On the Lexington Common, the British force was confronted by 77 American militiamen , and they began shooting at each other. Seven Americans died, but other militiamen managed to stop the British at Concord, and continued to harass them on their retreat back to Boston. The British lost 73 dead, with another wounded and 26 missing in action. The bloody encounter proved to the British that the colonists were fearsome foes who had to be taken seriously.
But that was before the brutal British naval bombardments and burning of the coastal towns of Falmouth, Massachusetts and Norfolk, Virginia helped to unify the colonies. Leaders of the rebellion seized the burnings of the two ports to make the argument that the colonists needed to band together for survival against a ruthless enemy and embrace the need for independence—a spirit that ultimately would lead to their victory. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us!
Twice a week we compile our most fascinating features and deliver them straight to you. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Before the battle, the troops listened to a passage from The Crisis , a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. They drew inspiration from his stirring prose that described the challenges ahead. Building Alliances The victory inspired new and much needed confidence in the Continental Army that they would use the following winter when they made camp at Valley Forge.
Although the army faced severe hardships during the winter encampment, they became an effective fighting force through the training they received under the skillful direction of Baron Friedrich von Steuben.
At the end of this horrific winter, France signed an alliance, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin , to aid the United States monetarily and militarily. The British would evacuate Philadelphia in June They had hoped that a strong number of loyalists in the South would rally around the Crown.
Despite losing at the Battle of Camden, the Continental Army waged a successful guerrilla war against the British in Georgia and the Carolinas. Although mainly using privateers, the United States did have a few ships of its own.
Washington devised a plan to feign an attack on New York, which would enable Rochambeau to join forces with the Continental Army. The combined force would join with troops commanded by the Marquis de Lafayette and attack Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis had maneuvered his forces into the Tidewater Region expecting to be evacuated by the British Navy. Washington then led his combined force in laying siege to Yorktown in late September Ask about our Virtual Tour programming!
Tour Hours: 10am - 4pm. Albigence Waldo, a Continental Army surgeon, later reported that many men survived largely on what were known as fire cakes flour and water baked over coals. But that was not always the case. So much heavy clothing arrived from France at the beginning of the winter in that Washington was compelled to locate storage facilities for his surplus. In a long war during which American soldiers were posted from upper New York to lower Georgia, conditions faced by the troops varied widely.
While one soldier in seven was dying from hunger and disease at Valley Forge, young Private Martin, stationed only a few miles away in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, was assigned to patrols that foraged daily for army provisions. 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. The American victory at Saratoga was a turning point of the war, for it convinced the French monarchy that the Americans could actually defeat the British in battle.
As a result, a formal military alliance was signed between the French and American governments in , which entailed increased financial and military support. The alliance had even more positive implications for the Continental Army, because it forced the Parliament to funnel manpower and resources to fight the French across the globe, rather than sending them to North America. While arriving rather disheveled, disheartened, and largely undisciplined, the army underwent a rigorous training program under the direction of Baron von Steuben.
He instilled in the soldiers a sense of pride, resilience, and discipline, which transformed the army into a force that was capable of standing toe-to-toe with the British. In , the British consolidated their forces in New York and Canada and prepared to launch an invasion of the South. In the meantime, in the west, American forces under George Rogers Clark captured several British posts, culminating with a victory at Vincennes , Indiana, and the surrender of a much larger British force.
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.
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