
In December 1776, John Burgoyne returned to London to set strategy with Lord George Germain. Burgoyne's plan was to isolate New England by establishing control of the Great Lakes from New York to Quebec. Efforts could then concentrate on the southern colonies, where it was believed that Loyalist support was widespread and substantial.[191]
Burgoyne's plan was to maneuver two armies by different routes and rendezvous at Albany, New York.[192] Burgoyne set out along Lake Champlain on June 14, 1777, quickly capturing Ticonderoga on July 5. From there the pace slowed. The Americans blocked roads, destroyed bridges, dammed streams, and stripped the area of food.[193] Meanwhile, Barry St. Ledger's diversionary column along the Mohawk River laid siege to Fort Stanwix. St. Ledger withdrew to Quebec on August 22 after his Indian support abandoned him. On August 16, a Brunswick foraging expedition was soundly defeated at Bennington, and more than 700 troops were captured.[194] The vast majority of Burgoyne's Indian support then abandoned him in the field, but Lord Howe informed him that he would still launch their planned campaign on Philadelphia, but without his support from New York.[195]
Burgoyne continued the advance, and he attempted to flank the American position at Freeman's Farm on September 19 in the First Battle of Saratoga. The British won, but at the cost of 600 casualties. Burgoyne then dug in, but he suffered a constant hemorrhage of deserters, and critical supplies ran low.[196] The Americans repulsed a British reconnaissance in force against the American lines on October 7, with heavy British losses during the second Battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne then withdrew in the face of American pursuit, but he was surrounded by October 13. With supplies exhausted and no hope of relief, Burgoyne surrendered his army on October 17, and the Americans took 6,222 soldiers as prisoners of war.[197]
Meanwhile, Howe took command of a New York-based campaign against Washington. Early feints failed to bring Washington to battle in June 1777.[198] Howe then declined to attack towards Philadelphia further, either overland via New Jersey or by sea via the Delaware Bay, leaving Burgoyne's initiative launched from the interior unsupported.
Later in the fall with additional supplies, Howe recommenced the Philadelphia campaign. This time on advancing, he outflanked and defeated Washington on September 11, but failed to pursue and destroy the defeated Americans on two occasions; once after the Battle of Brandywine,[199] and again after the Battle of Germantown.[200] A British victory at Willistown left Philadelphia defenseless, and Howe captured the city unopposed on September 26. He then moved 9,000 men to Germantown north of Philadelphia.[201] Washington launched a surprise attack there on Howe's garrison on October 4, but he was eventually repulsed.[202] Once again, Howe did not follow up on his victory.[203]
Howe, surprised by the American defenses, inexplicably ordered a retreat to Philadelphia after several days of probing at the Battle of White Marsh.[204] He ignored the vulnerable American rear, where an attack might possibly have deprived Washington of his baggage and supplies.[205] On December 19, Washington's army entered winter quarters at Valley Forge. Poor conditions and supply problems there resulted in the deaths of some 2,500 American troops.[206] During Washington's winter encampment at Valley Forge, Baron von Steuben, introduced the latest Prussian methods of drilling and infantry tactics to the entire Continental Army.[207]
While the Americans wintered only twenty miles away, Howe made no effort to attack their camp, which some critics argue could have ended the war.[208] Following the conclusion of the campaign, Howe resigned his commission, and was replaced by Henry Clinton on May 24, 1778.[209] Clinton received orders to abandon Philadelphia and fortify New York following France's entry into the war. On June 18, the British departed Philadelphia, with the reinvigorated Americans in pursuit.[210] The two armies fought at Monmouth Court House on June 28, with the Americans holding the field, greatly boosting Patriot morale and confidence.[211] By July, both armies were back in the same positions they had been two years prior.
Foreign intervention
Early in the war, it became clear to Congress that help from France was imperative. First, the British instituted a blockade on the Atlantic seacoast ports against military assistance that could not be challenged. Second, its army troop strength attrited by death, disease and desertion, and the states failed to meet recruitment quotas. Third, the British had a continuing resupply of German auxiliaries to compensate for their losses.[212]
French foreign minister the Comte de Vergennes was strongly anti-British,[213] and he had long sought a pretext for going to war with Britain since the conquest of Canada in 1763.[214] The French public favored war, but Vergennes and King Louis XVI were hesitant, owing to the military and financial risk.[215]
France, however, would not feel compelled to intervene if the colonies were still considering reconciliation with Britain, as France would have nothing to gain in that event.[216] To assure assistance from France, independence would have to be declared, which was effected by Congress in July 1776.[217] The Americans who had been covertly supplied by French merchants through neutral Dutch ports since the onset of the war, were now also supplied directly by the French government.[218] These proved invaluable in the American 1777 Saratoga campaign.[219]
The British defeat at Saratoga caused British anxiety over possible foreign intervention. The North ministry sought reconciliation with the colonies by consenting to their original demands, but without independence.[220] However the Americans were now bolstered by their French trade, and would settle for no terms short of complete independence from Britain.[221] The American victory at Saratoga convinced the French that supporting the Patriots was worthwhile,[222] but doing so too late brought major concerns. King Louis XVI feared that Britain's concessions would be accepted and bring reconciliation with the Colonies. Britain would then be free to strike at French Caribbean possessions.[223] To prevent this, France formally recognized the United States in a trade treaty on February 6, 1778, and followed that with a defensive military alliance guaranteeing American independence.[224][ai] Spain was wary of recognizing a republic of former European colonies, and also of provoking war with Britain before it was well prepared. It opted to covertly supply the Patriots mainly from Havana in Cuba and New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana.[226]
To encourage French participation in the American struggle for independence, diplomat Silas Deane promised promotions and command positions to any French officer who joined the American war effort. However, many of the French officer-adventurers were completely unfit for command. In one outstanding exception, Congress recognized Lafayette's "great zeal to the cause of liberty" and commissioned him a major General. He was immediately instrumental in reconciling some of Washington's rival officers and he aligned some of the delegates in Philadelphia to support Washington in an otherwise indifferent Congress.[227]
Congress also hoped to persuade Spain into an open alliance, as formally extended in the French treaty. The American Commissioners met with the Count of Aranda in 1776.[228] But Spain was still reluctant to make an early commitment due to its Great Power concerns on the Continent.[229] Nevertheless, the following year, Spain affirmed its desire to support the Americans so as to weaken Britain's empire.[230][aj]
Since the outbreak of the conflict, Britain had appealed to its former ally, the neutral Dutch Republic, to lend the use of the Scots Brigade for service in America. But pro-American sentiment there forced its elected representatives to deny the request.[232] Consequently, the British attempted to invoke treaties for outright Dutch military support, but the Republic still refused. At the same time, American troops were being supplied with ordnance by Dutch merchants via their West Indies colonies.[233] French supplies bound for America were also transshipped through Dutch ports.[234] The Republic traded with France following France's declaration of war on Britain, citing a prior concession by Britain on this issue. But despite standing international agreements, Britain responded by confiscating Dutch shipping, and even firing upon it. The Republic joined the First League of Armed Neutrality with Austria, Prussia and Russia to enforce their neutral status.[235] But The Republic had further assisted the rebelling Patriot cause. It had also given sanctuary to American privateers[236] and had drafted a treaty of commerce with the Americans. Britain argued that these actions contravened the Republic's neutral stance and declared war in December 1780.[237]
Meanwhile, George III had given up on subduing America while Britain had a European war to fight.[238] He did not welcome war with France, but he believed that Britain had made all necessary steps to avoid it and cited the British victories over France in the Seven Years' War as a reason to remain optimistic in the event of war with France.[239] Britain tried in vain to find a powerful ally to engage France. It was isolated among the Great Powers, and French strength was not drawn off into Europe as in the Seven Years' War.[240] Britain subsequently changed its focus from one theater,[241] and diverted major military resources away from America.[242] Despite these developments, George III still determined never to recognize American independence and to make war on the American colonies indefinitely, or until they pleaded to return as his subjects.[243][ak]
Stalemate in the North
Following the British defeat at Saratoga in October, 1777, and French entry into the war, Clinton withdrew from Philadelphia to consolidate his forces in New York.[245] French admiral the Comte d'Estaing had been dispatched to America in April 1778 to assist Washington. The Franco-American forces felt that New York's defenses were too formidable for the French fleet, so in August 1778 they launched an attack on Newport at the Battle of Rhode Island under the command of General John Sullivan.[246] The effort failed when the French opted to withdraw, disappointing the Americans.[247] The war then stalemated. Most actions were fought as large skirmishes such as those at Chestnut Neck and Little Egg Harbor. In the summer of 1779, the Americans captured British posts at the Battles of Stony Point and Paulus Hook.[248] In July, Clinton unsuccessfully attempted to coax Washington into a decisive engagement by making a major raid into Connecticut.[249] That month, a large American naval operation attempted to retake Maine, but it resulted in a humiliating defeat.[250] The high frequency of Iroquois raids compelled Washington to mount a punitive expedition which destroyed a large number of Iroquois settlements, but the effort ultimately failed to stop the raids.[251] During the winter of 1779–80, the Continental Army suffered greater hardships than at Valley Forge.[252] Morale was poor, public support fell away in the long war, the national currency was virtually worthless, the army was plagued with supply problems, desertion was common, and whole regiments mutinied over the conditions in early 1780.[253]
In 1780, Clinton launched an attempt to retake New Jersey. On June 7, 6,000 men invaded under Hessian general Wilhelm von Knyphausen, but they met stiff resistance from the local militia at the Battle of Connecticut Farms. The British held the field, but Knyphausen feared a general engagement with Washington's main army and withdrew.[254] A second attempt two weeks later was soundly defeated at Springfield, effectively ending British ambitions in New Jersey.[255] Meanwhile, American general Benedict Arnold turned traitor, joined the British army and attempted to surrender the American West Point fortress. The plot was foiled when British spy-master John André was captured. Arnold fled to British lines in New York where he justified his betrayal by appealing to Loyalist public opinion, but the Patriots strongly condemned him as a coward and turncoat.[256]
The war to the west of the Appalachians was largely confined to skirmishing and raids. In February 1778, an expedition of militia to destroy British military supplies in settlements along the Cuyahoga River was halted by adverse weather.[257] Later in the year, a second campaign was undertaken to seize the Illinois Country from the British. Virginia militia, francophone settlers and Indian allies commanded by Colonel George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia on July 4 and then secured Vincennes, although Vincennes was recaptured by Quebec Governor Henry Hamilton. In early 1779, the Americans counter-attacked and retook Vincennes, taking Hamilton prisoner.[258]
On May 25, 1780, the British launched an expedition into Kentucky as part of a wider operation to clear rebel resistance from Quebec to the Gulf coast. Hundreds were killed or captured, but the initiative met with only limited success.[259][al] The Americans responded with a major offensive along the Mad River in August which met with some success, but it did little to abate the Indian raids on the frontier.[261] French militia attempted to capture Detroit, but it ended in disaster when Miami Indians ambushed and defeated the gathered troops on November 5.[262] The war in the west had become a stalemate; the Americans did not have the manpower to simultaneously defeat the hostile Indian tribes and occupy the land.[263]
War in the South
The British turned their attention to conquering the South in 1778 after Loyalists in London assured them of a strong Loyalist base there. Squadrons of the Royal Navy would be closer to the British Caribbean colonies to defend against attacking Franco-Spanish fleets.[citation needed] On December 29, 1778, Lord Cornwallis commanded an expeditionary corps from New York to capture Savannah, and British troops then moved inland to recruit Loyalist support.[264]
The initial Loyalist recruitment was promising in early 1779, but then a large Loyalist-only militia was defeated by Patriot militia at Kettle Creek on February 14. That demonstrated Loyalist need for the support of British regulars in major engagements. But the British in turn defeated Patriot militia at Brier Creek on March 3.[265] In June they launched an abortive assault on Charleston, South Carolina. The operation became notorious for its widespread looting by British troops that enraged both Loyalists and Patriots in the Carolinas. In October, a combined Franco-American siege by Admiral d'Estaing and General Benjamin Lincoln failed to recapture Savannah.[266]
The primary British strategy for the following year hinged on a Loyalist uprising in the south. Cornwallis proceeded into North Carolina, gambling his success on a large Loyalist uprising which never materialized.[citation needed] In May 1780, Henry Clinton captured Charleston, taking over 5,000 prisoners and effectively destroying the Continental Army in the south. Organized Patriot resistance in the region collapsed when Banastre Tarleton defeated the withdrawing Americans at Waxhaws on May 29.[267]
British commander-in-chief Clinton returned to New York, leaving General Lord Cornwallis at Charleston to oversee the southern war effort. Few Loyalists joined him there. The initiative was seized by Patriot militias who won July victories at the Fairfield County, Lincolnton, Huck's Defeat, Stanly County, and Lancaster County. These effectively suppressed Loyalist support.[268]
In July, Congress appointed General Horatio Gates with a new command to lead the American effort in the south. By mid-August 16, 1780, he had lost the Battle of Camden, and Cornwallis was poised to invade North Carolina.[269] The British attempted to subjugate the countryside, but Patriot militia continued their attacks. Cornwallis dispatched Major Patrick Ferguson to raise Loyalist forces to cover his left flank as he moved north, but they ranged beyond mutual support.[270] In early October the Tory regulars and militias were defeated at the Battle of Kings Mountain, destroying any significant Loyalist support in the region.[citation needed]
Cornwallis advanced into North Carolina despite the setbacks, gambling that he would receive substantial Loyalist support there. Greene evaded combat with Cornwallis, instead wearing the British down through a protracted war of attrition.[271] Washington replaced General Gates with General Nathanael Greene At the beginning of December 1780.[272] Greene was unable to confront the British directly, so he dispatched a force under Daniel Morgan to recruit additional troops. Morgan then defeated the renowned British Legion, on January 17, 1781, at Cowpens. Cornwallis subsequently aborted his advance and retreated back into South Carolina.[273]
The British launched a surprise offensive in Virginia in January 1781, with Benedict Arnold invading Richmond, Virginia. It met little resistance. Governor Thomas Jefferson escaped Richmond just ahead of the British forces, and the British burned the city to the ground.[274] Although later accused by his enemies of inaction and cowardice, Jefferson sent an emergency dispatch to nearby Colonel Sampson Mathews to check Arnold's advance.[275]
By March, Greene's army had increased in size enough that he felt confident in facing Cornwallis who was far from his supply base. The two armies engaged near Guilford Courthouse on March 15. Accompanied by lieutenant colonel "Light Horse Harry"[am] and his cavalry, the fighting went back and forth with the first British advance resulting in their retreat. The second clash occurred in a wooded area mostly involving close-quarters combat. During the chaotic melee Cornwallis has his horse shot out from under him, however, Greene was beaten, but Cornwallis's army suffered irreplaceable casualties.[277] The Americans further reduced his army in a war of attrition,[278] and far fewer Loyalists were joining than the British had previously expected.[citation needed] Cornwallis's casualties were such that he was compelled to retreat to Wilmington for reinforcement, leaving the Patriots in control of the interior of the Carolinas and Georgia.[279]
Greene then proceeded to reclaim the South. On April 25 the American troops suffered a reversal at Hobkirk's Hill due to poor tactical control, but they continued to march 160 miles in 8 days, continually dislodging strategic British posts in the area nonetheless. They recaptured Fort Watson and Fort Motte on April 15.[280] During the Siege of Augusta on June 6, Brigadier general Andrew Pickens reclaimed possession of the last British outpost beyond Charleston and Savannah.[281]
The last British effort to stop Greene occurred at Eutaw Springs on September 8, but the British casualties were so high that they withdrew to Charleston. By the end of 1781, the Americans had effectively confined the British to the Carolina coasts, undoing any progress they had made in the previous year.[282] Minor skirmishes continued there until the end of the war.[283]
Mississippi River theater
Mississippi River Basin |
|
In America east of the Mississippi River, though Spanish Louisiana territory ran west of it, Governor General Gálvez had been allowing covert aid to George Washington by Pittsburgh via New Orleans. In 1777 Oliver Pollock, a successful merchant in Havana and New Orleans, was appointed US "commercial agent". He personally underwrote the American campaign against the British along the upriver Mississippi among the francophone settlements of western Quebec.
In the Virginia militia campaign of 1778, General George Rogers Clark founded Louisville, and cleared British forts in the region.[284] Clark's conquest resulted in the creation of Illinois County, Virginia. It was organized with the consent of French-speaking colonials who had been guaranteed protection of the Catholic Church. Voters at their court house in Kaskaskia, were represented for three years in the Virginia General Assembly until the territory was ceded to the US Congress.[285]
At the Spanish declaration of war with France in 1779, Governor Gálvez raised an army in Spanish Louisiana to initiate offensive operations against British outposts.[286] First, he cleared British garrisons in Baton Rouge, Fort Bute and Natchez, capturing five forts.[287] In this first maneuver Gálvez opened navigation on the Mississippi River north to US settlement in Pittsburg.[288] His Spanish military assistance to Oliver Pollock for transport up the Mississippi River became an alternative supply to Washington's Continental Army, bypassing the British-blockaded Atlantic Coast.[289]
In 1781, Governor Galvez and Pollack campaigned east along the Gulf Coast to secure West Florida including British-held Mobile and Pensacola.[290] The Spanish operations crippled the British supply of armaments to British Indian allies, effectively suspending a military alliance to attack settlers between the Mississippi River and Appalachian Mountains.[291][an]
In April 1782 at the Battle of the Saintes, the British parried the French-Spanish invasion of Jamaica, then dominated the Caribbean Sea. In February 1783 Spanish lifted their siege of Gibraltar. A Spanish-US fleet captured Bahamas was returned at the peace. The belligerents had all lost heart for continued warfare. After George III announced for US independence in a Speech before the Throne before a joint session of Parliament in December 1782, the British proffered terms to the Americans in Paris, which were then approved by Congress April 1783.[292] British "American settlement" allowed US fishing rights in Newfoundland and the Gulf of Mexico, along with "perpetual access" to the Mississippi River. The two British treaties with France and Spain settled their three-way swaps of imperial territory in September. The British settled their Fourth Anglo-Dutch War the next year.[293]
British defeat in America
In 1781, the British commander-in-chief in America was General Clinton, who was garrisoned in New York City. He had failed to construct a coherent strategy for British operations that year, owing to his difficult relationship with his naval counterpart Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot. Arbuthnot in turn had failed to detect the arrival of French naval forces in July.[294] In Charleston, Cornwallis independently developed a plan for a campaign in Virginia to cut supply to Greene's army in the Carolinas, expecting the Patriot resistance in the South would then collapse. Lord Germain, Cabinet Secretary of State for America in London agreed, but neither official informed Clinton.[295]
Washington and the Comte de Rochambeau discussed their options. Washington pushed for an attack on New York, while Rochambeau preferred a strike in Virginia, where the British were less well-established and thus easier to defeat.[296] Franco-American movements around New York caused Clinton a great deal of anxiety, fearing an attack on the city. His instructions were vague to Cornwallis during this time, rarely forming explicit orders. However, Clinton did instruct Cornwallis to establish a fortified naval base and to transfer troops to the north to defend New York.[297]
Cornwallis maneuvered to Yorktown to establish a fortified a sea-base of supply. But at the same time Lafayette was maneuvering south with a Franco-American army.[298][ao] The British dug in at Yorktown and awaited the Royal Navy.[302] As Lafayette's army closed with Cornwallis, the British made no early attempt to sally out to engage the Americans before siege lines could be dug, despite the repeated urging of his subordinate officers.[303] Expecting relief from Admiral Arbuthnot shortly to facilitate his withdrawal off the Virginia Peninsula, Cornwallis prematurely abandoned his outer defenses. These were promptly occupied by the besiegers, serving to hasten the British defeat.[304][ap]
The British had dispatched a fleet from New York under Thomas Graves to rendezvous with Cornwallis.[308] As they approached the entry to the Chesapeake Bay on September 5, the French fleet commanded by Admiral de Grasse decisively defeated Graves at the Battle of the Chesapeake, giving the French control of the seas around Yorktown and cutting off Cornwallis from further reinforcements or relief.[309] On the unexpected arrival of the French fleet, Cornwallis then failed in an attempt to break out of the siege by crossing the York River at Gloucester Point when a storm hit.[310] Cornwallis and his subordinates were under heavy bombardment and facing dwindling supplies, they agreed that their situation was untenable.[311][aq] On October 17, 1781, after twelve hours of negotiations, the terms of surrender were finalized.[312] Yorktown was the last major battle on the American mainland, but Britain fought France and Spain elsewhere involving their own objectives for two more full years.[313] After the defeat at Yorktown Clinton attempted to lay blame on Germain who had assured him that adequate reinforcements would arrive. Clinton also took exception to Cornwallis' account of the campaign, prompting him to write his own version of the defeat. Clinton, however, ultimately took the brunt of the blame for the defeat.[314]
Strategy and commanders
To win the American Revolution, the United States had to outlast the will of the British Crown and its government in Parliament to subdue them. For the British to win the conflict, they had to defeat the Continental Army early in the war and force the dissolution of Congress.[315]
The revolt for and against colonial independence between British subjects in thirteen colonies of North America can be seen as three kinds of ongoing and interrelated warfare. First there was an economic war between a European state and its territory settled for its own economic strength and European balance of power. By 1775, British American colonies supplied of raw materials for its ships and one-third its sailors and they purchased British-manufactured goods that maintained its industrial growth. Newly enforced and expanded mercantile regulation restricted previous international Caribbean trade and colonial laissez faire smuggling.[316]
Second there was a political civil war, a British constitutional war. Across 1000 miles of Atlantic coastline, settled as much as 300 miles into the continental frontier, thirteen British colonies self-proclaimed themselves states independent of Parliament and united in a Congress of their delegates to declare their independence as “one people” in a political revolution from monarchy to republic. This initiated a political struggle for British recognition assisted by Whigs in Parliament, a military struggle assisted by state militias and the creation of George Washington's national Continental Army, and an economic struggle for international free-trade to break the European mutually beneficial system of mercantilism. It also began thirteen civil wars in every state, as there were in every colony and county, a mix of Patriots (Whigs) and Loyalists (Tories) who now went to war among their neighbors. These divided variously in each state along both multi-ethnic and multi-religious lines. Every faction and element had veterans from the imperial conflict between Brtiain and France fifteen years before, there were officers and sergeants on every side practiced in the arts of both Indian frontier warfare, and in the European infantry line formations of musketry.[317]
Third, there was an international war, outside the American Revolution removed from it, but also intervening and influencing it. France played a key role in assisting the Americans with money, weapons, soldiers, and naval vessels. French troops fought under US command in the states, and Spanish troops in its territory west of the Mississippi River and on the Gulf of Mexico defeated British forces. In the two years from 1778 to 1780, more countries with competing imperial domains worldwide went to war against Britain for their own reasons,[318] including the Dutch Republic to assert its right to trade with its former colony in New York, and the French and Spanish to regain lost empire and prestige in the Caribbean, India and Gibraltar.[319] Alternatively, nations in the League of Armed Neutrality including Russia, Austria and Prussia, defended the right of their merchant convoys to trade with the rebel Americans, enforced by Russian squadrons in the Mediterranean, North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea.[320]
American strategy
Congress had multiple advantages if the rebellion turned into a protracted war. Their prosperous state populations depended on local production for food and supplies rather than on imports from a Mother Country that lay six to twelve weeks away by sail. They were spread across most of the North American Atlantic seaboard stretching 1000 miles. Most farms were remote from the seaports; control of four or five major ports did not give British armies control over the inland areas. Each state had established internal distribution systems.[321]
Each colony had a long-established system of local militia, combat tested in support of British regulars thirteen years before to secure an expanded British Empire. Together they took away French claims in North America west to the Mississippi River. The state legislatures independently funded and controlled their local militias. They would train and provide Continental Line regiments to the regular army, each with their own state officer corps.[322] Motivation was also a major asset. Each colonial capital had its own newspapers and printers. The Patriots had more popular support than the Loyalists. British hoped for the Loyalists to do much of the fighting, but they did much less than expected.[323]
- Continental Army
When the war began, Congress lacked a professional army or navy, and each colony maintained only local militias. Militiamen were lightly armed, had little training, and usually without uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or months at a time and lacked the training and discipline of soldiers with more experience. Local county militias were reluctant to travel far from home and they were unavailable for extended operations. However, if properly employed their numbers could help the Continental armies overwhelm smaller British forces, as at Concord, Boston, Bennington, and Saratoga. Both sides used partisan warfare, but the state militias effectively suppressed Loyalist activity when British regulars were not in the area.[324] The Congress established a regular army on June 14, 1775, and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief. The development of the Continental Army was always a work in progress, and Washington used both his regulars and state militia throughout the war.[ar]
Washington designed the overall military strategy of the war in cooperation with Congress, established the principle of civilian supremacy in military affairs, personally recruited his senior office corps and kept the states all pointed toward the common goal.[327] For the first three years until after Valley Forge, the Continental Army was largely supplemented by local state militias. At Washington's discretion, the inexperienced officers and untrained troops were employed in a Fabian strategy rather than resorting to frontal assaults against Britain's professional army.[328] The American commander spent more than 10 percent of his total military funds on intelligence operations.[329] Some historians maintain that, without the efforts of Washington and the Culper Spy Ring, the British would never have been defeated.[330] Over the course of the entire war, Washington lost more battles than he won, but he maintained a fighting force in the face of British field armies and never surrendered his troops.[331]
The American armies were small by European standards of the era, largely attributable, to limitations such as lack of powder and other logistics.[as][at] At the beginning of 1776, Washington commanded 20,000 men, with two-thirds enlisted in the Continental Army and the other third in the various state militias. About 250,000 men served as regulars or as militiamen for the Revolutionary cause in the eight years of the war, but there were never more than 90,000 men under arms at one time.[335]
American officers as a whole never equaled their opponents in tactics and maneuver, and they lost most of the pitched battles. The great successes at Boston (1776), Saratoga (1777), and Yorktown (1781) came from trapping the British far from base with much larger numbers of troops.[336] Nevertheless, after 1778, Washington's army was transformed into a more disciplined and effective force, due largely to training by Baron von Steuben.[337] Immediately after the Army emerged from Valley Forge, it proved its ability to match the British troops in action at the Battle of Monmouth, including a black Rhode Island regiment fending off a British bayonet attack then counter-charging for the first time in Washington's army.[338]
Though Congress had responsibility for the war effort and getting supplies to the troops, Washington took it upon himself to pressure the Congress and state legislatures to provide the essentials. There was never nearly enough.[339] Congress evolved in its committee oversight, establishing the Board of War which included members of the military.[340] But the Board of War was also a committee ensnared with its own internal procedures, so Congress created the post of Secretary of War, appointing Major General Benjamin Lincoln in February, 1781. Washington worked closely with Lincoln in coordinating civilian and military authorities[341] and took charge of training and supplying the army.[342]
The new Continental Army suffered significantly from a lack of an effective training program and from largely inexperienced officers and sergeants. The inexperience of its officers was somewhat offset by a few senior officers.[343] Each state legislature appointed officers for both county and state militias and their regimental Continental Line officers, but Washington was permitted to choose and command his own generals, although sometimes he was required to accept Congressional appointments.[344]
Eventually, the Continental Army found capable officers such as Nathanael Greene, Daniel Morgan, Henry Knox (chief of artillery), and Alexander Hamilton (chief of staff).[345] One of Washington's most successful recruits to general officer was Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a veteran of the Prussian general staff who wrote the Revolutionary War Drill Manual. Over the winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge, von Steuben was instrumental in training the Continental Army in the essentials of infantry field maneuvers with military discipline, drills, tactics, and strategy.[346]
- Continental Navy
During the first summer of the war, Washington began outfitting schooners and other small sea-going vessels to prey on ships supplying the British in Boston.[347]
Congress established the Continental Navy on October 13, 1775, and appointed Esek Hopkins as the Navy's first commander.[348] The following month, Marines were organized on November 10, 1775.[349] The Continental Navy was a handful of small frigates and sloops throughout the Revolution for the most part.
John Paul Jones became the first great American naval hero, capturing HMS Drake on April 24, 1778, the first victory for any American military vessel in British waters.[350] The last was by the frigate USS Alliance commanded by Captain John Barry. On March 10, 1783, the Alliance outgunned HMS Sybil in a 45-minute duel while escorting Spanish gold from Havana to Congress.[351] After Yorktown, all US Navy ships were sold or given away. For the first time in America's history she had no fighting forces on the high seas.[352]
Congress primarily commissioned privateers as a cost savings, and to take advantage of the large proportion of colonial sailors found in the British Empire. Overall, they included 1,700 ships, and these successfully captured 2,283 enemy ships to damage the British effort and to enrich themselves with the proceeds from the sale of cargo and the ship itself.[353]
In what was known as the Whaleboat War, American privateers mainly from New Jersey, Brooklyn and Connecticut attacked and robbed British merchant ships and raided and robbed coastal communities of Long Island reputed to have Loyalist sympathies.[354] About 55,000 sailors served aboard American privateers during the war.[355]
- France
To begin with, the Americans had no major international allies. Battles such as the Battle of Bennington, the Battles of Saratoga, and even defeats such as the Battle of Germantown proved decisive in gaining the attention and support of powerful European nations such as France and Spain, who moved from covertly supplying the Americans with weapons and supplies to overtly supporting them.[356]
|
The decisive American victory at Saratoga spurred France to offer a defensive treaty of alliance with the United States to guarantee its independence from Britain. It was conditioned on Britain initiating a war on France to stop it from trading with the US. Spain and the Netherlands were invited to join by both France and the United States in the treaty, but neither made a formal reply.[357]
On June 13, 1778, France declared war on Great Britain, and it invoked the French military alliance with the US. That ensured additional US privateer support for French possessions in the Caribbean. King George III feared that the war's prospects would make it unlikely he could reclaim the North American colonies.[358] During the later years of the Revolution, the British were drawn into numerous other conflicts about the globe.[359]
Washington worked closely with the soldiers and navy that France would send to America, primarily through Lafayette on his staff. French assistance made critical contributions required to defeat Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781.[360] The final elements for US victory over Britain and US independence was assured by direct military intervention from France, as well as ongoing French supply and commercial trade over the final three years of the war.[361]
British strategy
The population of Great Britain and Ireland in 1780 was approximately 12.6 million,[362] while the Thirteen Colonies held a population of some 2.8 million, including some 500,000 slaves.[363] Theoretically, Britain had the advantage; however, many factors inhibited raising a large army for a war that was unpopular at home.
Suppressing a rebellion in America presented the British with major problems. The key issue was distance; it could take up to three months to cross the Atlantic, and orders from London were often outdated by the time that they arrived.[364]
The colonies had never been formally united prior to the conflict and there was no centralized area of ultimate strategic importance. Traditionally, the fall of a capital city often signaled the end of a conflict [365] yet the war continued unabated even after the fall of major settlements such as New York, Philadelphia (where Congress met), and Charleston.[366] Britain's ability to project its power overseas lay chiefly in the power of the Royal Navy, allowing her to control major coastal settlements with relative ease and to enforce a strong blockade of colonial ports. However, the overwhelming majority of the American population was agrarian, not urban, and the American economy proved resilient enough to withstand the blockade's effects.[367]
The vastness of the American countryside and the limited manpower available meant that the British could never simultaneously defeat the Americans and occupy captured territory. One British statesman described the attempt as "like trying to conquer a map".[368] Debate persists over whether a British defeat in America was a guaranteed outcome. Ferling argues that long odds made the defeat of Britain nothing short of a miracle.[369]
Ellis, however, considers that the odds always favored the Americans. He holds that the British squandered their only opportunities for a decisive success in 1777 because William Howe's strategic decisions relied on local Tory militias while underestimating Patriot capabilities. Ellis concludes that once Howe failed, the opportunity for a British victory "would never come again".[370] Conversely, the US military history published by the US Army argues that an additional British commitment of 10,000 fresh troops in 1780 would have placed British victory within the realm of possibility.[371]
- British army
Britain had four commanders-in-chief from initial days of the American colonial revolt to the final conclusion of the British-American civil war. The first commander of British forces in America following the 1763 Treaty of Paris was long-serving General Lord Thomas Gage. He had been installed in the flush victory days immediately following the end of the French and Indian War in America, with the business of expanding British empire into the French cessions in North America. The second British commander-in chief followed the dismissal of General Gage with his Bunker Hill assault and its high casualties to entrenched American rifle-fire. General Sir William Howe, commanded British forces in North America 1775–1778. His tenure continued the London policy of "soft war" under the influence of back-bencher Whigs in Parliament, and the caution felt in government because senior general officers refused to serve in America to put down the revolt.[372]
At the loss of an army at Saratoga and France declaring war on Britain, Congress rejected the peace offer at the Carlisle Commission, and Howe's replacement as British commander-in-chief in 1778 was General Sir Henry Clinton. He would serve for the duration of British campaigning in North America. London changed its war policy with orders to ruthlessly pursue victory against the colonists as enemies. Clinton's tenure ended at the loss of a second British army at Yorktown, and in early 1782 at the British-American truce, he was replaced by Sir Guy Carleton, who had repelled the American assault on Quebec in 1775. Carlton then successfully managed the British evacuation of American port cities in Savannah, Charleston and New York City.[373]
In 1775, the standing British Army, exclusive of militia, comprised 45,123 men worldwide, including 8500 men stationed in North America.[374][au] The British army at home had been deliberately kept small in peacetime to prevent abuses of power by the King.[376][av] Despite this, eighteenth century armies were not welcome guests among British civilian populations, and were regarded with scorn and contempt by the press and public of the New and Old World alike, derided as enemies of liberty.[378] The idle peacetime Army fell into corruption and inefficiency, resulting in many administrative difficulties once campaigning began.[379]
Through the American crises of 1775, the British leadership discovered it had overestimated the capabilities of its own troops, while underestimating those of the colonists. Strategic and tactical reassessments began in London and British America.[380] The immediate replacement of General Gage with General Howe followed the large casualties suffered in a frontal assault against shallow entrenchments at Bunker Hill.[381] Both British military and civil officials soon acknowledged that their initial responses to the rebellion had allowed the initiative to shift to the Patriots, as British authorities rapidly lost control over every colony.[382][aw] Ultimately, Gage was relieved of command for underestimating the strength of republican sympathy and Patriot support.[387]
Gage was replaced by Sir William Howe. Both had been light infantry commanders in America during the French and Indian War, but now General Howe had a command advantage, as he received large numbers of reinforcements of both British and German troops, horse and artillery.[388]
Howe made several strategic errors that cost the British offensive initiative. The general's tardiness in launching the New York campaign awaiting supplies, and his reluctance to allow Cornwallis to vigorously pursue Washington's beaten army, have both been attributed to food shortages.[389] During the winter of 1776–1777, Howe split his army into scattered cantonments. This decision dangerously exposed the individual forces to defeat in detail,[390] but low food supply in New York City warehouses required dispersed regimental foraging parties.[391] Washington took advantage at Trenton and Princeton.[392] Howe's difficulties during the next year's Philadelphia campaign were also magnified by the poor quality and quantity of resupply directly from Britain.[393]
In 1777, Howe might have committed his army to support Burgoyne attacking south from Quebec into New York, but he saw Washington positioned before Philadelphia as a greater threat. At the Battle of White Marsh, Howe failed to exploit the vulnerable American rear,[205] and then he inexplicably ordered a retreat to Philadelphia after only minor skirmishes. His withdrawal astonished both sides.[394] Howe may have been dissuaded from direct assaults by the memory of the grievous losses the British suffered at Bunker Hill.[395] In his initial approach Philadelphia, which was round-about by sea through the Chesapeake Bay, Howe was unable to assist Burgoyne even if it were required, and no surprise was achieved. That decision so angered Tories on both sides of the Atlantic, that Howe was accused in Parliament of treason.[396] At the surrender of General John Burgoyne and the loss of a British army to the Continental Army at Saratoga, Howe was recalled and replaced by Sir Henry Clinton.[397]
Clinton was professionally regarded in the British Army as one of the best-read experts on campaign tactics and military strategy.[398] But like Howe before him, Clinton's efforts to campaign suffered from chronic supply issues. In 1778, Clinton wrote to Colonial Secretary Lord Germain complaining of the lack of supplies, even after the arrival of a convoy from Ireland.[399] Clinton was largely inactive in the North throughout 1779, launching few major campaigns. This inactivity was partially due to the shortage of food.[400] By 1780, the situation had not improved. Clinton wrote a frustrated correspondence to Germain, voicing concern that a "fatal consequence will ensue" if matters did not improve.[401]
To emphasize his disappointment, Clinton had asked London that Admiral Mariot Arbuthnot be recalled.[402] Arbuthnot's relief was meant to be Admiral Sir George Rodney from his Leeward Islands command in late 1780, but Arbuthnot appealed to the admiralty. The replacement was upheld and Rodney took command in New York, but not before Arbuthnot narrowly turned back a French navy attempt in March 1781 to reinforce Lafayette in Virginia at the Battle of Cape Henry.[403][ax]
The following spring, General Lord Cornwallis commanding the British southern army in Charleston began a campaign north into Virginia to force a collapse of Patriot support throughout the South. Although approved by Colonial Secretary Sir George Germain, General Clinton was not notified either of adopting the plan or the beginning of the campaign. Clinton delayed sending reinforcements because he believed the bulk of Washington's army was still outside New York City. Admiral Romney's relief fleet to Yorktown failed.[405] Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown and the loss of a second British army to the Continental Army effectively ended British attempts to retake America.[406] Clinton was relieved and replaced by Sir Guy Carleton.[407]
General Carleton had repelled the American assault on Quebec in 1775, but he had been passed over for advancement by General Burgoyne because of his reputation for over-caution.[408] On his taking command of British forces in America, he then successfully managed the British transport of Loyalists to Nova Scotia and British East Florida, then evacuated British troops from American port cities in Savannah, Charleston and New York City.[409]
- Hessians
In 1775 at the onset of the American War of Independence, without sufficient popular support, the British soon realized they needed greater numbers of soldiers to subdue the rebellion in colonial America. Seeking military aid, and being denied by Russia, several German princes from Hesse-Cassell and elsewhere were presented with a great opportunity to hire out their professional regular army units for service in America.[410] Hesse-Cassell,[ay] had for 100s of years been hiring out professional soldiers to the highest bidder, sometimes to countries that were at war with one another.[412] Britain was their best customer and arranged treaties of subsidy to hire the needed soldiers, affording the German princes large profits.[413][414][410]
The war had made the Hessians[az] the focus of national sentiment and public political debate in Britain, France, and for the first time, in Germany. King Frederick II of Prussia did not allow the transfer of hired soldiers slated to fight in the American war to cross his territory.[416][ba] In March 1776 the controversial treaties were debated in the British Parliament. The opposition was soon taken up by the Continental Congress.[416] [bb] In late 1775 and early 1776 the American public was becoming increasingly aware of the parliamentary discussions over the use of foreign troops. In the fall of 1775, a growing faction in Parliament was openly challenging Lord North's increasingly aggressive policies regarding the Americans and the deployment of foreign soldiers to subdue the rebellion in the colonies.[418]
American newspapers covered the parliamentary debates in detail, printing and reprinting key speeches on the treaties.[419] Most of the news items were taken from London newspapers, and correspondence between Britain and Germany.[420] In October the Wochentliche Philadelphische Staatsbote, the only German-language newspaper published in the American colonies during the war, reported that Britain planned to send 10,000 German troops to Boston and New York. In the same issue it was reported that Britain was also planning to build permanent fortifications in the colonies, garrisoned by 10,000 Hanoverians that would be supported with taxes levied on the colonists. This caused most patriots to relinquish their allegiance to Britain, more so than issues of taxation, and suspension of local governments did.[421][422] There was now a general consensus that Britain fully intended to use hired foreign soldiers against the Americans, which only served to increase the enlistments for the Continental Army.[423][bc] During this time, rumors that Britain was sending a large contingent of peace commissioners also circulated throughout the colonies.[419] However, when copies of the treaties between Britain and the German princes became public,[bd] advocates for independence felt they had the proof they needed that foreign soldiers would soon be on their way.[425] The idea of reconciliation with Britain now seemed naive and hopeless now that it was clear Britain was determined to go to war.[be]
Before the actual arrival of the Hessians, Americans had expected, and the British had feared, that many of the foreign troops would desert. James Lutrell, a member of Parliament, feared that there "were already 150,000 Germans in America ... desertions would be the likely outcome." Sir Henry Clinton instead had hoped to employ Russian soldiers with the idea that they knew only one language and would not be inclined to desert in a country with very few Russians. Thinking along the same lines, on August 9, 1776, the American Congress directed Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to author and print up "handbills" to disperse among the Hessians, promising them large land holdings and civil liberties if they joined the American cause.[428] However, the British employed similar designs and dissuaded the Hessians from desertion by creating negative stereotypes of the Americans,[429] with the idea that if they deserted they would likely be hung by angry and resentful colonists for meddling in a war that was not theirs.[428] British soldiers were themselves often contemptuous in their treatment of Hessian troops, despite orders from General Howe that "the English should treat the Germans as brothers".[430] The first Hessians arrived in August and landed on Staten Island to reinforce the British troops stationed there, and would soon participate in the action that followed during the Battle of Long Island.[431] The German soldiers were an essential part of the British war effort, without whose participation the prospect of subduing the rebellion by themselves was deemed unlikely.[432] During the course of the war Hessian recruits were sent out every year to America to the various British divisions. By the end of the war nearly 30,000 Hessians had been sent to America. From this total 17,000 returned to Germany, while more than 12,000 never returned.[433] The total cost to Britain amounted to more than seven million pounds sterling at that time.[410][bf]
- British logistics
Logistical organization of eighteenth century armies was chaotic at best, and the British Army was no exception. No logistical corps existed in the modern sense; while on campaign in foreign territories such as America, horses, wagons, and drivers were frequently requisitioned from the locals, often by impressment or by hire.[435] No centrally organized medical corps existed. It was common for surgeons to have no formal medical education, and no diploma or entry examination was required. Nurses sometimes were apprentices to surgeons, but many were drafted from the women who followed the army.[436] Army surgeons and doctors were poorly paid and were regarded as social inferiors to other officers.[437]
The heavy personal equipment and wool uniform of the regular infantrymen were wholly unsuitable for combat in America, and the outfit was especially ill-suited to comfort and agile movement.[438] During the Battle of Monmouth in late June 1778, the temperature exceeded 100 °F (38 °C), and heat stroke claimed more lives than actual combat.[439] The standard-issue firearm of the British Army was the Land Pattern Musket. Some officers preferred their troops to fire careful, measured shots (around two per minute), rather than rapid firing. A bayonet made firing difficult, as its cumbersome shape hampered ramming down the charge into the barrel.[440] British troops had a tendency to fire impetuously, resulting in inaccurate fire, a trait for which John Burgoyne criticized them during the Saratoga campaign. Burgoyne instead encouraged bayonet charges to break up enemy formations, which was a preferred tactic in most European armies at the time.[441]
Every battalion in America had organized its own rifle company by the end of the war, although rifles were not formally issued to the army until the Baker Rifle in 1801.[442] Flintlocks were heavily dependent on the weather; high winds could blow the gunpowder from the flash pan,[443] while heavy rain could soak the paper cartridge, ruining the powder and rendering the musket unable to fire. Furthermore, flints used in British muskets were of notoriously poor quality; they could only be fired around six times before requiring resharpening, while American flints could fire sixty. This led to a common expression among the British: "Yankee flint was as good as a glass of grog".[444]
Provisioning troops and sailors proved to be an immense challenge, as the majority of food stores had to be shipped overseas from Britain.[445] The need to maintain Loyalist support prevented the Army from living off the land.[446] Other factors also impeded this option; the countryside was too sparsely populated and the inhabitants were largely hostile or indifferent, the network of roads and bridges was poorly developed, and the area which the British controlled was so limited that foraging parties were frequently in danger of being ambushed.[447] After France entered the war, the threat of the French navy increased the difficulty of transporting supplies to America. Food supplies were frequently in bad condition. The climate was also against the British in the southern colonies and the Caribbean, where the intense summer heat caused food supplies to sour and spoil.[448] Life at sea was little better. Sailors and passengers were issued a daily food ration, largely consisting of stale hardtack and beer.[449] Meat supplies often spoiled on long voyages.[450] The lack of fresh fruit and vegetables gave rise to scurvy, one of the biggest killers at sea.[451]
By the end of hostilities in America at the close of 1781, the British Army numbered approximately 121,000 men globally,[452] 48,000 of whom were stationed throughout the Americas.[453] Of the 171,000 sailors who served in the Royal Navy throughout the conflict, around a quarter were pressed. This same proportion, approximately 42,000 men, deserted during the conflict.[454] At its height, the Navy had 94 ships-of-the-line,[455] 104 frigates[456] and 37 sloops[457] in service.
Revolution as civil war
Loyalists
Wealthy Loyalists wielded great influence in London[458] and they were successful in convincing the British government that the majority view in the colonies was sympathetic toward the Crown. Consequently, British military planners pinned the success of their strategies on popular uprisings of Loyalists that never materialized.[bg]
Recruiting adequate numbers of Loyalist militia to support British military plans in America was made difficult by intensive local Patriot opposition nearly everywhere.[461][bh] To bolster Loyalist militia numbers in the South, the British promised freedom and grants of land to slaves who fought for them.[462] Approximately 25,000 Loyalists fought for the British throughout the war.[463]
From early on, the British were faced with a major dilemma. Any significant level of organized Loyalist activity required a continued presence of British regulars.[464] The available manpower that the British commands had in America was insufficient to protect Loyalist territory while at the same time countering American offensives.[465] The Loyalist militias in the South were vulnerable to strings of defeats by their Patriot militia neighbors. The most critical combat between the two partisan militias was at Kings Mountain. The Patriot victory there irreversibly crippled any further Loyalist militia capability in the South.[466]
During the early war policy administered by General Lord Howe, the need to maintain Loyalist support prevented the British from using the harsh methods of suppressing revolts that they had used in Scotland and Ireland.[467] The Crown's cause suffered when British troops looted and pillaged the locals during an aborted attack on Charleston in 1779, enraging both Patriots and Loyalists.[468] After Congress rejected the Carlisle Commission settlement offer in 1778 and London turning to "hard war" during General Lord Clinton's command, neutral colonists in the Carolinas were often driven into the ranks of the Patriots whenever brutal combat broke out between Tories and Whigs.[469] Conversely, Loyalists were often emboldened when Patriots resorted to intimidating suspected Tories by destroying property or tarring and feathering.[470]
One outstanding Loyalist militia unit provided some of the best troops in the British service.[471] Their British Legion was a mixed regiment of 250 dragoons and 200 infantry, supported by batteries of flying artillery[472][bi] Under the command of Banastre Tarleton in the South, it gained a fearsome reputation in the colonies for "brutality and needless slaughter".[473] Nevertheless, in May 1779 the Loyalist British Legion was one of five regiments taken into British Army regular service as the American Establishment.[474] After the Battle of Cowpens in January 1781, British Legion survivors amounting to 14 percent of those engaged were consolidated into the British garrison at Charleston.[475]
Women
Women played various roles during the Revolutionary War. Some women accompanied their husbands when permitted. Martha Washington was known to visit the American camp, for example, and Frederika Charlotte Riedesel documented the Saratoga campaign.[476] Women also acted as spies on both sides of the Revolutionary War.[477] In some cases women served in the American Army in the war, some of them disguised as men. Deborah Sampson fought until her sex was discovered and she was discharged, and Sally St. Clare died in the war. Anna Maria Lane joined her husband in the Army, and she was wearing men's clothes by the time of the Battle of Germantown. According to the Virginia General Assembly, Lane "performed extraordinary military services, and received a severe wound at the battle of Germantown", fighting dressed as a man and "with the courage of a soldier".[478] Other women fought or directly supported fighting while dressed as women, such as the legendary or mythical Molly Pitcher.[479] On April 26, 1777, Sybil Ludington rode to alert militia forces of Putnam County, New York and Danbury, Connecticut, warning of the approach of the British regular forces. She is referred to as the female Paul Revere.[480] Other women also accompanied armies as camp followers, selling goods and performing necessary services in hospital and camp. They were a necessary part of 18th century armies, and they numbered in the thousands during the war.[481]
African Americans
African Americans—slave and free—served on both sides during the war. The British recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters and promised freedom to those who served by act of Lord Dunmore's Proclamation. Because of manpower shortages, George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776. Small all-black units were formed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; many slaves were promised freedom for serving. Some of the men promised freedom were sent back to their masters after the war was over for political convenience. Another all-black unit came from Saint-Domingue with French colonial forces. At least 5,000 black soldiers fought for the Revolutionary cause.[482]
Tens of thousands of slaves escaped during the war and joined British lines; others simply moved off in the chaos. For instance, in South Carolina, nearly 25,000 slaves (30% of the enslaved population) fled, migrated or died during the disruption of the war. This greatly disrupted plantation production during and after the war. When they withdrew their forces from Savannah and Charleston, the British also evacuated 10,000 slaves belonging to Loyalists.[483] Altogether, the British evacuated nearly 20,000 blacks at the end of the war. More than 3,000 of them were freedmen and most of these were resettled in Nova Scotia; other blacks were sold in the West Indies.[484] About 8,000 to 10,000 slaves gained freedom. About 4,000 freed slaves went to Nova Scotia and 1,200 blacks remained slaves.[485]
American Indians
- See also Cayuga, Cherokee, Cherokee War of 1776, Cherokee–American wars, Chocktaw, Iroquois, Lenape, Mohawk, Oneida, Onodaga, Seneca.
Most American Indians east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many tribes were divided over the question of how to respond to the conflict. A few tribes were on friendly terms with the other Americans, but most Indians opposed the union of the Colonies as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Indians fought on the British side, with the largest group coming from the Iroquois tribes, who fielded around 1,500 men.[486]
Indians split within languages, nations and tribes; Neutrality was impossible to maintain in the Revolution |
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The powerful Iroquois Confederacy was shattered as a result of the conflict, whatever side they took; the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga tribes sided with the British. Members of the Mohawks fought on both sides. Many Tuscarora and Oneida sided with the Americans. The Continental Army sent the Sullivan Expedition on raids throughout New York to cripple the Iroquois tribes that had sided with the British. Mohawk leaders Joseph Louis Cook and Joseph Brant sided with the Americans and the British respectively, and this further exacerbated the split.[487]
Farther west, conflicts between settlers and Indians led to lasting distrust.[488] In the Treaty of Paris, Great Britain ceded control of the disputed lands between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, but the Indian inhabitants were not a part of the peace negotiations.[489] Tribes in the Northwest Territory banded together and allied with the British to resist American settlement; their conflict continued after the Revolutionary War as the Northwest Indian War.[490]
Early in July 1776, Cherokee allies of Britain attacked the western frontier areas of North Carolina. Their defeat resulted in a splintering of the Cherokee settlements and people and was directly responsible for the rise of the Chickamauga Cherokee, bitter enemies of the American settlers who carried on a frontier war for decades following the end of hostilities with Britain.[491] Creek and Seminole allies of Britain fought against Americans in Georgia and South Carolina. In 1778, a force of 800 Creeks destroyed American settlements along the Broad River in Georgia. Creek warriors also joined Thomas Brown's raids into South Carolina and assisted Britain during the Siege of Savannah.[492] Many Indians were involved in the fighting between Britain and Spain on the Gulf Coast and up the Mississippi River, mostly on the British side. Thousands of Creeks, Chickasaws, and Choctaws fought in major battles such as the Battle of Fort Charlotte, the Battle of Mobile, and the Siege of Pensacola.[493]
Global war and diplomacy
- North Ministry collapses
Lord North had been the King's Prime Minister in Parliament since 1770. By the end of 1777 with the loss of the first British army, King George III had determined that in the event of his initiating a separate war with France, he would have to redeploy most of the British and German troops in America to threaten French and Spanish Caribbean settlements. In the King's judgment, Britain could not possibly fight on all three fronts without becoming weak everywhere. At the news of the French-US treaties for trade and defense arrived at London, British negotiators proposed a second peace settlement to Congress.[494]
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The Carlisle Peace Commission was sent across the Atlantic to make a formal presentation to Congress. Firstly, virtual self-government by a kind of "home-rule" was contemplated. It would recognize Congress, suspend all objectionable acts of Parliament, surrender Parliament's the right to taxation, and perhaps allow American representatives to the House of Commons. But secondly, all property would be restored to loyal subjects, their debts honored, with locally enforced martial law, Parliament to regulate trade, and the Declaration of Independence withdrawn. Parliament's commission was rebuffed by a Congress which knew the British were about to evacuate Philadelphia. Before it returned to London in November 1778, the commission directed a change in British war policy. Sir Henry Clinton, the new British Commander-in-Chief in America was to stop treating rebels as subjects whose loyalty might be regained – now they were to be routinely treated as enemies.[495] Those standing orders would be in effect for three years until Clinton was relieved.[496]
Prior to the surrender of Cornwallis's army at Yorktown, George III still had hoped for victory in the South. He believed a majority of American colonists still supported him there, especially among thousands of black slaves. When news of the surrender at Yorktown however reached Lord North he exclaimed, “Oh God! It is all over." Nevertheless, Lord North rebutted the Whig resolution in Commons to end offensive operations in America. The speech postponed the inevitable several weeks.[497]
But the mood of the country in Great Britain had changed since the 1770s. Member of Parliament Edward Gibbon had believed the King's cause in America to be just, and the British and German soldiers there fought bravely. But after Yorktown, he concluded, "It is better to be humbled than ruined." There was no point in spending more money on Britain's most expensive war, with no hope of success. Whig William Pitt argued that war on American colonists had brought nothing but ineffective victories or severe defeats. He condemned effort to retain the Americans as a "most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unjust and diabolical war."[495] Lord North resigned. George III never forgave him.[498]
From the time London learned of the surrender of a second British army, it was only two weeks before the Whig Opposition motion to end offensive war in America which was defeated by only one vote. On February 27, 1782, the Commons carried the motion by 19 votes.[499] At a vote of no confidence against Lord North, the Rockingham Whigs came to power and opened negotiations for peace with the Americans. Rockingham died and was succeeded by the Earl of Shelburne. The British troops remaining in America were garrisoned in the three port cities of New York, Charleston, and Savannah.[500] General Clinton was recalled and replaced by Guy Carleton who was ordered to suspend offensive operations and agreed to evacuate New York on 25 November, 1783..[501]
English public will evaporated for continuing the government's war to suppress the Thirteen Colony rebellion. With the House of Commons vote against further offensive war in the US, overturning Lord North's policy to continue the war, the British government could then commit the British garrisons at New York and Charleston to holding her West Indies colonies under attack from France and Spain. Six weeks more, American General George Washington and British General Sir Guy Carleton entered into an end of hostilities between the belligerents at New York City.[502][bj]
- Treaty of Paris
- See Treaty of Paris (1783) for the Anglo-American peace, formally in effect at the conclusive peace with Anglo-French peace.
The British surrender at Yorktown on 19 October 1781 “virtually settled” independence for the United States. All who contributed to any prolonging of offensive war in America were declared “enemies to the country [Britain]”.[505] George III formally sent for peace Whig Lord Rockingham, who had been a constant advocate in Parliament for the American cause since 1775. Before he agreed to serve, Rockingham required, and the King agreed to acknowledge American independence.[506] Rockingham took office 27 March 1782.[507][bk] Nevertheless, with the departure of the French fleet from American shores in November 1781, the Royal Navy was able to move in and re-assert a close blockade.[508]
Following the death of Lord Rockingham on 1 July 1782 the new Prime minister Shelburne succeeded him. He sought to separate the US from warring France by strengthening the US so it would not depend on France militarily. The French long-term interest was a weak US to ensure a future military alliance against Britain.[509] The British strategy ultimately would prove successful.[510] The US ministers negotiating the British-US peace were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, and for Britain, David Hartley of Parliament and Richard Oswald, Britain's Peace Commissioner.[511]
France and Spain floated distinctly different proposals for an "American Settlement" to apportion territory to the United States. The French had the most restrictive plan, with a western boundary for the US at the Appalachian Mountains, matching the British 1763 Proclamation Line. The Spanish allowed for some additional Mississippi River Basin upland just west of the Appalachians for the US. But it also required that the British cede its colony of Georgia to Spain in violation of the Franco-American alliance of 1778.[512]
When the American delegation in Paris discovered France was negotiating with Britain unilaterally in early September 1782, the Americans followed suit. Shelburne met American demands for territory west to the Mississippi River in order "to cheat the Spaniards".[513] The agreement met four Congressional peace demands: independence, territory to the Mississippi, navigation to the sea, and fishing off Newfoundland.[514]
Meanwhile, by mid 1782 the British blockade of the American coast had tightened to the point that the Continental economy was suffering - coastal merchant ships were being taken at large rates by the Royal Navy.[515] This led to rising inflation made worse by the fact that France was unable to provide anymore loans. As a result, congress financier Robert Morris was unable to pay soldiers of the Continental Army.[516] To speed the US negotiators, Britain offered Newfoundland fishing rights to the US, denying France exclusive rights; France and Spain would now sign their treaties after the Anglo-American fait accompli.[517] The Preliminary Peace was signed November 30, 1782. Congress endorsed it unanimously by law on April 15, 1783 and proclaimed that peace with independence was achieved in public broadsides. The “conclusive” treaty was signed on September 2, 1783 in Paris, effective the next day September 3, when Britain signed its treaty with France. John Adams, who was an early participant drafting the treaty, maintained that its negotiations represented "one of the most important political events that ever happened on the globe".[518]
- British America and Empire
As a part of the Anglo-French Second Hundred Years' War, beginning 1778–9, France and Spain again declared war on Britain. The British were forced to severely limit the number of troops and warships that they sent to America in order to defend the British homeland and key overseas territories.[520] The immediate strategic focus of the three greatest European colonial powers, Britain, France, and Spain, all shifted to Jamaica.[521] King George abandoned any hope of subduing America militarily while simultaneously contending with two European Great Powers alone.[522][bl]
The small size of Britain's army left them unable to concentrate their resources primarily in one theater of war with a Great Power ally as they had done before in the Seven Years' War allied with Prussia. That left them at a critical disadvantage.[523] London was compelled to disperse troops from America to Europe and the East Indies. These forces were unable to mutually support one other, exposing them to potential defeat everywhere.[524]
Nevertheless, the British secured a preliminary peace settlement in America, and it was agreed to in Congress April 1783. British military successes worldwide from 1782 to 1784 led to their ability to dictate their Treaty of Versailles (1783) with France, their Treaty of Versailles (1783) with Spain, and their Treaty of Paris (1784) with the Dutch Republic. Following the end of British engagement in conflicts worldwide 1775–1784, the Empire had lost some of her most populous colonies in the short term. But in the long term, the economic effects were negligible. With expanding trade in America with the US, and expanding colonial territory worldwide, she became a global superpower 32 years after the end of her many conflicts throughout the American Revolution and Napoleonic Eras.[525]
- Peace of Paris
- :See Peace of Paris (1783) for how the Anglo-American Preliminary Peace November 1782 was incorporated into the Anglo-French 1783 Treaty of Versailles, the Anglo-Spanish 1783 Treaty of Versailles, and the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of Paris (1784).
Internationally the British still faced three active European belligerents; France, Spain and the Dutch Republic. She was under attack around the world - in European waters, the Caribbean and in the East Indies Indian sub-continent. Britain's strategic reply was to center her offensive war in these areas.
The French and Spanish kings had a royal House of Bourbon Family Pact to pursue their 'War of 1778' against Britain. It was conceived for revenge at the humiliating Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the Seven Years’ War, and they sought imperial acquisition in trade and territory called out in their secret Treaty of Aranjuez.[526] France and Spain had also consorted in secret in that treaty to promise those two would fight until Spain gained Gibraltar, at the choke-point passage between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. The resultant three year Siege of Gibraltar became involved in the American Revolutionary War, as it took away British resources that could be employed in the war on the American continent and elsewhere.[527] British Admiral of the Fleet George Rodney's decisive defeat of French Admiral de Grasse in the Caribbean Sea at the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782 ultimately cancelled a Franco-Spanish invasion of Jamaica. The British victory also transferred the strategic initiative to them, allowing them to reassert dominance at sea not just in the Caribbean but also across the North Atlantic. This stiffened British resolve with a significant effect on the peace negotiations for the French and Spanish Versailles treaties.[528]
Britain then objected to American claims on the Newfoundland fisheries and Canada, and as a result the American negotiators led by John Jay became more amenable.[529] From this, Britain's priority was for the disruption of her European belligerents, and for better relations with an independent America which would prove successful.
More British victories followed, culminating in September 1782, when they inflicted a huge defeat on the anticipated Franco-Spanish assault at Gibraltar - the largest battle in the entire war.[530] Not only did this strengthen British bargaining power in the peace talks, it also further weakened French and Spanish resolve for the war.[531] France now desperate for peace sought serious discussions on alternative exit strategies, and urged Spain to give up its claim on Gibraltar to make peace, which the latter acquiesced to.[532] Britain also flatly refused American demands to cede land north of the old border with Canada.[533] Gibraltar's ultimate fate however did not involve any settlements with the United States.[534][bm]
Britain signed preliminary agreements with France and Spain to end their European war in separate treaties, signing an additional conclusive Anglo-French Treaty of Versailles on 20 January 1783 and then the conclusive Anglo-Spanish Treaty of Versailles (1783).[537][bn] This addressed issues of mutual Great Power concern, such as a European “continental balance of power", reciprocal colonial territory swaps, and trade agreements among their respective worldwide colonial empires.[538][bo]
Aftermath
Washington expressed astonishment that the Americans had won a war against a leading world power, referring to the American victory as "little short of a standing miracle".[541] The conflict between British subjects with the Crown against those with the Congress had lasted over eight years from 1775 to 1783.
The last uniformed British troops departed their last east coast port cities in Savannah, Charleston, and New York City, by November 25, 1783. That marked the end of British occupation in the new United States.[542]
As for British Indian allies in America, Britain never consulted them at any time prior to treaty negotiations, then it forced them to reluctantly accept the treaty. But the following year Britain underwrote formerly allied Indians for attacks against US settlers west of the Appalachians on territory that Britain had ceded by treaty. The largest sustained British ally Indian war of this period was the Northwest Indian War 1785–1795.[543] Britain's extended war policy on the US continued to try to establish an Indian buffer state below the Great Lakes as late as 1814 during the War of 1812.[544]
On April 9, 1783, Washington issued orders that he had long waited to give, that "all acts of hostility" were to cease immediately. That same day, by arrangement with Washington, General Carleton issued a similar order to British troops. British troops, however, were not to evacuate until a prisoner of war exchange occurred, an effort that involved much negotiation and would take some seven months to effect.[545]
As directed by a Congressional resolution of May 26 1783, all non commissioned officers and enlisted were furloughed "to their homes" until the "definitive treaty of peace", when they would be automatically discharged. The US armies were directly disbanded in the field as of Washington's General Orders on Monday June 2, 1783.[546] Once the conclusive Treaty of Paris was signed with Britain, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief at Congress, leaving for his Army retirement at Mount Vernon.[547]
- Territory
The expanse of territory that was now the United States was ceded from its colonial Mother country alone. It included millions of sparsely settled acres south of the Great Lakes Line between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River. The tentative colonial migration west became a flood during the years of the Revolutionary War. Virginia's Kentucky County counted 150 men in 1775. By 1790 fifteen years later, it numbered over 73,000 and was seeking statehood in the United States.[548]
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Western lands were still populated by a dozen or so American Indian tribes that had been British allies for the most part. British forts on their lands had been ceded to either the French or the British prior to the creation of the United States.[549] Although Indians were not referred to in its territorial cession to the US, the British refused to abandon their existing forts provisioning their former military allies and it sponsored the Northwest Indian War (1785-1795) until the Anglo-American Jay Treaty went into effect.[bq] The Spanish also sponsored war on the US by Indian proxies in its Southwest Territory.[551]
Of the European powers with American colonies, Spain was most threatened by United States independence, and it was correspondingly the most hostile to it.[br] Its territory adjacent the US was relatively undefended, so Spanish policy developed a combination of initiatives. Spanish soft power diplomatically challenged the British territorial cession west to the Mississippi and the previous northern boundaries of the Floridas.[552] It imposed a high tariff on American goods, then blocked American settler access to the port of New Orleans. Spanish hard power extended war alliances and arms to Southwestern Indians to resist American settlement. A former Continental Army General, James Wilkinson settled in Kentucky County Virginia in 1784, and there he fostered settler secession from Virginia during the Spanish-allied Chickamauga Cherokee war. Beginning in 1787, he received pay as Spanish Agent 13, and subsequently expanded his efforts to persuade American settlers west of the Appalachians to secede from the United States, first in the Washington administration, and later again in the Jefferson administration.[553]
- Casualties and losses
The total loss of life throughout the conflict is largely unknown. As was typical in wars of the era, diseases such as smallpox claimed more lives than battle. Between 1775 and 1782, a smallpox epidemic broke out throughout North America, killing an estimated 130,000 among all its populations in those revolutionary war years.[554][bs] Historian Joseph Ellis suggests that Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated against the disease was one of his most important decisions.[555]
Between 25,000 and 70,000 American Patriots died during active military service.[556] Of these, approximately 6,800 were killed in battle, while at least 17,000 died from disease. The majority of the latter died while prisoners of war of the British, mostly in the prison ships in New York Harbor.[557][bt] The number of Patriots seriously wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to 25,000.[560] The French suffered 2,112 killed in combat in the United States.[561][bu] The Spanish lost a total of 124 killed and 247 wounded in West Florida.[563][bv]
A British report in 1781 puts their total Army deaths at 6,046 in North America (1775–1779).[565][bw] Approximately 7,774 Germans died in British service in addition to 4,888 deserters; of the former, it is estimated 1,800 were killed in combat.Duncan, L. 1931</ref> Around 171,000 sailors served in the Royal Navy during British conflicts 1775–1784; approximately a quarter of whom had been pressed into service. Around 1,240 were killed in battle, while an estimated 18,500 died from disease (1776–1780).[570] The greatest killer at sea was scurvy, a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency.[571]{{efn|It was not until 1795 that scurvy was eradicated from the Royal Navy after the Admiralty declared lemon juice and sugar were to be issued among the standard daily grog rations of sailors.[572] Around 42,000 sailors deserted worldwide during the era.[573] The impact on merchant shipping was substantial; 2,283 were taken by American privateers.[574][bx]
See also
- 1776 in the United States: events, births, deaths & other years
- Timeline of the American Revolution
Topics of the Revolution
- American Continental Army
- Committee of safety (American Revolution)
- Diplomacy in the American Revolutionary War
- Financial costs of the American Revolutionary War
- Flags of the American Revolution
- Intelligence in the American Revolutionary War
- Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War
Social history of the Revolution
- Black Patriot
- Christianity in the United States#American Revolution
- The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution
- History of Poles in the United States#American Revolution
- List of clergy in the American Revolution
- List of Patriots (American Revolution)
- Loyalists fighting in the American Revolution
- Quakers in the American Revolution
- Scotch-Irish Americans#American Revolution
Others in the American Revolution
Lists of Revolutionary military
- List of American Revolutionary War battles
- List of British Forces in the American Revolutionary War
- List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War
- List of infantry weapons in the American Revolution
- List of United States militia units in the American Revolutionary War
"Thirteen Colony" economy
- Economic history of the US: Colonial economy to 1780
- Shipbuilding in the American colonies
- Slavery in the United States
Legacy & related
- American Revolution Statuary
- Commemoration of the American Revolution
- Independence Day (United States)
- The Last Men of the Revolution
- List of plays and films about the American Revolution
- Museum of the American Revolution
- Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of the American Revolution
- United States Bicentennial
- War of independence
Bibliographies on Wikipedia
Notes
- ^ (until 1779)
- ^ German regiments of infantry, cavalry and artillery of principalities in the Holy Roman Empire were hired by George III by Treaties of Subsidy. Beginning in 1775 they served in America to put down the colonial rebellion there; the last units evacuated in 1782.[3] Contemporaries, commentators and historians have referred to the Hessians as both mercenaries and auxiliaries, terms that are sometimes used interchangeably.[4]
- ^ (from 1779)
- ^ Peace process: March 1782-Parliament recommends George III make peace. December 1782-George III Speech from the Throne for US independence. April 1783-Congress accepts British proposal that meets its four demands. September 1783-conclusive treaty of peace by Britain and US. May 1784-Diplomats in Paris exchange the subsequent ratifications by Parliament and Congress.[6]
- ^ Arnold served on the American side from 1775–1779; On the British side from 1780–1783.
- ^ 1780–1783
- ^ 5,000 sailors (peak)[11], manning privateers, an additional 55,000 total sailors[12]
- ^ British 121,000 (global 1781)[16] "Of 7,500 men in the Gibraltar garrison in September (including 400 in hospital), some 3,430 were always on duty".[17]
- ^ The strength of a Hanoverian battalion who where serfs of the British George III, were shipped to Gibraltar is listed as 473 men.[19]
- ^ Contains a detailed listing of American, French, British, German, and Loyalist regiments; indicates when they were raised, the main battles, and what happened to them. Also includes the main warships on both sides, And all the important battles.
- ^ Royal Navy 94, ships-of-the-line global[21] 104 frigates global,[22] 37 sloops global,[23] 171,000 sailors,[24]
- ^ 7,000 dead total world wide[30]
- ^ 7,000 dead total world wide including 2,112 in North America[32]
- ^ Britain declared war on the Netherlands to end its trade and military aid to its rebelling Thirteen Colonies in North America. Peace came with the Treaty of Paris (1784). The Dutch war with Britain cost 500 dead worldwide.[38]
- ^ Clodfelter reports that the total deaths among the British and their allies numbered 15,000 killed in battle or died of wounds. These included estimates of 3000 Germans, 3000 Loyalists & Canadians, 3000 lost at sea, and 500 American Indians killed in battle or died of wounds.[40]
- ^ The scope of the American Revolutionary War is dated 1775–1783 between the independent US Congress and the First Empire of Great Britain. The contest was over British North American colonial independence. It took place in North America, the Caribbean Sea, and in the North Atlantic with its North Sea, Irish Sea, and English Channel. Formally, the "American War" was from the Declaration of Independence by Congress addressed to Britain, to the Anglo-American Treaty of Paris (1783), signed in September 1783 to end the American Revolutionary War. It became effective at the signing of two separate treaties on 2 September 1783: the Anglo-French Treaty of Versailles (1783), and the Anglo-Spanish Treaty of Versailles (1783); the US Congress was not a signatory to either of these last two.[55]
- ^ The colony of Georgia joined the Continental Congress later. The fourteenth state, Vermont Republic was independently established 1777-1791 before its admission to the US.
- ^ Like the American Patriots who followed them, British Whigs believed that the Crown had assumed too much power since the Hanover ascension in August 1714. British North American colonists who became Patriot leaders were very influenced by the Whig history that defended the Glorious Revolution at the ascension of the Protestant King William and Queen Mary to the British throne, along with their British Bill of Rights. Several important Whigs sought reforms to free in Parliament from George III, who governed by granting offices, bribes, and rotten boroughs. These included: John Sawbridge for reform 1771-95, John Wilkes in 1776 hailed in the colonial American press, Duke of Richmond in 1780 for annual parliaments, universal suffrage and equal electoral districts. William Pitt the Younger proposed a Committee in Commons to study reform in 1782, but it was defeated 161 to 141. When Pitt proposed a specific plan in May 1783, the bill failed, but "Pitt's popularity was greatly increased by his action in this matter." He was elected Prime Minister December 1783, two months after the Peace of Paris 1783.[56]
- ^ In the 1788 Franco-American "Treaty of Alliance", at the Introduction it states that the defensive military treaty is conditioned on Britain conducting offensive war against France or otherwise "hindering her commerce and navigation" with the US. In Article 1, it commits the US, that should Britain initiate war against French-US trade, Louis XVI and the US will "join against their common enemy". Art. 2 dedicates the purpose of the treaty: "The essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence absolute and unlimited of the said United States, as well in matters of government as of commerce."[57]
- ^ The Third Bourbon Family Pact was extended at the secret Treaty of Aranjuez (1779) made without the knowledge or consent of Congress. It obligated Spain to fight after American Independence for French-declared war aims, and to recover Gibraltar for itself from the British, regardless of the Americans achieving independence.[61] Spain was an ally of France, but not of America.[62]
- ^ Many of these same “soldiers of fortune” were also intimately acquainted with the un-Christian nation-like religious tolerance in the 1500s Ottoman Empire of Suleiman the Magnificent, permitting open practice of Christianity and Judaism for a nominal tax. Accounts of Suleyaman’s policy were translated into English by Richard Knolles and published in 1606, The emperor of the Turks honors his own inherited religion, “and yet detesteth hee not the staunge religions of others; but to the contrarie permitteth every man to live according to his conscience.” Merchants in Ottoman port cities ran their own courts governing trade with co-religionists. Ruled from Constantinople (now Istanbul), it was then the largest empire in Europe. Virginia’s Captain John Smith had been held capture there and escaped.[66]
- ^ Eighty-five percent of New England's rum exports worldwide was manufactured from French molasses, prohibited to the French to protect their domestic Brandy industry. When the Lord Rockingham administration abolished the Stamp Act, it also reduced the tax on foreign molasses to one-penny a gallon in an explicit policy to help the New England economy recover and expand.[74]
- ^ Fifty colonial papermakers operating their own mills lost valuable local markets. All paper listed for colonial use had to come from Britain with an embossed stamp.[76]
- ^ Colonial paper had been issued by all the North American colonial legislatures to increase local commerce in the cash-starved business environment. It allowed a limited financial independence from British merchant-creditors, and it permitted local funding for new manufacturers to begin in the otherwise deflated specie-only colonial economies. However the early 18th century practice was gradually ending, because additional paper money issues had been banned since 1764 .[79]
- ^ Georgia did not attend.
- ^ An alternative plan called for an imperial legislature made up both of Parliament and of a new North American "Grand Council" that would be equivalent to Parliament. It was rejected in Congress by a six to five vote on October 22, 1774. Some of its earlier support may have been chilled at the arrival of the Massachusetts Suffolk County Resolves petitioning for economic boycott, no British tax payments, and calling up local militias by the rump colonial legislatures comprised only of the elected representatives.[90]
- ^ "Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council: … they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, …: But, … we cheerfully consent to the operation of such acts of the British parliament, as are bonafide, restrained to the regulation of our external commerce, for the purpose of securing the commercial advantages of the whole empire to the mother country, and the commercial benefits of its respective members; excluding every idea of taxation internal or external, [without the consent of American subjects]." quoted from the Declarations and Resolves of the First Continental Congress October 14, 1774.
- ^ George Washington standing to receive the appointment, John Adams in a blue coat, two figures to the right of him
- ^ Irish Protestants who had been among the families immigrating to the colonies favored the Americans, while Catholics who were generally disenfranchised there favored the King.[101]
- ^ That number was the largest army it had ever sent outside Europe at the time.
- ^ During this time Benjamin Church, an assumed trusted patriot, was giving the British information on patriot troop strength and positions.[109]
- ^ Quebec was officially ceded in 1763
- ^ Tallmadge's cover name became John Bolton, and he was the architech of the spy ring.[177]
- ^ Casualty numbers vary slightly with the Hessian forces, usually between 21 and 23 killed, 80–95 wounded, and 890–920 captured (including the wounded).[183]
- ^ In a subsequent treaty France secretly made with Spain struck at Aranjuez, France aimed to expel Britain and deny the Americans from the Newfoundland fishery, end restrictions on Dunkirk sovereignty, regain free trade in India, recover Senegal and Dominica, and restore the Treaty of Utrecht provisions pertaining to Anglo-French trade.[225]
- ^ On April 12, 1779, Spain signed the secret Treaty of Aranjuez with France and went to war against Britain. Spain made war on Britain to recover Gibraltar and Menorca in Europe, as well as Mobile and Pensacola in Florida. Spain also had an imperial interest in expelling the British from Central America, both militarily and commercially.[231]
- ^ Mahan maintains that Britain's attempt to fight in multiple theaters simultaneously without major allies was fundamentally flawed, citing impossible mutual support, exposing the forces to defeat in detail.[244]
- ^ Grenier maintains that "The slaughter the Indians and rangers perpetrated was unprecedented.[260]
- ^ Light Horse Harry was the father of Robert E. Lee.[276]
- ^ Governor Bernardo de Gálvez is only one of eight men made honorary US citizens for his service in the American Cause. see Bridget Bowman (29 December 2014). "Bernardo de Gálvez y Madrid's Very Good Year". Roll Call. The Economist Group. Retrieved April 25, 2020.
- ^ They had been sent south to Virginia in August to coordinate with de Grasse in defeating Cornwallis.[299] Following two previous calamitous joint operations at Newport and Savannah by French (at sea) and Americans (on land), French planners realized that closer cooperation with the Americans was required to achieve success.[300] The French fleet led by the Comte de Grasse had received discretionary orders from Paris to assist joint efforts in the north if naval support was needed.[301]
- ^ Despite the continued urging of his subordinates,[305] Cornwallis made no attempt to break out and engage the Franco-American army before it had established siege works, expecting that reinforcements would arrive from New York, and the Franco-American army laid siege to Yorktown on September 28.[306] Cornwallis continued to think that relief was imminent from Clinton, and he abandoned his outer defenses which were immediately occupied by American troops—serving to hasten his subsequent defeat.[307]
- ^ A white flag was raised and a British officer emerged from the earthworks, along with a drummer boy. An American officer came forward to meet them, and after a brief discussion, the British officer was blindfolded and escorted to Washington's headquarters about a mile away. Upon arrival the British officer presented Washington with a letter from Cornwallis confirming the surrender. After consulting with his staff, Washington gave his written response and arranged for a meeting with Cornwallis the next morning.
- ^ Three branches of the United States Military forces trace their institutional roots to the American Revolutionary War; the Army comes from the Continental Army; the Navy recognizes October 13, 1775, as the date of its official establishment when the Continental Congress created the Continental Navy, appointing Esek Hopkins as the Navy's first commander.[325] The Marine Corps links to the Continental Marines of the war, formed by a resolution of Congress on November 10, 1775.[326]
- ^ The largest force Washington commanded was certainly under 17,000,[332] and may have been no more than 13,000 troops, and even the combined American and French forces at the siege of Yorktown amounted to only about 19,000.[333]
- ^ On the British side, their armies were relatively smaller due to the difficulty of transporting troops across the Atlantic. They were also limited by their dependence on local supplies, which the Patriots tried to cut off. By comparison, Duffy notes that in an era when European rulers were generally revising their forces downward, in favor of a size that could be most effectively controlled (the very different perspective of mass conscript armies came later, during the French Revolutionary and then the Napoleonic Wars), the largest army that Frederick the Great ever led into battle was 65,000 men (at Prague in 1757), and at other times he commanded between 23,000 and 50,000 men, considering the latter the most effective number.[334]
- ^ The total numbers in the British Army of 1775 included 38,254 infantry and 6,869 cavalry. Their Army had approximately eighteen regiments of foot. Figures include the 41st regiment of invalids, but not the 20 independent companies on garrison duty. Troops in India were under the control of the East India Company, and did not become part of the British Army until 1858.[375]
- ^ Standing armies had played a key role in the purge of the Long Parliament in 1648.[377]
- ^ A microcosm of these shortcomings were evident at the Battle of Bunker Hill. It took ten hours for the British leadership to respond following the sighting of the Americans on the Charlestown Peninsula, giving the colonists ample time to reinforce their defenses.[383] Rather than opt for a simple flanking attack that would have rapidly succeeded with minimal loss,[384] the British decided on repeated frontal attacks with heavy casualties, until the patriots ran out of ammunition, gunpowder being in short supply. The results were telling; the British suffered 1,054 casualties of a force of around 3,000 after repeated frontal assaults.[385] The British leadership had nevertheless remained excessively optimistic, believing that just two regiments could suppress the rebellion in Massachusetts.[386]
- ^ The naval standoff at Cape Henry was at considerable cost to Arbuthot's professional reputation. He had disrupted the chain of command during war, the he was subsequently embarrassed by the admiralty supporting his successor. And he tactically mishandled his fleet in line, misjudging the wind and causing three of his eight ships to be put out of action during battle. It was only the prevailing wind that allowed his limping withdrawal towards the mouth of the Chesapeake, which was coincidentally his tactical goal. Arbuthnot was given no further command at sea thereafter.[404]
- ^ often regarded as the Mercenary State,[411]
- ^ All the foreign troops, including the Hanoverians, Brunswickers, etc, from the various German states were commonly called Hessians.[415]
- ^ Germans overall were complacent about ideas of independence and, with the exception of King Frederick II of Prussia, had taken little issue when the Hessians were once employed by the British in 1725 and 1755.[417]
- ^ The Continental Congress, who appointed Thomas Jefferson to author a Declaration of Independence, censured George III for his employment of foreign mercenaries, among other things.[416]
- ^ Newspaper reaction to the news of Hessian troop deployment in the service of George III to put down the American rebellion, found in the German language newspaper: Wochentliche Philadelphische Staatsbote, October 3, 1775.
- ^ Copies were smuggled in by an American sympathizer from Britain George Merchant, a private in Morgan's Company of Riflemen of Virginia who had been captured by the British in Quebec the previous year. Merchant had been taken to London, where British Whigs successfully pressed for his release.[424]
- ^ Though they functioned as auxiliaries, the Hessians overall had a long-standing reputation as professional mercenary soldiers, known for their rapaciousness.[426][427]
- ^ This figure does not reflect the payment of an old British debt from the Seven Years War that Hesse-Cassel also demanded, apart from their treaties of subsidies.[434]
- ^ Historians have estimated that Loyalists made up only 15- to 20-percent of the population (vs. 40- to 45-percent Patriots)[459] and that they continued to deceive themselves on their level of support as late as 1780, only a year before the close of hostilities.[460]
- ^ On militia see Boatner 1974, p. 707;
Weigley 1973, ch. 2 - ^ "British Legion Infantry strength at Cowpens was between 200 and 271 enlisted men". However, this statement is referenced to a note on pp. 175–76, which says, "The British Legion infantry at Cowpens is usually considered to have had about 200–250 men, but returns for the 25 December 1780 muster show only 175. Totals obtained by Cornwallis, dated 15 January, show that the whole legion had 451 men, but approximately 250 were dragoons". There would therefore appear to be no evidence for putting the total strength of the five British Legion Light Infantry companies at more than 200.[472]
- ^ On March 5, 1782, Both Commons and Lords of Parliament authorized the government to make a US peace with independence.[503] Parliament began its negotiations in Paris, and a British-US-French-Spanish armistice was negotiated there, and subsequently honored in North America among all sides, thus ending conflict related to the American War for Independence.[504]
- ^ As an indication of how the political climate of London had changed, as Rockingham put together his cabinet to form a government in Parliament, the formerly exiled John Wilkes, the radical Whig for American independence, wider British workingman suffrage, and a darling of the Patriot weeklies, returned to his seat in the House of Commons.
- ^ Europe's "Great Powers" of the late 1700s were the western powers of France, Spain and Britain, along with the eastern powers of Austria, Russia and Prussia. The three eastern powers all offered to mediate Great Power conflicts, Russia began as the mediator among the three Western powers until it showed favoritism to Britain, at which time the Austrians took over the role.
- ^ Negotiations over Gibraltar were not submitted to US ministers in Paris, neither by British, Spanish nor French governments. U.S. independence was recognized by treaty with France February 6, 1778,[534] by preliminary agreement with Britain in November 1782[535] and George III announcement December 5, 1782, and by treaty with Spain in March 1783.[536] None of them returned to the negotiation table with Benjamin Franklin or John Jay on how to dispose of Gibraltar.
- ^ Note:Previously, French and Spanish ministers had insisted to continue their imperial war against Britain until concluding a comprehensive European peace prior to recognizing US independence. Also, the secret 1779 French-Spanish treaty first secured the Bourbon kings naval superiority over Britain in European and Mediterranean waters, but the price for Spanish commitment was continued French warfare against Britain until after Gibraltar had fallen to Spanish possession.
- ^ Preliminary peace articles to end the American Revolutionary War were signed in Paris between UK and US on November 30, 1782. The US Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris on April 13, 1783, securing independence from Britain in that treaty between the two belligerents as separate and equal nations.[539] Congress then proclaimed an end to all hostilities that same day.[540]
- ^ St. Paul's Chapel is shown on the left. However, the parade route in 1783 did not pass by it, but went from Bull's Head Tavern on Bowery near Bayard, then continuing down Chatham, Pearl, Wall, and ending at Cape's Tavern on Broadway.
- ^ For the next thirteen years until the Anglo-American commercial Jay Treaty of 1796 under President John Adams, the British maintained five forts in New York state: two forts at northern Lake Champlain, and three beginning at Fort Niagara stretching east along Lake Ontario. In the Northwest Territory, they garrisoned Fort Detroit and Fort Michilimackinac.[550]
- ^ There had been native-born Spanish (hidalgo) uprisings in several American colonies during the American revolution, contesting mercantilist reforms of Carlos III that had removed privileges inherited from the Conquistadors among encomiendas, and they also challenged Jesuit dominance in the Catholic Church there. American ship captains were known to have smuggled banned copies of the Declaration of Independence into Spanish Caribbean ports, provoking Spanish colonial discontent.
- ^ In addition to as many as 30% deaths in port cities, and especially high rates among the closely confined prisoner-of-war ships, scholars have reported large numbers lost among the Mexican population, and large percentage losses among the American Indian along trade routes, Atlantic to Pacific, Eskimo to Aztec.
- ^ If the upper limit of 70,000 is accepted as the total net loss for the Patriots, it would make the conflict proportionally deadlier than the American Civil War.[558] Uncertainty arises from the difficulties in accurately calculating the number of those who succumbed to disease, as it is estimated at least 10,000 died in 1776 alone.[559]
- ^ Elsewhere around the world, the French lost another approximately 5,000 total dead in conflicts 1778-1784.[562]
- ^ During the same time period in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch suffered around 500 total killed, owing to the minor scale of their conflict with Britain.[564]
- ^ British returns in 1783 listed 43,633 rank and file deaths across the British Armed Forces.[566] In the first three years of the Anglo-French War (1778), British list 9,372 soldiers killed in battle across the Americas; and 3,326 in the West Indies (1778–1780).[567] In 1784, a British lieutenant compiled a detailed list of 205 British officers killed in action during British conflicts outside of North America, encompassing Europe, the Caribbean and the East Indies.[568] Extrapolations based upon this list puts British Army losses in the area of at least 4,000 killed or died of wounds outside of its North American engagements.[569]
- ^ Worldwide 1775-1784, an estimated 3,386 British merchant ships were seized by enemy forces during the war among Americans, French, Spanish, and Dutch.[575]
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- ^ a b c Schmidt, 1958, pp. 208-209
- ^ Schmidt, 1958, p. 208
- ^ Baer 2015, pp. 121, 141-142
- ^ a b Baer 2015, pp. 141-142
- ^ Baer 2015, p. 136
- ^ Baer, 2015, pp. 121, 141-142
- ^ Lowell, 1884, p. 36
- ^ Baer 2015, p. 136, 143
- ^ Baer 2015, pp. 143
- ^ Baer 2015, pp. 143
- ^ Baer 2015, p. 142, 145, 147
- ^ Mauch 2003, p. 414
- ^ a b Mauch 2003, p. 415
- ^ Mauch 2003, p. 417-418
- ^ Schwamenfeld 2007, p. 123
- ^ McColough 2006, p. 161
- ^ Atwood 2002, p. 58
- ^ Lowell 1884, pp. 20-21, 282-283
- ^ Lowell 1884, p. 20
- ^ Duncan, F. 1879, volume 1, pp. 131, 303, 309
- ^ Hagist 2011, pp. 280-290
- ^ Duncan, F. 1879, volume 2, p. 15
- ^ Burgoyne 1780, p. 148
- ^ Robinson Library, "Battle of Monmouth" self-published
- ^ Lloyd, 1908, p. 155
- ^ Trevelyan, 1912, Vol. III, p. 6; Vol. IV, p. 158
- ^ Fortescue, 1902, p. 83
- ^ Sawyer 1910, p. 99
- ^ Trevelyan, 1912, Vol. IV, pp. 224, 34
- ^ British Army 1781, “Proceedings at New York, p. 81
- ^ Black, 2001 [1991], p. 14
- ^ Donne 1867, Volume II, pp. 7, 52
- ^ Smith, M. 2015, p. 374
- ^ Royal Navy Museum, "Ships Biscuits"
- ^ Lowell 1997, p. 56
- ^ NIH GARD 2016, "Scurvy"
- ^ Rinaldi, "British Army 1775-1783"
- ^ TotallyHistory 2012, "Red Coats"
- ^ Mackesy, 1993 [1964], pp. 6, 176
- ^ Dull 1987, p. 110
- ^ Winfield 2007, p.
- ^ Winfield 2007, p.
- ^ Ritcheson 1973, p. 6
- ^ Greene & Pole, 2008, p. 235
- ^ Lecky 1892 vol. 3, p. 139
- ^ Black, 2001 [1991], p. 59
- ^ Ferling 2007, p. 113
- ^ Savas and Dameron 2006, p.xli
- ^ Black, 2001 [1991], p. 12
- ^ Black, 2001 [1991], p. 13-14
- ^ Buchanan 1997, p. 241
- ^ Black 2001 [1991], p. 14
- ^ Wilson 2005, p. 112
- ^ Black 2001 [1991], pp. 14–16; pp. 35, 38; p. 16
- ^ Calhoon 1973, p.
- ^ Buchanan, 1997, p. 327
- ^ a b Babits 2011, p. 41
- ^ Bass 1957, pp. 548-550
- ^ Katcher 1973, p. 101
- ^ Buchanan 1997, p. 326
- ^ Berkin, 2005, p. 84
- ^ Howat 2017, "Women Spies"
- ^ Historical Essay, 2009
- ^ Ferling 2007, p. 330
- ^ Hunt, 2015, pp. 188–222
- ^ Dunkerly 2014, “Camp Followers”
- ^ Alexander 2010, p. 356
- ^ Kolchin 1994, p. 73
- ^ Pybus 2005, pp. 243–264
- ^ Walker, 1992, p. x
- ^ Greene & Pole 2008, p. 393
- ^ Ferling 2007, pp. 200–203
- ^ Reid, D. 2017, p.
- ^ Carroll 2001, p. 24
- ^ Ferling 2007, pp. 354–355
- ^ Finger, 2001, pp. 43-64
- ^ Ward, H. 1999, p. 198
- ^ O'Brien 2008, pp. 123–126
- ^ Hibbert 2000, p. 160
- ^ a b Hibbert, 2000, p. 160–61
- ^ Greene & Pole, 2008, p. 325
- ^ Hibbert 2008, p. 333
- ^ Hibbert 2000, p. 164
- ^ Namier and Brooke 1985, p. 246
- ^ Mackesy 1993 [1964], p. 435
- ^ Ketchum 2014b, p. 287
- ^ Ketchum 2014b, p. 275, 476-477
- ^ Abrams, "Yorktown Campaign"
- ^ Greene & Pole, p. 325
- ^ Ward and Prothero 1925, p. 456
- ^ Ward and Prothero 1925, p. 458
- ^ Ward and Prothero 1925, p. 460
- ^ Davis, L. and Engerman 2006, p. 64
- ^ Cogliano 2003, p. 85
- ^ Black 2011, pp.117-18
- ^ Ferling 2003, pp. 378–379
- ^ Cogliano 2003, p. 85
- ^ Harvey 2004, pp. 531-32
- ^ Ferling 2003, pp. 378–379
- ^ Davis, L. and Engerman 2006, p. 64
- ^ Rappleye 2010, pp. 300–313
- ^ Greene and Pole 2008, p. 359
- ^ Kaplan, L. 1983, "Treaty of Paris"
- ^ Mahan 1890, p. 257
- ^ Ketchum 1997, p. 405–448
- ^ Dull 1987, p. 244
- ^ Ferling 2007, p. 294
- ^ Pares 1963 [1936], pp. 429–65"
- ^ Mahan 1890, p. 534
- ^ Tellier 2009, p. 463
- ^ Mahan 1898, p. 507, 510
- ^ Ferling 2007, p. 396
- ^ Allison and Ferreiro 2018, pp.220-21
- ^ Harvey 2004, pp. 531-32
- ^ Allison and Ferreiro 2018, p. 220
- ^ Greene and Pole 2008, pp. 359-60
- ^ Mahan 2020 [1913], pp. 225-226
- ^ Harvey 2004, pp. 531-32
- ^ a b Miller, H. 1931, p. 35
- ^ Preliminary Peace 1782, George III and US Commissioners
- ^ National Archives, Preliminary Peace 1783, Remarks
- ^ Cogliano 2003, p. 85
- ^ Davenport 1917, vol. 1, p. vii
- ^ Preliminary Peace 1782, George III and US Commissioners
- ^ Morrissey 1997, p. 87
- ^ Ferling 2007, p. 562
- ^ Ferling 2007, pp. 557–558
- ^ Benn 1993, p. 17
- ^ Carroll 2001, p. 24
- ^ Ferling 2007, p. 553
- ^ Armour 1941, p. 350
- ^ Ferling 2003, pp. 378–379
- ^ Herring 2011 [2008], p 41
- ^ Treaty of Greenville 1795, U.S. Congress and "Tribes Northwest of the Ohio River"
- ^ Herring 2011 [2008], p 45
- ^ Herring 2011 [2008], p 41
- ^ Herring 2011 [2008], p 46
- ^ Herring 2011 [2008], p 46
- ^ Clodfelter 2017, p 134
- ^ Ellis 2004, p. 87
- ^ Peckham 1974, p.
- ^ Burrows 2008, p.
- ^ Duncan, L. 1931, p. 371
- ^ Duncan 1931, p.
- ^ Chambers 1999 p. 849
- ^ Dawson 2017, "Frenchmen who died"
- ^ Dawson 2017, "Frenchmen who died"
- ^ White 2010, "Essay"
- ^ White 2010, "Essay"
- ^ Clodfelter 2017, p 134
- ^ Burke 1785, p.
- ^ Clodfelter 2017, p 134
- ^ Inman 1903, pp.203-205
- ^ Duncan, L. 1931
- ^ Debret 1781, p. pp. 269
- ^ NIH GARD 2016, "Scurvy"
- ^ Vale 2013, p.160
- ^ Mackesy, 1993 [1964], pp. 6, 176
- ^ Pike, 1907, "Privateers"
- ^ Conway 1995, p. 191
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:|author2=
has generic name (help) - Landrum, John Belton O'Neall (1897). Colonial and Revolutionary History of Upper South Carolina. Greenville, SC: Shannon. OCLC 187392639.
- Lanning, Michael (2009). American Revolution 100: The Battles, People, and Events of the American War for Independence, Ranked by Their Significance. Sourcebooks. pp. 195–96. ISBN 978-1-4022-4170-3.
- Lecky, William Edward Hartpole (1892). A History of England in the Eighteenth Century. Vol. 3. London: Longmans, Green.
- —— (1891). A History of England. Vol. 4. pp. 70–78.
- Lefkowitz, Arthur S. (2007). Benedict Arnold's Army: The 1775 American Invasion of Canada during the Revolutionary War. Savas Beatie. ISBN 978-1-9327-1403-6.
- Lengel, Edward (2005). General George Washington. New York: Random House Paperbacks. ISBN 978-0-8129-6950-4.
- Lloyd, Earnest Marsh (1908). A review of the history of infantry. New York: Longmans, Green, and co.
- Lockhart, Paul Douglas (2010). The Drillmaster at Valley Forge: The Baron de Steuben and the Making of the American Army. Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0061451645.
- Louis XVI, his most Christian King; Commissioners of the United States of America. "Treaty of Alliance" (6 February 1778). 18th Century. Yale Law School Avalon Project.
- Lowell, Edward Jackson (1884). The Hessians and the other German auxiliaries of Great Britain in the revolutionary war. New York: Harper & Brothers.
- Lowenthal, Larry (2009). Hell on the East River: British Prison Ships in the American Revolution. Purple Mountain Press. ISBN 978-0-9163-4676-8.
- Mackesy, Piers (1993) [1964]. The War for America: 1775–1783. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-8192-9.– Highly regarded examination of British strategy and leadership. An introduction by John W. Shy with his biographical sketch of Mackesy.
- Mahan, Alfred Thayer (1890). The influence of sea power upon history, 1660-1783. Boston : Little, Brown and Company.
- —— (1898). Major Operations of the Royal Navy, 1762–1783: Being Chapter XXXI in The Royal Navy. A History. Boston: Little, Brown. OCLC 46778589.
- —— (2020) [1913]. The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 9780486842103.
- Maier, Pauline (1998). American scripture: making the Declaration of Independence. Vintage Books. ISBN 978-0-6797-7908-7.
- Mauch, Christof (Winter 1998). "Images of America—Political Myths—Historiography: "Hessians" in the War of Independence". Amerikastudien / American Studies. 48 (3). Universitätsverlag WINTER Gmbh: 411–423. JSTOR 41157873.
- Mays, Terry M. (2016). Historical Dictionary of the American Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-5381-1972-3.
- McCrady, Edward (1901). The history of South Carolina in the Revolution, 1775-1780. New York, The Macmillan Company; London, Macmillan & Co., ltd.
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- McCusker, John J. (1997). Essays in the economic history of the Atlantic world. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-16841-0. OCLC 470415294.
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- McIlwain, Charles Howard (2005) [1938]. The American Revolution: A Constitutional Interpretation. ISBN 978-1-58477-568-3.
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- Mitchell, Barbara A. (Autumn 2012). "America's Spanish Savior: Bernardo de Gálvez". MHQ (Military History Quarterly): 98–104.
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foreward by Joseph J. Ellis
- Morgan, Edmund S.; Morgan, Helen M. (1995) [First published 1963]. The Stamp Act Crisis: Prologue to Revolution. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0807845134.
- Morley, Vincent (2002). Irish Opinion and the American Revolution, 1760–1783. Cambridge UP. ISBN 978-1-1394-3456-0.
- Morrill, Dan (1993). Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution. Nautical & Aviation Publishing. ISBN 978-1-8778-5321-0.
- Morris, Richard B. (1983) [1965]. The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence. ISBN 978-1299106598.
- Morris, Richard B.; Morris, Jeffrey B., eds. (1982). Encyclopedia of American History (6 ed.). Harper & Row. ISBN 978-0061816055.
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- Morrissey, Brendan (1997). Yorktown 1781: The World Turned Upside Down. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-8553-2688-0.
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- Paine, Thomas (1982). Kramnick, Isaac (ed.). Common Sense. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-1403-9016-2.
- Pancake, John (1985). This Destructive War. University of Alabama Press. ISBN 978-0-8173-0191-0.
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- Paterson, Thomas G.; et al. (2009). American Foreign Relations, Volume 1: A History to 1920. Cengage Learning. pp. 13–15. ISBN 978-0547225647.
- Paullin, Charles (1906). The navy of the American Revolution: its administration, its policy and its achievements Oscar. The Burrows Brothers Co.
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- Peckham, Howard Henry (1974). The Toll of Independence: Engagements & Battle Casualties of the American Revolution. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-2266-5318-1.
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- Philbrick, Nathaniel (2016). Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-6981-5323-3.
- Pike, John (October 18, 1907). "Privateers". Globalsecurity.org. Retrieved May 8, 2013.
- Pybus, Cassandra (2005). "Jefferson's Faulty Math: The Question of Slave Defections in the American Revolution". The William and Mary Quarterly. 62 (2): 243–264. doi:10.2307/3491601. JSTOR 3491601.
- Raab, James W. (2007). Spain, Britain and the American Revolution in Florida, 1763–1783. p. 135. ISBN 978-0-7864-3213-4.
- Randall, Willard Sterne (Summer 1990). "Benedict Arnold at Quebec". MHQ: Quarterly Journal of Military History. 2 (40): 38–39. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
- Rankin, Hugh F. (1987). Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolution Through the Eyes of Those who Fought and Lived it. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-3068-0307-9.
- —— (2011) [1996]. Memory F. Blackwelder (ed.). North Carolina in the American Revolution. ISBN 978-1258093402.
- Rappleye, Charles (2010). Robert Morris: Financier of the American Revolution. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-7091-2.
- Reeve, John L. (2009). "British Naval Strategy: War on a Global Scale". In Hagan, Kenneth J.; McMaster, Michael T.; Stoker, Donald (eds.). Strategy in the American War of Independence: A Global Approach. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-21039-8.
- Reid, Darren R. (June 19, 2017). "Anti-Indian Radicalisation in the Early American West, 1774–1795". Journal of the American Revolution.
- Reid, John Phillip (1987). The Authority to Tax: Constitutional History of the American Revolution. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299112905.
- Renaut, Francis P. (1922). Le Pacte de famille et l'Amérique: La politique coloniale franco-espagnole de 1760 à 1792. Paris.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Reynolds, Jr., William R. (2012). Andrew Pickens: South Carolina Patriot in the Revolutionary War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7864-6694-8.
- Rinaldi, Richard A. "The British Army 1775–1783". Yumpu. Retrieved September 23, 2013.
- Ritcheson, Charles R. (1973). ""Loyalist Influence" on British Policy Toward the United States After the American Revolution". Eighteenth-Century Studies. 7 (1). Johns Hopkins University Press. JSTOR 3031609.
- "Battle of Monmouth Courthouse". Robinson Library. Self-published. Retrieved June 20, 2017.
- Rose, Alexander (2014) [2006]. Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-5533-9259-3.
- Rose, Michael (2013). Washington's War: From Independence To Iraq. Orion Publishers. ISBN 978-1-7802-2710-8.
- Rossman, Vadim (2016). Capital Cities: Varieties and Patterns of Development and Relocation. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1317562856.
- Russell, David Lee (2000). The American Revolution in the Southern colonies. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. ISBN 978-0-7864-0783-5. OCLC 248087936.
- Savas, Theodore P.; Dameron, J. David (2006). A Guide to the Battles of the American Revolution. Savas Beatie LLC. ISBN 978-1-6112-1011-8.
- Sawyer, C.W. (1910). Firearms in American History. Boston: C.W. Sawyer.
online at Hathi Trust
- Scheer, George F.; Rankin, Hugh F. (1959). Rebels and Redcoats. New American library. ASIN B000ZLZW9I.
- Schecter, Barnet (2003). The Battle for New York: The city at the heart of the American Revolution. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0142003336.
- Schmidt, H. D. (1958). "'The Hessian mercenaries: the career of a political cliche". 43 (149). Wiley: 207–212. JSTOR 24404012.
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(help) - Showalter, Dennis (2007). "Hessians: The Best Armies Money Could Buy". Military History Magazine/HistoryNet. Retrieved October 3, 2020.
- Schwamenfeld, Steven W. (2007). “The Foundation of British Strength”: National Identity and the British Common Soldier (Thesis). Florida State University.
FSU History PhD dissertation
- Scott, Hamish M. (1990). British Foreign Policy in the Age of the American Revolution. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-820195-3.
- Selby, John E. (2007). The Revolution in Virginia, 1775–1783. Colonial Williamsburg. ISBN 978-0-8793-5233-2.
- Simms, Brendan (2009). Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British Empire, 1714-1783. Penguin Books Limited. ISBN 978-0-1402-8984-8.
- Skaggs, David Curtis (1977). The Old Northwest in the American Revolution: An Anthology. State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
- Smith, David (2012). New York 1776: The Continentals' First Battle. Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-7820-0443-1.
- Smith, Justin Harvey (1907). Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony: Canada and the American Revolution. Vol. 1. New York & London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
- —— (1907). Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony: Canada and the American Revolution. Vol. 1. New York & London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
- Smith, Merril D. (2015). The World of the American Revolution: A Daily Life Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 374. ISBN 978-1-4408-3028-0.
- Franklin, Benjamin; Lee, Arthur; Adams, John (1829). Sparks, Jared (ed.). The diplomatic correspondence of the American Revolution. Vol. 1. Boston: Hale, Gray & Bowen.
- Stanley, George (1973). Canada Invaded 1775–1776. Toronto: Hakkert. ISBN 978-0-88866-578-2. OCLC 4807930.
- Stedman, Charles (1794). The history of the origin, progress, and termination of the American war. Vol. 1. Dublin : Printed for Messrs. P. Wogan, P. Byrne, J. Moore, and W. Jones.
- Stephen, Leslie; Lee, Sidney, eds. (1885–1900). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 2. New York: Macmillan.
- Stewart, Richard W., ed. (2005). American Military History Volume 1 The United States Army And The Forging Of A Nation, 1775–1917. Vol. 4. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, United States Army. ISBN 0-16-072362-0.
- Stockley, Andrew (2001). Britain and France at the Birth of America: The European Powers and the Peace Negotiations of 1782-1783. University of Exeter Press. ISBN 978-0-8598-9615-3.
- Syrett, David (1998). The Royal Navy in European Waters During the American Revolutionary War. Univ of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-238-7.
- Taafe, Stephen R. (2003). The Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-1778. University Press of Kansas. ISBN 978-0700612673.
- Taylor, Alan (2016). American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750–1804. WW Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-3932-5387-0.
- Tellier, L.-N. (2009). Urban World History: an Economic and Geographical Perspective. Quebec: PUQ. ISBN 978-2-7605-2209-1.
- Thomas, Molly (November 9, 2017). "The Last Naval Battle of the American Revolution". Florida Frontiers Article, The Florida Historical Society. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- Tolson, Jay (June 27, 2008). "How George Washington's Savvy Won the Day :Despite his share of errors, the commander in chief prevailed as a strategist and a politician". Retrieved September 29, 2020.
- Trevelyan, George Otto (1912). George the Third and Charles Fox: the concluding part of The American revolution. Longmans, Green, and Company.
Archived online at HathiTrust.org
- Tucker, Mary (March 1, 2002). Washington Crossing the Delaware. Lorenz Educational Press. pp. 22–23. ISBN 978-0-7877-8564-2.
- US Census Bureau (September 1975). "Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970; Colonial and Pre-Federal Statistics".
Bicentennial Edition
- "An Overview of American Intelligence Until World War II". US Central Intelligence Agency. December 5, 2007.
Featured Story Archive, Historical Document
- US Congress. "Treaty of Greenville 1795" (3 August 1795). Document Collection: 18th Century, 1700-1799. Yale Law School Avalon Project.
- Vale, Brian (March 22, 2013). "The Conquest of Scurvy in the Royal Navy 1793-1800: A Challenge to Current Orthodoxy". 94, 2008 (2). The Mariner’s Mirror: 160–175.
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- Walker, James W. St. (1992). The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870. ISBN 978-0-8020-7402-7.
- Wallace, Willard M. (1954). Traitorous Hero: The Life and Fortunes of Benedict Arnold. New York: Harper & Brothers. ISBN 978-1199083234.
- ——; Ray, Michael (September 21, 2015). "American Revolution". Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
American Revolution, (1775-83, insurrection by which 13 of Great Britain's North American colonies won political independence and went on to form the United States of America.
- Wallenfeldt, Jeff (May 29, 2015). "Writ of assistance, British-American colonial history". Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved August 25, 2020.
Customhouse officers were authorized to search any house for smuggled goods without specifying either the house or the goods.
- Ward, A.W.; Prothero, G.W. (1925). Cambridge Modern History, vol.6 (18th Century). University of Oxford, The University Press.
Digital Library of India Item 2015.107358
- Ward, Christopher (1952). The War of the Revolution (2 volumes). New York: Macmillan. ISBN 9781616080808.
History of land battles in North America
- Ward, Harry M. (1999). The war for independence and the transformation of American society. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-1-85728-656-4.
- Watson, J. Steven; Clark, Sir George (1960). The Reign of George III, 1760-1815. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198217138.
- Weigley, Russell F. (1977). The American Way of War. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-2532-8029-9.
- Westlager, Clinton Alfred (1976). The Stamp Act Congress. University of Delaware Press. ISBN 9780874131116.
- White, Matthew (2010). "Spanish casualties in The American Revolutionary war". Necrometrics.
- Wilson, David K (2005). The Southern Strategy: Britain's Conquest of South Carolina and Georgia, 1775–1780. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-573-9. OCLC 232001108.
- Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail: 1714–1792. Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-8441-5700-6. (See also:British Warships in the Age of Sail)
- Wood, W. J. (2003) [1995]. Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775–1781. Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-80617-9.
- Yaniz, Jose I. (2009). "The Role of Spain in the American Revolution: An Unavoidable Mistake" (PDF). Marine Corps University.
Spain declared war on Great Britain in June 1779 as an ally of France but not of America … The Bourbon Family Compact obligated Spain with commitments to France; and the Spanish Crown answered the call. Madrid thus took an unavoidable political strategic mistake.
Websites without authors, alphabetically by publisher
- Bruce H. Franklin Editors, Journal of the American Revolution (November 30, 2015). "Which Side Benefitted the Most from the Native Americans". Journal of the American Revolution. Bruce H. Franklin.
'During the war, both sides recruited Native soldiers and allies' – J.L. Bell; 'Britain's Indian allies …Americans … Indian allies' – Daniel J. Tortora
{{cite web}}
:|last=
has generic name (help) - History.org Aron, Paul (2020) [2005]. "Women's Service with the Revolutionary Army : The Colonial Williamsburg Official History & Citizenship Site". The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Retrieved October 2, 2020.
- Maryland State House""The Road to Peace, A Chronology: 1779-1784". William L. Clements Library / The Maryland State House. 2007. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
- National Institute of Health "Scurvy". National Institute of Health. November 14, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2020.
Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center
- The History Place "An Unlikely Victory 1777-1783". The History Place. Retrieved September 16, 2020.
American Revolution timeline
- Royal Navy Museum "Ships Biscuits – Royal Navy hardtack". Royal Navy Museum. Archived from the original on October 31, 2009. Retrieved January 14, 2010.
- Totallyhistory.com "Red Coats". Totallyhistory.com. 2012. Retrieved March 23, 2020.
- U.S. Merchant Marine "Privateers and Mariners in the Revolutionary War". U.S. Merchant Marine. 2012. Retrieved May 25, 2017.
- U.S. National Archives "Continental Congress: Remarks on the Provisional Peace Treaty". U.S. National Archives. 1783. Retrieved July 15, 2020.
- Valley Forge National Historic Park "Overview of History and Significance of Valley Forge". Valley Forge National Historical Park, Pennsylvania. August 12, 2019 [2007].
- Yale Law School, Massachusetts Act "Great Britain : Parliament - The Massachusetts Government Act; May 20, 1774". Yale Law School: The Avalon Project. 2008.
Further reading
These are some of the standard works about the war in general that are not listed above; books about specific campaigns, battles, units, and individuals can be found in those articles.
- Andrews, Charles McLean (1912). Guide to the materials for American history, to 1783, in the Public Record Office of Great Britain. Washington, D.C. : Carnegie Institution of Washington.
- Baack, Ben. "The Economics of the American Revolutionary War". EH.net. Economic History Association. Retrieved July 27, 2020.
- Bancroft, George. History of the United States of America, from the discovery of the American continent. (1854–78), vol. 7–10.
- Billias, George Athan. George Washington's Generals and Opponents: Their Exploits and Leadership, 1994, scholarly studies of key generals on each side.
- Black, Jeremy. "Could the British Have Won the American War of Independence?." Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research. (Fall 1996), Vol. 74 Issue 299, pp 145–154. online video lecture, uses Real Player
- Bobrick, Benson. Angel in the Whirlwind: The Triumph of the American Revolution. Penguin, 1998 (paperback reprint)
- Boyer, Paul (2014). The Enduring Vision: A History of the American People. Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-1-285-19339-7.
- Butterfield, Lyman H. (June 1950). "Psychological Warfare in 1776: The Jefferson-Franklin Plan to Cause Hessian Desertions". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society. 94 (3). American Philosophical Society: 233–241. JSTOR 3143556.
- Cate, Alan C. (2006). Founding Fighters: The Battlefield Leaders Who Made American Independence. Greenwood Publishing Group.
- Caughey, John W. (1998). Bernardo de Gálvez in Louisiana 1776–1783. Gretna: Pelican Publishing Company. ISBN 978-1-56554-517-5.
- Chartrand, Rene. The French Army in the American War of Independence (1994). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.
- Christie, Ian R.; Labaree, Benjamin W. (1976). Empire or independence, 1760-1776. Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0-7148-1614-2.
- Clarfield, Gerard (1992). United States Diplomatic History: From Revolution to Empire. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 9780130292322.
- Clode, Charles M. (1869). The military forces of the crown; their administration and government. Vol. 2. London, J. Murray.
- Commager, Henry Steele and Richard B. Morris, eds. The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six': The Story of the American Revolution as told by Participants. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958). online
- Conway, Stephen. The War of American Independence 1775–1783. Publisher: E. Arnold, 1995. ISBN 0340625201. 280 pp.
- Creigh, Alfred (1871). History of Washington County. B. Singerly. p. 49.
ann hupp indian.
- Cook, Fred J. (1959). What Manner of Men. William Morrow and Co. 59-11702.
Allan McLane, Chapter VIII, pp. 275–304
- Davies, Wallace Evan (July 1939). "Privateering around Long Island during the Revolution". New York History. 20 (3). Fenimore Art Museum: 283–294. JSTOR 23134696.
- Downes, Randolph C. (1940). Council Fires on the Upper Ohio: A Narrative of Indian Affairs in the Upper Ohio Valley until 1795. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press. ISBN 0-8229-5201-7.
- Ferling, John E. (2002) [2000]. Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-513409-4.
- Fredriksen, John C. (2006). Revolutionary War Almanac Almanacs of American wars Facts on File library of American history. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8160-7468-6.
- Fremont-Barnes, Gregory, and Ryerson, Richard A., eds. The Encyclopedia of the American Revolutionary War: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO, 2006) 5 volume paper and online editions; 1000 entries by 150 experts, covering all topics
- Frey, Sylvia R. The British Soldier in America: A Social History of Military Life in the Revolutionary Period (University of Texas Press, 1981).
- Gilbert, Alan (2012). Black Patriots and Loyalists: Fighting for Emancipation in the War for Independence. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0226101552.
- Grant, John N. (1973). "Black Immigrants into Nova Scotia, 1776–1815". The Journal of Negro History. 58 (3): 253–270. doi:10.2307/2716777. JSTOR 2716777.
- Jensen, Merrill (2004). The Founding of a Nation: A History of the American Revolution 1763–1776. Hackett Publishing. ISBN 978-0-87220-705-9.
- Johnston, Henry Phelps (1881). The Yorktown Campaign and the Surrender of Cornwallis, 1781. New York: Harper & Bros. p. 34. OCLC 426009.
- Kaplan, Rodger (January 1990). "The Hidden War: British Intelligence Operations during the American Revolution". The William and Mary Quarterly. 47 (1). Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture: 115–138. doi:10.2307/2938043. JSTOR 2938043.
- Kepner, K. (February 1945). "A British View of the Siege of Charleston, 1776". The Journal of Southern History. 11 (1). Southern Historical Association: 93–103. doi:10.2307/2197961. JSTOR 2197961.
- Kilmeade, Brian.; Yaeger, Don (2013). George Washington's Secret Six: The Spy Ring That Saved the American Revolution. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-6981-3765-3.
- Knight, Peter (2003). Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 184–85. ISBN 978-1-57607-812-9.
- Kohn, George C. (2006). Dictionary of Wars, 3d edition. Infobase Publishing. ISBN 9781438129167.
- Kwasny, Mark V. Washington's Partisan War, 1775–1783. Kent, Ohio: 1996. ISBN 0873385462. Militia warfare.
- Larabee, Leonard Woods (1959). Conservatism in Early American History. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0151547456.
Great Seal Books
{{cite book}}
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(help) - Lemaître, Georges Édouard (2005). Beaumarchais. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 9781417985364.
- Levy, Andrew (2007). The First Emancipator: Slavery, Religion, and the Quiet Revolution of Robert Carter. Random House Trade Paperbacks. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-375-76104-1.
- Library of Congress "Revolutionary War: Groping Toward Peace, 1781-1783". Library: Library of Congress. Library of Congress. Retrieved August 24, 2020.
- May, Robin. The British Army in North America 1775–1783 (1993). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.
- McGrath, Nick. "Battle of Guilford Courthouse". George Washington's Mount Vernon: Digital Encyclopedia. Mount Vernon Ladies' Association. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
- Middlekauff, Robert (2007) [1984]. The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-1997-4092-5.
- Middleton, Richard (July 2013). "The Clinton–Cornwallis Controversy and Responsibility for the British Surrender at Yorktown". History. 98 (3). Wiley Publishers: 370–389. doi:10.1111/1468-229X.12014. JSTOR 24429518.
- —— (2014). The War of American Independence, 1775–1783. London: Pearson. ISBN 978-0-5822-2942-6.
- Miller, Ken (2014). Dangerous Guests: Enemy Captives and Revolutionary Communities During the War for Independence. Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0-8014-5494-3.
- Nash, Gary B.; Carter Smith (2007). Atlas Of American History. Infobase Publishing. p. 64. ISBN 978-1-4381-3013-2.
- Neimeyer, Charles Patrick. America Goes to War: A Social History of the Continental Army (1995) JSTOR j.ctt9qg7q2
- Nicolas, Paul Harris (1845). Historical record of the Royal Marine Forces, Volume 2. London: Thomas and William Boone.
port praya suffren 1781.
- Ortiz, J.D. "General Bernardo Galvez in the American Revolution". Retrieved September 9, 2020.
- Perkins, James Breck (2009) [1911]. France in the American Revolution. Cornell University Library. ASIN B002HMBV52.
- Peters, Richard, ed. (1846). A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875: Treaty of Alliance with France 1778, "Article II". Library of Congress archives.
- Ramsay, David (1819). Universal History Americanised: Or, An Historical View of the World, from the Earliest Records to the Year 1808. Vol. 4. Philadelphia : M. Carey & Son.
- Reich, Jerome R. (1997). British friends of the American Revolution. M.E. Sharpe. p. 121. ISBN 978-0-7656-3143-5.
- Ridpath, John Clark (1915). The new complete history of the United States of America. Vol. 6. Cincinnati: Jones Brothers. OCLC 2140537.
- Schiff, Stacy (2006). A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America. Macmillan. p. 5. ISBN 978-1-4299-0799-6.
- Scribner, Robert L. (1988). Revolutionary Virginia, the Road to Independence. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-0748-2.
- Selig, Robert A. (1999). Rochambeau in Connecticut, Tracing His Journey: Historic and Architectural Survey. Connecticut Historical Commission.
- Southey, Robert (1831). The life of Lord Nelson. Henry Chapman Publishers.
- Symonds, Craig L. A Battlefield Atlas of the American Revolution (1989), newly drawn maps emphasizing the movement of military units
- Trew, Peter (2006). Rodney and the Breaking of the Line. Pen & Sword Military. ISBN 978-1-8441-5143-1.
- Trickey, Erick. "The Little-Remembered Ally Who Helped America Win the Revolution". Smithsonian Magazine January 13, 2017. Retrieved April 28, 2020.
- Volo, M. James (2006). Blue Water Patriots: The American Revolution Afloat. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-0-7425-6120-5.
- U.S. Army, "The Winning of Independence, 1777–1783" American Military History Volume I, 2005.
- U.S. National Park Service "Springfield Armory". Nps.gov. April 25, 2013. Retrieved May 8, 2013.
- Weir, William (2004). The Encyclopedia of African American Military History. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1-61592-831-6.
- Whaples, Robert (March 1995). "Where Is There Consensus Among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions". The Journal of Economic History. 55 (1): 144. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.482.4975. doi:10.1017/S0022050700040602. JSTOR 2123771.
There is an overwhelming consensus that Americans' economic standard of living on the eve of the Revolution was among the highest in the world.
- Whaples, Robert (March 1995). "Where Is There Consensus Among American Economic Historians? The Results of a Survey on Forty Propositions". The Journal of Economic History. 55 (1): 144. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.482.4975. doi:10.1017/S0022050700040602. JSTOR 2123771.
There is an overwhelming consensus that Americans' economic standard of living on the eve of the Revolution was among the highest in the world.
- Zeller-Frederick, Andrew A. (April 18, 2018). "The Hessians Who Escaped Washington's Trap at Trenton". Journal of the American Revolution. Bruce H. Franklin.
Citing William M. Dwyer and Edward J. Lowell, The Hessians: And the Other German Auxiliaries in the Revolutionary War, 1970
- Zlatich, Marko; Copeland, Peter. General Washington's Army (1): 1775–78 (1994). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.
- ---- ----. General Washington's Army (2): 1779–83 (1994). Short (48pp), very well illustrated descriptions.
Primary sources
In addition to this selection, many primary sources are available at the Princeton University Law School [Avalon Project and at the Library of Congress Digital Collections (previously LOC webpage, American Memory). Original editions for titles related to the American Revolutionary War can be found open sourced online at Internet Archive and Hathi Trust Digital Library.
- Congress of the United States, Continental (1776). "Declaration of Independence" (Document). National Archives, Washington DC.
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ignored (help) - Emmerich, Adreas. The Partisan in War, a treatise on light infantry tactics written by Colonel Andreas Emmerich in 1789.
External links
Bibliographies online
- Library of Congress Guide to the American Revolution
- Bibliographies of the War of American Independence compiled by the United States Army Center of Military History
- Political bibliography from Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
- American Revolutionary War
- Global conflicts
- Wars between the United Kingdom and the United States
- Rebellions against the British Empire
- Wars of independence
- Conflicts in 1775
- Conflicts in 1776
- Conflicts in 1777
- Conflicts in 1778
- Conflicts in 1779
- Conflicts in 1780
- Conflicts in 1781
- Conflicts in 1782
- Conflicts in 1783
- Militia generals in the American Revolution
- French people of the American Revolution
- Huguenot participants in the American Revolution