The American Revolution

The American Revolution began when British soldiers were deployed in the colonies to end the revolt of the colonists. Prior to the invasion, the delegates had gathered in the Continental Congress, they met to decide what to do about the Intolerable Acts of 1774, these were a punishment from Parliament after the revolts against all of their other acts. The conclusion of the Continental Congress was to call for a repeal of the act, they decided that if Parliament would not, they would meet again to decide what to do, in addition to this, the delegates compelled their colonies to gather all the weapons they could find and train a Militia to revolt, just in case it came to that. As it turned out, the precautions paid off as they would become necessary as the British were gathered in Boston and marched into the country, searching for hidden arms and artillery. A battle occurred before the Continental Congress even had time to reconvene, as the British soldiers marched through the country, the famous ride of Paul Revere occurred as he and others warned the colonists of the coming army. The British consisted of roughly 700 soldiers, who were searching to discover the Militia’s hidden arms, they suspected that these were in the vicinity of Concord, which was about 17 miles from Boston. The Battle of Lexington was the first time that the two armies met, a single shot was fired, known as “the shot heard around the world,” this happened on April 19, 1775, however we do not know who fired the shot, the British or the Militia, the fight did not last long though, in fact it was just a few minutes of skirmish but that was enough, the Militia captain dispersed his men so as not to lose many. Following that, the soldiers moved toward Concord, which had been their true objective the entire time, fortunately, the Militia had hidden the weapons that were in Concord, and they had gathered there and were waiting to observe what the British were going to do. After a while the Militia decided to cross the bridge at Concord, it was however guarded by about 90 British men, as the rest were searching for the weapons, unfortunately, they were successful in finding the cannons and they caused quite a bit of damage to them, but the rest of the arms were not discovered. As the Militia had gathered their numbers up to 400 men they attacked the North Bridge, certain British troops fired when they did not even have orders to do so. Regardless of this, the Militia put the soldiers at the bridge along with the entire group that had come to search Concord on the run, they pursued them all the way to Boston and there they laid siege on it. The siege lasted for several months, at that time the numbers of the Militia were at about 15,000 men, while the British were only at 6,000. During this siege, George Washington was appointed by the congress to become the commander-in-chief over the Militia, through the war it is apparent that Washington played a very important role and that was the kind of leader to stand by his men. The colonists got word that the British were going to attempt to take on the hills surrounding Boston on June 13, 1775 with this in mind the Militia went up and made earthworks in the hills by the time the British attacked on June 17 the soldiers were ready, they fought for a while, and the Militia was actually able to keep the British at bay. Eventually the Battle of Bunker Hill was lost, but the Militia came out of the battle with something more important than victory, they now had confidence that they, farmers, settlers, and businessmen could fight well against, arguably, the most powerful and well trained army in the world. The Militia lost 367 men in the battle, the British suffered 1054. The colonists and the British had very different ways of fighting, as the British marched and fought in ranks, they were very disciplined, and had stamina, whereas the Militia fought better using the element of surprise, as they liked to ambush their enemy, and fight in unusual places. At the time, fighting took place in open areas, fields, meadows, and flatlands, but the Militia fought in forests, trenches, and earthworks. On the 5^th of July the Continental Congress made a petition to give Britain one more chance to repeal the Intolerable Acts, they agreed that if they did they would stop fighting, if they would not however, it would mean war. King George III, regardless of their terms, refused to repeal the acts. This obviously meant a full on war. During the time of 1776, pamphlets became popular, one of the most famous ones was written by a man named Tomas Paine, it was called Common Sense, it influenced people to support the idea of becoming independent from Britain. The war had begun as a fight to win liberty and freedom for the colonies, but soon it became a fight to separate and give independence to them. A famous commander named Benedict Arnold led the Militia, which was called the Colonial Army, into some great victories from 1775 to 1776. At this time Fort Ticonderoga was easily taken by the Colonial Army, which would give them an edge in future battles because they acquired some artillery from it. After the success at the fort, Arnold and his solders made their way into Quebec, and as they went they managed to acquire many useful supplies and even a few ships. With those ships the Colonial Army was able to fight in the Battle of Valcour Island, the battle took place in Lake Champlain, with their ships the colonist’s navy was almost equal to that of the British. After the Battle, Benedict Arnold was commended for engineering the battles in such a fine manner for the colonies, he continued to do so going into 1777. The Declaration of Independence was presented in 1776 Prior to Arnold’s later battles in 1777, this was a great milestone in the history of the United States of America. France, although it might seem otherwise, played a very important role in the American Revolution. Around the time of 1776 they were secretly supporting the Colonial Army by providing them with supplies, but they weren’t doing this to look out for the colonies interests, they did this because they were against the British. Going forward, you will see that France becomes a very important piece in the history of the war. With all of the support the colonies seemed to be doing well, but later in 1776 New York was taken by the British, a possible reason for this was because the Colonial Army had lost the battles of Long Island and White plains. The year of 1776 did not look optimistic for the colonies but at the last minute the victory at Trenton occurred, it started when George Washington led his troops across the frozen river of Delaware on Christmas Eve and overtook the British at the city of Trenton. This last minute success gave the Colonial Army new hope for the year of 1777, this hope was met when 5,700 soldiers of the British surrendered in the Battle of Saratoga, the Colonial soldiers were led by the famous general, Horatio Gates, through the battle no one was sure who was winning because the two armies were so closely matched, during the battle Benedict Arnold was striped of his command, this was for trying to change the plans of battle, a possible reason might be because of the uncertainty that he felt, but sure enough it ended in a colonial victory, and the leaders including Arnold were all commended but later on he, unfortunately, switched sides and joined the British army. Through this vital time there was a back and forth victory pattern, General George Washington was leading troops in many battles and he was having good success as the war continued into 1780. However, in 1778 the United Sates was recognized as an independent country by the French, but even before that in 1777 the Continental Army spent the winter in Pennsylvania in Valley Forge, and the winter was very cold and sadly a fifth of the continental army died. Though the winter was hard, when the summer came, the colonists emerged and were ready to fight again. During the cold winter, Baron Von Steuben came and trained the soldiers to better their skills. The second half of the war had begun when Britain moved south in 1778. In the first important battle, Savannah was taken by the British and this caused Britain to have much more control over Georgia. After that, Camden and Charleston were also taken in 1780. The loss at Charleston was a hard hit on the enemies of Britain, but it was nothing in comparison to Camden, the losses there were 900 colonial losses to less than 300 British and on top of that the British took at least 1,000 prisoners. The most likely reason for the loss was because Horatio Gates had largely underestimated General Cornwallis. Following these defeats, the British turned to conquer the State of North Carolina. After his lack of success in the south, Horatio Gates was replaced by Nathanael Greene who did very well in that position, he had a great determination to push forward and before long he and his men chased the British out of the north. The Continental Army had a key advantage over the British, instead of waiting for soldiers to arrive from England, the Colonists received new men as soon as they signed up to fight. As Cornwallis fled to the coast of America to receive additional men, he arrived in Yorktown and waited for the arrival of the troops, but the British ships, as it turned out, had been chased out by the Massive French Armada, this of course meant that Cornwallis had nowhere to run, so he was forced to surrender in 1781. After that event the way that the war was fought changed and slowed down, the British did not fight as they had, instead they just held there ground, but back in England the people were beginning to see things the way that the colonists did, even though the King wanted more war. Regardless of this, no big battles were fought between the British and the Continental Army after the surrender at Yorktown. The war did not pick up after this, in fact it ended, the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, and the war was over. After eight long years the colonists had won their hard earned reward of independence and freedom from the British crown.