Revolutionaries why war

Some , men served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Probably twice that number soldiered as militiamen, for the most part defending the home front, functioning as a police force and occasionally engaging in enemy surveillance.

If a militia company was summoned to active duty and sent to the front lines to augment the Continentals, it usually remained mobilized for no more than 90 days. Some Americans emerged from the war convinced that the militia had been largely ineffective.

Militiamen were older, on average, than the Continental soldiers and received only perfunctory training; few had experienced combat. At Camden, South Carolina, in August , militiamen panicked in the face of advancing redcoats.

Throwing down their weapons and running for safety, they were responsible for one of the worst defeats of the war. Yet in , militiamen had fought with surpassing bravery along the Concord Road and at Bunker Hill.

Nearly 40 percent of soldiers serving under Washington in his crucial Christmas night victory at Trenton in were militiamen. In New York state, half the American force in the vital Saratoga campaign of consisted of militiamen. In March , Gen. Nathanael Greene adroitly deployed his militiamen in the Battle of Guilford Courthouse fought near present-day Greensboro, North Carolina. In that engagement, he inflicted such devastating losses on the British that they gave up the fight for North Carolina.

The militia had its shortcomings, to be sure, but America could not have won the war without it. On October 17, , British Gen. The defeat persuaded France to form a military alliance with the United States. Previously, the French, even though they believed that London would be fatally weakened by the loss of its American colonies, had not wished to take a chance on backing the new American nation. But Saratoga was not the turning point of the war.

In addition to Saratoga, four other key moments can be identified. The first was the combined effect of victories in the fighting along the Concord Road on April 19, , and at Bunker Hill near Boston two months later, on June But in those two engagements, fought in the first 60 days of the war, American soldiers—all militiamen—inflicted huge casualties.

The British lost nearly 1, men in those encounters, three times the American toll. Without the psychological benefits of those battles, it is debatable whether a viable Continental Army could have been raised in that first year of war or whether public morale would have withstood the terrible defeats of But at Trenton in late December , Washington achieved a great victory, destroying a Hessian force of nearly 1, men; a week later, on January 3, he defeated a British force at Princeton, New Jersey.

A third turning point occurred when Congress abandoned one-year enlistments and transformed the Continental Army into a standing army, made up of regulars who volunteered—or were conscripted—for long-term service. A standing army was contrary to American tradition and was viewed as unacceptable by citizens who understood that history was filled with instances of generals who had used their armies to gain dictatorial powers.

The campaign that unfolded in the South during and was the final turning point of the conflict. After failing to crush the rebellion in New England and the mid-Atlantic states, the British turned their attention in to the South, hoping to retake Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. At first the Southern Strategy, as the British termed the initiative, achieved spectacular results. Within 20 months, the redcoats had wiped out three American armies, retaken Savannah and Charleston, occupied a substantial portion of the South Carolina backcountry, and killed, wounded or captured 7, American soldiers, nearly equaling the British losses at Saratoga.

But the colonists were not broken. In October , rebel militia and backcountry volunteers destroyed an army of more than 1, Loyalists at Kings Mountain in South Carolina. After that rout, Cornwallis found it nearly impossible to persuade Loyalists to join the cause. In January , Cornwallis marched an army of more than 4, men to North Carolina, hoping to cut supply routes that sustained partisans farther south. Nathanael Greene, Cornwallis lost some 1, men, nearly 40 percent of the troops under his command at the outset of the North Carolina campaign.

In April , despairing of crushing the insurgency in the Carolinas, he took his army into Virginia, where he hoped to sever supply routes linking the upper and lower South. It was a fateful decision, as it put Cornwallis on a course that would lead that autumn to disaster at Yorktown, where he was trapped and compelled to surrender more than 8, men on October 19, In August , the Continental Army was routed in its first test on Long Island in part because Washington failed to properly reconnoiter and he attempted to defend too large an area for the size of his army.

Washington did not take the blame for what had gone wrong. In the fall of , when Gen. William Howe invaded Pennsylvania, Washington committed his entire army in an attempt to prevent the loss of Philadelphia. During the Battle of Brandywine, in September, he once again froze with indecision. For nearly two hours information poured into headquarters that the British were attempting a flanking maneuver—a move that would, if successful, entrap much of the Continental Army—and Washington failed to respond.

His army caught up to the redcoats at Monmouth , New Jersey, where an intense battle ensued. After arriving late to the battle and rallying his wavering troops, Washington made several defenses and counterattacks against the surging British force. Though inconclusive with no clear victor, the battle demonstrated the growing effectiveness of the Continental Army. Upon finally reaching New York, British forces never again ventured far from their secure base there. In , with fighting on a global scale and a stalemate developing in the North, the British began to focus their efforts on conquering the South, in hopes of quelling the rebellion once and for all.

While General Cornwallis fought his way into Virginia, a brutal civil war erupted among the civilian population of the Carolinas. While Greene lost most of the battles in which he fought, he skillfully used his mixed force of militia and Continental regulars to maneuver the British out of the Carolinas' interior, forcing them toward the coastal cities and towns.

Washington, along with a French fleet and army commanded by General Rochambeau, arrived in Virginia on September 19th, , effectively sealing shut any escape route for Cornwallis. Following a siege and a series of attacks on the British position, Cornwallis surrendered his army to Washington. Following Yorktown, both sides consolidated their forces and waited while peace negotiations took place in Paris. There were many small actions near New York City, in western Pennsylvania, and along the Carolina coast, but large-scale fighting had ended.

At the time that the Treaty of Paris was signed in , ending the war in favor of the American colonists, the British still controlled Savannah, Charleston, New York, and Canada. The War of Independence is forever ingrained within our American identity and provides all Americans a sense of who we are, or, at the very least, who we should be.

Our forefathers fought for liberty, freedom, and republican ideals the likes of which had never before been seen in any style of organized government preceding them. The low din of battle, fought all those years ago, continues to echo the hearts and minds of Americans to this very day. Rev War Article. Overview of the American Revolutionary War.

When his uncle died, Hancock inherited his lucrative Committees of correspondence were emergency provisional governments set up in the 13 American colonies in response to British policies leading up to the Revolutionary War also known as the American Revolution. The exchange of ideas, information and debate between different He gave the local militia a key advantage during the Battles John Adams was a leader of the American Revolution and served as the second U. The Massachusetts-born, Harvard-educated Adams began his career as a lawyer.

Intelligent, patriotic, opinionated and blunt, Adams became a critic of Great It began as a street brawl between American colonists and a lone British soldier, but quickly escalated to a chaotic, bloody slaughter. The conflict energized anti-British sentiment From to , the Continental Congress served as the government of the 13 American colonies and later the United States. The First Continental Congress, which was comprised of delegates from the colonies, met in in reaction to the Coercive Acts, a series of measures It included two crucial battles, fought eighteen days apart, and was a decisive victory for the Continental Army and a crucial turning point in the Revolutionary Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Causes of the Revolutionary War. Recommended for you. American Revolution: Continental Congress. American Revolution: Key Military Figures. American Revolution: Events and Battles. American Revolution: Flags and Fliers. Battles of Lexington and Concord. American Revolution History.