Revolutionary War

n.

The American Revolution.

American independence war (1775-83). By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, British fortunes in North America had reached their zenith. All threat of French intervention had been removed from the American colonies, which enjoyed considerable wealth and freedom from external interference in local affairs. Yet within fifteen years bloody revolution would shatter the calm of this prosperous land.

The American population grew rapidly, from about 500, 000 in 1713 to 4 million in 1775. This new people, many of them of non-Anglo-Saxon origin, felt stronger ties to their local area than to the distant authority of the crown. Increasingly, the restrictions and controls imposed from London were seen as irrelevant and onerous. Furthermore, the Seven Years War had cost huge sums of money, and it was felt by London that the colonists themselves should bear the brunt of the cost of the American garrison of 8, 000 British soldiers. In 1764 Chancellor Greville levied a Sugar Tax on molasses brought into the thirteen colonies from outside the British empire, in order to pay for American defence. However, this duty proved inadequate, and in 1764 the additional Stamp Act was passed, which levied a duty on all legal transactions and newspapers. In 1766, nine colonies sent representatives to debate the measure. They resolved not to accept any tax imposed without prior consultation. Riots soon flared up and tax-collectors were attacked. These measures were repealed, but soon financial pressure led to a tax on the import of paper, paint, glass, and tea, all of which was bound to be unacceptable to the colonists, who now found themselves put in the position of rejecting British sovereignty outright. Thus it was that in 1770, the unpopularity of British methods led to violent street disturbances, and troops fired on a rioting mob, killing five—the ‘Boston Massacre’. In 1772, the revenue cutter Gaspée was wrecked by Rhode Islanders, and in 1773 the ‘Boston Tea Party’ saw British-monopolized tea thrown into the harbour in a gesture of contempt for the taxation system. As a result, Boston was closed to shipping, and generous trade concessions were given to the newly integrated French Canadians in Quebec.

In April 1775 the British C-in-C, Gen Thomas Gage, mounted a sortie to seize a stockpile of arms and powder at Concord, promptly became involved in a running fight, and, in retreating to Boston, suffered severe losses at Lexington. The affair quickly escalated and colonial militia began to entrench themselves enthusiastically around Boston Harbour, overlooking the British garrison. In June Gage's newly arrived replacement, Sir William Howe, launched a successful frontal assault against the American earthworks on Breed's Hill and Bunker Hill, which cost the British over 1, 000 casualties, 40 per cent of the attacking force, and was a serious blow to their pride, morale, and capability for offensive operations.

In June 1775, the Continental Congress appointed Washington, a wealthy Virginian planter with experience in the colonial militia, as its C-in-C. In autumn 1775, the British found themselves under pressure on all fronts. The Boston garrison was hemmed in, and American patriots had also seized the forts at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, threatening the Canadian urban centres of Montreal and Quebec. In the southern colonies Sir Henry Clinton attempted a coup de main in May at Charleston, but was bloodily repulsed, losing a ship and many men in an abortive artillery duel with shore batteries at Fort Moultrie. Meanwhile, Howe had brought 9, 000 reinforcements from England to Boston, but his supply ships failed to arrive, and by early spring of 1776, his situation began to look desperate. The British had no choice now but to evacuate Boston, and this they did, making for Halifax, Nova Scotia, in March.

British strategy now came to centre on the Hudson river and the Canada-New York axis, in an effort to advance from Canada to capture New York, thus splitting Pennsylvania and the southern colonies from New England and New York. It was hoped that many Loyalists would rally to the crown in upstate New York, and that the riverine transport system would ease supply and communication.

But the British proceeded at a snail's pace and lacked any unifying direction, confused as they were by contradictory instructions, arriving at a time lag of three months from London. Meanwhile Howe's army was rapidly starving in Nova Scotia, where it was delayed until June 1776 waiting for provisions. Once victualled, the fleet set out for Staten Island, where it deposited the army. In August the Brigade of Guards arrived, accompanied by a Hessian force and Clinton's sorry refugees from Charleston. Howe felt ready to launch his offensive. He was ably supported by his brother, Richard, commanding the fleet, and had a force of 25, 000 mainly crack troops.

The war of American Independence
(Click to enlarge)

After a token resistance, American forces abandoned New York, retreating northwards. Howe took the city, but had failed to deal a knockout blow to the rebels. A month later he mounted another amphibious assault against the American positions north of New York, on the Harlem Heights. The patriots were beaten, and Fort Washington captured, but the Americans were not cowed by these setbacks, and scurried back to White Plains. The American cause now seemed to be in serious decline. However, Washington advanced across the Delaware, surprising a Hessian detachment at Trenton on Boxing Day 1776. This developed into a general engagement between the forces of Cornwallis and Washington on New Year's Eve, and the Americans were bundled back to Princeton where the British were checked, and in consequence abandoned New Jersey.

Lt Gen John Burgoyne was appointed to command the Canadian offensive. He was a flamboyant and charismatic leader, but he was also ambitious and headstrong, and this proved to be his undoing. Howe, meanwhile, was concentrating on a push towards Philadelphia, the congressional capital, and it was unclear how the two commanders would be able to co-ordinate their operations effectively. In the event Howe did not land at the mouth of the Delaware, but sailed instead to the head of Chesapeake Bay, ending up no nearer to Philadelphia than where he had started from. After a month at sea, his army was in bad shape, whereas Washington was ready and waiting. Nevertheless at Brandywine Creek, the Americans proved unable to resist a bayonet charge, combined with a subtle flanking manoeuvre. However, the British were worn out by their march from the sea, and a hard fight, and could only look on as the Americans recoiled in abject panic. By 25 September, Howe had occupied Philadelphia. On 4 October Washington launched another surprise attack, at Germantown, but a confused, running battle proved inconclusive. The year 1777 ended with Howe penned in at Philadelphia, while further away to the north, events of far greater import had taken place.

In late June 1777, Burgoyne, with a force of 9, 500, captured Ticonderoga, pressing southwards to Hubbardton and Fort Edward on the Hudson. Lost in the back country and after a string of reverses, the British came under mounting American pressure at Freeman's Farm, on 7 October, losing 700 casualties. They withdrew under punishing American assaults until on 14 October Burgoyne surrendered to Horatio Gates at Saratoga: only 1, 500 of his remaining force were to survive a captivity that lasted until 1782. Burgoyne was released on parole, and returned to London to attempt to vindicate himself.

Despite this signal victory, the congressional forces remained in disarray. Gates and Washington feuded constantly with Congress, and the Continental Army endured great hardship during a severe winter at Valley Forge outside British-occupied Philadelphia. But hungry eyes in Europe looked on intently. France now resolved to enter the war on the side of the colonists. The war had changed from civil insurrection to a world war which would engulf the West Indies, Europe, and India. To prevent a separate peace treaty, France recognized the nationhood of the USA in December 1777. Spain joined the war as France's ally in June 1779. The French and Spanish fleets were poorly co-ordinated and much Spanish attention was diverted by the siege of Gibraltar, and even the 1780-1 campaigns in Florida failed to divert any substantial British forces away from the main theatre of operations. As the war dragged on, the Dutch took up arms on behalf of the Americans, although distracted by their own problems, and eventually in 1780 Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Portugal, and the Two Sicilies formed the League of Armed Neutrality against British attempts to seize and search shipping suspected of supplying the American war effort. By the spring of 1778, Lord North, the British premier, found himself embroiled in a world war, and had to contend with a domestic opposition which regarded American war aims as eminently reasonable.

In the winter of 1777-8, Howe remained supine in Philadelphia until replaced by Sir Henry Clinton in May. Clinton promptly withdrew from Philadelphia to New York, where he planned to disperse his forces to the West Indies, Florida, and Halifax, retaining New York itself as a base for naval and amphibious operations. In contrast, the French alliance had strengthened patriot morale, and Washington felt confident enough to launch an assault on Clinton's rearguard at Monmouth, as the British retreated overland to New York. The Americans under Charles Lee launched an attack with 4, 000 disciplined regulars, but were repulsed, as Clinton executed a masterly withdrawal. Washington himself had to intervene to prevent the flight of his army in the face of determined British counter-attacks.

During the winter of 1778-9, the French fleet regrouped in the West Indies and the war continued in raids and skirmishes. The Americans had entertained high hopes from French intervention, but initially these had proved to be misplaced, as little had been achieved by the alliance in 1778. Furthermore, a force of 3, 000 British, aided by the Florida garrison, recaptured Georgia in February. In August 1779, in response to a request from the governor of South Carolina, the French Adm d'Estaing reappeared, having successfully completed his operations in the West Indies. He immediately laid siege to Savannah, and launched an abortive storming, in which he was wounded, and at once departed for France. It was a discouraging move. Washington was still hampered by lack of war finance, and so far the French intervention had proved indecisive. Runaway inflation was crippling the American war effort, and morale among the population had reached a low ebb: there seemed to be no way forward.

In February 1780 Clinton landed 8, 000 troops in the southern theatre, with the objective of capturing Charleston as a base of operations. From the outset, the Americans were heavily outnumbered, and surrendered 5, 000 men there in May. Opposition in South Carolina crumbled, and the way was open for a strike to the north, where Rochambeau, with a sizeable French force was threatening New York. Clinton duly returned north, nominating Lord Cornwallis as his successor in the south. Cornwallis hoped that many Loyalists would rally to the British cause, but in the event this support proved unreliable. Congress, for its part, renewed the effort against the British in the south. Horatio Gates, the victor of Saratoga, was sent to the army and set about engaging the British without delay. At Camden, on 16 August 1780, the Americans suffered one of the worst defeats of the war: Gates himself fled. As Cornwallis moved into North Carolina in September 1780, his capable subordinate Ferguson, inventor of an early breech-loading rifle which bears his name, was ambushed and killed at King's Mountain, losing 1, 000 men. This provided a major boost to American morale, and the British retired to Winnsborough under continuous attack.

Cornwallis was reinforced in January 1781, and he could draw on a force of 4, 000 tough and disciplined local supporters—‘Tories’—and regulars. For their part, the Americans were invigorated by the appointment of Nathanael Greene as overall commander in the south, assisted by ‘Light Horse Harry’ Lee and the veteran Pennsylvania commander Daniel Morgan. Cornwallis was forced to protect his extended posts from Greene's pinprick attacks. Tarleton's detached corps was caught at Cowpens on 17 January and almost annihilated. Cornwallis swiftly turned on the Americans, but Greene retired into the marshes and waterways of North Carolina, followed by the British who were plagued by sickness, desertion, lack of supplies, and harassing attacks. By the time it had reached Virginia, Cornwallis's army was in such poor condition that he was obliged to withdraw towards Hillsboro, pausing at Guilford Courthouse to regroup. Seeing Greene close at hand with a substantial force, Cornwallis seized the opportunity to attack. Despite a magnificent and hard-fought victory, Cornwallis could not exploit his advantage, and was forced to march down the Cape Fear river to Wilmington for much-needed rest.

In 1781 Clinton prepared an expedition to the Chesapeake in support of Cornwallis, to be commanded by Arnold. The British landed, occupied Portsmouth, and resisted all attempts to dislodge them. The patriot cause seemed all but lost, and the French were horrified by the apparent weakness of their allies. Inflation and profiteering were turning the population against the patriot cause, and continued inaction only served to advance British interests. In May 1781 Cornwallis and Arnold united their forces near Richmond. Clinton wished to establish a safe anchorage, and instructed Cornwallis to fortify Yorktown on Chesapeake Bay to command the sea approaches. Rochambeau appealed to Adm de Grasse to bring his fleet to the Chesapeake, while Washington moved 7, 000 French and American regulars to Yorktown, soon to be reinforced by de Grasse with 28 ships of the line and 4, 000 more troops. In September Hood attempted to drive off the French fleet with 19 ships of the line, but his force was badly mauled in the battle of Chesapeake Bay and pulled back to New York, leaving 6, 000 British facing 16, 000 French and continental troops when the siege of Yorktown began on 28 September 1781. The following day Cornwallis withdrew from his outer works, and by 9 October he was under heavy and continuous fire, and attempted an evacuation across the river to Gloucester Point, but this was foiled by bad weather. By then, with only 3, 000 men fit for duty and artillery ammunition exhausted, Cornwallis surrendered on 19 October, four years after Saratoga.

The British command had failed to prevent Washington's move to Virginia or to intercept the French fleet as it left its base at Rhode Island. De Grasse, Washington, and Rochambeau had co-ordinated their efforts in a way hitherto unimaginable. The campaign was a masterpiece that only served to highlight the weakness of the British command. It was a shattering blow, well described by Jeremy Black as ‘the biggest humiliation of British military power until the surrender of Singapore in 1942’. The British participants were aware that something momentous had taken place. As they marched out with the honours of war, their bands played a popular tune called ‘The World turned Upside Down’. When news reached London of the surrender, Lord North cried out ‘Oh God! It is all over’, and the way was clear for the Treaty of Versailles (1783).

The treaty recognized the independence of the USA, and though it left Britain defeated it sacrificed none of her essential interests, and in the years that followed she was able to extend her global reach. On the other hand, the few gains that France had made, like Tobago, could not compensate for the enormous cost of the war to the French exchequer, and this proved to be a decisive factor in the crisis of 1789. The war had old and new aspects. It was an early and important instance of a successful popular revolt, an example not lost on many Frenchmen. Yet its conduct was anything but revolutionary. Although both sides made wide use of light troops, the Americans, like the British, placed heavy reliance on regular infantry fighting in line, and the contribution of the Continental Army—itself shaped by European drillmasters like Steuben—was at least as important as that of Morgan's riflemen or the ‘over the mountain men’ who beat Ferguson at King's Mountain. Conversely, there were times when the British and their Hessian allies were actually more flexible than the Americans, and Cornwallis's victory at Camden deserves to be better remembered. British commanders wrestled with significant disadvantages. Although they enjoyed some popular support (and like so many wars of independence, this contained elements of civil war) it was rarely strong enough for them to be able to glean supplies within America. They remained dependent on sea transport to bring supplies from Britain, and the strength of their field army was constantly eroded by the need to garrison bases threatened by a hostile population. Only by decisive defeat of the Continental Army, followed by the large-scale occupation of territory, could the British hope to win. Before France's entry into the war such a task was difficult, not least because Washington recognized that he could not afford to risk major defeat. After it, it was all but impossible, and the British lost their colonies as much in the waters off the American coast as in the hamlets or backwoods of the hinterland.

Bibliography

• Black, Jeremy, War for America: The Fight for Independence 1775-1783 (Stroud, 1991).
• Conway, Stephen, The War of American Independence 1775-1783 (London, 1995).
• Hibbert, Christopher, Redcoats and Rebels (London, 1991)

— Toby McLeod/Richard Holmes

American War of Independence, 1775-83. The roots of American independence go as deep as the original settlements—colonists of a dissenting disposition, the development of a more egalitarian society without bishops or noblemen, colonial assemblies gaining political experience, and a population increasing in size, prosperity, and confidence. In 1715 the colonists numbered fewer than half a million, of whom 70, 000 were negro slaves. By 1770 there were more than 2 million.

The crisis was triggered by the Seven Years War, during which the British drove the French out of Canada. Only the threat of falling prey to Spain or France had kept the colonists in check. That check was removed at exactly the moment that the British became alarmed at the rising cost of the plantations: they were determined that the Americans should bear more of the imperial burden. Grenville's Stamp Act of 1764 led to a storm of protest. Though the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, the Declaratory Act which reaffirmed British sovereignty deprived the gesture of much of its appeal. The imposition of the Townshend duties provoked violence. The Boston massacre of 1770 was followed by the seizure of the Gaspée in 1772 and the Boston Tea Party in 1773. By 1774 the Americans had summoned a congress to concert resistance.

Once fighting began at Lexington in 1775, Britain faced a difficult military task. To occupy and garrison so vast a country was out of the question. But many Americans remained loyal to the crown and British armed intervention could give them the upper hand. The first phase finished when Burgoyne's grandiose plan to cut off New England ended in capitulation at Saratoga in October 1777. Though the disaster could have been retrieved, it brought France and Spain into the conflict. Nevertheless the issue remained in doubt and Washington experienced great difficulty in holding his troops together. In 1780 Cornwallis led a major expedition to the southern colonies. He was cut off and his surrender at Yorktown in October 1781 brought the conflict to an end. American independence was recognized by the treaty of Versailles in 1783.

The short-term consequences were less dramatic than many expected. Though Britain's eclipse as a world power was confidently predicted, her economic recovery was swift. But in the long run there was a great shift of power across the Atlantic and the population of the USA passed that of the mother country soon after the American Civil War, in the 1860s. In the long perspective of world events, the colonization and the loss of America, together with the spread of the English language and English parliamentary institutions, seems the single most important development in British history.

The colonial wars were the background to the Revolutionary War. The cost of the colonial military campaigns led many in Britain to feel that the colonies should shoulder a larger share of the costs for their own administration and defense. Many of the colonials, in contrast, felt that they should be given greater freedom from a crown situated on the other side of the great ocean, too far removed from their daily lives. The colonial wars also provided the necessary military experience that many patriots, most notably Gen. George Washington, would draw on in the ensuing conflict.

It is easy in hindsight to view the conflict and its result as inevitable. Hindsight tends to find in chaos and chance events a pattern recognizable after the fact. At the time of the Revolution, events could have just as easily unfolded otherwise. The lines were rarely finely drawn as there were loyalists born in America and British liberals extremely critical of the British crown.

The War of Independence was fought on many fronts. It broke out in Boston and New England, moved to New York and New Jersey, and then encompassed parts of Virginia and the Carolinas. There were few decisive battles; the fortunes of both sides waxed and waned over the years in different places. The battle of Yorktown in 1781 was the last major military engagement. Negotiations between the two sides began in April 1782 and by February 1783 a formal treaty was signed. Britain lost its thirteen colonies and the United States came into being. The following maps note some of the more significant encounters of the War of Independence.

Boston and New England were at the center of the early conflict between the Colonials and the British. The argument had been brewing for some time over the imposition of taxes. After a two-year boycott of British goods tension was in the air. Things could have gone very differently. On 5 March 1770 the British Parliament repealed the unpopular duties. But on the same day a brawl took place between citizens of Boston and British troops. The troops fired on the unruly mob and three people were instantly killed and two mortally wounded. The event fueled the republican cause. Three years later tea, an item still taxed by the British, was dumped into Boston harbor. The British were goaded into action, just what the radicals wanted.

The British had naval superiority and could blockade the unruly cities. The map of 1775 reproduced here (fig. 22) shows English men-of-war ships in Boston harbor. Inland, the situation differed. In 1775 Gen. Thomas Gage sent redcoats to take control of munitions at Concord and arrest radical leaders, but they had been forewarned by Paul Revere's famous ride and call that the "British are coming."

The map shows the engagements at Lexington when redcoats faced off against almost seven hundred Minutemen. The battle was not decisive, and fewer than ten people were killed; however, it signaled the start of armed resistance and open warfare in the colonies. It marked the formal beginning of the War of Independence. The map also shows the engagement at Concord where the British were forced to withdraw.

This is a complicated small map because it depicts not only the geography of the area, but also tries to show the recent military history in illustrative form as bands of soldiers are shown marching and fighting in the countryside around Boston. Battles are portrayed, military positions outlined, and army camps located. The map tells us about the local geography and recent military history of the area.

The war was not restricted to colonials and British. The French joined with the Americans against their British enemies. The French role in the war is clearly illustrated in this map of Rhode Island from 1778 (fig. 23). At the bottom of the map a substantial French fleet is shown just off the coast. Washington and the French leader Comte d'Estaing hatched a plan to attack the British at Newport in 1778. The city had a fine harbor and was under British control. The French were to attack the city from the west, the Colonials were to depart from Providence and take the ferry to Rhode Island from Tivertona and attack from the north. The attack was set for August 10th.

The French landed troops on Conannicut Island, just to the west of the city, while the Colonials moved south, their way made easy as the British had retired to Newport. The British defenses around the city are shown on the map. They were also reinforced by the arrival of British ships, also shown in the map in the "Maine Channel" and "Eastern Passage." For two days the British and French fleets eyed each cautiously, but strong winds blew them out of formation. The French fleet departed for Boston. The Colonials, under the command of Gen. John Sullivan, attacked the city on

August 14 but were resisted. Without French support the attack petered out.

Like many a battle plan the attack on Newport was characterized by many errors, mishaps, chance events, and breakdowns in communication. The French did not put ashore 4,000 troops when they could have and sailed away too soon. Sullivan was lucky to escape from Rhode Island. The day after he left a British force of 4,000 men arrived to trap him on the island. Unfavorable winds had slowed their journey enough so that Sullivan and his men could escape.

Boston was one of the storm centers of the American Revolution. Within the city and in the surrounding area there was a significant amount of anti-British sentiment. The city portrayed in this map was a crucible of patriotic resistance. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 had initiated the formal acts of defiance against British rule in the colonies.

The map (fig. 24) was drawn in 1775 by Lt. Page of the British Corps of Engineers. They were responsible for building fortifications. The map is oriented with north at the top and shows the street plan of the city. Boston was a city of the sea. It was a merchant city; the many wharfs along the shoreline tell of commercial connections with the Caribbean, Britain, and Europe. The city is packed into a constricted land mass with a tightly congested street pattern. The British mapmaker has selected significant hills in the city, important sites for military considerations and defensive fortifications. Overlying the street pattern the mapmaker has also identified the major public buildings as well as military installations. The key at the bottom of the map identifies military and civil sites in the left and right columns, respectively.

The map was drawn at a particularly tense time. In early 1775 minutemen were beginning to surround the city. The British commander dispatched approximately seven hundred redcoats to secure munitions at Concord and to arrest patriotic leaders. After the British forces were fired upon at Lexington and forced to withdraw at

Concord they retreated to Boston in April 1775. It was not only the sea that surrounded the city but also anti-British patriotic sentiment. In June 1775 patriots occupied the high ground on the Charlestown Peninsula, whose southernmost edge is shown at the top of this map. It was close enough to be within artillery range. The British regained the strategic location of Bunker Hill at a heavy cost. The city remained in British hands but it was effectively besieged. Although able to move ships in and out, the British were landlocked in the city. The fortifications described in the map were the British response to the rising tide of patriotic force in the region. The next year, 1776, Washington surrounded the city and British troops were evacuated by ship to Nova Scotia.

When the British retreated from Concord and Lexington in April 1775, they returned to occupy the city of Boston. In order to secure the city they sought to occupy commanding heights around the city including Bunker's Hill on the Charlestown Peninsula. A patriotic group, the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, got wind of the plan and decided to occupy the first site. On the night of June 16, approximately one thousand patriots marched to Breed's Hill and worked tirelessly through the night to build defenses, trenches and bales of cotton and hay. The patriots also occupied and fortified Bunker Hill. The Battle of Bunker Hill is the story of how the British retook the site.

The 1775 map of the battle shown here (fig. 25) is both a geography and history. The map focuses on the Charlestown Peninsula that was a strategic location in Boston harbor. The unfolding of the battle is shown with reference to the sequence of military events noted in the key to the left of the map. The map is oriented with the north in the bottom right-hand corner of the map.

On 17 June 1775, the British assault began with a bombardment of Charlestown and the high terrain with howitzers and mortars from Boston and from the two ships, Lively and Falcon, shown on the map. British troops under the command of Gen. Richard Howe landed to the east of Bunker Hill, marked "A" on the bottom of the map. The British attacked the patriots on the hill by moving forward in two ranks. The British came to within 150 feet of the barricades before the Americans opened fire. The devastating fire caused them to withdraw. Another attack was also repulsed before the British finally captured the Hill when the Americans ran out of ammunition and fled.

Although the British won the Battle of Bunker Hill, it was a hollow victory. What the map does not show is the immense carnage. Half of the British force of 2,500 men were casualties; an eighth of all British officers killed in the Revolutionary War died at Bunker Hill. Despite the fact that the Americans also sustained casualties, almost 450 from a total of 1,500 soldiers, they had won a psychological victory. They had demonstrated that the British were not invincible. Bunker Hill became a rallying cry for subsequent resistance to British rule and marked an end to any easy reconciliation between Britain and the patriots. A revolutionary rupture became more thinkable after the Battle of Bunker Hill.

The map from 1806 shown here (fig. 26) was published long after the event in a book to celebrate Washington's life. It is a self-conscious American map. Longitude, shown as numerical values along the top and bottom of the page, takes Philadelphia as its prime meridian. Between 1790 and 1800 Philadelphia was the capital of the new nation and, in an act of cartographic patriotism, the prime meridian on many maps published in the United States during this time was Philadelphia.

The map shows the region of upstate New York and New England as far as the St. Lawrence River. The main rivers and military fortifications are illustrated. The "Hampshire Grants" depicted on the map to the east of Ticonderoga is the future state of Vermont, which had been settled by New England farmers who had organized a de facto independent state with strong patriotic sentiments.

The map depicts an area that was a major site of military engagements. In 1777 the British, under Gen. John Burgoyne, drove south through Lake Champlain and captured Fort Ticonderoga. He slowly pushed south as far as Saratoga where he encountered an army of Patriots led by Gen. Horatio Gates. On 7 October 1777 Burgoyne led another attack on the patriot army only to be repelled. His army was surrounded, and on October 17 he surrendered and some 5,700 British troops were made prisoners of war. News of the American victory and British defeat at Saratoga persuaded the French to side with the Americans against their traditional enemy, and they officially recognized the independence of the United States and signed a commercial and military treaty with the patriots.

The title of the map refers to the exploits of Gen. Benedict Arnold who in 1775 was commanded by Washington to lead an expedition to capture Quebec. He took 700 men through what the map described as "wilderness" to attack the city. The effort was not successful and Arnold was severely wounded. Arnold distinguished himself in subsequent campaigns including Saratoga. His patriotism eventually turned to loyalist sympathies, however, and when it was revealed that he had asked the British for 20,000 pounds to give up West Point, his name became a synonym for traitorous acts. He led a British attack on New London in 1781 and later lived in London. The map describes his military campaigns while still a commander of patriotic forces.

At the Treaty of Paris in 1783 between Britain and the United States, new boundaries were established. The United States could now occupy all the land east of the Mississippi to the eastern seaboard. West of the great river lay the Spanish possession of Louisiana. In the south the boundary line with Spanish Florida ran just north of St. Augustine and south of Savannah. In the north the boundary line with British Canada started in the northwest "Lake of the Woods" and moved through the Great Lakes up to the St. Lawrence River. In its extreme northeast boundary, the British map from 1785 reproduced here (fig. 27) shows the disputed northern Maine territory as British. The Americans successfully disputed this boundary and to this day the northern part of Maine has an extended dome of territory that breaks through the straight line of Canada in the Americans' favor.

The new Republic had enlarged its boundaries from the western limit of the thirteen colonies, which is shown as a dotted line running north and south with the legend "Ancient boundary." This line was originally drawn by the British to mark the westward expansion of settlers. Worried about the conflict between Native Americans, who were important allies in the war against France and the colonials, the British sought to halt settler incursions into Native American territory. The line was often breached, however, and one important factor in the War of Independence was the patriots' wish for land development and land speculation westward beyond the British line of proclamation. On the map, west of the line, the names of Native American tribes are clearly visible. The region is identified with the label "Indian Territory" with many tribal names noted, including the Illinois and Miamis in the north and the Chickasaw and Creeks in the south.

The map shows a new nation bounded by limits. Hemmed in by the British in the north and the Spanish in the south and west, even the sea boundary is marked with a line that reads "the limited boundary of the sea coast of the United States." The map speaks to boundaries and limits and the existence of Native American lands. The people of the Republic had other plans that involved the removal of Native Americans and the extension of its own boundaries. Although the British map clearly shows limits, history tells us that these were only temporary.

The War of American Independence began on 19 April 1775 with firefights at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. It ended on 28 June 1783, when a British force ceased operations against the French, who were aiding rebels in southern India. Barring Vietnam, it was the longest war in the history of the United States to the twenty-first century. It involved most European powers as either belligerents or watchful observers. In one way or another it touched every part of what had been British America, including not only the thirteen east coast colonies but also Canada and Native American country as well as the West Indies and the open Atlantic. The war destroyed one empire and created another.

The war was not synonymous with the American Revolution. That larger civil, cultural, social, and economic transformation sprawled over a quarter century between the first colonial challenges to British authority in 1764 and the implementation of the U.S. Constitution in 1789. Unlike the later Southern war to preserve slavery and destroy the United States, it does not have a military narrative strong enough to carry the whole story of the American Republic's creation. But the war was central to the Revolution's process and its outcome.

Two myths about the war need dismissal. One, long favored in patriotic annals, is that virtuous citizen-soldiers put down their plows, threw off tyranny, and returned to daily life. The other is that British power was so overwhelming as to render American victory almost inexplicable. Americans did believe they fought in a good cause, but there were many dissenters. The fiercest fighting pitted white colonials, black people, and Natives in a melee that engulfed them all. For patriot whites the war did end in triumph. Loyalist whites emigrated at the war's end in larger percentages than those in which people left revolutionary France. The war shook slavery severely, and thousands of former slaves also departed with the British. Though most Indians had no reason to count themselves among the war's losers, it ended in disaster for virtually all of them.

Three Phases

With hindsight the North American story has three phases. In the first, for roughly a year following Lexington, Britain attempted a police action to contain and put down a local rebellion. The goal was to combine a show of force with relative lenience. This phase is associated primarily with General Thomas Gage (1721–1787), who in 1775 was both civil governor of Massachusetts and commander in chief in North America. But the hope of reconciliation carried over to his successors, the brothers Admiral Lord Richard Howe (1726–1799) and General Sir William Howe (1729–1814), whose appointments made them peace commissioners as well as joint commanders.

From the spring of 1776 until the autumn of 1778 both Britons and Americans understood the confrontation in terms of conventional European warfare. Nonetheless there was a difference. The Howes sought control of American cities. They abandoned Boston (17 March 1776) when Americans placed artillery on Dorchester Heights and made the town indefensible. The British regrouped at Halifax, Nova Scotia, marshaled their largest seaborne force prior to the twentieth century, and seized New York City (15 September 1776). It remained in British hands until 1783. Their forces included regiments of hired German "Hessians," named for the principality of Hesse that supplied them.

The American commander in chief George Washington (1732–1799) realized after losing New York that his primary task was to keep his army in existence while it acquired strength, skill, and weapons. Washington bolstered American morale with winter victories at Trenton and Princeton, New Jersey (26 December 1776 and 3 January 1777). The major outcome of this phase was the defeat and capture at Saratoga (17 October 1777), in upstate New York, of a British army led by General John Burgoyne (1722–1792). Burgoyne's goal had been to seize the Champlain-Hudson corridor between Montreal and New York City. The American commander at Saratoga, Horatio Gates (c. 1728–1806), was a former British officer who once had served with Burgoyne. Burgoyne had not expected serious help from Sir William Howe, who was moving on Philadelphia, which he captured from Washington's forces (26 September 1777). Howe's successor, Sir Henry Clinton (1738–1795), evacuated the nominal American capital the following spring to concentrate his forces in New York.

Partisan war marked the third phase. In 1777 civil war broke out in what now is western New York, pitting regular soldiers, settlers turned guerrilla fighters, and Indians against one another on both sides. The same configuration appeared after the British invaded Georgia in 1779 and South Carolina in 1780. These conflicts saw the disintegration of both white and Native communities, with the added element in the South of slaves who sought their freedom where they could find it. The Americans tried to put down the Iroquois country conflict with a conventional invasion in 1779, and the British used the same strategy in the South. Neither effort was successful. The war in northern Indian country spread into modern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Though it ended with Iroquois fragmentation and defeat, Shawnees and others farther west remained powerful enough to resist the United States for a decade.

American Victory, Thanks to the French

The mainland war ended with a set-piece siege at Yorktown, Virginia (9–18 October 1781). Yorktown became possible for many reasons. Initially the British invasion of South Carolina in 1780 seemed successful. At Charles Town (Charleston after 1783) Clinton's invaders captured the American army of Benjamin Lincoln (1733–1810), more than five thousand troops. Redressing Saratoga, Clinton's army defeated Americans led by Gates at Camden, South Carolina (16 August 1780), bringing the entire province under British control. Clinton returned to New York, leaving Major General Lord Charles Cornwallis (1738–1805) to complete southern pacification on the assumption that most Americans would welcome the invaders.

Cornwallis moved into North Carolina, where a new American army under Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) inflicted major damage on him at Guilford Court House (15 March 1781). Resistance popped up everywhere as soon as Cornwallis's redcoats pushed on, despite ferocious action against the militiamen by British and Loyalist cavalry under Banastre Tarleton (1754–1833). Nonetheless Cornwallis moved his army north again to subdue Virginia. He had no better luck there and finally took up position at Yorktown (1 August 1781) to await seaborne supplies and possible reinforcements.

The relief never came. Instead, a combined Franco-American force besieged and captured Cornwallis's entire force. Yorktown proved the major strategic consequence of the fact that France had entered the war in 1778. Clandestine aid had begun arriving even prior to American independence via the government-sponsored trading firm Hortalez et Cie of Bordeaux. French matériel and monetary assistance were of great importance to the American army's ability to remain in the field, and after 1778 the French could provide soldiers and a fleet. Cooperation was not always good. French supply officers had as much difficulty as their American and British counterparts in obtaining foodstuffs from reluctant farmers and profit-seeking merchants.

Washington's main goal from the alliance was to recapture New York City, which he could not do without French naval support. Nonetheless, when he learned that Cornwallis was in the Chesapeake and that a French fleet was en route there from the Caribbean, he and the French commander, Jean de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau (1725–1807), agreed to move south. It was a gamble, because there was no guarantee that the French admiral, François-Joseph-Paul de Grasse, comte de Grasse (1722–1788), could gain control of the Chesapeake entrance. Grasse did stave off a British fleet outside the Virginia capes (10 September 1781), taking control of the great Chesapeake Bay and making it possible to move both a French siege train and the combined American and French forces into position around Cornwallis. Grasse returned to the West Indies, and Washington returned to the Hudson Valley, where he continued to plan New York's recapture. But the loss of Cornwallis's entire army at Yorktown broke Britain's political will to continue the North American struggle. The ministry of Frederick North (Lord North, 1732–1792), in power since 1770, fell, and British offensive operations in North America ended.

The Larger War

The larger war did not end. As early as 1779 British policymakers began to think that the Americans could not be defeated. Thanks to the involvement of France and of Spain as a French ally, Britain's naval resources were stretched thin. In 1779 there was real danger that a Franco-Spanish fleet and army would invade Britain. Every Caribbean island, including Jamaica, was vulnerable, and there were not enough ships to protect them all. That risk finally ended at the Battle of the Saints, fought between the Leeward Islands of Dominica and Îles des Saintes (12 April 1782), when a British fleet under Admiral Sir George Rodney (1718–1792) captured Grasse himself. But Britain did lose Minorca to Spain and came close to losing Gibraltar.

Despite its enormous might, Britain faced great disadvantages during the American war. In diplomatic terms it was virtually isolated. France became an American ally, Spain was an ally of France, and the Dutch were so pro-American that Britain declared war against the Dutch at the end of 1780. Led by Catherine the Great (ruled 1762–1796), empress of Russia, who entertained visions of mediating the conflict, other European powers formed the League of Armed Neutrality, which stretched from Russia to Sicily. That development favored the American cause indirectly by securing Baltic naval stores for France and Spain. Britain, long dependent on American sources for the wood, tar, and hemp its fleets needed, had the advantage only that more of its ships were copper-bottomed to resist fouling and therefore faster and more maneuverable at sea. Although North's ministry was politically secure until the loss of Yorktown, it could not raise enough troops in Britain and Ireland both to fight overseas and to maintain home defense. That was the main reason for hiring the German Hessian regiments.

Sheer distance proved another problem for British policymakers and generals. The thirty thousand troops who arrived in New York harbor with the Howe brothers in July 1776 were an enormous force. But every soldier, whether British or German, was virtually irreplaceable. Despite short enlistments and great suffering in the Continental army, it seemed there always were more Americans. New England's original pickup army inflicted heavy casualties before losing Bunker Hill (actually Breed's Hill) overlooking Boston (17 June 1775). Britain could not afford more such Pyrrhic victories. That may be why the Howe brothers did not pursue their advantage after they trapped Washington's half-trained and demoralized Continentals on Long Island (27 August 1776), allowing them to fall back first to Manhattan, then into Westchester County north of New York City, and finally to New Jersey. Washington's capture of Hessian regiments at Trenton and Princeton and the capitulation of Burgoyne's entire seven-thousand-man army at Saratoga in October 1777 presented the British with losses that were difficult to fill. The British never succeeded in supplying themselves from the American countryside, despite constant foraging. After 1776 New York City was virtually impregnable against recapture, but virtually every tree and fence on Manhattan Island had to be chopped for firewood, and the city needed constant reprovisioning from across the ocean. The same became true in the other two secure British enclaves, Charles Town and Savannah, Georgia.

British strategy assumed that "good Americans" would rally to "government" given any chance. Many did, particularly on Long Island and Staten Island, New York, which were securely loyal, and in New Jersey and South Carolina, where the Revolution virtually collapsed after redcoats arrived. There was strong Loyalism plus neutral "disaffection" in New York's Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, on Maryland's Eastern Shore (between Chesapeake Bay and the sea), and in much of the country where advancing white settlement met Indian resistance. But except for Long Island and Staten Island, Britain never secured its hold over potentially Loyalist country.

Enough Virginia slaves rallied to the offer of freedom in November 1775 made by the royal governor, John Murray, Lord Dunmore (1732–1809), to form his "Aetheopian Regiment." (Most of them died in the smallpox epidemic that broke out that year and swept across most of the continent by 1782.) Clinton repeated that offer when British strategy turned south, with significant results. But Britain never tried to rouse all the slaves, and north of the Carolinas black men could find freedom by serving in the Continental ranks. North and south alike, many Indians recognized Britain as their best hope. However, two of the six Iroquois nations (as well as others) chose the American side, and Americans forced the Cherokee to abandon the British cause in 1779. Finally, though Britain sent the best generals it could find to America, none was of the first rank. Both William Howe and Burgoyne joined the parliamentary opposition after they returned from their American service.

The initial American expectation was that virtuous militiamen could defeat professionals and mercenaries. Early events seemed to support that belief. These included the heavy losses the British expeditionary force suffered on the way back to Boston from Lexington and Concord; the massive redcoat casualties and light American losses at Bunker Hill; the American capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain (10 May 1775), which yielded the artillery that eventually was emplaced overlooking Boston; and the nearly successful invasion of Canada in the winter of 1775–1776. In fact militiamen and part-time soldiers were important throughout the war. Without them the Americans could not have outnumbered and trapped the British at Saratoga, and they did important duty controlling Loyalists, guarding coastlines, and serving as skirmishers. Irregulars did most of the frontier fighting on both sides.

But when Washington assumed command at Boston (3 July 1775), his goal was to create a dependable, disciplined regular army. He could draw on an American tradition of one-year service, which was more than ad hoc militia duty but less than European-style long-term enlistment. The officer corps that assembled around him began imagining itself as composed of "gentlemen" with privileges common soldiers could not have. The fact that some American officers, including Generals Richard Montgomery (1736–1775), Charles Lee (1731–1782), and Gates, had borne commissions in the class-riven British army added to that sense. So did the advent of aristocratic and pseudo-aristocratic European volunteers, including the Marquis de Lafayette (1757–1834), who became an instant American major general; Thomas Conway (1735–?1800); Count Kazimierz Pulaski (Casimir Pulaski, 1747–1779); and Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Augustin von Steuben (1730–1794), who became the Continental army's drillmaster. Continental officers came to command troops who were serving "for the duration." These mostly were young, single men of the sort that might have enlisted for the long-term service and tough discipline of a European army in the absence of any better choice.

Old-Style War, Revolutionary War

For the British this was the last war of the ancien régime. But for Americans the war was revolutionary. Virtually every American community saw conflict and disruption. In addition to shaking slavery and drastically weakening Indian power, it changed women's understanding of themselves as they learned to deal with businesses their men previously had monopolized. "Your farm" became "our farm" and eventually "my farm." Though the preservation of the Continental army was central to the outcome, militiamen fighting a "people's war" often made the difference at critical moments. The war created both a national elite and a national economy, and these were the basis for the movement that led to the U.S. Constitution in 1787–1788. For the British the war's course led from excessive optimism to humiliation, but otherwise it left them unchanged. For the Americans the war transformed almost everything.

Bibliography

Calloway, Colin G. The American Revolution in Indian Country: Crisis and Diversity in Native American Communities. Cambridge, U.K., 1995. The war from Native American points of view.

Fischer, David Hackett. Paul Revere's Ride. Oxford and New York, 1994. Thoughtful account of the outbreak of war.

Gruber, Ira D. The Howe Brothers and the American Revolution. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1972. Biographies of joint British commanders.

Higginbotham, Don. The War of American Independence: Military Attitudes, Policies, and Practice, 1763–1789. Bloomington, Ind., 1977. A thorough account from the American viewpoint.

Hoffman, Ronald, and Peter J. Albert, eds. Arms and Independence: The Military Character of the American Revolution. Charlottesville, Va., 1984. Essays by the foremost scholars of the subject.

Mackesy, Piers. The War for America, 1775–1783. Introduction by John Shy. Lincoln, Nebr., 1992. Originally published in 1964. Thorough account from the viewpoint of British policymakers.

Martin, James Kirby, and Mark Edward Lender. A Respectable Army: The Military Origins of the Republic, 1763–1789. Arlington Heights, Ill., 1982. A brief and well-crafted synthesis.

Royster, Charles. A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775–1783. Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979. Exploration of the war in cultural terms.

Schechter, Barnet. The Battle for New York. New York, 2002. Narrative of events bearing on New York City.

Shy, John. A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence. Oxford and New York, 1976. Essays in the "new military history."

—EDWARD COUNTRYMAN

The war for American independence from Britain. The fighting began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord in 1775, and lasted through the Battle of Yorktown in 1781. General George Washington commanded the American forces, assisted by Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold, Horatio Gates, John Paul Jones, and others. The leaders of the British included Charles Cornwallis, John Burgoyne, Thomas Gage, and William Howe, among others. The American cause was greatly aided by French ships and troops and by the presence of the French nobleman and soldier the Marquis de Lafayette. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 officially ended the war. (See Battle of Bunker Hill and Battle of Saratoga.)

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