Chapter 8 America Secedes from the Empire,mrcasey.weebly.com/uploads/8/4/3/1/8431925/chapter_8.pdf · 2020. 1. 24. · Chapter 8 America Secedes from the Empire, 1775–1783 . I

Chapter 8

America Secedes from the Empire, 1775–1783

I. Congress Drafts George Washington

• The Second Continental Congress meets in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775:

– First most important single action—to select George Washington to head the army:

• The choice was made with considerable misgivings

• He never rose above the rank of a colonel

• His largest command had numbered only 20,000

• Falling short of true military genius, he would actually lose more pitched battles than he won.

I. Congress Drafts George Washington (cont.)

• He was gifted with outstanding powers of leadership and immense strength of character

• He radiated patience, courage, self-discipline, and a sense of justice

• He was trusted and insisted on serving without pay, however, keeping a careful list of expenses-$100,000.

• The Continental Congress chose more wisely than it knew.

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II. Bunker Hill and Hessian Hirelings

• The war of inconsistency was fought for 14 months—April 1775 to July 1776—before the fateful plunge into independence.

– Gradually the tempo of warfare increased:

• May 1775 Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold captured garrisons at Ticonderoga and Crown Point in upper New York

• June 1775 the colonists seized Bunker Hill

II. Bunker Hill and Hessian Hirelings (cont.)

• July 1775 the Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition:

– It professed American loyalty to the crown and begged the king to prevent further hostilities

– King George III slammed the door on all hope of reconciliation

– August 1775 he proclaimed the colonies in rebellion:

II. Bunker Hill and Hessian Hirelings (cont.)

• The skirmishes were now out-and out treason, a hanging crime

• Next he sealed arrangements for hiring thousands of German troops

• George III needed the men

• Because most of the soldiers-for-hire came from the German principality of Hesse, the Americans called all the European mercenaries Hessians

• News of the Hessian deal shocked the colonists

• Hessian hirelings proved to be good soldiers.

III. The Abortive Conquest of Canada

• October 1775 the British burned Falmouth (Portland), Maine:

– In autumn, the rebels daringly undertook a two-pronged invasion of Canada

– A successful assault on Canada would add a 14th colony and deprive Britain of a valuable base for striking the colonies in revolt

– Invasion northward was undisguised offensive warfare.

III. The Abortive Conquest of Canada (cont.)

• This broad stroke for Canada narrowly missed success (Map 8.1)

– One invading column under General Richard Montgomery pushed up the Lake Champlain route and captured Montreal.

– At Quebec he was joined by the army of General Benedict Arnold

– An assault on Quebec was launched on the day of 1775. Montgomery was killed.

III. The Abortive Conquest of Canada (cont.)

– Arnold was wounded in one leg.

– Bitter fighting persisted in the colonies:

• January 1776 the British set fire to Norfolk, Va.

• March 1776 they were forced to evacuate Boston

– In the South the rebels won two victories:

• February 1776 against some 15,000 Loyalists at Moore’s Creek Bridge North Carolina

• June 1776 against an invading fleet at Charleston harbor.

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IV. Thomas Paine Preaches Common Sense

• Loyalty to the empire was deeply ingrained:

– Americans continued to believe they were a part of a transatlantic community

– Colonial unity was poor

– Open rebellion was dangerous

– As late as January 1776 the king’s health was being toasted—”God save the king.”

• They gradually were shocked into recognizing the necessity to separate.

IV. Thomas Paine Preaches Common Sense (cont.)

• 1776 Common Sense by Thomas Paine:

– One of the most influential pamphlets ever published

– Began with a treatise on the nature of government

– And that the only lawful states were those that derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed.”


– As for the king, he was nothing but “the Royal Brute of Great Britain”

– Within a week the astonishing total of 120,000 copies were sold.

– No where in the physical universe did the smaller heavenly bodies control the larger one

– So why should the tiny island of Britain control the vast continent of America?


• Paine tried to convince the colonists that their true cause was independence rather than reconciliation with Britain.

• Paine could thus be said to have drafted the foundational document not only of American independence, but of American foreign policy as well.

Map 8-1 p135

V. Paine and the Idea of “Republicanism”

• Paine was calling for a republic:

– For the creation of a new kind of political society where power flowed from the people themselves

– In biblical imagery, he argued that all government officials—governors, senators, and judges—and not just representatives should derive their authority from popular consent.

V. Paine and the Idea of “Republicanism” (cont.)

• Paine was not the first to champion a republican form of government:

– Greece and Rome revived in the 17th century Renaissance

– Republicanism appealed to British politicians critical of excessive power in the hands of the king and his advisers

– The American colonists interpreted the royal acts as part of a monarchical conspiracy.


• Paine’s summons to create a republic fell on receptive ears:

– New Englanders already had practiced a kind of republicanism:

• In their town meetings and annual election.

• Most American considered citizen “virtue” fundamental to any successful republican government.


• Individuals in a republic:

– Needed to sacrifice their personal self-interest to the public good

– The collective good of “the people” mattered more than private rights and interests of individuals

– Paine inspired his contemporaries to view America as fertile ground for the cultivation of such civil virtue.

V. Paine and the Idea of Republicanism (cont.)

• Not all Patriots agreed with Paine’s ultra-democratic approach to republicanism:

– Some favored a republic ruled by a “natural aristocracy” of talent

– They wanted an end to hereditary aristocracy, but not an end to all social hierarchy

– They were conservative republicans who wanted the stability of the social order.

• The contest of American republicanism would continue for the next 100 years.

VI. Jefferson’s “Explanation” of Independence

• On July 7, 1776, fiery Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved that “these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states.” The motion was adopted a month later on July 2, 1776.

– The passing of Lee’s resolution was the formal “declaration” of independence by the colonies

– Technically this was all that was needed to cut the British tie.

VI. Jefferson’s “Explanation” of Independence (cont.)

• An inspirational appeal was needed:

– To enlist other British colonies in the Americas

– To invite assistance for foreign nations

– To rally resistance at home.

• Congress appointed a committee to prepare a more formal statement:

– The task of drafting it fell to Thomas Jefferson

– He was fully qualified for it.

VI. Jefferson’s “Explanation of Independence (cont.)

• The Declaration of Independence

– Formally approved by Congress on July 4, 1776

– It had universal appeal by invoking the “natural rights of humankind—not just British rights

– He argued that the king had flouted these rights the colonists were justified in cutting their ties

– He set forth a long list of the presumably tyrannous misdeeds of George III

– The Declaration had a universal impact.

VII. Patriots and Loyalists

• The War of Independence was a war within a war:

– Loyalists—colonials loyal to the king who fought the American rebels called “Tories” after the dominant political factions in Britain

– Patriots—rebels who also fought the British redcoats called “Whigs” after the opposition factions in Britain.

VII. Patriots and Loyalists (cont.)

• The American Revolution was a minority movement:

– Many colonists were apathetic or neutral

– The Patriot militias played a critical role

– The rebel militiamen appeared and took the task of “political education” sometimes by coercion

– The ragtag militia units served as agents of Revolutionary ideas.

VII. Patriots and Loyalists

• Loyalists:

– Numbered about 16 percent of the American people, who remained true to their king

– Families often were split

– They were taught fidelity to the crown

– Many people of education and wealth, of culture and caution, remained loyal

– More numerous among the older generation

– Included the king’s officers and beneficiaries.

VII. Patriots and Loyalists (cont.)

• Loyalists:

– They were the Anglican clergy and their congregations notable exception was Virginia

– King’s followers entrenched in aristocratic New York City and Charlestown, Quaker Pennsylvania and New Jersey

– They were less numerous in New England

• Most numerous where Presbyterianism and Congregationalism flourished.

VIII. The Loyalist Exodus

• Before the Declaration in 1776, persecution of the Loyalists was relatively mild:

• Some were subject to brutality, tarring and feathering and riding astride fence rails

• Harsher treatment began after the Declaration

• Were regarded as traitors

• Were roughly handled, some were imprisoned and a few noncombatants were hung.

– There was no wholesale reign of terror.

VIII. The Loyalists Exodus (cont.)

• 80 thousand loyal supporters of King George were driven out or fled

• Several hundred thousand were permitted to stay

• The estates of the fugitives were confiscated and sold

• Some 50 thousand Loyalist volunteers bore arms for the British

• They helped the king’s cause by serving as spies, by inciting the Indians, and by keeping Patriot soldiers

• Ardent Loyalists had their hearts in their cause.

IX. General Washington at Bay

• General Washington:

– Only mustered 18,000 ill-trained troops to meet the British invaders at New York, March 1776

– Disaster befell the Americans at the Battle of Long Island summer and fall of 1776

– Washington escaped to Manhattan Island, finally reaching the Delaware River

– The Patriot cause was at low ebb and the rebel remnants fled across the river.

IX. General Washington at Bay (cont.)

– General William Howe, Washington’s adversary, did not speedily crush the demoralized American forces

– Washington stealthily recrossed the Delaware River at Trenton on December 26, 1776, he surprised and captured 1,000 Hessians

– A week later he defeated a small British fleet at Princeton.

– These two lifesaving victories revealed the “Old Fox” Washington at his military best.

X. Burgoyne’s Blundering Invasion

• London officials adopted an intricate scheme to capture the Hudson River valley in 1777:

– If successful it would sever New England from the rest of the states and paralyze the American cause:

• General John Burgoyne would push down the Lake Champlain route from Canada

• General Howe’s troops would advance up the Hudson and meet Burgoyne near Albany

X. Burgoyne’s Blundering Invasion (cont.)

• A third smaller British force, under Colonel Barry St. Leger, would come from the west by way of Lake Ontario and the Mohawk

• British planners did not reckon with General Arnold – Arnold came along the St. Lawrence River to the Lake

Champlain area where he assembled and outfitted a fleet of floatable vessels

– His fleet was destroyed, but time had been won

– The result would have been the British recapturing Fort Ticonderoga.

– If Burgoyne would have started from Montreal he most certainly would have succeeded in his venture.

X. Burgoyne’ Blundering Invasion (cont.)

• General Washington transferred his army to the vicinity of Philadelphia:

– There he was defeated in two pitched battles, at Brandywine Creek and Germantown

• General Howe settled down in the lively capital and left Burgoyne to flounder in upper New York

• Washington retired to Valley Forge

• Burgoyne was trapped with no possible advancement and was forced to surrender his entire command at Saratoga on October 17, 1777, to Gen. Horatio Gates.

X. Burgoyne’s Blundering Invasion (cont.)

• Saratoga ranks high among the decisive battles of both America and world history:

– The victory immensely revived the faltering colonial cause

– Even more important, it made possible the urgently needed foreign aid from France, which in turn helped ensure American independence.

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XI. Revolution in Diplomacy?

• France’s role in the Revolution:

– Hopefully France could regain its former position and prestige in North America:

• Her loss in the Seven Years’ War rankled deeply

– America’s revolutionaries badly needed help in her struggle to throw off the British:

• America needed to seal an alliance with France against the common British foe.

XI. Revolution in Diplomacy? (cont.)

• The rebellious Americans harbored revolutionary ideas about international affairs:

– They wanted an end to colonialism and mercantilism:

– They strongly supported free trade and freedom of the sea

– They wanted to support the rule of law to arbitrate the affairs of nations.


• In the summer of 1776 the Continental Congress drafted a Model Treaty:

– To guide the American commissioners who would be dispatched to the French court

– John Adams, one of the chief authors, described its basic principles:

• “1. No political connection. . . .2. No military connection. . . .3. Only a commercial connection.”

• These were remarkable self-denying restrictions.


• Benjamin Franklin negotiated treaty in Paris:

– He was determined that his very appearance should herald the diplomatic revolution

– He shocked the royal court

– Ordinary Parisians adored him as a specimen

of a new democratic social order

The British offered a measure to the effect of American home rule in the empire.


– This was essentially what the colonials had asked for—except independence:

• On February 6, 1778, France offered the Americans a treaty of alliance

• The young republic concluded its first entangling military alliance and would soon regret it

• The Treaty with France constituted an official recognition of America’s independence

• Both allies bound themselves together to secure America’s freedom and to terms with the common enemy.

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XII. The Colonial War Becomes a Wider War

• England and France came to blows in 1778, and the shot fired at Lexington widened into a global conflagration.

– Spain entered in 1779 as did Holland

– The weak maritime neutrals of Europe began to demand their rights (see Table 8.1)

• Catherine the Great, Russia, led in organizing the Armed Neutrality—it lined all remaining European neutrals in an attitude of passive hostility toward Britain.

XII. The Colonial War Becomes a Wider War (cont.)

• The war was fought not only in Europe and North America, but South America, the Caribbean and Asia

• The Americans deserve credit for keeping the war going until 1778 with secret French aid

• Their independence was not achieved until the conflict erupted into a multipower world war too big for Britain to handle

• From 1778 to 1783 France provided the rebels with guns, money, equipment and armed forces.

XII. The Colonial War Becomes a Wider War (cont.)

– France’s entrance:

• Forced the British to change their basic strategy

• They counted on blockading the colonial coast and commanding the seas

• Now the French had powerful fleets in American water

• British decided to evacuate Philadelphia and concentrate their strength in New York City

• In June 1778 the redcoats were attacked by Washington but the battle was indecisive and Washington remained in the New York area.

Table 8-1 p147

XIII. Blow and Counterblow

• 1780: French army of 6000 regular troops, under commander Comte de Rochambeau arrived in Newport

– But French gold and goodwill melted hard hearts

– No real military advantage came from the French reinforcement

– 1780 General Benedict Arnold turned traitor.

– British planned to roll up the colonies in Loyalist South (See Map 8.2).

XIII. Blow and Counterblow (cont.)

– Georgia was ruthlessly overrun in 1778-1779 Charleston, South Carolina, fell in 1780

– Warfare intensified in the Carolinas

– 1781: American riflemen wiped out a British detachment at King’s Mountain, then defeated a smaller force at Cowpens

– In the Carolina campaign of 1781, General Nathaniel Greene, a Quaker-raised tactician, distinguished himself by his strategy of delay.

XIII. Blow and Counterblow (cont.)

– Standing and retreating, he exhausted his foe, General Cornwallis, in vain pursuit.

– The “Fighting Quaker” succeeded in clearing most of Georgia and South Carolina of British troops.

Map 8-2 p148

XIV. The Land Frontier and the Sea Frontier

• The West was ablaze during the war:

– Indian allies of George III were busy with torch and tomahawk

– Fateful 1777 was known as “the bloody year” on the frontier:

• Two nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the Oneidas and the Tuscarora, sided with the Americans

• The Senecas, Mohawks, Cayugas, and Onondagas joined the British, encouraged by chief Joseph Brant, who believed in a victorious Britain.

XIV. The Land Frontier and the Sea Frontier (cont.)

• In 1784 the pro-British Iroquois were forced to sing the Treaty of Fort Stanwix:

– First treaty between the United States and an Indian nation

– Under its teams the Indians ceded most of their land.


• In Illinois, the British were especially vulnerable to attack:

• They held only scattered posts captured from French

• George Rogers Clark conceived the idea of seizing these forts by surprise

• In 1778-1779 going down the Ohio River, he captured in quick succession the forts Kaskaskia, Cahokia, and Vincennes (see Map 8.3)

• Clark’s admirers argued that his success forced the British to cede the region north of the Ohio River to the United States at the peace table in Paris.


• America’s infant navy:

– Navy under Scotsman John Paul Jones

• This tiny naval force never made a dent in Britain’s thunderous fleets

• Its chief contribution was in destroying British merchant shipping

• Thus carrying the war into the waters around the British Isles.


• The swift privateers:

– These craft were privately owned armed ships—legalized pirates

– Specifically authorized by Congress to prey on enemy shipping

– 1,000 American privateers responded to the call of patriotism and profit, with about 70,000 men.

– They captured some 600 British prizes, while British captured merchantmen and privateers.


• Privateering was not an unalloyed asset: • It diverted manpower from the main war

• It involved Americans, including Benedict Arnold.

• Privateering was also good: • They did bring in urgently needed gold

• Harassed the enemy

• Raised American moral

• Ruined British shipping

– Shippers and manufacturers wanted to end the war.

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Map 8-3 p149

XV. Yorktown and the Final Curtain

• One of the darkest periods of the war was 1780-1781, before the last decisive victory:

– Government was virtually bankrupt

– It declared it would repay its debt at only 2.5 cents on the dollar

– Despair prevailed, the sense of unity was withered, and mutinous sentiments infected the army.

XV. Yorktown and the Final Curtain (cont.)

• British general Cornwallis was blundering into a trap:

– After futile operations in Virginia, he fall back to Chesapeake Bay at Yorktown:

• To await seaborne supplies and reinforcements.

• He assumed Britain would continue to control the sea

• It was during the period that the British naval superiority was slipping away.


• French actions:

– They were prepared to cooperate in a stroke

– Admiral de Grasse informed the Americans he was free to join against Cornwallis at Yorktown

– Washington make a swift march, 300 miles, to Chesapeake from New York

– Accompanied by Rochambeau’s French army, Washington beset the British at land

– While de Grasse blockaded the sea.


• Completely cornered, Cornwallis surrendered his entire force of 7000 men on October 19, 1781.

– George III planned to continue the struggle

– Fighting continued for a year after Yorktown, with Patriot-Loyalist warfare in the South very savage.

– Washington’s most valuable contributions was to keep the languishing cause alive, the army in the field, and the states together.

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XVI. Peace at Paris

• Aftermath of the war: • Many Britons were weary of war

• They suffered loses in India and the West Indies

• The island of Minorca in the Mediterranean fall

• Lord North’s ministry collapsed in March 1782 temporarily ending George III’s personal rule

• A Whig ministry , favorable to the Americans, replaced the Tory regime of Lord North.

XVI. Peace at Paris (cont.)

• American peace negotiators:

– Three were gathered at Paris: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay:

• They had specific instructions to make no separate peace

• To consult with their French allies at all stages

• However, the American representatives chafed under this directive, because they knew that it had been written by a subservient Congress, with the French Foreign Office indirectly guiding the pen.


• France was in a painful position: • She had induced Spain to enter the war on her side,

promising to deliver British Gibraltar

• She coveted the immense trans-Allegheny area

• She desired an independent United States, trying to keep the New Republic east of the Allegheny Mountains

• A weak America would be easy for Spain to manage in promoting French interests and policy

• She was paying a heavy price to win America’s independence and wanted her money’s worth.


– John Jay was unwilling to play the French game.

• He secretly made overtures to London

• London speedily came to terms with the Americans

• A preliminary treaty of peace was signed in 1782 the final peace, the next year.

– The Treaty of Paris of 1783:

• Britain formally recognized the independence of the United States

• Granted generous boundaries: – From the Mississippi (west) to Great Lakes (north) Spanish

Florida (south).


• The Yankees retained the fisheries of Newfoundland

– American concessions:

• Loyalists were not to be further persecuted

• Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures that confiscated Loyalists’ property be restored

• Debts long owed to British creditors had to be paid

• However, the debt promises were not carried out.

– British concessions:

• Had to accept defeat in North America

• Shut down the wage enable her to rebuild.

XVII. A New Nation Legitimized

• British terms were liberal:

– She gave the enormous trans-Appalachian area

– In spirit, the Americans made a separate peace—contrary to the French alliance

– France was immensely relieved by the prospect of ending the costly conflict

– America alone gained from the world-girdling war and began their national career with a splendid territorial birthright/priceless heritage.

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Chapter 8 America Secedes from the Empire,mrcasey.weebly.com/uploads/8/4/3/1/8431925/chapter_8.pdf · 2020. 1. 24. · Chapter 8 America Secedes from the Empire, 1775–1783 . I