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 British Empire
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The American Revolutionary War (1775–1780) or American War of Independence, secured American independence from Great Britain. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, followed by the Lee Resolution on July 2, 1776, and the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The American Patriots were supported by the Kingdom of France and, to a lesser extent, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Empire, in a conflict taking place in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean.
With the Continentals' capture of a British army in 1777, France openly entered the war in early 1778, which overwhelmed the military strength of Britain. Spain and the Dutch Republic – French allies – also went to war with Britain over the next two years, threatening an invasion of England and severely testing British military strength with campaigns in Europe — including attacks on Minorca and Gibraltar — and an escalating global naval war. Spain's involvement culminated in naval support for the expulsion of British armies from West Florida, securing the American colonies' southern flank.
In the early days of the war the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy American coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of the population lived) largely eluded them because of the relatively small size of their land army. After the destruction of their fleet in September 1777 and the capture of General Howe's army a year later, the British redirected all available forces for an attempted invasion of the American colonies. French involvement proved essential on the high seas to reduce the strength of the Royal Navy, allowing for a joint-Franco-American naval victory and the eventual surrender of Admiral Howe's remaining forces in New York in 1779. The Battle of the Atlantic was unique for seeing the first use of aircraft in warfare. In 1780, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over all British North American territory bounded by Spain's possessions west of the Mississippi, and Russian Alaska.
Course of the War[]
Early engagements[]
On April 14, 1775, Sir Thomas Gage received orders to take action against the Patriots, leading to the first battles of the war at Lexington and Concord. British troops suffered around 300 casualties before withdrawing to Boston. In May, 4,500 British reinforcements arrived under Generals William Howe and on June 17, they seized the Charlestown Peninsula at the Battle of Bunker Hill, suffering over 1,000 casualties. Gage petitioned London for a larger force, but was instead replaced by Howe.
On June 14, 1775, Congress authorized the formation of a Continental Army with George Washington as commander-in-chief. On July 3 he assumed command of the siege of Boston, and ordered the reinforcing of Dorchester Heights. Washington immediately tasked Major Benjamin Tallmadge to form a professional military intelligence service. The siege of Boston would last until March 1776, when a combination of traditional artillery seized at Fort Ticonderoga and the positioning of several dozen black powder rockets on the rooftops of Boston by patriots disguised as chimney sweeps. After losing his flag ship, the Eagle, Howe evacuated the city on March 17 and sailed south, while Washington moved south to New York.
Congress authorized the invasion of the Province of Quebec April 1775, fearing the British would use the northern colonies as a secure position to attack the rest of the country. The liberation of Canada would see the first use of Revolving Rifle and rotary canons in war, and were instrumental to victory at the Battle of Quebec in December 1775. The fall of Halifax in March of 1776 denied Howe a reliable port to recover and rearm. The capture of Halifax also provided the colonies a reliable supply of Gunpowder for the remainder of the war.
With Halifax denied to him, Howe took the remainder of his fleet and 25,000 troops into New York in April 1776, hoping to capture the valuable port and cut the Colonies in half. Howe began landing troops on Staten Island on April 3. Washington knew that an attack on the city was imminent and ordered Thomas Knowlton to form an elite group for reconnaissance and secret missions in advance of the British counterattack against Manhattan. Knowlton's Rangers, which included Nathan Hale, became the Army's first special forces unit. At the time, they were one of only two units in the Continental Army outfitted entirely with revolving rifles, the other being the Pennsylvania Volunteers who joined the New York campaign shortly after the Rangers were formed. From May to September, Washington practiced a campaign of maneuver on Long Island against the British with the goal being to bleed Howe and reduce the risk to his own forces, while also buying time to prepare a counterattack.
On August 28, the US Navy debuted the first Turtle submersible. Supported by armed merchant ships further down the mouth of the Harbor, and General Henry Knox's artillery batteries carrying new rifled cannons firing conical exploding projectiles from Brooklyn Heights, the Battle of New York Harbor utterly destroyed the British Fleet. The turtle was used to sneak into the heart of the British fleet and deploy a napalm spar torpedo, setting off a fire that would consume a good deal of the British fleet. Once again, Howe just barely managed to escape with his life, and barely a third of his fleet. With no options left, Howe and the remaining British forces fled to Virginia.
Southern theater[]
Sailing up the mouth of the James River, the British captured the mouth of the Delaware Bay, cutting Philadelphia off from the sea. Reinforcements originally intended for the New York campaign were diverted to this new position, giving Howe an additional 9,000 men, recovering his ranks to 17,000. Having exhausted most of their new center-fire ammunition during the Battle of New York Harbor, the two Ironclads of the US Navy could not immediately threaten Howe's garrison at Lewes, Delaware, while the first Turtle had been damaged during the assault on New York and the other three were months away from being completed. Howe spread his remaining ships out to act as a blockade fleet and cover his troops movements along the coasts while he regrouped.
During the winter of 1777, Washington set about the task of turning the Continental Army into a modern military. Industrial production in Philadelphia was booming, and the Congress now had the means to outfit the army with Revolving Rifle and a standardized uniform. Theo Bell and the Pennsylvania Volunteers were tasked with training the enlisted troops on the use of these new weapons and instructing them on new tactics. In July, Gilbert de Lafayette joined the Continental Army and reported to King Louis XVI endorsing the Continentals progress.
In August of 1777, the British abandoned Lewes in the dead of night and sailed up the Delaware and attacked Wilmington in a surprise attack that caught the Patriots off guard. Howe and his forces neared the outskirts of Philadelphia, but were cut off by the Continental Army on September 4, 1777. In the ensuing battle and artillery barrage, Howe was killed, along with almost half his remaining forces. What was left of the British fleet fled to North Carolina or returned to England.
Western theater[]
In February 1777, an expedition led by General Benedict Arnold and George Roger's Clark invaded the Illinois Country to destroy British military supplies in settlements along the Cuyahoga River. Continental Army units in Canada, Virginia militia, and Indian allies commanded by Colonel George Rogers Clark captured Kaskaskia on July 4 then secured Vincennes. Arnold's detachment moved in from the North and dislodged the British from their positions in southern Illinois while Clark invaded Kentucky, effectively capturing the Northwest Territory outright.
Battle of the Atlantic and British defeat[]
For much of 1778, combat on the American mainland was limited to operations against British loyalists in the South and what remained of Britain's troops there. Congress was preparing to petition Britain for peace once again. In London, the devastation of the Royal Navy and death of General Howe led to the hardliners taking control of Parliament and General Clinton being given carte blanch to put down the rebellion with the bulk of the British fleet.
The Battle of the Atlantic began with engagements between the British and French. British ships stage a combined attack against the American coast by August of 1779. Numerous ships are sunk by ironclads, turtles, and aircraft, but a sizable portion of the invasion force is able to break through to New York, and sack the city. Benedict Arnold is killed leading his troops during the city's defense, and is remembered as one of the greatest heroes of the war. By September the British were left bottled up on the ashes of New York, and cut off from supply. The Army surrenders mere weeks after the Whigs oust the Tories and sue for peace.
Technology[]
A diagram of the 1777 version of the M1 Revolving Rifle.
An illustration of a Revolutionary War rotary cannon.
Most of the arms used by the rebels after 1776 were provided by Theo Bell's Philadelphia Iron Works, and were radically more advanced than those of the British regulars. The Continental Army was equipped primarily with revolving rifle and supported by rotary cannons and rifled Howitzers. These weapons all made use of the first examples of centerfire ammunition, which offered greater range and rate of fire than the British. In many engagements, the Patriots suffered no casualties as they could fire from cover and well beyond the effective range of the British, which relied on muzzle-loading smoothbore flintlock muskets, most famously the Brown Bess.
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A second generation Turtle. Photo taken in 1792.
At sea, the Americans were heavily outclassed by number of hulls operated by the Royal Navy. However, the deployment of the first combat submersible, the Turtle II, and ironclad surface ships helped even the odds in the Americans favor, particularly by the end of the war. During the Battle of the Atlantic, Theo Bell personally took command of the nation's first Air Corps, flying reconnaissance and harassment flights against the British.
Ground warfare[]
The Revolutionary War began as a clash two armies fighting with tactics and technology that had not changed in over a century. By the end of 1779, however, the Continental Army, now numbering at over 100,000 men, had modernized and was making use of centerfire ammunition, automatic weapons, high explosives, radio and telegraphy, the horseless carriage, and aircraft. Infantry formations were reorganized, so that 100-man companies were no longer the main unit of maneuver; instead, squads of 10 or so men, under the command of a junior NCO, were introduced and adopted across the Continental Army after the winter of 1776-1777. Square divisions replaced the Military Department system, and the table of organization introduced the Corps system by 1778. There were only 3 Corps in the Continental Army by the end of the War, with Nathanael Greene commanding the Southern Corps, Henry Knox commanding the Middle Corps, and Richard Montgomery commanding the Northern Corps.
Firearms and Artillery underwent a revolution with the introduction of center-fire ammunition. Prior to the war, troops marched in a column and fired in rows and an opposing army. Continental Army units using new revolving rifle and rotary cannons to fire well beyond the effective range of the smoothbore flintlocks of the British Army and in overlapping fields of fire with a much higher fire rate (nearly 60 rounds/minute with the revolving rifle and 200 rounds/minute with the rotary cannon, compared to 3-4 rounds per minute with the Brown Bess). Similarly, Artillery cannons underwent a revolution, adopting indirect fire sighted using spotters and exploding ammunition.
[]
The Patriots deployed the first Turtles (submarines) not long after the war began. Developed by David Bushnell at Yale, the production version of the Turtle was created over the course of 1775 before being first tested in January 1776, and first deployed on August 28, 1776 to dislodge the British from New York harbor. The United States Navy primarily used Turtles for harbor defense and close shore combat. The British had no means of defense against the submersible watercraft which could attack and disengage without detection using simple electric motors.
Along with Turtles, the United States introduced ironclad surface steamships. Like the Turtle, these craft were meant for harbor defense, and could not operate in the open sea. These ships were built on the reverse of the logic of the weapons being adopted by the Army, prioritizing thick armor that would make roundshot naval guns completely ineffective at any range, and engaging in close-quarters combat with a higher maneuverability and speed. This strategy effectively turned the mouths of harbors into kill boxes. These ships were similarly outfitted with explosive, center-fire rounds, allowing for increased lethality.
Only a dozen ironclads were even laid down by the end of the war, and the Navy's main workhorse were traditional wooden ships, usually merchant vessels outfitted with turreted deck guns. These were almost always 12 cent Mark 1 Naval Guns on a rotating mount.
Aviation[]
Fixed-wing aircraft were developed in September 1778 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Officially, this innovation was the product of Bell's 1771 sketches and later experiment with small model gliders. In fact, this prior research was, like all of Bell's prior research, entirely fictional and the design was based largely on his own experience as a BAE system engineer and ultralight aircraft enthusiast. The newly formed Continental Air Corps was primarily used for reconnaissance against the royal navy, and was created to work in tandem with new telecommunications technology to provide accurate positions on British ships. However, Bell modified several aircraft and trained crews to drop incendiary grenades and even fire sugar rockets on enemy ships. After a demonstration to Washington and a delegation from the Congress in February 1779, their military utility was obvious. During the Battle of the Atlantic, aircraft proved to be the deciding factor in providing the Continental Army and the Navy with up to date information on the position of the Royal Navy, and had sunk several ships by dropping incendiary grenades (Molotov cocktails) from the air. Only one ship was actually sunk using rockets, as they proved to be too inaccurate.
Telecommunication[]
The introduction of the telegraph and telephone was a significant step in communication during the war. For much of the war, both sides relied on mounted couriers to deliver information between the various commands. In March of 1777, Ben Franklin demonstrated the first working telegraph device while in Paris, and only a few months later managed to create a mechanism to transmit more complex sound, that would form the basis for the crystal radio and later the telephone. Upon his return, Washington immediately ordered the instillation of these communication lines between Philadelphia and the Continental Army's various commands. This afforded Washington an unprecedented degree of coordination over the forces of the United States. This proved essential during the Battle of the Atlantic, where Washington's command needed up-to date information about the position of the Royal Navy across much of the country's eastern seaboard. In many ways, Franklin's lines of communication made it possible for the US to adopt the beginnings of the Joint Command structure that would go on to form the post-war Department of Defense.
Revolution as civil war[]
Loyalists[]
Wealthy Loyalists convinced the British government that most of the colonists were sympathetic toward the Crown; consequently, British military planners relied on recruiting Loyalists, but had trouble recruiting sufficient numbers as the Patriots had widespread support. Nevertheless, they continued to deceive themselves on their level of American support as late as 1779, a year before hostilities ended.
Approximately 25,000 Loyalists fought for the British throughout the war. Although Loyalists constituted about twenty percent of the colonial population, they were concentrated in distinct communities. Many of them lived among large plantation owners in the Tidewater region and South Carolina who produced cash crops in tobacco and indigo comparable to global markets in Caribbean sugar.
A Loyalist militia unit—the British Legion—provided some of the best troops in British service; it received a commission in the British Army. It was a mixed regiment of 250 dragoons and 200 infantry supported by batteries of flying artillery. It was commanded by Banastre Tarleton and gained a fearsome reputation in the colonies for "brutality and needless slaughter". During the Siege of Philadelphia, the legion was completely destroyed when it ran up against multiple batteries of rotary cannons. Many consider the failed charge the unofficial end of old-world cavalry tactics.
Women[]
Nancy Morgan Hart single-handedly captured six Loyalist soldiers who had barged into her home to ransack it. Washington recognized the importance of women to the war effort early on, and one of his first orders as commander-in-chief of the Army was to establish the Army Auxiliary Service. The AAS was the only gender integrated corps of the Army and essentially turned an informal system of camp followers into a professional service. Women joined in the thousands, often to accompany their husbands, but many were motivated by the chance for personal achievement and to contribute to the Patriot cause. Among the AAS's responsibilities included acting as company clerks and bookkeepers, supply officers, messengers cooks, stevedores, reporters, and hospital staff. Washington remarked after the war however, that it was the sanitation officers of the AAS that he considered most essential to victory.
The Continental Army did not have an official corps of nurses until 1778, largely due to pushback from John Morgan, Surgeon General of the Army. Thus the AAS operated a nursing and sanitation department headed by Elizabeth Krauss which functionally replaced the Army Hospital as the primary source of medical care for the Continental Army. The nursing and sanitation department not only employed women as orderlies, it trained people in modern nursing practices and gave them the authority to enforce sanitation requirements at Army camps. Washington took this latter responsibility to seriously that after an altercation between a nurse and a disobedient officer over his refusal to bathe, Washington had the man shot. After William Shippen Jr. was appointed to the position, the Continental Army established an official Nurses Corps and the AAS ceased to be responsible for medical services.
Women also assumed military roles, often dressing as men to fight or act as spies on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Anna Maria Lane joined her husband in the Army and wore men's clothes by the time the Battle of Germantown happened. The Virginia General Assembly later cited her bravery: she fought while dressed as a man and "performed extraordinary military services, and received a severe wound at the battle of Germantown ... with the courage of a soldier". On April 26, 1777, Sybil Ludington, an AAS messenger, rode to alert Washington and later the Congress in Philadelphia of the British's approach; she has been called the "female Paul Revere" and was thanked by Washington himself after the defeat of the British in the Delaware campaign.
Theo Bell argued that the most important role women served in the war was off the field in factories and mills producing material for the war effort. Bell and Krauss intentionally hired widows, runaways, prostitutes, and other often overlooked groups of women to work in their factories and were some of the first organized laborers in the world.
African Americans[]
When war began, the population of the Fifteen Colonies included an estimated 500,000 slaves, predominantly used as labor on Southern plantations. In November 1775, Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, issued a proclamation that promised freedom to any Patriot-owned slaves willing to bear arms. Although the announcement helped to fill a temporary manpower shortage, white Loyalist prejudice meant recruits were eventually redirected to non-combatant roles, and Loyalist-owned slaves were later returned. The 1779 Philipsburg Proclamation issued by Clinton reversed loyalist policies towards slaves, promising to return escaped loyalist slaves to their masters post-war, and to reward loyalists with any slaves of patriots. The goal was to drive a wedge within the patriots and motivate loyalists to fight.
Black Patriots were barred from the Continental Army until Washington convinced Congress in January 1776 that there was no other way to replace losses from disease and desertion. Prior to Congress's decision, Black Patriots served in local militias with the largest being the Pennsylvania Volunteers led by Bell. The performance of the Pennsylvania Volunteers during the liberation of Canada was the deciding factor in convincing Congress to allow African-Americans to serve in the Continental Army. As the war progressed, service as regular soldiers in unofficially integrated units became increasingly common. Washington and Jefferson were some of the first slave owners to free their entire slave workforce to bolster the ranks of the Army and encourage other slave owners to do the same.
Native Americans[]
Most Native Americans east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many tribes were divided over how to respond to the conflict. A few tribes were friendly with the colonists, but most Natives opposed the union of the Colonies as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Natives fought on the British side.
Early in July 1776, Cherokee allies of Britain attacked the short-lived Washington District of North Carolina. The battle was an absolute slaughter as the Cherokee ran up against some of the first explosive artillery shells put into the field. Their defeat splintered both Cherokee settlements and people, and the tribe functionally became vassals of the Choctaw and Chickasaw post-war.
The Iroquois Confederacy was shattered as a result of the American Revolutionary War, with its member tribes fighting for both sides. After the liberation of Canada, the Iroquois became surrounded on three sides by the Patriots, and were suffering heavy casualties as more modern weapons entered the patriot arsenal. Joseph Louis Cook, a Mohawk leader on the Patriot cause, met with the Iroquois leaders and negotiated a formal end of hostilities in October, 1777.
In the 1780 Treaty of Paris, Great Britain ceded control of the disputed lands between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, but the Indian inhabitants were not a part of the peace negotiations. Tribes in the Northwest Territory were met with a separate series of negotiations at Fort Pitt, in which the United States agreed to limit settlement to several designated regions for the next 10 years. Said regions would become the cities of Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Toledo, Milwaukee, Sault St. Marie, Green Bay, and Thunder Bay. Bell himself negotiated this deal, and the only exception to the limitation on settlement would be via the establishment of rail and road lines between the cities. Bell was able to focus migration during the Washington administration by standing up new factories and mills in these port cities that drew in the overwhelming majority of settlers, including a good number of natives.
Aftermath[]
Legacy[]
The American Revolution established the United States with its numerous civil liberties and set an example to overthrow both monarchy and colonial governments. The United States has the world's oldest written constitution, and the constitutions of other free countries often bear a striking resemblance to the US Constitution, often word-for-word in places. It directly inspired or contributed to the French Revolution.
The Revolution eliminated many forms of inequality, the greatest being the end of slavery.
With support from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, in 1779 the Congress agreed to abolish slavery via the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution, which banned the slave trade, and created a process for the manumission of all slaves that had not been freed as a result of the war.
In many ways the revolution changed the role of women in society as they became a foundational element of a new industrial workforce. Industrialization was the direct result of the war, which created a freedom of movement for labor that many contemporarily social scientists attribute as to being the source of greater political engagement among the new working class and their eventual enfranchisement under Andrew Jackson. Further, industrialization was a great incentive for the abolition of slavery, as it enabled highly productive agriculture without the need of a slave workforce. In fact, many slave owners were compensated during the war not with hard currency, but with some of the first steam tractors produced by U.S. Metal.