Campaign Year of 1775 - 1776

American Advantages and Disadvantages

• AdvantagesFighting for a causeFamiliar with the territoryFamiliar with gunsPrivateersEventually got foreign help

American Advantages and Disadvantages

• DisadvantagesUntrained armyFew war materialsNo navy

English ( British ) Advantages and Disadvantages

• AdvantagesLarge well trained army and well

disciplinedNavyMost powerful country in the world

English ( British ) Advantages and Disadvantages

• DisadvantagesFighting 3,000 miles from homeCommunicationSupplyWho was your enemy?Unfamiliar with the territoryWar became expensive and unpopular at home

Definitions

• Tories or Loyalists – colonists who remain loyal to England

• Rebels or Patriots – colonists who revolt against England

Campaign Year of 1775

Night of April 18th – 19th

“The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere”

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Battles of Lexington and Concord

• Minutemen ( militia ) – citizen soldiers

• April 19th – fighting at Lexington Green, Concord Bridge and all the way back to Boston

The Shot Heard ‘Round the World

•By the end of the day the British were bottled up in Boston

May 10th – Ethan Allen ( A ) and Benedict Arnold ( A ) capture Ft.

Ticonderoga

May, 1775

• Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia

• Sends Olive Branch Petition to England

• King George III orders 20,000 more troops to the colonies

July, 1775

• Continental Congress appoints George Washington ( A ) commander – in – chief of the Continental Army

July, 1775 – Battle of Bunker Hill ( B )

Winter of 1775 - 1776

• Henry Knox ( A ) moves cannon from Crown Point and Ft. Ticonderoga to Boston

Benedict Arnold ( A ) and Richard Montgomery ( A )

invade Canada unsuccessfully

Campaign Year of 1776

Boston - 1776

George Washington ( A ) puts Henry Knox’s ( A ) cannon on Dorchester Heights and the British have to evacuate Boston.

In 1776, the British have a plan to win the war -

gain control of the waterways of New York and divide the colonies. Crush the revolution in New England and it will fall apart in the rest of the colonies

Battles for New York City George Washington ( A ) vs

Sir William Howe ( B )

• Battle of Long Island ( Brooklyn Heights )

• Battle of Harlem Heights

• Battle of White Plains

• British control New York City for the rest of the war

Nathan Hale – “ I regret that I have but one life to lose for my country”

Battle of Long Island ( Brooklyn Heights )

Battle of White Plains

Continental Congress

• Philadelphia• John Hancock -

President

Thomas Paine

• Common Sense –”tis time to part”

• Sold over 500,000 copies

Richard Henry Lee

• June – introduces a resolution to separate from England

Committee appointed to write a formal declaration of independence

• John Adams• Thomas Jefferson• Ben Franklin• Roger Sherman• Robert Livingston

July 4, 1776 – Declaration of Independence Signed

Declaration of Independence

• Three Main Parts

1. Preamble

2. Listing of the wrong that led Americans to break away from England

3. Announcement that the colonies are now the United States of America

Battle of Valcour Island ( B )Benedict Arnold ( A ) vs Sir Guy

Carleton ( B )

Valcour Island

• American navy defeated but it gained us time because the British were not able to continue their invasion because of the lateness of the season

Thomas Paine

• The Crisis – “these are the times that try men’s souls”

Battle of TrentonDecember , 1776

Battle of PrincetonJanuary, 1777

Trenton and Princeton were key American victories at the end of the Campaign Year of 1776

How did the war effect other people? Blacks in the Revolution

• Crispus Attucks – Boston Massacre

• Blacks fought on both sides / promise of freedom – “Samuel’s Choice”

• All Black Unit – 1st Rhode Island

• 1 in 20 soldiers in the Continental army were black after 1778

How did the war effect other people?

Women in the Revolution • “camp followers” – wives and children

• Home front

• Nurses

• Mercy Otis Warren – playwright

• Phillis Wheatly – poetess

• Mary Ludwig Hays – “Molly Pitcher” – 1778 - Battle of Monmouth

Women in the Revolution

• Deborah Sampson – fought

• Betsy Ross

• Martha Washington

• Abigail Adams

• Mary Katherine Goddard - printer

How did the war effect other people? – Loyalists/Tories

• 100,000 forced to leave the country after the war

• 30,000 in New York

• Went to England, West Indies and Canada

• Many Loyalists in the South

Foreign Help

• Marquis de Lafayette• France• Washington’s Staff

Foreign Help

• Baron Frederick von Steuben – Prussia – trained army during the winter at Valley Forge

Foreign Help

• Thaddeus Kosciusko – Poland – engineer – designed fortifications

Foreign Help

• Casimir Pulaski – Poland - cavalry

Naval Warfare

• “Turtle” – submarine – NYC – 1776

• Privateers- legal pirates – letters of marque and reprisal – after 1777 privateers could use French ports

• John Paul Jones – “Bonhomme Richard” – 1779 – “I have not yet begun to fight”