The American Revolutionary War took place from 1775-83 between the Great Britain and the thirteen British colonies of America followed by a war between Britain and other European powers. The war resulted ending British colonial rule over American, brought in independence for colonies and led to the formation of a republican form of government in newly emerged United States of America. More or less 30 main battles took place during the period of 8 years changing the geo-politics of the region altogether. This paper would cover few of the main battles that led to the victory of the colonist powers.

The Boston campaign was the major event leading to the outbreak of revolutionary war in which irregular militia units were formed later giving birth to Continental Army. The early involvement of colonial militia was seen in Battles of Concord and Lexington in April 1775 against the British Army causing them a good amount of casualties. At the commencement of war in 1775, Boston was under the strong hold of the British. In order to vacate Boston, American troops gathered at the Breed’s Hill under Colonel William Prescott. British troops under General William Howe initiated the battle. The main cause behind the battle was the decision of the Committee of Safety established by the second Provincial Congress of Massachusetts in February 1775, to occupy Charlestown and Dorchester Heights. The Boston siege caused the important battle of Bunker Hill in June 1775 (Swett 18). The battle of Bunker Hill played a decisive role in the Revolutionary War. The battle was fought by the American and the British forces on the possession of Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill.

In the battle, British finished defeating the American forces and destroying Charlestown. About four hundred Americans died in the combat against one thousand British dead and wounded. Although, the British came out as victorious but the heavy losses made them admit the devastating effects of the war. The American side had “one hundred and fifteen killed and missing, three hundred and five wounded and thirty captured” whereas the British loses mounted to “1500, Gage acknowledges but 1054 including eighty-nine officers; two hundred and twenty six killed including nineteen officers, and eight hundred and twenty eight wounded seventy of them officers” (Swett 51).

For the British it was a victory that charged a very high price and for which they were never willing to go about. The American were the losers but had tested their abilities to confront the British in the future. They did not abandon their struggle for freedom against the British. The seed of freedom was thus sown in the American soils at Bunker Hill that were later on reaped in 1783 in shape of freedom from the British rule.

Boosted up with the initial success, the American troops marched forward to Fort Ticonderoga in 1775 (The Battle of Ticonderoga 1777). The fort served as a hub for the British forces with huge dump of weaponry and artillery supplies. The American forces led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured the force. It became the major base for Americans to contain the British movement from north to south. During the next two years, the British made a few attempts to bring back the fort. In 1777 the British led by John Burgoyne ousted the American under Arthur St. Clair. “Ticonderoga fallen, the American army in retreat, and loyalists mobilizing to aid the British, Burgoyne appeared to recapture New England” (Resch 28).

The Americans planned a fight back at Saratoga the same year. Two separate battles taking place in Saratoga cultivated a hope of victory among the American forces against the world largest army and strongest navy and also included regiments from their colonies around the world. On contrary, the American troops were smaller in number, weak, untrained, ill-equipped, short of money and resources and without a naval force. The battles at Saratoga ended in a surprising victory for Americans with “Burgoyne’s surrender of his entire army of 5,700 men at Saratoga in mid-October was the pivotal moment of the war; a victory so large, so thrilling, and so decisive that it emboldened the wavering France to enter the conflict on the patriotic side” (Chernow 100).

The Battle of Monmouth in 1778 was most important of the series of revolutionary battles for being the toughest and longest engagement and the “last action in the North” (Morrissey 7). Now headed by General George Washington, the American troops were far better in training and techniques than ever before. Fought in New Jersey in June 1778, the British were attacked form the rear while evacuating Philadelphia on their way to New York City via New Jersey (Pitcher). The American army started harassing them by “burning bridges, muddying wells, cutting trees across roads, and snapping at their heels” halting their movement and making the solders collapse as the “British advance only 40 miles in a week. The weather is warm and wet, and traveling is hard muddy work. The Hessians suffer most as they carry heavy packs, and many fall from the heat, others desert (Pitcher).

On way to victories, the Americans faced a little setback when Washington’s most favored commander Benedict Arnold turned traitor. It is said that he played as double-agent and started selling important military information to the British. He underwent some very succulent and highly paid bargain during 1780 against a plan of handing over to the British the crucial post at West Point, New York; a deal concluded against a sum of ten thousand British pounds. Though the planned didn’t work in the long term, it did cause severe damages to the revolution.

The Battle of the Chesapeake or Virginia Capes was a naval combat between the British and the French held in September 1981 resulting in major setback for the former (Palmer 139). According to Weigley, “Battle of the Chesapeake was a tactical victory for the French by no clear-cut margin, but it was a strategic victory for the French and Americans that sealed the principal outcome of the war” (240).

In the Second Battle of the Chesapeake starting September 5, 1781, American Rear Admiral Comte de Grasse fought for five days against a British fleet led by Admirals Sir Thomas Graves and Sir Samuel Hood. Due to some misunderstanding between Graves and Hood, the later failed tallying with him losing a chance for success. In the meantime, Commodore Compte Barras de Saint Laurent, deputed at Newport, slipped into the Chesapeake area. De Grasse hurried to the Chesapeake joining Barras where Graves, with 19 ships, was helpless defeating 36 French ships. He fled away abandoning Cornwallis making him surrender at Yorktown on 19 October leaving one-third of the British army in North America with hopes for triumph.

In January 1781 British force under Lieutenant Colonel Tarleton faced a defeat against Patriot forces under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan. The combat was known as the Battle of Cowpens fought in the vicinity of King’s Mountain, South Carolina. After his retreat, Morgan joined Greene, while still followed by Cornwallis’s men through North Carolina through southern Virginia and again back into North Carolina. The two armed forces eventually united at Guilford Courthouse. Greene was finally crushed leaving the British with 25 percent casualties. Cornwallis redesigning his war strategy decided to leave the interior and move towards the Wilmington coast. From there, he moved further north joining some 2,500 men sent by Clinton to establish a base at Yorktown, Virginia.

On September 8, 1781 the unforgettable Battle of Eutaw Springs was fought among two thousand three hundred British and two thousand American soldiers (Simms 282). The excellent American cavalry under Gen. Nathanael Greene marched towards the battlefield surprisingly invading the British lines led by Lt. Col. Alexander Stewart. The ambush left Greene with 500 casualties; Stewart had suffered the highest losses so far with 693 dead, wounded, or missing. After crediting another victory to Americans the British moved back towards Charleston.

The final showdown occurred at Yorktown when armies led by Washington and Rochambeau joined by Lafayette’s small force, gathered at Williamsburg to organize the blockade of Yorktown in mid-September, 1781.  Both Washington and Rochambeau conferred with de Grasse on board the admiral’s flagship. They helped de Grasse manage the sea approach while their armies surrounded Yorktown, constructing trenches approaching Cornwallis’s defenses.  Guns snatched from the French ships were used to bombard the city. By September 28, the allied armies took position around the town strengthening the siege. Cornwallis called his men back from external fortifications so as to preserve his strength till getting some rescue from the sea. In the mean time, the allies move forward occupying the vacant defensive positions.

In the first week of October, more allied troops started total bombardments of the British lines. Casualties increased till the British artillery went defensive by mid-October as allies entered 300 yards inside of Cornwallis’s main defenses. Cornwallis tried a futile escape on October 16 via sea prevented by a storm. On October 17, Cornwallis agreed to surrender paving way to American victory. “The Battle of Yorktown was the climax of American Revolution and directly led to the independence of the United States of America” (Lanning 1).

Conclusion

The British had an edge having a great naval force through which it captured and occupied the costal cities but were unable to keep their control over the countryside due to shortage of personnel in land army. The French involvement and siding with the locals played a decisive role at Chesapeake after which the British army surrendered at Yorktown in 1781. Following France, Spain and Dutch Republic also joined hands in war against the Imperialist Britain. The Treaty of Paris, 1783 finally ended the war beside bring recognition to the United States as a sovereign entity.

The Revolutionary War was the finale of the American political struggle against the British overthrowing their rule for good. The revolutionaries got control of all the thirteen colonies forming the Continental Army and Second Continental Congress. The states announcing independence founded a new union, the United States of America.

Works Cited

Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. Penguin, 2004

Lanning, Michael, Bob Rosenburgh. The Battle 100: The Stories Behind History’s Most Influential Battles. Sourcebooks, Inc., 2005

Morrissey, Brenda, Adam Hook. Monmouth Courthouse 1778: The Last Great Battle in the North. Osprey Publishing, 2004

Palmer, Michael A. Command at Sea: Naval Command and Control Since the Sixteenth Century. Harvard University Press, 2005

Pitcher, Molly. Famous Personage from The battle of Monmouth. Accessed December 16, 2008 http://www.doublegv.com/ggv/battles/Monmouth.html

Resch, John Phillips. Suffering Soldiers: Revolutionary War Veterans, Moral Sentiment, and Political Culture in the Early Republic. University of Massachusetts Press, 1999

Simms, William Gilmore. The Life of Nathanael Greene, Major-general in the Army of the Revolution. University of Michigan, 2005

Swett, Samuel, Annin & Smith, Boston Annin & Smith. History of Bunker Hill Battle. With a Plan. Munroe and Francis, 1826

The Battle of Ticonderoga 1777. Accessed December 16, 2008 http://www.britishbattles.com/battle-ticonderoga-1777.htm

Weigley, Russell. The Age of Battles: The Quest For Decisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo. Indiana University Press, 1991

By the Civil War, race had turn out to be a crucial means of organizing American life. The grand indispensable of identifying and controlling black slaves was joined in the early 1800 by struggles over who may claim whiteness in the new republic. At the same time as more than a few current scholars have detailed, racial identities turn out to be a national fascination in the two generations after the American Revolution, apparent in everything from party politics to blackface minstrelsy to a progressively rising suspicion in relation to future “amalgamation.” Mainly ethnic discourses within the United States prior to 1865 extended Enlightenment themes of systematic difference by means of skin color to classify civilization. A racialized citizenry secured its environmental frontiers against the claims of red Indians and brown Mexicans, despite the fact that in 1857 the Supreme Court established interior boundaries by disqualifying all African Americans from nationalized residency. By the 1840s, the notion that “race is everything” had turn out to be a favored slogan among racialists in Great Britain. During the same period, this phrase appropriately summed up lived experience within America’s white republic.

A distinguished exemption to crucial race by color was a sequence of formulations in the early on 1860s on the subject of a theoretical “Southern” race, whose quasi-biological stares was observable not in any physiognomic reality however in the temperament consciousness created in the growing tensions flanked by antagonistic sections. The theme of instinctive ethnic tensions flanked by white Americans from North and South develops into part of the sectional discourse in the consequences of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and sustained in the works of a small group of Southern ideologues all the way through the 1860 presidential election. A sequence of articles in the two mainly significant Southern journals diagnosed an intrinsic conflict between a distinct Saxon race in New England and the Norman descendants of Cavaliers in the South. Disparate patterns of colonial settlement, these ethnic theorists maintained, had frustrated attempts to set up a shared American nationhood, making whiteness less significant than a more basic aggression that still coursed through the blood of American citizens. After the formation of a Southern Confederacy, such notions became more extensive, at the same time as the characters of the English Civil War, refracted through the Norman Conquest, became ever more noticeable in Confederate popular poetry, press, and authorized statement. Despite the fact that never the sole, or even the most important aspect of Confederate principle, this focus on an “ethnological” struggle for Southern freedom from the North was hardly the sideshow that one might suppose.

This eccentric occurrence in the history of the Confederate South has every so often attracted academic attention, in particular from those concerned in detailing the culmination of antebellum Southern nationalism. Most recently, James McPherson has revisited the topic in Is Blood Thicker than Water. Crises of Nationalism in the Modern World. Prepared for a Canadian audience, McPherson’s slim book compares the Confederate South’s unlikely foray into “ethnic nationalism” with Quebec separatism, which also bases its “quiet revolution” on more readily accepted notions of shared French “blood.” McPherson admits that, compared to the francophone basis of Quebecois solidarity, the notion of a distinct “Southern” race seems “little short of ludicrous” and had “scarcely any foundation in fact.” He shrewdly reminds us, however, that national myths do not have to be true to be powerful. As Ernest Renan famously explained, in a phrase McPherson invokes, part of nationhood involves getting your history wrong. Extending this insight, McPherson marshals the strongest case ever made that the theme of ethnic difference from the North, however preposterous it might have been, lay at the foundation of Confederate self-understanding.

The importance that McPherson accords the Confederacy’s “racial independence” provides a greeting prospect to position this event within a significant chronological circumstance. The unbelievable representation of mythic Cavaliers has time and again been puzzled all the way through, fretted over, or, more on a regular basis, laughed away; infrequently has it received the sort of contemplation given to in the same way overgenerous aspects of the white South’s proslavery argument. Fundamental questions regarding how the Norman Conquest and the English Civil War could clarify the American conflict of the 1860s remain for the most part unasked. There is little understandable sense about the individuals who first proposed it, the circumstances under which the new prominence on racial difference flourished, and the relationship of such claims to larger goals of Confederate nationalism. Concern for the context of these ideas and, by extension, consideration of their larger historical significance, is virtually absent from the literature. Likewise, no attempt has been made to see either the considerable limits of this project or the objections to a Cavalier pedigree made by Southerners themselves. There has been, as a consequence, no effort to understand how and why the theme waned after 1863.

Analysis of this ethnic development can in cooperation augment accepting of its implication and divulge how Confederates in due course recast the matter throughout the second half of the Civil War. An individuality claimed from an imaginary prehistoric past became far less popular and practical once the Confederacy generated its own history of combined action to maintain a common reason. This is not shocking. However when confederate ideologies invoked chronological prototypes late in the war, they were as probable to draw from the tradition of Puritanism as from a Cavalier past. At the same time as ideologues more and more sought to make insurgence dependable with a resistance of ability, they introduced to the world an uncharacteristic compound. If the idea of a “Cavalier” race of “Southrons” proposed early in the war looks unusual, the ideal Confederate hero that followed–the Round headed Cavalier–would be stranger still.

James McPherson, similar to William Taylor in addition to others who preceded him, has argued that Southern recognition through Cavaliers developed from slaveholders’ rising partiality for idealistic novels. Mark Twain was one of the initial to present such a clarification, ironically suggesting that the South’s self-delusive war for secession could be accredited to the astonishing consequence of overindulging in Sir Walter Scott. As of the 1820s through the 1850s, twain suggested, Southern masters imbibed medieval fantasies with as much fervor as Don Quixote had immersed himself in an inventive world of graciousness. In his study of Southern chauvinism, historian Rollin Osterweis pushed Twain’s assumption further, signifying that “Southrons” who modified Scott’s mythic world to the slave states registered an elementary change in sectional self-conception. The plunge into desire seemed to approach at the cost of a twisted sense of authenticity for Southerners, no less than for Quixote. The Confederate South fared far worse, however, if only because Federal artillery proved far more deadly than the windmills of Renaissance Spain in a work of fiction.

There are more than a few diagnostic difficulties with this supposed association flanked by ingenious account and suicidal war. Such enlightenment presupposes that a local psyche existed, that it urbanized in a comprehensible way towards impractical serf-delusion, and that an investigation of legendary preferences is the most functional way of sympathetic sectional alienation. In addition taken for granted is the continuation of a common range flanked by antebellum and war attitudes towards the distant regional past, a continuum along which ideas progressed in quantitative to a certain extent than qualitative terms. However in comparing the theorizing in relation to Cavaliers and Puritans that occurred in 1860 with the preceding invocation of these archetypes, there appears to be as much essential improvement as permanence. This is no more an indictment of the theme than pointing out, as McPherson rightly has, its lack of foundation in fact. As scholars have turned from primordialism or evolutionary theories of nationalism to recognition of the constructed nature of collective identities, they have shown that even the most powerful national myths can result from radical improvisation and transformation, especially when offered during moments of crisis. As Rogers Brubaker has pointed out, nationality is as likely to be an event as a trend, with sudden changes in circumstances clearing the way for the ascendancy of previously unrecognized ideals. Nationalists need not rely only on ideas and beliefs that have matured and developed through a long period of development. Looking at how Cavalier and Puritan themes were deployed in modest ways by antebellum writers demonstrates how the Confederate arrangement of opposing white races represented a new strand of Southern nationalism in 1860.

The disarray of all this departed under the ideological exigencies of the early on union. Nearly all ethnic publicists traced the descent of all white Southerners neatly to Cavaliers, and, before that, to Normans, while they traced the existing Yankee race with ease back all the way through Puritanism to what they considered an iniquitous, to a certain extent than a magnificent, Saxon past.

Attempts to increase on an “ethnological” foundation of American sectional conflict shared a set of assumptions worked out in utmost detail by practitioners of the “philosophy of the past,” the third significant practice in the Confederate racial development. Southern intellectuals all through the 1840s and 1850s had followed the hard work of European thinkers such as Schlegel, Hegel, and Guizot to explain the past as a recounting of providential design all the way through “world-historical” peoples. In these works, the development of civilization entailed a history of succeeding ideas associated with the values and experiences of detailed nations or groups. The most determined practitioners of this approach were not satisfied with discovering the underlying forces that had determined past events; they strove to divulge what might come next for civilization as well.

Distant and under-appreciated aspects of history seemed to a lot of intellectuals of the nineteenth century the best source for unlocking the secrets of the vision, if a number of holistic standpoint or unifying perception could be grasped and explained. This supposition suffused the writings of 1860 and 1861 in relation to the ethnic disagreement flanked by North and South. Holt Wilson made this point in noting that the clash between North and South was “severely impenetrable in its nature” and was “like the teaching of a few of the earliest philosophic schools, apprehended only by the initiate, and altogether unperceived by the disrespectful.” an additional writer put the matter even more clearly, explaining, “the casual observer of events would, in all probability, pass by unnoticed” the basic antagonism of North and South. At the same time as this fundamental difference had been latent, the events of the early 1860s proved that “difference in race, composing any people, will, without doubt, sooner or later, produce and expand a corresponding differentiation in every primary belief, opinion and yearning.” Americans, this anonymous writer accomplished, were learning what Europeans knew all too well: that “discordant ethnological elements” among peoples were “the most influential shuffle-driver which ever worked upon the net of human affairs.”

A number of, despite the fact that by no means not all, of the purveyors of the Norman and Saxon thesis claimed that stressing racial self-determination was a better way to elicit European sympathy than a plea for a system of racial slavery.  The war also set the South back at least a generation in industry and agriculture. Factories and farms were devastated by the invading armies. The industry system fell into chaos. Not until the 20th century did the South recover fully from the economic effects of the war. On the contrary, the North forged ahead with the building of a contemporary industrial situation. In conclusion, it must be remarked that the Civil War did not raise blacks to a position of equality with whites. Nor did the war bring about that emotional reunion that Lincoln hoped for when he spoke in his first inaugural address of “the bonds of fondness” that had in the past held the two sections together.

The Port Royal Experiment was a plan begun throughout the American Civil War in which previous slaves productively worked on the land neglected by agricultural estate owners. During 1861, the Union enlightened the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and their foremost waterfront, Port Royal. The white residents fled, leaving behind 10,000 black slaves. More than a few private Northern aid organization stepped in to facilitate the former slaves turn out to be self-determining. The result was a representation of what Reconstruction could have been. The African Americans demonstrated their ability to work the land competently and live separately of white control. They assigned themselves on a daily basis tasks for cotton growing and spent their extra time cultivating their own crops, fishing and hunting. By selling their surplus crops, the locals acquired small amounts of property. During 1865, President Andrew Johnson ended the testing, returning the land to its preceding white owners.

A constituent of a flourishing and educated Philadelphia family, Charlotte Forten Grimké went to the Sea Islands of South Carolina throughout the Civil War subsequent to the Union Army occupied the region. She was the first black teacher to take part in the Port Royal Experiment, an effort to edify slaves who were enlightened when white landowners fled the islands. She wrote about her experiences in a two-part series in the Atlantic Monthly in 1864, vibrantly describing the distinguishing culture of the Sea Islands as well as historic events such as the celebration of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and a Fourth of July come across with Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the 54th Regiment of black Union soldiers.

Resources

WIlliam Bruce Wheeler; Susan D. Becker (2001) Discovering Americas Past, Volume 1.

WIlliam Bruce Wheeler; Susan D. Becker (2002) Discovering Americas Past, Volume 2.

Introduction

The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies on the North American continent (as well as some naval conflict). The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby the colonists overthrew British rule. In 1775, Revolutionaries seized control of each of the thirteen colonial governments, set up the Second Continental Congress, and formed a Continental Army. The following year, they formally declared their independence as a new nation, the United States of America. From 1778 onward, other European powers would fight on the American side in the war. Meanwhile, Native Americans and African Americans served on both sides. http://myrevolutionarywar.com/

The American Revolution not only created the American political nation but molded permanent characteristics of the culture that would develop within it. The Revolution is an event, consequently, whose meaning cannot be confined to the past. Whether we recognize it or not, the sense we make of the history of our national origins helps to define for us, as it has for generations before us, the values, purposes, and acceptable characteristics of our political institutions and cultural life.

To allow, therefore, the bicentennial celebration to degenerate into the hucksterism and confusion that threaten to overwhelm it would be a national humiliation. For when all the medallions have been struck, the pageantry performed, the commercial gimmicks exploited, and the market-tested historical hackwork published, there still remain the questions of what, in the context of the knowledge now available, the event was all about and what bearing it should have on our lives-questions that will surely be answered in some way or other, but not necessarily by those who are informed enough to distinguish fantasy from reality, partisan arguments from historical fact.

The land war in North America encompassed a large area, involving the interests of numerous colonial powers, and the incursions of France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic in 1778, 1779, and 1780 respectively, gave the war a more global character. The war in North America was divided into the northern campaign, encompassing New England, upstate New York, and Canada. The middle Atlantic campaign focused on operations in lower New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The southern campaign covered the operations from Virginia to Georgia. There was also some fighting on the West African coast, but this was relatively minor (Chamberlain, 1958).

The social history and the military history of the Revolution have seldom come together in the past because military historians tend to regard the war as an instrument managed on each side with more or less skill, while social historians treat military operations, if at all, as incidental to the study of politics and public finance. But if the war is restored to the central position that it had for the Revolutionary generation, and if it is seen not merely as an instrument but as a process, which entangled large numbers of people for a long period of time in experiences of remarkable intensity, then it may be possible to bring the study of the war and the study of the Revolution more closely together, to the benefit of both.

American strategy from 1775 to 1783 was indeed keyed to conventional operations, not simply to spare women, children, the aged, and property from the horrors of guerrilla warfare, but because a central army visibly helped to meet two acute needs: the need for internal unity and the need for external support. By being militarily conventional, American revolutionaries created at least the illusion of unified purpose, military strength, and political respectability, both at home and abroad. Whether they might have done better to be less conventional is an unanswerable, perhaps an idle, question, but it is not an anachronistic one, because it was raised at the time.

Lee (1964) thought that a conventional approach, which he ridiculed as Prussian, played to British strength and from American weakness, and he offered his own Swiss model for revolutionary war. He would have based American strategy on the militia and used regular forces primarily as a means to protect the militia from attack while it was being organized and trained. He would not have faced large British forces in pitched battles, except under the most favorable conditions like those at Bunker Hill or at the attack on Charleston in 1776, but would have given way to strength while nibbling it to death. He said little about the likely social consequences of his Swiss strategy, though presumably–political radical that he was–he was ready to accept them. His thinking was never consciously implemented or even fully developed before his downfall in 1778, but both its existence and its rejection are a measure of the extent to which the American Revolution was not a modern revolutionary war.

British efforts to interpret and put down rebellion in the American colonies divide into three distinct stages. For almost a decade of agitation before the war, successive British governments had defined their American problem as one of law enforcement and the maintenance of order; in general, legal measures were bound by the belief that, once legitimate grievances were redressed, trouble and resistance was the fault of a few recalcitrant individuals. Policy based on this belief failed, most obviously because these individuals seemed to command widespread local sympathy, an attitude that crippled judicial machinery. In early 1774, after the destruction of tea at Boston, the British government adopted a new interpretation of its American problem, which was that insurgency had a center-Boston–and that this center could and ought to be isolated and punished. The new policy assumed that other colonies, and even rural Massachusetts, were disturbed by the extremity of the latest acts of Boston insurgents and could be intimidated by the example made of the Boston community. The policy was thus seen to depend upon the application of overwhelming force, within the framework of civil law, to achieve clear-cut success at a single geographical point (Royster, 1979).

Of course, the assumption proved completely wrong. Coercive laws and the manifest intention to enforce them with troops gave insurgent leaders greater leverage than ever before outside Boston itself. Despite their misgivings, inhabitants of rural Massachusetts and other colonies concluded that they had no choice but to support Boston, since the new policy of community isolation and punishment seemed to threaten the political and legal integrity of every other community and colony. From this support, Boston acquired sufficient force to make the first military encounters–at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill–inconclusive and thus susceptible to interpretation as moral victories for the insurgents. Nothing did more to expand and consolidate rebel support throughout America.

Some aspects of the British performance in this first stage are worth noting. The outbreak of open fighting came in an attempt to break up what may be described as an insurgent base area whose existence cast doubt on the basic assumption.

With the outbreak of actual fighting, the concept of the problem as essentially a police action, however massive and extraordinary that action might be, quickly faded away and was replaced by the belief that the government faced a fairly con ventional war that could be conducted along classical lines. The American rebels were hastily organizing an army on the European model, and the game now seemed to be one of maneuvering in order to bring the rebel army to decisive battle or, better still, to destroy it without costly fighting. Accordingly, the British shifted their base from Boston, a dead end in terms of classical strategy, to New York, which was a superior port with access to the best lines of communication into the American interior. An incidental consideration, but no more than that, was the greater friendliness of the civilian population in the Middle Atlantic theater of operations as compared with New England (Paludan, 1972).

The underlying policy assumption of this second stage, not very closely examined at the time, was that success in conventional operations against the main rebel army would more or less automatically bring a restoration of political control in the wake of military victory. The assumption proved to be not wholly wrong. A series of tactical successes through the summer and fall of 1776 not only secured the New York port area but produced a striking collapse of resistance in New Jersey as well. Without any special effort by the British command, local rebel leaders fled or went into hiding as the main rebel army with drew. The local rebel militia, which had firmly controlled the communities of New Jersey, tended to disintegrate and to be replaced by an improvised loyal militia. It is clear that almost every civilian in New Jersey believed that the rebellion would collapse completely and that it was not too soon to reach an accommodation with the royal authorities. The government granted free pardon to all civilians who would take an oath of allegiance, and almost three thousand Americans accepted the offer in a few weeks, including one signer of the Declaration of Independence (Cunliffe, 1973).

The failure of the British campaign in New Jersey, after such a promising start, had two major causes, one external, the other internal. The internal cause is summarized in the remarks of two British observers: one noted that the lenient policy toward the civilian population “violently offends all those who have suffered for their attachment to government”; the other noted “the licentiousness of the troops, who committed every species of rapine and plunder.” There is ample evidence from both sides to confirm these observations. British regulars and especially their non-English-speaking German auxiliaries–products of the hard school of European warfare–tended to regard all civilians as possible rebels and hence fair game. Even if civilians avoided the regular foragers, they were not permitted to relapse into passive loyalty if they had ever shown the slightest sympathy for the rebel cause. Loyal bands of native militia regarded retribution as their principal function and were determined that no rebel should escape, pardon or no pardon. In many cases, former neutrals or lukewarm rebels found no advantage in submission to government and came to see flight, destruction, or resistance as the only available alternatives.

The other, external cause of failure stemmed from the British attempt to control and live off the central part of the state: brigade garrisons were deployed among towns, mainly for administrative convenience. Not surprisingly, the rebel main army, weak as it was, managed to achieve local superiority and exploit its excellent tactical intelligence to pick off two of these garrisons, at Trenton in late December and at Princeton in early January. The tactical effects of these small battles were modest, but the strategic and psychological effects were enormous. British forces withdrew from all exposed locations and henceforth concentrated in the area from Perth Amboy to New Brunswick. The morale of rebels, already sensitized by harsh treatment, soared; while the morale of loyal civilians, now out of range of British regular support, dropped sharply. Almost all New Jersey quickly came under insurgent control. The international repercussions of Trenton and Princeton were likewise serious (Skelton, 1992).

Throughout this second stage of the war, the British military and naval commanders, the brothers Howe, were empowered to negotiate with rebel leaders. These negotiations came to nothing because the rebel military situation was never truly desperate except briefly at the end of 1776 and because rebel unity so patently depended on adherence to political demands that the British government was not yet willing to concede. It has sometimes been argued that the British attempt to unify politics and warfare inhibited military operations, because the Howe brothers allegedly withheld the full force of the military stick in order to dangle the political carrot more enticingly. Little contemporary evidence supports the criticism, though the Howes were bitterly attacked once their failure was apparent. The effects that a ruthless naval blockade and the pursuit of armed rebels to utter destruction might have had on any real pacification of the troubled areas were unpredictably double-edged.

The outline of the third and last stage of British strategy took a year to emerge from the confusion that followed the defeat at Saratoga. The French fished more openly and aggressively for advantage in North America, and the British response was to escalate by declaring war against France. The West Indies, where both powers had large economic and military stakes, pulled the strategic center of gravity southward and seaward. During 1778, the British army on the continent remained on the defensive, cut its commitments by evacuating Philadelphia, and used bases at New York and Rhode Island to carry out a campaign of coastal harassment, while Indian allies put pressure on the rebel frontiers. Meanwhile, a general reevaluation of British strategy was taking place (Gordon, 1975) .

The basic concept was to regain complete military control of some one major colony, restore full civil government, and then expand both control and government in a step-by-step operation conducted behind a slowly advancing screen of British regulars. From a police operation, and then a classical military confrontation, British strategy had finally become a comprehensive plan of pacification directed against a revolutionary war.

Large reinforcements in 1780 brought about the capture of Charleston and its large rebel garrison in May; a small rebel army that entered the Carolinas in August was quickly destroyed at Camden. Now British mounted forces successfully employed irregular tactics and achieved tactical mobility equal or superior to that of the rebels themselves. Upcountry, the loyal militia was organized district by district; men over forty were assigned to local defense, while those younger served as territorial auxiliaries (Cooper, 1968).

Almost every British action appears to have exacerbated this situation. The chronic rough treatment of civilians by regulars simply could not be curbed to any significant extent. Moreover, the British force under Tarleton that had successfully employed irregular tactics soon acquired in the course of its operations a reputation for inhumanity that drove apathetic civilians toward the rebels for protection. A proclamation offering full rights of citizenship and pardon to all who would take the oath of allegiance, but declaring all others as rebels, drove many paroled rebel prisoners out of the neutral position that they had assumed and back into active rebellion. At the same time, the conciliatory aspect of this policy infuriated loyal auxiliaries, militia, and irregulars, who increasingly ignored official policy and orders and took matters into their own hands. A loyalist observer, who had defected some time before from the rebel side, described South Carolina as “a piece of patch work, the inhabitants of every settlement, when united in sentiment, being in arms for the side they liked best, and making continual inroads into one another’s settlements.” During this civil war, there was little difference between loyalists and rebels in terms of organization, tactics, or the use of terror. Pacification had failed well before a new rebel army was organized under Gen. Nathanael Greene in central North Carolina (Crackel, 1987).

The failure of pacification, and the appearance of this large rebel force to the northward, led General Cornwallis to return, almost with a sigh of relief, to more conventional operations. Priorities were shifted, mobile forces were concentrated, and the principal objective became the destruction of the rebel army through maneuver, battle, and pursuit. This reversion to the strategy of 1776-1777 ended in the disaster at Yorktown in October 1781, when the British navy momentarily lost control of sea lines of communication with its southern army. From that time on, all serious attempts to pacify the American interior were given up, and only New York and Charleston were kept as impregnable enclaves until the declaration of peace in early 1783.

Certain aspects of the failure of this third stage of British strategy require emphasis. One is that neither British nor rebel leaders regarded the bloody civil war in the South as “favorable” to their side; both tried to curb it in order to gain political control and to prevent large-scale alienation of potentially friendly civilians. But it was beneficial to the rebels inasmuch as they could choose to operate in prorebel areas while the British were constrained to operate everywhere. Furthermore, the relative proximity of a large British regular army had a surprisingly unfavorable effect on civilian attitudes. Civilians tended to overreact to the army. Depending on the particular circumstances, civilians were intimidated by it and so behaved “loyally,” for which they later suffered; or they were disillusioned by its predatory conduct and lack of sympathy for the precarious position of the civilian; or they felt secure in its presence and committed violent acts under its aegis, which ultimately created prorebel sympathy; or they saw it as an alternative, a place of flight and refuge; or they were demoralized when it moved away and refused to protect them, their homes, and families (Rowe, 1988).

Every major British troop movement in the American Revolution created shock waves of civilian behavior in the surrounding area. Only the scale of British operations in the South, where the British were more aware of the problem and tried to control it, makes those shock waves especially visible in the latter stages of the conflict. But repeatedly, throughout the war, loyal and neutral civilians had responded excessively, prematurely, and unwisely, at least in terms of their own personal security, to the appearance of British troops, only to see those troops withdraw or move elsewhere. British leaders throughout the war had assumed that civilian attitudes and behavior were more or less constant factors that could be measured by civilian actions; American behavior on any one occasion was taken not only to indicate attitudes but also to predict behavior on the next occasion. In fact, each of these occasions brought about a permanent change in the attitude and behavior of those civilians who were involved in, or even aware of, what happened; over time, these occasions had a major, cumulative effect. By 1780-1781, earlier in some places, most Americans, however weary, unhappy, or apathetic toward the rebellion they might be, were fairly sure of one thing: the British government no longer could or would maintain its presence, and sooner or later the rebels would return. Under these circumstances, civilian attitudes could no longer be manipulated by British policies or actions (Russell, 1984).

Role of Militia in the Revolutionary War

For all its failings, however, the militia played a crucial role in the Revolution. First and foremost, patriot militia ensured that rebellious Americans gained control of local and state governments early in the war. The British failed to devise a counterrevolutionary strategy that would have allowed them to restore the Crown’s authority in even one colony. Local patriot control ensured use of the militia system to mobilize troops. The states managed to provide enough soldiers to sustain the Continental army, organize their own forces, and turn out temporary militia units. Patriot control of the state militia systems gave the Americans the only institutional means available for mobilization.

Throughout the 1790s, the Washington and Adams administrations sought ways to avoid using the ineffective militia. The most obvious alternative was to enlarge the Army. Congress approved increases twice in the 1790s, first to defeat the Ohio Indian coalition, then for the Quasi-War with France, but it reduced the Army once the crises ended. Federalist administrations also experimented with recruiting levies, that is, volunteer forces raised directly by the federal government. Congress authorized volunteers for the Ohio campaigns and the Quasi-War episode. Federalist leaders preferred the volunteer levies because they were raised outside the militia system, and the president commissioned their officers. For all that, the levies resembled provincial colonial forces not only in their military inefficiency but in the way they were recruited. Moreover, presidents could not always avoid using militia. Washington called state forces to federal service to quell the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 because national law required the use of only militia and no other forces to enforce federal statutes (Crackel, 1987).

Federalist attempts to establish a national militia also foundered because the nation lacked the funds and bureaucratic agencies to implement even a modest national system, had one been politically acceptable. In any event, neither Federalists nor Republicans made serious efforts to improve the citizen soldiery, including the District of Columbia system, which fell directly under congressional control. Finally, as John Shy suggests, the nation faced only limited probabilities of internal dissolution and even less likelihood of external destruction, for the nation’s geographic expanse and wealth assured its security. Fundamental security, coupled with an enduring provincialism, a distaste for armies and strong central governments, and administrative underdevelopment explain the failure of militia reform. Although Americans accepted the need for a constabulary army, they did not see the need to rationalize and centralize the state citizen soldiery. As a consequence, the Militia Act of 1792 became a part of American military policy by perpetuating the colonial practice through which the states mobilized the citizen soldiers necessary to bolster the Army in a national emergency (Shy, 1987).

William Skelton (1992) asserts that although American politicians continued to praise citizen soldiers as the nation’s chief defenders, after Calhoun’s reforms “the regular army effectively replaced the militia at the center of the land defense system.”

Although the Army dominated war-time command throughout the nineteenth century, its institutional maturation did not eliminate, as Skelton implies, the nation’s need to call on state soldiers in time of war. Although Congress occasionally expanded the Army in these years, it refused to support a peacetime regular force large enough to absorb new men to fight a war. Calhoun’s reforms failed to solve the major military problem left over from the early republic era: how to augment the Army with trained soldiers in a crisis. State-recruited volunteer soldiers, whose only qualification for military duty was their willingness to serve, remained the mainstay of wartime forces (Paludan, 1972).

The difficulties states faced in mobilizing troops together with federal failure to reform the institution have led historians to conclude erroneously that the militia had disappeared by the 1830s. If the term militia is defined to mean compulsory military training and service rendered to the state then indeed it had ceased to function. (Cunliffe, 1973). It is more instructive analytically, however, to think of the states as maintaining militia systems, rather than militias. They endured in part because states and territories complied with the Constitution and the Militia Act of 1792. Mary Ellen Rowe discerns a “militia tradition” that migrants took with them wherever they went. (Rowe, 1988)   Moreover, the militia remained a vehicle for political advancement at the local level until compulsory musters disappeared. More importantly, state militia systems supported the volunteer uniformed militia and administered mobilizations. Through these functions, the states preserved their traditional role of providing wartime soldiers and kept alive the idea of the citizen soldier (Brundage, 1958).

Conclusion

Great Britain with its larger and better trained army and navy launched a huge land and sea effort to crush the revolution. However, they had to transport and supply its army across the Atlantic Ocean. As the war continued, the British won many battles but gained little from their victories. The American patriots always formed new forces and continued the fight. http://www.42explore2.com/revolt.htm

Moment’s reflection on the nature of the Revolutionary War may moderate our expectations. The Revolutionary effort against Great Britain tended to suppress or encompass social conflicts. Where it did not, where hostility between social groups rose to a level of intensity approximating that of the conflict with the mother country, one group or the other would be likely to join with the loyalists. Some merchants in New York City, for example, felt that the local Revolutionary leaders threatened their interests more than the mother country did; and similarly some tenant farmers of the Hudson valley felt more bitter toward their patriot landlords than they did toward king and Parliament. But these men, whether merchants or tenants, by joining the loyalist side deprived themselves of a part in any contest about who should rule at home. Loyalism in this way tended to absorb social groups that felt endangered or oppressed by the Revolutionary party (Shy, 1987). It operated as a safety valve to remove from the American side men who felt a high degree of social discontent. Or to change the figure, it drew off men at either end of the political spectrum, reducing the range of disagreements. It removed from the scene the intransigents, of whatever persuasion, who might have prevented the achievement of consensus.

Reference:

Charles Lee, 1964: The Soldier as Radical,” in George Athan Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals (New York),

http://myrevolutionarywar.com/

http://www.42explore2.com/revolt.

Jerry M. Cooper, “The Wisconsin Militia, 1832-1900,” Master’s thesis, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 1968, 191-94; for Ohio.

John Shy, ed., A People Numerous and Armed: Reflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 193-224.

Lyle D. Brundage, “The Organization, Administration, and Training of the United States Ordinary and Volunteer Militia, 1792-1861″ (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1958) 202-215.

Marcus Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775-1865, 2d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1973) 147-155

Marcus Cunliffe, Soldiers and Civilians: The Martial Spirit in America, 1775-1865, 2d ed. (New York: Free Press, 1973) 147-155

Martin K. Gordon, The Militia of the District of Columbia, 1790-1815 (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1975) 50-63.

Mary Ellen Rowe, The Sure Bulwark of the Republic: The Militia Tradition and the Yakima War Volunteers (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1988), 14.

Mary Ellen Rowe, The Sure Bulwark of the Republic: The Militia Tradition and the Yakima War Volunteers (Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1988), 14.

Paludan, “The American Civil War Considered as a Crisis in Law and Order”, American Historical Review 77 (Oct. 1972): 1015, 1031.

Paludan, “The American Civil War Considered as a Crisis in Law and Order”, American Historical Review 77 (Oct. 1972): 1015, 1031.

Robert S. Chamberlain, “The Northern State Militia”, Civil War History 4 (June 1958): 105-9.

Royster, A Revolutionary People at War: The Continental Army and American Character, 1775-1783 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979), 25-26.

Russell F. Weigley History of the United States Army, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, 21-45.

Shy, “Force, Order, and Democracy in the American Revolution”, in Jack P. Greene, ed., The American Revolution: Its Character and Limits (New York: New York University Press, 1987), 75-79.

Theodore Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform of the Military Establishment, 1801-1809 ( New York: New York University Press, 1987) 111-121.

Theodore Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army: Political and Social Reform of the Military Establishment, 1801-1809 ( New York: New York University Press, 1987) 111-121.

William Skelton, An American Profession of Arms: The Army Officer Corps, 1784-1861 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1992) 213-234

In recent years, circumstances have grown in the United States that are leading many to be concerned about the future of our constitutional rights.  Over the years, many court cases have been fought, usually with the government arguing for limitations and regulation of constitutional rights, even though every major figure swears an oath that includes the protection of the U.S. Constitution.  Many say that Federal laws such as the USA/Patriot Act have effectively nullified any expectations of American citizens having any real protection of their constitution rights. 

So profound are constitutional rights considered that the violation of any one can be grounds of the overturning of any law or criminal conviction or the summary dismissal of any criminal court case.  The constitutional rights listed in the Bill of Rights are those rights upon which our forefathers considered all other rights not listed to be based.

The American Revolution was fought on the premise that all men are given certain rights by God that no one has the right to deny, regulate, or otherwise impede.  Among those rights were the right to life, liberty, and free pursuit of happiness.  Enough of the American colonists felt that the king of England was in violation of this concept that they were able to organize an army and a provisional government to oppose the British Empire.  With a little help from key allies, this ragtag band of freedom-seeking rebels took on one of the leading super powers of that era … and won.

Few Americans today realize our Constitution (penned in 1787) did not originally contain any statements regarding the rights of American citizens.  Initially, such rights were thought to be understood by everyone.  Alexander Hamilton asserted that a “Bill of Rights” was unnecessary:  “Here, in strictness, the people surrender nothing, and as they retain every thing, they have no need of particular reservations.”  Hamilton also expressed concern that creating such a list of rights might be misconstrued as an absolute authority, effectively denying anything the authors might have forgotten or thought too trivial to mention.  The Ninth and Tenth Amendments were added to address this issue.

• The America people have historically considered their constitutional rights to be absolutes, yet over many decades laws have been passed weakening constitutional rights.  What are the driving forces behind this disturbing trend and how can American’s best respond to this growing threat?  Who are some of the players behind this movement?  Are their historical parallels to this trend and if so, what was the result?
• After the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, the United States government initiated a total restructuring of how security is handled in America.  Many agencies that one held limited powers, controlled by law, either no longer exist or have been incorporated into the Department of Homeland Security, essentially a law enforcement body that has been given almost unlimited power to pursue those it feels are a threat to the United States, including American citizens.  What are some of the tactics used by this agency that rights activists are claiming violate the constitution and our constitutional rights?

Protecting our constitutional rights first requires an understanding of what those rights are and how the government has acted regarding those rights.  Professional researchers, such as those working for us, know that to establish such understanding one cannot look only at what is happening today.  Research must be done to establish a history of thought regarding our rights as citizens.  But few people have any idea where to begin with such research.  Our writers already know and are ready to supply you with this expertise.

All we need is your order.