George Washington
Commander of the Continental Army. Lost more battles than he won, but kept the army together for eight years and avoided a single defeat that could end the war.
Unit 4 · 1775–1783
The Revolutionary War, 1775–1783
Eight years, many losses, and a few victories that counted.
In 1775 farmers with muskets traded fire with the world's strongest empire. Eight years later Britain recognized the United States as independent. On this page you'll follow the war campaign by campaign, meet the people who led and fought it, see why soldiers, women, African Americans and Native nations made the choices they did, read their own words, and test yourself.
Timeline: 1775 to 1783
- · Lexington and Concord
British troops march from Boston to seize militia supplies. Shots on Lexington Green and at Concord's North Bridge start the war, and militia harass the British column all the way back to Boston.
- · Fort Ticonderoga taken
Ethan Allen, Benedict Arnold and the Green Mountain Boys capture the British fort on Lake Champlain, along with its cannon.
- · Bunker Hill
Fighting mostly on nearby Breed's Hill, the British take the heights above Boston but lose more than a thousand men killed and wounded. Two days earlier, Congress had chosen George Washington to command the new Continental Army.
- · Washington takes command
At Cambridge, Washington takes charge of the army besieging Boston, a mix of New England militia short on discipline and gunpowder.
- · Boston evacuated
Over the winter, Henry Knox hauls Ticonderoga's cannon to Boston. Mounted on Dorchester Heights in early March, the guns threaten the harbor, and the British sail away.
- · New York lost
General William Howe's huge force defeats Washington on Long Island (Aug 27) and drives the Americans out of New York City. Fort Washington falls on Nov 16, and the army retreats across New Jersey.
- · Trenton and Princeton
Washington crosses the icy Delaware and surprises the Hessian garrison at Trenton, then beats a British force at Princeton. The two small wins revive the cause.
- · Saratoga
After battles near Saratoga, New York, General John Burgoyne surrenders his whole army. The same fall, Howe captures Philadelphia.
- · Valley Forge
The army winters outside Philadelphia, short of food, clothing and shoes. Disease kills far more men than battle. From February, Baron von Steuben drills the troops into a more disciplined force.
- · Alliance with France
Encouraged by Saratoga, France signs treaties of alliance and commerce with the United States, bringing money, troops and a navy. Spain joins the war against Britain in 1779 as France's ally, though it never allied with the United States.
- · Monmouth
The army trained at Valley Forge fights the British to a standstill in New Jersey as they withdraw from Philadelphia to New York. The war in the North settles into a stalemate.
- · Charleston falls
Turning south, the British capture Charleston, South Carolina, and about 5,000 American troops, the worst American defeat of the war.
- · Camden
Cornwallis routs General Horatio Gates in South Carolina. Congress soon sends Nathanael Greene to take over in the South.
- · Kings Mountain
Patriot militia from the backcountry destroy a Loyalist force, a battle in which Americans fought Americans.
- · Cowpens
Daniel Morgan's force wins a lopsided victory over Banastre Tarleton's troops in South Carolina.
- · Guilford Courthouse
Cornwallis holds the field in North Carolina but loses about a quarter of his army. He soon marches north into Virginia.
- · Yorktown
De Grasse's French fleet blocks the Chesapeake while Washington's and Rochambeau's armies besiege Yorktown, Virginia. Cornwallis surrenders, and Britain soon gives up major offensives.
- · Treaty of Paris
Britain recognizes American independence. The new nation's western border runs to the Mississippi River.
Campaign Map
A simplified diagram, not to scale, of where the war moved: from New England, to the middle states, to the northern frontier, then south.
Key People
Nathanael Greene
A Rhode Island general who took over the Southern army in 1780. He lost battles while wearing down Cornwallis's army.
Marquis de Lafayette
A young French noble who volunteered in 1777, became a close aide to Washington, and helped trap Cornwallis in Virginia.
Baron von Steuben
A former Prussian officer who drilled the army at Valley Forge and wrote its training manual.
Comte de Rochambeau
Commander of the French army sent in 1780. He marched with Washington from New York to Yorktown.
Comte de Grasse
French admiral whose fleet beat off a British fleet at the mouth of the Chesapeake in September 1781, cutting Cornwallis off from rescue by sea.
Benedict Arnold
A brave American general at Ticonderoga and Saratoga who, angry and in debt, plotted in 1780 to hand West Point to the British. He fought the rest of the war as a British general.
William Howe
British commander who took New York in 1776 and Philadelphia in 1777 but never destroyed Washington's army.
John Burgoyne
British general whose 1777 invasion from Canada ended in surrender at Saratoga.
Charles Cornwallis
British general who led the Southern campaign and surrendered at Yorktown in 1781.
Who Fought, and Why
The war was not only Patriots against redcoats. Roughly a fifth of white colonists may have stayed loyal to Britain, many stayed neutral, and enslaved people and Native nations weighed which side offered them the better chance.
Soldiers
Continental soldiers were often young, poor, and signed up for bounties of cash or land. They faced irregular pay, hunger, ragged clothing and smallpox. Washington had the army inoculated in 1777. Militia came and went with the seasons and their farms.
Black Loyalists
In November 1775, Virginia's royal governor, Lord Dunmore, promised freedom to enslaved people of Patriot owners who would serve the British. In 1779 the Philipsburg Proclamation broadened the offer of protection. Thousands escaped to British lines. Some left with the British in 1783, many to Nova Scotia, while others were recaptured or died of disease.
Black Patriots
Free and enslaved Black men fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill. In 1778 Rhode Island reorganized its 1st Rhode Island Regiment, promising freedom to enslaved men who enlisted. Several thousand Black men served on the American side. Many who served gained freedom, but slavery itself survived the war.
Women
Camp followers, often soldiers' wives, cooked, washed and nursed for the army. Margaret Corbin took over her husband's cannon at Fort Washington in 1776 and was badly wounded. Congress later gave her a pension. Deborah Sampson enlisted in disguise as "Robert Shurtliff" and served in the Continental Army. At home, women ran farms and businesses and led boycotts.
Native nations
Most Native nations saw American settlers, not the king, as the bigger threat to their land, and many sided with Britain. The Iroquois Confederacy split: most Mohawk, Seneca, Cayuga and Onondaga sided with the British, while most Oneida and Tuscarora sided with the Americans. In 1779 the Sullivan expedition burned dozens of Iroquois towns. The Treaty of Paris did not mention Native nations at all.
Patriots
Patriots ranged from merchants and lawyers to farmers and artisans. Many saw British taxes and troops as threats to self-government and their rights as English subjects. They ran committees, militias and boycotts, and pressured neighbors to take sides.
Loyalists
Loyalists ranged from royal officials to backcountry farmers. Many lost property, and tens of thousands left the United States after the war, many for Canada and Britain.
Primary Sources
Quotes follow the original texts as printed in the sources listed, including their spelling and capitals.
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
Why it matters: Paine wrote this during the retreat across New Jersey. Washington had it read to his troops days before Trenton.
"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army."
Why it matters: Written as a huge British fleet and army arrived at Staten Island, and the same day Congress voted for independence. Notice how he links the soldiers' courage to freedom and property, at a time when he himself held people in slavery.
"Almost every one has heard of the soldiers of the Revolution being tracked by the blood of their feet on the frozen ground. This is literally true; and the thousandth part of their sufferings has not, nor ever will be told."
Why it matters: Martin enlisted at fifteen and served most of the war. He wrote this memoir about fifty years later, so read it as an old veteran's memory, vivid but not a diary.
"His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States; that he treats with them as such, and for himself his Heirs & Successors, relinquishes all claims to the Government, Propriety, and Territorial Rights of the same and every Part thereof."
Why it matters: This is the sentence the war was fought for. Note that the king recognizes thirteen separate "states."
Talk About It
- Washington lost more battles than he won. How did the Americans win the war anyway?
- How important was France? Could the United States have won without the alliance?
- Why might an enslaved person in Virginia, or a Seneca leader, have chosen the British side? What did each side promise, and what did it deliver?
- Joseph Plumb Martin wrote fifty years after the war. What are the strengths and limits of a memoir as evidence?
Test Yourself
Sources
- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1 (1776), Project Gutenberg text; see also Library of Congress, The American Crisis.
- National Archives, Founders Online, General Orders, 2 July 1776.
- Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier (1830), Chapter IX on Wikisource; National Park Service, Tracked by Their Blood Upon the Rough Frozen Ground.
- National Archives, Treaty of Paris (1783).
- National Park Service, Valley Forge, Yorktown and Minute Man National Historical Parks.
- Library of Congress, Continental Congress and Constitutional Convention Broadsides.
Credits: all illustrations, including the campaign diagram, are original SVG drawings made for Jugami.