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American Revolution - 1: Causes of the Revolution
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The American Revolution, also known as the American War of Independence, spanned eight long years of fighting and political negotiations between Britain and her colonies. On October 19, 1781, the Americans, with the help of French troops under the French Count de Rochambeau, won a major battle at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis, leader of the British troops, surrendered 7,000 men. However, the final struggle of the American War of Independence was yet to come.
Two years later, in September, 1783, after much diplomacy, the Treaty of Paris was signed and the former 13 colonies were recognized as an independent nation; the United States of America was born.
Read about the American Revolution through different perspectives, written at different times in history, by different historians. Historical works used as a source for this section, may be accessed online and read in its entirety.
The American Revolution
Learn about The American Revolution and its several phases, including:
Causes of the American Revolution;
Outbreak of the American Revolution;
Formation of the Continental Army; the
Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston; and
The New Nation.
The above topics are followed by a brief summation of
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783.
The American Revolution: Causes
"The American Revolution came about, fundamentally, because by 1763 the English-speaking communities on the far side of the Atlantic had matured to an extent that their interests and goals were distinct from those of the ruling classes in the mother country. British statesmen failed to understand or adjust to the situation. Ironically enough, British victory in the Seven Years' War set the stage for the revolt, for it freed the colonists from the need for British protection against a French threat on their frontiers and gave free play to the forces working for separation.
"In 1763 the British Government, reasonably from its point of view, moved to tighten the system of imperial control and to force the colonists to contribute to imperial defense, proposing to station 10,000 soldiers along the American frontiers and to have the Americans pay part of the bill. This imperial defense plan touched off the long controversy about Parliament's right to tax that started with the Stamp and Sugar Acts and ended in December 1773, when a group of Bostonians unceremoniously dumped a cargo of British tea into the city harbor in protest against the latest reminder of the British effort to tax. In this 10-year controversy the several British ministries failed to act either firmly enough to enforce British regulations or wisely enough to develop a more viable form of imperial union, which the colonial leaders, at least until 1776, insisted that they sought. In response to the Boston Tea Party, the king and his ministers blindly pushed through Parliament a series of measures collectively known in America as the Intolerable Acts, closing the port of Boston, placing Massachusetts under the military rule of Maj. Gen. Sir Thomas Gage, and otherwise infringing on what the colonists deemed to be their rights and interests.
"Since 1763 the colonial leaders, in holding that only their own popular assemblies, not the British Parliament, had a right to levy taxes on Americans, had raised the specter of an arbitrary British Government collecting taxes in America to support red-coated Regulars who might be used not to protect the frontiers but to suppress American liberties. Placing Massachusetts under military rule gave that specter some substance and led directly to armed revolt."
This information has been sourced from
The American Revolution: First Phase,
Extracted from:
American Military History, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC 1989. The Army Historical Series can be accessed online and read in its entirety.
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American Revolution - 2: Outbreak of the War
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The American Revolution, also known as the American War of Independence, spanned eight long years of fighting and political negotiations between Britain and her colonies. On October 19, 1781, the Americans, with the help of French troops under the French Count de Rochambeau, won a major battle at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis, leader of the British troops, surrendered 7,000 men. However, the final struggle of the American War of Independence was yet to come.
Two years later, in September, 1783, after much diplomacy, the Treaty of Paris was signed and the former 13 colonies were recognized as an independent nation; the United States of America was born.
Read about the American Revolution through different perspectives, written at different times in history, by different historians. Historical works used as a source for this section, may be accessed online and read in its entirety.
The American Revolution
Learn about The American Revolution and its several phases, including:
Causes of the American Revolution;
Outbreak of the American Revolution;
Formation of the Continental Army; the
Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston; and
The New Nation.
The above topics are followed by a brief summation of
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783.
The American Revolution: The Outbreak
"The First Continental Congress meeting at Philadelphia on September 5, 1774, addressed respectful petitions to Parliament and king but also adopted nonimportation and nonexportation agreements in an effort to coerce the British Government into repealing the offending measures. To enforce these agreements, committees were formed in almost every county, town, and city throughout the colonies, and in each colony these committees soon became the effective local authorities, the base of a pyramid of revolutionary organizations with revolutionary assemblies, congresses, or conventions, and committees of safety at the top. This loosely knit combination of de facto governments superseded the constituted authorities and established firm control over the whole country before the British were in any position to oppose them. The de facto governments took over control of the militia, and out of it began to shape forces that, if the necessity arose, might oppose the British in the field.
"In Massachusetts, the seat of the crisis, the Provincial Congress, eyeing Gage's force in Boston, directed the officers in each town to enlist a third of their militia in minutemen organizations to be ready to act at a moment's warning, and began to collect ammunition and other military stores. It established a major depot for these stores at Concord, about twenty miles northwest of Boston.
"General Gage learned of the collection of military stores at Concord and determined to send a force of Redcoats to destroy them. His preparations were made with the utmost secrecy. Yet so alert and ubiquitous were the patriot eyes in Boston that when the picked British force of 700 men set out on the night of April 18, 1775, two messengers,
Paul Revere
and William Dawes, preceded them to spread the alarm throughout the countryside. . .
" . . . Before Congress could assume control, the New England forces assembled near Boston fought another battle on their own, the bloodiest single engagement of the entire Revolution. After Lexington and Concord, at the suggestion of Massachusetts, the New England colonies moved to replace the militia gathered before Boston with volunteer forces, constituting what may be loosely called a New England army. . .
" . . . Late in May Gage received limited reinforcements from England, bringing his total force to 6,500 rank and file. With the reinforcements came three major generals of reputation: Sir William Howe, Sir Henry Clinton, and Sir John Burgoyne; men destined to play major roles in England's loss of its American colonies. . .
" . . . The British scorned such a tactic, evidently in the mistaken assumption that the assembled "rabble in arms" would disintegrate in the face of an attack by disciplined British Regulars. On the afternoon of the 17th, Gage sent some 2,200 of his men under Sir William Howe directly against the American positions, by this time manned by perhaps an equal force. Twice the British advanced on the front and flanks of the redoubt on Breed's Hill, and twice the Americans, holding their fire until the compact British lines were at close range, decimated the ranks of the advancing regiments and forced them to fall back and re-form. With reinforcements, Howe carried the hill on the third try but largely because the Americans had run short of ammunition and had no bayonets. . .
" . . . Bunker Hill was a Pyrrhic victory, its strategic effect practically nil since the two armies remained in virtually the same position they had held before. Its consequences, nevertheless, cannot be ignored. A force of farmers and townsmen, fresh from their fields and shops, with hardly a semblance of orthodox military organization, had met and fought on equal terms with a professional British Army. On the British this astonishing feat had a sobering effect, for it taught them that American resistance was not to be easily overcome; never again would British commanders lightly attempt such an assault on Americans in fortified positions. . . Bunker Hill, along with Lexington and Concord, went far to create the American tradition that the citizen soldier when aroused is more than a match for the trained professional, a tradition that was to be reflected in American military policy for generations afterward."
This information has been sourced from
The American Revolution: First Phase,
Extracted from:
American Military History, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC 1989. The Army Historical Series can be accessed online and read in its entirety.
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American Revolution - 3: Formation of the Continental Army
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The American Revolution, also known as the American War of Independence, spanned eight long years of fighting and political negotiations between Britain and her colonies. On October 19, 1781, the Americans, with the help of French troops under the French Count de Rochambeau, won a major battle at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis, leader of the British troops, surrendered 7,000 men. However, the final struggle of the American War of Independence was yet to come.
Two years later, in September, 1783, after much diplomacy, the Treaty of Paris was signed and the former 13 colonies were recognized as an independent nation; the United States of America was born.
Read about the American Revolution through different perspectives, written at different times in history, by different historians. Historical works used as a source for this section, may be accessed online and read in its entirety.
The American Revolution
Learn about The American Revolution and its several phases, including:
Causes of the American Revolution;
Outbreak of the American Revolution;
Formation of the Continental Army; the
Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston; and
The New Nation.
The above topics are followed by a brief summation of
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783.
The American Revolution: Formation of the Continental Army
"The response of George III and his ministers to the events at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill was a determined effort to subdue the rebellious colonists by force. It took time to mount this effort, and after Bunker Hill the Americans enjoyed a respite lasting almost a year. . . Military preparations were designed for a short struggle, to endure no longer than the end of the year 1776. Nevertheless the Americans took advantage of the respite to create a national army, to consolidate their hold on the governmental machinery throughout the thirteen colonies, to invade Canada, and finally to force the British to evacuate Boston.
" . . . The creation of a Continental Army was in the long run perhaps their most significant achievement. . .
" . . . The next day, June 15, Congress chose George Washington, a Virginian, to be Commander in Chief. The choice was made for geographical and political as much as for military reasons. . . His impressive appearance, quiet and confident manner, and good work in the military committees of Congress had impressed all.
"The choice proved fortunate. . . He brought to the task traits of character and abilities as a leader that in the end more than compensated for his lack of professional military experience. Among these qualities were a determination and a steadfastness of purpose rooted in an unshakable conviction of the righteousness of the American cause, a scrupulous sense of honor and duty, and a dignity that inspired respect and confidence in those around him. . .
" . . . The army of which Washington formally took command on July 3, 1775, he described as "a mixed multitude of people . . . under very little discipline, order or government." Out of this "mixed multitude," Washington set out to create an army shaped in large part in the British image. Basing his observations on his experience with British Regulars during the French and Indian War, he wrote: "Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable;
"While establishing discipline in the existing army, Washington had at the same time to form a new one enlisted directly in the Continental service. Out of conferences with a Congressional committee that visited camp in September 1775 emerged a plan for such an army, composed of 26 regiments of infantry of 728 men each, plus one regiment of riflemen and one of artillery, 20,372 men in all, to be uniformly paid, supplied, and administered by the Continental Congress and enlisted to the end of the year 1776. Except for the short term of enlistment, it was an excellent plan on paper, but Washington soon found he could not carry it out. . . Washington found that he had only slightly more than 8,000 enlistments instead of the 20,000 planned. Returns in early March showed only a thousand or so more.
" . . . With enlistments falling short, the only recourse was to continue to use short-term militia to fill the gaps in the lines. A Continental Army had been formed, but it fell far short of the goals Washington and Congress had set for it."
This information has been sourced from
The American Revolution: First Phase,
Extracted from:
American Military History, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC 1989. The Army Historical Series can be accessed online and read in its entirety.
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American Revolution - 4: Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston
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The American Revolution, also known as the American War of Independence, spanned eight long years of fighting and political negotiations between Britain and her colonies. On October 19, 1781, the Americans, with the help of French troops under the French Count de Rochambeau, won a major battle at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis, leader of the British troops, surrendered 7,000 men. However, the final struggle of the American War of Independence was yet to come.
Two years later, in September, 1783, after much diplomacy, the Treaty of Paris was signed and the former 13 colonies were recognized as an independent nation; the United States of America was born.
Read about the American Revolution through different perspectives, written at different times in history, by different historians. Historical works used as a source for this section, may be accessed online and read in its entirety.
The American Revolution
Learn about The American Revolution and its several phases, including:
Causes of the American Revolution;
Outbreak of the American Revolution;
Formation of the Continental Army; the
Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston; and
The New Nation.
The above topics are followed by a brief summation of
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783.
The American Revolution: Invasion of Canada and the Fall of Boston
"The major military operations of 1775 and early 1776 were not around Boston but in far-distant Canada, which the Americans tried to add as a fourteenth colony. Canada seemed a tempting and vulnerable target. To take it would eliminate a British base at the head of the familiar invasion route along the lake and river chain connecting the St. Lawrence with the Hudson. Congress, getting no response to an appeal to the Canadians to join in its cause, in late June 1775 instructed Maj. Gen. Philip Schuyler of New York to take possession of Canada if "practicable" and "not disagreeable to the Canadians."
"Schuyler managed to get together a force of about 2,000 men from New York and Connecticut, thus forming the nucleus of what was to become known as the Northern Army. In September 1775 Brig. Gen. Richard Montgomery set out with this small army . . .
"Montgomery, advancing along the route via Lake George, Lake Champlain, and the Richelieu River, was seriously delayed by the British fort at St. Johns but managed to capture Montreal on November 13. Arnold [Col. Benedict Arnold] meanwhile had arrived opposite Quebec on November 8, after one of the most rugged marches in history. One part of his force had turned back and others were lost bystarvation, sickness, drowning, and desertion. Only 600 men crossed the St. Lawrence on November 13, and in imitation of Wolfe scaled the cliffs and encamped on the Plains of Abraham. It was a magnificent feat, but the force was too small to prevail even against the scattered Canadian militia and British Regulars . . .
"Nowhere did the Canadians show much inclination to rally to the American cause; the French habitants remained indifferent, and the small British population gave its loyalty to the governor general. With the enlistments of about half their men expiring by the new year, Arnold and Montgomery undertook a desperate assault on the city during the night of December 30 in the middle of a raging blizzard. The Americans were outnumbered by the defenders, and the attack was a failure. Montgomery was killed and Arnold wounded.
"The wounded Arnold, undaunted, continued to keep up the appearance of a siege with the scattered remnants of his force while he waited for reinforcements. The reinforcements came. . . but they came in driblets . . . Meanwhile, the British received reinforcements and in June 1776 struck back against a disintegrating American army that retreated before them almost without a fight. By mid-July the Americans were back at Ticonderoga where they had started less than a year earlier, and the initiative on the northern front passed to the British.
" . . . Washington finally took the initiative at Boston. On March 4, 1776, he moved onto Dorchester Heights and emplaced his newly acquired artillery in position to menace the city; a few days later he fortified Nook's Hill, standing still closer in. On March 17 the British moved out. . . The stores of cannon and ammunition the British were forced to leave behind were a welcome addition indeed to the meager American arsenal."
This information has been sourced from
The American Revolution: First Phase,
Extracted from:
American Military History, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC 1989. The Army Historical Series can be accessed online and read in its entirety."
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American Revolution - 5: The New Nation
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The American Revolution, also known as the American War of Independence, spanned eight long years of fighting and political negotiations between Britain and her colonies. On October 19, 1781, the Americans, with the help of French troops under the French Count de Rochambeau, won a major battle at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis, leader of the British troops, surrendered 7,000 men. However, the final struggle of the American War of Independence was yet to come.
Two years later, in September, 1783, after much diplomacy, the Treaty of Paris was signed and the former 13 colonies were recognized as an independent nation; the United States of America was born.
Read about the American Revolution through different perspectives, written at different times in history, by different historians. Historical works used as a source for this section, may be accessed online and read in its entirety.
The American Revolution
Learn about The American Revolution and its several phases, including:
Causes of the American Revolution;
Outbreak of the American Revolution;
Formation of the Continental Army; the
Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston; and
The New Nation.
The above topics are followed by a brief summation of
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783.
The American Revolution: The New Nation
"The Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, established a new nation and transformed a limited revolt to secure rights within the British empire into a far-reaching one, aimed at complete independence from British control. Since the king and his ministers had determined to restore British rule, the Americans now faced a long, hard struggle for independence requiring a sustained national effort such as they had not expected in 1775.
"The new nation was still a weak confederation of thirteen independent states. Such national feeling as existed was a new phenomenon growing out of common opposition to British measures. Colonial tradition, divided loyalties, the nature of the economy, and the spirit of a revolt born in opposition to the use of military force to suppress popular liberties, all worked against the creation of any new strong central authority capable of mobilizing resources effectively for the long struggle that lay ahead.
"The thirteen states proclaiming their independence in 1776 possessed a total population of about two and a half million people, but not all the males of military age were part of the military potential. . .The genuine patriots still provided a far larger potential of military manpower than the British could possibly transport and supply across the Atlantic, but most of the men of military age were farmers who married young and immediately started large families. Whatever their patriotic sentiments, few were ready to undertake long terms of military service, fearing that if they did their farms and families at home would suffer. . .
"The economy of the thirteen new states was neither self-sufficient nor truly national. The states were essentially a collection of separate agricultural communities, accustomed to exchanging their agricultural surplus for British manufactured goods and West Indian products. Manufacturing was still in its infancy. . . While the country produced foodstuffs in ample quantity, transport from one area to another was difficult. The normal avenues of commerce ran up and down the rivers, not overland; . . .
"The governmental machinery created after the Declaration was characterized by decentralization and executive weakness. The thirteen new "free and independent states" transformed their existing de facto revolutionary governments into legal state governments by adopting institutions. . . Articles of Confederation stipulating the terms of union and granting Congress specific but limited powers were drawn up shortly after the Declaration, but jealousies among the states prevented ratification until 1781. . .
"The decentralized structure provided no adequate means of financing the war. The state legislatures, possessing the power to tax that Congress lacked, hesitated to use it extensively in the face of popular opposition to taxation, and were normally embarrassed to meet even their own expenses. . . paper money was a useful expedient in the early part of the war; indeed the Revolution could not have been carried on without it. But successive issues by Congress and the states led to first gradual and then galloping inflation, leaving the phrase "not worth a Continental" as a permanent legacy to the American language."
This information has been sourced from
The American Revolution: First Phase,
Extracted from:
American Military History, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC 1989. The Army Historical Series can be accessed online and read in its entirety.
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American Revolution - 6: Winning of Independence 1777-1783
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The American Revolution, also known as the American War of Independence, spanned eight long years of fighting and political negotiations between Britain and her colonies. On October 19, 1781, the Americans, with the help of French troops under the French Count de Rochambeau, won a major battle at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis, leader of the British troops, surrendered 7,000 men. However, the final struggle of the American War of Independence was yet to come.
Two years later, in September, 1783, after much diplomacy, the Treaty of Paris was signed and the former 13 colonies were recognized as an independent nation; the United States of America was born.
Read about the American Revolution through different perspectives, written at different times in history, by different historians. Historical works used as a source for this section, may be accessed online and read in its entirety.
The American Revolution
Learn about The American Revolution and its several phases, including:
Causes of the American Revolution;
Outbreak of the American Revolution;
Formation of the Continental Army; the
Invasion of Canada and Fall of Boston; and
The New Nation.
The above topics are followed by a brief summation of
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783.
The American Revolution: The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783
"The American victory in the War of the Revolution was a product of many factors, no one of which can be positively assigned first importance. Washington, looking back on the vicissitudes of eight years, could only explain it as the intervention of "Divine Providence." American historians in the nineteenth century saw that "Divine Providence" as having been manifested primarily in the character and genius of the modest Commander in Chief himself. Washington's leadership was clearly one of the principal factors in American success; it seems fair to say that the Revolution could hardly have succeeded without him. . .
"Today many scholars stress not the astonishment that Washington felt at the victory of a weak and divided confederation of American states over the greatest power of the age, but the practical difficulties the British faced in suppressing the revolt. These were indeed great but they do not appear to have been insuperable if one considers military victory alone and not its political consequences. The British forfeited several chances for military victory in 1776-77, and again in 1780 they might have won had they been able to throw 10,000 fresh troops into the American war. American military leaders were more resourceful and imaginative than the British commanders, and they proved quite capable of profiting from British blunders. In addition to Washington, Nathanael Greene, Henry Knox, Daniel Morgan, and Benedict Arnold showed remarkable military abilities, and of the foreign volunteers Steuben and the young Lafayette were outstanding. The resourcefulness of this extraordinary group of leaders was matched by the dedication of the Continental rank and file to the cause. Only men so dedicated could have endured the hardships of the march to Quebec, the crossing of the Delaware, Valley Forge, Morristown, and Greene's forced marches in the southern campaign. British and Hessian professionals never showed the same spirit; their virtues were exhibited principally in situations where discipline and training counted most.
"The militia, the men who fought battles and then went home, also exhibited this spirit on many occasions. The militiamen have been generally maligned as useless by one school of thought, and glorified by another as the true victors in the war. In any balanced view it must be recognized that their contributions were great, though they would have counted for little without a Continental Army to give the American cause that continued sustenance that only a permanent force in being could give it. It was the ubiquity of the militia that made British victories over the Continentals in the field so meaningless. And the success with which the militia did operate derived from the firm political control the patriots had established over the countryside long before the British were in any position to challenge it; the situation that made the British task so difficult in the first place.
"For all these American virtues and British difficulties and mistakes, the Americans still required French aid; money, supplies, and in the last phase military force, to win a decisive and clear-cut military victory. Most of the muskets, bayonets, and cannon used by the Continental Army came from France. The French contested the control of the seas that was so vital to the British, and compelled them to divert forces from the American mainland to other areas. The final stroke at Yorktown, though a product of Washington's strategic conception, was possible only because of the temporary predominance of French naval power off the American coast and the presence of a French army.
"French aid was doubly necessary because the American war effort lacked strong national direction. The Revolution showed conclusively the need for a central government with power to harness the nation's resources for war. It is not surprising that in 1787 nearly all those who had struggled so long and hard as leaders in the Continental Army or in administrative positions under the Congress were to be found in the ranks of the supporters of a new constitution creating such a central government with a strong executive and the power to "raise armies and navies," call out the militia, and levy taxes directly to support itself.
"Strictly military lessons of the Revolution were more equivocal. Tactical innovations were not radical but they did represent a culmination of the trend, which started during the French and Indian War, toward employment of light troops as skirmishers in conjunction with traditional linear formations. By the end of the war both armies were fighting in this fashion. . .
"Since both militia and Continentals played roles in winning the war, the Revolutionary experience provided ammunition for two diametrically opposed schools of thought on American military policy: the one advocating a large Regular Army, the other reliance on the militia as the bulwark of national defense. . . The real issue, as Washington fully recognized, was less militia versus Regulars; for he never believed the infant republic needed a large standing army, than the extent to which militia could be trained and organized to form a reliable national reserve. The lesson Washington drew from the Revolution was that the militia should be "well regulated," that is, trained and organized under uniform national system in all the states and subject to call into national service in war or emergency.
"The lesson had far greater implications for the future than any of the tactical changes wrought by the American Revolution. It balanced the rights of freedom and equality, proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, with a corresponding obligation of all citizens for military service to the nation. This concept, which was to find explicit expression in the "nation in arms" during the French Revolution, was also implicit in the American, and it portended the end of eighteenth century limited war, fought by professional armies officered by an aristocratic class. As Steuben so well recognized, American Continentals were not professional soldiers in the European sense, and militia even less so. They were, instead, a people's army fighting for a cause. In this sense then, the American Revolution began the "democratization of war," a process that was eventually to lead to national conscription and a new concept of total war for total victory."
This information has been sourced from
The Winning of Independence, 1777-1783,
Extracted from:
American Military History, Center of Military History, United States Army, Washington, DC 1989. The Army Historical Series can be accessed online and read in its entirety.
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