This paper draws on two historical texts — John Richard Alden's The American Revolution: 1775–1783 and Divine et al.'s America Past and Present — to survey the political and military dimensions of the American Revolution. The paper examines British parliamentary attitudes and key legislative actions preceding the war, early British military incompetence at Charleston and Long Island, the turning-point surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, and the social consequences of the conflict for Loyalists. It concludes with an analysis of the Treaty of Paris (1783) and the territorial and diplomatic gains secured by American negotiators.
John Richard Alden's The American Revolution: 1775–1783 is written in an engaging style that reads like a novel in places, making it both entertaining and informative. More than that, it offers valuable background into the political and social dynamics leading up to and throughout the Revolutionary War.
On pages 16–17, Alden writes that in 1774, as tensions mounted on both sides in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War, there were men in the British House of Commons who "urged a policy of conciliation" — but "it was all to no purpose." Only a handful of votes could be "marshaled against the proposals of the ministry and the King" to avoid a hard line against the colonists. In fact, "most of the Lords, who spoke for themselves alone, obstinately followed the King and his cohorts."
King George III had convinced the Lords that force against the colonists was "necessary" (17), though whether that view was shared by most ordinary English citizens remained unclear. What was clear was that the mood in Parliament was warlike and belligerent. Legislation putting pressure on the colonies passed with ease. A bill that closed the Newfoundland fisheries to New Englanders — and restricted their overseas trade to Great Britain and the British West Indies — "was passed before the close of March" 1774, having been introduced to the floor in February.
The Lords and the King fully expected that Spain and France would eventually side with the colonists, and in this they proved correct. The Earl of Sandwich — whom Alden called "that fabulous incompetent" — made a particularly reckless remark questioning the courage and competence of American soldiers, quoted on pages 17–18. The Americans were "raw, undisciplined, cowardly men," he declared. "I wish instead of 40 or 50,000 of these brave fellows, they would produce in the field at least 200,000, the more the better… If they didn't run away, they would starve themselves into compliance… The very sound of a cannon would carry them off…"
Contrary to that rhetoric, Alden notes on page 19 that General Thomas Gage, the British military commander in the colonies, had sent "ominous warnings" to the King — warnings that Parliament never received — that "the Americans would fight well; that it would require a year or two and a large army to conquer New England alone." Gage also warned that "estimates of men and means to subdue the colonies as a whole should be made and then doubled." He was not believed by the Earl of Suffolk, who dismissed him as "too far gone to be recovered."
In Chapter 7, page 90, Alden reports that on July 2, 1776 — the same day the Continental Congress formally severed all ties between America and England — thousands of British regulars landed on Staten Island. General Howe now commanded 34,000 "well-equipped men" along with "mountains of paraphernalia and foodstuffs," and it was beginning to look like the beginning of the end for the patriots. Yet the British made enough small blunders to give the patriots time, momentum, and ultimately a fighting chance.
When British warships sailed into Charleston harbor on June 4, 1776, and might have dealt a serious blow to the American effort in the South, the British commander Colonel Parker proved "incompetent" and unlucky. A sandbar prevented the ships from sailing too close to shore, and unfavorable winds compounded the problem. On Long Island during the same period, Colonel Clinton put ashore (93) with "hundreds of regulars" but could not advance because he "lacked small vessels to cross the channel between the two islands."
Back at Charleston, while Parker failed to press his attack, the patriots gathered strength. When Parker finally sent three smaller vessels up the channel to bombard the patriot fort from the west while other British ships hammered it from the south, "fortunately for the Americans, two of the ships sent on the flanking maneuver were poorly piloted." They ran aground on a channel shoal near the fort, "fouled each other, and lay helpless in the water." Even the sustained British cannon fire on the patriot fort failed to break its palmetto-log walls, and the garrison's guns "caused increasing damage to Parker's ships," inflicting over 200 casualties — including "Parker himself, who lost the seat of his trousers." In disgust and dismay, he finally ordered his ships to withdraw.
According to America Past and Present (pp. 159–60), the last stages of the war unfolded when British General Cornwallis, "badly confused and poorly supported, proceeded to squander his strength chasing American forces across the Carolinas in 1780." By early 1781, the most "capable general on Washington's staff," General Nathanael Greene, was sent to South Carolina to engage Cornwallis, who then attempted to establish a base at Yorktown, Virginia. But George Washington knew this territory intimately, and when the French fleet filled Chesapeake Bay with ships, cutting off Cornwallis by sea, Washington marched south with well-trained French troops to encircle Cornwallis by land.
"Yorktown surrender and British defeat in 1781"
"Loyalist displacement, harassment, and emigration"
"Peace terms, territory, and final British withdrawal"
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