Key terms
- Galloway's Plan of Union
- September 28, 1774
Joseph Galloway's proposal to the First Continental Congress for an American legislature inside the British Empire, with a Grand Council the assemblies would elect and a president general the king would appoint.
Congress set it aside by only one vote, so in 1774 many delegates still wanted a compromise inside the empire.
- Patriots
- 1775–1783
Colonists who backed resistance to Britain and, from July 1776, independence. About 40 percent of the population actively supported the cause, most strongly in New England and Virginia.
Their commitment kept men enlisting and families feeding the army through years of defeat.
- Loyalists
- 1775–1783
Colonists who stayed loyal to George III, by most estimates 15 to 20 percent of white colonists, strongest in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, and the port cities.
They made the Revolution a civil war between neighbors, and 60,000 to 80,000 of them left the country, many for Canada.
- Militia
- 1775–1783
Part-time citizen soldiers, such as the Massachusetts minutemen, whom the colonies and later the states called out for short terms of service.
Though militia often broke in open battle, they swelled the army at Saratoga and kept the British from holding the southern backcountry.
- Lexington and Concord
- April 19, 1775
The first battles of the war, when militia fought British troops who had marched from Boston to seize colonial arms and gunpowder at Concord, Massachusetts.
The fighting turned protest into war, and within two months Congress had formed the Continental Army under Washington.
- Continental Army
- Created June 14, 1775
The regular army that Congress created in June 1775 under Washington's command. Early recruits signed up for a year or less, and it rarely had more than about 20,000 men at once.
While militia came and went, this army stayed in the field, and as long as it survived, so did the rebellion.
- George Washington
- 1732–1799; commanded the army 1775–1783
The Virginia planter whom Congress named to command the Continental Army in 1775. After nearly losing his army on Long Island in 1776, he avoided staking the war on one big battle.
He held the army together through defeats and hungry winters until he and the French could trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.
- Continental currency
- Congress approved the first issue June 22, 1775
Paper money the Continental Congress printed to pay for the war, more than $200 million in all. By March 1780 Congress itself valued 40 paper dollars at one silver dollar.
A Congress that could not tax left its soldiers unpaid and hungry, a weakness that carried into the Articles of Confederation.
- Dunmore's Proclamation
- November 7, 1775
An offer by Virginia's royal governor, Lord Dunmore, to free enslaved people and indentured servants who left rebel masters to fight for the king. It left out anyone Loyalists enslaved.
Hundreds of enslaved people escaped to British lines, and the threat pushed Patriot leaders to accept Black soldiers themselves.
- *The American Crisis*
- December 1776
A pamphlet Thomas Paine wrote after marching with the army in its retreat across New Jersey, urging Americans to stand by the cause in defeat.
Paine wrote it days before most enlistments ran out, and the Patriots' refusal to quit became one reason they won.
- Camp followers
- 1775–1783
Thousands of women, many of them soldiers' wives, who traveled with the army and cooked, washed, and nursed in return for rations. Some carried water and ammunition in battle.
Camp followers filled gaps that Congress could not, while women at home ran farms and raised money for the troops.
- Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee)
- 1775–1783; split in battle at Oriskany, August 6, 1777
A league of six nations in what is now New York. The war split it, with most Mohawk and Seneca fighting for Britain and most Oneida and Tuscarora joining the Patriots.
Most Native nations that fought backed Britain, which had tried since 1763 to limit colonial settlement on their land.
- Battle of Saratoga
- September 19 and October 7, 1777; surrender October 17
An American victory in upstate New York, where British general John Burgoyne, marching south from Canada to cut off New England, surrendered about 6,000 men to Horatio Gates.
After Burgoyne's surrender, France believed the Americans could win and openly allied with them in February 1778.
- Valley Forge
- December 19, 1777–June 19, 1778
The Continental Army's winter camp, about 20 miles from British-held Philadelphia, where roughly 2,000 soldiers died, mostly of disease, as food and clothing ran short.
The army held together, and Baron von Steuben's drill turned it into a force that could face British regulars in open battle.
- French alliance
- Signed February 6, 1778
France's treaty with the United States, which recognized American independence and promised that neither ally would make a separate peace with Britain. Benjamin Franklin and two other commissioners negotiated it in Paris.
France joined the war to weaken Britain, which now had to defend its colonies around the world.
- African American soldiers
- 1775–1783; Rhode Island act February 1778
About 5,000 Black men who served on the Patriot side, most of them free Northerners in mixed units. In 1778 Rhode Island promised freedom to enslaved men who enlisted.
Black men fought for a revolution that proclaimed liberty, yet the war left slavery legal in most states.
- Battle of Yorktown
- September 28–October 19, 1781
The siege in Virginia where American and French armies under Washington and Rochambeau trapped Cornwallis while a French fleet blocked any rescue by sea. Cornwallis surrendered more than 7,000 men.
The surrender ended the major fighting, and after Lord North's government fell in March 1782, peace talks began in Paris.
- Treaty of Paris (1783)
- Preliminary terms November 30, 1782; signed September 3, 1783
The peace treaty in which Britain recognized American independence, with a western border at the Mississippi River. Americans gained fishing rights off Canada, and no Native nation took part.
Its Mississippi boundary ran across land Native nations still held, which set up the western conflicts of the 1780s and 1790s.
Big questions
Explain how one development contributed to the American colonists' victory over Great Britain from 1775 to 1783.
The Patriots won by outlasting a far richer enemy until France joined them. George Washington would not stake the Continental Army on one decisive battle, militia poured in at Saratoga, and camp followers cooked and nursed for soldiers Congress could barely pay. Britain took New York and Philadelphia, but it never destroyed the army.
Which factor most directly contradicts John Adams's claim that the Revolution happened "in the minds of the people" by 1775?
The large number of Loyalists contradicts it. About 15 to 20 percent of white colonists sided with the king and many others stayed neutral, so independence never won over every mind. As late as 1774, the First Continental Congress set aside Galloway's Plan of Union, a compromise inside the empire, by only one vote.
Why did France decide to aid the colonies in their war for independence?
France wanted to weaken Britain, the rival that had taken Canada from it in 1763, and its king had no wish to spread revolution. France sent only secret aid until the victory at Saratoga showed the Americans could win. The French alliance followed in 1778, and in 1781 a French army and fleet joined Washington to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown.
Explain one similarity or difference in how two groups in North America responded to a British policy from 1763 to 1783.
African Americans and Native nations both split between the two sides. After Dunmore's Proclamation promised freedom, hundreds of enslaved people fled to British lines, while about 5,000 African American soldiers, most of them free Northerners, fought for the Patriots. In the Iroquois Confederacy, most Mohawk sided with Britain to guard their land, but most Oneida joined the Patriots.
Common mistakes
MistakeBy 1776, nearly all colonists wanted independence from Britain.
In factOnly about 40 percent of colonists actively backed the Patriot cause, and the rest were Loyalists or stayed neutral.
MistakeFrance joined the war to spread democracy and liberty.
In factLouis XVI was an absolute monarch who wanted to weaken Britain, and he waited until Saratoga showed the Americans could win.
MistakeYorktown was the turning point because it brought France into the war.
In factSaratoga in 1777 brought France into the war, and Yorktown in 1781, where French soldiers and sailors outnumbered the Americans, ended the major fighting.
Transcript
Fast Enough Now
June–Dec 1776
Joe’s friend You have long been talking about it. Come, now is the time.
That summer, fifteen-year-old Joseph Plumb Martin signed on for six months to help defend New York.
In 1830, Martin published a memoir of the war as an ordinary private saw it.
Joseph Plumb Martin Alexander never could have conquered the world without private soldiers.
By December 1776, the British had driven Washington's army out of New York and across New Jersey.
Thomas Paine, who had marched with the retreating army, published The American Crisis that December:
Thomas Paine These are the times that try men's souls.
Thomas Paine The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country.
Joe's enlistment ended on Christmas Day, 1776, and he started for home.
That same night, Washington's army crossed back over the Delaware River, without Joe.
Four months later, Joe was back, and he stayed until the war ended, often hungry, cold and unpaid.
His story helps explain how an army that kept going home beat the most powerful empire on earth.
A Broken Staff
June–December 1776 · a glance ahead to 1777
In August 1776, seven weeks after the Declaration of Independence, British troops landed on Long Island, New York.
Britain had more soldiers, the world's strongest navy and far more money, but it was fighting three thousand miles from home. It could also count on the Loyalists, about one in five colonists, who stayed loyal to the king.
On Long Island, the British nearly trapped Washington's army, but he slipped it across the East River to Manhattan by night. From then on, he refused to risk his whole army in one battle, because as long as the army survived, so did the rebellion.
His army mixed Continentals, who enlisted for a year, with militia called out by the states for a few months.
George Washington To place any dependance upon Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff.
In November, the British captured Fort Washington, on Manhattan, and took nearly three thousand Americans prisoner.
By mid-December, the army had retreated into Pennsylvania, and Washington wrote to his brother:
George Washington I think the game is pretty near up.
At All Events
December 25–26, 1776
With many enlistments ending on December 31, Washington decided to attack Trenton, New Jersey, before his army melted away. Its defenders were Hessians, German soldiers whom Britain had hired.
The crossing ran hours late, and Washington knew he could not reach Trenton before daylight.
But a retreat across the river would surely be discovered, so he made his choice:
George Washington I determined to push on at all Events.
Around eight in the morning, the Americans attacked, and their cannon swept the streets before the Hessians could form ranks.
By midmorning, the Americans had captured about nine hundred Hessians. It was a small battle, but after months of defeat it showed that the rebellion was still alive.
Their Price
December 1776 – spring 1777
Even after Trenton, many New England soldiers' enlistments were due to end the next day, December 31.
Washington asked them to stay, and the drums beat for volunteers, but no one stepped forward.
Then he offered a ten-dollar bounty for six more weeks, and at least half the New England troops stayed.
Washington · letter to Hancock, January 1, 1777 The Troops felt their importance, and would have their price.
In 1777, Joe's neighbors in Milford had to supply a soldier, so they paid him to enlist in their place for the whole war.
Six Weeks to Paris
June–October 1777
In June 1777, the British general John Burgoyne marched south from Canada to cut New England off from the other states. That September, General William Howe's main British army took Philadelphia, the American capital, forcing Congress to flee.
Near Saratoga, New York, Daniel Morgan's riflemen fired from the woods, and militia kept arriving until Burgoyne was surrounded.
On October 17, 1777, Burgoyne surrendered about six thousand British and German soldiers to the American general Horatio Gates. Saratoga was the turning point of the war, because it convinced France that the Americans could win.
Greater News Than That
1777–1781
More than six weeks later, a messenger from Boston reached Benjamin Franklin, who was in Paris seeking a French alliance.
Franklin · 1826 anecdote, retold in 1864 Sir, is Philadelphia taken?
Austin · 1826 anecdote, retold in 1864 Yes, sir.
Austin · 1826 anecdote, retold in 1864 But, sir, I have greater news than that. General Burgoyne and his whole army are prisoners of war!
King Louis the Sixteenth had no wish to spread revolution, but he wanted to weaken Britain, which had beaten France in 1763. France had been secretly sending money and gunpowder since 1776, and after Saratoga it was ready to fight openly. On February 6, 1778, France signed an alliance, promising to fight until American independence was won.
Move through the years and watch the war spread. Spain joined the war in 1779 as France's ally, and Britain went to war with the Dutch in 1780. Now Britain had to defend colonies around the world, not just fight in America.
To Stay, Not to Live
December 1777–June 1778
Back in December 1777, while Washington's army camped outside British-held Philadelphia, Congress declared a day of thanksgiving.
Martin remembered the holiday treat that the country sent its hungry army:
Joseph Plumb Martin it gave each and every man half a gill of rice, and a table spoon full of vinegar!!
The next day, the army marched into Valley Forge, twenty miles from Philadelphia, to build huts for the winter.
Joseph Plumb Martin In our miserable condition, to go into the wild woods and build us habitations to stay (not to live) in, in such a weak, starved and naked condition, was appaling in the highest degree, […]
Nearly two thousand soldiers died that winter, most of them from disease, because hunger left them too weak to fight it off. The army went hungry partly because Congress could not tax, and the paper money it printed, called continentals, soon lost almost all its value.
Washington warned the president of Congress that unless food and clothing arrived,
George Washington this Army must inevitably be reduced to one or other of these three things.
George Washington Starve—dissolve—or disperse
Half a century later, Martin wrote about his own choice that winter:
Joseph Plumb Martin dispersion, I believe, was not thought of,—at least, I did not think of it.
Full Security
1775–1780 · remembered in 1790–1836
Both sides offered some enslaved people freedom, and every offer came with conditions. In 1775, Lord Dunmore, Virginia's royal governor, had promised freedom to enslaved men who fled Patriot owners and fought for the king.
Patriot leaders were slower to recruit Black men, but about five thousand served, most of them free Northerners. In 1778, Rhode Island promised freedom to enslaved men who enlisted.
In 1779, Britain's commander, Sir Henry Clinton, promised protection to enslaved people who fled Patriot owners:
Sir Henry Clinton full Security to follow within these Lines, any Occupation which he shall think proper.
He never used the word free, and Congress never made a general promise of freedom either.
In 1780, Boston King, an enslaved carpenter in South Carolina, fled a cruel master for British-held Charleston.
Boston King They received me readily, and I began to feel the happiness of liberty, of which I knew nothing before,
In 1783, he sailed with the British to Nova Scotia, a free man.
Most Native nations that fought sided with Britain, which had tried since 1763 to keep settlers off their lands. The Iroquois Confederacy split: most Mohawk and Seneca fought for Britain, most Oneida and Tuscarora for the Patriots.
In 1778, Seneca warriors and Loyalist rangers raided frontier settlements in New York, such as Cherry Valley. The next spring, Washington ordered General John Sullivan to march against the Iroquois towns:
George Washington The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements
In the late summer of 1779, Sullivan's army burned about forty Iroquois towns and their crops, leaving thousands of people hungry for the winter.
In 1790, Seneca chiefs, speaking through an interpreter, told President Washington what their people called him:
Seneca chiefs · interpreter’s English When your army entered the Country of the Six Nations, we called you the Town-destroyer
Rise and Fight Again
1780–1781
From late 1778, Britain shifted the war to the South, expecting Loyalists there to help its army hold the region. In 1780, the British took Charleston, and their southern commander, Lord Cornwallis, crushed Gates, the victor of Saratoga, at Camden, South Carolina. But at King's Mountain, Patriot militia destroyed a Loyalist force, and nearly every man on both sides was American. In the South, the Revolution had become a civil war between neighbors.
In January 1781, Daniel Morgan, the rifle commander from Saratoga, faced the British cavalry commander Banastre Tarleton at the Cowpens, in South Carolina. Morgan asked his militia to fire just two volleys and then fall back behind his Continentals.
The militia fired and fell back as planned, and when the British charged, the Continentals and cavalry struck back. In less than an hour, Tarleton lost most of his eleven hundred men, killed, wounded or captured.
Nathanael Greene, Washington's choice to command the South, lost battle after battle but kept his army alive, as he told the French minister:
Gen. Nathanael Greene We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.
Worn down, Cornwallis left the Carolinas and marched his army north into Virginia, while Greene kept fighting in the South.
Trapped at Yorktown
August–October 1781
In late August 1781, the French admiral de Grasse brought his fleet from the Caribbean to Virginia, planning to sail back by mid-October.
Meanwhile, Washington and the French general Rochambeau marched their armies about four hundred fifty miles south to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown. On September 5, de Grasse's fleet drove off a British fleet at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, cutting off Cornwallis's escape by sea.
On the march south, the soldiers received a month's pay in silver coin, borrowed from the French.
At Yorktown, Sarah Osborn, a soldier's wife, cooked for the men digging trenches and carried the food to them under fire. When Washington asked if she was afraid of the cannonballs, she answered:
Sarah Osborn No, the bullets would not cheat the gallows —
Sarah Osborn that it would not do for the men to fight and starve too.
Thousands of women followed the army as cooks, laundresses and nurses, and some carried water and cartridges in battle. At home, women ran farms and shops, boycotted British goods and raised money for the troops.
On the night of October 14, Joe lay in the sand with an axe, ready to chop through the British barricades.
Alexander Hamilton, Washington's former aide, led American troops against one British strongpoint with bayonets, while the French stormed the other. Both fell that night, and allied cannon could now pound Cornwallis's lines from close range.
Cornwallis was trapped between a French and American army on land and a French fleet at sea.
On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered more than seven thousand men, the same day a British rescue fleet left New York. In London, the war had grown too costly, and in March 1782 Lord North's government fell and peace talks began.
One Dollar
1781–1783
During the siege, Cornwallis drove enslaved people who had fled to him out of his lines, many of them sick with smallpox.
Joseph Plumb Martin lord Cornwallis, […] in love and pity to them, had turned adrift, with no other recompense for their confidence in his humanity, than the small pox for their bounty and starvation and death for their wages.
Afterward, their enslavers offered American soldiers a guinea a head to catch them.
Joseph Plumb Martin I had a share in one of them by assisting in taking him up;
Joseph Plumb Martin the fortune I acquired was small, only one dollar.
His one dollar came as twelve hundred dollars in paper money, and all of it bought one quart of rum. Martin had fought for liberty, and he also helped take away another man's.
On September 3, 1783, Britain signed the Treaty of Paris and recognized the independence of the United States. Article Seven barred the British from carrying away enslaved people as property, and the treaty never named a Native nation.
The treaty set the western border at the Mississippi River, though Native nations still held most of that land. Americans could fish off Canada, British creditors could collect their prewar debts, and Congress would urge the states to return Loyalist property. Between sixty and eighty thousand Loyalists left the country, many of them for Canada.
Martin had his own answer to how they won.
Joseph Plumb Martin What could officers do without such men? Nothing at all.
Martin credited the private soldiers, but historians point to four causes of the Patriot victory. Sort the evidence under each one.
Captain Johann Ewald But from this one can perceive what an enthusiasm—which these poor fellows call “Liberty”—can do!
Commitment alone did not win the war, but it kept the war going long enough for a coalition to win it. That coalition beat an empire with the world's strongest navy, great wealth and tens of thousands of Loyalist allies.
Joseph Plumb Martin We had lived together as a family of brothers for several years.
Joe stayed for pay and food, for his friends, because he had signed on for the war, and sometimes for the cause itself.
In 1783, the war was over, and Joe, now twenty-two, left the army. The soldiers had won a country, and now Americans had to pay for it and decide who it was for.
Congress had promised land to soldiers who served for the whole war, but many never got it.
Joseph Plumb Martin When the country had drained the last drop of service it could screw out of the poor soldiers,
Joseph Plumb Martin they were turned adrift like old worn out horses, and nothing said about land to pasture them upon.