Chapter 5
In This Chapter
● Detailing the British and American forces
● Fueling and formalizing the desire for independence
● Getting a helping hand from the French
● Looking at ten key battles of the war
After blood was spilled at Lexington and Concord, war between Britain and her American colonies was inevitable, even though there were some efforts on both sides to avoid it. British leaders weren’t too worried about quelling the disturbance. One British general suggested it wasn’t anything that “a capable sheepherder” couldn’t handle.
But there’s an old saying that it’s good to be good, better to be lucky, and best to be both. In this chapter, the American colonists are good when they need to be — and really lucky much of the rest of the time — and win their independence from Britain. They also lay out their reasons for doing so in a remarkable declaration.
In This Corner, the Brits. ...
The first thing the British had going for them when it came to fighting the Americans was a whole bunch of fighters. The British army consisted of about 50,000 men. In addition, they had the best navy in the world. They also had the money to buy more with which to fight, including 30,000 mercenary German soldiers. And the people the Brits were fighting, the colonists, had no regular army, no navy at all, and few real resources to assemble them.
But, as America itself was to find out about two centuries later in Vietnam, having the best army and navy doesn’t always mean that much. For one thing, the British people were by no means united in a desire to rein in the colonies. When war broke out, several leading British military leaders refused to take part. Some British leaders also recognized the difficulty of winning a war by fighting on the enemy’s turf thousands of miles from Britain, especially when the enemy was fighting for a cause.
“You may spread fire, sword, and desolation, but that will not be government,” warned the Duke of Richmond. “No people can ever be made to submit to a form of government they say they will not receive.”
Three factors contributed to Britain’s ultimate downfall:
● The British political leaders who did support the war were generally inept. Lord North, the prime minister, was a decent bureaucrat but no leader, and he basically did what King George III wanted. And some of the British generals were nincompoops. One of them, leaving for duty in early 1777, boastfully bet a fair sum of money that he would be back in England “victorious from America by Christmas Day, 1777.” By Christmas Day, he had surrendered his entire army.
● Britain couldn’t commit all its military resources to putting down the rebellion. Because of unrest in Ireland and the potential for trouble with the French, who were still smarting from their defeats by the British in the New World, Britain had to keep many of its forces in Europe.
● Because the Brits didn’t take their opponents seriously, they had no real plan for winning the war. That meant they fooled around long enough to give the Americans hope. And that gave the French a reason to believe the colonials just might win, so they provided the Americans with what proved to be indispensable arms, money, ships, and troops.
In This Corner, the Yanks. ...
When you look at the disadvantages the British had and then look at the disadvantages the Americans had, it’s no wonder the war took eight years.
In the early years at least, probably as few as a third of Americans supported the revolution; about 20 percent, called loyalists or Tories after the ruling political party in Britain, were loyal to the crown; and the rest didn’t care much one way or another.
Because they weren’t professional soldiers, many of those who fought in the American army had peculiar notions of soldiering. They often elected their officers, and when the officers gave orders they didn’t like, they just elected new ones. The soldiers signed up for a year or two, and when their time was up, they simply went home, no matter how the war — or even the battle — was going. At one point, the colonial army under George Washington was down to 3,000 soldiers. They also weren’t big on sticking around when faced with a British bayonet charge. Many, if not most, battles ended with the Americans running away, so often that Washington once observed in exasperation that “they run from their own shadows.”
Regional jealousies often surfaced when soldiers from one colony were given orders by officers from another colony, and there was at least one mutiny that had to be put down by other American units. The American soldiers were ill-fed, ill-housed, and so poorly clothed that in some battles, colonial soldiers fought nearly naked. About 10,000 soldiers spent a bitter winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, literally barefoot in the snow, and about 2,800 of them died. “The long and great sufferings of this army are unexampled in history,” wrote the army’s commander, George Washington.
They were also paid in currency called continentals, which became so worthless the phrase “not worth a continental” became a common American saying for decades after the Revolution. Because the money was so worthless, unpatriotic American merchants often sold their goods to the British army instead, even when American troops wore rags and starved. Others cornered the markets on goods such as food and clothing, stockpiling them until the prices rose higher and higher. As a result, desperate army leaders were forced to confiscate goods from private citizens to survive.
About the best thing the Americans had going for them was a cause, because men who are fighting for something often fight better. Indeed, as the war wore on, the American soldier became more competent. By the end of 1777, a British officer wrote home that “though it was once the tone of this [British] army to treat them in a most contemptible light, they are now become a formidable enemy.”
The fact that there were 13 colonies was also an advantage, because it meant there was no single nerve center for which the British could aim. They conquered New York; they took Philadelphia, and still the colonies fought on. America also had rapid growth in its favor. “Britain, at the expense of 3 million [pounds] has killed 150 Yankees in this campaign, which is 20,000 pounds a head,” observed Ben Franklin early during the fighting. “During the same time, 60,000 children have been born in America.”
But maybe most important, the Americans were lucky enough to choose an extraordinary leader, and smart enough to stick with him. Not only that, he looks good on the dollar bill.
Mr. Washington Goes to War
George Washington has become so mythic a figure that many people think his importance has been blown out of proportion. That’s too bad because Washington was truly one of the most remarkable people in American history.
At the time of the revolution, Washington was 43 years old. He was one of the wealthiest men in the colonies, having inherited a lot of land and money, and married into more. Although he had been a soldier in the wars against the French and Native Americans, Washington had never commanded more than 1,200 men at any one time. There were other colonists who had more military command experience.
But the Second Continental Congress, which had convened in May 1775 and taken over the running of the Revolution (even though no one had actually asked it to), decided on Washington as the Continental army’s commander in chief. Their choice was based more on political reasons than military ones. New England leaders figured that putting a Virginian in charge would increase the enthusiasm of the Southern colonies to fight; the Southern leaders agreed. Washington wasn’t so sure and said so with his characteristic modesty.
“I declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with,” he told Congress, and then refused to take any salary for the job.
Finding faults
Washington had his faults. He wasn’t a military genius, and he lost a lot more than he won on the battlefield. In fact, his greatest military gifts were in organizing retreats and avoiding devastating losses. He had no discernable sense of humor and was a snob when it came to mixing with what he considered the lower classes.
He also had a terrible temper. At one point, he was so angry with the lack of discipline and acts of cowardice in the American army that he unsuccessfully asked Congress to increase the allowable number of lashes for punishing soldiers from 39 to 500. Once he was so angry at a subordinate, he broke his personal rule against swearing. “He swore that day till the leaves shook on the trees,” recalled an admiring onlooker. “Charming! Delightful! . . . sir, on that memorable day, he swore like an angel from heaven.”
Commanding a country
In spite of his flaws, Washington was a born leader, one of those men who raised spirits and expectations simply by showing up. He was tall and athletic, an expert horseman and a good dancer. He wasn’t particularly handsome — his teeth were bad, and he wasn’t proud of his hippopotamus ivory and gold dentures, so he seldom smiled. But he had a commanding presence, and his troops felt they could depend on him. He was also a bit of an actor. Once while reading something to his troops, he donned his spectacles, and then apologized, explaining his eyes had grown dim in the service of his country. Some of his audience wept.
He also had an indomitable spirit. His army was ragged, undisciplined, and undependable, with a staggering average desertion rate of 20 percent. His bosses in Congress were often indecisive, quarrelsome, and indifferent. But Washington simply refused to give up. Just as important, he refused the temptation to try to become a military dictator, which he may easily have done.
One of the reasons many men loved him was that Washington was personally brave, often on the frontlines of battles, and always among the last to retreat. He was also incredibly lucky: In one battle, Washington rode unexpectedly into a group of British soldiers, most of whom fired at him at short range. They all missed.
Above all, Washington was a survivor. He drove the British army crazy (they called him “the old fox” even though he wasn’t all that old), never staying to fight battles he was losing, and never fully retreating. He bought his new country time — time to find allies and time to wear down the British will to keep fighting.
Declaring Independence
Despite the fact that fighting had actually started, many in the Continental Congress, and throughout the colonies, still weren’t all that keen on breaking away completely from Britain. The radicals who were ready for a break needed a spark to light a fire under those who were still reluctant to act. Not only did they get the spark they needed, but they got it in writing with the Declaration of Independence.
Stirring up colonists' emotions
The first motivator was a political blunder by the British government. The Brits needed more fighters, but British citizens didn’t fall all over themselves trying to sign up. Being a British soldier often meant brutal treatment, poor pay and food, and the chance that someone could kill you.
So British officials hired the services of the soldiers who worked for a half-dozen German princes. Eventually, they rented about 30,000 of these soldiers, called Hessians after the principality of Hesse-Kassal, from which many of them came.
The Americans were outraged at this. It was one thing for the mother country and her daughters to fight, but it was a real affront for Mom to go out and hire foreigners to do her killing for her. (Eventually, about 12,000 Hessians deserted and remained in America after the war as citizens of the new country.)
Wanted: Freedom asylum
"O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the Old World is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted around the globe . . . O receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."
— Thomas Paine in "Common Sense," 1776.
The second spark came from the pen of a 38-year-old, tomato-faced Englishman with a big nose. Thomas Paine arrived in the colonies in November 1774. He had been a seaman, a schoolmaster, a corset maker, and a customs officer, and wasn’t too successful at any of these occupations. With the help of Benjamin Franklin, Paine got a job as editor of a Philadelphia magazine.
On January 10, 1776, Paine anonymously published a little pamphlet in which he set forth his views on the need for American independence from Britain. He called it “Common Sense.”
This pamphlet was straightforward, clear, and simple in its prose. Basically, it said the king was a brute, with no reasonable mandate to rule in Britain, let alone America; that Britain was a leech feeding off the back of American enterprise; and that it was time for the colonies to stand up on their own and become a beacon of freedom for the world.
The pamphlet electrified the country. Within a short time, 120,000 copies were sold, and that number eventually rose to a staggering 500,000 copies, or one for every five people in America, including slaves. (Paine never made a dime, having patriotically signed over royalties to Congress.) It was read by soldiers and politicians alike, and it shifted the emphasis of the fight to a struggle for total independence, and not just for a new relationship with Britain.
Writing history
On June 7, 1776, Congress began to deal with the issue in earnest. A delegate from Virginia, Richard Henry Lee, prepared a resolution that stated the colonies “are, and of a right ought to be, free and independent states.” A few days later, the representatives appointed a committee of five to draft a formal declaration backing Lee’s resolution, just in case Congress decided to adopt it.
The committee consisted of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, a Connecticut lawyer named Roger Sherman, a New York iron mine owner named Robert
Livingston, and a 33-year-old, red-haired lawyer from Virginia named Thomas Jefferson. (The committee got on well, although Sherman had a habit of picking his teeth, which provoked Franklin into warning that if he didn’t stop, Franklin would play his harmonica.)
Jefferson set to work at a portable desk he had designed himself, and a few weeks later produced a document that has come to be regarded as one of the most eloquent political statements in human history. True, he exaggerated some of the grievances the colonists had against the king. True, he rather hypocritically declared that “all men are created equal,” ignoring the fact that he and hundreds of other Americans owned slaves, whom they certainly didn’t regard as having been created equal.
Overall though, it was a magnificent document that set forth all the reasons America wanted to go its own way — and why all people who wanted to do the same thing should be allowed to do so. After a bit of tinkering by Franklin, the document was presented to Congress on June 28. (See Appendix B for the full text.)
At the demand of some Southern representatives, a section blaming the king for American slavery was taken out. Then, on July 2, Congress adopted the resolution submitted by Lee. “The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch [instant of time] in the history of America,” predicted John Adams. He missed it by two days, because America chose to remember July 4 instead — the day Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, or as one member put it, “Mr. Jefferson’s explanation of Mr. Lee’s resolution.”
With independence declared, Congress now had to find a substitute form of government. Starting in August 1776, and continuing into 1777, members finally came up with something they called the Articles of Confederation. Basically, it called for a weak central government with a virtually powerless president and congress. The power to do most key things, such as impose taxes, was left to the states. Even so, it took the states until 1781 to finish ratifying the articles, so reluctant were they to give up any of their power. It was a poor excuse for a new government, but it was a start. In the meantime, the new country was looking for a few foreign friends.
Kissing Up to the French
Still smarting from its defeats by Britain in a series of wars, France was more than a little happy when war broke out between its archenemy and the American colonies and almost immediately started sending the rebels supplies and money. By the end of the war, France had provided nearly $20 million in aid of various kinds, and it’s estimated as much as 90 percent of the gunpowder used by the Americans in the first part of the Revolution was supplied or paid for by the French.
In December 1776, Congress sent Benjamin Franklin to Paris to see if he could entice even more aid from the French. Personally, he was a big hit with most of France, especially the ladies. But King Louis XVI wasn’t overly impressed (he is reported to have given one of Franklin’s lady friends a chamber pot with Franklin’s picture on the bottom), and the king took a wait-and-see attitude before committing the country to a more entangling alliance.
News of a great American victory at the Battle of Saratoga, however, caused Louis and his ministers to think the rebels just might win. On February 6, 1778, France formally recognized America as an independent nation and agreed to a military alliance. Two different fleets and thousands of French soldiers were sent to the war and played key roles in the deciding battles.
The French entry also caused Britain to have to worry about being invaded by a French army and about having to fight the French navy in the West Indies — or wherever else they encountered it.
Undergoing Life Changes: The Loyalists and the Slaves
Before I get to who fought whom where and how it all came out, it’s worth taking a look at the war’s impact on two very different parts of the American population: the Loyalists and the slaves.
Remaining loyal to the crown
Slightly less than one of every three white colonists didn’t side with the Revolution and remained loyal to the crown. Many, but by no means all, were from the aristocracy or had jobs they owed to the British government. Some of these Loyalists, or Tories as they were also called, kept quiet about their allegiances, but many acted as spies or guides for the British forces. As many as 30,000 actually fought against their rebel neighbors, and some battles were purely American versus American affairs. One of the Tories, Banastre Tarleton, rose to a major command in the British army and was feared and hated for his savagery and reputation for executing prisoners.
In some areas, such as New York City and parts of North and South Carolina, Loyalists were dominant, but in areas where they weren’t, they paid a heavy price for their loyalty. Their taxes were sometimes doubled, their property trashed, and their businesses shunned.
When the war ended, things got even worse. A new verse was added to “Yankee Doodle” by victorious rebels: “Now Tories all what can you say / Come — is this not a griper? / That while your hopes are drained away / ’Tis you must pay the piper.” Tory property was confiscated, and as many as 80,000 Loyalists eventually left America for Canada, England, and the West Indies.
Confronting slavery issues
One of the thorniest — and most embarrassing — problems Congress was confronted with during the Revolutionary War was what to do about slaves. At first, Congress declared that no Africans, freed or not, could fight in the Continental army. But when Washington pointed out they might end up fighting for the British, Congress relented and allowed freed slaves to enlist.
Southern states weren’t anxious to put guns in the hands of those they held in bondage, but the British were offering them freedom if they turned on their masters. More than a few American leaders were also red-faced about fighting for freedom while owning slaves — a hypocrisy not lost on their critics. In the end, some slaves fought for the American cause, and some fled to the British side. The issue of slavery, meanwhile, grew as a divisive issue between North and South. In most of the Northern states during the war, the slave trade was outlawed. In the South, the number of slaves actually grew, mostly because of the birthrates among slaves already there. And slavery spread as Southerners moved west, into Kentucky and Tennessee.
Winning a War
Okay, here’s pretty much how the actual fighting unfolded: The Americans started off pretty promisingly — winning an early battle in New York and holding their own at a big battle outside Boston — mostly because the British were slow to recognize they had a real war on their hands. But then the Americans launched an invasion of Canada, which proved to be a really bad idea. Shortly after the Canada failure, Washington got his tail kicked in New York and escaped total disaster only through great luck.
But Washington learned a valuable lesson: He couldn’t possibly win by fighting the British in a series of open-field, European-style major battles. The trick, the Continental army learned, was to be a moving target. “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again,” noted Gen. Nathanael Greene.
Washington did win a couple of smaller victories, which were great for morale, but he also suffered through a couple of hideous winters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Morristown, New Jersey, which were bad for morale.
But the British made a series of tactical blunders and lost an entire army in upstate New York. Then they turned their attentions to the South, made more blunders, and lost another entire army in Virginia. Having apparently run out of mistakes, they quit, and America won. Here are the highlights of ten key battles or campaigns in the American Revolution (see Figure 5-1).
Figure 5-1: Ten key battles of the American Revolution.
Felling a British fort
Less than a month after Lexington and Concord, American troops under Vermont frontiersman Ethan Allen surprised and captured a British fort — Fort Ticonderoga — on the shores of Lake Champlain in New York. They captured 60 cannons and mortars, which they eventually used to drive the British out of Boston. The victory was a big confidence booster.
Battling it out on Bunker — make that Breed's — Hill
This battle, on June 17, 1775, was actually fought on Breed’s Hill, which is next to Bunker Hill, just outside Boston. About 1,400 Americans held the hill. About 2,500 British troops attacked them in a frontal assault rather than by surrounding them. The Brits won after two charges, but they paid a heavy toll. About 1,000, or 40 percent, of their troops were killed or wounded, while the Americans suffered about 400 killed or wounded. The carnage shook British commander William Howe so much he became overly cautious and conservative in future battles.
Losing the campaign in Canada
In late 1775, American leaders Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold launched an invasion of Canada. The Yanks thought the Canadians wouldn’t put up much of a fight. Bad thought. Americans lost battles at Quebec and Montreal and were forced to retreat. The losses left Canada firmly in British hands and gave the Brits a good base from which to launch attacks on New York and New England.
Nixing plans to take New York
In mid-1776, Washington and his entire army of about 18,000 men moved to the area around New York City, hoping to hem in and defeat a British army of about 25,000. But many of the American troops were raw recruits, who panicked and ran in a series of battles in the area. By the fall, it was Washington who was nearly trapped. Under protection of a heavy fog that materialized at just the right time, the American army slipped away into New Jersey and then to Pennsylvania. It was a major defeat for the American army, but it could’ve been a lot worse.
Reigning victorious at Trenton and Princeton
Smarting from about six months of running away, Washington moved his army across the ice-choked Delaware River on Christmas Eve 1776, and surprised a Hessian brigade in Trenton, New Jersey. The result was that Washington captured more than 900 Hessian troops and 1,200 weapons without losing a single man.
Washington then followed up with a victory over the British a few days later at Princeton, New Jersey. The victories were smashing morale boosters for the Yanks.
Making the Brits surrender at Saratoga
In 1777, British General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne proposed to lead a British army into New York and New England from Canada, while the British army already in New York City sailed down to capture Philadelphia.
It turned out to be a disaster for the Brits. Burgoyne had no concept of a march through enemy-infested wilderness and took along officers’ wives and children. Continually harassed by American troops and running low on food and supplies, Burgoyne’s army lost two battles near Saratoga. On October 17, 1777, the British army of nearly 6,000 men surrendered. News of the American victory helped convince France to enter the war on the American side.
Sparring at sea
On September 23, 1779, an American navy ship named the Bonhomme Richard took on the British warship Serapis off the coast of England. The American captain, John Paul Jones, saw two of his major guns explode on the first discharge. Undismayed, he pulled alongside the Serapis and the two ships pounded each other for more than two hours. At one point, when asked if he would surrender, Jones replied, “I have not yet begun to fight!” Finally, faced with the arrival of another American ship, the Serapis surrendered. Jones’s own ship was so badly damaged it had to be abandoned, and he transferred his flag to the British ship. But the victory was the greatest single naval feat of the war and shook British confidence in its navy.
Losing big in Charleston
This was the worst American defeat of the war, which is saying something.
In the spring of 1780, about 8,500 British and Loyalist troops and 14 ships surrounded the city of Charleston, trapping an American army under the command of Gen. Benjamin Lincoln. On May 12, Lincoln surrendered his entire army of 5,500 men, along with huge amounts of weapons.
Minimizing the damage at Guilford Courthouse
Most of the war in the South consisted of British troops beating American troops, chasing them, and then beating them again. In December 1780,
Congress finally put a competent general in charge of the American forces in the South while Washington fought in the North. He was 38-year-old Nathanael Greene, who was probably the only American general to consistently out-strategize his opposition. After a couple of victories at the battles of Cowpens and Eutaw Springs, Greene faced British Gen. Charles Cornwallis at Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina. The British won what was one of the bloodiest and most bitter battles of the war, but they suffered almost 30 percent casualties, while Greene’s losses were light. Cornwallis was forced to withdraw out of the Carolinas and back to Virginia, taking his troops to Yorktown.
Turning things around at Yorktown
Washington had been trying for months to coordinate his own troops with the French troops and ships that were supposedly ready to aid the American cause. On top of that, Congress had failed to supply him with desperately needed reinforcements and supplies.
Finally, in May 1781, things began to fall into place with his French allies. Together with two French fleets, French and American armies converged on Yorktown and hemmed in the British army under Cornwallis. The British, meanwhile, mishandled two fleets of their own and were unable to come to Cornwallis’s rescue.
On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered his entire army of 8,000 men. The British band played a tune called “The World Turned Upside Down,” and a band hired by the French played “Yankee Doodle.” In London, when Lord North, the British prime minister, heard the news, he cried out “O God! It is all over!”
Actually, it wasn’t over for more than a year. The British army still held New York, and there were some small battles until the formal peace treaty was signed on February 3, 1783.
The British were gracious losers, mainly because they wanted to drive a wedge between America and France. They gave up rights to all the land from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi River, and from Canada to Florida, which was far more than the Americans actually controlled. In return, the Americans promised to treat the Loyalists in their midst fairly and set up fair rules so that British creditors could collect pre-war debts. (Neither of those promises was kept.)
American independence had been won. The question now was what to do with it.