American War of Independence

C

The Coercive Acts

In retaliation, Parliament in 1774 passed the Coercive Acts—dubbed by the colonists the Intolerable Acts—a series of laws designed to punish the province of Massachusetts and demonstrate Parliament's sovereignty. The Boston Port Act closed that city's port to trade until its citizens compensated the East India Company for the destroyed tea. The Massachusetts Government Act altered the colony's charter by permitting the Crown rather than the House of Representatives to appoint the Governor's Council and by restricting town meetings to one a year for the sole purpose of electing town officials. The Impartial Administration of Justice Act allowed a royal official or soldier accused of a capital crime in Massachusetts to be tried in Britain, where he would not have to face a hostile colonial jury. The Quartering Act allowed the billeting of British troops in uninhabited private buildings or barns. To oversee enforcement of the Coercive Acts, Parliament appointed as governor of Massachusetts Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, commander of the British army in North America. Rather than seeing Parliament's actions, from its point of view, as sensible measures to centralize British authority in America or as legitimate efforts to share the expense of running an empire, many colonists saw in the Coercive Acts another attempt to deny them their rights as British subjects, subvert their colonial assemblies, and fuse military and civilian authority.

III

First Continental Congress

The Coercive Acts secured for Massachusetts the support and sympathy of all the other colonies. The Virginia assembly called for a meeting of representatives from the 13 colonies and Canada to consider joint action against the encroachments of parliamentary power on colonial rights. The meeting, known as the First Continental Congress, took place in Philadelphia in September 1774. The Congress consisted of representatives from all 13 colonies except Georgia.

The Congress did not seek independence from Great Britain but attempted to define America's rights, place limits on Parliament's power, and agree on tactics of resistance to the Coercive Acts. In October, the delegates adopted a Declaration of Rights and Grievances that denied Parliament's right to tax or legislate for the colonies and asserted that only the colonial assemblies had that power. They grudgingly conceded Parliament's authority to regulate trade. The Congress drew up the Continental Association, an agreement calling for the colonies to cease all trade with Britain until Parliament repealed the Coercive Acts. The Congress then adjourned, arranging for a second meeting in May 1775. By that time, however, hostilities had begun between Britain and the colonies.

IV

Lexington and Concord

The first armed encounter of the American War of Independence took place in Massachusetts, where the British force in Boston numbered some 3,500 men. General Gage was aware that the militia members of the outlying towns were being trained and reorganized into active elements known as minutemen, ready for immediate service. Ammunition and military stores were being gathered under direction of a Committee of Safety acting for the provincial assembly. On the night of April 18-19, 1775, Gage, under orders from Lord North, sent out about 700 men to seize munitions being gathered at Concord, some 29 km (18 mi) from Boston. The move did not escape the vigilance of the Committee of Safety, whose mounted messengers, including a local silversmith named Paul Revere, spurred into the countryside to give the alarm. Early on the morning of April 19, the advance guard of the British force exchanged fire with a party of militia at Lexington; eight Americans were killed, and the British continued marching on to Concord. Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, the British commander, found militia companies assembling near Concord. Most of the military stores had already been removed, and a British attempt to seize one of the two bridges near the town was forestalled by an American counter-attack. More militia companies were appearing. Smith, having sent back for reinforcements, took his time reassembling his men for the return march to Boston. That 800 British regulars should be seriously threatened by colonial militiamen, no matter how numerous, was impossible for a British officer to conceive. Smith's men, however, were tired and low on ammunition. Combined with persistent, if inaccurate, American sniping from the cover of hedges, trees, and buildings, the British retreat became a disorganized flight by the time the troops met a supporting force of 1,400 men under Brigadier General Hugh Percy. British reinforcements checked the Americans briefly and enabled the retreat to continue in somewhat better order. When the regulars reached Boston, British casualties numbered 273, American casualties less than 100. Militia companies from at least 23 towns took part in this operation, which was nothing less than an uprising in arms of a whole countryside against the British. The American offensive did not end with chasing the invaders back to Boston; militia forces kept coming, closing in on the city, which remained under siege from April 20, 1775, until the British evacuation on March 17, 1776.

V

Second Continental Congress and the Siege of Boston

The Second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, to face the fact that the New England colonies had taken arms against the king's troops. The delegates quickly established the Congress as the central government for “The United Colonies of America”, adopted the troops engaged in the siege of Boston as their own “Continental Army”, and by unanimous vote appointed George Washington as commander in chief. This was a deserved tribute to the high military reputation Washington had earned as an officer of the Virginia troops in the French and Indian War. It was also a shrewd move to nominate a Virginian, who would likely bring southern support to a war being waged by an army mostly composed of New England militia. The vote was taken on June 15; Washington received his commission on June 20 and without delay set out for Boston to take up his new responsibilities. Despite preparations for war, most Americans still hoped for reconciliation with Britain. To that end, the Congress adopted the Olive Branch Petition, affirming American loyalty to George III and asking the king to disavow his ministers' policies.

Meanwhile, Gage had received reinforcements, raising the strength of his garrison to 8000 men. He now felt that his forces were strong enough to occupy the heights overlooking Boston from the north at Charlestown and from the south at Dorchester. The colonists had advance notice of his intention and on the night of June 16-17, 1,200 Americans under Colonel William Prescott occupied Breed's Hill, overlooking Charlestown and the Boston waterfront, and began digging in. (The original purpose had been to hold nearby Bunker Hill. Although the orders were changed, the ensuing engagement is known as the Battle of Bunker Hill.) On June 17, Gage sent Major General William Howe with about 2,500 British infantry to storm the position. The British were confident that in a conventional battle they could defeat the American militia. Two British assaults were beaten off with severe losses. A carefully prepared third attack penetrated the American lines. The Americans, almost out of ammunition and without bayonets, fell back in some disorder to Bunker Hill; later they withdrew from this position as well. British losses were heavy, with about 1,000 men killed and wounded; the Americans lost less than half that number. Technically, the battle was a victory for the British because they had driven the Americans from Breed's Hill, but when measured by damage inflicted, the Americans had won.

News of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the Olive Branch Petition reached London at the same time. George III refused to receive the petition, and on August 23 proclaimed New England in a state of rebellion. Parliament followed suit by declaring all the colonists rebellious and making their ships subject to seizure. As the magnitude of British casualties at the Battle of Bunker Hill became known, the government realized that it was facing a genuine war and replaced Gage with Howe.

On July 2, 1775, Washington assumed command of the American forces with a total strength varying from 13,000 to 17,000, as men came and went almost at will. Washington devoted his immediate efforts to training and reorganizing the army. He could not press the siege of Boston without heavy artillery. For that he would have to wait until winter, when frozen roads and rivers would enable his soldiers to drag overland to Boston the cannon that had been captured on May 10, 1775, when Colonel Ethan Allen of Vermont's Green Mountain Boys and Colonel Benedict Arnold of Connecticut had surprised and captured the British fort at Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain.

In August American forces under General Richard Montgomery invaded Canada; they took Montreal in November, but the next month, after linking up with a second force under Arnold, the Americans were defeated at Quebec, where Montgomery was killed.

During the winter of 1775-1776, Colonel Henry Knox, Washington's chief of artillery, brought 59 heavy guns and mortars from Fort Ticonderoga to Boston. On the night of March 4, 1776, Washington occupied Dorchester Heights, overlooking Boston from the south, and began emplacing his newly arrived artillery there. Howe, taken by surprise, realized that he must storm those gun-crowned heights if he hoped to hold Boston by sea; instead, recognizing his untenable position, on March 17 Howe embarked his 11,000 troops and more than 1,000 Loyalists and sailed for Halifax, Nova Scotia.

VI

The British Invasion of the North

Washington was under no illusion that Howe's departure from Boston meant the end of British attempts to reduce the colonies to submission. George III and Parliament were not likely to give up at a first rebuff, and already word had come that Britain was recruiting mercenary troops from Germany. Howe had withdrawn only to reorganize and receive reinforcements. Washington foresaw that when Howe returned, New York, with its spacious harbour and immediate access to the interior by way of the Hudson River, was the most likely place for the British to launch their invasion.

While the Continental Congress in Philadelphia began to think seriously of declaring the independence of the colonies from Great Britain, Washington in New York was wrestling with the problems of preparing to resist a British invasion, which this time was sure to be made in great force. On June 29, 1776, General Howe arrived off Sandy Hook, New Jersey, with a fleet commanded by his brother, Admiral Richard Howe. In this fleet were transports carrying troops of the strongest expeditionary force Britain had ever sent overseas. When fully assembled, this force would number 32,000 troops including 8,000 German mercenaries, most from Hesse-Kassel, Brunswick, and Hesse-Hanau. In the leisurely manner typical of all his operations while commanding the British army, Howe waited nearly two months before attempting a landing in force. To face this attack, Washington had fewer than 20,000 men, of whom nearly half were inexperienced soldiers.

While both sides prepared for battle, American reluctance to declare independence was diminishing. In November 1775 the desire of southerners for reconciliation with Great Britain withered when the Virginia governor, Lord John Dunmore, offered freedom to any slaves who would rebel against their masters and join the British army. The idea of independence gained overwhelming popular support following the publication of the pamphlet Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, in January 1776. His pamphlet, published anonymously, attacked George III, calling him “the Royal Brute”, and denounced monarchy as a form of government. Paine's arguments dissolved any lingering attachment to Great Britain and removed the last psychological barrier to independence. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted a Declaration of Independence declaring that the colonies “are and of right ought to be free and independent States”. Thereafter the Americans considered themselves not as rebellious British subjects, but as citizens of a sovereign nation repelling invasion by a foreign power.