Introduction for Chapter 7

7. The War for America, 1775–1783

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CONTINENTAL ARMY UNIFORM The Continental Army issued dark blue coats for officers’ uniforms, using shoulder stripes and facings in varied colors to establish rank. As an officer rose in the ranks, he changed stripes, not coats. Armed Forces History Division, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.

CONTENT LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After reading and studying this chapter, you should be able to:

  • Define the objectives of the Second Continental Congress.
  • Characterize the British and the American armies’ strengths and weaknesses during the first year of the Revolutionary War.
  • Explain how conflicts between patriots and loyalists played out on the local level.
  • Understand how the war proceeded in the North and West, and the roles Native Americans played in the war.
  • Consider King George III’s southern strategy from 1778 to 1781, including what went wrong for the British, and what were the terms of the peace.

ROBERT SHURTLIFF WAS A LATECOMER TO THE AMERICAN Revolution, enlisting in the Continental army after the last decisive battle at Yorktown had been fought. The army still needed fresh recruits to counter the British army occupying New York City. The standoff would last nearly two years before the peace treaty was finalized in Paris.

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Deborah Sampson Deborah Sampson opted for this small portrait to illustrate The Female Review, a short book about her unusual military career published in 1797. By then a wife and mother, she displays femininity here: long curly hair, necklace, and stylish low-cut gown. Sampson the soldier had used a cloth band to compress her breasts; Sampson the matron wore a satin band to define her bustline. Getty Images.

New recruits were scarce in a country exhausted by war. Attracted by cash bounties, beardless boys who had been children in 1775 now stepped forward, Shurtliff among them. Reportedly eighteen, the youth was single, poor, and at loose ends. With a muscular physique and proficiency with a musket, Shurtliff won assignment to an elite light infantry unit, part of Washington’s army of 10,000 men stationed north of New York City.

That is, 10,000 men and 1 woman. “Robert Shurtliff” was actually Deborah Sampson, age twenty-three, from Middleborough, Massachusetts. For seventeen months, Sampson masqueraded as a man, marching through woods, skirmishing with the enemy, and enduring the boredom of camp. Understating her age enabled her to blend in with the beardless boys, as did her competence as a soldier. With privacy at a minimum, she faced constant risk of discovery. Why did she run this risk?

A hard-luck childhood had left Sampson both impoverished and unusually plucky. Placed in foster care at age five, Deborah became a servant in a succession of families. Along the way, she learned to plow a field and to read and write, uncommon skills for a female servant. Next she worked as a weaver and then a teacher, low-wage jobs but also ones without supervising bosses. Marriage was the usual next step, but probably the wartime shortage of men kept Deborah “masterless,” rare for an eighteenth-century woman. Masterless, but also poor; the cash bounty enticed her to enlist.

When Sampson’s true sex was finally discovered, she was discharged immediately. What eventually made Sampson famous was not her war service alone but her success in selling her story to the public. In 1797, she told her life story (a blend of fact and fiction) in a short book and then went on tour reenacting her wartime masquerade. Once again, she was crossing gender boundaries since women normally did not speak from public stages.

Except for her disguised sex, Sampson’s Revolutionary War experience was similar to that of most Americans. Disruptions affected everyone’s life, whether in military service or on the home front. Wartime shortages caused women to do male jobs. Soldiers fought for ideas, but they also fought to earn money. Hardship was widely endured. And Sampson’s quest for personal independence—a freedom from the constraints of being female—was echoed in the general quest for political independence that many Americans identified as a major goal of the war.

Political independence was not everyone’s primary goal at first. For more than a year after fighting began, the Continental Congress resisted declaring independence. Some delegates cautiously hoped for reconciliation with Britain. The congress raised an army, financed it, and sought alliances with foreign countries—all the while exploring diplomatic channels for peace.

Once King George III rejected all peace overtures, Americans loudly declared their independence, and the war moved into high gear. In part a classic war with professional armies, the Revolutionary War was also a civil war between committed rebels and loyalists. It had complex ethnic dimensions, pitting Indian tribes allied with the British against others allied with the Americans, and international involvement as well from France and Spain. It also provided an unprecedented opportunity for some enslaved African Americans to win freedom, by joining either the British or the Continental army and state militias, fighting alongside white Americans.

1775
  • Second Continental Congress convenes.
  • Battle of Bunker Hill.
  • Olive Branch Petition.
  • Battle of Quebec.
1776
  • Common Sense published.
  • British evacuate Boston.
  • Declaration of Independence.
  • British take Manhattan.
1777
  • British Parliament suspends habeas corpus.
  • Ambush at Oriskany; Americans hold Fort Stanwix.
  • British occupy Philadelphia.
  • British surrender at Saratoga.
1777–1778
  • Continental army winters at Valley Forge.
1778
  • France signs treaty with America.
  • British take Savannah, Georgia.
1779
  • Militias attack Cherokee in North Carolina.
  • Americans destroy Iroquois villages in New York.
  • Americans take Forts Kaskaskia and Vincennes.
1780
  • Philadelphia Ladies Association raises money for soldiers.
  • The siege of Charleston, South Carolina.
  • French army arrives in Newport, Rhode Island.
  • British win battle of Camden.
  • Benedict Arnold exposed as traitor.
  • Americans win battle of King’s Mountain.
1781
  • British forces invade Virginia.
  • French blockade Chesapeake Bay.
  • Cornwallis surrenders at Yorktown.
1783
  • Treaty of Paris ends war.
Table : CHRONOLOGY