Howitzers, with shorter barrels and larger calibers compared to cannons, were also utilized by both sides. While both the British and the American forces fielded a plethora of cannons, howitzers, and mortars, they largely played a supporting role on the battlefield, and rarely carried the same amount of destructive power as artillery of the Civil War era.
The use of cavalry varied by region, but, on the whole, cavalry forces were small and used for scouting, hit and run raids, or to support units in battle. Cavalrymen carried an array of weapons, including several pistols, a saber, and a carbine musket. Unique to the cavalry, troopers often wore leather helmets and modified uniforms conducive to mounted warfare. Both sides also used Legions, which consisted of infantry and cavalry combined into a single unit.
Legions could move quickly and were quite versatile. Spies were used extensively by both sides throughout the course of the war. Men and women risked their lives to gather intelligence and pass information. Nathan Hale , captured and hanged by the British, is one of the most famous American spies. As a result, Armistead accomplished what few spies could: direct access to the center of the British War Department. Many women worked as spies, using their freedom of movement to gather information and pass through the lines.
While some of the larger battle sites and camp sites are preserved as either national or state parks, a surprising number are not, or are only partially preserved. There is still great potential to save key areas at many engagement sites. Learn how to Take Action to save Revolutionary War battlefields and ways to get involved.
Rev War Article. American Revolution Facts. What are patriots? What are loyalists? What were British soldiers called? Where were the battles fought? Were there any sieges in the war? Were there any battles overseas? How many soldiers served in the war?
How many were killed or wounded? Who were the Hessians? How were the armies organized? What did the armies wear? Was Valley Forge a turning point? What role did navies play? What kind of artillery was used? What role did cavalry play? What role did spies play? Where can I learn more? Those who lived in the colonies and remained faithful to the Crown were known as loyalists, Royalists, King's Men, or Tories What were British soldiers called?
August 27, — The Battle of Brooklyn , N. December 26, — The Battle of Trenton , N. January 3, — The Battle of Princeton , N. September 11, — The Battle of Brandywine , Pa. October 4, — The Battle of Germantown , Pa. October 7, — The Battle of Saratoga , N. June 28, — The Battle of Monmouth , N. December 29, — The Capture of Savannah , Ga.
March 29, — The Siege of Charleston , S. August 16, — The Battle of Camden , S. Congress voted to ratify the Declaration of Independence that was drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson and prominently signed by John Hancock on July 4, The new country was called the United States of America. Drawing Inspiration From Prose As the war continued, the Continental Army experienced challenges and hardships as well as a number of notable victories. Before the battle, the troops listened to a passage from The Crisis , a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine.
They drew inspiration from his stirring prose that described the challenges ahead. Building Alliances The victory inspired new and much needed confidence in the Continental Army that they would use the following winter when they made camp at Valley Forge. Although the army faced severe hardships during the winter encampment, they became an effective fighting force through the training they received under the skillful direction of Baron Friedrich von Steuben. At the end of this horrific winter, France signed an alliance, negotiated by Benjamin Franklin , to aid the United States monetarily and militarily.
The British would evacuate Philadelphia in June They had hoped that a strong number of loyalists in the South would rally around the Crown. Despite losing at the Battle of Camden, the Continental Army waged a successful guerrilla war against the British in Georgia and the Carolinas.
Although mainly using privateers, the United States did have a few ships of its own. Washington devised a plan to feign an attack on New York, which would enable Rochambeau to join forces with the Continental Army. The combined force would join with troops commanded by the Marquis de Lafayette and attack Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis had maneuvered his forces into the Tidewater Region expecting to be evacuated by the British Navy.
While soldiers fought the war on the field, North Carolina's public leaders fought for independence, too. In April North Carolina's provincial congress met at Halifax and decided to send a message to the Continental Congress. The group called for all the colonies to proclaim their independence from Great Britain. These Halifax Resolves were the first official action by any colony calling for a united drive for independence.
Now there was no turning back. Once the members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, only the spilling of much blood would settle the matter. But North Carolinians were greatly divided. There was bitter combat between the Whigs and Tories those loyal to England , each trying to force the other to their views or at least to stop them from helping the other side. John Adams, who became the second president of the United States, said that in the Revolution one third of the people were Whigs, one third Tories, and one third did not take either side.
This was not exactly true for all colonies, of course, and perhaps North Carolina had more Whigs than Tories. In the midst of war, and with a divided population, North Carolina began trying to create a new government.
The king's governor had fled. If the king were no longer the sovereign, the center of authority and order, then who would be? Where would the government come from? All the colonies faced this problem. They knew about English law and understood about governors, legislators, and judges.
The new "twist" in was the practice of placing the power of government in the people rather than in a monarch. The questions of how this popular sovereignty would be expressed through elections, and how often, and who would be eligible to vote, would become areas of considerable debate. In November the provincial congress at Halifax met to draft a bill of rights and a constitution and to create a new government for the state. First, the Declaration of Rights was adopted, and on the following day the new constitution was accepted.
The Declaration of Rights guaranteed personal freedoms—the right to choose one's form of religious worship, to write and say what one believed, and to hold peaceful public meetings, among others. The constitution provided for a form of government with three equal branches: an executive to run the state government, a legislative to make the laws, and a judicial to enforce the laws. The constitution also had provisions applying to holding public office, voting, and public education.
When the Patriots adopted their bill of civil rights before they adopted their form of government, they showed how important individual liberties were to a people who were fighting against what they felt was the oppressive government imposed by the king and Parliament. In both its bill of rights and its constitution, North Carolina—like the other states—showed a deep distrust of government.
Tar Heels believed that personal freedoms needed to be stated in writing. They believed that each branch of government had to be independent of the others so that a single individual or group could not have too much power.
In creating the new government, revolutionary Americans reached their greatest achievement. They decided that sovereignty would lie with the people of the nation, not in any single person such as the king or institution such as Parliament. Democracy would be the ideal. The system devised was not perfect then, nor is it perfect now. But the ideal of "government by the citizens and for the citizens" was the fuel that fired the revolutionary vision of a just society.
France entered the American Revolution on the side of the colonists in , turning what had essentially been a civil war into an international conflict. After French assistance helped the Continental Army force the British surrender at Yorktown, Virginia, in , the Americans had effectively won their independence, though fighting would not formally end until For more than a decade before the outbreak of the American Revolution in , tensions had been building between colonists and the British authorities.
Attempts by the British government to raise revenue by taxing the colonies notably the Stamp Act of , the Townshend Acts of and the Tea Act of met with heated protest among many colonists, who resented their lack of representation in Parliament and demanded the same rights as other British subjects. Colonial resistance led to violence in , when British soldiers opened fire on a mob of colonists, killing five men in what was known as the Boston Massacre.
After December , when a band of Bostonians dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded British ships and dumped chests of tea into Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party , an outraged Parliament passed a series of measures known as the Intolerable, or Coercive Acts designed to reassert imperial authority in Massachusetts. This First Continental Congress did not go so far as to demand independence from Britain, but it denounced taxation without representation, as well as the maintenance of the British army in the colonies without their consent.
It issued a declaration of the rights due every citizen, including life, liberty, property, assembly and trial by jury. The Continental Congress voted to meet again in May to consider further action, but by that time violence had already broken out. On the night of April 18, , hundreds of British troops marched from Boston to nearby Concord, Massachusetts in order to seize an arms cache.
Paul Revere and other riders sounded the alarm, and colonial militiamen began mobilizing to intercept the Redcoats. When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, delegates—including new additions Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson —voted to form a Continental Army, with Washington as its commander in chief. The engagement, known as the Battle of Bunker Hill , ended in British victory, but lent encouragement to the revolutionary cause.
The British evacuated the city in March , with Howe and his men retreating to Canada to prepare a major invasion of New York. By June , with the Revolutionary War in full swing, a growing majority of the colonists had come to favor independence from Britain. On July 4 , the Continental Congress voted to adopt the Declaration of Independence , drafted by a five-man committee including Franklin and John Adams but written mainly by Jefferson.
That same month, determined to crush the rebellion, the British government sent a large fleet, along with more than 34, troops to New York.
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