When Parliament extended the Stamp Tax to the American colonies, it had no idea it would cause ten years of crisis and seven years of war. However, this was only the first of many misunderstandings that ultimately led to Britain’s 13 American colonies declaring independence. Even then, it was not certain that the colonies would successfully break away until the very end. There were numerous missed opportunities for reconciliation and outright military victory. However, because of British arrogance and American resilience, the war may have gone very differently. However, this was not merely an internal imperial conflict. The American Revolution was a global war. The numerous tribes of North America had their agendas, grievances, and alliances, which drew them into the war. For them, it was not a matter of principle but of survival between a distant imperial power and their expansionist neighbors. Meanwhile, Britain's numerous enemies took the opportunity to avenge old grievances and push back its global empire. From the Caribbean sugar islands to the Mediterranean, the French and Spanish sought to reclaim lost territory and humiliate their ancient enemy. Concurrently, the British East India Company’s hegemony was under threat as it provoked a war it wasn’t prepared to fight, much less win. The American Revolution laid the groundwork for the revolutionary era, training those who would lead the great European revolutions in the coming decades. If the French Revolution is the climax of the Enlightenment, then the American Revolution was its culmination. Join us now as we examine the conflict which reordered the world. The fundamental underlying problem that led to war between Britain and her colonial subjects was communication. A message sent from North American to Europe on a typical sailing ship of the 17th and 18th century would arrive in about a month assuming calm seas, favorable winds, and correct navigation. Anything less added weeks if not months to a voyage. Additionally, the north Atlantic trade winds are westerly meaning the return trip would take at least twice as long, as ships either had to tack into the wind for a direct return, or sail down to Africa to catch the easterly equatorial winds. Therefore, in a crisis, local authorities in the Americas would be on their own for no less than three months before British authorities arrived on the scene. Great Britain solved this problem by barely trying to govern its colonies at all. Instead, it handed charters to establish colonies along with government powers, the rights of Englishmen, and land grants to private individuals and/or joint stock companies. Except for a failed attempt to centralize control and administration in New England, London barely interfered in colonial affairs. It didn’t have the resources to pay appointed governors or station troops in every colony, nor any desire to. This suited the colonists, who were left to manage their own affairs via elected legislatures. London didn’t even attempt to enforce the mercantilist Navigation Acts. This period, known as salutary neglect, lasted 70 years. London’s neglect wasn’t simply sloth. The Thirteen Colonies just weren’t valuable enough as colonies to bother closely governing. The revenue generated by the Thirteen Colonies paled in comparison to the fur trade, centered on Canada’s Great Lakes and Hudson’s Bay. Canada in turn paled next to the Caribbean sugar colonies, which accounted for 4% of Britain's total gross national product. Therefore London prioritized protecting the Caribbean and Canadian colonies over the American ones. It was rare for the total number of army regulars in North America to exceed four thousand during peacetime. Most were stationed to protect trading posts and deter the French in Canada. The rest were scattered in frontier forts and small coastal garrisons, with New York as the army’s headquarters. Local forces were the primary protection for the American colonies against raids by the French and their indigenous allies. Everything Changes The 1754 French and Indian War changed everything. Facing a reinforced and aggressive New France and its allied tribes, representatives from the seven northern colonies met in Albany on June 19th to plan their war strategy. Also in attendance were representatives of the Iroquois Confederacy, whose continued alliance against the French the colonists were desperate to secure. Despite the delegate's efforts, the Iroquois didn’t actually commit to fighting the French, instead opting for a policy of neutral non-hostility towards the colonies. Next, the delegates’ attention turned towards a unified war strategy, which culminated in Benjamin Franklin’s Albany Plan of Union. While the Plan of Union was approved by all the Colonial delegates, it was unanimously rejected by both the colonial legislatures and the Crown, much to Franklin’s frustration. The former wanted more independence and the latter felt it gave too much. Despite these setbacks, the Congress proved that cooperation between the 13 colonies was possible, even desirable. On September 8, 1760, New France surrendered to British Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, ending the war in North America. The American colonists celebrated their rival’s fall, especially since it meant expansion. Many colonies already had settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains, but they had been constantly raided by the French and their indigenous allies. However, with that threat gone, the formerly disputed territory, especially the Ohio River valley, was now theirs for the taking. However, London felt differently. The earlier conquest of French Arcadia had resulted in extensive and costly guerrilla fighting, and the ongoing Seven Years War was draining the Exchequer. The last thing London wanted was another war. Thus, it needed to very quickly pacify the French Canadiens and Native Peoples. Secondly, the conquest had brought all of the fur trade under British control. While this was a great victory, the fur trade relied on indigenous tribes bringing furs to traders. Without good relations, trade was impossible. Britain had always been able to cultivate partnerships with various native tribes by allying with the rivals of French-aligned tribes. That tool was now gone and it was now entirely on the British to keep their Indian suppliers happy and protect the fur trade. Unfortunately for London, these goals were thoroughly undermined by Amherst, now the military governor of Canada. Amherst insulted everyone, treating both the French Canadiens and French allied tribes poorly. This, coupled with fears of further colonial expansion, ignited Pontiac’s War in April 1763, led by the Odawa Chieftain Pontiac against the British. London finally realized that, 156 years after Jamestown was founded, it would have to actually take the policy lead in North America. The Proclamation of 1763 and the Stamp Act Preventing conflict was the first step. To this end, Parliament and King George III crafted a royal proclamation to allay the Indian’s fears. Unfortunately, it wasn’t ready until October 1763, too late to prevent Pontiac’s War. However, it did allow Amherst’s more conciliatory replacement Thomas Gage an opening offer in peace negotiations. The Proclamation of 1763 first established governments for newly acquired territory in the Americas. Then, it divided British North America into three pieces: the Thirteen Colonies, French-Speaking Quebec, and Indian Territory. British settlers were forbidden within Indian Territory and the tribe's rights to their land was acknowledged. The official reason was to meet Pontiac’s demand to respect Indian land. This wasn’t actually true: London fully intended to expand British settlements in North America. However, it would be at London’s direction and only after securing the rights to do so through purchase from the tribes. Parliament just couldn’t say that openly without angering the Indians, who they were trying to placate. The Proclamation of 1763 caused outrage in the colonies. It ignored their chartered land grants and effectively abandoned the colonial settlements that already existed beyond the Allegheny Mountains. Pontiac’s War and fears of a French reconquest of Quebec necessitated the stationing of more troops in North America. Paying for this required new taxes, and since America would be the beneficiary, the Whig government of George Grenville decided to make the colonies pay. Its first attempt to do this was the Sugar Act of 1764, which was technically an update to an existing Navigation Act. This drew some protests from New England rum distillers, but like the act it replaced, most colonists simply ignored or dodged the tax. It would be the Stamp Act of 1765 that provoked actual anger. The Act required that all legal paper be purchased from London with a revenue stamp certifying its legality. Though a longstanding tax in Britain, this was the first direct tax placed on any American colonies. It was first announced in April 1764 but not enacted until March 1765. This proved disastrous for Granville’s plan, as the delay in the act’s implementation allowed the colonies time to prepare to resist it. The colonies learned of the Act’s passing in early May 1764. By late May, every English-speaking colony from Nova Scotia to Jamaica made clear their intent to resist the tax. In the Caribbean, the strong Royal Navy garrison kept protests muted, though most ports refused to enforce the tax. However, the continental colonies all saw street protests, including the burning in effigy of both tax collectors and the prime minister. Boston saw the loudest protests. Beginning with peaceful street demonstrations organized by the nascent Sons of Liberty under James Otis and Samuel Adams, it quickly escalated to violence. Tax collectors were assaulted in the streets, their houses and offices attacked, and even the lieutenant governor was attacked and expelled from his official residence. However, it was New York that planned the most effective resistance to the Stamp Act. In addition to refusing to quarter British troops, the merchants organized a boycott of British goods, the coordination of which was the focus of the Stamp Act Congress in October held in New York City. Declaration of Rights and Grievances It also sent a Declaration of Rights and Grievances that would form the basis of colonial protests over the next ten years. The Declaration laid out the colonial position: since they were English and guaranteed the rights and privileges thereof, they were only subject to taxation from elected governments. They didn’t vote for Parliament, so it could not tax them. Moreover, they had natural rights as human beings which were being ignored. These principles eventually became the continental rallying cry of “No taxation without representation.” This declaration posed a huge threat to Parliament’s plans, mostly because it was technically true. During the winter of 1764 as crisis loomed, Grenville claimed virtual representation solved the problem, for which he was ridiculed in Parliament and the colonies. This loss of credibility and news of the colonial protests led to the fall of Grenville’s government in July 1765. While the colonies celebrated the Stamp Act’s repeal, the next battle loomed. Simultaneous with the repeal, Parliament passed the Declaratory Act, stating that Parliament had the same powers in America as it did in Britain. Parliament intended to try again, and now Townshend had his personal reputation to save. Thus beginning in 1767 the five Townshend Acts were passed. These acts were intended to raise revenue, tighten Parliament’s control of trade, and punish New York for refusing to quarter troops. Once again, there were riots in Boston and widespread boycotts. At the Massachusetts assembly’s behest, numerous colonial legislatures began to send petitions to King George asking him to intervene and protect their rights as Englishmen. The petitions went nowhere, as the King was firmly on Parliament’s side. However, most alarming was the Circular Letter written by Otis and Adams and passed by the Massachusetts assembly in February 1768, stating that Parliament was acting unconstitutionally in continuing to tax the colonies without representing them. It was sent to other legislatures, to their approval. In response, the Colonial Secretary Lord Hillsborough ordered Massachusetts to withdraw the letter. When it refused, Hillsborough ordered the assembly dissolved and sent two thousand troops to occupy Boston that September. The Boston Massacre Tensions mounted for the next year and a half, especially in occupied and resentful Boston. On the night of March 5, this resentment boiled over. A guard on duty outside the Custom House got into an argument with a wig maker's apprentice, eventually hitting him with his musket. This caused onlookers to begin harassing the guard. The crowd kept growing and he retreated up the steps and called for help. Captain Thomas Preston soon arrived with seven soldiers and ordered the crowd of several hundred to disperse. Instead, the crowd started throwing snowballs, rocks, and insults at the soldiers. Then innkeeper Richard Palmes, carrying a cudgel, approached Preston, asking if the soldiers' muskets were loaded. Preston said they were, but they’d only fire on his order. Just then, a missile knocked down Private Hugh Montgomery. Dazed, he retrieved his musket, shouted “Damn you, fire!” and fired. Palmes then swung his cudgel at Montgomery, hitting his arm, then at Preston, also hitting his arm. After a pause, the rest of the soldiers opened fire. Three Americans died instantly, and two more would die of their wounds. Both sides called for reinforcements and a full riot seemed imminent. Order was only restored when the governor himself arrived at the Custom House and promised an investigation. A trial ultimately resulted in two soldiers being found guilty of manslaughter. News of the incident spread like wildfire and was immediately used as anti-Parliament propaganda, with Paul Revere’s engraving calling it The Boston Massacre the most well known. The propaganda worked, and anti-Parliament sentiment spread rapidly. North Comes to Power By coincidence, on the same day as the Massacre, the recently appointed Tory Prime Minister Lord North repealed most of the Whig Townshend Acts, citing lack of revenue they generated. However, he kept the tax on tea and the Boston garrison intact, and further signaled to the colonies that this was the new status quo. Parliament was done backing down. In response, the colonies continued organizing. The Committees of Correspondence, first set up by the Sons of Liberty to coordinate opposition to the Stamp Act, became more active and spread to more colonies. However, 1771 and 1772 were otherwise quiet and it looked like the conflict might be allowed to burn out. However, Lord North wasn’t finished. In May 1773, the Tea Act was passed. Not a tax, it instead allowed the British East India Company the right to sell unlimited tea to the Thirteen Colonies at a discount. However, the Colonies saw it for what the North intended it to be: a ploy to get them to buy more tea, paying the tea tax, and implicitly accepting Parliament’s right to tax them. This led nearly every colony to refuse tea to be landed in their ports. Boston went further, again, with the Boston Tea Party on December 16th. This was the final straw for North, who decided that harsh action needed to be taken to put the colonies in their place. Massachusetts and especially Boston would be made an example. The fuse of revolution was now lit. At the next session of Parliament, the five Intolerable Acts were passed. The first four, called the Coercive Acts, all directly punished Boston: closing the city port, placing it under military governance, allowing officials to try anyone in British courts rather than local ones, and requiring more extensive troop quartering. To enforce these acts, General Gage was appointed governor of Massachusetts and ordered to consolidate his garrisons in Boston and move his headquarters there, which was accomplished in May 1774. This would not produce the results London intended. Gage had been stationed in North America since 1755, only occasionally returning to Britain, and was quite sympathetic to the colonies' grievances. He would try to separate his duties as governor from his duties as an occupier, to little effect. It was the fifth act that would prove most damaging to Britain's hold on the colonies. Unrelated to the Coercive Acts but passed at the same session, the Quebec Act outraged all parts of colonial society, even Parliament’s strongest defenders. To placate the Canadiens, the Act restored rights to Catholics in Quebec, allowed the use of French civil law, and most importantly, expanded Quebec’s borders to include the Ohio River Valley, forever denying it to the American colonists. This was seen as a complete betrayal and drove many previously moderate loyalist Americans towards the Sons of Liberty and the patriot camp. The First Continental Congress On September 5, delegates from every colony but Georgia met in Philadelphia for the First Continental Congress. After first issuing the Declaration of Rights, they agreed to resist the Intolerable Acts via a complete boycott of British imports, and to pressure the West Indies colonies to do the same. Congress then adjourned with an agreement to reconvene the next year if their grievances weren’t addressed. The boycott quickly put enormous pressure on Lord North to back down. However, with the king solidly behind him, North refused to budge even as British exports to America plummeted. Whether the boycott could have worked will never be known, as events in Boston overtook everyone. Even before arriving in Boston, Gage realized that his position was impossible. He had roughly 3,000 soldiers in Boston, which was more than needed to keep order in a city of 16,000 but far too few to control the countryside. He was effectively trapped in Boston, and lacked the authority or resources to change his situation. He refused to actively oppress the population, but couldn’t negotiate with them either. Instead, he hoped removing the colonists' ability to fight would reduce their resistance. On September 1, 1774, Gage dispatched 260 soldiers to seize the Powder House, the largest gunpowder magazine in Massachusetts, a few miles northwest of Boston. After capturing and removing the powder without resistance, a contingent stopped in Cambridge to seize two cannons. The next day, a crowd of thousands of militiamen swarmed Cambridge, acting on rumors of British regulars attacking Boston and worse. This forced several prominent loyalists to flee into the city for military protection. As facts became clearer, the militia dispersed, with Gage understandably perturbed by the swiftness and scale of the response. He didn’t know that he was under constant surveillance by the Sons of Liberty, now led by Dr. Joseph Warren. He soon learned that other colonies were moving their militia stores further inland, away from his reach. Massachusetts militia also moved their unseized cannons out of Boston to Concord and began looking for more powder to replace the lost stores. Recognizing the situation, Gage resolved to take no further provocative action. Unfortunately, Parliament had contrary plans. In February 1775, King George declared before both Houses of Parliament that a state of rebellion existed in Massachusetts. Immediately afterwards, Secretary of State William Legge ordered Gage to quash the rebellion, disarm the militia, disband the Massachusetts assembly and arrest their leaders. How was left to Gage’s discretion, but it was to be done as quickly as possible. On the evening of April 18, General Gage gathered his officers and informed them of the operation. 700 infantry, consisting of a vanguard of elite light infantry and the main body of grenadiers, would cross the Charles River by boat, then march the 17 miles to Concord , destroy all military supplies and return. Mounted patrols had already been dispatched to scout the area and set roadblocks. Unfortunately for Gage, the Sons of Liberty discovered his intentions almost immediately , and Dr. Joseph Warren dispatched Paul Revere and William Dawes to spread the alarm. Dawes went south via the Boston neck while Revere rowed north across the Mystic. The two men met up just outside Cambridge and continued to Lexington to warn both the local militia and Adams and Hancock, who were hiding in the village. Messengers were then sent out to alert neighbouring towns to turn out their militia. After the message was delivered, Dawes and Revere continued on to Concord, joined by resident Dr. Samuel Prescott . Unfortunately, the men ran into a British roadblock. Revere was captured, but Dawes and Prescott fled into the woods. Dawes fell from his horse, but Prescott successfully made it to Concord around 3 AM. By now, militia companies all over Massachusetts were marshalling toward Concord. By the time the British regulars completed their crossing and began their march at 2 AM on the 19th, their mission was effectively a failure. All usable stores were removed from Concord within a few hours of Prescott’s arrival, and only a few bags of old musket balls and three 24-pounder siege cannons too heavy to move on broken gunmounts remained. The vanguard arrived in Lexington around 5 AM to find 80 militia assembled on the village green but not blocking the road . Instead of marching past, the soldiers moved onto the green in front of the militia to prevent a flank attack. The two sides simply stared at each other while a British officer started ordering the militia to disperse . Then a shot rang out. No one knows who fired The Shot Heard Round the World , but the British regulars responded to it by firing a volley and charging the continental line. By the time Major Pitcairn regained control of his soldiers, eight militiamen lay dead on the green. With little other choice, the British column continued onto Concord as news of Lexington spread. Knowing they were outnumbered, the 250 militiamen already in Concord retreated across the North Bridge to await more reinforcements , allowing the British to search the empty town. After destroying the cannon’s mounting points, the regulars threw the musket balls in a pond and burned the gun carriages . As the smoke from the fire rose, the militia moved back towards the bridge, now numbering 400. The British light company holding the bridge retreated across and formed defensive positions, and another standoff ensued. Then, a shot was fired from the British side . Again, this set off the regulars, who fired off a volley without orders, but unlike at Lexington, this time, the militia returned fire. The regulars’ leadership, leading from the front, quickly went down, and the leaderless and exhausted soldiers fled back towards an oncoming relief column. The militia then pulled back and allowed the relief force to recover their wounded. By 11:30 the search was complete, and the order to return to Boston was given. However, the countryside was now swarming with nearly 2,000 outraged militiamen. As the British column marched back, militiamen ambushed them from every bush, fence, wall, and tree, ultimately causing around 300 casualties. By the afternoon of the 19th, the British met with reinforcements and escaped into Boston while the still growing militia forces made camp outside. Boston was now under siege by rebel forces as the militia force swelled to 4,000. With Gage’s worst fears having become a reality, the “mild general” characteristically tried to diffuse the situation by appeasing both sides, playing at being both Britain’s general and Massachusetts’ civilian governor. On the civil side, Gage refused to impose martial law or take any action against opposition newspapers and leaders, instead crafting a deal with city aldermen to surrender any remaining personal weapon in exchange for safe passage out of Boston. On the military side, Gage immediately began building fortifications on the Boston neck and sent reinforcements to Charlestown to fortify the heights, which would ultimately be abandoned after Gage decided to tighten his lines. Next, he sent orders to the remaining garrisons in Canada to send surplus troops to reinforce him in Boston, then dispatched requests to London for reinforcements. Unbeknownst to Gage, the request was superfluous. A British force of 4,500, led by Major Generals William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton had been dispatched to Boston along with a Royal Navy squadron in March. London had intended to send the force alongside delivering Gage his initial orders to crush the rebellion, but it had been delayed, first by difficulties putting the troops together and then finding officers to lead them. Howe was an ill-fit for command, but he was the most senior general willing to do so. Every general above him was either too old to go to America or too opposed to Prime Minister Lord North’s policies. Like others among British military brass, Howe was no fan of the Prime Minister . However, his sense of duty trumped personal attachment, and when asked by King George III, he accepted the command . By the morning of April 20th, approximately 16,000 members of the Massachusetts militia, now commanded by Massachusetts’ commander-in-chief, Major General Artemas Ward, were loosely assembled in the hills surrounding Boston. As news of the bloodshed at Lexington and Concord spread, more began marching towards Boston from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, who would ultimately also fall under Ward’s command. British warships in Boston Harbor made a direct attack on the city impossible, so Ward prepared to besiege the city while asking around for cannons and his objective. He, like everyone else, was mainly concerned with “what now?”. That answer would come from all over. The Provincial Congress was willing to fight but knew it couldn’t alone. To preempt Gage’s official report, it gathered sworn testimony on the events of Lexington and Concord from eyewitnesses, militiamen, and British prisoners. These descriptions of the battle were sent both to the other colonies and to London via a fast ship, beating Gage’s report by two weeks. Given by sympathetic officials to London’s papers, the reports garnered more sympathy and support for the colonial cause. Gage’s clinical and vague report, in comparison, would not engender much endearment towards the British government . The propaganda effort was most effective in the colonies themselves. Prior to Lexington, public opinion was relatively evenly divided between the anti-Parliament Patriots and pro-Parliament Loyalists. The blood shed on Lexington green caused many moderate Loyalists to change sides. In turn, legislatures began stripping royal governors of their powers or outright expelling them. However, the question of what to do was too vexing for any one colony to answer. Thus, the Continental Congress was reconvened earlier than planned. Word was sent out in late April to meet in Philadelphia, but it would take time to gather the delegates. Independently, a long escalating conflict between Virginia’s royal governor, Lord Dunmore, and the legislative House of Burgesses had boiled over. After years of mutual antagonism, on April 20th Dunmore handed over the Williamsburg magazine to royal marines from HMS Magdalen. Militia, particularly the Hannover militia led by Patrick Henry , responded by first trying to stop the handover and then marching on Williamsburg. Dunmore would flee first to his hunting lodge and then be driven from Virginia to the safety of the Royal Navy . Meanwhile, a young captain in the Connecticut militia named Benedict Arnold, having received word to march for Boston, wrote to the Connecticut Committee of Correspondence that as of his visit the year before, Fort Ticonderoga was undermanned with plentiful stores of gunpowder and cannons. The committee immediately dispatched recruiters north to take the fort, raising militia on the road . Unaware of these developments, Arnold arrived outside Boston and told their Committee of Safety the same thing. On May 3rd, Massachusetts commissioned him a colonel, assigned him recruiters and funds, and gave him orders to recruit militia and take the fort. Arriving in Castleton, which is now in Vermont, Arnold learned that some of the Connecticut recruits and the Green Mountain Boys, local militia led by Ethan Allen, were already preparing to take Ticonderoga . Determined to take the fort himself, Arnold raced ahead to meet with Allen , using his official commission to claim leadership of the expedition. While the only authority Ethan Allen recognized was his own, he at least paid lip service to Arnold’s claim, mostly because time was of the essence. Scouting reports on May 7th had shown how unprepared Ticonderoga was to withstand a Continental siege, but British reinforcements were expected to shore up the fort’s defences soon. The time to attack was now, without Arnold’s recruits. At 11:30 pm on May 9th, Allen’s 160 men moved into position across Lake Champlain from Ticonderoga with the intention to attack at midnight. However, the boats didn’t arrive until 1:30 am, and there weren’t enough for all the men. Fearful of losing the element of surprise, Allen and Arnold ordered the attack with the men already ashore. The only sentry on duty ran away , and the fort was taken. Over the next few weeks, up to 400 militiamen would arrive to garrison the fort, though Arnold’s control over them was tenuous at best. That same day, the Second Continental Congress convened, its powers and objectives unclear. The Congressional delegates had been authorized by their home legislatures to discuss and plan a coordinated response to British actions, but what that meant and how much authority Congress had was entirely undefined and left for the delegates to figure out. Deciding on their course of action and what resources were available would be their second order of business. The first was to gather more allies. Only 12 colonies had attended the first Congress, and the second hoped that it could induce more to join the cause. Letters were immediately sent again to Georgia, the Canadian, and Caribbean colonies, inviting them to endorse and join the Congress. Any response would take time to receive, so Congress busied itself figuring out what it was actually doing. After a month of debate, Congress finally agreed that war was upon them and that it would have to fight. To do this required an army, and fortunately, there was already one in existence around Boston. Thus, on June 14th, Congress decreed the formation of the Army of the United Colonies, consisting of the militia units in the Boston area . The next day, acting on John Adams’ recommendation, Virginia delegate George Washington was selected to serve as its general and commander-in-chief, with Dr. Warren made his second-in-command. Washington had little idea what situation he’d just signed up for, and no one knew that the newly formed army’s first test would arrive before it was technically formed. Generals Gage and Ward had spent the rest of April and May staring at each other while trying to find supplies for their soldiers. Ward had particular difficulties as the New England militia he commanded had marched out with few provisions, expecting a quick confrontation before returning home. Having not bargained on a siege, many lacked even basic necessities. Thus, many companies simply went home to restock. Throughout May, companies trickled in and out of the camps without notice. Discipline and chain of command beyond the individual militia company was virtually non-existent. Even if Ward had the supplies and strategic opportunity for an operation against Gage, he didn’t know what troops were available or if they’d follow orders. Similarly, Gage was hampered by a lack of troops and supplies. The Royal Navy’s presence ensured that no attack across the harbour or Boston Neck would succeed, but he was so heavily outnumbered and low on gunpowder that he couldn’t risk leaving Boston. He’d even given orders to abandon partially complete fortifications in Charleston and other outlying outposts to keep his lines as tight as possible. His supply line via the ocean was open, but the nearest guaranteed source was the garrison in Halifax, Nova Scotia. That said, Gage’s supply problem would be alleviated first, thereby giving him the strategic initiative. Howe’s reinforcements, supplies, and additional warships trickled in over the course of May. Howe, Burgoyne, and Clinton didn’t arrive until May 25th. With the effective force now up to 6,000, Gage began planning to break out of Boston. By June 12th, he and the generals had agreed on a plan. They would seize the Dorchester Neck, then fortify the heights to use as a staging ground to sweep the militia from Roxbury. Once that was accomplished, a second attack would retake Charlestown, then a pincer attack would drive the rebels from Cambridge. The attack was scheduled to begin on June 18th. However, Gage’s plans were once again immediately leaked. On June 13th, New Hampshire’s Committee of Safety warned Massachusetts of Gage’s intentions. Realizing the danger, Ward directed his second-in-command, General Israel Putnam, to fortify the heights above Charlestown. On the night of June 16th, Colonel William Prescott led 1,200 militia across the Charlestown neck to begin expanding and improving the abandoned British fortifications on Bunker Hill. However, it became apparent that Breed’s Hill was the better artillery position, so he began constructing the primary redoubt there . The British quickly noticed the work , but General Clinton failed to convince the other generals to prepare an attack at dawn. The only response came from HMS Lively at 4 AM. However, Admiral Samuel Graves, irritated that unauthorized fire had woken him from his sleep, ordered it to stop. Once the sun rose, Gage finally realized the situation he was in. He ordered a bombardment of Breed’s Hill by all the warships and a battery in Boston. The bombardment was completely ineffective as the fortifications were too high up the hill for the warships and too far for the Boston batteries to reliably hit. A ground assault would be needed. Meanwhile, Prescott had realized that Breed’s hill could be easily flanked. Short of troops, he ordered breastworks built on the hill’s more vulnerable east side, hoping the steepness of the west side was enough protection. Sharpshooters were stationed in Charlestown to scout and oppose any landing. A dawn attack was now impossible, so General Clinton advocated for using the navy to sweep the militia from Charlestown Neck before landing troops to seize and fortify it, thus trapping and starving out the defenders on the hills. This idea was disregarded by the other generals for breaking conventional wisdom and placing their forces between two armies. Howe and Burgoyne further believed that the militia would never stand against real soldiers, Burgoyne boasting that the untrained rabble would simply rout when presented with trained troops. Instead, Howe would lead 1,500 grenadiers and light infantry to land near Moulton’s hill, then sweep around the redoubt’s left flank and attack from the rear while a diversionary attack of 1,000 would land at Charlestown and feint a direct assault on the redoubt. Major Pitcairn would command a reserve force of royal marines. This force wasn’t assembled to cross the Charles until midday. By 2 pm, Howe’s assault force was across and ready, but he held back from attacking to request reinforcements and allow his troops to eat. Seeing the British preparations, Colonel Prescott called for reinforcements. Howe’s delay allowed them to arrive. Several companies of Connecticut and later New Hampshire militia responded and were positioned behind a dirt and rail wall on the Mystic side. When low tide opened a gap, the wall was extended down the beach. Scattered groups of militia would continue to arrive prior to and during the battle. Among them was Dr. Warren, who’d refused to serve as an officer and insisted on being in the front line of infantry. Confusion reigned as Prescott and Putnam had difficulty getting the various militia companies to follow orders. The battle started at 3 pm once Howe received his reinforcements. The main column had been under fire from sharpshooters for some time before naval cannon fire set the town on fire, with the resulting pillars of smoke partially obscuring the hill. Howe’s troops moved forward towards the wall , while his light infantry moved onto the beach and his grenadiers advanced through the fields. Unseen obstacles in the unmowed fields slowed the grenadier's advance, leading the light column to make first contact. The militia volley fired at 50 paces, utterly shattering the surprised light companies, which fled the field with heavy casualties. The grenadiers fired a volley at the wall before charging with bayonets, only to suffer the same fate. The diversion column moved into musket range to suppress the redoubt but suffered like the grenadiers, compelling Brigadier Pigot to order a retreat. Howe reformed his troops, called in the reserves, and attacked again, this time at the breastwork rather than the wall, while Pigot launched a full frontal assault on the redoubt. This did not change the result, and the British fell back in disarray. On the colonial side, General Putnam continued to try to send reinforcements and resupply from Bunker to Breed’s Hill, but his orders were continually ignored or misunderstood. Many Continental militiamen were deserting the battle, and there were now no more than 800 troops on the peninsula, with 150 in the redoubt. General Clinton now personally led reinforcements across the Charles River to help Howe. After evacuating the severely wounded and reforming the walking wounded, Clinton joined Howe, who resolved to concentrate the attack on the redoubt, this time using assault columns and bayonets only. At this point, the militia were almost out of ammunition and lacked bayonets. As the columns advanced, the redoubts' defenders expended their ammunition and began retreating. Major Pitcairn took four wounds and died leading the charge. Colonel Prescott was among the last to retreat from the parapet, urging the men to keep fighting while knocking away bayonet thrusts with his ceremonial sword. One of the last men killed was Dr. Warren via a single shot to the head . By 5 pm, the surviving militia had retreated in good order across the Neck to Cambridge. Aftermath The British were stunned by the battle, and further offensive operations were called off. On his Pyrrhic triumph, Clinton wrote, “A dearly bought victory. Another such would have ruined us.” The British had won the battle. but at the cost of losing any chance to change the strategic situation. It was now painfully clear that they’d underestimated the Americans and that this war would be much harder than anticipated. On the American side, morale was high after the battle. Most of the units that were going to desert the army did before the end of the battle. Those that remained were even more determined to fight. Washington would arrive on July 2nd, finding willing but undisciplined companies. After reorganizing his command staff to replace Dr. Warren and other fallen leaders, he would embark on the arduous task of turning the militia companies into real soldiers. A harsh regime of teaching strict discipline, constant drill, and basic soldiering ensued. More pressingly, he needed heavy artillery and tasked Henry Knox with retrieving the cannons captured at Ticonderoga. While Congress was encouraged by the news from Boston, more problems had arisen. Sir Guy Carleton, the governor of Quebec, was rebuilding abandoned border forts and was entreating the Iroquois Confederacy to raid upper New York. This required a response, and on June 27th it authorized what would become an invasion of Quebec. In early July, Georgia finally signed onto the Continental Congress and sent a delegation. On July 5th, Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition to King George III as a last chance to avoid war. On July 6th Congress issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms. The two together made the case that the dispute was of loyal subjects of the crown protecting themselves against a hostile Parliament. It was unsuccessful. Gage’s official report on Bunker Hill reached London on July 20th and caused an uproar. Lord North had Gage’s recall issued on the 23rd, as both his and the King’s positions hardened. King George resolved to crush this rebellion. The Olive Branch Petition was received on August 21st, but was ignored and on the 23rd King George issued the Proclamation of Rebellion . This war would be fought to the bitter end. In October 1775, Prime Minister Lord North began restructuring his cabinet for war. Most importantly, his longtime ally George Germain became Secretary of State for the American Department in November. Alongside First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Sandwich, Germain was delegated responsibility for fighting the war against the rebelling colonies. The strategy the three men decided upon relied on three key assumptions: 1st, the Americans could not withstand a direct assault by the British military. 2nd, the war could be fought the same way as European wars, and 3rd, victory would bring loyalty. The campaign of 1776 would show them just how wrong they were. Supply problems were not unique to the British during fall and winter 1775 as Congress struggled to support Washington. Lacking taxation powers, it was forced to cajole its member legislatures to supply and pay the regiments raised in their colonies themselves. Many legislatures were reluctant (or unable) to do so, resulting in chronic shortages of pay and supplies. Meanwhile, Washington’s efforts to transform the disparate militia companies outside Boston into a unified, disciplined, and European-style professional army were bearing some, but insufficient, fruit. Independently minded, part-time soldiers don’t readily take to military discipline, nor did their officers respect chain of command. Company size, equipment, command structure and even fighting style varied wildly. Standardizing this chaos was a military necessity, but the former militiamen resisted so stridently that Washington was forced to negotiate and compromise with them about not only their equipment and structure but if they’d train and drill. Fortunately, by March 1776, a combination of new, willing recruits and a campaign of harsh discipline forged something which started to resemble an army. Congress had more success at sea. While it would be impossible to challenge the Royal Navy’s dominance, harassing and more importantly capturing British supply ships was critically important. Washington and the Rhode Island Assembly had already requisitioned a number of ships for this purpose. In October, Congress voted to create the Continental Navy . Congress also readily issued Letters of Marque and Reprisal to privateers, who eagerly attacked British shipping heading for Boston. To break the stalemate, in November Washington dispatched Henry Knox to retrieve the heavy cannons captured at Fort Ticonderoga. Knox set out with his Noble Train of Artillery from Ticonderoga on December 17, arriving at Washington’s headquarters in Cambridge on January 27 . While all 59 cannons were desperately needed, Washington had particular plans for the 24-pounder siege cannons. The easiest way to drive Howe from Boston was to fortify unoccupied Dorchester Heights with heavy cannons, giving the Continentals effective fire control over the entire harbour, and cutting Howe’s supply line. However, Washington knew the British would contest any activity on the Heights and didn’t believe his 1775 army would hold. Even if they could, he didn’t have the right cannons to threaten the harbour. Knox’s arrival and a major shipment of powder in February fixed those problems. Howe was aware of the threat, which was why General Thomas Gage’s planned breakout in June called for seizing the Heights. However, Bunker Hill and subsequent probing raids made clear that taking the Heights was too risky. However, Howe made plans to attack anyway should the Continentals attempt to seize the Heights. On the night of March 2nd, Washington ordered batteries stationed in Roxbury to open fire at British positions on the Boston Neck, which drew return fire. Neither bombardment did appreciable damage, but British attention was drawn. The action was repeated on the 3rd. Then, as their batteries fired on March 4th, 2500 troops under General John Thomas rushed the Dorchester Heights carrying pre-made gun positions, fortifications, and siege cannons, using the bombardment and rows of hay bales to mask their movement and work. By 4 am on the 5th, the gun positions were ready. Howe gave immediate orders to prepare a night attack against the Heights. However, nature intervened. A snowstorm blew into Boston that afternoon and didn’t let up until the 7th. By the 8th, Howe concluded that any opportunity to attack was gone and that preserving his army was more important. That afternoon, Howe sent an unsigned letter to Washington via intermediaries, saying he would burn Boston if his army weren’t allowed to evacuate unmolested. As it was unsigned and didn’t address him or his rank, Washington formally rejected the letter but did unofficially agree. For the next week, Howe’s army and the Boston Loyalists gradually loaded into transports, waiting for favorable winds. They also looted all the linen and woolen goods in town . The wind finally blew in Howe’s favour on March 17th, and by 9 am, the British had fully departed Boston for Halifax. Washington’s privateers under Captain John Manley harassed the retreating British, managing to recapture the looted cloth and other supplies. For several weeks thereafter, British supply and reinforcement ships would obliviously sail into Boston and be captured despite Royal Navy patrols trying to warn them away. Meanwhile, Henry Clinton had been dispatched south. The Royal Navy wanted a warm water port, and Howe wanted a new base of operations in the colonies away from Washington’s army. Therefore, he planned to send Clinton to establish that base with the help of the south’s royal governors, loyalist militia, and a convoy of fresh troops and warships from Ireland in late 1775 to begin work in March 1776. The target chosen was Cape Fear, North Carolina, on the assumption that the headland would be perfect for a naval base. Clinton left Boston in January with two light infantry companies, stopping at an increasingly, though still not fully, hostile New York to gather provisions. Unbeknownst to Howe or Clinton, the Irish expedition, commanded by Major General Charles Cornwallis and Admiral Parker, was unable to assemble and leave until February. Clinton arrived at Cape Fear on March 12 and was met by the Carolina’s royal governors and a letter from Georgia’s. They’d all been deposed, and the Scottish Loyalists that both the governors and Clinton had been relying on had been defeated and dispersed at Moore’s Creek Bridge two weeks earlier. The three governors begged Clinton to restore them, but with only 200 soldiers, it was impossible. He needed the reinforcements but had no idea where they were. Parker’s fleet didn’t start to arrive until April 18. Battered by constant Atlantic winter storms, it was so strung out that the last ships didn’t arrive until mid-May. By that time, it was clear that North Carolina was not suitable as a base, and Clinton and Cornwallis began looking further south. Clinton could not have been less subtle about his initial movement south, and every Patriot assumed that he would attack either Charleston or Savannah. Acting on that assumption, about 4700 South Carolina militia under Colonel William Moultrie and 1900 newly formed Continental regulars were assembled near Charleston. Once Clinton was confirmed to have sailed in March, Moultrie sent a detachment to build a fort on Sullivan’s Island to defend the harbor. Built of packed sand faced with palmetto logs, construction was quite slow due to difficulty keeping the sand packed in the wind and surf. Clinton learned that the fort was only partially built in May, and he decided to take advantage. The fleet sailed from Cape Fear on May 31st, arriving off Charleston the next day. At the time, only the seaward wall and cannon platform were completely finished, with the side walls partially finished and the rear protected only by a palisade. The recently arrived commander of the Continental Army’s Southern Department, Charles Lee, feared the position indefensible and ordered Moultrie and his 400 men to withdraw. However, Moultrie was ordered by South Carolina’s president, John Rutledge, to ignore Lee and hold the fort. Meanwhile, on June 8, Clinton began landing troops on Long Island , intending to cross the shallow inlet, push through the hastily built Continental defenses on the north of Sullivan’s Island and attack the fort while the navy bombarded it into submission. However, the British quickly learned that the inlet was far too deep to wade, and the attack was called off. Thus, the navy had to go it alone, but Parker had to wait until June 28 for the winds and storms to allow it. At 09:00, four British warships and the bomb ketch Thunder moved into a position opposite Ft. Sullivan. At 10:00, the bombardment began, and Moultrie returned fire. Parker expected Thunder’s mortar bombs to make quick work of the fort, but instead, the sand simply buried and smothered the blasts until Thunder’s mortars broke free of their mounts. Meanwhile, the sponge-like palmetto wood was absorbing the bombardment without taking damage, allowing Moultrie’s gunners to take their time aiming their shorts, inflicting heavy damage on the warships. Seeing the bombardment failing, around 11:00, Clinton ordered the men on Long Island to be ferried across the inlet on naval longboats, only to be driven back by rifle fire and grapeshot from the breastworks. At 12:00, Parker ordered three more frigates to engage, sailing behind the engaged ships to avoid known shoals and take enfilade positions to the west. However, all three hit a sandbar and grounded. One was so stuck it had to be abandoned and burned. Meanwhile, Parker’s flagship had been demasted and the admiral depantsed by Patriot fire. Lee resupplied the fort with gunpowder around 15:00, allowing it to keep firing until darkness ended the action. The British had lost one frigate scuttled, six ships heavily damaged, and 220 casualties to just 37 American casualties. Moultrie was hailed as a hero and the fort renamed in his honor. Clinton remained off Charleston until July 21, hoping that incoming Caribbean reinforcements would allow another attempt. However, orders arrived from Howe to join him in attacking New York. Despite calls to do so from subordinates and London, Howe couldn’t immediately counterattack. He agreed with pre-war assessments from Gage that subduing the colonies would require not only the full British army and Navy but extensive German auxiliary troops . Lord North and Secretary Germain reluctantly but ultimately agreed and began recruiting new regulars and hiring troops from German states in late 1775. As the largest contingents came from Hesse-Kassel and Hesse-Hanau, they became collectively known as Hessians . While awaiting their arrival in Halifax, Howe planned the next campaign, targeting the strategic port of New York alongside his older brother and naval theatre commander, Admiral Richard Howe. Washington anticipated the move and, in February, dispatched his second-in-command, General Charles Lee, to New York City to prepare the defences. Lee quickly concluded that it would be impossible to hold New York from any determined attack as there were simply too many places to land troops once the Royal Navy controlled the harbour . Thus, rather than attempting to hold the city, he arranged the defences to make taking the city as costly as possible. Washington arrived in April and agreed with Lee’s assessment. However, he was under strict orders from Congress to defend New York. Thus, he expanded the defences and built a chain of forts along the harbour, islands, and rivers to deter a British attack. Unfortunately, this required him to spread out his already understrength army and fill the gaps with local militia. Before we go further, it’s important to note that every revolution is also, to at least some extent, a civil war. The conflict between anti-Parliament Patriots and pro-Parliament Loyalists is heavily overshadowed by the war between the British military and nascent Continental Army, but no less important. In 1763, nearly every person in the Thirteen Colonies considered themselves as English as those in England itself. As the 12-year-long crisis unfolded, that attitude slowly changed. By the time of Bunker Hill, the Loyalist population had fallen to no more than 20% of the total, with 40-45% actively supporting the Patriot cause . Over the course of 1775, Patriot and Loyalist militias clashed throughout the colonies , with the more numerous and better-organized Patriots driving out the royal governors and their supporters. By January 1776, the Patriots had taken control of every colony and forced every vocal Loyalist to seek protection from the British military These British reversals were balanced against a major American defeat. From the moment the British governor of Quebec, Major General Guy Carleton, learned of London’s intentions towards Massachusetts , he began preparing for an American invasion of Quebec. This was not as prescient as it appears, as in every previous conflict, American militia had invaded French territory, with their greatest success being the 1745 capture of Louisbourg. Should hostilities break out, the Americans were certain to try again. To that end, he garrisoned and repaired Fort Saint-Jean and began negotiating with native tribes for assistance. Indeed, as soon as Fort Ticonderoga was secure, both Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen began advocating for an invasion of Quebec, however, Congress was unable to commit the resources. Instead, New York, New Hampshire, and Connecticut sent additional militia to secure both Ticonderoga and Crown Point and prepare for operations into Quebec. Colonel Benjamin Hinman from Connecticut was supposed to take command, but there was a Benedict Arnold-shaped problem. Arnold commanded Ticonderoga and Crown Point as a Massachusetts colonel but only had a handful of Massachusetts troops. The rest were a mix of various state militias and Green Mountain Boys, who had little reason to listen to Arnold beyond the force of his personality. When Arnold learned he was being replaced, he threw a tantrum. Refusing to cede any authority, he locked himself, his 250 troops, and two ships he was refitting to defend Lake Champlain inside Crown Point and refused to work with Hinman or allow access to Crown Point. When that didn’t make Hinman leave, he began actively interfering with Hinman’s work and even attempted to abduct a Massachusetts committee sent to investigate the situation. A threat to mutiny, taking the ships to Saint-Jean and surrendering them to the British began to circulate. Up until then, Hinman had been patient with Arnold, understanding the latter's disappointment. However, the threat of mutiny was too much. Hinman had a detachment seize the ships while he rode to Crown Point and ordered the remaining militia to either sign with him or go home. They complied, and Arnold was left powerless. While that drama played out, a diplomatic battle was underway. Carleton had been primarily concerned with gaining the support of the Six Nations, who called themselves Haudenosaunee, but everyone else called Iroquois, and had personally met with their representatives. The Mohawk were more than happy to fight the Americans, but the rest chose neutrality. This convinced Congress to send a delegation in July while New York separately dispatched General Philip Schuyler , a long-time friend of the Oneidas, to make their own case. Schuyler ultimately convinced the Six Nations to remain neutral, with even the Mohawk agreeing that this war was a family affair. This didn’t stop individual warriors from joining either side. Congress had authorized Schuyler to go to Ticonderoga and lead an invasion of Quebec on June 27. However, organizational problems and his meetings with the tribes meant that he wasn’t close to moving by August 25th. That day, word reached Ticonderoga that the British were building ships at Saint-Jean. Schuyler’s second-in-command, Richard Montgomery, launched the invasion that day with 1200 men and without formal authorization. By September, they’d reached Quebec, pursued by Schuyler, who only remained long enough to deliver a letter inviting the Canadians to join the Continental Congress and formally turn over command to Montgomery as he approached Saint-Jean, as Schuyler was growing ill. Meanwhile, Arnold, having learned that he would have no role in the expedition, had stormed off to Cambridge to meet with Washington. There, he proposed that he lead a separate force to strike through the wilderness directly to Quebec City. Impressed by Arnold’s audacity, Washington agreed and authorized him to raise 1100 rangers from the camps around Boston. The core of this force was 250 frontier riflemen led by Daniel Morgan. After Washington cleared the operation with Schuyler, Arnold sailed to the mouth of the Kennebec River on September 19. Montgomery arrived outside Ft. Saint-Jean on September 5. His initial reconnaissance-in-force was stopped by 100 Mohawk warriors. Following the fight, the Americans pulled back while the Mohawk, angered by the lack of promised artillery support from the fort, left the conflict entirely. After surveying the fort’s defenses, Montgomery called for reinforcements before beginning the siege on September 17, using mortars to bombard the fort. To block British relief efforts, Allen was dispatched to raise anti-British militia and block the roads between Saint-Jean and Montreal. However, Allen was eager for another Ticonderoga-style victory and marched on Montreal, hoping to surprise the garrison and take the city. He managed to make it to Longue-Pointe on Montreal Island before being detected. Carleton marched out to meet Allen’s 100 men with 34 regulars and 200 militia on September 25. Realizing that he was trapped, Allen moved to a wooded position, hoping to ambush Carleton. However, the 60 Canadians in his force deserted, leaving Allen hopelessly outnumbered. After 90 minutes of fighting, the British broke Allen’s line, and he surrendered. Allen’s adventure caused a panic in Montreal, and more than 1,200 militiamen turned out. However, Carleton made no move to relieve Saint-Jean. He was paranoid about the Canadians' loyalty, had no idea of the Americans' numbers, and refused to march into a potential ambush without better intelligence. This was fortunate for Montgomery. Saint-Jean sat on a high point surrounded by swamps. Living and working in the swamps had caused 900 men to be incapacitated by disease by October. Only a steady stream of reinforcements enabled him to continue the siege, as his mortar bombardment was ineffective. On October 6, additional cannons arrived, enabling Montgomery to extend his batteries to hit the fort’s harbor. On October 13, nearby Ft. Chambly surrendered, tightening the siege lines, but more importantly, the Americans captured desperately needed winter supplies, cannon, and gunpowder. The additional cannons allowed Montgomery to begin building another battery on the heights northwest of Saint-Jean. This threat finally forced Carleton to respond. Pulling together a force of about 1000 militia he considered sufficiently loyal, Carleton attempted to land at Longueuil, but he was only met by American artillery fire. The militia began deserting, and the remaining force withdrew. Facing enfilade fire and no prospect of reinforcement, Saint-Jean surrendered on November 3. Montgomery moved north swiftly and occupied Montreal on November 13. With most of his regulars lost at Saint-Jean, Carleton concluded that Montreal was indefensible and retreated to Quebec City, narrowly avoiding being captured on the St. Lawrence. He arrived in Quebec on November 4 and began to prepare its defenses, calling in all available regulars. 10 days later, Arnold’s expedition arrived, having navigated 350 miles of uninhabited wilderness. It had been fraught with setbacks, from sabotaged supply barrels and badly made boats to inaccurate maps and poor navigation. Only 600 men actually completed the trek to find the city strongly held against them. Bowing to reality, Arnold sent word upriver to Mongtomery for support. After taking Montreal, Montgomery began sweeping up abandoned supply caches and making overtures to the Canadien population. The Americans knew they couldn’t conquer the province and instead hoped that anti-British sentiment would lead Canadiens to join them willingly. While a few hundred did join the cause, most Canadiens were content to wait and see who won the upcoming confrontation. Montgomery moved to link up with Arnold on December 2nd, bringing 400 American and 200 Canadien soldiers and the winter clothing Arnold’s troops lacked. By December 6th, they were outside the city’s walls. Facing Carleton’s 1800 British regulars, the Americans decided to try and bluff their way to victory. Throughout December, Montgomery sent letters demanding Carleton’s surrender, while trying to entice the Canadiens to join the Americans. Carleton ignored the demands and arrested anyone who so much as spoke positively of the Americans. By December 10, it was clear that Quebec wouldn’t just submit, so Montgomery began bombarding the defenses with his mortars while Morgan’s riflemen tried to pick off British sentries. However, the British counterfire proved effective as the Americans couldn’t dig trenches in the frozen ground. The American effort was under considerable time pressure, as most enlistments would run out on January 1, and the men intended to go home. Facing the disintegration of his army, Montgomery decided to roll the dice and storm Quebec on Dec. 31st. The attack called for a feint at St. Jean’s gate while Arnold and Montgomery slipped around the walls and stormed the lower town, using night and a blizzard as cover. Carleton was ready, and sentries quickly spotted the American lanterns through the snow. Montgomery’s force sawed through the first barricade and marched onward, Montgomery himself in front. Unfortunately, they were marching right for a two-story building repurposed as a blockhouse, which they only discovered when a barrage of grapeshot ripped into the column. Montgomery and most of the senior officers died instantly, and the rest fell back rather than fight a hopeless battle. Meanwhile, Arnold had come under musket and grenade fire the moment he rounded the Palace Gate. Unable to return fire, Arnold ordered his men to move away from the walls toward the docks. Finding their way blocked by barricades, Arnold ordered an attack, only to be wounded in the leg. Morgan took command and led two charges with scaling ladders that successfully overcame the defenders. Morgan urged his men on, only for them to refuse to advance until their prisoners were taken to the rear. During this 30-minute delay, Carleton realized that the attacks on the gates were feints and redeployed against Morgan. British soldiers quickly moved into buildings along the street as Morgan once again advanced. A group of sailors approached Morgan and ordered him to surrender, only for him to shoot their officer and charge the barricade. The attack failed, and now under fire from all sides, the Americans took cover in the buildings. Soon, additional British soldiers moved out and secured the Palace Gate and approaches, trapping Morgan. As the night wore on, the Americans began running out of powder and surrendering. Morgan was the last to give up at 10 AM, handing his sword to a Catholic priest rather than a British officer. The Americans had lost at least 80 killed or wounded and 400 captured. Carleton reported only 4 dead and 15 wounded to Howe but may have suffered as many as 50 casualties. It was a dramatic victory. Despite this, Arnold refused to leave Quebec. Whether out of sheer stubbornness or a genuine belief in victory, he maintained the siege despite being outnumbered 3 to 1. Despite pressure to do so, Carleton never sallied out. The French had lost Quebec in 1759, doing exactly that, and the British had almost suffered the same fate in 1760. Carleton had been present for both and refused to risk the city or his men, especially in winter. With the Americans putting no meaningful pressure on the city’s supplies, he waited for reinforcements under John Burgoyne, expected as soon as the St. Lawrence ice broke up. They’d counterattack in spring. Additionally, letting the Americans stay sapped their strength. Throughout the winter, Arnold’s men suffered from frostbite and smallpox. While reinforcements raised the nominal strength of his force to 3000 by March, in reality, a third were incapacitated and were sent home as soon as the weather permitted. By April, Arnold was recalled to Montreal and replaced by Major General John Thomas. The situation in Montreal was becoming untenable. While Montgomery had gone to lengths to improve relations with the Catholic Canadiens, he’d left the extremely anti-Catholic David Wooster in charge. Wooster had initially merely annoyed the locals by lecturing them about American ideals but soon curtailed Catholic rights and began arresting anyone suspected of being a Loyalist. Suspicious of rebellion, he began seizing militia stockpiles. As the Americans were already wearing out their welcome by paying in worthless paper money rather than coin, the city was turning increasingly hostile. A commission from Congress led by Ben Franklin arrived in April and attempted to undo the damage Wooster had caused. However, it was too late. It was clear that the Americans could not take Quebec, and, therefore, could not hold Montreal. There was no reason to risk British retribution. Moreover, the Quebec Act had given them everything they wanted from the British, and the land the Americans had sought to deny them during the last war. Congress was unable to make a better deal, especially with clashes between pro-American and pro-British militia increasingly going against the Americans. On May 6, the first of Burgoyne's reinforcements reached Quebec. Thomas ordered the Americans to retreat to Sorel, where he died of smallpox. On May 22, Carleton dispatched two regiments to prepare a forward position at Trois-Rivieres. The Americans moved to attack, having been misinformed about the British position and strength. Learning of the attack, Brigadier Simon Frasier moved forward and prepared an ambush. The Americans blundered out of the swamps and into the teeth of Frasier’s force, causing most to break and run. 266 men were captured, and the rest only escaped thanks to Anthony Wayne organizing a staggered retreat rearguard . Carleton did not immediately press his advantage, as he felt his force was too disorganized. He waited for Burgoyne to arrive personally and returned all the prisoners he’d captured back to New York before taking measures against American supporters. Finally, he advanced toward Montreal on June 14. Arnold had not received news of events downriver until a messenger reported Carleton’s fleet approaching June 15. He ordered the city burned, which failed, before retreating to Saint-Jean. As neither the commanding general, John Sullivan, nor his army were in condition to fight, they decided to retreat back to Crown Point. Along the way, they burned every watercraft they couldn’t take with them and stripped the countryside of supplies. The invasion of Quebec was over, but not the campaign. Burgoyne wanted to immediately continue after the Americans and then press on to Albany, but Carleton correctly refused. There were no roads from Saint-Jean to Ticonderoga, and most of his fleet couldn’t sail up the Richelieu River to Lake Champlain. Since the Americans had taken all the available ships that could, he had to build some. He also requested and received a large number of build-your-own gunboat kits from the Royal Navy. His new fleet wasn’t ready to sail until October 7th, with one sloop, two schooners, 28 gunboats, and two repurposed civilian fishing boats. The Americans had also been busy. However, shipwrights were rare in upstate New York. Arnold had seized a sloop and schooner prior to the invasion, and to this, the Americans were only able to add another schooner, four galleys, and eight larger gunboats. Arnold learned of Carelton’s approach on October 9th. Now styling himself a commodore, Arnold prepared a naval ambush. Valcour Bay was sufficiently wide to allow him to deploy all his ships, too narrow for the British to deploy all of theirs, and rocky enough to keep them from trying to close. The British had to sail past the Bay and would not risk sailing past and letting Arnold near their transports. They’d have to fight on his terms. Arnold was not expecting to win but hoped to delay the British enough they’d have to turn around rather than risk a winter siege. As the British sailed past on October 11, Arnold deployed a schooner and galley to draw the British into the Bay. Both were lost when the strong headwind prevented them from returning to the American line, but they succeeded in drawing the British in. Carleton’s most powerful ships were unable to sail up the bay, but the gunboats had no trouble. At 12:30, the battle began in earnest. Arnold had not counted on Royal Navy sailors manning the British guns, and their superior experience showed. As night fell, the most powerful British ship finally made it into the Bay and forced the Americans to retreat up the bay. Every American ship was badly damaged, and four ships had been lost to 3 British gunboats. During the night, Arnold tried to escape to Crown Point. However, the damage to his fleet and adverse winds allowed the British to catch up. Only the sloop, a schooner, and two gunboats made it to Crown Point. Convinced that the fort could not withstand bombardment, Arnold destroyed it and retreated to Ticonderoga. However, he’d succeeded in his strategic objective. Carleton occupied Crown Point for two weeks, trying to entice the Ticonderoga garrison to attack him. However, with snow falling and the American scorched earth campaign leaving him no source of supplies except Quebec City, Carleton decided to retreat, to the great annoyance of Burgoyne. The Canadian campaign was over. Simultaneous with the Patriot’s ascension, the colonies learned that King George III had authorized hiring the Hessians. This crushed many Americans’ last shred of hope that Parliament and the King would see them as equal citizens rather than colonial subjects. In January, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense gave the final push necessary to embrace the previously fringe thought of independence. On June 11, Congress authorized a Committee of Five to write the Declaration of Independence. The task of actually drafting it fell to Thomas Jefferson, who locked himself away to write until June 28. After some basic edits and proofreading, the document was turned over to Congress, which spent the next two days revising and shortening the document . On July 1st, the finalized document was moved to open debate, with the final vote to approve taken on July 2nd . The United Colonies were now the United States. As news spread, wild celebrations followed throughout the colonies, accompanied by statues to the king and other British officials being torn down. George Washington received the Declaration on July 9th and held a parade for his soldiers to hear it read. He needed them to understand the stakes they were fighting for as the long-expected storm had arrived. By late May, the Howes had received sufficient reinforcements and sailed from Halifax on June 9. The plan called for Admiral Howe and the navy to seize New York Harbor, after which General Howe’s soldiers would drive the rebels from the city. Secretly, the brothers hoped that the appearance of 130 warships carrying 20,000 troops would be sufficient to intimidate the Continentals into surrender. Failing that, they hoped to negotiate peace with the colonies. However, Lord North insisted that the colonies must accept parliamentary supremacy and return to the status quo pre-Concord, Intolerable Acts and all. The only offer the Howes could make was pardons. On June 29, 45 warships took control of Lower New York Bay. The rest of the fleet trickled in over the next three days. On July 2nd, Howe began landing soldiers on sparsely populated and defended Staten Island . Washington anticipated that the next target would be Manhattan and moved the bulk of his forces there. General Howe waited instead. On July 13, the Howes attempted to open negotiations with Washington. However, his letter was rejected for being incorrectly addressed to George Washington, esquire, rather than General George Washington . Washington finally agreed to meet with Howe’s adjutant on July 20th, but when told that all Howe had to offer was pardons, Washington rejected the overture, saying, "Those who have committed no fault want no pardon.” The standoff continued into August. On the 1st, Generals Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis arrived with the Caribbean fleet after failing to capture Charleston, South Carolina. On August 12th, the final expected contingent of Hessians arrived, bringing the army up to 32,000 men and the fleet to 400 ships. The time to attack had finally arrived. On August 22, General Howe ordered Clinton and Cornwallis to land at Gravesend Bay, south of Continental fortifications on Brooklyn Heights. By noon, 15,000 men and 40 artillery pieces had landed to the cheers of local Loyalists. Washington’s reports made it sound like a diversionary landing , so he only sent 1500 reinforcements, bringing the Continental Army’s local strength up to 6,000. On August 24, Washington sent General Israel Putnam and an additional 4,000 troops to Brooklyn. The same day, 5,000 Hessians landed to reinforce Clinton. Putnam’s plan was to refight the battle of Bunker Hill. He’d keep 6,000 soldiers at Brooklyn Heights while the rest moved south onto Guan Heights, between Brooklyn and Clinton’s camp. The three roads through the hills were fortified with the intention of inflicting as many casualties as possible before falling back to Brooklyn Heights. However, Clinton refused to repeat Bunker Hill and scouted for alternatives. Local Loyalists informed him of a seldom-used fourth road, Jamaica Pass, far to the east. The Continentals hadn’t fortified it, either due to troop shortages or oversight. Clinton proposed to 10,000 men on a night march through Jamaica Pass while General James Grant attacked the Continental right as a diversion. Once the main force was in position, the Hessians would attack the Continental’s center while Clinton turned their flank. Howe approved the plan on August 26th, ordering Clinton to proceed immediately. The flanking column moved out at 21:00. Guided by Loyalist farmers, the column moved undetected, capturing the five militia watching the pass without firing a shot. By dawn, the column was in position. Grant’s diversion began at 01:00 on August 27th. After pushing back the American sentries, Grant's men attempted to force the road but were repelled by Brigadier William Alexander’s brigade. The British regrouped and attempted to outflank the position using the hills to the Continental left, only to be driven off by a counterattack. By 09:00, Washington had arrived with reinforcements, only now realizing that Long Island was the actual target, not a feint. At the same time, Clinton fired two heavy cannons to signal the Hessians to attack. The ferocity and size of both frontal attacks convinced the Continentals that these were the main attacks, leaving them completely oblivious to Clinton’s column until it suddenly appeared in the rear. Despite efforts by General John Sullivan to turn his men to meet the attack, panic gripped the line, and many simply fled for Brooklyn Heights. Through the chaos, Sullivan managed to disengage most of his force and get them to safety, though he was captured in the process. On the right, Alexander’s heavily engaged troops thought they were winning the battle after successfully repulsing Grant. However, Grant received reinforcements and launched a new attack just as the Hessians swung into Alexander’s left, forcing him back. By now, Clinton’s advance had cut off all avenues of retreat except for one across Brouwer's millpond. The entire force might have been annihilated but for Alexander and 270 men from the 1st Maryland Regiment. Facing 2,000 British regulars behind cover, the Marylanders charged twice, buying enough time for the rest of the army to retreat. Only 12 Marylanders returned to Washington’s lines . By noon, the British had swept the Continentals into Brooklyn Heights. Howe ordered a halt, despite protests from his officers to attack while they still had momentum. However, Howe refused to waste troops attacking prepared positions and so began constructing siege lines. Initially, Washington thought to hold the Heights, but the speed the British showed in building siege lines on the 28th convinced him to retreat. With rain falling that afternoon, Washington gave orders to procure every barge and sloop available and assigned Colonel John Glover’s regiment to row the army across the East River to Manhattan and safety. At 23:00 on August 29, the evacuation began, covered by rain and fog. By 07:00, the evacuation was complete, with Washington the last American to leave Long Island. Howe was shocked by the withdrawal’s speed and began carefully planning his next move . Meanwhile, Washington regrouped while desperately trying to learn Howe’s intentions . In an effort to strike the fleet, on September 7th, Washington authorized the first known attack by a submersible in history when the Turtle, piloted by Sergeant Ezra Lee, unsuccessfully attempted to destroy Admiral Howe’s flagship. On September 15th, Howe’s landing at Kip’s Bay succeeded. A skirmish on the Harlem Heights again convinced Howe not to directly attack the Americans, instead looking for another landing point to outflank and trap Washington in Manhattan. After a failed attempt on October 12th, he succeeded in an opposed landing at Pelham on the 18th. Realizing the danger, Washington evacuated Manhattan to regroup at White Plains. On October 28, Howe attacked again. While Continental regulars repulsed the initial attacks, the militia on the right were scattered by Hessians under Colonel Johann Rall, forcing the rest of the army to withdraw. At this point, Howe split his army, directing Cornwallis to chase Washington and Clinton to take undefended New Jersey while he went back to finish off Continental holdouts in New York . By early December, Washington was driven into Pennsylvania, and New York City was firmly in British hands. 4,000 prisoners taken in the campaign were crowded onto prison hulks in the harbour, where half would perish from malnutrition and disease. After their decisive victory, the British prepared to move into winter quarters and shelter themselves from the cold. On the other side, Washington could afford his men no such luxury. After the heavy defeat in New York, the Continental Army was in crisis. Casualties and desertion had reduced his force to under 5,000 hungry and unpaid soldiers . Morale was nonexistent and worse, most enlistments would end on January 1st . Unless recruiting picked up dramatically or there was a miraculous mass reenlistment, the Continental Army would cease to exist. Washington needed a victory now to save his Army. Fortunately, the British handed him an opportunity. Cornwallis and Clinton had established a chain of garrisons along the Delaware River and New Jersey interior. Howe deliberately spread his winter garrisons out to attract as many Loyalist militia as possible to support his planned spring campaigns against Albany and Philadelphia. The Continental Army was believed too defeated to pose any threat. In particular, 1500 Hessians stationed at Trenton under Colonel Rall were particularly isolated, their supply and communication lines under pressure from Continental patrols and militia raiders. When the nearest support left their post to chase the raiders, the time came to strike. Rall was on edge from the constant harassment, and British spies had warned that Washington was making plans . Thus, Continental agents in Trenton worked to make the Hessians as relaxed and confident as possible. To complete the ruse, Washington arranged for an agent posing as a Tory to be “captured” and subsequently “escape” to Trenton, to deceive Rall that Washington’s army was in no state to fight. It worked, and despite private misgivings, Rall publicly dismissed any chance of attack and made no defensive preparations. Washington planned to cross the Delaware River and attack Trenton before dawn on December 26th, hoping the garrison would still be drunk from Christmas celebrations . Two columns under Generals Sullivan and Nathanial Greene, 2,400 strong, would attack Trenton from the north and south. Pennsylvania militia would block the road south while a detachment of regulars caused a diversion at Bordentown. On Christmas night, Washington ordered the march to the river with the password “Victory or Death.” As Glover’s men began ferrying the assault force across, freezing rain began to fall. Coupled with the river being partially frozen, the crossing wasn’t complete until 03:00, and the army wasn’t ready to march until 04:00 , making a pre-dawn strike impossible. Worse, the blocking forces never made it across the river. However, Washington had no choice but to press ahead, riding up and down the column to encourage his men onward. By 08:00, the Continentals were in position . Washington personally led Greene’s northern column from the front, quickly overrunning the outlying Hessian outposts. The Hessians attempted a disciplined fighting retreat, but the Continentals advanced too rapidly. Meanwhile, Sullivan’s column moved to block the bridge over Assunpink Creek before assaulting the town. The Hessians attempted to form battle lines and hold the streets, but Washington’s artillery quickly cleared them off. Rall awoke to the Continentals overrunning Trenton. Lurching into action, he ordered his officers to form up the men and repulse the rebels. However, his men had already fallen back to a field outside of town. After catching up, Rall ordered them to reform and recapture the town. It was a disaster, as he took fire from three sides , and for reasons unclear, the Hessians’ muskets failed to fire. As the formation broke, Rall was mortally wounded . His surrounded men either fled or surrendered. With only two dead of exposure and five wounded, in under an hour, Washington had killed 22 Hessians, wounded 83, and taken 900 prisoners. He had claimed the victory he so desperately needed, but the crisis wasn’t over. On December 31st, Washington gathered the men about to muster out and extolled them to stay for at least another month. It took an extremely patriotic speech and an extra ten dollars' pay, but most agreed to stay. It was not a moment too soon. After learning about Trenton on December 27th, Cornwallis cancelled his leave to Britain and marched 8,000 troops out of New York to meet General Grant in Princeton, strengthening garrisons as he went. Determined to attack Washington and avenge Trenton, Cornwallis left 1400 men in Princeton and marched to Trenton with 5,000. Throughout January 2nd, the British gradually pushed through American patrols and outposts until they reached Assunpink Creek south of Trenton in the late afternoon. Three waves of attacks failed to cross the creek and reach Washington’s defences, so Cornwallis retired for the night . Washington ordered a night march around Cornwallis to attack Princeton on January 3rd, successfully overwhelming the garrison and capturing Cornwallis’ supplies. Washington then fell back to Morristown, finally entering winter quarters. In ten crucial days, he’d completely turned the Continental Army’s fortunes around. Disturbed by the Continental’s resilience, the British abandoned central New Jersey, falling back to New Brunswick and a ring of garrisons around New York to wait for spring while Howe planned his war-winning campaign. Back in Europe, Whitehall was growing anxious. Since the first protests had begun, the government had believed reports from royal governors that the American colonists were fundamentally loyal and the opposition was a tiny minority. They’d clung to this belief despite mounting contrary evidence, undermining their entire war strategy. Meanwhile, the Whigs' opposition was growing bolder. William Pitt the Elder had opposed the taxes from the start, and most Whigs and some Tories now agreed with him. Their opposition went nowhere as King George III always sided with Prime Minister Lord North and his hardline Tories. However, as the cost of the war mounted, pre-existing cracks among the Tories were widening and North was feeling the pressure. To make matters worse, much of the European continent was cheering for Britain’s defeat. Perfidious Albion had never been popular in Europe, but being an unreliable ally during the War of Austrian Succession and Seven Years’ War had left Britain diplomatically isolated. Additionally, America’s protests were filled with Enlightenment rhetoric, which touched the hearts and minds of Europe’s Enlightenment educated elite, securing widespread support. The crown heads of Europe were more circumspect, as they weren’t keen on revolution themselves, though they cheered it on since it was being inflicted upon Britain. The Declaration of Independence was a major turning point. It inflamed the passions of many Europeans, particularly young and professionally stalled officers, who began making their way to America to join the Continental Army. The most famous of these was France’s Marquis de Lafayette, who would serve alongside Washington. However, one of the first and most important European military men who joined the American cause was Poland-Lithuania’s Tadeusz Kosciuszko , who’d be commissioned as the Colonel of Engineers in October 1776 after seeking out and impressing Benjamin Franklin with his geometry skills. Meanwhile, Britain’s Caribbean rivals were eager to profit from the war both financially and strategically. All had been willing partners in breaking the Navigation Acts pre-war and were now actively looking the other way as their traders helped supply the American cause and their ports provided safe harbour to American privateers, which London protested . France, in particular, wanted to openly assist the Americans but had its own problems to contend with that prevented it from doing so. King Louis XVI was eager to avenge France’s humiliation in the Seven Years’ War but was billions of livres in debt, which France’s medieval tax system already struggled to finance. Additionally, both his army and navy were still rebuilding themselves from their last defeat to Britain. France’s Foreign Ministry had calculated in 1763 that France couldn’t hold Quebec so long as the American colonies remained loyal to Britain, making American independence a French interest. When American agents began seeking material and diplomatic support in Europe, Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes leapt at the opportunity. Working with Silas Deane , Vergennes began funnelling supplies to the Continental Army through the Caribbean via the front company Rodrigue Hortalez et Compagnie . Vergennes ultimately wanted to ally with America but needed them to prove themselves first. Congress had dispatched Benjamin Franklin to negotiate that very alliance in December 1776 . However, this wouldn’t go as Congress planned. Franklin didn’t announce his intentions nor make any moves towards Versailles. Instead, he waited. Franklin knew Vergennes wanted an alliance, but he also knew that other ministers opposed another war. Franklin understood how French courtly politics worked from his years as the colonies’ representative to Parliament. All Franklin needed to overcome any opposition was for French courtly society and the king to become interested enough in him for Louis to invite him to Versailles. Such an invitation would signal the king’s support for him and the American cause . He was already popular in France for his scientific achievements , but that wasn’t enough. Therefore, Franklin waited for Vergennes to make the first move, working the Parisian salon scene while cultivating an air of mystery that the French found irresistible . Across the Atlantic, planning for the spring campaign season was well underway. Having restored faith in the Continental Army with his victory at Trenton, General George Washington was rebuilding his army, now with three-year enlistments, to avoid another manpower crisis. Having learned from New York that his soldiers were not yet able to stand toe-to-toe against British regulars, he instead planned a Fabian strategy of attacking British supplies and avoiding battle on even terms to keep the army intact. Meanwhile, in early December, Howe proposed a multi-pronged campaign to strangle the rebels to Secretary of State for America George Germain. 10,000 new troops would land at Newport, Rhode Island and secure the New England coast. Another 10,000 would march up the Hudson to Albany, meeting a similarly sized army moving south from Canada. Howe would lead 8,000 men to strike at Philadelphia through New Jersey, leaving 5,000 to hold New York. The British believed that New England was the heart of the rebellion. Without New England’s fire, the rest of the colonies would capitulate. However, by January, it was clear that London wouldn’t provide the necessary troops. Even if they did, Howe had concluded that isolating New England would accomplish little. Even before Trenton, few Loyalists were joining his army despite a steady stream of them fleeing to New York. This, coupled with intense guerilla activity in the New Jersey and New York countryside demonstrated how dedicated the Americans were to the rebellion. Therefore, Howe decided his only option was to utterly destroy the Continental Army in open battle and then capture Philadelphia. Any European nation would capitulate under those circumstances, and Howe expected the Americans would be no different. Thus, in late January, Howe informed Germain that he’d instead focus his campaign on taking Philadelphia. Meanwhile, eager for his own command and jealous of rivals Howe and Henry Clinton’s success in New York, Major General John Burgoyne was in London proposing an alternate plan to Germain. His plan, approved on February 28, was for Burgoyne to lead an army of 8500 down Lake Champlain and take Ft. Ticonderoga before moving down the Hudson River valley . A force of 2000 would move east from Lake Ontario down the Mohawk River. Howe was to move up the Hudson, and all three armies would meet at Albany. Then Germain made a critical mistake. He received Howe’s revised plan on February 23 and approved it as well. Burgoyne was still in London, but there’s no evidence that Germain informed Burgoyne of Howe’s plans, nor Howe of his role in Burgoyne’s campaign. Letters sent by Howe to Germain, Burgoyne, and Quebec’s governor Major General Guy Carlton make clear that he never seriously considered moving up the Hudson, and Germain didn’t correct him it was too late . This would prove disastrous. The two campaigns happened simultaneously. For clarity’s sake, we will examine Howe’s Philadelphia campaign first before moving to Burgoyne. Howe intended to destroy the Continental Army before marching across New Jersey to Philadelphia, but Washington had other ideas. From April to June 1777, Howe attempted to draw Washington out of his defensive positions near Morristown and Middlebrook without success. A June feigned retreat into ambush was thwarted by the Continental vanguard . Additionally, Kosciuszko’s fortifications along the Delaware convinced Howe to attack by sea instead. The plan was to transport the main army of 17,000 on ships as close as possible to Philadelphia. If the Continental Army tried to protect the city, they’d be crushed. If not, he’d take the city then move out to find the Continentals as they came to its relief. Henry Clinton would remain in New York with a reserve force of 7000, consisting primarily of Hessians and Loyalists, to assist either Howe or Burgoyne as necessary. This surprised Clinton, just returned from leave , who strongly objected. 7000 soldiers was barely enough to hold the city, much less send support to another general. Given the distance, by the time he learned that either was in trouble, any relief force would arrive too late to meaningfully help. It’d be better to focus on one campaign or the other. Howe overruled Clinton, and set sail on July 25th . Washington immediately learned of Howe’s departure, but not his intended target. Suspecting another feint, he kept his troops in position near New York. It wasn’t until Howe was spotted in Chesapeake Bay that Washington realized that his target was Philadelphia and marched to meet him. It’s unclear why Howe chose to sail up the Chesapeake rather than the Delaware as it added a week to the voyage, during which he lost both soldiers and supplies to storms. After landing at Head of Elk in Maryland on August 25th, Howe spent another week foraging for supplies, while Washington’s 15,000 men prepared a defensive position along Brandywine Creek between Howe and Philadelphia. Howe finally moved on September 3rd. On September 9th, he arrived at Kennett Square south of Brandywine. Washington had placed his best troops under Anthony Wayne and Nathanael Greene to block Chadd’s Ford, with Pennsylvania militia covering Pyle’s Ford to the south. The rest of the army under John Sullivan was positioned along the riverbank to the north. Once again, British scouting was better than Washington’s and Howe learned of unguarded fords seven miles north of Washington’s position, giving him the opportunity to repeat the Battle of Long Island. Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis would take roughly 9000 men to flank Washington’s right while Hessian Lt. General Wilhelm von Knyphausen distracted Washington by attacking Chadd’s Ford with the remaining 6800. The attack would take place on September 11. At 5:00 am, Cornwallis began his flanking march while Knyphausen advanced towards Chadd’s Ford. Four miles from the Ford, he ran into Washington’s scouts. A sharp battle began around midday as the British forces pushed the Americans back . Meanwhile, Cornwallis was in position by 2 pm. However, he paused to rest his exhausted soldiers, giving Washington’s scouts enough time to discover the movement and warn the general. Washington ordered the right flank to turn and meet the attack. However, the Americans were still moving into position when the attack began at 4 pm. The center and right divisions repelled the initial attack, but the leftmost division had yet to fully form up and was instantly routed by the British Guard brigade. Hessian Jaegers flanked the right division, forcing it to retreat while a bayonet charge dislodged the center . Disaster was averted at 6 pm when Washington directed Greene to move his division to the village of Dilworth to form a rearguard to allow the rest of the army to withdraw. This was successful and by 8 pm the army had escaped. Darkness prevented a British pursuit. Washington fell back, and again Howe paused to forage. The pursuit began on September 13, as Washington tried to block Howe only to be outmaneuvered. Howe marched into Philadelphia on September 26th to find it devoid of government officials and devoid of supplies. Howe was surprised to learn that the Continental Congress had left for York and intended to continue fighting. This left him no choice but to continue to find and destroy Washington. Leaving 3000 men in Philadelphia, Howe moved to Germantown with the remaining 9000. Realizing that Howe was outnumbered and exposed, Washington resolved to attack. Washington intended to launch a multipronged surprise attack at dawn as he’d done at Trenton. His regulars under Sullivan and Greene would advance in two columns to attack the British from the east and north before dawn on October 4th. The militia was divided into two flanking columns to sweep around and attack from the rear. Howe was actively searching for Washington and had placed the men in Germantown in defensive positions with extensive pickets and patrols in the countryside. However, just as at Trenton, the Continental Army’s night march was undetected. Unfortunately, the darkness ruined the columns' coordination, with wet roads and dense fog slowing the advance. The now piecemeal attack wouldn’t begin until after dawn. Sullivan’s column arrived first and successfully pushed through the British lines, to Howe’s immense surprise . Fortunately for the British, 120 soldiers barricaded themselves inside the stone-walled Chew House and successfully drove off repeated Continental attacks . This caused Sullivan’s brigades to become separated in the fog. Running low on ammunition and confused, they began withdrawing. Meanwhile, Greene’s column had arrived and pushed the British back, but the thick fog was made worse by the gunsmoke now covering the town, and Greene’s attack became more confused than Sullivan’s . The militia columns missed the battle completely. By this time the British had recovered from the shock and were advancing against the Americans, so Washington withdrew . The fog had saved Howe from potential disaster. Howe and Washington continued skirmishing until mid-December, when snow finally forced both to enter winter quarters . Howe’s campaign had successfully captured the rebel capital but had strategically failed by not destroying Washington’s army, compounding the results of Burgoyne’s campaign. Burgoyne arrived in Quebec City on May 6th with Germain’s orders to Carlton concerning the invasion plan, to Carlton’s outrage and horror. As a governor, he should have been in overall command with Burgoyne as the field commander. However, Burgoyne was assigned total command, with Carlton simply in support. Worse, Burgoyne was promoted to Lieutenant General above Carlton. Carlton correctly saw this as an insult from Germain and, in retaliation, refused to allow Canadian troops to participate . The horror stemmed from disbelief. Burgoyne was with Carlton during the counterattack that drove America’s Quebec invasion back to Ticonderoga in 1776 and knew, or should have known, that the region was an untamed wilderness with sparse settlements due to harsh terrain and food scarcity. Preparation for the campaign went poorly as well. Burgoyne had roughly 8,000 regulars for the expedition and intended to supplement that by recruiting 2,000 Loyalists and 1,000 native allies. However, as the start date approached, only 250 Loyalists and 500 natives had appeared. Worse, Burgoyne acquired less than half the supply wagons he needed and was so short of horses that his Brunswick Dragoons had no mounts . Despite the shortages, by June 13th, the army was assembled at the northernmost point of Lake Champlain and sailed for Ticonderoga on the 14th. The Continental Northern Department under Major General Philip Schuyler was aware that Burgoyne was planning something, but not what. The northern defences were purposefully undermanned due to supply problems . Fort Ticonderoga’s fortifications were expected to hold the British long enough for reinforcements from New England and lower New York to arrive. Additionally, Kosciuszko and his engineers had surveyed Ticonderoga in May and recommended that the fort’s defences be extended outward to include Sugar Loaf , a hill from which contemporary artillery could reach the fort, but newly arrived Brigadier Arthur St. Clair rejected the idea . There was a more pressing threat to the west. The indigenous tribes were split between those supporting the British and those supporting the Americans, to the point it had broken the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy apart . The British-aligned tribes were increasingly raiding western New York and Pennsylvania, so Schuyler ordered Fort Stanwix to be refurbished and garrisoned. Burgoyne reached Fort Crown Point on June 30. Effective screening by his native allies prevented American scouting. Skirmishing began on July 2nd, and the Americans withdrew from Mount Hope before it could be cut off and captured. That afternoon, the British reached Sugar Loaf, discovered a route to the summit and began building a battery. The Americans quickly discovered this and, realizing the fort was now indefensible as Kosciuszko predicted, retreated on July 5th. Burgoyne pursued both columns, catching but failing to destroy both , and they rejoined Schuyler at Fort Edward. Meanwhile, Burgoyne paused to regroup. For reasons unclear, rather than pull back to Ticonderoga and continue to Lake George as planned, he’d march overland from Skenesboro to Saratoga. Schuyler ordered Kosciuszko to block the roads south, destroying bridges and causeways and damming streams to slow Burgoyne. At the same time, the Mohawk expedition led by Colonel Barry St. Leger was underway. The plan called for 2,000 regulars supplemented by Loyalist militia and native contingents, but St. Leger could only gather 450 regulars, along with 300 militia and 800 primarily Mohawk and Seneca warriors. Despite the low numbers, the only resistance expected was at Ft. Stanwix, which as of 1776 reportedly only had 60 soldiers and dilapidated defenses. The force left Oswego on July 26 and arrived outside Stanwix on August 2nd. However, the garrison had been warned by Oneida scouts about the incoming expedition. This spurred the defenders to bring in supplies, finish rebuilding the defenses, and call for reinforcements, bringing the garrison up to about 400. Finding the fort too strong to assault, St. Leger prepared for a siege. As St. Leger prepared his siege lines, he learned that a relief column of 800 New York militia and Oneida warriors was approaching. Taking his regulars and some warriors, he successfully ambushed the column at Oriskany, killing or capturing over half the force. However, while St. Leger was away, the Stanwix garrison sortied out in force, capturing most of the St. Leger’s supplies and thoroughly looting the Indian’s camp. Consequently, morale plummeted, especially amongst the native contingent. The siege continued on through August. Meanwhile, Major General Benedict Arnold was dispatched with a relief column of regulars. After failing to recruit supplemental militia, he decided not to directly confront St. Leger. Instead, on August 20, Arnold fed a local Loyalist false information about the size of his force and sent him to St. Leger’s camp. The ruse worked. St. Leger’s native allies were already unhappy with the siege and the loss of their possessions. Hearing that Arnold was approaching with overwhelming force, they began deserting en masse, forcing St. Leger to lift the siege and return to Canada on August 22nd. The damage to the existing roads required Burgoyne to build a new one, which prevented him from advancing on Ft. Edward until July 24. The fort was abandoned , and Burgoyne’s supplies were low . Worse, the countryside was rapidly turning hostile. His native allies were indiscriminately raiding while scouting, killing Loyalist Jane McCrea, which Burgoyne left unpunished. Despite learning on August 3rd that Howe had left for Maryland, Burgoyne pressed on with only a mile of progress per day. He sent nearly 1000 men to raid Bennington for supplies, only for the force to be attacked and annihilated by Vermont militia . This defeat, combined with Burgoyne’s disdain for his native scouts, caused most of Burgoyne’s indigenous allies to abandon him. Meanwhile, Schuyler had been replaced by Horatio Gates, who wanted a direct confrontation. Bolstered by militia outraged over Jane McCrea and reinforcements from Washington, he marched north to Bemis Heights just south of Saratoga, where Kosciuszko was preparing new fortifications. Burgoyne learned of St. Leger’s retreat on August 28. He was now alone and had to either immediately retreat to Ticonderoga or make it to Albany before winter. Unable to admit defeat, he chose the latter, crossing the Hudson on September 13 and moving towards Saratoga, making contact with Continental scouts on the 18th. The morning of the 19th was shrouded in fog. Arnold, commanding the American left flank and suspecting an imminent attack, sent Daniel Morgan’s riflemen as a reconnaissance-in-force to Freeman’s Farm. There they found the British advancing on Bemis Heights in three columns, intending to engage the main body before flanking around the hills to the left. Firing from cover, the riflemen picked off every officer in the advance company before scattering the survivors with a charge. The rest of the center column forced Morgan back to the trees , where Gates sent reinforcements. Morgan’s riflemen picked off British officers and artillery crews, almost breaking the center. However, the flanking columns arrived and nearly enveloped his position. Only nightfall saved the Americans , without improving Burgoyne’s strategic position. That night, Burgoyne’s war council decided to attack again on the 21st. That plan was shelved when a letter from Clinton arrived. He’d learned of Burgoyne’s predicament and intended to attack up the Hudson within ten days . Thus the council decided to wait for Clinton to arrive . Meanwhile, supplies were rapidly dwindling, and militia and Continental reinforcements were making their way to Bemis Heights. By October 4th, it was clear that Clinton wasn’t coming . As Burgoyne felt retreat was disgraceful, he opted to try and break out once more. By this point, attrition had reduced his effective army to 5,000 soldiers against Gates’ 12,000. On October 7th, Burgoyne led a reconnaissance-in-force of grenadiers, Hessians, and light infantry to the American left flank. In response, Gates ordered 8,000 soldiers forward to meet them. At 2pm the British grenadiers started firing on the Americans, but it was ineffective due to the terrain. An attempted bayonet charge was routed when the Americans fired at close range. On the opposite side, Morgan’s riflemen swept aside the light infantry and began tearing apart the British right. Brigadier Simon Fraser was mortally wounded leading his men, which caused the entire force to break and flee towards their redoubts. Suddenly, Arnold appeared amongst the Americans. Removed from command after a not-unjustified shouting match with Gates, he arrived to personally lead an attack on the redoubts . The attack on the center failed, so Arnold rode across the battlefield in view of the enemy to lead the successful attack on the left-most redoubt , during which his horse was killed and Arnold’s leg shattered. That night, Burgoyne abandoned Saratoga and retreated back to his crossing point on the Hudson, only to discover the fords held by militia. Now surrounded and with no hope of rescue, Burgoyne surrendered . The news was greeted with jubilation throughout the United States and France. The morale boost was desperately needed after Philadelphia, while Franklin and Vergennes finally had the victory necessary to begin negotiations. In London, Burgoyne was faulted for his overconfidence while Howe was condemned for abandoning Burgoyne. However, this scapegoating covered up Germain’s failure to coordinate the war, which was now clearly being lost. However, this was all cold comfort to Washington’s soldiers, forced to endure a brutal winter in Valley Forge. The Franco-American alliance was a nightmare for London. Not since the Hundred Years’ War had England or later, Great Britain, faced France without European allies. Foreseeing the possibility that France and America might develop closer ties, London sent alliance feelers to every court in Europe in 1777 but returned without any success. Every major power wanted to see Britain humbled, and none of the minor ones were willing to do more than supply Hessians. Britain would have to fight alone. While the salons of Paris celebrated the alliance between the birthplace of the Enlightenment and the nation fighting for its ideals, the French Court in Versailles had less lofty aspirations. While it fully intended to honour the commitments it had made to aid the Continental Army, American independence was not what France was actually fighting for. Rather, King Louis XVI intended to avenge and undo France’s defeat and humiliation in 1763 . An ideal outcome for France would be the full restoration of its 1704 colonial empire, but the realistic goal was to weaken Britain’s position in India and Africa and gain as many Caribbean sugar islands as possible. France was not the only nation with a vendetta against Britain. Spain also burned to avenge the loss of Menorca and Gibraltar in 1704 and Florida in 1763 but was more circumspect. It was already engaged in a colonial war with Portugal and wasn’t about to join in the American Revolution without proper preparations. Moreover, the Spanish King Carlos III was also concerned about Spain’s colonies in South America getting ideas from the United States and rebelling against him. Since the start of hostilities, Spain had been overtly supplying the Americans, first by opening Havana to American merchants, then by supporting the Rodrigue Hortalez and Company operation , and finally by moving supplies up the Mississippi River to American traders. However, this was all the assistance it was prepared to offer. Even after entering the war under the Treaty of Aranjuez , Spain never fought alongside the Americans . Spain’s priority was capturing the British fortress of Gibraltar, which sat right at their doorstep on the south coast of the Iberian Peninsula. On June 16th, King Carlos III of Spain declared war on George III, deploying a large force against Gibraltar. This included 6,000 infantry and cavalry amassing north of the Rock under General Mendoza and later General Soto-Mayor. Moreover, two fleets, deploying 246 cannons, threatened the British possession from the waters of the bay. On the flip side, the Governor of Gibraltar, General George Augustus Eliott, could count on a garrison of 5,400 British and Hanoverian soldiers, 663 artillery pieces, and five ships under Vice Admiral Robert Duff. By June 21st, the Spanish fleets under Vice Admiral Barceló had completed the blockade of Gibraltar, aiming to starve out the defenders. Governor Eliott, himself an austere vegetarian, established a rationing system and ordered his soldiers not to powder their hair with flour, as required by Army regulations, to conserve food stocks. The British Garrison's concerns over provisions were further alleviated as daring freebooters and smugglers dodged the blockade to deliver supplies to them. On July 5th, three privateers dared to sneak past the Spanish line. When a Spanish schooner - disguised as a Portuguese vessel - tried to intercept them, Eliott's gunners opened fire, driving away the treacherous ship. These were the first shots fired during the siege. By early September, the Spanish troops behind the siege lines had increased to 15,000. Engineers were busy digging trenches and erecting artillery batteries along the main fortified line, stretching across the isthmus from Fort St Barbara to Fort St Philip. On September 12th, the British gunners on the North Face of the Rock unleashed a heavy bombardment to slow down the Spanish works. The besiegers responded in turn, and artillery exchanges continued in the following days but with scarce effect on both sides. After this, the siege stagnated to a point where British artillerymen grew so bored that their officers had to formally forbid them from taking alcohol and sex workers to their batteries. Boredom was compounded by malnourishment and a smallpox outbreak, resulting in plummeting morale and several deserters fleeing to the Spanish lines. At the end of December, the Spanish besiegers resumed operations, targeting advanced outposts and foraging expeditions on the isthmus. Eliott and his garrison had to tighten the belt, but help was on its way. On January 26th, 1780, Royal Navy Admiral Rodney entered the bay with a large squadron, escorting a precious convoy of supplies. Rodney's crew included a young midshipman of renown, the future King William IV. At 14 years old, the young Prince had fully embraced the life of a sailor, as while in transit, he went on a bender with his fellow seamen, glugging down pints of grog and engaging in a drunken fistfight! On the night of June 7th, 1780, another supply convoy approached the harbour in the darkness. But the Captain of the British vessel HMS Enterprise listened to the advice of an Admiral from another franchise and opened fire. It was a trap! The convoy was, in fact, a squadron of nine Spanish fireships, which erupted into flames as they drifted towards Vice Admiral Duff's vessels. The garrison and HMS Panther opened fire from their batteries, successfully slowing the advance of the floating, flaming mountains. As a providential breeze blew the fire ships southwards, teams of sailors braved the inferno in their rowboats, grappled the Spanish vessels with iron hooks and towed them away. Enterprise and Panther saw further action on the 24th and 27th of June, engaging with several small Spanish crafts. Neither engagement resulted in substantial casualties. The most dangerous threat so far faced by Governor Eliott was the aforementioned smallpox outbreak, which had claimed 500 victims by August 1780. On October 1st, the Spanish decided to give Eliott another headache when they began another heavy bombardment from their batteries. The British defensive positions were high enough up the north face of the Rock not to be too worried, but some shots managed to land beyond the walls. In a stroke of logistical genius, Eliott had the town streets plowed into deep furrows to deflect the rolling cannon balls. The siege continued without major incidents until April 12th, 1781, when Admiral Darby approached the harbour with a heavily escorted convoy of 97 merchantmen. The Spanish Vice Admiral Barceló did not attempt to engage Darby's fleet, but his gunners did their best to hamper the unloading operations of vital supplies . As Eliott's men hastened to unload the cargo in the New Mole, some 130 guns rained lead and fire upon them. At the same time, Soto-Mayor's land forces opened fire from the north, setting alight parts of Gibraltar Old Town. As timber houses were torn apart by Spanish shots, the garrison discovered that many civilians had been hoarding ample supplies of alcohol! This led to a total breakdown in discipline, as the troops engaged in a binge-drinking spree. Eliott's Hanoverian soldiers, less inclined to drink, helped restore order, and several looters were hanged on the spot. The Spanish artillery continued targeting the Old Town and the defences in the following days. The rate of fire was far from intense, yet it caused a continuous trickle of casualties. It was reported that an unfortunate soldier 'was in the office privy easing nature when a ball took off his head and left his body, the only remains, to finishing nature's cause'. Soto-Mayor was inclined to inflict more casualties and, during June 1781, ordered the construction of four new batteries, adding 49 pieces of artillery to his panoply. The siege works continued until October, as approach trenches snaked progressively closer to the Rock. On November 21st, two deserters entered Gibraltar and informed Eliott that the Spanish troops now numbered 21,000 and were planning further forward works. The Governor decided to launch a pre-emptive strike, a sortie against the besiegers' lines. This attack was scheduled on the night of 26 and 27 November 1781. Overall operation command was entrusted to Brigadier General Ross, who would lead 2,014 troops split into three columns. The right-hand column led the attack, advancing through Forbes Barrier just before 3 AM on November 27th. The three columns cleared the patch of swamp land known as Inundation Obstacle and approached the Spanish forward lines. In later conflicting reports, it appeared that these trenches had been manned only by between 80 and 400 troops. Clearly, the besiegers had been entirely taken by surprise and hastily fell back. General Ross' men, covered from artillery atop the Rock, took to levelling the Spanish fortifications, destroying batteries and filling ditches. They smashed the gun carriages and sabotaged 28 artillery pieces by driving iron spikes into their vents. Finally, they set about setting fire to supply stores and gunpowder magazines. At this stage, Governor Eliott joined the exciting expedition, to the surprise and dismay of General Ross. Eliott addressed Ross: 'What do you think of this business? Is it not something extraordinary?' The gruff reply was: 'Most extraordinary to find you here.' Eliott personally saw to the demolition of the main Spanish powder magazine. Soon, all the depots blew up in ground-shaking detonations. The Spanish Captain in charge of the arsenals, José Barboza, died in the action. His report for the night, compiled before the attack, read: 'Nothing extraordinary had happened.' After recovering from the initial stupor of surprise, the Spanish began to fight back viciously, targeting the British and Hanoverians with grape-shot, followed by a cavalry charge. But the sortie columns were already returning to the fortress and suffered only four dead and 25 wounded. It was a fruitless effort on the Spanish part and did not change the fact that months of their engineering work had been devastated in little more than an hour. Despite their shaken morale, the Spanish immediately started re-building their forward batteries, completing the work by December. Logically, Eliott could have dared a second foray, but his troops were exhausted by another outbreak of disease, scurvy, which incapacitated 15% of the garrison. In February of 1782, the Governor was stricken with more bad news: the British garrison defending Minorca had surrendered to a Franco-Spanish force. With one front closing, the Franco-Spanish allies could devote more troops against Gibraltar. Sure enough, in the following weeks, the besieging parties outside his walls increased to 35,000, led by a new commander, the French General Count De Crillon. In April, a Spanish deserter brought precious intelligence. De Crillon and his chief engineer D'Arçon were hatching a new plan to bombard Gibraltar's western side from the bay by using 'battering ships.' Ten obsolete hulks were modified to become floating artillery batteries, fielding 212 guns. The guns and crews were protected by sloping roofs covered in rope netting and wet hides. The sides of the ships were constructed with layers of sand and cork. D'Arçon had also designed a system of water pumps and pipes to extinguish fires on board. Ironically, a man called Arçon had conceived a method to protect his ships from … arson. The chief engineer set to work in May. All the while, General De Crillon did his best to keep Eliott busy. On June 11th, a Spanish mortar scored a direct hit on a British powder magazine, lighting a massive explosion and causing 29 casualties. In July, freshly arrived French vessels engaged the Royal Navy in several small-scale battles as they carried more reinforcements to the siege lines. Eliott did not sit idle, and on September 8th, 1782, all the British batteries along the fortifications opened fire, killing or wounding 300 French and Spanish troops. The besiegers returned fire over the following days, supported by a naval squadron firing broadsides from the bay. The defenders fought back against the enemy vessels, targeting them with 'red hot shot:' small cannon ammunition preheated in furnaces. These small rounds proved effective at setting the ships' timber on fire. But the day of the big showdown was drawing closer. On September 13th, the battering ships were towed into position in a single file parallel to the western walls of the Rock . The five ships on the rear ran into sandbanks under the shallow waters and took little part in the subsequent action. The forward five ships, however, were more than enough to commence an awesome bombardment, sowing destruction on the seafront. The Gibraltar batteries responded to the fire, but D'Arçon's ingenious defences deflected even their heaviest rounds. Luckily for Eliott, the Franco-Spanish infantry on the north side of the Rock showed little initiative, allowing him to concentrate against the attack from the sea. All the while, the British gunners' furnaces were hard at work, and by midday, they started spewing wheelbarrows full of 'red hot shot.' The bombardment with this type of ammo initially seemed to have little effect as D'Arçon's measures kept the fire under control. But the red-hot shot, smouldering within the wooden planks, eventually did its job. The two leading battering ships, Talla Piedra and Pastora, were set alight in the evening. One after another, the other three leading vessels began to burst into flames. The five top ships were eventually consumed by fire or exploded around midnight. The remaining five were set alight and abandoned by their crews. A land attack, planned for the morning after, was eventually cancelled by General De Crillon, fearing heavy losses without the artillery support from the battering ships. Two weeks after the failed attack, a Royal Navy frigate brought more good news to Eliott. Admiral Howe was on his way with a relief convoy, which included 42 naval vessels and 31 merchantmen. Howe arrived in sight of Gibraltar on October 11th, but a strong gale from the west prevented him from landing, and the fleet was blown eastwards. The Franco-Spanish fleet, under Admiral Cordoba, gave chase into the Mediterranean. The skillful Howe managed to evade his pursuers, and on the 17th, his ships moored in Gibraltar. The Admiral made it just in time to unload his cargo of food, ammunition and 1,600 troops before Cordoba reappeared on the 19th. Howe set sail back to England, breaking away from Cordoba after a short battle west of Gibraltar. The Spanish Admiral had his revenge on the night of October 23rd, when his gunboats sank the cutter Hector in the bay. Despite this, besiegers dramatically reduced their activity, and many troops were observed leaving camp. Commander De Crillon was simply not interested in continuing a costly siege. The events that we will discuss further in this video ended the Great Siege of Gibraltar for him. While most of the Spanish military was devoted to that campaign, Spain still directed resources to the Caribbean theatre. A campaign to reconquer Florida was launched from New Orleans, while paranoia of another British invasion of Cuba or Central America kept Spain’s Caribbean forces on the defensive . French strategy, meanwhile, depended on their rebuilt navy. Their defeat in the Seven Years’ War had spurred not only an expansion of the French fleet but also updates to their naval technology. Improvements and standardization of ship designs made construction and repair easier, with new masts and rigging designs making them faster and more maneuverable. While still smaller than the Royal Navy , the French Navy was once again a significant threat. However, its crews were inexperienced, and many officers were actually transferred to army officers, still learning how to sail. The plan was for the fleet at Brest to draw the Royal Navy’s attention by challenging it in the English Channel . If the Home Fleet could be decisively defeated or another opportunity arose, then an invasion force of 40,000, already assembled in northern France, would be landed in England. If not, then it was to force Britain to keep as many ships as possible at home, allowing the rest of the fleet to operate more freely in the Mediterranean , African , Indian , and Caribbean waters. The operations in foreign waters were of particular interest to the Americans. The Continental Navy had attempted to widen the war through raids throughout the Caribbean, Canadian coast, and most famously, John Paul Jones’ raids on Britain, but couldn’t do enough damage to draw British strength away from America. Meanwhile, the entry of French naval power into the war forced Britain to rethink its naval strategy. Transporting, supplying, and reinforcing the American army had required most of its ships and personnel, leaving many squadrons and naval garrisons understrength. Worse, victory had caused complacency. While Royal Navy officers and sailors remained highly trained and aggressive , their ships had not kept up. There’d been no need to replace ships post-war, and much of the fleet was over 20 years old and outdated. Consequently, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, recommended the withdrawal of naval forces from America to Europe, for there weren’t enough ships in Europe to effectively blockade the French and protect home waters. The Caribbean squadrons would be reinforced, with only the bare minimum of ships left in New York to keep supply lines open. Lord North only partially agreed to the plan. Lord Sandwich was allowed to withdraw forces from North America to reinforce the Caribbean and Europe , but not to his proposed extent. North had not given up on offensive operations against the colonies. Instead, he intended to change focus, which would require significant naval resources. The northern colonies had proven to be hard targets, but the southern colonies looked soft. Sparsely defended and populated, the southern colonies were considered hotbeds of Loyalist activity thanks to a high number of plantation owners tied to the British aristocracy. Thus, Britain would shift focus to reclaiming the South. During the winter of 1777-1778, Lord North directed George Germain, Secretary of State for the American Department, to forbid further offensives in the northern colonies and withdraw British forces towards the Atlantic coast and the Quebec border . 8,000 troops would be transferred from the American front to the Caribbean. Doing so functionally conceded that there would be an independent United States after the war. The only question was its size. Additionally, in early 1778, North dispatched a peace commission headed by the Earl of Carlisle. He was to offer the Continental Congress peace in exchange for returning to the empire, under what would be called dominion status in the 19th and 20th centuries . While Congress would have leapt at the offer in 1775, three years of war had pushed them too far from London to accept anything but independence, and the proposal was dead on arrival. However, that may have been the point. North didn’t tell the commissioners he’d ordered the withdrawal from Philadelphia a month before sending them, a move he knew would stiffen Congress’ resolve. The humiliated commissioners wondered publicly if the peace offer was just a ploy, a question modern historians echo. Meanwhile, there was drama in the Continental camp. Congress was deeply frustrated with Commander-in-Chief General George Washington’s battlefield failures and his decision to adopt a Fabian strategy . Horatio Gates’ victory at Saratoga had won him considerable support, and Congress was struggling to pay and supply its soldiers and needed a swift end to the war. A loose faction soon developed under Inspector General Thomas Conway, seeking to replace Washington with Gates. Washington countered the “Conway Cabal” by appearing disinterested and aloof from politics, letting his allies in Congress defend him. This strategy succeeded thanks to his opponents turning on each other. A subordinate outed Gates’ distaste for Washington, and when confronted, Gates blamed then distanced himself from Conway, begging for forgiveness. Conway resigned in disgrace in April 1778, removing the immediate threat but not the criticism. While this drama played out, the Continental Army suffered. The winter of 1777-1778 was hard and made harder by supply problems. Its winter camp at Valley Forge was exposed to the elements and isolated, and many soldiers lacked sufficient winter clothes. Martha Washington organized army wives to knit and sew blankets, gloves, and wool socks for the soldiers, but it wasn’t enough. Despite many of the outposts being well-supplied and sheltered, the men at the main camp suffered terribly, with over 1,000 dying of hypothermia and frostbite. However, amidst the suffering, there was a bright spot. On February 23, 1778, a Prussian officer claiming to be Lt. General Baron von Steuben arrived at Washington’s camp. While in reality he was neither a general nor a noble , he was a skilled drill instructor. Washington desperately wanted a Prussian-style army, and von Steuben was happy to provide. Forming a model unit of 120 men drawn from every regiment, von Steuben drilled them relentlessly in Prussian tactics, particularly bayonet fighting, before sending them to train their home units. By June, Washington finally had the army he’d always wanted and intended to use it. Meanwhile, British Commander-in-Chief William Howe resigned in October 1777, protesting the lack of support for his campaign, lack of recognition for taking Philadelphia, and unfair criticism for not supporting Burgoyne. His resignation wasn’t accepted until April, leaving Henry Clinton to assume command, to both Clinton’s and North’s chagrin. Clinton had fundamentally disagreed with North’s policies and Howe’s conduct of the war from the beginning and had tried repeatedly to either gain an independent command or be relieved of duty. However, he was the only senior general left in the Americas after Guy Carlton resigned in protest , leaving him as the only option. Clinton firmly believed that any opportunity to win the war had been lost in 1776 due to insufficient troops and that the best course of action was a withdrawal to the frontiers, using Loyalists and allied native tribes to create a buffer for the more valuable Canadian colonies and limit the United States’ growth potential. However, doing so was unacceptable to the British public and Whitehall, so his orders were to withdraw to New York as swiftly as possible and prepare the upcoming southern campaign. Washington had planned to lure Clinton into battle at the earliest opportunity to restore faith in the Continental Army, but after learning of the Franco-American Alliance, his officers advised waiting for French reinforcements. Washington agreed, directing his New Jersey brigade and their militia to raid British supplies and scout British movements , maintain contact with Clinton, and keep Washington informed of their movements. Clinton’s orders were to depart Philadelphia for the Delaware River and return to New York via the fleet as quickly as possible. However, the naval redeployment meant that he only had enough transports for half his army. Deciding that splitting his army was suicidal without extensive fortifications and naval support to protect those left behind, Clinton resolved to march overland, sending his heavy equipment and Loyalist civilians to New York with the fleet. Washington received his first indications of Clinton’s plan when Marquis de Lafayette's reconnaissance force at Barren Hill was almost captured by a British force several times its size. Clinton was actively seeking to prevent Washington from learning of the withdrawal. By June 18th, the evacuation was complete . Washington learned of the evacuation on June 17, immediately calling a council of war. Only two of his 17 generals thought the Continental Army was ready for a direct confrontation, with Charles Lee saying that doing so would be criminal. Thus, Washington decided to follow Clinton on a parallel route, keeping close enough to strike if an opportunity arose but far enough to prevent Clinton from doing the same. The New Jersey contingent was reinforced by Daniel Morgan’s riflemen and ordered to make Clinton’s march as unpleasant as possible. On June 24th, the militia reported that Clinton’s march was slowing, but they weren’t responsible for this turn of events. Clinton seemed to be lingering in New Jersey to provoke Washington to attack . That night, at another council of war, Washington’s generals again advised against a direct confrontation, though his more aggressive generals advocated for a limited action against the British rearguard. Eager to expunge the previous year’s defeats, Washington agreed and dispatched Lafayette the next morning. Lafayette was overly eager to fight and raced ahead of his supplies and the rest of the army, almost catching the entire British army before Washington recalled him. Lee was sent to Englishtown with reinforcements to take over command of the vanguard, now 4500 strong. Washington gave orders to engage the British at the best opportunity but left no battle plan since he didn’t know when or where that would be . Lee decided to wait for Clinton to move first, hoping that his line would string out and allow him to pick off a significant group of stragglers in the June heat . Clinton deployed the Loyalist Queen’s Ranger company to screen his rear as he moved from camp near Monmouth Courthouse on the 28th. At 08:00, militia scouts began skirmishing with the Rangers. Lee’s troops arrived in time to watch the Rangers withdraw and waited for the whole vanguard to arrive before crossing the bridges to pursue. Finally advancing along the Englishtown road, Lee attempted to envelop the British rearguard just past Monmouth, believing them only 2,000 strong . The British withdrew to the northeast as their dragoons tried to delay the Continental advance . Lee and Lafayette were moving up the Middletown road to engage , but Lee neglected to inform his other officers of the plan or maintain contact with them. As such, when British reinforcements arrived to help the rearguard, the other columns pulled back to defensive positions in the woods. When his staff reported losing contact with their other units, Lee realized his plan was ruined. As soon as contact was reported, Clinton ordered Charles Cornwallis to return to Monmouth in force , not just to relieve the rearguard but to destroy the Continental vanguard. Realizing the situation, Lee ordered a retreat to the west, which was only barely carried out after staff officers desperately searched for the lost units. After reaching the Ker House, Lee began to unravel. When Washington’s staff officers met with him to report back, he said he didn’t know what to say and didn’t provide any further information. Now panicked by British troops moving artillery onto a knoll overlooking his position, Lee retreated further across the Spotswood Middle Bridge, only in control of the units he could see. Having received no reports, Washington had not hurried the army’s march and was shocked when stragglers, then whole units from Lee’s command, retreated into the advancing army without any orders or idea where they were going. Washington rode forward to find Lee struggling to organize a defensive line along the bridge. A furious confrontation followed, during which Washington rebuked Lee for losing control of his men and failing to give battle before riding off to personally organize the defence, leaving a confused Lee where he found him. Meanwhile, Cornwallis had pursued, with Clinton following, and his leading grenadier and guard units began engaging the Continental vanguard at 13:00. By 13:30, the Continentals had successfully withdrawn all troops and artillery to Washington’s line on Perrine’s Hill. There, they repelled a series of attacks before both sides settled into a two-hour-long artillery duel. During the duel, more men fell to the heat than enemy fire, including William Hays, whose wife Mary took over his gun position, becoming the nucleus of the legend of Molly Pitcher . By 16:00, Nathaniel Green had managed to flank the British left with his artillery , forcing Clinton to begin withdrawing. Washington ordered the army forward, engaging and pushing back the units guarding the retreat. Clinton ordered a phased withdrawal, but his orders were misunderstood, and the whole army began falling back. British counterattacks slowed but didn’t stop the Continental advance before nightfall. Washington intended to continue the battle the next day, but Clinton would withdraw during the night and make it safely to Sandy Hook, withdrawing into New York by July 6th. In purely military terms, the battle at Monmouth Courthouse was indecisive and pointless, with Clinton completing his withdrawal as if the battle hadn’t happened. Casualty figures are unclear due to heat casualties and Clinton deliberately misreporting his losses to make it look like a great victory, but historians believe the maximum casualties for the Continental Army were 500 total to the British 1100. However, in the grand strategic view, Monmouth was a tremendous American victory. Clinton would never rechallenge Washington, and the Continental Army had at last proved that it could hold the field against the British . More importantly, Washington’s leadership during the battle and Lee’s subsequent court-martial removed the last challenge to his position. His critics silenced, Washington began building a ring of fortifications to contain Clinton in New York, with the lynchpin being Tadeusz Kosciuszko’s masterpiece at West Point. Meanwhile, back in April, the French had dispatched Comte d'Estaing with 12 ships-of-the-line and 4,000 troops to America. After confused orders prevented a British intercept near Gibraltar, d’Estaing arrived at Sandy Hook on July 11, missing his chance to trap Clinton. Sandbars convinced d’Estaing not to attack New York, to Clinton’s relief, so instead, he and Washington agreed to move against Newport, Rhode Island. Captured in 1776, Newport had served not only as a supply base for New York but as a staging ground for devastating raids in Connecticut and Massachusetts. General John Sullivan had been unable to recapture Newport due to a lack of soldiers and supplies. With Clinton contained and d’Estaing en route, Washington sent Sullivan reinforcements under Greene and Lafayette. d’Estaing left New York on July 22nd, pursued by nine ships-of-the-line under Admiral Richard Howe. Arriving off Rhode Island on the 29th, d’Estaing and Sullivan planned to land the French troops, blockade the harbour, then besiege the British garrison. Instead, Howe arrived on August 9, and d’Estaing reloaded his troops and sailed out to seek Howe for battle on the 10th. However, a storm scattered and damaged both fleets. d’Estaing’s fleet didn’t reassemble until August 20, at which time it was clear he had to return to Boston for repairs. Sullivan maintained his siege lines, hoping d’Estaing would return in time to launch an attack. However, by the 28th, he realized that staying was pointless and prepared to withdraw. The British attempted to capitalize but suffered heavy casualties in ineffective frontal attacks. The Battle of Rhode Island was the last major engagement in the northern theatre, with the British abandoning Newport in October 1779 to free up troops for the southern campaign. Peace had come for the North but not the West. The American frontier had always been a perilous place, but the Revolution brought new danger. While initially reluctant to involve the Indigenous tribes, by 1777, the British were actively arming friendly tribes and launching them against American settlements. This led to severe retaliation against indigenous communities perpetrated by American colonials. Following the Saratoga campaign , the British-aligned Iroquois tribes who left the confederation had been attacking American farming settlements in upper New York and Pennsylvania. Using Fort Niagara as a staging ground, the Mohawk and Seneca launched numerous devastating raids and massacres alongside Loyalist John Butler’s Rangers and smaller native contingents, with the worst occurring in Wyoming and Cherry Valleys . While militia and Continental forces burned native villages in revenge, by 1779, the damage done to Continental food supplies demanded a larger response. Washington was determined to end the native threat permanently, but tracking and destroying the war parties in the wilderness was prohibitively difficult. Instead, Gen. Sullivan and 3200 troops would march from Easton, Pennsylvania into Iroquois territory while another column moved up the Mohawk in a scorched earth campaign, destroying the raiders’ supply lines and safe havens before converging and taking Fort Niagara . At least 40 primarily Seneca villages were burned, and 5,000 Indigenous peoples were displaced. However, the difficult terrain and skirmishing against native war parties prevented the planned attack on Niagara . Despite the devastation of the Iroquois heartland, raids would continue until the end of the war. Further south, Kentucky had been opened to settlement by the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1768, but the Shawnee had disputed the treaty, resulting in a low-level but persistent war between them and Virginian settlers. Beginning in 1777, the British at Fort Detroit began supporting the Shawnee, aiming to drive out the Virginians. In response, Virginia’s governor, Patrick Henry, dispatched about 200 militia rangers under Lt. Col. George Rogers Clark, later remembered as the Long Knives, to counter the threat. Clark planned to take the formerly French settlements in Illinois to use as bases to attack Detroit. Setting out from Kentucky on June 24, 1778, Clark travelled down the Ohio river before marching overland to Vincennes, taking the undefended Ft. Sackville bloodlessly . The French-speaking population was won over by news of the Franco-American Alliance and agreed to swear loyalty to Virginia. The other towns in the region quickly followed suit. Hearing of the fall, the British moved out of Ft. Detroit in August. Initially only 175 soldiers and militia, the British expedition drew in volunteers and native warriors as it advanced. Arriving at Vincennes 500 strong, the local French population immediately switched allegiance. Most of the militia then dispersed, leaving only 90 to garrison the retaken Sackville. Clark moved from Kaskaskia to recapture Vincennes on February 6, 1779 with 170 men. He reached the fort on February 23rd, forcing its surrender on the 25th. While Clark never had the manpower or supplies to threaten Detroit, the British would never challenge American control in Illinois, functionally conceding the western frontier. Meanwhile, Calcutta was about to make London’s strategic situation worse. Britain’s ability to fund the war in N orth America depended on the profits from Indian trade. As war with France loomed, London asked the East India Company’s directors not to rock the boat and risk trade disruptions. It couldn’t afford the current war without the vital Indian trade. While the Company’s shareholders were happy to agree, the situation in India was far more complicated. Victory in the Third Carnatic War and the Bengal War had made the Company the dominant power on the Indian coast. However, the Company’s finances were still shaky following a banking crisis in 1772, compounded by inconsistent exports from India, increasing costs from administering its Indian territory, and internal corruption. The Tea Act had been intended to alleviate the financial pressure, and its failure deepened the crisis. The rivalry between the Company’s three presidencies exacerbated these problems. By 1775, many of the Company’s officers were looking at territorial expansion to solve their financial issues, advance their careers, and undercut their internal rivals. However, that was already going wrong. The Bombay presidency had become entangled in Maratha politics and caused the First Anglo-Maratha War , which was proving a costly quagmire. Governor-General William Hastings was supporting Bombay from Calcutta while dealing with a major rebellion in Bengal . This left the Madras army with nothing to do and orders to do nothing, which their commanders deeply resented. Meanwhile, the French East India Company had been allowed to maintain its Indian trading ports following its defeats. However, it lost the right to fortify them extensively or station more than the bare minimum of soldiers needed to keep order, ensuring it could never directly challenge the British again. However, they did not concede India to Britain. Instead, they were using arms sales and diplomacy with anti-British rulers to undermine and threaten British hegemony. The French were well aware of the risks and relied on these Indian rulers to find them indispensable and protect them should the British seek retribution. Madras desperately wanted to take action, especially as the main French bases were inside their sphere of influence. However, Hastings had made clear that they were not to initiate another war, especially with Hyder Ali of Mysore silently seething nearby. The ambitious warlord had battled the Company a decade earlier for a favorable but disappointing peace treaty. Ali had hoped for a full alliance with the British against the Maratha Confederacy, but Calcutta refused. It had instead agreed on a defensive alliance, committing Ali and the Company to defend each other if attacked. He’d chosen to interpret this as the Company would defend his territory from invasion, despite the Company being perfectly clear that it only applied to defensive wars. Operating under this hopeful delusion, Ali reignited his ongoing war with the Marathas in 1770. When this started going poorly, he invoked the alliance, only for the Company to refuse to help him. In fairness, they’d already been drawn into a separate war with the Marathas and had no aid to send. More importantly, they’d told him all along that they wouldn’t support him if he was the aggressor. Humiliated and disappointed, Ali chose to blame the British as treaty breakers and began cultivating an alliance with the French through their base as Mahé. Southern India was a powder keg awaiting a spark. News arrived in July 1778 that France and Britain had recalled their ambassadors and war was imminent. Madras also received orders to take the remaining French Indian holdings, which General Hector Munro eagerly prepared to do. Pondicherry fell in October, and Munro had completed his task by taking Mahé by 1779. This was done in spite of Ali warning Munro against it, as he’d placed the city under his protection and helped garrison it. This provided the perfect pretext for Ali, and alongside his son Tipu Sultan, he invaded the Carnatic in July 1780, initiating the Second Anglo-Mysore War. After initially overwhelming the British defenses, Ali’s campaign stalled while he besieged Arcot, enabling Munro to regroup and counterattack. The war would sway back and forth for the next three years as both London and Versailles would send additional naval and land reinforcements to the theater, further straining their budgets and draining resources from the main theater. The shift in focus to the southern states made slavery relevant to the war. Slavery was legal and recognized throughout the British Empire, but not in Britain itself. The King’s Bench ruled in the 1772 case Somerset vs Stewart that, quote: “The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law,” and “It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law.” Slavery had never been codified in England, so it didn’t exist there. Moreover, Scotland would rule similarly a few years later. However, since Britain’s overseas colonies had codified slavery, the dubious institution did exist on those shores. Before and during the American Revolution, African slaves in the British Empire were primarily concentrated in the Caribbean colonies, with the southern American colonies a distant second. Chattel slavery only made economic sense on large, cash-crop agriculture plantations, and those only worked in warm climates. The plantations of the southern United States and the Caribbean were the ideal vehicle for slaveholding. In contrast, while slaves were present in the northern colonies , their mercantile economies precluded widespread slaveholding. The attitude of both the British and Americans towards Africans, enslaved or free, was complicated. Many religious institutions and Enlightenment scholars regarded slavery as immoral, with the Quakers being particularly vocal in their contempt for the practice. Consequently, many educated Americans and Europeans strongly disliked the institution, but it was also regarded as an economic necessity, and immediate emancipation had little support. Many instead favoured gradual emancipation, in which slavery would be gradually phased out, with financial compensation provided for the slave owners. George Washington’s attitude towards slavery encapsulates these contradictions. Born a slaveholder in a slaveholding society, he grew up accepting slavery as a matter of course. As he grew older, he began regarding slavery as evil, publicly denouncing the slave trade. He initially resisted allowing black freedmen to serve in the Continental Army but gradually accepted them and black Patriots more generally, sometimes looking the other way when runaway slaves were sheltered in the ranks. Ultimately, between 5,000 to 9,000 black Americans would serve in the Army. At the same time, Washington jealously guarded his own slaves and aggressively sought to recover runaways. This paradoxical attitude was present on both sides before and during the war. However, the shift to the South, where slavery defined the economy, brought it to the forefront. There was a bitter irony in the British decision to shift southward in 1778. The British had failed in the northern states in part thanks to London’s refusal to believe how sparse support for the crown actually was. The long crisis, focused on New England, had heavily drained the region of Loyalists prior to 1775. The circumstances surrounding the war’s outbreak had further depleted them to nearly nothing. However, in the southern colonies, Loyalism had been relatively high, validating British assumptions. Many southern planters had strong ties to the British aristocracy. Moreover, the southern colonies were also strongly connected both culturally and economically to the British Caribbean colonies. Many backcountry communities, particularly German and Scottish immigrants, remained Loyal due to the British protecting them from persecution at home and keeping the native Cherokee tribes on their doorstep placated. Consequently, when hostilities broke out in April of 1775, the Carolinas and Georgia hadn’t immediately thrown in with Massachusetts. As the youngest colony , Georgia had the closest ties to the mother country that even its Patriots were loath to sever. Thus, it was the last to join the Continental Congress and retained its royal governor, James Wright, until January 1776. Meanwhile, Georgia’s northern neighbours had housecleaning to do. In Virginia, Governor Lord Dunmore had resisted the Patriots, first by handing over supply caches to the Royal Navy and then by raising Loyalist militia against them. When his efforts to raise this militia resulted in a low turnout, he’d issued a proclamation emancipating any Patriot-owned slave who joined his forces. While this did lead to between 800 and 2,000 slaves joining his cause , Dunmore was driven from mainland Virginia in January 1776 by overwhelming Patriot numbers. Thereafter, he fled to the Chesapeake Islands. Meanwhile in the Carolinas’, the coastal communities were overwhelmingly Patriot, but the interior leaned slightly Loyalist. Tensions between these two opposing communities rose during the summer of 1775, with violence finally breaking out in September. The ensuing conflict, remembered as the Snow Campaign, saw thousands of militia on both sides turn out to fight. The better-led and organized Patriots rapidly dispersed the Loyalist militia and arrested most of their leaders, ending the threat by January. Surviving Loyalists would join with the Cherokee in attacking the Carolinas in 1776, only to be crushed by the militia response. Had the British provided sufficient support to either Loyalist effort, it is likely that a foothold could have been established, if not a whole colony reclaimed. Instead, London’s gaze was firmly affixed on Massachusetts and the southern Loyalists were ignored. With the exception of raiding expeditions between Georgian militia and the East Florida garrison , the only official British operation was Henry Clinton’s failed opportunistic attack on Charleston in 1776. Consequently, by 1778 the Tidewater and Piedmont were devoid of active Loyalists and the backcountry’s numbers were depleted. Following the capture of Savannah, the British fanned out through Georgia. The Continental Southern Department, under Benjamin Lincoln, had previously been concerned with manning the defenses around Charleston, South Carolina, as well as maintaining frontier forts against Cherokee attack. As such, they were spread too thinly to directly oppose the British in Savannah. However, with Washington’s Fabian strategy, they wouldn’t need to. Campbell and Brigadier Augustine Prevost were able to seize Augusta by early February. However, they abandoned their conquest on February 12th. While Loyalists were turning out, their numbers were insufficient. The British could only hold territory so long as regulars were present. As soon as they marched off, the Loyalists were immediately overwhelmed by Patriot militia. Lincoln's troops attacked isolated garrisons and patrols too strong for the militia. Despite Governor Wright’s return and July declaration that Georgia was restored to the crown, in reality the British only controlled Savannah. In an effort to break the stalemate in April Prevost led his army north, intending to take Charleston. The column was largely unopposed as the local militia fell back, until finally halting and retreating 10 miles from Charleston due to the approach of Lincoln’s army, after winning a rearguard action at Stono Ferry. Lincoln also wanted to end the stalemate by capturing Savannah, something that would not be possible without naval support. Following the Newport debacle, France’s Comte d’Estaing had left Boston for the Caribbean, France’s primary strategic focus. While d’Estaing was willing to aid Lincoln, his orders were to campaign in the Caribbean until the Atlantic hurricane season forced him to leave. In late August, d’Estaing judged that the time had come and sent word to Lincoln that he was en route. Lincoln received the message on September 3rd and moved out on September 8 to meet d’Estaing’s 25 ships-of-the-line and 4,000 men, including 500 free men of colour from St. Domingue, modern Haiti. D’Estaing landed south of Savannah on September 12, and his soldiers began marching on the 16th. Overconfident of victory, d’Estaing demanded the British surrender, then agreed to a 24-hour truce to consider. This delay allowed British reinforcements to arrive with poor communication, with Lincoln’s hurried deployments preventing an intercept. On September 19th, French frigates engaged the British in the main channel. Following a withdrawal, most were scuttled to block the French advance. Undeterred, the coalition forces began constructing siege lines while d’Estaing unloaded cannons from his ships. On October 3, the bombardment began. For reasons unclear, the defences were mostly ignored in favour of hitting the city. By the 8th, it was clear that the bombardment had failed. Frustrated and aware of disease outbreaks in the fleet and the risk of hurricanes making their way up the coast, d’Estaing called a council of war. Unwilling and unable to wait any longer, he ordered an assault, targeting Spring Hill redoubt on the British right. It would take place the next day. Every officer present argued against it, but d’Estaing refused to listen. It was a disaster. A deserter warned Prevost about the impending attack, and he shifted his defences accordingly. The dawn fog caused the assault force to get lost and disorganized in the swamps and rice fields. By the time the force was actually advancing, the British were well-prepared and rested. Despite reaching the British trenches, the assault column was devastated. D’Estaing was wounded twice, while the Continental cavalry commander, Count Casimir Pulaski, was killed. The coalition suffered 900 casualties to barely 150 for the British. Finally admitting defeat, d’Estaing withdrew to the Caribbean, forcing Lincoln to lift the siege. Back in New York, British Commander-in-Chief Henry Clinton was surprised by the news. Since Monmouth Courthouse, he and Washington had been ineffectively probing each other's defences around New York while fighting a war of raids and espionage. Clinton was ahead on the visible aspects of this conflict , but Washington would ultimately win thanks to his Culper Spy Ring, which would thoroughly penetrate British New York. Clinton had started 1779 being highly skeptical of the southern campaign. He’d committed a minimum of resources to the effort, choosing to make London prove its belief in the Loyalists rather than risk more British soldiers. His skepticism proved correct, as only 1000 Loyalists arrived to bolster Prevost. Beholden to London’s orders, Clinton was unable to simply abandon the campaign, but he was also unwilling to support it. Instead, Clinton sought another source of soldiers. In June, Clinton issued the Philipsburg Proclamation, stating that any black person captured aiding the Patriot cause would be immediately sold into slavery while any slave held by the Patriots that joined the British army would be freed. While the Proclamation cost the British some Loyalist support as many of their slaves fled alongside the intended Patriot slaves, it had the intended effect, and 20,000 slaves would flee to the British during the Southern campaign. While Prevost and Lincoln ineffectually maneuvered at each other, the British were losing West Florida. The governor of Spanish Louisiana, Bernardo de Galvez, had been warned in April to prepare for war. Spain was going to formally declare war on May 8th, and Madrid wanted all Spanish forces ready. Galvez’s orders were first and foremost to defend New Orleans, then to secure as much of West Florida as possible. However, Galvez had no intention of leaving the British anything. Galvez received formal notice of war on July 21st, but he kept this secret. He knew the British were preparing their own offensive against New Orleans and wanted them to think he was unaware. With the element of surprise secured, Galvez began marching upriver on August 27. He had 520 regulars and 150 militia, which he grew to a maximum of 900 by recruiting Arcadians and Indians on the march. On September 7th, Galvez overran the decayed ruin of Fort Bute, killing the Hessian grenadier on guard duty and capturing another 16. 6 survivors escaped north to warn Baton Rouge the Spanish were coming. Galvez arrived there September 12, finding 400 British regulars and 150 militia inside an earthen redoubt surrounded by an 18 ft wide moat. The fort’s position was such that Galvez could not place his own artillery within range of the walls without exposing them to British fire. Thus, he decided that deception was the better part of valor. After deploying part of his regulars to block the roads north, preventing any communication with other British garrisons. He then had his least trained militia create disturbances in the nearby woods to draw British fire. It worked, and while the British bombarded the woods, Galvez’s men rushed to dig trenches and build musket pits within range of the fort. Even once the British realized what was going on, the musket fire sufficiently suppressed the British artillery for Galvez to place his cannons. On September 21st, he added heavy mortars to the barrage, which wreaked sufficient havoc inside the earthen walls that the British surrendered. As its commander was the ranking British officer in lower Louisiana, Galvez forced him to surrender the other garrison at Fort Panmure, modern Natchez, securing the Mississippi river for Spain. Positioned on cliffs, this position would have been nearly impossible for Galvez to take otherwise. After dismissing his militia, Galvez left all but 50 regulars to garrison his conquests and returned to New Orleans, where Spanish and American privateers were capturing British supply ships attempting to reach Baton Rouge. Galvez was praised for his successful campaign and promoted to Brigadier General. However, he wasn’t finished. Before marching north, Galvez had requested additional troops from Havana. However, Viceroy Martín de Mayorga Ferrer had prioritized defending Cuba over any offensive actions in the Caribbean theater, and no troops were sent. This had not changed by the time Galvez returned, and so he had to raise another 700 soldiers for his planned move on West Florida, where he correctly guessed the British were slowly preparing for their own attack on New Orleans. Alerted by his scouts and privateer William Pickles, captain of the Galveztown, that Fort Charlotte outside Mobile was being rebuilt, on January 1st, 1780, Galvez dispatched a lieutenant to Havana to personally appeal to Governor Valladares for aid before sailing with 750 soldiers for Mobile on January 11th, rendezvousing with Pickles on January 20th. Despite a storm scattering the fleet on February 6th, every ship arrived at Mobile Point by February 9th, securing the bay’s entrance. The 300 soldiers under Captain Elias Durnford garrisoned at Fort Charlotte had spent 1779 successfully bringing the dilapidated fort back to fighting condition. The defenses were strong enough that Galvez was uncertain of how to proceed until 450 reinforcements arrived from Havana on February 20th. This enabled him to land his force at the mouth of the Dog River and march overland to besiege the fort. On March 1st, Galvez asked Durnford to surrender, which was politely declined. For the next two weeks, in between bombardments, the two commanders exchanged passive-aggressive letters criticizing each other’s siegecraft. In one memorable exchange, Galvez asked why Durnford had burned much of the town to deny it to the Spanish despite them not using the buildings. Durnford responded by asking why the Spanish weren’t showing better military sense, attacking from the high ground north of the fort and away from the town. Meanwhile, the primary British garrison at Pensacola had marched out on March 5 to relieve the siege. However, it became hopelessly mired trying to cross the numerous rivers between Pensacola and Mobile and never got close. On March 13, Spanish gunners breached Charlotte’s walls, and Durnford surrendered the next day. Galvez hoped to march on to Pensacola immediately, taking advantage of the confusion the failed relief had caused. However, he needed heavier ships to counter Pensacola’s fortifications. These weren’t forthcoming, and in April, a British fleet reinforced the garrison. With any opportunity for an attack gone, Galvez garrisoned Mobile and sailed for Havana, hoping to raise the needed troops and fleet himself. This force of 64 ships was finally assembled in October, only to sail into a hurricane, killing 2,000 of the 4,000 men in Galvez’s invasion force. It took more than a month for the survivors to regroup in Havana, and the invasion was postponed to 1781. Following the coalition’s failure at Savannah, Clinton changed his mind. The South was far more open to invasion than it seemed. Therefore, he recalled the remaining northern garrisons to New York and began planning a new offensive. Charleston would be the target, partially to erase his previous failure, but mostly for strategic reasons. As the fourth largest city in America, Charleston had become the young rebel nation’s most important port and its primary base for the Continental Navy due to the Royal Navy's presence in the north. If the British could take Charleston, they would shut off the exports keeping the Continental Congress’ budget alive. On December 26, Clinton left New York for Savannah with 14 warships and 8,000 soldiers. Battered by winter storms the whole way south, Clinton arrived off Tybee Island on February 1st. He then waited a week for stragglers to arrive and fresh supplies to be acquired. Lincoln knew of Clinton’s arrival and knew Charleston was the target. On paper, the Southern Department had about 5,000 regulars in Charleston, which constituted most of its strength. In reality, only about 1,500 of these men were combat-ready due to age and disease. However, their numbers were supplemented by 2,500 militia. In addition, two frigates and six smaller warships were in the harbour. Expecting Clinton to attack by the sea like the first time, Lincoln focused on repairing the defences of forts Moultrie and Johnson at the harbour mouth, neglecting the landward defences. This would prove to be a fatal mistake. Clinton had learned from his mistakes and instead of trying to take Charleston by sea, landed 30 miles south of the city on Simmons Island . From there, paused to call in reinforcements, then proceeded towards Charleston cautiously, building supply depots as he went. On March 20, the British fleet arrived outside the harbour, with six frigates slipping over the sandbar and past ineffective cannon fire from the forts. The Continental Navy was unprepared for battle and upon realizing that victory was impossible, scuttled its ships in the Cooper River to block the British advance. Clinton crossed the Ashley River and invested the city on March 29. Lincoln’s lack of preparation allowed Clinton to get within 800 yards of the city before encountering resistance . Realizing that Lincoln still had an escape route over the Cooper, Clinton dispatched the British Legion to seal the city. This Legion consisted of 500 enlisted Loyalist light infantry and cavalry and was led by British Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Tarleton accomplished this on April 14 via a surprise cavalry charge on Moncks Corner , the only open route over the Cooper. The militia guarding it routed, at the cost of 100 men dead or captured, to only three wounded Legionnaires. Tarleton pulled the same trick on May 6th, seizing Lenud’s Ferry and, with it, fully encircling Charleston. Lincoln realized that the situation was hopeless by April 21 but hoped to be allowed to surrender under the honours of war and march out of the city with his army intact. Clinton refused any terms but an unconditional surrender, which Lincoln finally agreed to on May 12 after British artillery set Charleston alight. It was the worst American defeat of the entire war, with the Continental Army’s Southern Department almost completely destroyed. Following the surrender, about 500 survivors from outlying outposts and late-arriving reinforcements began retreating back north. Clinton again dispatched Tarleton to chase them. Taking 270 men, he caught up to them in the Waxhaws region on May 28, but his forces were too strung out and tired from the hard ride to engage immediately. The next day, as the column continued its retreat, Tarleton sent an officer under flag of truce to demand the Americans surrender, mostly to delay them so the rest of his forces could catch up. Knowing that the officer was greatly exaggerating British numbers to intimidate him, the American colonel refused and rearranged his column to prepare for an attack on the rearguard . That attack came at 15:00, and the column turned to face the assault. Unfortunately, none of them had ever faced a cavalry charge before and only managed a single ineffective volley before Tarleton’s 170 men smashed through the lines, routing them. What happened next is controversial. Patriots claimed that the Americans attempted to surrender, only for the Legionnaires to start indiscriminately slaughtering them. Tarleton claimed he never saw a white flag raised before being trapped under his dead horse . His men, thinking him dead, meted out revenge, causing the carnage. Regardless of the circumstances, over 300 Americans became casualties to 17 British losses. Following the battle, the Legion would fan out into the countryside, seeking to crush any remaining resistance. Their indiscriminate looting and brutality, coupled with Patriot propaganda over the Waxhaws massacre, earned Tarleton the nickname “Bloody Ban.” Clinton returned to New York with half the army on June 5th, leaving Charles Cornwallis in command of the southern army. His orders were to complete the pacification of Georgia and South Carolina before taking North Carolina. He did this by dispersing garrisons and patrols throughout the interior while remaining in Charleston. Meanwhile, Washington dispatched his best infantry, the Maryland and Delaware Lines, under Horatio Gates to rescue the situation. The army linked up with southern survivors at Buffalo Ford , and on July 27th, Gates ordered his 1500 soldiers to march directly for Camden, South Carolina. This was his first mistake, as the area was devoid of settlements or easy forage, leading to food shortages. During the march south, Virginia and North Carolina militia joined the army, bringing its numbers to 4,000. Here, Gates made his second mistake. He’d not brought more than a token cavalry force, but he declined to add militia cavalry to his army. He also detached some of his regulars to raid British supplies. These decisions left his troops without sufficient scouts. Gates told his aides that he didn’t intend to attack the British and would instead prepare defences north of Camden to force the 1000-strong British garrison to retreat. Cornwallis learned of Gates’ advance on August 9th and moved from Charleston with 1100 men to defend Camden. The two armies closed on each other, aware of their presence but oblivious to either’s position. On August 15th, both generals ordered night marches to reach their intended defensive positions. At 02:00 on the 16th, the vanguards literally ran into each other. After a moment of confusion, both armies separated to wait for dawn. Following British infantry doctrine, both sides formed their lines with their most experienced troops on the right and least on the left and a small reserve. This was Gates’ third and most egregious mistake, as his inexperienced militia faced the cream of the British army. Gates placed himself behind his reserves, too far to see the battle develop. This would be his final mistake. Both armies advanced, the British leading with bayonets. The Virginia militia had never seen battle before and fled in a panic without firing a shot. A letter told Virginia’s governor, Thomas Jefferson, to “picture it as bad as you possibly can and it will not be as bad as it really is.” The Virginian’s panic caused the North Carolinians to also flee, except for those anchored to the Delaware Line. Simultaneously, the Continental regulars repelled two British charges before counterattacking. The British left would have broken, but for Cornwallis rallying them himself. Then, the British right turned while Tarleton wheeled around the Continental’s exposed rear. Realizing the situation, Gates abandoned his army, fleeing 180 miles in three days. Boxed in, only a handful of Continentals and the reserve escaped via the swamps. With a second American army destroyed, resistance to Cornwallis collapsed. All remaining Continental forces fled to North Carolina, and the militia dispersed. The only unit still active was Colonel Francis Marion’s militia company. Operating out of the Carolina swamps, he harried British supply convoys and frustrated all pursuit, earning the nickname “Swamp Fox.” Marion prevented the takeover of Williamsburg County, but the rest of the South Carolina Tidewater and Piedmont fell. That accomplished, Cornwallis invaded North Carolina . However, the southern backcountry remained outside his control. To secure this flank, he dispatched Major Patrick Furguson in May with the local Loyalist militia companies to modern Lincoln County, North Carolina. His orders were to disperse any remaining Patriot resistance and recruit more militia from the backcountry Loyalists to hold the region. This provoked the Overmountain Men. These primarily Scotch-Irish frontiersmen from beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains were fiercely anti-British, though until now, they’d been entirely concerned with fighting the Cherokee and Shawnee. Furguson’s approach changed their focus, and the muster was called. On August 18, 200 Overmountain militia ambushed and drove off a mixed force of 500 Loyalist militia and regulars at Musgrove Mill. Furguson pursued, and the militia fell back over the mountains to Sycamore Shoals. Reinforced with more Overmountain militia and 400 Virginia militia, the now 900-strong force set out to confront Furguson . Furguson had given up the chase in mid-September, setting camp in Gilbert Town, North Carolina, to muster the local Loyalists. When word reached him of the militia’s approach, Furguson decided to withdraw his 1100 Loyalists to Charlotte and link up with Cornwallis. Rather than push his march to reach Charlotte, he made camp on Kings Mountain in South Carolina and sent a letter to Cornwallis asking for reinforcements. This allowed the Patriots to catch him, marching through the night of October 6 until afternoon on the 7th. At 15:00, the Patriots arrived at Kings Mountain. Furguson was completely unaware of their approach and hadn’t fortified his camp. The Patriots quickly and silently surrounded the Loyalists before launching a series of surprise attacks on the summit. Furguson rallied his men and tried to break out via a bayonet charge, only for the Patriots to withdraw behind the trees and rocks before reopening fire on the exposed Loyalists. This and two subsequent charges failed to drive off the Patriots, who were using the angle and cover of the mountain slopes to outshoot the Loyalists. After an hour of fighting, the Loyalists began to surrender. In a final effort to inspire them or possibly escape, Furguson led one final charge to break through, only to fall to Patriot fire. This led the Loyalists to start surrendering en masse, only for many Patriots to respond, “Give ‘em Tarleton’s quarter,” and continue firing. It was only the intervention of the Patriot officers which prevented outright massacre. Kings Mountain was the largest fight between American troops during the war, as only Furguson was British. The loss of the Loyalist column forced Cornwallis to retreat to Charleston, a bitter end to a successful year and confirmation that the British could not control the backcountry. Despite a string of decisive British victories, they had failed to put the Americans on the ropes, and the revolution continued. Britain was losing the war. In India, France and its ally, the Kingdom of Mysore, were threatening the British East India Company’s hegemony. In the Caribbean theatre, France gradually gained the upper hand, and sugar islands fell. An attempt to retake the momentum by capturing Martinique was ruined by the Great Hurricane of 1780 . The deadliest hurricane ever recorded in the western hemisphere sank 15 British warships and demasted seven more throughout the Atlantic. In contrast, only one French frigate sunk. Worse, it left no tree or building standing on Barbados, including the naval facilities and forts. Survivors reported the forts’ heavy cannons flying 100 feet in the air. It seemed nature itself had turned on Britain. Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Mobile in West Florida had all fallen to Spanish Louisiana's governor Bernardo de Ga҆lvez. Pensacola was saved when another hurricane scattered the Spanish fleet but would not withstand another siege. Meanwhile, Gibraltar had survived its first trial , but the Great Siege was still unbroken. Lord North’s government had been unpopular before France joined the war, and with the war going increasingly poorly, it was teetering toward collapse. The Whig opposition’s calls for peace at any price were gaining strength as Britain’s finances and strategic position crumbled. As Cornwallis’ victories had been the only bright spot in 1780, North and George Germain were increasingly pressuring him to give them more and save their administration. Things weren’t fully going France’s way either. While the war was proceeding successfully, it was proceeding too slowly. French finances were nearing collapse. Already billions of livres in debt, Louis XVI’s personal credit was cratering as he took out more loans to fund the war. Most of France’s currency was being spent on its military, and what was left was paying for the Continental Army. France couldn’t afford to continue fighting much longer. Consequently, Versailles secretly decided to take a more active role in North America to force an end to that conflict. Orders were issued to more actively support the Continental Army with both land and naval units as the opportunity arose, but French officers weren’t to make any commitments. Intervention needed to be on French terms and at French convenience. It was critical that any new operation in North America did not jeopardize France’s strategic position in the Caribbean. By 1781, France had captured Dominica, Tobago, Grenada, and St. Vincent while only losing St. Lucia. This was neither as impressive a feat nor as overwhelming a French advantage as it sounds. The European powers had been fighting over those islands since the 1600s and knew that Caribbean campaigns were hard to win but easy to lose. The cash crops which made the Caribbean islands valuable left little room for food production, requiring many to import all their food supplies. A short naval blockade was frequently all it took to starve out a garrison. However, garrisoning every island was too costly. Instead, each European power would strongly garrison the largest island it controlled in a given chain and use that to exert control over the smaller ones. Geography dictated operations throughout the Lesser Antilles. Most islands had a single natural harbor where the primary, or often only, settlement was located. As the extensive beaches allowed a landing almost anywhere, the defenders would concentrate on holding that port, which was extensively fortified on both the landward and seaward approaches. Attackers would land overwhelming troops nearby and besiege the fortifications while the navy established a blockade. If the defenders didn’t expect naval reinforcements quickly, they’d simply surrender. Even when reinforcements did arrive, unless they could drive off the opposing fleet, the land battle wouldn’t matter.Consequently, whichever side held the naval advantage could dictate the campaign. However, that advantage would quickly disappear in the event of a decisive naval defeat. Ships were expensive and hard to replace, so a single battle could permanently cripple a fleet. Up until now, the French had maintained the advantage, but keeping it relied on never suffering a major defeat at sea. Thus, the French navy was under orders to avoid fighting at a disadvantage or give the British the opportunity to trap them, which hampered their strategic options. Meanwhile, 1780 had proved a mixed bag for George Washington and the Continental Army. Over the summer, they’d finished hemming Clinton into New York , even repelling several attempts to stop them. However, the betrayal and defection of Benedict Arnold in September was a huge disgrace. The southern campaign was a disaster, but Horatio Gates’ humiliation at Camden was a blessing. It enabled Washington to sideline the arrogant and obstinate general while also silencing those in Congress who still dreamed that open, decisive battles would win the war. Washington replaced Gates with Nathaniel Greene, whom Washington wanted in command all along. To assist him, Washington dispatched Col. “Light Horse” Harry Lee’s cavalry and asked Daniel Morgan to postpone his retirement for one last fight in the backwoods. Greene had proven to be Washington’s most dependable officer and a gifted strategist, and the rough terrain of the Carolinas was Lee and Morgan’s natural habitat. Washington gave Greene two primary orders: First, to preserve his army. Second, to defeat Cornwallis. Greene took command of the Southern Department in October 1780. He had roughly 1500 soldiers ready to fight, of which only 950 were Continental Regulars. The arrival of Lee’s Legion brought that up to 2000, but Cornwallis’ army of roughly 3500 still dwarfed them. There were limited reinforcements and replacements available besides militia, who weren’t keen to fight in the fall rains or remain in camp waiting. Thus, Greene decided to refit and resupply his army on the march, moving south to reoccupy Charlotte following Cornwallis’ withdrawal. Morgan joined him on December 3rd, and Greene began to plan his campaign against Cornwallis, who was growing desperate. Cornwallis’ army was falling apart in the Carolina backcountry from desertion, hunger, and disease. His badly overstretched supply lines were under constant militia harassment, and no reinforcements were available. Cornwallis’ only orders from Commander-in-Chief Henry Clinton were to conquer Georgia and the Carolinas without any vision of how. Clinton was distracted, clashing with Vice Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot over war strategy. The men couldn’t and wouldn’t work together , but neither could one prosecute the war without the other. Thus, Clinton de facto abdicated all responsibility for the upcoming year’s strategy to Cornwallis, who planned to reinvade North Carolina as soon as practical. Greene and his war council agreed that fighting Cornwallis in open battle was stupid. Instead, they would trick him into dividing his army into defeatable chunks and draw the rest into the wilderness to starve. To achieve this, Greene first sent Lee to link up with Francis Marion’s guerillas and raid Cornwallis’ supply lines, hoping to draw off Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion. Meanwhile, Morgan would take 400 regulars and 200 experienced militia to the western end of the Catawba to reassure the populace, recruit more militia, and forage for supplies . Cornwallis learned of Morgan’s movement shortly after Christmas, which threatened his flank. Further, his intelligence wrongly told him that Morgan was moving against the exposed garrison at Ninety-Six . Tarleton’s light troops were quickly dispatched as reinforcements. Upon reaching Ninety-Six and realizing that Morgan wasn’t actually coming, Tarleton called for and received heavier troops to confront Morgan in the backcountry . This proved disastrous. Quickly learning that Tarleton was after him, Morgan hatched a plan. He withdrew north towards the Broad River, arriving just past Hannah’s Cowpens on January 16. Tarleton had been pushing the march to catch up across swollen rivers and muddy roads and would, therefore, arrive exhausted. Knowing that Tarleton would immediately attack anyway, Morgan prepared his roughly 1800 troops to take advantage of Tarleton’s arrogance. First, Morgan placed the army between the Broad and Pacolet Rivers, making sure his soldiers knew there was no escape. It would be victory or death. Second, he placed his regulars on a low hill between a ravine and a creek. Next, to encourage Tarleton to launch a reckless attack, he placed the militia in front of his regulars with orders to fire two volleys before retreating into the woods on the left. In front of the militia, he placed sharpshooters, whose primary job was to bait Tarleton to attack if he showed any sign of pausing to think. Tarleton roused his 1150 men at 02:00 on January 17 for their fifth day of forced marching and the third without food. Learning the location and composition of Morgan’s troops, Tarleton pushed his men harder, smelling another victory. Reaching Cowpens just before dawn, Tarleton prepared to attack immediately, with his infantry in the center, dragoons on the wings, and his Legionaries in reserve. Immediately after emerging from the woods, Tarleton ordered his dragoons forward, only for the sharpshooters to force them back. Not waiting for the dragoons to reform nor for all his infantry to emerge, Tarleton ordered an infantry charge. The sharpshooters withdrew to the second line and joined them in firing two volleys before retreating. As expected, Tarleton took the bait and recklessly advanced into the teeth of the Continental regulars. As the center began to falter, the 71st Highlanders attempted to flank the American right. The Virginia militia in the area misunderstood orders to intercept them and began an orderly withdrawal. The Highlanders broke ranks to chase them down, only for the Virginians to realize their mistake, about-face, and fire directly into the Scots’ faces, breaking them. At the same time, the Continentals launched a bayonet charge, which broke the British line. Many exhausted regulars simply threw themselves on the ground among the wounded. Tarleton ordered his Legionaries to attack, only for them to flee. Desperate, he organized a final charge with 50 dragoons, only to be surprised by the American cavalry. In the melee, Tarleton and the American commander wounded each other in a duel, though Tarleton escaped . Less than 200 British soldiers escaped the battle at the cost of only 150 American casualties. When Tarleton rejoined Cornwallis, the latter snapped his sword in anger. In fairness to Tarleton, he’d easily won every other battle he’d ever commanded with a frontal cavalry charge. However, his arrogance had cost Cornwallis a quarter of his army, including most of his best troops. Morgan moved out from Cowpens within a few hours of the battle to regroup with Greene, correctly believing that Cornwallis would react strongly to Tarleton’s disaster. His position in central Carolina was untenable, but to retreat following defeat was disgraceful. Cornwallis’ back was to the wall. The only honourable solution was to move out and crush Greene immediately in an open battle. In his own words, “The loss of my light troops could only be remedied by the activity of the whole corps.” Cornwallis ordered all but the most crucial baggage burned, including his own tent, to make the forced march north faster . After forcing his way past Continental skirmishers guarding the Catawba fords on the 31st, he was delayed crossing the Yadkin due to a lack of boats . Meanwhile, Greene moved to reunite his command. On February 3rd, he met Morgan near Trading Ford, with Lee rejoining on the 7th near Guilford Court House. With Cornwallis bearing down, Greene withdrew along the backcountry roads, marching towards the Dan River and safety. By February 10, Cornwallis was 35 miles from Greene, moving fast enough to catch Greene before he reached the Dan. Greene detached his light troops, sending them on a longer route to hopefully distract and redirect Cornwallis from the slower-moving main force. It worked. While Cornwallis chased the light troops, Greene escaped across the Dan midday on February 14th , after Tadeusz Kosciuszko requisitioned every watercraft on the river. The light troops then raced 40 miles in 16 hours to beat Cornwallis over the river by less than three hours. Cornwallis’ desperate march had been for nothing. With the Race to the Dan lost, Cornwallis withdrew to Hillsboro to forage for supplies. It was a fool’s errand, as the area was already thoroughly depleted. 240 miles from his supply base at Camden, Cornwallis resorted to indiscriminately plundering farms to feed his army. Meanwhile, Greene’s army found Halifax County, Virginia, rich in food, clothing, and recruits. After a week’s rest and refit, Greene dispatched Lee back across the Dan to “discourage” any remaining Loyalists and capture or kill Tarleton if the opportunity arose. Cornwallis had placed his last hope for resupply on untapped Loyalists flocking to the royal banner. About 400 Loyalists under Dr. John Pyle from Chatham County answered. Lee found them on February 24th while looking for Tarleton. The Loyalists mistook Lee for Tarleton, who was supposed to escort them to Cornwallis , as the men wore similar uniforms. Once inside the militia’s camp, Lee attacked, killing 93 and scattering the rest, breaking Loyalist morale and putting an end to them as a military force. Meanwhile, Greene recrossed the Dan on February 22nd. With his army reduced to 2000 men by disease and desertion, Cornwallis moved south across Alamance Creek, still hoping to receive Loyalist reinforcements before engaging. Greene made camp 15 miles away to pin down Cornwallis. By March 6, it was clear to Cornwallis that he had to force a battle and march out of camp. Greene, reinforced by North Carolina militia to 4400 men, retreated to Guilford Courthouse and made ready to fight. The two armies first clashed before dawn as the scouts collided near New Garden Meeting House. Greene used the now-retired Morgan’s tactic of deploying his army in three lines: the first behind a split-rail fence composed of North Carolina militia and Virginia riflemen, the second the Virginia militia, the third his Continentals and artillery . Cornwallis arrived on the field around 13:30 and attacked in two assault columns. The battle developed as at Cowpens, with the first two American lines firing into the British before retiring behind the third. However, unlike at Cowpens the British were rested and began pushing through the third line. Then, a Continental countercharge threatened to overwhelm the British line. Realizing the danger, Cornwallis ordered his cannons to fire grapeshot into the melee, killing both Continentals and his own soldiers but successfully stopping the melee. To avoid another Camden, Greene withdrew. Cornwallis won the battle, but it was utterly pyrrhic. He’d suffered 526 casualties, rendering his army combat ineffective, and gained nothing but more uninhabited wilderness. His efforts to spin the battle as a great victory were laughed out of Parliament. Adding insult to injury, his men had no tents and suffered through torrential rains for the next several days. Greene had about 300 casualties, but his strategy had always been, as he said, “We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again.” Cornwallis retreated to Hillsboro again, again raised the royal standard to call for Loyalists, and again none came. Lacking any other choice, he was forced to march for Wilmington, hoping the Royal Navy could resupply and reinforce him. Greene marched on Camden to lure Cornwallis back, but he didn’t take the bait. So, Greene went on the offensive. By October, he’d retaken the southern interior, with the British only holding Charleston and Savannah. Meanwhile, the Spanish conquest of West Florida continued. British West Florida’s commander, Major General John Campbell, lacked the resources to do more than delay Galvez’s advance across the Gulf Coast during 1779-1780. He was further hampered by disputes with the civilian administration and fears of attack from the nearby Choctaw and Muscogee Creek tribes. However, the damage Galvez suffered in the 1780 hurricane season created an opening to counterattack. Having finally negotiated an alliance with the local tribes, Campbell ordered Waldeck Hessian Colonel Johann von Hanxleden to take 180 soldiers and militia, rendezvous with 420 Choctaw warriors, and retake Mobile. The expedition moved out on January 3, 1781. On January 6, it arrived at The Village on the east side of Mobile Bay. Hanxleden planned a dawn attack against the 200-strong Spanish garrison, with his soldiers launching a direct attack towards the fort and the Choctaw sweeping around the sides on his signal. The attack took the Spanish outpost by surprise, killing or capturing most of the 40 soldiers outside the outpost. However, the rest of the Spanish calmly manned the ramparts and returned fire, killing Hanxleden. Without his leadership, the attack came apart and was driven off by a Spanish bayonet charge. The Choctaw didn’t engage, as some had broken off to scalp the fallen Spanish, and the rest were waiting for Hanxleden’s signal, which would never come. Campbell gave up on offensive operations. Without an extensive naval garrison , he could not repel an invasion. None was forthcoming, so he instead planned to make Pensacola as costly to take as possible. To strengthen Fort George , his 1300 troops built two redoubts to the north and improved the fort’s gun positions. A battery was built at the entrance to Pensacola Bay. Additionally, he made deals for both Choctaw and Creek warriors to harass the Spanish once they arrived. Galvez sailed from Havana on February 28 with 1300 soldiers. Accompanying him was a Spanish naval squadron under Captain Joe Calvo, consisting of the 64-gun San Ramon, two frigates and two sloops. The Galvezstown and three other Louisianan ships accompanied the fleet. The fleet arrived off Pensacola on March 9, seizing undefended Santa Rosa Island to use as a base. During the night, a British brig slipped out of the harbor to alert Jamaica. On March 11, the Spanish ships were unloaded, and cannons on Santa Rosa forced the remaining British sloops back to their harbor. Calvo attempted to lead the fleet into Pensacola Bay, only to ground San Ramon on a sandbar. After unsticking the vessel, he ordered all ships into deeper water and refused to further engage. After much arguing, Galvez used his authority as Louisiana's governor to commandeer Galvezstown and the other Louisiana ships and sailed into the bay on March 18 despite fire from the battery. On the 19th, the rest of the smaller ships followed Galvez’s route into the harbor while Calvo sulked back to Havana. Galvez prepared a fortified camp at Sutton’s Lagoon and began scouting Pensacola’s defenses. On the 22nd, 900 men arrived after an overland march from Mobile, followed by 1600 men by sea from New Orleans. However, Galvez was soon stymied by Campbell’s native allies harassing his scouting and foraging parties. Nonetheless, the Spanish gradually advanced their siege trenches towards the British redoubts. Galvez was wounded directing operations on April 12th, and it looked like the campaign was losing momentum. During a significant Choctaw raid on the 19th, the Spanish spotted an approaching fleet. Not expecting additional reinforcements, Galvez feared the worst but was shocked when it was a Franco-Spanish fleet. Havana had sent the fleet after learning that a British fleet was sailing into the Gulf of Mexico. The reinforcements landed on April 22nd, bringing the force up to 8,000. However, continued Choctaw raids and garrison sallies prevented the force from beginning the siege proper until April 30, when Spanish gun positions finally ranged the British redoubts. Over the next week, a series of trench raids threatened to push the Spanish back. However, on May 8, a lucky howitzer shell flew through the door of the northernmost redoubt’s magazine, detonating it. Once the dust settled, the Spanish helped themselves to the ruins and began bombarding Fort George proper. Realizing the situation was hopeless, Campbell surrendered. West Florida was Spanish again. As a reward for the victory, Galvez was promoted to Lieutenant General and placed in command of Spanish land forces in the Caribbean with an eye toward further operations as soon as possible. Cornwallis reached Wilmington on April 7th to find limited supplies and paltry reinforcements. London had begun to communicate directly with Cornwallis, violating chain of command protocols and leaving Clinton uninformed. Thus, Clinton didn’t know how desperate Cornwallis actually was and hadn’t prepared the needed relief. This left Cornwallis conflicted. His only orders from Clinton were to remain in the Carolinas, but that was impossible without substantial reinforcements. The nearest source was in Virginia, where British Brigadier Benedict Arnold and Major General William Philips were campaigning. Pressured by Germain to move north and secure Virginia, Cornwallis abandoned the Carolinas and began marching north. Back north, the British had been wreaking economic devastation on Virginia while Marquis de Lafayette and Baron von Steuben harassed them, under orders to first preserve their armies and second, summarily hang Arnold. Philips and Arnold were camped near Petersburg when Cornwallis sent word that he was moving to link up with them. As he did so, he indiscriminately looted and burned every farm he came across, seeking food and horses for his soldiers and the nearly 12,000 slaves following him. Cornwallis arrived on May 19, finding Phillips dead of fever and the soldiers grumbling about being led by a traitor. Taking command, Cornwallis sent Arnold back to New York to finally inform Clinton about the situation. While waiting for the response, he decided to execute Philips’ orders from Clinton to fortify either Yorktown or Portsmouth, choosing the latter. On the way, he engaged with Lafayette, winning some minor engagements. Meanwhile, on May 6, Washington received good news. The French army under Comte de Rochambeau, which had been defending the French fleet holding in Newport for the past year, was being released to him, and the Caribbean fleet, now under Comte de Grasse, might be able to come north to help him in late summer. He’d finally have the numbers for decisive action. Meanwhile, Clinton was furious at Cornwallis, knowing the southern colonies were now lost again. However, it was too late to turn him back, and Clinton had bigger problems. The French arrived in Washington’s camp on July 7, and it looked like they were planning to storm New York. Apparently confused or uninformed about Cornwallis’ position, Clinton sent two letters, one ordering Cornwallis to move to Yorktown, the other to Williamsburg, and send all unneeded troops to defend New York. As he was already en route to Portsmouth, Cornwallis chose to move there instead. On July 20th, as troops were loading into transports, new orders arrived. Cornwallis was to instead move with all troops to either Williamsburg or Yorktown to build a deep-water port at the navy’s request. Irritated, Cornwallis still loaded his whole army and sailed for Yorktown, arriving August 6th, with Lafayette following by land. Back in New York, Washington actually was hoping to use French aid to storm New York. However, all his officers and Rochambeau were against it. They favoured moving against Cornwallis, a softer target. Washington held out until August 14th, when updates on de Grasse’s plans arrived. De Grasse had the discretion to sail as far north as Chesapeake Bay, but only if it didn’t risk his Caribbean gains. Determined to sail north, de Grasse received assurances the Spanish would protect French colonies now in exchange for help with Spanish operations that November. This enabled him to set sail on August 15th . Realizing New York was off the table, Washington finally agreed to move south. Taking his best troops with him, Washington and Rochambeau began marching to Virginia on August 19th. Lafayette was ordered to keep Cornwallis in Yorktown . To keep Clinton in New York, Washington used a multilayered deception in addition to leaving behind substantial garrisons . First, the Culper Ring fed Clinton real information about Washington’s desire to attack, then disinformation about his plans to attack. Secondly, Washington had troops visibly march along the New Jersey shore, carrying boats and making camp as if they intended to attack Staten Island. Third, he kept the target of his actual march a secret. The deception worked. Clinton didn’t believe his scouts' reports that Washington was gone until September 2nd. De Grasse arrived off Yorktown on August 30th. Meanwhile, the Newport fleet had sailed for Yorktown on August 25th, carrying the French siege equipment . The British were aware of both movements, and Rear Admiral Thomas Graves, Arbuthnot’s replacement, sailed with 5 New York-based capital ships and 14 from the Caribbean fleet to intercept de Grasse. On September 5th, Graves was surprised to find de Grasse’s fleet in the Chesapeake, who was, in turn, surprised to see Graves at all. While de Grasse scrambled to get his 24 capital ships into fighting order, Graves moved to block the bay’s mouth . Concerned about shoals and already leaky ships, Graves didn’t try to intercept the French as they formed. Instead, he waited until 14:00, when the French were moving east from the bay entrance, to order his ships to wear and engage. The fleets’ vanguards engaged at 16:00, with the centers engaging around 17:00 . The battling fleets drifted eastward until nightfall. The older British ships took more damage than the French, but the battle was otherwise a tactical draw. The fleets continued drifting without engaging until September 9th, when the Newport fleet successfully entered the Chesapeake. Having accomplished his mission, de Grasse returned to Yorktown while Graves sailed to New York for repairs. Washington arrived outside Yorktown on September 17th after stopping to visit his home, Mt. Vernon, for the first time since the war began. By September 26, the army of roughly 9,000 American regulars and militia and 11,000 French soldiers was assembled, and the order was given to lay siege. The allied forces bombarded Cornwallis’ 9,000 troops, gradually moving closer to the city over the coming weeks. Despite constant pleas for help from Cornwallis, no help ever came from Clinton. Clinton had promised to send 5000 reinforcements and later a relief force, but Clinton’s war council concluded that until control of the sea was reestablished, relief was impossible. It would take too long and be too costly to march to Virginia, assuming they could even break out. Thus, any relief had to wait for the fleet to be repaired. Graves wasn’t ready to sail until October 19th, which was too late to save Cornwallis. Following the allies successfully storming his redoubts , Cornwallis attempted to cross the York at Gloucester Point , only for a storm to wreck his boats. With the bombardment intensifying and no relief in sight, Cornwallis surrendered on October 17th. Cornwallis asked to receive the honours of war, only to be told that he’d get the same honours shown to Benjamin Lincoln's army at Charleston. Humiliated, Cornwallis refused to surrender in person, claiming illness. Instead, he sent his subordinate Brigadier Charles O’Hara to offer his sword to Rochambeau, who refused to accept and directed him to Washington, who in turn directed O’Hara to hand it to the recently exchanged Lincoln. An apocryphal tale claims that the British bands played “The World Turn’d Upside Down” as the soldiers laid down their weapons. Contrary to popular belief, the victory at Yorktown didn’t end the American Revolution. However, it did start the chain of events that led to the end of the war two years later. Admiral Thomas Graves’ relief force arrived off Yorktown on October 24, five days after Charles Cornwallis formally surrendered. After rescuing stranded Loyalists, he sighted France’s Comte de Grasse’s fleet but did not engage with it. The French still outnumbered him , and with Cornwallis already lost, his mission had failed. Graves, therefore, returned to New York to report to Commander-in-Chief Henry Clinton. Cornwallis’ 8000 soldiers were marched to camps and prison towns throughout the American interior while the sailors and engineers were loaded onto French ships. The roughly 12000 escaped slaves among the British were imprisoned to be returned to their masters alongside looted American property. That accomplished, de Grasse returned to the Caribbean while the Continental Army marched to New York. Comte de Rochambeau’s French army wintered in Virginia, preparing to be redeployed to other theatres in spring. Upon Graves’ return to New York, Clinton reportedly despaired. The war he’d never wanted to direct was now completely lost. Nathaniel Greene’s campaign had already pinned the British to the coast, with only Charleston and a small garrison in Wilmington to show for the entire 1780-1781 campaign. Wilmington was quickly abandoned as there were no resources to support it. Not waiting for orders from London, Clinton abandoned all plans for offensive action against the Americans and ordered all forces to stay close to their supply bases. George Washington arrived in New York in late November and set winter quarters in Newburgh. This was the Continental Army’s final encampment. For the next two years, British and American soldiers stared at each other across their fortifications. The armies never campaigned again. Occasional clashes between patrols or skirmishes between Patriot militias and Loyalist holdouts were the only hostilities in the east. The main war was over, but the frontier war continued. The recapture of Vincennes had convinced the British that confronting the Americans in central Illinois was suicidal. However, Detroit would not concede. Instead, the British planned a multipronged campaign to isolate Vincennes and conquer Spanish Louisiana. Per this plan, the West Florida garrison would capture New Orleans, then retake Natchez. Troops from Detroit would recruit allies from the prairie tribes, then take St. Louis and Cahokia before advancing down the Mississippi. Meanwhile, Captain Henry Bird would take 150 British soldiers and 1000 native allies, primarily Shawnee, and drive the Americans from western Kentucky. Isolated and surrounded, the Vincennes would have to surrender. The plan was a failure. The Spanish overran most of West Florida in 1779 while the attacks on St. Louis and Cahokia broke against their fortifications. Bird’s Kentucky expedition killed around 20 settlers and took at least 300 captives but never threatened the main settlement at Lexington before supply problems forced it to withdraw. Many settlers fled smaller settlements to shelter in Lexington or to more populated eastern Kentucky, but America remained in control. Vengeance was demanded and swiftly delivered. In early August, Virginia Brigadier General George Rogers Clark organized 1,000 militia bent on punishing the Shawnee. Clark planned to advance up the Mad River, burning every Shawnee village he encountered up to their main town of Piqua. Privately, he hoped to loot sufficient supplies to establish a base deep in Shawnee territory for a follow-up campaign against Detroit to permanently end the British threat. As usual, the Shawnee deserted their villages as Clark approached, leaving only their homes and fields to be burned . Clark then marched north from Chillicothe to Piqua, arriving on August 8th. Here, the Shawnee uncharacteristically chose to stand and fight. Piqua was home to about 3,000 Shawnee and served as their main military base. Its fortifications and 800 acres of crops were essential for upcoming campaigns in Kentucky. Additionally, Loyalist agent Simon Girty wanted Clark defeated to dispel his near-mythical reputation. Most of the warriors were positioned on the wooded right behind breastworks . 50 warriors were in the blockhouse, with others spread along the rest of the stockade and in the outlying fields. As Clark approached, he split his force in three. The right force was to sweep along the Mad River before crossing and attacking the village’s rear. The left would clear the woods while Clark and the center attacked the town. Despite knowing that Clark was coming, his arrival seems to have caught the Shawnee by surprise, as Clark’s infantry swept through the fields while they were still being farmed , fighting his way up to the defences with minimal resistance. The cavalry successfully swept the riverbank, but cliffs prevented it from engaging the fortifications. The blockhouse and breastworks repelled Clark’s attack until he blew the blockhouse apart with artillery. This collapsed the defences, and the Shawnee fled. Clark reported 27 casualties, but historians suspect the real total was closer to 80. Shawnee casualties are unknown as they removed all but six dead and two wounded during the battle. Finding only unripe corn and rotten supplies, Clark burned Piqua’s buildings and fields before withdrawing. Piqua was the largest sustained battle west of the Appalachians fought up to that point, and it left the Shawnee reeling. The casualties from Piqua were high enough that the Shawnee could not launch another raid on their own. However, the Lenape, Wyandot, Miami, and Mingo tribes had their own territorial ambitions and grievances against the Americans. With British prodding and funding, they joined the war in 1780. 1781 saw expeditions launched by both sides, with numerous settlements burned across the Ohio Valley and Western Pennsylvania. Caught between the fighters were communities of pacifist Moravian Christian Lenape, who were distrusted by both sides. In September 1781, the Wyandots and non-Christian Lenape forcibly relocated many of them to the Sandusky River on suspicion of spying. On March 8, 1782, the Pennsylvania militia, frustrated and enraged by Lenape raids, took out their rage on the village of Gnadenhutten, murdering 96 Christian Lenape with hammer blows to the head as they prayed. This was immediately condemned by Congress and only served to escalate the conflict. 1782 was remembered as the Year of Blood in Kentucky. Devastating raids by the allied tribes drove settlers from dozens of small settlements, while attempts at retaliation were ambushed and massacred. However, in September, Detroit was ordered to cease operations. Peace was coming. Without British backing, the tribes lacked the means to continue attacking settlers. After Clark burned a number of Ohio Shawnee villages in November, fighting tapered off. However, this was not peace, and the conflict reignited four years later. Meanwhile, de Grasse returned to the Caribbean in November 1781. He’d been able to sail for Yorktown due to the Spanish watching French colonies in his absence in exchange for his help in their 1782 offensives. De Grasse and Louisiana’s Governor Bernado de Gálvez had agreed that their strategic target was Jamaica, Britain’s primary regional fortress. Both agreed they could only successfully invade it together, but also that Jamaica was too well defended to attack straight away. Some combination of St. Augustine , the Windward Islands, and the Bahamas would be taken first to isolate Jamaica once de Grasse returned. By the time de Grasse returned, Gálvez had new directives from Madrid. Spain’s principal war goal was the recapture of Gibraltar. It was so important that a secret clause in the Treaty of Aranjuez stated that France would not make peace until Spain had taken Gibraltar. However, the Great Siege of Gibraltar was now entering its third year with no measurable progress. Increasingly, it looked like the only hope would be to convince the British to trade Gibraltar for something of equal or greater value. The only target that fit the bill was Jamaica, whose sugar production was worth more than the total prewar output of the Thirteen Colonies. Madrid ordered Gálvez to invade Jamaica immediately, while an increasingly broke Versailles ordered de Grasse to find a way to end the war quickly. Thus, de Grasse committed to invading Jamaica alongside the Spanish once reinforcements arrived . As these reinforcements weren’t expected until April, de Grasse decided to move against the Windward Islands, taking a number of small islands and besieging St. Kitts in January. Unusually, the garrison resisted. De Grasse arrived on January 11 to find 1,000 British regulars and 2,000 militia firmly entrenched on Brimstone Hill and ready to fight. What the French didn’t know was that Rear Admiral Samuel Hood had recently returned to the Caribbean following the disaster at Yorktown. While waiting for the theatre commander George Rodney to return from leave, he’d informed St. Kitts that he’d be in the area to oppose French activity, giving the garrison hope for relief. By January 19th, 7000 French troops had disembarked and were digging siege lines around Brimstone Hill. Word reached Hood on Antigua shortly thereafter, and he sailed with 22 capital ships on January 22nd. Arriving off Nevis island on the 24th, Hood learned from a captured French supply cutter that de Grasse had 29 capital ships in the Basseterre anchorage . The notoriously aggressive Hood was undeterred but was smart enough to know that an open battle was out of the question. Instead, he’d trick de Grasse into giving him the advantage. Hood sailed out at dawn on the 25th to find the French in a loose formation extending from the anchorage into the open bay to the southeast. Hood ordered his ships to charge towards the French, forcing them to sail from the anchorage into open water to regroup, ceding the landward bearing to Hood. This was exactly what he wanted, and instead of engaging, Hood sailed into Frigate Bay and anchored in an L-formation. This would force the French to engage on his terms and limit the number of ships his outnumbered fleet would face. Beginning at 07:00 on the 26th, de Grasse attacked. The French sailed parallel to Hood’s stationary line, firing as they passed, hoping to inflict enough damage to force Hood to withdraw or face entrapment. Hood’s formation was intended to concentrate his fire on the lead French ships, hoping to disable or sink enough to force the French to give up the island. Instead, what followed was 12 hours of pounding cannonades, as the French took and gave heavy fire as they passed, before looping around to attack again. By 18:30, having done the same damage as he’d received in three such attacks, de Grasse conceded the Bay and withdrew to the other side of the island. Hood had won a tactical victory, but it was a strategic defeat, and he knew it. With de Grasse still on station, the siege would go on, and he still lacked the numbers to risk a direct attack. The only option to save the garrison was a land assault, but he couldn’t match the besieging army’s numbers. Hood hoped that an attack on Basseterre would encourage a garrison sally and the combined attack would break the siege. Unbeknownst to Hood, tropical diseases had reduced the garrison to under 1500 able-bodied men, barely holding the fortifications and unable to help. The attack went ahead on January 28th. The British vanguard successfully pushed the French defenders from the town, only to be repulsed once French reinforcements arrived. It was clear that the relief had failed. The garrison finally surrendered on February 12th, and Hood retreated on the 14th to link up with the returning Rodney. de Grasse returned to Martinique for repairs and to await his reinforcements. Meanwhile, the Spanish Havana fleet prepared to invade the Bahamas. By April 3, de Grasse’s reinforcements arrived, and repairs were complete. Thus, on April 8th, he set sail with 35 capital ships. Admiral George Rodney had 36 ships at nearby St. Lucia and immediately moved to intercept de Grasse. Facing personal and financial ruin back home, Rodney needed a glorious victory to save himself. The British were able to catch the French rearguard on April 9th thanks to having been recently upgraded with copper hull plating , which prevented marine growth from slowing ships . De Grasse detached the troop convoy with escorts and turned to engage. The British vanguard engaged de Grasse around 10:00. The breeze picked up around 12:00, enabling half the British and most of the French fleet to engage. By 14:00, de Grasse realized that he was poorly positioned against the approaching British center and rearguard and broke off, retreating to the Saintes islands. For the next two days, the two fleets tried to tempt the other to attack at a disadvantage unsuccessfully. On April 12th, as the French sailed north through the Saintes Passage, several damaged ships fell behind. Rodney seized the opportunity to attack, prompting De Grasse to turn around through the easterly wind to engage . The battle commenced at 08:00 with the two battlelines exchanging broadsides as they sailed past each other. At 09:00, the wind shifted to the southeast , forcing the French line to turn toward the British to maintain its speed and loosen the formation. Rodney recognized the opening and, at 9:20, ordered his ships to turn into the disorganized French, cutting their line into three. De Grasse’s flagship was cut off from the fleet and surrounded, and the French began fleeing to the west as the wind shifted again . Five French ships were captured, with de Grasse among the prisoners, and many surviving French ships were severely damaged. Damage to his fleet convinced Rodney not to pursue the French fleet as it fled. He didn’t need to, as Jamaica was saved. French survivors trickled into St. Domingue and linked up with the Spanish in May. However, Gálvez cancelled the invasion. He believed the combined fleet couldn’t match Rodney without de Grasse’s leadership. Worse, while the fleet underwent repairs, disease ravaged the invasion force, leaving it combat ineffective. Thus, despite the successful capture of the Bahamas on May 6, further offensive action in the Caribbean was cancelled and the allies switched to defence. Meanwhile, the British were lurching towards peace. When news of Yorktown reached London on November 25, 1781, Prime Minister Fredrick North exclaimed, “Oh God, it’s all over!” North attempted to stave off the Whigs who were forcing his resignation by proclaiming during budget negotiations that North American troop levels would remain intact, but no further offensives away from fortified supply bases were allowed, unknowingly validating Clinton’s orders. This promise allowed the budget to pass, but the Whigs smelled blood. On December 12, the Royal Navy botched the intercepting of a large French transport fleet in the Bay of Biscay . Angered and sensing an opportunity, the Whigs demanded an official inquiry into the Admiralty, looking to oust North’s ally Lord Sandwich as First Lord following the Christmas recess. Seeing the threat, North attempted to mollify the Whigs by sacrificing another ally, Secretary of State George Germain. In exchange for a peerage, Germain accepted fault for the war’s failures and resigned in February, but it was too late. Word of more Caribbean losses arrived in January , and the Whigs moved in for the kill. They demanded and got Guy Carelton to replace Clinton. Carelton had been a Whig MP since resigning his governorship in 1777. On February 27, Parliament voted to formally disallow further war in America. The news that Minorca had fallen enabled the Whigs to hold two votes of no confidence in North, which narrowly failed. Rather than risk another, North offered his resignation to King George III, who had to be persuaded to accept on March 20. After Whig leader Lord Shelburne refused to form a government in a piece of political gamesmanship, he was instead made a Secretary of State while Lord Rockingham became Prime Minister. In Paris, Benjamin Franklin welcomed the news of North’s fall. He’d stated publicly that America would never negotiate with Lord North, partly out of spite and mostly because he knew the Whigs were eager for peace and would offer more than the Tories to get it. With North gone, Franklin formally declared America’s demands. As a precondition to negotiation, American independence had to be accepted. Franklin then demanded that all of British North America, including what is now Canada, should be included in the new American nation . However, negotiations could not begin without the French. To learn America’s negotiation stance, the British had been floating peace proposals to Henry Laurens, a captured American envoy, for over a year. After releasing Laurens to meet with Franklin, Britain stated that American independence was a negotiation point, not a precondition. On April 23rd, after keeping Franklin’s proposal secret even to Parliament, Shelburne offered America independence but no territorial concessions. He then approached the French and offered them American independence, their stated war goal, in exchange for the return of British Caribbean islands. French Foreign Minister Comte de Vergennes angrily rejected the proposal, stating that victorious nations may demand more than their stated goals, as the British had done in 1763, and that French demands were separate from the Americans. The Americans would negotiate their independence, not France. While Vergennes probably intended this as an arrogant dismissal, both Shelburne and Franklin understood that he’d abrogated the Treaty of Paris’ joint negotiation clause. Though they were now free to pursue peace separately from France, the negotiations only grew more complex. On April 19, the Dutch Republic formally accepted John Adams as America’s ambassador, something not even the French had done, effectively accepting American independence. Then, on May 18, news of the Battle of the Saintes arrived, strengthening Britain’s hand and weakening France’s. However, when new diplomats arrived in Paris and were confronted about the silence on Franklin’s proposal, Shelburne’s exposed duplicity caused an uproar in Parliament. This was made worse when Rockingham died on July 1st, and Shelburne became Prime Minister, causing the Whigs to split and a cabinet reshuffle, further delaying negotiations. Meanwhile, Shelburne secretly sent a letter to Washington informing him that Britain would accept American independence as a precondition, using the communication delays to hide it from Franklin. Meanwhile, the French and Spanish were making their own moves. Both were concerned about American independence and wanted to limit America’s potential to threaten their interests. France wanted to keep America away from the Newfoundland fisheries and the Gulf of Mexico, while Spain was afraid of revolutionaries on its colonial borders. The Spanish proposed to the French that America’s borders be the Appalachian Mountains. Canada would retain the Ohio country while the rest of British Louisiana would be transferred to Spain as an “Indian Reserve,” which would actually be a buffer zone. France would receive the fishing rights America had previously enjoyed as British citizens. Meanwhile, the French began sending separate envoys to Britain while insisting the Americans continue negotiating alongside Vergennes in Paris. His suspicions about French loyalties and Spanish intentions confirmed, Franklin moved to rid himself of Vergennes. Diplomatic politeness and America’s debt to France were now the only leverage the French had to include themselves in negotiations. Congress owed tens of millions of livres to France. However, neither Congress nor Versailles knew how many millions. Neither treasury had kept especially accurate records, and what records existed conflicted. Somewhere between 18 and 50 million livres had crossed the Atlantic, but it was unclear how much of that money was gifts versus loans and which loans were from the King versus private entities. Thus, Franklin sidelined Vergennes by settling the repayment terms. France’s desperate financial situation made the treasury grateful to accept Franklin's proposal to only repay the 18 million livres the French government proved were government loans, with the first payment to begin three years after the peace treaty was signed. Freed from the financial leash, Franklin allowed John Jay and Adams to begin negotiating directly with the British. By October, word had gotten back about Shelburne’s letter . This humiliated the British negotiators, gutted their position, and drove them to conclude a deal quickly. The pre-Quebec Act border would be the new one between America and Canada, though it would take more treaties to define it . America would also receive all British territory north of Florida and west to the Mississippi River, with America getting fishing rights in Newfoundland and Britain's navigation rights on the Mississippi. Naturally, neither side cared to ask the local indigenous tribes their opinions on how their ancestral land was being divided up. There was tension over the Loyalists in America, whom both the Americans and British knew would be forced to flee. Britain demanded they be compensated for their confiscated property, only for Franklin to counter that Patriots should be compensated for British economic raiding. It was agreed that Congress would merely ask the states to consider compensation, an ultimately and intentionally empty gesture. The preliminary deal was signed on November 30, despite Vergennes's protesting being cut out. This left London free to deal with the three, yes, three, remaining combatants. Lord North initiated the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1780 over its arms sales to France and support for American smugglers and privateers. This may sound insane, but it was actually a strategic move. The Dutch Republic had begun making moves to join Russia’s League of Armed Neutrality following British crackdowns on Dutch smuggling. Dutch ascension would have certainly drawn the whole League into the war. To prevent this, in one of his signature calculated moves, North declared war. He reasoned that first, the League didn’t want war with Britain. Second, Russia would not allow the Dutch to enter the League if they were already at war. Third, no one would aid the Dutch if the British attacked with legitimate grievances, and fourth, there was no threat. The once supreme Dutch navy only had 20 capital ships, having been allowed to wither and literally rot since the War of Spanish Succession. Thus, declaring this war would prevent a wider one, and privateering against Dutch ships and colonies would refill the depleted Exchequer. For once, North had done his math correctly . The League refused the Dutch, and while the French did rescue threatened Dutch colonies, there was no additional threat to British interests. The most significant battle of this war took place in India. Rumors of war gradually trickled into the Dutch Indian colonies during the winter of 1780-1781. However, Governor Reynier van Vlissingen at Negapatam didn’t actually find out until June, when the governor of Trincomalee finally notified him. Vlissingen had been more concerned about his complicated relationship with Mysore and the British and his very delicate diplomatic dance between the two . Meanwhile, George McCartney had arrived in Madras with orders to take over the governorship, aggressively pursue the war with Mysore, and take or destroy all the Dutch colonies in India. Learning of this, Vlissingen immediately joined Mysore and forged an alliance on July 29, dispatching 600 sepoys to bolster Ali. However, by late September, it was clear that the British would soon move against Negapatam. Ali returned the Dutch forces and sent 2,100 of his own troops to bolster the defense, bringing the total force defending the city to 8,200. Vlissingen ordered them to rebuild the antiquated defenses and called for naval support, which didn’t exist in the theater. While most of the Madras army was occupied against Mysore and unwilling to move against the Dutch, Mccartney was able to convince Colonel John Braithwaite to dispatch troops under Colonel Eccles Nixon along the coast to Negapatam, while Hector Munro agreed to delay his retirement and bring another army by sea for a total of 4,500 soldiers, alongside Admiral Edward Hughes’ fleet. On October 20, the land forces took the Dutch outpost at Karaikal. The next day, Nagore fell, and Munro offloaded his soldiers to begin the siege. Despite being heavily outnumbered and unable to actually envelop the city , Munro was confident of victory. Hughes had control of the sea, and, therefore fire control over the entirety of the battlefield as Negapatanam’s walls and outposts were well within range of Hughes’ cannons. Vlissengen was forced to devote considerable troops and cannons to defending the seaward side at all times, and Munro could call on naval gunnery to support any assaults he made. Additionally, Vlissengen’s forces were far less reliable than Munro’s. Only around 600 of his soldiers were Dutch regulars, and a few hundred more Dutch East India Company Sepoys. The rest were Negapatam militia, whose willingness and ability to fight was…suspect at best. Vlissengen also distrusted the Mysori troops, many of whom had been raiding his territory a few months before. Munro’s troops, both European regulars and Company Sepoys, were hardened veterans and fiercely loyal. Despite this, the siege initially went well for the Dutch. As soon as Hughes’ fleet had been sighted, Vlissengen had sent word to Hyder Ali, who’d promised a relief force. Munro’s assaults against the western redoubts on October 27 and 28 were easily repulsed. However, Hughes scouted the eastern side and reported that the redoubts were weaker . Thus, on October 30, Munro shifted to the eastern side and successfully stormed a redoubt. The Mysori cavalry took the opportunity to flee the field, forcing Vlissengen to withdraw into the city’s defenses. By November 1st, Munro had consolidated his position and began building siege trenches, with a forward battery being completed by November 5th. A Dutch sortie that night failed to destroy the battery, and the bombardment began on November 7th. Negapatam’s antiquated walls quickly began to crumble. Ali’s relief force arrived at Kutter, less than a day’s march from Negapatam on November 8. However, despite pleas from Vlissengen, its commander refused to attack. The British army was too large for his liking, and with the siege camp inside the range of naval gunfire, victory was deemed impossible. Instead, he opted to call for additional reinforcements to overwhelm Munro. That opportunity never arrived, as on November 10, Munro struck first against the relief force’s unprepared camp, forcing it to retreat. That night, Vlissengen ordered another sortie, hoping to take advantage of Munro’s absence. It didn’t, and the Dutch were again repelled without inflicting significant damage. Following this failure, Vlissengen revealed to his war council that less than a day’s worth of gunpowder remained. This was shocking, given the fortress’ extensive magazines, but the council confirmed Vlissengen’s finding. With the relief force driven off, Negapatam surrendered on November 12th. The next day, another relief column arrived at Kutter, but retreated after discovering Negapatam was already lost. The disappearance of Negapatam’s gunpowder stores is an enduring mystery. Investigations by the VOC, the States General, and historians have all fingered Vlissengen, whose strange behavior aroused suspicion. He was frequently seen acting suspiciously in the supply stores, and often seemed disorientated during meetings. Accusations have run the gamut from him selling the powder on the black market to water damage and sabotage, but no evidence of any wrongdoing exists. It may have been simple, but severe, mismanagement. Meanwhile, defeat at Negapatam convinced Ali to abandon the coastal towns and fortresses he’d captured or placed under his protection. The reports from his cavalry gave a new appreciation for the power of the Royal Navy and brought an uncomfortable realization. He could not truly defeat the East India Company so long as the British continued to rule the waves. Thus, he was extremely relieved when a French fleet arrived in February 1782 and extremely disappointed when it spent more time driving the British from captured Dutch colonies than attacking British ports. France and Spain had been dragging their feet in the negotiations, hoping for a successful final assault on Gibraltar. Its failure, coupled with the Anglo-American peace agreement, forced Spain and France to begin negotiating in earnest in January 1783. The final deal gave Spain all of Florida and Minorca. France would keep Tobago and reclaimed Senegal, but the British retained all other lost Caribbean islands. The Dutch surrendered Negapatnam in India, Britain's only gain. The Treaties of Paris were all formally signed on September 3, 1783. With peace approaching, Washington and Carleton met on May 6, 1783, to discuss the British evacuation. Savannah had been evacuated on July 11, 1782, and Charleston on December 14. Only New York was left. Washington’s priority was to arrange for both sides’ prisoners to be released. More Americans had died in captivity than in all the battles combined, and Washington was desperate to rescue them. Once the release was agreed on, Washington pressed Carleton on the evacuation timeline. Carleton demurred, as he didn’t know when transports would be available nor how many more Loyalists would seek to flee America for the Caribbean or Canada. However, they agreed on the handover procedures. Finally, Washington asked for all American property, including slaves, to be returned. Carleton allowed the recovery of looted items but not the 3,000 escaped slaves in New York. To send them back to slavery after officially promising freedom would be a national embarrassment. That settled, both men returned to their lines to wait for the end. In August, Carleton was formally ordered to begin evacuating New York. A sudden surge of expelled Loyalists delayed the departure until November. On November 16th, Washington marched into Manhattan seven years after being driven out. The last British soldiers departed on the 25th . On December 23, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army and returned to civilian life. The American Revolution was over. However, the war continued in India. News about the peace negotiations didn’t arrive in India until late June 1783. This disappointed Tipu Sultan, who’d become ruler of Mysore following his father’s death from cancer. Without French naval support he’d struggle to maintain his gains, much less take the main British bases. However, that would prove irrelevant. While the British and French declared a ceasefire and prepared to restore war gains per the Treaty of Paris, there was no mention of peace with Mysore, and the Madras army refocused against Tipu Sultan. However, new orders arrived from London. Disappointed with the Company’s recent military performances, Parliament had decided to reorganize the Company and deal with its corruption problem . This required peace, and so Madras was ordered to immediately make peace with Mysore, ending yet another expensive stalemate. Calcutta objected as the Company stood to make no gains for all its efforts, but London wouldn’t budge. Peace arrived on March 11, 1784, with the Treaty of Mangalore, which restored relations and territory to the status quo antebellum. However, Tipu would score a major political and diplomatic victory, as Company officers had come to him and asked for peace. The Treaty of Mangalore was the last time an Indian power would dictate treaty terms to the East India Company. However, it did nothing to resolve either side's ambitions and set the stage for future conflict. As we can see, the conflict that started with a peaceful rally turned into a massacre and a single musket shot heard round the world morphed into an early version of a World War. Britain lost one of its most important colonies that, in later years, would first equal and then eclipse it. Despite all of its issues and original sins, the creation of the US showed that a new form of government is both possible and desirable for the people. Democratic Republics became both the ideal to adhere to and one to imitate. Humanity is still struggling to fulfill its potential, but democracy makes many of us hopeful. Our next series on American history covering the Civil War has already started, and we are planning more than 15 episodes to explain it in detail. Other videos that you will hopefully enjoy are in the works, too, so make sure you are subscribed and have pressed the bell button to see them. Please consider liking, subscribing, commenting, and sharing - it helps immensely. Recently, we have started releasing weekly patron and YouTube member exclusive content, consider joining their ranks via the link in the description or button under the video to watch these weekly videos, learn about our schedule, get early access to our videos, access our private discord, and much more. This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.