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War and Revolution1775–1783

The outbreak of war and the political efforts of zealous Patriots such as Thomas Paine, who wrote Common Sense, inspired many reluctant Americans to contemplate the benefits of independence from Britain. By 1776, many Americans thought that war with Britain was necessary and just, but the poorly trained Continental army lacked sufficient resources to fight the British.

By 1776, many Americans thought that war with Britain was necessary and just, but the poorly trained Continental army lacked sufficient resources to fight the British. • Fortunately for the Americans, they had a brilliant leader who both understood the dynamics of this new kind of colonial warfare and possessed the political and military acumen to implement his ideas.

The Second Continental Congress and Civil War • After losing battles at Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill, in 1775 the Continental Congress created a Continental army headed by General George Washington.

Moderates led by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania passed a petition that expressed loyalty to the king and requested the repeal of oppressive parliamentary legislation. • Zealous Patriots such as John Adams and Patrick Henry won passage of a Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms.

***The king refused the moderates’ petition and issued a Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition in August 1775. • Hoping to add a fourteenth colony to the rebellion, the Patriot forces invaded Canada and took Montreal in September but later failed to capture Quebec. • American merchants cut off all exports to Britain and its West Indian sugar islands, and Parliament retaliated with a Prohibitory Act, banning trade with the rebellious colonies.

Lord Dunmore of Virginia organized two military forces—one white, one black— and offered freedom to slaves and indentured servants who joined the Loyalist cause. • Faced with black unrest and pressed by yeomen and tenant farmers demanding independence, Patriot planters called for a break with Britain.

By April of 1776, Radical Patriots had, through military conflict, transformed the North Carolina assembly into an independent Provincial Congress, which instructed its representatives to support independence and by May 1776 • Virginia Patriots had followed suit and done the same.

Common Sense • Many colonists retained a deep loyalty to the crown as to do otherwise might threaten all paternal authority and disrupt the hierarchical social order. • By 1775, the Patriot cause was gaining greater support among artisans and laborers.

Many Scots-Irish in Philadelphia became Patriots for religious reasons, and some well-educated persons questioned the idea of monarchy altogether. • In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense—a call for independence and republicanism. • Common Sense aroused the general public and quickly turned thousands of Americans against British rule.

*** • it rejected the arbitrary power of the king and Parliament. • it used strong language that ordinary people could understand. • it supported the creation of independent republican states.

"These are the times that try men's souls."

Paine’s message was not only popular but also clear—reject the arbitrary powers of king and Parliament and create independent republican states.

Independence Declared • On July 4, 1776, the Congress approved a Declaration of Independence. • Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration, justified the revolt by blaming the rupture on George III rather than on Parliament.

*** • Jefferson drew on the ideas of the Enlightenment to craft the Declaration's mix of classical liberalism and republicanism, declaring the need for both personal liberty and popular sovereignty.

Jefferson proclaimed that “all men are created equal”; they possess the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and that government derives its power from the “consent of the governed.”

By linking these doctrines with independence, Jefferson established them as defining values of the new nation. • Colonists celebrated the Declaration by burning George III in effigy and toppling statues of the king; these acts helped to break the ties to the monarch and to establish the legitimacy of republican state governments.

*** • By demonizing King George III, the Declaration of Independence was able to focus popular anger on a single figure, thereby making it much easier to galvanize public sentiment.

The Trials of War, 1776–1778 War in the North

Few observers thought that the rebels stood a chance of defeating the British; Great Britain had more people and more money with which to fight. • Few Indians supported the rebels; they were opposed to the expansion of white settlement. • The British were seasoned troops, and the Americans were militarily weak.

*** • The British used their extensive resources to assemble a well-trained and well-equipped army of British regulars and German mercenaries. Their failure to gain the support of the local population, however, proved their undoing.

Prime Minister North assembled a large invasion force and selected General William Howe to lead it; North ordered Howe to capture New York City and seize control of the Hudson River in order to isolate the radical Patriots in New England from the other colonies. • General William Howe and his 32,000 British troops landed outside New York City in July 1776, just as the Continental Congress was declaring independence in Philadelphia.

Outgunned and outmaneuvered, the Continental army retreated across the Hudson to New Jersey, then across the Delaware River to Philadelphia.

The British halted their campaign for the winter months, which allowed the Continental army a few minor triumphs that still could not mask British military superiority.

*** • One of these was Washington's surprise attack on the British on Christmas night 1776. This, along with an additional successful engagement in nearby Princeton, enabled the Continental Congress to return to their headquarters in Philadelphia. These victories were the only points of light for the Continental army in the grim winter of 1776-77.

Armies and Strategies • ***General Howe’s military strategy was one of winning the surrender of opposing forces, rather than destroying them; this tactic failed to nip the rebellion in the bud. • ***General Washington’s strategy was to draw the British away from the seacoast, extending their lines of supply and draining their morale. Also they were disadvantaged by their distance from their source of supplies.

***The British failed to encourage Loyalists to support the British army

The Continental army drew most of its recruits from the lower ranks of society, the majority of whom fought for a bonus of cash and land rather than out of patriotism. • The Continental army was also poorly provisioned and armed • Given all these handicaps, Washington was fortunate to have escaped an overwhelming defeat in the first year of the war.

Victory at Saratoga • To finance the war, the British ministry increased the land tax and prepared to mount a major campaign in 1777. • The primary British goal, the isolation of New England, was to be achieved with the help of General John Burgoyne, a small force of Iroquois, and General Howe.

Howe Gates Burgoyne Burgoyne surrender at Saratoga

Howe had a scheme of his own; he wanted to attack Philadelphia—home of the Continental Congress—and end the rebellion with a single victory. • Washington and his troops withdrew from Philadelphia, and the Continental Congress fled into the interior, determined to continue the fight.

General Burgoyne’s troops were forced to surrender to General Horatio Gates and his men at Saratoga, New York. • The American victory at Saratoga was the turning point of the war and virtually assured the success of a military alliance with France.

*** • When the once-superior force of British general John Burgoyne was forced to surrender itself and its equipment to American militiamen at the Battle of Saratoga, the French decided that the American cause had a legitimate chance of success. The American victory, however, did not convince the states to increase taxes, and the Continental army remained impoverished.

Social and Financial Perils • Tens of thousands of civilians were exposed to deprivation, displacement, and death as the War of Independence became a bloody partisan conflict. • Patriots organized Committees of Safety to collect taxes, to send provisions to the army, and to punish those who failed to support the cause of independence.

On the brink of bankruptcy, the new state governments printed paper money that was worth very little.

Lacking the authority to impose taxes, the Continental Congress borrowed gold from France. When those funds were exhausted, Congress also printed currency and bills of credit, which quickly declined in value. • Farmers refused to sell their crops for worthless currency, even to the Continental army. Either out of pacifism or the hopes of higher prices, farmers either hoarded their grains or accepted gold or silver for their crops that only the British could pay.

Military morale crumbled, causing some Patriot leaders to doubt that the rebellion could succeed. • The Continental army suffered from lack of necessities; the winter of 1777–1778 at Valley Forge took as many lives as two years of fighting.

To counter falling morale, Baron von Steuben instituted a system of drill and maneuver that shaped the smaller Continental army into a much tougher and better-disciplined force.

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