The American Revolutionary Period

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

Rob James

September 23, 2025

Thanks to my good friend and expert Manley Roberts for the conversations leading to these notes. All errors are mine alone!

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The Seven Years’ War or French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763, pitted Britain and Prussia against France and Austria across Europe, in Asia, and in the Americas. The first years went badly for the British (including Braddock leading George Washington and others into traps against Indians aligned with the French). William Pitt the Elder (Chatham) became Prime Minister and decided to concentrate on the Americas. Successes followed at Fort Duquesne (hence Pittsburgh), the island of Guadalupe, and the Plains of Abraham (a farmer, not the Old Testament figure) near Quebec City. Clive also secured an unexpected victory in India. Pitt was inclined to pursue and obtain significant gains for England, but George III tired of the fight and by 1761 had stopped offensive operations.

As a result of the high expense incurred in defending the Americas, Parliament, under new Prime Minister the Earl of Bute, looked to revenue acts to compensate and finance past, present, and future colonial security. The first was the Sugar Act of 1764. This was bitterly opposed, particularly in Virginia and Massachusetts. Interestingly, at this early date the new Prime Minister, Grenville, received a delegation of Benjamin Franklin, Ingersoll, and some British agents for the colonies, at which the entire dispute was laid out! The British said something like “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.” It is unclear to me 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. In any event, the moment for rational thought seems to have passed.

The Stamp Act of 1765 was passed and after obstacles to implementation was repealed in 1766. The reversal 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.” A Quartering Act of 1765 for sheltering of soldiers applied to taverns and unoccupied buildings, and was later expanded to apply to private homes (mentioned in the Declaration of Independence and of course in the famous Third Amendment and Griswold v Connecticut).

The 1766 Declaratory Bill provided 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. 1766 also saw the Virginia Resolves, denials of parliamentary taxation authority stoked by the brash young Patrick Henry (some resolves that were clearly treasonous were deleted).

The new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Charles Townshend, launched the Reserve Act of 1767, opposed in Massachusetts and Virginia in particular. In 1768 or so, a circular letter was circulated by Massachusetts (Samuel Adams) to other colonies. British soldiers and Boston townspeople sparred, and mob violence and military overreaction resulted in the Boston Massacre of 1770 (John Adams to his credit represented the British officer, who was acquitted). The “Townshend Act” was partly repealed, but not for tea, leading of course to the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Lord North was Prime Minister from 1770 to 1782.

The Intolerable Acts of 1774 consisted of closure of the port of Boston, limitation of the authority of the Massachusetts assembly, and extradition of accused British officers before trial in a colonial court. The first continental congress met in 1774.

General Gage fortified Boston, and learned of colonial munitions stored in Worcester and Concord. His well-noticed attempt to reach Concord (not just Paul Revere, others fired signals) was thwarted by the 16-mile-long battle of Concord and Lexington, April 1775. In May, famous Americans Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold took Fort Ticonderoga on the Hudson River.

The Second Continental Congress met and commissioned an army. The battles of Bunker Hill and Breed’s Hill were fought, with the British holding the field but suffering many casualties. A Canadian campaign was inconclusive. Washington’s successful siege of Boston led the British to withdraw from the city March 1776.

Britain struck back; the Prohibitory Act of 1776 declared a trade bloc on colony commerce with Britain, essentially making the colonists traitors. As is well known from the New York Times 1619 Project, Lord Dunmore offered freedom to escaping slaves; 300 took up his offer immediately, but 800 more had to row out to his boat in a harbor to accept. That was a death sentence as the ship was contaminated by smallpox. Of the 1100 escapees, only 300 survived, and they were often shipped off to fight elsewhere. As historians critical of 1619 note, that one brief episode is the only evidence that colonists feared British emancipation.

Thomas Paine‘s Common Sense was published in January 1776; his American Crisis No. 1 (you know, the one that goes, “These are the times that try men’s souls”) was published in December 1776. The Declaration of Independence was approved July 2 and signed July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson originally had a paragraph declaring the King to be “the perpetrator of slavery on the American continent,” but southern representatives deleted that paragraph while leaving “all men are created equal.” Calhoun among other Southerners in the 1850s called that line, at least as applied to blacks, a “self-evident lie.” Articles of Confederation, with no central government authority, were approved 1777.

The war in the north began badly, with American losses at Long Island, Brooklyn Heights, Harlem Heights, and White Plains. Washington escaped across the Hudson to Fort Lee, New Jersey, in what was characterized after the fact as a Fabian strategy. He recovered at Valley Forge over a very grim winter with Baron Steuben (kind of a fake title) providing some measure of training, and he secured moral victory over the Hessian mercenaries at Trenton. Clashes at Princeton and Morristown followed. There were upper New York campaigns as well, finally leading to Saratoga 1778 and the victory and prisoner capture for Nathaniel Greene—and Benedict Arnold, who lacked any command whatsoever this time around. 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 bolstered the colonies’ overtures  to France and Spain.

The middle colony campaigns were inconclusive, with British costly victories at Brandywine and Germantown and a draw at Monmouth Court House. The British army occupied Philadelphia, which is considered a mistake compared to deploying in the field and defeating the colonists. (The 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 Army under Cornwallis fatefully decided to land in Georgia heading to South Carolina, 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 to England, Canada, and the West Indies.) Still, the British took Charleston and inflicted losses on the Americans at Camden and elsewhere (despite a victory for colonial militia over loyalist militia at King’s Mountain 1780) until the battle of Cowpens 1781, in which Daniel Morgan and others scored a tactical victory over Banastre Tarleton, killed many British officers, and captured many British troops. (I never heard of the race to the Dan, but it’s there in the history books with the British eventually having to retreat. Battle of Guilford Courthouse was another milestone)

Washington landed at Williamsburg and proceeded to outflank Cornwallis all the way to Yorktown, where the American and French frigate guns pinned him in; the army was surrendered (“The World Turned Upside Down”). When Yorktown was taken, the British still held New York, Charleston and Savannah!

The Treaty of Paris was signed 1783. It confirmed the colonies as independent “states” (plural), with jurisdiction out to the Mississippi River and an uncertain jurisdiction between them and Canada.

A Constitutional Convention was held to replace the Articles of Confederation; the Constitution was ratified in 1787. George Washington was inaugurated as President 1789. The Bill of Rights was approved 1792.

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Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution 1763-1789 (2d ed. 2005).

Gordon S. Wood, The Creation of the American Republic (1969) (many have been baffled—what did the colonists have to be so angry about? Colonists had principles before they really had grievances) (Joseph Warren (1775): I “hope that Britain’s liberty, as well as ours, will eventually be preserved by the virtues of America”)

Joseph J. Ellis, Founding Brothers (2001) (Alfred Whitehead said the only two times a new power emerged in which the leadership performed as well as could be expected were Caesar Augustus and the founding of the US)

David McCullough, 1776 (2007).

SELECTED MILITARY LEADERS

Colonists

Generals

George Washington (#1)

Israel Putnam (Bunker Hill)

Horatio Gates (Saratoga, Camden)

Nathaniel Greene (#2; Southern Campaign)

Benedict Arnold (Ticonderoga, Quebec, Saratoga)

Benjamin Lincoln (Charleston, Yorktown)

Marquis de Lafayette (with Washington, Yorktown)

Henry Knox (artillery)

Ethan Allen (Vermont militia)

George Rogers Clark (militia)

Brigadiers

George Clinton

Dan Morgan (Cowpens)

Anthony Wayne

Admiral

John Paul Jones

British

Generals

Gage 1763-1775

William Howe 1776-1778 (Bunker Hill)

Henry Clinton 1778-1782

Daniel Burgoyne

Cornwallis (Yorktown)

Other ranks

Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton (Cowpens)

NOTES ON RELIGIOUS ROOTS

MASSACHUSETTS  saw early arrival of two groups of persecuted Calvinist non-conformists (as opposed to the Church of England or Anglicans). First the Separatists via Holland, whom we call “Pilgrims,” in 1620 at Plymouth, and then the non-separatist Puritans under Winthrop, in 1630 at Boston. The Puritans became the Congregationalists, which was until 1821 the established state religion.

The Puritans ironically would kick people out who didn’t conform, see Rhode Island and Connecticut!

RHODE ISLAND Roger Williams, a Congregationalist who preached toleration.

CONNECTICUT  Some other Congregationalists.

NEW YORK  Started out Dutch Reformed (Calvinist), later a mix.

PENNSYLVANIA   Property was deeded to William Penn’s dad to satisfy the king’s gambling debt. Started off Quaker, but saw influx of Anglicans and all kinds of German Protestants, some Catholics.

MARYLAND   Started off with English Catholics and non-conformist Protestants.

VIRGINIA   Started off High Anglican. Anglican bishops in England sent “missionaries” in full hassocks to preach to and convert the heathen. Over time, the population grew alienated from Anglicanism and ultimately Jefferson authored the principles of religious freedom and toleration. Many other denominations as the 1700s went on into the First Great Awakening of Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians.

CAROLINAS  Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians from Virginia and elsewhere.

GEORGIA   Started off as a prison colony, a place where British criminals were transported. A mix of Protestant and Catholic population

[No religious notes yet on New Hampshire, Delaware, or New Jersey.]

AFTER THE REVOLUTION

Anglicans became Episcopalians. Samuel Seabury’s Book of Common Prayer.

African-American Protestant denominations emerged.

Baptists splintered into Northern and Southern.

Emergence of evangelical denominations.