The American Revolutionary Period

Notes from two friends on the crucial and contingent moment in U.S. history.

Rob James

December 16, 2025

Thanks to my good friend and era authority Manley Roberts for the conversations leading to these notes. We have omitted dozens of generals, scores of battles and skirmishes, and many personal stories of those deeply affected by the events. More importantly, we have not made deep speculations as to the causes and consequences of the Revolution. Our purpose here is to provide the basic story, the leading figures, events, and chronology, in order to support and encourage further reading. I even highlighted the most important bits in boldface should you wish to skim rather than dive. All errors are mine alone!

Young historians Manley and Rob, in New Haven, Connecticut, 1981, with Davison M. Douglas (later Dean of the William & Mary Law School); older historians Manley and Rob, parenthesizing their wives Jennifer and Sarah, in Stinson Beach, California, early 2000s.

The Seven Years’ War (1756-1763; to Americans, the French and Indian War 1754-1763) pitted George II’s Britain and Prussia against France, Austria and Spain globally—across Europe, in Asia, and in the Americas (both the most profitable colonies in the Caribbean and the most populous on the Eastern seaboard). The first years went badly for the British (including militia colonel George Washington humiliated outside Fort Necessity and British General Edward Braddock leading George Washington and others into a trap against Indians aligned with the French at Fort Duquesne; from these experiences Washington learned that British regulars were beatable and that it was no shame to retreat and regroup). William Pitt the Elder (Chatham) led the war effort and decided to spend away and concentrate on the Americas while the Germans kept the French at bay in Europe (he later opposed the fruitless war against the colonists). Successes followed at Fort Duquesne (thereafter Fort Pitt, hence Pittsburgh), the Caribbean island of Guadalupe, and the Plains of Abraham (named after a farmer, not the Old Testament figure) near Quebec City. Robert Clive also secured an unexpected victory in India. Pitt was inclined to pursue and obtain significant gains for England, but the new king, George II’s “entirely British” grandson George III, tired of the fight and by 1761 had ceased offensive operations.

To make a defensible line and avert global French reprisals, a 1763 royal decree provided that the colonists should not settle past the Appalachians. That infuriated both settlers and land speculators like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry, who had bought interests in millions of acres of land occupied by Native Americans in the Shenandoah, Ohio and Mississippi River valleys. The British commanding general succeeding Jeffrey Amherst, Thomas Gage, lived comfortably in New York—he married to a wealthy American and was a land speculator himself. The proclamation was ineffective to reverse or prevent settlement.

As a result of the high expense incurred in defending the Americas, Parliament looked to revenue acts to compensate and finance past, present, and future colonial security. The Sugar Act of 1764 was proposed by Prime Minister George Grenville (there were five PMs in the 1760s, while Lord North stayed in office from 1770 to 1782). The Act was bitterly opposed particularly in Virginia and Massachusetts.

Interestingly, at this early date Grenville received a delegation including Benjamin Franklin and some British agents for the colonies, at which the entire dispute was laid out! The British leaders said “if [the New World] expects our fleets, she must assist our revenue,” meaning “It is expensive to defend the American colonies; Mother England is fronting the costs; therefore the colonies should pay.” The colonists replied something like “No taxation without representation” (a rallying cry from the English Civil War in the 1600s—see our friend Mike Zeno’s superb post on that antecedent conflict). It is unclear why something could not have been worked out, whereby the colonists were induced or threatened to have their own assemblies enact revenue or manpower measures for their own protection. (After all, one report was that 26 shillings a year were assessed to residents of Britain while only one shilling was imposed on colonists.) In any event, the moment for rational thought seems to have passed.

The British learned that colonists were smuggling goods to avoid the impositions on sugar and other commodities, so they looked for ways to tax items down the value chain. The Stamp Act of 1765 was one of the first taxes that ordinary consumers actually saw. Smuggling and stamp violation cases were heard in admiralty and in Nova Scotia, not before local sympathetic juries. After obstacles to implementation (like tarring and feathering a collector and boycotting goods—inducing Sons of Liberty campaigns across the colonies fomented by Samuel Adams) the Act was repealed in 1766. The reversal was briefly cheered but in the long term did little good, as George Mason indicated the repeal was like a schoolboy being told “mind your mommy and daddy from now on, or next time your punishment will be worse.”

There were other statutes. A Currency Act prevented Virginia tobacco planters from developing their own currency. The Quartering Act of 1765 for sheltering of soldiers applied to taverns and unoccupied buildings, and was later (in the Intolerable Acts) expanded to apply to private homes (mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and of course in the famous Third Amendment and Griswold v Connecticut).

1765 saw the Virginia Resolves, denials of parliamentary taxation authority stoked by the brash young Patrick Henry (some resolves that were clearly treasonous were deleted). Simultaneously with repeal of the Stamp Act, the 1766 Declaratory Act was passed providing that Parliament has the power to make law for the colonies “in all Cases whatsoever.” That “whatsoever” clause really stuck in the craw of colonists and shows up verbatim in the Declaration of Independence.

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, launched the Reserve Act of 1767, opposed in Massachusetts and Virginia in particular. Circular letters drafted by Samuel Adams were sent by Massachusetts to other colonies. British soldiers and Boston townspeople sparred, and mob violence and military overreaction resulted in five deaths in the Boston Massacre of 1770 (John Adams to his credit represented the British officer Thomas Preston, who was acquitted). The “Townshend Acts” were partly repealed, but not for tea—in fact the duty was decreased, but only for British East India Company tea. The impost on Dutch East India tea, imported legitimately or smuggled and either case in the interest of leading colonists like John Hancock, was retained. That loss of a profitable local business is what led to the famous Boston Tea Party of December 1773.

The Intolerable Acts of 1774 consisted of closure of the port of Boston, limitation of the authority of the Massachusetts assembly and town meetings, and extradition of accused British officers rather than face trial in colonial courts. The Quebec Act was viewed as a threat to the Protestant colonies to the south. Gage was now also governor of Massachusetts.

The first Continental Congress (minus Georgia) met in September through October 1774. The “Continental Association” was established to boycott British goods.  

General Gage fortified Boston, took guns and ammunition being stored in Charlestown, and learned of colonial munitions stored in Worcester and Concord. His well-noticed attempt (with regulars rowing from Boston across the Charles River, hence “two if by sea”) to reach Concord (not just Paul Revere and William Dawes, others sent signals) was thwarted by the 16-mile-long battle of Lexington (where John Adams and John Hancock had holed up, and where British soldiers killed British citizens) and Concord (what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “the shot heard ‘round the world”), April 1775. In May 1775, famous Americans Ethan Allen (Vermonter defending his land from New Yorkers) and Benedict Arnold (“In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!”) joined forces and took Fort Ticonderoga on the Hudson River (only 50 British soldiers there, it turns out). John Adams said that the die is cast, all the colonies are on fire; he had already composed a “to do” list of all the things a new country would need.

The Second Continental Congress met and commissioned an army, designating George Washington as commander. Three British major generals arrived in Boston —John Burgoyne, Henry Clinton, and William Howe. The June 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill (fought mainly on Breed’s Hill after the burning of Charlestown) saw the British under Howe holding the field but suffering many casualties (40%, an unheard-of statistic until the WWI Battle of the Somme day 1) to the Americans under William Prescott. Washington arrived July 1775; he was initially disdainful of New England militia, blacks or Native Americans in his army, but eventually adapted and accepted their presence. A successful siege of Boston made possible by Henry Knox’s artillery from Dorchester Heights led the British to withdraw from the city March 1776.  (Knox’s men had hauled the cannons over mountains and through the snow in a “Noble Train” from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston, so they could be used in the siege.)  A Canadian campaign toward the end of 1775 was inconclusive (Richard Montgomery took Montreal but later was killed; Arnold tried but failed to take Quebec City).

Britain struck back; George III declared the colonists in open rebellion, and the Prohibitory Act of 1776 restricted colony commerce with Britain. Howe replaced Gage as senior commander. The British burned Falmouth (what is now Portland, Maine) in October 1775.

As is well known from the New York Times 1619 Project, Virginia Governor Lord Dunmore offered freedom to those escaping slavery from rebels. 300 took up his offer immediately, but hundreds more more had to row out to his ships in a harbor to accept. That was a death sentence for many, as the ships were ravaged by smallpox (a major outbreak affected the entire North American continent in the 1770s, with inoculation being as controversial then as now). Those who survived were often shipped off to fight elsewhere. In the Philipsburg Proclamation of 1779, British General Clinton also ordered that escaped enslaved persons would receive full sanctuary behind British lines. As historians critical of 1619 note, these offers were opportunistic military moves—Dunmore never freed his own 57 servants, the British only offered freedom to those enslaved by rebels, and the British fought fiercely to keep slavery alive and well in the Caribbean. Conversely, Thomas Sumter, the “Gamecock of [South] Carolina,” promised to give persons enslaved to loyalists to every private, sergeant and lieutenant in his regiment. Still, it is true that Edward Rutledge of South Carolina and Washington himself attached great importance to Dunmore’s offer.

Thomas Paine‘s Common Sense was published anonymously in January 1776, stressing the possibility and benefits of independence and attacking not just George III but monarchies in general. His American Crisis No. 1 (you know, the one that goes, “These are the times that try men’s souls”) was published eleven months later. In May 1776, the Continental Congress called for the colonies to create their own non-royal governments. In June 1776, the British navy (under Commodore Peter Parker) failed to capture an American fort (later named Fort Moultrie) in the Battle of Sullivan’s Island–near Charleston, South Carolina. (The palmetto logs in the fort absorbed the impact of British cannonballs, which is why the palmetto is the State Tree of South Carolina.)

Should Americans declare independence without the means to implement it and then enlist France in our cause, or vice versa? The Declaration of Independence was approved July 2 and signed at least by John Hancock July 4, 1776. The draftsman Thomas Jefferson (age 33 at the time) drew on Aristotle, Cicero and Locke, but sought to portray “an expression of the American mind.” In his long recital of grievances he drafted a paragraph declaring the King to be “the perpetrator of slavery on the American continent,” yet faulting him for encouraging emancipation; in any event, in the editing process southern representatives deleted both sentiments. They left the preamble’s “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal.” (Abraham Lincoln: “All honor to Jefferson.” John C. Calhoun, among other Southerners in the 1850s: that line, at least as applied to blacks, is a “self-evident lie.”) As refined by Paine and Jefferson, the King had “unkinged himself” by his conduct; the enemy was now not Parliament but George III and monarchies. The Articles of Confederation, with no central government authority, were endlessly negotiated and finalized by 1777 though not ratified until 1781.

The war in the north began badly, with American New York City losses at Long Island, Brooklyn Heights, White Plains and Fort Washington despite a good result at Harlem Heights. Washington escaped across the Hudson to Fort Lee and beyond in New Jersey, in what was characterized after the fact as a Fabian strategy. He recovered and secured a surprise victory over the Hessian mercenaries December 1776 at Trenton (after crossing the Delaware River on Christmas night; no, the Hessians were not drunk though casks of liquor were liberated). Clashes at Princeton and Morristown followed. There were upper New York campaigns as well (lakeside Battle of Lake Champlain; the British retook Ticonderoga July 1777), finally leading to the critical Battle of Saratoga October 1778. The Americans were victorious, securing the surrender of Burgoyne and capture of British prisoners. It was a triumph for Horatio Gates—and for Benedict Arnold, who was not in overall command but who was heroic (and eventually injured) on the battlefield. The loss at Saratoga deprived the British of the opportunity of controlling the Hudson River and cutting New England off from the rest of the colonies. The victory at Saratoga was a psychological victory too, and it bolstered the Americans’ overtures to other European powers. Now war spread to Britain’s major interests in the Caribbean. Washington stayed at Valley Forge over a very grim 1777-1778 winter with Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (claiming a rather overblown resume) providing important training (despite his struggles with the English language, cursing in German and French), and Nathanael Greene proving to be an effective Quartermaster General. At the time Valley Forge was the fourth most populous city in the new nation.

The middle colony campaigns were inconclusive, with costly British victories at Brandywine and Germantown and (after the British withdrawal from Philadelphia, described below) a draw at Monmouth Court House (where Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fought, Molly Pitcher supposedly poured, and General Charles Lee proved to be ineffective and insubordinate to Washington). The British fomented Native American uprisings (including the scalping of Jane McCrea in July 1777), and the Six Nations divided with some supporting the British, which if anything brought the larger southern states more firmly into assisting in the war effort and encouraged settlers (guided by Daniel Boone among others), militias (led by George Rogers Clark among others), and speculators to extend their land positions.

The British army occupied Philadelphia in 1777, which is considered a mistake compared to deploying in the field and defeating the colonists (e.g. at Saratoga where Burgoyne had expected to be supported by Howe). The British withdrew from Philadelphia in 1778 and retreated to New York. Benjamin Franklin was an emissary to France in December 1776; thanks to Saratoga he secured the February 1778 Treaty with France and later treaties with Spain (1779) and the Netherlands (1781). The Marquis de Lafayette arrived in America aged only 19, with a ship he personally paid for. A miffed Benedict Arnold consorted with the top British spy John André, and offered to defect and hand over West Point in return for money and position. When André was found wearing civilian clothes with documents in Arnold’s handwriting, André was hanged and Arnold fled to the British side, and his name became infamous in America. (Arnold would go on to command British forces in the Virginia Campaign, burning Richmond to the ground.)

Most naval battles in the Revolution before Yorktown were not consequential. The most famous was in 1779, when John Paul Jones lost the Bonhomme Richard (“I have not yet begun to fight!”) but took the mighty British ship Serapis – off the coast of Yorkshire!

The British fatefully decided to focus on the Southern colonies, figuring that there would be more favorable loyalist presence there. (The loyalist presence did not result in tangible support or manpower. Loyalists were estimated at 16% of the total population and 19% of the white population, about 500,000; 80,000 loyalists eventually left for Canada, Britain, and the West Indies.) The plan was (a) to go from the cities into the countryside picking up loyalist miliary resources and (b) not to go to Virigina until the Carolinas were safely under control. The British under Campbell captured Savannah in 1778. (American forces tried to retake Savannah in 1779 but were repulsed.) The British took Augusta and Charleston and inflicted losses on the Americans at the Waxhaws, Camden and elsewhere. A patriot militia defeated a loyalist militia at King’s Mountain October 1780; with neither set of Americans having uniforms, the patriots wore scraps of white paper while the loyalists wore evergreen sprigs.

Then came the Battle of Cowpens 1781, in which the backwoodsman Daniel Morgan and others scored a tactical victory (a feigned retreat followed by cavalry, in the manner of Hannibal at Cannae) over Banastre Tarleton, who was already reviled for killing weaponless Americans after sparing “no quarter.” Many British officers were killed and British troops captured. (Rob had never heard of the “Race to the Dan” River, but thanks to Manley he sees that it’s there in the history books, with the British losing that race and having to retreat to the coast.) The Battle of Guilford Courthouse was another Pyrrhic milestone.

The US war debt was financed by Robert Morris and Haym Solomon. Their experience with a weak Continental Congress convinced the money men, as well as those in George Washington’s camp (including Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay), to call for a strong national government.

The French fleet under Admiral Rochambeau was ineffective in supporting an attack on Newport, Rhode Island, but regrouped and prepared to take another port city. Washington wanted to avenge his losses in New York, his largest defeat, but the French led him to head towards Yorktown. Separately, the Spanish opportunistically swept from New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida, in 1781.

In South Carolina, Greene’s army suffered defeats at Hobkirk’s Hill, Ninety Six and Eutaw Springs, but in each case the American army escaped without being completely destroyed. Shortly after each of those battles, the British army withdrew toward the coast and the safety of Charleston.

British General Charles Cornwallis decided to head to Virginia without first subduing the Carolinas.  Washington landed at Williamsburg and proceeded to outflank Cornwallis all the way to Yorktown, where the American and French troops and the guns of French frigates (which had kept a large relieving British fleet at bay in the Battle of the Capes) pinned him in. The British surrendered (laying down their arms as the band supposedly played “The World Turned Upside Down”). After the battle, Washington invited senior American, French and British officers to dine with him, but notably excluded the infamous Banastre Tarleton. Escaped enslaved workers of Jefferson and Washington were “returned.”

When Yorktown transpired in October 1781, the British still held New York, Charleston and Savannah! By February 1782 Lord North fell from power. The Treaty of Paris was agreed in November 1782 and formally signed in 1783. It confirmed the colonies as independent “states” (plural), with jurisdiction out to the Mississippi River and an uncertain jurisdiction between them and Canada. The British were supposed to close their manning of frontier forts but didn’t, one of the causes of the ensuing War of 1812.

Chaos ensued after military victory. The Newburgh, New York officers’ back-pay conspiracy dissolved when Washington, fumbling his glasses, made a personal heartfelt appeal. There was a brief Pennsylvania mutiny stampeding Congress out of Philadelphia. Shays’ rebellion of farmers protesting foreclosures rose and then dissipated. Vermont battled against New York and New Hampshire over territory; Ethan Allen even proposed to entreat separately with Britain! And the “State of Franklin” tried to secede from North Carolina.

Thomas Paine wrote in 1783, with evident pride, “The times that tried men’s souls are over.” A Constitutional Convention was held in 1787 to amend the Articles of Confederation; the new Constitution was ratified in 1788. George Washington was inaugurated as President in 1789. The Bill of Rights was ratified by three-fourths of the states in 1791.

There are many other events, causes and consequences. But two old friends discussing the American Revolution have to stop somewhere, if only temporarily to collect their collective breaths.