|
The American
Revolutionary War was a war fought between the British Crown and its
colonies in North America from 1775 to 1783. The war began largely
as a colonial revolt against the economic policies of the British
Empire, but eventually widened far beyond British North America,
with France, Spain, and the Netherlands entering the war against
Great Britain. The final outcome of the war was the recognition of
independence of the 13 southernmost of the colonies, as well as
lightly settled territories west to the Mississippi River.
The
Declaration of Independence is the
document in which the Thirteen Colonies declared themselves
independent of the Kingdom of Great Britain and explained their
justifications for doing so. It was ratified by the Continental
Congress on July 4, 1776. This anniversary is celebrated as
Independence Day in the United States.
The handwritten copy signed by the delegates to the Congress is on
display in the National Archives in Washington, D.C.
Site Map
 |
|
Revolutionary War click for full size image
We bring you this great selection
of American Revolution posters, photos, and fine art prints. Please enjoy
browsing these historical and educational posters.
The Boston Tea Party was an act of direct action protest by the
American colonists against British Government in which they
destroyed many crates of tea bricks belonging to the British East
India Company on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took
place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, has been seen as helping to
spark the
American Revolution and remains to this day one of the most
iconic events of the era.
More of the
Revolutionary War History
Revolutionaries seized control of each of the thirteen colonial
governments, set up the Second Continental Congress, and formed a
Continental Army. The following year, they formally declared their
independence as a new nation, the United States of America. From
1778 onward, other European powers would fight on the American side
in the war. Meanwhile, Native Americans and African Americans served
on both sides.
Throughout the war,
the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and
occupy coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of
the population lived) largely eluded them due to their relatively
small land army. In early 1778, shortly after an American victory at
Saratoga, France entered the war against Britain; Spain and the
Netherlands joined as allies of France over the next two years.
French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in
the Chesapeake leading to the surrender of a British army at
Yorktown in 1781. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the war and
recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory
bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south,
and the Mississippi River to the west.
When the war began, the Americans did not have a professional army
or navy. Each colony provided for its own defenses through the use
of local militia. Militiamen were lightly armed, slightly trained,
and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few
weeks or months at a time, were reluctant to go very far from home,
and were thus generally unavailable for extended operations. Militia
lacked the training and discipline of regular soldiers but were more
numerous and could overwhelm regular troops as at the battles of
Concord, Bennington and Saratoga, and the siege of Boston. Both
sides used partisan warfare but the Americans were particularly
effective at suppressing Loyalist activity when British regulars
were not in the area.
Seeking to coordinate
military efforts, the Continental Congress established (on paper) a
regular army in June 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. The United
States Marine Corps traces its institutional roots to the
Continental Marines of the war, formed at Tun Tavern in
Philadelphia, by a resolution of the Continental Congress on
November 10, 1775, a date regarded and celebrated as the birthday of
the Marine Corps. At the end of the American Revolution in 1783,
both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded.
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 total men under arms at one time. Armies were
small by European standards of the era; the greatest number of men
that Washington personally commanded in the field at any one time
was fewer than 17,000. This could be attributed to tactical
preferences, but it also could be because of lack of powder on the
American side.
Early in 1775, the
British Army consisted of about 36,000 men worldwide, but
wartime recruitment steadily increased this number. Additionally,
over the course of the war the British hired about 30,000 soldiers
from
German princes, these soldiers were called "Hessians" because
many of them came from Hesse-Kassel. The troops were mercenaries in
the sense of professionals who were hired out by their prince.
Germans made up about one-third of the British troop strength in
North America. By 1779, the number of British and German
troops
stationed in
North America was over 60,000, though these were spread from
Canada to
Florida.
During the long
standoff at Boston, the Continental Congress sought a way to seize
the initiative elsewhere. Congress had initially invited the French
Canadians to join them as the fourteenth colony, but when that
failed to happen, Congress authorized an invasion of Canada. The
goal was to remove British rule from the primarily francophone
province of Quebec (comprising present-day Quebec).
Two Canada-bound expeditions were undertaken. On September 16, 1775,
Brigadier General Richard Montgomery marched north from Fort
Ticonderoga with about 1,700 militiamen, capturing Montreal on
November 13. General Guy Carleton, the governor of Canada, escaped
to Quebec City. The second expedition, led by Colonel Benedict
Arnold, was a logistical nightmare, with many men succumbing to
smallpox. By the time Arnold reached Quebec City in early November,
he had but 600 of his original 1,100 men. Montgomery's force joined
Arnold's, and they attacked Quebec City on December 31, but were
soundly defeated by Carleton. The remaining Americans held on
outside Quebec City until the spring of 1776, and then withdrew. So
Canada stood firmly on the front line of the war with many more
forces than in America.
Attack on Canada
Another attempt was made Americans to push back towards Quebec, but
they failed at Trois-Rivières on June 8, 1776. Carleton then
launched his own invasion and defeated Arnold at the Battle of
Valcour Island in October. Arnold fell back to Fort Ticonderoga,
where the invasion of Canada had begun. The invasion of Canada ended
as a disaster for Americans, but Arnold's efforts in 1776 delayed a
full-scale British counteroffensive until the Saratoga campaign of
1777.
The invasion cost Americans their base of support in British public
opinion, "So that the violent measures towards America are freely
adopted and countenanced by a majority of individuals of all ranks,
professions, or occupations, in this country.
New York and New Jersey
Main article: New York and New Jersey campaign
Having withdrawn his army from Boston, General Howe now focused on
capturing New York City. To defend the city, General Washington
divided his 20,000 soldiers between Long Island and Manhattan. While
British troops were assembling on Staten Island for the campaign,
Washington had the newly issued Declaration of American Independence
read to his men. No longer was there any possibility of compromise.
On August 27, 1776, after landing about 22,000 men on Long Island,
the British drove the Americans back to Brooklyn Heights in the
largest battle of the entire Revolution. Howe then laid siege to
fortifications there, but Washington managed to evacuate his army to
Manhattan.
On September 15, Howe landed about 12,000 men on lower Manhattan,
quickly taking control of New York City. The Americans withdrew to
Harlem Heights, where they skirmished the next day but held their
ground. When Howe moved to encircle Washington's army in October,
the Americans again fell back, and a battle at White Plains was
fought on October 28. Once more Washington retreated, and Howe
returned to Manhattan and captured Fort Washington in mid November,
taking about 2,000 prisoners (with an additional 1,000 having been
captured during the battle for Long Island). Thus began the infamous
"prison ships" system the British maintained in New York for the
remainder of the war, in which more American soldiers and sailors
died of neglect than died in every battle of the entire war,
combined.
Emanuel Leutze's stylized depiction of Washington Crossing the
Delaware (1851) is an iconic image of heroic action by
Washington.General Lord Cornwallis continued to chase Washington's
army through New Jersey, until the Americans withdrew across the
Delaware River into Pennsylvania in early December. With the
campaign at an apparent conclusion for the season, the British
entered winter quarters. Although Howe had missed several
opportunities to crush the diminishing American army, he had killed
or captured over 5,000 Americans.
The outlook of the Continental Army was bleak. "These are the times
that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine, who was with the army on
the retreat. The army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men fit for
duty, and would be reduced to 1,400 after enlistments expired at the
end of the year. Congress had abandoned Philadelphia in despair,
although popular resistance to British occupation was growing in the
countryside.
Washington decided to take the offensive, stealthily crossing the
Delaware on Christmas night and capturing nearly 1,000 Hessians at
the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776. Cornwallis marched to
retake Trenton but was outmaneuvered by Washington, who successfully
attacked the British rearguard at Princeton on January 3, 1777.
Washington then entered winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey,
having given a morale boost to the American cause. New Jersey
militia continued to harass British and Hessian forces throughout
the winter, forcing the British to retreat to their base in and
around New York City.
At every stage the British strategy assumed a large base of Loyalist
supporters who would rally to the King given some military support.
In February 1776 Clinton took 2,000 men and a naval squadron to
invade North Carolina, which he called off when he learned the
Loyalists had been crushed at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. In
June he tried to seize Charleston, South Carolina, the leading port
in the South, hoping for a simultaneous rising in South Carolina. It
seemed a cheap way of waging the war but it failed as the naval
force was defeated by the forts and because no local Loyalists
attacked the town from behind. The loyalists were too poorly
organized to be effective, but as late as 1781 senior officials in
London, misled by Loyalist exiles, placed their confidence in their
rising.
Saratoga and Philadelphia
When the British began to plan operations for 1777, they had two
main armies in North America: Carleton's army in Canada, and Howe's
army in New York. In London, Lord George Germain approved campaigns
for these armies which, because of miscommunication, poor planning,
and rivalries between commanders, did not work in conjunction.
Although Howe successfully captured Philadelphia, the northern army
was lost in a disastrous surrender at Saratoga. Both Carleton and
Howe resigned after the 1777 campaign.
Saratoga campaign
The first of the 1777 campaigns was an expedition from Canada led by
General John Burgoyne. The goal was to seize the Lake Champlain and
Hudson River corridor, effectively isolating New England from the
rest of the American colonies. Burgoyne's invasion had two
components: he would lead about 10,000 men along Lake Champlain
towards Albany, New York, while a second column of about 2,000 men,
led by Barry St. Leger, would move down the Mohawk River valley and
link up with Burgoyne in Albany, New York.
Mohawk leader Joseph Brant led both Native Americans and white
Loyalists in battle.Burgoyne set off in June, and recaptured Fort
Ticonderoga in early July. Thereafter, his march was slowed by
Americans who knocked down trees in his path. A detachment was sent
out to seize supplies but was decisively defeated by American
militia in August, depriving Burgoyne of nearly 1,000 men.
Meanwhile, St. Leger—half of his force Native Americans led by
Joseph Brant—had laid siege to Fort Stanwix. American militiamen and
their Native American allies marched to relieve the siege but were
ambushed and scattered at the Battle of Oriskany. When a second
relief expedition approached, this time led by Benedict Arnold, St.
Leger broke off the siege and retreated to Canada.
Burgoyne's army was now reduced to about 6,000 men. Despite these
setbacks, he determined to push on towards Albany—a fateful decision
which would later produce much controversy. An American army of
8,000 men, commanded by the General Horatio Gates, had entrenched
about 10 miles (16 km) south of Saratoga, New York. Burgoyne tried
to outflank the Americans but was checked at the first battle of
Saratoga in September. Burgoyne's situation was desperate, but he
now hoped that help from Howe's army in New York City might be on
the way. It was not: Howe had instead sailed away on an expedition
to capture Philadelphia. American militiamen flocked to Gates's
army, swelling his force to 11,000 by the beginning of October.
After being badly beaten at the second battle of Saratoga, Burgoyne
surrendered on October 17.
Saratoga was the turning point of the war. Revolutionary confidence
and determination, suffering from Howe's successful occupation of
Philadelphia, was renewed. More importantly, the victory encouraged
France to enter the war against Britain. For the British, the war
had now become much more complicated.
Philadelphia campaign
Main article: Philadelphia campaign
Having secured New York City in 1776, General Howe concentrated on
capturing Philadelphia, the seat of the Revolutionary government, in
1777. He moved slowly, landing 15,000 troops in late August at the
northern end of Chesapeake Bay. Washington positioned his 11,000 men
between Howe and Philadelphia but was driven back at the Battle of
Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The Continental Congress once
again abandoned Philadelphia, and on September 26, Howe finally
outmaneuvered Washington and marched into the city unopposed.
Washington unsuccessfully attacked the British encampment in nearby
Germantown in early October and then retreated to watch and wait.
Washington and Lafayette look over the troops at Valley Forge.After
repelling a British attack at White Marsh, Washington and his army
encamped at Valley Forge in December 1777, about 20 miles (32 km)
from Philadelphia, where they stayed for the next six months. Over
the winter, 2,500 men (out of 10,000) died from disease and
exposure. The next spring, however, the army emerged from Valley
Forge in good order, thanks in part to a training program supervised
by Baron von Steuben. Indeed, von Steuben introduced the most modern
Prussian methods of organization and tactics.
General Clinton replaced Howe as British commander-in-chief. French
entry into the war had changed British strategy, and Clinton
abandoned Philadelphia in order to reinforce New York City, now
vulnerable to French naval power. Washington shadowed Clinton on his
withdrawal and forced the drawn battle at Monmouth on June 28, 1778,
the last major battle in the north. Clinton's army went to New York
City in July, just before a French fleet under Admiral d'Estaing
arrived off the American coast. Washington's army returned to White
Plains, New York, north of the city. Although both armies were back
where they had been two years earlier, the nature of the war had now
changed.
An international war, 1778–1783
In 1778, the rebellion in North America became an international war.
After learning of the American victory in Saratoga, France signed
the Treaty of Alliance with the United States on February 6, 1778.
Spain entered the war as an ally of France in June 1779, a renewal
of the Bourbon Family Compact. Unlike France, however, Spain
initially refused to recognize the independence of the United
States—Spain was not keen on encouraging similar anti-colonial
rebellions in the Spanish Empire. The Netherlands also became a
combatant in 1780. All three countries had quietly provided
financial assistance to the Americans since the beginning of the
war, hoping to dilute British power.
In London King George III gave up hope of subduing America by more
armies while Britain had a European war to fight. "It was a joke,"
he said, "to think of keeping Pennsylvania." There was no hope of
recovering New England. But the King was determined "never to
acknowledge the independence of the Americans, and to punish their
contumacy by the indefinite prolongation of a war which promised to
be eternal."[14] His plan was to keep the 30,000 men garrisoned in
New York, Rhode Island, in Canada, and in Florida; other forces
would attack the French and Spanish in the West Indies. To punish
the Americans the King planned to destroy their coasting-trade,
bombard their ports; sack and burn towns along the coast (like New
London, Connecticut), and turn loose the Native Americans to attack
civilians in frontier settlements. These operations, the King felt,
would inspire the Loyalists; would splinter the Congress; and "would
keep the rebels harassed, anxious, and poor, until the day when, by
a natural and inevitable process, discontent and disappointment were
converted into penitence and remorse" and they would beg to return
to his authority.[15] The plan meant destruction for the Loyalists
and loyal Native Americans, and indefinite prolongation of a costly
war, as well as the risk of disaster as the French and Spanish were
assembling an armada to invade the British isles and seize London.
The British planned to re-subjugate the rebellious colonies after
dealing with their European allies.
Widening of the naval war
Further information: Naval operations in the American Revolutionary
War, France in the American Revolutionary War, Spain in the American
Revolutionary War
When the war began, the British had overwhelming naval superiority
over the American colonists. The Royal Navy had over 100 ships of
the line and many frigates and smaller craft, although this fleet
was old and in poor condition, a situation which would be blamed on
Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the first
three years of the war, the Royal Navy was primarily used to
transport troops for land operations and to protect commercial
shipping. The American colonists had no ships of the line, and
relied extensively on privatizing to harass British shipping. The
privateers caused worry disproportionate to their material success
although those operating out of French channel ports before and
after France joined the war caused significant embarrassment to the
Royal Navy and inflamed Anglo-French relations. The Continental
Congress authorized the creation of a small Continental Navy in
October, 1775, which was primarily used for commerce raiding. 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.[16]
The Defeat of the Floating Batteries at Gibraltar, 13 September
1782, by John Singleton Copley.French entry into the war meant that
British naval superiority was now contested. The Franco-American
alliance began poorly, however, with failed operations at Rhode
Island in 1778 and Savannah, Georgia, in 1779. Part of the problem
was that France and the United States had different military
priorities: France hoped to capture British possessions in the West
Indies before helping to secure American independence. While French
financial assistance to the American war effort was already of
critical importance, French military aid to the Americans would not
show positive results until the arrival in July 1780 of a large
force of soldiers led by the Comte de Rochambeau.
Spain entered the war on the side of the Americans with the goal of
recapturing Gibraltar and Minorca, which had been lost to the
British in 1704. Gibraltar was besieged for more than three years,
but the British garrison stubbornly resisted for years and was
finally re-supplied after Admiral Rodney's victory in the "Moonlight
Battle" (January, 1780). Further Franco-Spanish efforts to capture
Gibraltar were unsuccessful. One notable success took place on
February 5, 1782 when Spanish and French forces captured Minorca,
which Spain retained after the war.
West Indies and Gulf Coast
There was much action in the West Indies, with several islands
changing hands, especially in the Lesser Antilles. Ultimately, at
the Battle of the Saintes in April 1782, a victory by Rodney's fleet
over the French Admiral de Grasse dashed the hopes of France and
Spain to take Jamaica and other colonies from the British. On May 8,
1782, Count Bernardo de Gálvez, the Spanish governor of Louisiana,
captured the British naval base at New Providence in the Bahamas.
Nevertheless, except for the French retention of the small island of
Tobago, sovereignty in the West Indies was returned to the status
quo ante bellum in the 1783 peace treaty.
On the Gulf Coast, Gálvez seized three British Mississippi River
outposts in 1779: Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez. Gálvez then
captured Mobile in 1780 and forced the surrender of the British
outpost at Pensacola in 1781. His actions led to Spain acquiring
East and West Florida in the peace settlement.
India and the Netherlands
The military action in North America and the Caribbean helped spark
a conflict between Britain and France over India, in the form of the
Second Anglo-Mysore War, starting in 1780. The two chief combatants
were Tipu Sultan, ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore and a key French
ally, and the British government of Madras. The Second Mysore war
came to an end by the Treaty of Mangalore. It is an important
document in the history of India. It was the last occasion when a
Native Indian power dictated terms to the British, who were made to
play the role of humble supplicants for peace. Warren Hasting called
it a humiliating pacification, and appealed to the king and
Parliament to punish the Madras Government for "the faith and honor
of the British nation have been equally violated."
In 1780, the British struck against the United Provinces of the
Netherlands in order to preempt Dutch involvement in the League of
Armed Neutrality, a declaration of several European powers that they
would conduct neutral trade during the war. Britain was not willing
to allow the Netherlands to openly give aid to the American rebels.
Agitation by Dutch radicals and a friendly attitude towards the
United States by the Dutch government—both influenced by the
American Revolution—also encouraged the British to attack. The
Fourth Anglo-Dutch War lasted into 1784 and was disastrous to the
Dutch mercantile economy.
Southern theater
Main article: Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War
During the first three years of the American Revolutionary War, the
primary military encounters were in the north. After French entry
into the war, the British turned their attention to the southern
colonies, where they hoped to regain control by recruiting
Loyalists. This southern strategy also had the advantage of keeping
the Royal Navy closer to the Caribbean, where the British needed to
defend their possessions against the French and Spanish.
The British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton who according to some
accounts killed surrendered American prisoners; painting by Sir
Joshua Reynolds, 1782.On December 29, 1778, an expeditionary corps
from Clinton's army in New York captured Savannah, Georgia. An
attempt by French and American forces to retake Savannah failed on
October 9, 1779. Clinton then besieged Charleston, capturing it on
May 12, 1780. With relatively few casualties, Clinton had seized the
South's biggest city and seaport, paving the way for what seemed
like certain conquest of the South.
The remnants of the southern Continental Army began to withdraw to
North Carolina but were pursued by Lt. Colonel Banastre Tarleton,
who defeated them at the Waxhaws on May 29, 1780. With these events,
organized American military activity in the region collapsed, though
the war was carried on by partisans such as Francis Marion.
Cornwallis took over British operations, while Horatio Gates arrived
to command the American effort. On August 16, 1780, Gates was
defeated at the Battle of Camden, setting the stage for Cornwallis
to invade North Carolina.
Cornwallis' victories quickly turned, however. One wing of his army
was utterly defeated at the Battle of Kings Mountain on October 7,
1780. Tarleton was decisively defeated at the Battle of Cowpens on
January 17, 1781, by American General Daniel Morgan.
General Nathanael Greene, Gates's replacement, proceeded to wear
down the British in a series of battles, each of them tactically a
victory for the British but giving no strategic advantage to the
victors. Greene summed up his approach in a motto that would become
famous: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Unable to
capture or destroy Greene's army, Cornwallis moved north to
Virginia.
In March 1781, General Washington dispatched General Lafayette to
defend Virginia. The young Frenchman skirmished with Cornwallis,
avoiding a decisive battle while gathering reinforcements.
Cornwallis was unable to trap Lafayette, and so he moved his forces
to Yorktown, Virginia, in July so the Royal Navy could return his
army to New York.
Northern and western Frontier
Further information: Western theater of the American Revolutionary
War
George Rogers Clark's 180 mile (290 km) winter march led to the
capture of General Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor of
Canada.West of the Appalachian Mountains and along the Canadian
border, the American Revolutionary War was an "Indian War." Most
Native Americans supported the British. Like the Iroquois
Confederacy, tribes such as the Cherokees and the Shawnees split
into factions.
The British supplied their native allies with muskets and gunpowder
and advised raids against civilian settlements, especially in New
York, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. Joint Iroquois-Loyalist attacks in
the Wyoming Valley and at Cherry Valley in 1778 provoked Washington
to send the Sullivan Expedition into western New York during the
summer of 1779. There was little fighting as Sullivan systematically
destroyed the Native American winter food supplies, forcing them to
flee permanently to British bases in Canada and the Niagara Falls
area.
In the Ohio Country and the Illinois Country, the Virginia
frontiersman George Rogers Clark attempted to neutralize British
influence among the Ohio tribes by capturing the outposts of
Kaskaskia and Vincennes in the summer of 1778. When General Henry
Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, retook Vincennes, Clark
returned in a surprise march in February 1779 and captured Hamilton
himself.
In 1782 came the Gnadenhütten massacre, when Pennsylvania militiamen
killed about a hundred neutral Native Americans. In August 1782, in
one of the last major encounters of the war, a force of 200 Kentucky
militia was defeated at the Battle of Blue Licks.
Yorktown and the War's end
Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).The
northern, southern, and naval theaters of the war converged in 1781
at Yorktown, Virginia. In early September, French naval forces
defeated a British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake, cutting
off Cornwallis' escape. Washington hurriedly moved American and
French troops from New York, and a combined Franco-American force of
17,000 men commenced the siege of Yorktown in early October.
Cornwallis' position quickly became untenable, and he surrendered
his army on October 19, 1781.
With the surrender at Yorktown, King George lost control of
Parliament to the peace party, and there were no further major
military activities on land. The British had 30,000 garrison troops
occupying New York City, Charleston, and Savannah. The war continued
at sea between the British and the French fleets in the West
Indies.[17] The British might have sent more troops to attack the
colonists if not for the numerous American ships attacking British
shipping lanes worldwide. Due to the impact on British pocketbooks,
the merchants put pressure on Parliament to end the war.
In London as political support for the war plummeted after Yorktown,
Prime Minister Lord North resigned in March 1782. In April 1782, the
Commons voted to end the war in America. Preliminary peace articles
were signed in Paris at the end of November, 1782; the formal end of
the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris was signed on
September 3, 1783, and the United States Congress ratified the
treaty on January 14, 1784. The last British troops left New York
City on November 25, 1783.
Britain negotiated the Paris peace treaty without consulting her
Native American allies and ceded all Native American territory
between the Appalachian Mountains and the Mississippi River to the
United States. Full of resentment, Native Americans reluctantly
confirmed these land cessions with the United States in a series of
treaties, but the fighting would be renewed in conflicts along the
frontier in the coming years, the largest being the Northwest Indian
War.
Costs of the War
Casualties
The total loss of life resulting from the American Revolutionary War
is unknown. As was typical in the wars of the era, disease claimed
more lives than battle. Historian Joseph Ellis suggests that
Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated against the
smallpox epidemic was one of his most important decisions.
An estimated 25,000 American Revolutionaries died during active
military service. About 8,000 of these deaths were in battle; the
other 17,000 deaths were from disease, including about 8,000 who
died while prisoners of war. The number of Revolutionaries seriously
wounded or disabled by the war has been estimated from 8,500 to
25,000. The total American military casualty figure was therefore as
high as 50,000.
About 171,000 seamen served for the British during the war; about 25
to 50 percent of them had been pressed into service. About 1,240
were killed in battle, while 18,500 died from disease. The greatest
killer was scurvy, a disease known at the time to be easily
preventable by issuing lemon juice to sailors. About 42,000 British
seamen deserted during the war.
Approximately 1,200 Germans were killed in action and 6,354 died
from illness or accident. About 16,000 of the remaining German
troops returned home, but roughly 5,500 remained in the United
States after the war for various reasons, many eventually becoming
American citizens. No reliable statistics exist for the number of
casualties among other groups, including Loyalists, British
regulars, Native Americans, French and Spanish troops, and
civilians.
Financial costs
The British spent about 80 million and ended with a national debt of
250 million, which it easily financed at about 9.5 million a year in
interest. The French spent 1.3 billion livres (about 56 million).
Their total national debt was 187 million, which they could not
easily finance; over half the French national revenue went to debt
service in the 1780s. The debt crisis became a major enabling factor
of the French Revolution as the government was unable to raise taxes
without public approval. The United States spent $37 million at the
national level plus $114 million by the states. This was mostly
covered by loans from France and the Netherlands, loans from
Americans, and issuance of more and more paper money (which became
"not worth a continental.") The U.S. finally solved its debt problem
in the 1790s.
The Boston Tea Party was an act of direct action protest by
the American colonists against British Government in which they
destroyed many crates of tea bricks belonging to the British East
India Company on ships in Boston Harbor. The incident, which took
place on Thursday, December 16, 1773, has been seen as helping to
spark the American Revolution and remains to this day one of the
most iconic events of the era.
Join, or Die
Join, or Die is a famous political cartoon created by Benjamin
Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9,
1754.. The original a publication by the Gazette is the earliest
known pictorial representation of colonial union produced by a
British colonist in America. It is a woodcut showing a snake severed
into eighths, with each segment labeled with the initial of a
British American colony or region.
The Spirit of '76
Minute Men of the Revolution
Minutemen were members of teams of select men from the American
colonial militia during the American Revolutionary War. They vowed
to be ready for battle against the British within one minute of
receiving notice. These teams consisted about a fourth of the entire
militia, and generally were the younger and more mobile, serving as
part of a network for early response to any threat. Minuteman and
Sons of Liberty member Paul Revere spread the news that "the red
coats are coming." Paul Revere was captured before completing his
mission when the British marched towards the arsenal in Lexington
and Concord to collect the patriots' weapons.
Paul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the
American Revolution.
The Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military
engagements of the American Revolutionary War. They were fought on
April 19, 1775, in Middlesex County, Province of Massachusetts Bay,
within the towns of Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Menotomy
(present-day Arlington), and Cambridge, near Boston. The battles
marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of
Great Britain and its thirteen colonies in the mainland of British
North America.
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775 on
Breed's Hill, as part of the Siege of Boston during the American
Revolutionary War. General Israel Putnam was in charge of the
revolutionary forces, while Major-General William Howe commanded the
British forces. Because most of the fighting did not occur on Bunker
Hill itself, the conflict is sometimes more accurately (though less
often) called the Battle of Breed's Hill.
|
