The American Revolutionary War

Soldiers, Strategies, & Important Battles

The British Army• Early in 1775, the British Army consisted of about

36,000 men worldwide, but wartime recruitment steadily increased this number. The British army of the time was not an efficient institution. Since the French and Indian War, Parliament had reduced the number of regiments. Recruiting was always a problem, particularly for the regiments in America. There was no formal military education for officers and efficiency varied widely between regiments. In peace time there was little training and in a garrison like Boston, where the surrounding countryside was hostile, the opportunities for field days, even if the officers had been inclined to conduct them, were limited.

• It is part of the patriotic mythology of the American Revolution that the rebels were fighting the best army in Europe in the British Army. This was not the case. The British Army was decades behind the Prussian Army in the education of its officers and the training of its soldiers. In the smarter British regiments excessive military zeal was considered ungentlemanly. So far as possible in such regiments duty matters were left to the sergeants and corporals.

The pervasive problem for all the British regiments was recruitment. Regiments lived on the road taking everything with them. There was no depot system. Consequently the regiments posted across the Atlantic to America had no easy way to recruit replacements for casualties. There was a certain amount of recruitment in the colonies, but many loyalists prepared to fight for the British Crown preferred to join locally recruited units rather than commit themselves to a lifetime of military service in the Royal Regiments.

Regiments suffered a haemorrhage of desertion, many soldiers changing sides often for promotion or even a commission in the American Continental Army. The regiments that remained in America for the duration of the war dwindled away, although boosted at times by the arrival of drafts from regiments based in Britain.

Additionally, over the course of the war the British hired about 30,000 soldiers from German princes, these soldiers were called "Hessians" because many of them came from Hesse-Kassel. The troops were mercenaries in the sense of professionals who were hired out by their prince. Germans made up about one-third of the British troop strength in North America. By 1779, the number of British and German troops stationed in North America was over 60,000.

One last problem for the British:The colonel was paid a sum to maintain his regiment in all respects except weapons which were issued centrally. Soldiers and officers were expected to feed themselves from their pay, forming messes to pool their resources in buying and cooking food. A similar system applied in all European Armies. When an army on campaign pitched camp, the locals would gather and sell their produce to the soldiers. A thriving market was a feature of every military camp.This system did not work in North America. Large areas of the country were sparsely populated and it was unrealistic to rely on local supply. General Braddock on arriving in Western Maryland in April 1775 was incensed to find there was no market. He assumed his men were intercepting the country folk and preventing them from coming into the camp. He found it hard to grasp that there were no country folk in the hundreds of miles of forest inhabited only by Indians and a few enterprising colonists. Every new British commander had to learn the same lesson.

The American militias• When the war began, the Americans

did not have a professional army or navy. Each colony provided for its own defenses through the use of local militia. Militiamen were lightly armed, slightly trained, and usually did not have uniforms. Their units served for only a few weeks or months at a time, were reluctant to go very far from home, and were thus generally unavailable for extended operations. Militia lacked the training and discipline of regular soldiers but were more numerous and could overwhelm regular troops as at the battles of Concord, Bennington and Saratoga, and the siege of Boston. Both sides used partisan warfare but the Americans were particularly effective at suppressing Loyalist activity when British regulars were not in the area

The American Militia

• Washington was horrified by the appearance of the militia. They often refused to obey commands or officers they didn’t like, and preferred to fight guerilla style, rather than in ranks. They were also regarded as “rabble,” “peasantry,” and “the most wretchedly clothed, and as dirty a set of mortals as ever disgraced the name of soldier.”

• Said Washington after the war: "To place any dependence on the Militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender Scenes of domestic life; unaccustomed to the din of Arms; totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves, when opposed to Troops regularly train'd, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge and superior in Arms, makes them timid, and ready to fly from their own shadows...if I was called upon to declare upon Oath, whether the Militia have been most serviceable or hurtful upon the whole, I should subscribe to the latter”

The American militiaman

Descriptions of the typical militiaman:• Most were farmers and artisans, sailors or fishermen• All wore their own clothes, and carried their own guns. Few liked to wash

their own clothes, but hired local women to do it for them. They also didn’t understand basic camp hygiene, and often suffered from dysentery and typhoid.

• They ranged in age from boys to old men• They included free blacks among them• They elected their own officers.• They came and went in and out of camp as they pleased.• Many were expert marksmen, and were skilled at guerilla warfare, as the

British learned at Concord and Lexington.• The militiaman was considered the embodiment of revolutionary rhetoric--

the “citizen soldier” who defended self and property against oppression.

This is an engraving of the “citizen-soldier” Israel Putnam, being called from his fields to serve as captain of the militia in Boston in 1775. What are the implications of the popular belief that America’s military leaders were farmers, not professionals?

Commanding the Cont’l Army

• Seeking to coordinate military efforts, the Continental Congress established (on paper) a regular army in June 1775, and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief. The development of the “Continental Army” was always a work in progress, and Washington used both his regulars and state militia throughout the war. About 250,000 men served as regulars or as militiamen for the Revolutionary cause in the eight years of the war, but there were never more than 90,000 total men under arms at one time. Armies were small by European standards of the era; the greatest number of men that Washington personally commanded in the field at any one time was fewer than 17,000. This could be attributed to tactical preferences, but it also could be because of lack of powder on the American side.

Taking command of the army

A description of Washington “His Excellency was on horseback, in

company with several military gentlemen. It was not difficult to distinguish him from all others. His personal appearance is truly noble and majestic, being tall and well-proportioned. His dress is a blue coat with buff colored facings, a rich epaulet on each shoulder, bluff underdress, and an elegant small sword, a black cockade in his hat”-- description by a junior officer in 1776.

Unmentioned here is that he was also one of the richest men in the colonies, with the largest plantation in Virginia--and that officers typically bought their own clothing, weapons, and horses--and provided their own servants.

Restoring Discipline• Washington worked hard to make the Continental Army truly continental--

that is, regiments would include soldiers from each of the colonies.• He instituted flogging to make the volunteers obey the rules• He fired most of the elected officers and replaced them with “regular

army” types.• He also dismissed the black soldiers and forbade any from using

weapons. (can you guess why?

So--the average American soldier was looked down on by both the British and the Colonial elites. He was away from his home for years, often during harvest season, which meant financial ruin. Soldiers going home to help their wives bring in the harvests could be charged with desertion and flogged. He suffered from disease and inadequate food and clothing. He was often unpaid--Washington had to threaten the Continental Congress just to get his officers’ back pay. And as you saw, the average farmer or townsman had been fighting the colonial elites at the same time they were fighting against the British soldiers and governors.

So why did the average colonial soldier fight?

Read the interview on the next slide and tell me.

--from an interview with Capt. Levi Preston, who was 21 when he fought at Lexington and Concord:

Q--”were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act?”

Preston--”I never saw one of those stamps…I am certain I never paid a penny for them.”

Q--”Well, what about the tea tax?”

Preston--”I never drank a drop of the stuff…”

Q--”Then I suppose you had been reading…Locke about the eternal principles of liberty?”

Preston--”Never heard of them. We read only the Bible…”

Q--”Well then, why did you go to the fight?”

Preston--”Young man, what we meant in going after those redcoats was this: we always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. They didn’t mean we should.”

Here’s a thought question for you--do you think Captain’s Preston’s sentiments might also cause certain problems in the future of the new country?

And of course, the question is--were there any people in the colonies who didn’t fight for the colonial army?

Read on…

Role of slaves and Indians

• Both blacks and Indians flocked to the British Side. The Indians were afraid of American colonists’ desire for their land, and the British military offered any slaves who escaped from their American masters their freedom if they fought for the British. It is estimated that Georgia lost 1/3rd of its slaves during the Revolutionary War. However, so many slaves fled to the British that the Commanding general ordered them brought back to the masters lest they overwhelm the Army’s ability to feed them. Also, the British were afraid of losing the support of slave-owning loyalists, so they refused to make an official policy of emancipation.

Despite the overwhelming superiority of the British Army in terms of funding, experience (for both officers and soldiers), and available manpower, most observers in Britain noted they probably could not win. Can you guess why?

Write some answers down and bring them with you to class for homework.

Major battles of the war

Boston, 1776The Continental Army successfully held Boston against a British seige when they managed to smuggle in cannons from a fort miles away and plant them on the heights above the bay, where the British ships lay at anchor. Washington then moved the army to NY City.

The British send troops to Concord, Massachusetts

New York and New Jersey, 1776

• It was previous to this fight that the Declaration of Independence was issued. However, the Continental Army was routed and the British successfully held NY for the rest of the war.

New Jersey

• The Continental Army was chased across the Delaware River into New Jersey, where the Americans spent a horribly cold winter. The outlook of the Continental Army was bleak. "These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine, who was with the army on the retreat. The army had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 men fit for duty, and would be reduced to 1,400 after enlistments expired at the end of the year.

• Washington decided to take the offensive, stealthily crossing the Delaware on Christmas night and capturing nearly 1,000 Hessians at the Battle of Trenton on December 26, 1776. The British Commander Lord Cornwallis marched to retake Trenton but was outmaneuvered by Washington, who successfully attacked the British rearguard at Princeton on January 3, 1777. Washington then entered winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, having given a morale boost to the American cause. New Jersey militia continued to harass British and Hessian forces throughout the winter, forcing the British to retreat to their base in and around New York City. This would be Washington’s last real victory for the war, as the other American victories were won by his subordinates.

A heroic Washington crosses the Delaware to surprise the drunken Hessians the day after Christmas

Emanuel Leutze's stylized depiction of Washington Crossing the Delaware (1851)

Saratoga, 1777• This began as an expedition from

Canada led by General John Burgoyne. The goal was to seize the Lake Champlain and Hudson River corridor, effectively isolating New England from the rest of the American colonies. Burgoyne set off in June. Thereafter, his march was slowed by Americans who knocked down trees in his path. A detachment was sent out to seize supplies but was decisively defeated by American militia in August, depriving Burgoyne of nearly 1,000 men.

• Burgoyne's army was now reduced to about 6,000 men. Despite these setbacks, he determined to push on towards Albany—a fateful decision which would later produce much controversy. An American army of 8,000 men, commanded by the General Horatio Gates, had entrenched about 10 miles (16 km) south of Saratoga, New York. Burgoyne tried to outflank the Americans but was checked at the first battle of Saratoga in September. Burgoyne's situation was desperate, but he now hoped that help from Howe's army in New York City might be on the way. It was not: Howe had instead sailed away on an expedition to capture Philadelphia. American militiamen flocked to Gates's army, swelling his force to 11,000 by the beginning of October. After being badly beaten at the second battle of Saratoga, Burgoyne surrendered on October 17.

• Saratoga was the turning point of the war. Revolutionary confidence and determination, suffering from Howe's successful occupation of Philadelphia, was renewed. More importantly, the victory encouraged France to enter the war against Britain. For the British, the war had now become much more complicated

Why the British Began to Lose

• When the war began, the British had overwhelming naval superiority over the American colonists. The Royal Navy had over 100 ships of the line, although this fleet was old and in poor condition, a situation which would be blamed on Lord Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty. During the first three years of the war, the Royal Navy was primarily used to transport troops for land operations and to protect commercial shipping. The American colonists had no ships of the line, and relied extensively on privateering to harass British shipping.

• French entry into the war meant that British naval superiority was now contested. The Franco-American alliance began poorly, however, with failed operations at Rhode Island in 1778 and Savannah, Georgia, in 1779. Part of the problem was that France and the United States had different military priorities: France hoped to capture British possessions in the West Indies before helping to secure American independence. While French financial assistance to the American war effort was already of critical importance, French military aid to the Americans would not show positive results until the arrival in July 1780 of a large force of soldiers led by the Comte de Rochambeau.

The Colonists don’t let a little thing like a revolution stop them from their land grabs in the West…

• West of the Appalachian Mountains and along the Canadian border, the American Revolutionary War was an "Indian War." Most Native Americans supported the British. Like the Iroquois Confederacy, tribes such as the Cherokees and the Shawnees split into factions.

• The British supplied their native allies with muskets and gunpowder and advised raids against civilian settlements, especially in New York, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania. Joint Iroquois-Loyalist attacks in the Wyoming Valley and at Cherry Valley in 1778 provoked Washington to send the Sullivan Expedition into western New York during the summer of 1779. There was little fighting as Sullivan systematically destroyed the Native American winter food supplies, forcing them to flee permanently to British bases in Canada and the Niagara Falls area.

• In the Ohio Country and the Illinois Country, the Virginia frontiersman George Rogers Clark attempted to neutralize British influence among the Ohio tribes by capturing the outposts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes in the summer of 1778.

• In 1782 came the Gnadenhütten massacre, when Pennsylvania militiamen killed about a hundred neutral Native Americans.

The Southern Campaign• By 1778, the British had successfully seized New York City and Philadelphia in the North,

but could not win the countryside. Meanwhile, Washington and his Northern army suffered through a cruel winter at Valley Forge. By keeping his army together, however, Washington won a great moral victory and secured his reputation as a hero. Frustrated, the British turned to the American South in hopes of gaining the allegiance of loyalists there--which didn’t work once slaves began deserting to the British lines--but also to keep the Caribbean secure from French forces.

Washington and his army freeze in Pennsylvania. However, his army benefited from the arrival of French and German officers (Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben) who then professionalized the army as it sat through the winter.

The End Draws Nigh for the British

• The British captured Savannah, Georgia in 1778, but were unable to capture the remnants of the Southern Continental Army, led by Gen’l Nathanael Greene, in North Carolina. Greene retreated masterfully before the British, always denying them a full victory. In frustration, Lord Cornwallis moved his army to Virginia

• In March 1781, General Washington dispatched General Lafayette to defend Virginia. The young Frenchman skirmished with Cornwallis, avoiding a decisive battle while gathering reinforcements. Cornwallis was unable to trap Lafayette, and so he moved his forces to Yorktown, Virginia, in July so the Royal Navy could return his army to New York.

Lafayette

The northern, southern, and naval theaters of the war converged in 1781 at Yorktown, Virginia. In early September, French naval forces defeated a British fleet [the first time they had been defeated]

at the Battle of the Chesapeake, cutting off Cornwallis' escape. Washington hurriedly moved American and French troops from New York, and a combined Franco-American force of 17,000 men commenced the siege of Yorktown in early October. Cornwallis' position quickly became

untenable, and he surrendered his army on October 19, 1781.

Surrender of Cornwallis at

Yorktown by (John Trumbull, 1797).

• In London as political support for the war plummeted after Yorktown, Prime Minister Lord North resigned in March 1782. In April 1782, the Commons voted to end the war in America. Preliminary peace articles were signed in Paris at the end of November 30, 1782; the formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783, and the United States Congress ratified the treaty on January 14, 1784. The last British troops left New York City on November 25, 1783.