PRINCIPAL CAMPAIGNS AND BATTLES OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
The leading battles are indicated in bold-face; successful commanders in italics
| Names, Dates and Places of Campaigns and Battles | Commanders | Engaged | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| American | British | Amer. | British | |
| 1775-1776 Campaign in New England | ||||
| Lexington, Concord (April 19, 1775) | Barret and Butterick | Smith and Lord Percy | ... | 1,700 |
| Ticonderoga (May 10, 1775) | Ethan Allen and Eaton | Delaplace | 83 | 48 |
| Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775) | Warren, Prescott and Putnam | Howe and Pigot | 3,000 | 4,500 |
| Quebec (December 6-31, 1775) | Schuyler, Montgomery and Arnold | M’Lean and Carleton | 900 | 1,200 |
| Norfolk, Va. (Dec. 9, 1775) | Woodford | Lord Dunsmore | ... | ... |
| Boston (March 17, 1776) | The British evacuate the city and harbor. | ... | ... | |
| Charleston (Ft. Moultrie) (June 28, 1776) | Moultrie, Lee and Armstrong | Clinton | 400 | 4,000 |
| 1776-1778 Campaign in Middle States | ||||
| Brooklyn, L. I. (Aug. 26, 1776) | Green and Sullivan | Howe, Clinton, and Cornwallis | 10,000 | 20,000 |
| Harlem Plains, N. Y. (Sept. 16, 1776) | Washington | ... | ... | ... |
| White Plains, N. Y. (Oct. 28, 1776) | Washington | Howe | 1,600 | 2,000 |
| Fort Washington, N. Y. (Nov. 16, 1776) | Magaw | Howe | 3,000 | 5,000 |
| Trenton, N. J. (Dec. 26, 1776) | Washington | Lord Cornwallis and Rahl | 2,400 | 1,000 |
| Princeton, N. J. (Jan. 3, 1777) | Washington | Mawhood | 3,000 | 1,800 |
| Bennington, Vt. (Aug. 15, 16, 1777) | Stark and Warner | Baum and Beyman | ... | 1,200 |
| Brandywine, Pa. (Sept. 11, 1777) | Washington | Howe | 11,000 | 18,000 |
| Bemis Heights, N. Y. (Sept. 19, 1777) | Gates | Burgoyne | 2,500 | 3,000 |
| Germantown, Pa. (Oct. 4, 1777) | Washington | Howe | 11,000 | 15,000 |
| Stillwater (Saratoga) (Oct. 7, 1777) | Gates | Burgoyne | 8,000 | 6,000 |
| Monmouth, N. J. (June 28, 1778) | Washington | Sir Henry Clinton | 12,000 | 11,000 |
| 1778-1781 Campaign in the South | ||||
| Savannah, Ga. (Dec. 29, 1778) | Robert Howe | Campbell | 900 | 2,000 |
| Brier Creek, Ga. (Mar. 3, 1779) | Ashe | Prevost | 1,200 | 1,800 |
| Stony Point, N. Y. (July 16, 1779) | Wayne | Clinton | 1,200 | 600 |
| Chemung, N. Y. (Aug. 29, 1779) | Sullivan | Brant | 4,000 | 1,500 |
| Savannah, Ga. (Oct. 9, 1779) | Lincoln | Prevost | 4,500 | 2,900 |
| Charleston, S. C. (May 12, 1780) | Lincoln | Clinton | 3,700 | 9,000 |
| Camden, S. C. (Sanders Creek) (Aug. 15, 1780) | Gates | Cornwallis | 3,000 | 2,200 |
| King’s Mountain, S. C. (Oct. 7, 1780) | Campbell | Ferguson | 900 | 1,100 |
| Cowpens, S. C. (Jan. 17, 1781) | Morgan | Cornwallis and Tarleton | 900 | 1,100 |
| Guilford C. H., N. C. (Mar. 15, 1781) | Greene | Cornwallis | 4,400 | 2,400 |
| Hobkirk’s Hill, S. C. (April 25, 1781) | Greene | Rawdon | 1,200 | 900 |
| New London, Conn., Fort Griswold (Sept. 6, 1781) | Ledyard | Benedict Arnold and Eyre | 150 | 800 |
| Eutaw Springs, S. C. (Sept. 8, 1781) | Greene | Lord Rawdon | 2,000 | 2,800 |
| Yorktown, Va. (Oct. 17-19, 1781) | Washington | Cornwallis | 16,000 | 7,500 |
Treason of Arnold and Execution of André.—Turning towards the Southern states, the British commander now dispatched an expedition which took Savannah and overran the State of Georgia. The year which followed (1779) is memorable for the capture of Stony Point by Anthony Wayne; for the treason of Benedict Arnold; for the execution of Major John André; for the capture of the “Serapis” by Paul Jones after one of the most desperate naval battles on record, and by the failure of an attempt by the Americans to retake Savannah. In 1780 Clinton led an expedition from New York to Charleston, took the city, swept over South Carolina, and, leaving Cornwallis in command, hurried back to New York. Gates, who now attempted to dislodge the British, was beaten. Greene now succeeded Gates, and Morgan, the commander of his light troops, won the battle of the Cowpens, January 17, 1781. This victory brought up Cornwallis, who chased Greene across the State of North Carolina to Guilford Court House, where Greene was beaten and Cornwallis forced to retreat to Wilmington. Moving southward, Greene was again beaten in two pitched battles, but forced the British to withdraw within their lines at Charleston and Savannah.
Cornwallis meantime moved from Wilmington into Virginia and took possession of Yorktown. And now Washington, who had long been watching New York, again took the offensive, hurried across New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and, while a French fleet closed the Chesapeake Bay, he besieged Cornwallis by land, till, October 19, 1781, the British general surrendered. This practically ended the war.
The treaty of peace, at Paris, in 1783, actually ended it, secured the independence of the United States, and fixed her boundaries, roughly speaking, as the Atlantic Ocean on the east, the Mississippi on the west, New Brunswick, the St. Lawrence, and the Great Lakes on the north, and the parallel of thirty-one degrees on the south.
Articles of Confederation and their Weakness.—While the war was still raging Congress had framed an instrument of government, which the states ratified and put in force on March 1, 1781. This instrument of government which bound the thirteen states in perpetual union was known as the Articles of Confederation, and established a government as bad as any yet devised by man. There was no executive, no judiciary, and only the semblance of a legislature. The Congress consisted of not more than seven nor less than two delegates from each state; sat in secret session; was presided over by a president elected from its own members; and could not pass any law unless the delegates of nine states assented. It could wage war, make treaties, and borrow money; but it could not lay a tax of any kind whatsoever; nor regulate commerce between the states, or with foreign powers; and was dependent entirely on the liberality of the states for revenues. This defect proved fatal. Inability to regulate foreign commerce by duties stripped the country of its specie. Lack of specie forced the states to issue paper money. Paper money was followed by tender acts and force acts, and in some places by a violent stoppage of justice to the debtor class. A commercial and financial crisis followed and the people of the states, reduced to desperation, gladly acceded to a call for a national trade convention, which met in Philadelphia in May, 1787. The instructions of the delegates bade them suggest amendments to the Articles of Confederation. But the convention, considering the Articles too bad to be mended, framed the Constitution, which the people, acting through conventions in the various states, ratified during 1787 and 1788.
Adoption of the Constitution and Organization of Parties.—On March 4, 1789, the Constitution became the supreme law of the land. In the first Congress no trace of party lines is visible. But the work of establishing government had not gone far when differences of opinion sprang up; when the cry of partial legislation was raised, and the people all over the country began to divide into two great parties—those who favored and those who opposed a liberal construction of the language of the Constitution and the establishment of a strong national government.
The friends of national government took the name of Federalists, and under the lead of Alexander Hamilton, who as Secretary of the Treasury marked out the financial policy of the administration, they funded the foreign and domestic debt occasioned by the war for independence, assumed the debts incurred by the states in that struggle, set up a national bank with branches, and laid a tax on distilled liquors.
Each one of these acts was met with violent opposition, as designed to benefit a class, as unconstitutional, and as highly detrimental to the interests of the South. Against the Federalists were now brought charges of a leaning towards monarchy and aristocracy. Great Britain, it was said, has a funded debt, a bank, and an excise. These things are, therefore, monarchial institutions. But the Federalists have introduced them into the United States. The Federalists, therefore, are aristocrats, monarchists, and monopolists.