American Revolutionary War

This article is about military actions only. For political and social developments, including the origins and aftermath of the war, see American Revolution.

In this article, inhabitants of the thirteen colonies that supported the American Revolution are primarily referred to as "Americans", with occasional references to "Patriots", "Whigs", "Rebels" or "Revolutionaries". Colonists who supported the British in opposing the Revolution are usually referred to as "Loyalists" or "Tories". The geographical area of the thirteen colonies is often referred to simply as "America".

American Revolutionary War Clockwise from top left: Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery at Quebec, Battle of Cowpens, "Moonlight Battle" Date April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783 Location Eastern Seaboard, Northwest Territories, Central Canada, Hudson Bay, Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Gibraltar, Balearic Islands, Caribbean Sea, Central America, Indian Ocean Result Treaty of Paris Territorial changes Britain recognizes independence of the United States, cedes East Florida, West Florida, and Minorca to Spain and Tobago to France. Dutch Republic cedes Negapatnam to Britain. Belligerents  United States  Kingdom of France Spain  Dutch Republic Oneida (tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy) Tuscarora (tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy) Watauga Association Catawba Lenape  Great Britain Loyalists Iroquois Confederacy Cherokee Commanders and leaders George Washington Nathanael Greene Horatio Gates Benedict Arnold Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben Marquis de La Fayette Comte de Rochambeau Comte de Grasse Bailli de Suffren Bernardo de Gálvez Luis de Córdova Juan de Lángara ...full list Lord North Sir William Howe Thomas Gage Sir Henry Clinton Lord Cornwallis (P.O.W.) Sir Guy Carleton John Burgoyne (P.O.W.) Francis Rawdon Benedict Arnold George Rodney Richard Howe Wilhelm von Knyphausen Joseph Brant ...full list Strength At Height: 35,000 Continentals 44,500 Militia 55,000+ Sailors[citation needed] 10,000 French (in America) ~60,000 French and Spanish (in Europe)[1] At Height: 56,000 British[citation needed] 171,000 Sailors[2] 30,000 Germans[citation needed] 50,000 Loyalists[3] 13,000 Natives[4] Casualties and losses 50,000 American dead [5] 19,740 sailors dead [2] 42,000 sailors deserted [2] 7,554 German dead

[show] v • d • e American Revolutionary War Boston – Canada – New York and New Jersey – Saratoga – Philadelphia – Western – Northern – Southern – Yorktown – West Indies and Gulf Coast – Naval

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) or American War of Independence^[6] began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and concluded in a global war between several European great powers.
The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution, whereby many of the colonists rejected the legitimacy of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation, claiming that this violated the Rights of Englishmen. The First Continental Congress met in 1774 to coordinate relations with Great Britain and the by-then thirteen self-governing and individual provinces, petitioning George III of Great Britain for intervention with Parliament, organizing a boycott of British goods, while affirming loyalty to the British Crown. Their pleas ignored, and with British soldiers billeted in Boston, Massachusetts, by 1775 the Provincial Congresses formed the Second Continental Congress and authorized a Continental Army. Additional petitions to the king to intervene with Parliament resulted in the following year with Congress being declared traitors and the states to be in rebellion. The Americans responded in 1776 by formally declaring their independence as one new nation — the United States of America — claiming their own sovereignty and rejecting any allegiance to the British monarchy.
France's government under King Louis XVI secretly provided supplies, ammunition and weapons to the revolutionaries starting in 1776, and the Continentals' capture of a British army in 1777 led France to openly enter the war in early 1778, which evened the military strength with Britain. Spain and the Dutch Republic – French allies – also went to war with Britain over the next two years, threatening an invasion of Great Britain 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 the expulsion of British armies from West Florida, securing the American colonies' southern flank.
Throughout 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. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading at Yorktown in 1781 to the surrender of a second British army. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

Contents [hide] 1 Combatants before 1778 1.1 American armies and militias 1.2 Loyalists 1.3 British armies and auxiliaries 1.4 African Americans 1.5 Native Americans 1.6 Gender, race, class 2 War in the north, 1775–1780 2.1 Massachusetts 2.2 Quebec 2.3 New York and New Jersey 2.4 Saratoga and Philadelphia 2.4.1 Saratoga campaign 2.4.2 Philadelphia campaign 3 An international war, 1778–1783 4 Punish the Americans 4.1 Widening of the naval war 4.2 West Indies and Gulf Coast 4.3 India and the Netherlands 5 Southern theater 6 Northern and western frontier 7 Yorktown and the surrender of Cornwallis 8 Treaty of Paris 9 Historical assessment 9.1 Advantages and disadvantages of the opposing sides 9.2 Costs of the war 9.2.1 Casualties 9.2.2 Financial costs 10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 Further reading 14 External links 14.1 Bibliographies

Combatants before 1778

American armies and militias

Main articles: Continental Army and Minutemen

Population density in the American Colonies in 1775

At the outset of the war, the thirteen colonies lacked a professional army or navy. Each colony provided for its own defenses with local militia. Militiamen were lightly armed, had little training, 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 soldiers with more experience, 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.^[7]
Seeking to coordinate military efforts, the Continental Congress established (on paper) a regular army on the 14th of 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. The United States Marine Corps traces its institutional roots to the Continental Marines of the war, formed at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, by a resolution of the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775, a date regarded and celebrated as the birthday of the Marine Corps. At the beginning of 1776, Washington's army had 20,000 men, with two-thirds enlisted in the Continental Army and the other third in the various state militias.^[8] At the end of the American Revolution in 1783, both the Continental Navy and Continental Marines were disbanded. 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, largely attributable to limitations such as lack of powder and other logistical capabilities on the American side.^[9] By comparison, Duffy notes that Frederick the Great usually commanded from 23,000 to 50,000 in battle. Both figures pale in comparison to the armies that would be fielded in the early nineteenth century, where troop formations approached or exceeded 100,000 men.

Loyalists

Main article: Loyalist (American Revolution)

Historians have estimated that approximately 40–45% of the colonists actively supported the rebellion while 15–20% of the population of the thirteen colonies remained loyal to the British Crown. The remaining 35–45% attempted to remain neutral.^[10]
At least 25,000 Loyalists fought on the side of the British. Thousands served in the Royal Navy. On land, Loyalist forces fought alongside the British in most battles in North America. Many Loyalists fought in partisan units, especially in the Southern theater.^[11]
The British military met with many difficulties in maximizing the use of Loyalist factions. British historian Jeremy Black wrote, "In the American war it was clear to both royal generals and revolutionaries that organized and significant Loyalist activity would require the presence of British forces."^[12] In the South, the use of Loyalists presented the British with "major problems of strategic choice" since while it was necessary to widely disperse troops in order to defend Loyalist areas, it was also recognized that there was a need for "the maintenance of large concentrated forces able" to counter major attacks from the American forces.^[13] In addition, the British were forced to ensure that their military actions would not "offend Loyalist opinion", eliminating such options as attempting to "live off the country", destroying property for intimidation purposes, or coercing payments from colonists ("laying them under contribution").^[14]

British armies and auxiliaries

Further information: History of the British Army: American War of Independence

Early in 1775, the British Army consisted of about 36,000 men worldwide, but wartime recruitment steadily increased this number. Great Britain had a difficult time appointing general officers, however. General Thomas Gage, in command of British forces in North America when the rebellion started, was criticized for being too lenient (perhaps influenced by his American wife). General Jeffrey Amherst, 1st Baron Amherst turned down an appointment as commander in chief due to an unwillingness to take sides in the conflict.^[15] Similarly, Admiral Augustus Keppel turned down a command, saying "I cannot draw the sword in such a cause." The Earl of Effingham very publicly resigned his commission when his 22nd Regiment of foot was posted to America, and William Howe and John Burgoyne were both members of parliament who opposed military solutions to the American rebellion. Howe and Henry Clinton both made statements that they were not willing participants in the war, but were following orders.^[16]
Over the course of the war, Great Britain signed treaties with various German states, which supplied about 30,000 soldiers. Germans made up about one-third of the British troop strength in North America. Hesse-Kassel contributed more soldiers than any other state, and German soldiers became known as "Hessians" to the Americans. Revolutionary speakers called German soldiers "foreign mercenaries," and they are scorned as such in the Declaration of Independence. By 1779, the number of British and German troops stationed in North America was over 60,000, although these were spread from Canada to Florida.^[17] About 10,000 Loyalist Americans under arms for the British are included in these figures.^[18]

African Americans

This 1780 drawing of American soldiers from the Yorktown campaign shows a black infantryman from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.

African Americans—slave and free—served on both sides during the war. The British actively recruited slaves belonging to Patriot masters. Because of manpower shortages, George Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental Army in January 1776. Small all-black units were formed in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; many slaves were promised freedom for serving. Another all-black unit came from Haiti with French forces. At least 5,000 black soldiers fought for the Revolutionary cause^[19] and almost 20,000 black soldiers fought on the British side (although more than 100,000 freedmen were with the British at war's end).^[20]

Native Americans

Most Native Americans east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, and many communities were divided over the question of how to respond to the conflict. Though a few tribes were on friendly terms with the Americans, most Native Americans opposed the United States as a potential threat to their territory. Approximately 13,000 Native Americans fought on the British side, with the largest group coming from the Iroquois tribes, who fielded around 1,500 men.^[21] The powerful Iroquois Confederacy was shattered as a result of the conflict; although the Confederacy itself did not take sides, the Mohawk, Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga sided with the British, while many Tuscarora and Oneida sided with the colonists. The Continental Army sent the Sullivan Expedition to cripple the Iroquois tribes which had sided with the British. Both during and after the war friction between the Mohawks Joseph Louis Cook and Joseph Brant, who had sided with the Americans and the British respectively, further exacerbated the split.

Gender, race, class

Pybus (2005) estimates that about 20,000 slaves defected to or were captured by the British, of whom about 8,000 died from disease or wounds or were recaptured by the Patriots, and 12,000 left the country at the end of the war, for freedom in Canada or slavery in the West Indies.^[22]
Baller (2006) examines family dynamics and mobilization for the Revolution in central Massachusetts. He reports that warfare and the farming culture were sometimes incompatible. Militiamen found that living and working on the family farm had not prepared them for wartime marches and the rigors of camp life. Rugged individualism conflicted with military discipline and regimentation. A man's birth order often influenced his military recruitment, as younger sons went to war and older sons took charge of the farm. A person's family responsibilities and the prevalent patriarchy could impede mobilization. Harvesting duties and family emergencies pulled men home regardless of the sergeant's orders. Some relatives might be Loyalists, creating internal strains. On the whole, historians conclude the Revolution's effect on patriarchy and inheritance patterns favored egalitarianism.^[23]
McDonnell, (2006) shows a grave complication in Virginia's mobilization of troops was the conflicting interests of distinct social classes, which tended to undercut a unified commitment to the Patriot cause. The Assembly balanced the competing demands of elite slaveowning planters, the middling yeomen (some owning a few slaves), and landless indentured servants, among other groups. The Assembly used deferments, taxes, military service substitute, and conscription to resolve the tensions. Unresolved class conflict, however, made these laws less effective. There were violent protests, many cases of evasion, and large-scale desertion, so that Virginia's contributions came at embarrassingly low levels. With the British invasion of the state in 1781, Virginia was mired in class divisiveness as its native son, George Washington, made desperate appeals for troops.^[24]