America At War - Concise Histories Of U.S. Military Conflicts From Lexington To Afghanistan (2 page)

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INDEPENDENCE

1775–1783

Of the sixteen thousand residents in Boston in 1775 many were loyal to the Crown. However, many were not, and of these, more than a few had—in word and deed—committed acts of violence against British officials. Tensions in the city were high, and by April, Boston was a tinderbox ready to explode. So too was the countryside.

Lieutenant General Thomas Gage was the commander in chief of the British army in America and also, in response to the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor, military governor of Massachusetts. He had already acted. In September 1774 Gage had sent troops to Somerville to retrieve cannons and gunpowder belonging to the king. Now he dispatched a large force to Concord, a village eighteen miles outside of Boston. Its mission was to seize arms stored there by the colonists. By doing so the general hoped to demonstrate British resolve and douse the flames of rebellion.

His troops marched first to Lexington, where, on the village green, a small number of Americans had assembled, armed, as were the British soldiers, with muskets. Shots were exchanged—who fired the first shot is unknown—and eight of the Americans were killed. Ten were wounded. The rest, all local “Minutemen,” fled. The British then proceeded to Concord, where, on a wooden bridge north of the town, American resistance was more vigorous. The result was numerous casualties, on both sides. In response the British troops retreated to Boston, harassed along the way by Americans hiding behind trees and fences. Once safely back, the troops—Gage had sent seven hundred men—counted the cost: 247 British soldiers had been killed or wounded.

Events then proceeded quickly. Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island sent militia to aid their Massachusetts brethren. Hence Boston soon became surrounded by well over twelve thousand colonial soldiers. Gage received five thousand additional troops, including three generals destined to play key roles in the coming wars: William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne. The Continental Congress adopted the New England militia as the Continental army and directed Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to send soldiers to Boston, which they did. And, to link the Southern colonies to what had been a New England rebellion, the Congress on June 15, 1775, appointed a Virginia aristocrat with limited military experience as commander in chief of all American forces. His name was George Washington.

On July 3, Washington took command of the newly established Continental army, in a field in Cambridge not far from Harvard College. But already a fierce battle had taken place.

On the night of June 16, 1775, the New Englanders fortified Breed’s Hill on the Charlestown peninsula, across from Boston proper. The next day Gage attacked. His strategy was not subtle. He ordered a direct assault up the hill. Gage, Howe, and Clinton wanted to show the rebels the unstoppable might of Britain’s regular army. They did so though the first two attacks were repulsed. The third succeeded in part because the Americans ran short of ammunition. Toward the end of the battle, fighting occurred on Bunker Hill, elevated land to the north. By nightfall, the British controlled the peninsula. But they had paid a steep price: 27 of their officers had been killed, with 63 wounded. Casualties among ordinary soldiers were staggering: 226 killed and 828 wounded. The Americans—all their troops were New England militia—had more than 400 killed or wounded. Despite the outcome, the rebels claimed victory. They had met the best England could throw at them and done well. And in a scenario that would be replayed again and again, they had lived to fight another day.

The shots fired at Lexington, Concord, and Breed’s Hill were significant. They marked the beginning of an eight-year conflict from which a new nation would emerge, but only after the ground had absorbed much British, German, Canadian, French, and American blood.

How had it come to this? How had the Americans arrived at the point of such opposition to British rule that muskets and bayonets had become the vehicles of dissent? After all, the colonists under George III had enjoyed a good life. The thirteen Atlantic coastal colonies were economically prosperous. They were, essentially, self-governing. They enjoyed privileged access to Britain’s mercantile system. On the high seas their ships were safeguarded by the Royal Navy. On land, the king’s army, in defeating the French and their Native American allies, had removed external threats. And in the matter of taxation, the Americans paid considerably less in taxes per capita than their fellow subjects in England.

Yet the colonists revolted, or at least a large number of them did. Why? Essentially, they objected to British interference in their lives. In communities established to secure religious freedom, they resented one form of worship being sanctioned by the state. In a society that traditionally distrusted standing armies, they disliked the presence of soldiers in their homes and towns. In colonies where land was available to any free and enterprising man, they objected to a Royal Decree (“the Proclamation Line”) that, in setting the inland boundaries of the colonies, forbade settlers from moving west beyond the Appalachian mountains into lands reserved for Native Americans. And regarding London’s insistence on taxing the colonists, they opposed revenue-raising measures in which they had no say.

Boston was not the only battleground in 1775. In late fall the Americans invaded Canada. In doing so, they hoped to forestall British attacks from the north, spread mischief among the French-speaking inhabitants, and if possible, annex their northern neighbor as the fourteenth colony. The invasion itself was two-pronged. One force, led by Generals Philip Schuyler and Richard Montgomery, proceeded via Lake Champlain and Montreal. Another, with Benedict Arnold in command, trekked through the Maine woods. Their joint objective was Quebec, for whoever held that city controlled Canada. Unfortunately for the Americans winter had arrived by the time they reached Quebec. The invaders were woefully short of food, clothing, military supplies, and men, many of whom had deserted or died. Moreover, French citizens remained loyal to Britain, and the king’s commander, Sir Guy Carleton, was more than equal to his task.

On the last day of December 1775, Montgomery and Arnold—an ill Schuyler having returned to New York—led a desperate, nighttime attack on the city. It failed. Quebec, and therefore Canada, remained in British hands. Montgomery was killed and Arnold, with his ragtag force, departed, thoroughly dispirited and decisively defeated.

By the spring of 1776 Gage had been recalled and Howe was now commander of British forces in Boston. These numbered approximately eight thousand men. Washington, laying siege to the city, had almost twice as many. What he did not have, and needed, were cannons. Until Colonel Henry Knox, later his commander of artillery, went to Fort Ticonderoga, located at the northern end of Lake George, and, in a remarkable feat, dragged fifty-eight cannons three hundred miles through the mountains to Boston. Washington placed these on Dorchester Heights, overlooking the city. Howe’s position became vulnerable and he evacuated Boston on March 17. The Americans legitimately could claim a major victory.

Four months later, on July 4, they declared their independence. The day before the Americans signed their historic document, the British, determined to restore the Crown’s authority, landed thirty thousand troops on Staten Island in New York. Conveyed in 170 ships, the force—under the command of William Howe—constituted the largest military expedition England had ever sent abroad. Included among the soldiers were several regiments of German mercenaries.

Expecting an attack on New York, Washington had brought his army south. He occupied the city, some twenty-five thousand people living mostly at the tip of Manhattan, and fortified Brooklyn Heights across the East River on Long Island, where, as on Dorchester Heights, artillery could be decisive.

Howe struck on August 22, 1776. He landed troops in Brooklyn and, in a major battle, defeated his opponents, inflicting well over one thousand casualties and taking an equal number of prisoners, while losing only four hundred men. Washington, however, avoided capture. With his remaining forces he retreated to Manhattan, skillfully executing a nighttime crossing of the river that separates the two islands.

Urged to follow up on this victory quickly, Howe hesitated. He waited until September 13 before attacking again. This time British troops crossed the East River and landed at Kips Bay (at the site of the present 34th Street). They soon controlled Manhattan, save one fort. A month later Howe sent them across Long Island Sound to Throgs Neck, where, in late October, a fierce battle took place at White Plains. Who won is debatable, but regardless, the British turned south and in mid-November captured the remaining fort on Manhattan. Its loss was catastrophic for the Americans, who had more than two thousand men killed or taken prisoner while handing over vast amounts of supplies to the English. Afterward, Washington, who had been outgeneraled by Howe, moved the remnants of his army north, crossing the Hudson River at Peekskill, and then retreated south into New Jersey. Late in the year, pursued by the British, he crossed the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, with his army and the Continental cause close to collapse.

Howe was knighted for his successful campaign in New York. As the weather turned cold, he established a series of outposts in New Jersey to keep an eye on Washington. Confident he could end the rebellion in the spring, Sir William and his army settled into comfortable winter quarters in Manhattan.

Encamped by the Delaware, Washington’s army lacked shelter, food, and clothing, and it soon would lack men as many enlistments were due to expire the first day of January. Bleak as the situation was, it was made worse by the winter weather that brought snow to the land and ice to the river.

Most generals would have given up or tried simply to survive. Not George Washington. He devised an offensive operation daring in the extreme. Three columns of troops would cross the river at night and attack British outposts, and they would do so the day after Christmas, when the enemy, Hessian mercenaries, could be expected to be resting after an evening of revelry.

On Christmas Day 1776, the Continental army moved out. Two of the columns failed to cross a Delaware River that was clogged with chunks of ice. But, thanks to Colonel John Glover’s Marblehead, Massachusetts, men—who had transported Washington and his men across the East River in the retreat from Brooklyn—and to Washington himself, the main column, some twenty-five hundred troops, made the crossing. They then marched eight miles in the bitter cold, many without shoes, to the town of Trenton, where fourteen hundred Hessian soldiers were stationed. Washington attacked, and in less than ninety minutes, he crushed the Germans. They suffered 22 dead, 98 wounded, and had 918 men taken prisoner. The Americans had fewer than 10 killed or wounded.

Howe responded to this unexpected setback by dispatching Charles, Lord Cornwallis, to deal with Washington. With five thousand British soldiers, Cornwallis marched south from New York and cornered his opponent near Trenton, leaving a rearguard at Princeton. On January 2, his position established to his satisfaction, Cornwallis waited until morning, when he hoped and expected to finish off Washington and his little army.

But, once again, George Washington did not stay put. Unbeknownst to the British, he slipped away at night and in the morning surprised those redcoats left behind at Princeton. The result was a battle the Continental army clearly won, small in scale perhaps, but a victory nonetheless.

In less than ten days, at a time of year when armies traditionally did not campaign, Washington in two bold strokes rescued the Continental cause. What had become a failing enterprise was revitalized. The successes at Trenton and Princeton embarrassed the British, gave hope to the American army, and restored faith in Washington’s leadership. But most important of all, the victories meant that the war for independence, if not yet won, most certainly had not been lost.

By the spring General Howe was ready to renew the war. He chose to target Philadelphia, with forty thousand inhabitants the largest city in the colonies, and the de facto capital of the Americans. Choosing to travel by sea rather than marching through New Jersey, he and his eighteen thousand men sailed from New York and in August disembarked at the northern tip of the Chesapeake Bay, some forty miles from the Pennsylvania city. Roughly halfway between lay Brandywine Creek. There, Washington moved his troops into position to defend Philadelphia, and the two armies met. The Continental army fought well, but Howe’s generalship and the redcoats’ skill were evident. The British prevailed.