The Continental Army was able to hold and control most of the Hudson River allowing them access to the entire Hudson Valley. The Hudson River provided a vital escape route for Washington's army after the Battle of Brooklyn and ensured that the Continental Army could continue the fight.
Nearly one third of all the battles fought during the American Revolution were fought in New York State. Spy Letters of the American Revolution This site offers a set of primary resource letters written by spies on both sides of the conflict, plus the stories surrounding them. The American Revolution This National Park Service site includes educational resources for students and teachers with activities and primary documents, historic sites, timeline.
Declaration of Independence Complete text of the Declaration of Independence with information about the signers. Ferguson enclosed a Hand Bill to the population in which all the men would serve in the militia without regard to prior service as Patriots and parole terms would be quite generous. I lifted these paragraphs from an earlier blog post:. Ferguson planned a night assault that took place at 4am. Caught unprepared, the rebel infantry suffered about 50 casualties of whom, none survived.
Since the writing of those paragraphs, I did some research into an officer named Captain Dunlap. Not only does Ferguson appear to have copied that incident but he later chose Dunlap to accompany him to South Carolina for the Southern Campaign. Even while presenting a plan to maintain discipline in the ranks to contain the practice of looting, he limited that protection only to the loyalist population. The Whigs would find their property systematically liquidated and divided among the regiments involved.
In the mean time I must desire that you will take no steps in this business without receiving directions from me. He would later insist upon arrest and confinement for the Patriot leaders. A week later, he got a follow up letter with instructions after which Major Ferguson turned his attention to his work. He was always a hard worker with a lot of ambition.
However, in an overall description of Patrick Ferguson, I would agree that he was probably a good choice for the job of organizing the militia regiments. Certainly he should adopt a more realistic attitude toward their limitations and his own but Ferguson was a very active officer who, regardless of having been rebuked, continued on in his duty and followed his orders to the best of his ability.
I understand that he was ambitious to the point of being thought a sycophant by some of his peers. I also believe he was a charming man who enjoyed the company of women. He seems gallant in his protection of loyalist women and also in the famous episode where he claims to have spared George Washington simply because he was an unknown officer Ferguson admired for coolly taking care of business in the heat of battle.
I am not sure I see any change or softening toward the rebel population even though it appears that Clinton and later Cornwallis remained adamant that the Loyalist population be protected from plundering or abuse from the troops. Hmmm, I seem to have typed a good deal of the morning away.
I appreciate the opportunity to converse with such a learned fellow. I hope your dissertation continues to go well. While I have certainly written enough for this morning, I hope to return soon with another response. Perhaps concerning the situation in Georgia during that wild Summer of I would be delighted to hear more thoughts on Ferguson, I do not hold my opinions out as authoritative, absolute, cast in stone or any such thing.
Always interested to look at a new perspective on such a prominent player in the southern campaign. As I think I mentioned, the one who I think had a much better understanding of what was going on than Cornwallis was James Wright. Cornwallis thought he was nothing more than a nervous nelly. You can almost picture him rolling his eyes in exasperation when you read his replies to Wright.
Cornwallis insisted that the post at Ninety Six meant that there could be absolutely no problems or Patriot activity in Georgia, and to stop bothering him already.
Nearly every British officer, political official, and government official back in London were absolutely positive that next action a march, a proclamation, a battle, whatever would be the thing that broke the Patriots for good.
The absolute worst offender in this respect was George Germain. Cornwallis did this a LOT too. Regarding paroles, protections, arrests, pardons, etc. The Patriots had a better understanding of how to use these to their benefit in terms of their political objective — controlling the population.
The British did not connect them to the same political objective as well. If a Loyalist was willing to take the oath of allegiance, join a militia unit, and so forth, the Patriots were happy to let them do so.
But the oaths also served other purposes — it was a type of census that allowed the rebels to identify who was who, track movements, and quickly determine whether someone was friend or foe. Even when they were given their parole, they were watched extremely closely.
They had to check in regularly with a local Patriot leader, could not travel more than x miles from their home or place of parole, and were generally disarmed. The British saw the concept of a parole in a much more traditionally military sense — as a way to remove numbers of the enemy, or potential enemies that they had to worry about. They saw almost none of the political element that the Patriots did. Their system of parole was also much more complex than that of the Patriots, with more poorly defined categories of status and they made little effort to coordinate a mutual understanding of each category among all officers who had responsibility for giving them out.
As a result, you had one person issuing paroles, and someone else coming along shortly thereafter to cancel them and arrest the person. Paroles in SC were not always recognized in Georgia. Former Patriots were not to be included in the militia, but many ultimately wound up in the militia. The difference between this and the Patriots incorporating former Loyalists into their militias was that the Patriots did so deliberately and with purpose, and knew they had to keep watch over these individuals.
The British often had no idea who these people were, that they were former Patriots, and therefore did not know to keep a close watch over them if they did end up in the militia. Their different categories of status for former Patriots also got so convoluted that the punishments started to make comparatively little sense.
A Patriot who had joined the British and somewhere along the line went back to the Patriots often got a more lenient sentence than someone who had supported the British all along and then defected to the Patriots. This ignored the fact that the former probably never had any allegiance to the British at all, while the latter probably did. It also showed a lack of understanding that a true Loyalist might not have had a choice when they agreed to support the Patriots.
This was in general the British problem — a lack of appreciation for why inhabitants supported the sides they did, and how to leverage potential Loyalist support. In other words, everything the Patriots did was towards a political end — keeping control of the population and preventing as many Loyalists as possible from supporting the British. The British, for their part, acted haphazardly, with little in the way of formed plan or coordination, and with no general understanding of the ends sought — and particularly little appreciation for the political nature of those ends.
The Patriot approach was much less subtle, much less sophisticated, and even less legal and liberal. But it was much more effective. Regarding the Battle of Kings Mountain, an article was written by Gen. In this account, Gen. John Watts de Peyster asserts that Maj. Patrick Ferguson was shot early in the action not at the end, as is often presented.
While I cannot attest to the truth or motives of this account, it does give us a different perspective and might explain why the British lost this battle. This was very helpful, because in my history class we are writing a book about the American Revolution. It gave useful information, pictures, and explained the battles really well. All the other websites I have went on have given me useless information, unlike this website!
Thank you so much and I will subscribe! I love history, just like my mom. One year after Saratoga, Benjamin Franklin managed to persuade France into joining the revolutionary cause in , and later on in , Spain declared war on Great Britain as well. In that same year, Spain besieged the British peninsular fortress of Gibraltar. The garrison held off several probing attacks while the Royal Navy succeeded in sending convoys to the peninsula and evacuate the civilians.
Despite these successes the siege was not lifted. When food shortages settled in again and morale plummeted, the governor, George Augustus Eliot, ordered a sortie on the Spanish forces in the isthmus. Washington was correct, and in early July, the largest British fleet ever assembled to that point landed 32, men on Staten Island. It was there, on August 27, , that Howe landed his troops and succeeded in flanking the American position through the unguarded Jamaica Pass.
While soundly defeated, Washington was able to execute a nighttime evacuation of Long Island that saved close to 9, troops. Although George Washington made initial plans to hold New York after the retreat from Long Island, a council of war held on September 12th resulted in the decision to abandon the city. British General Howe seized the opportunity and attacked the Continental Army before the withdrawal could be completed.
Washington tried to rally militiamen fleeing from the onslaught of Howe's 9, troops, but retreated to Harlem Heights after being unable to stop the British advance. Soon after he arrived, this position was tested by an advanced detachment of Howe's forces.
Although the Continentals were initially pushed back, reinforcements and a flank attack ordered by Washington resulted in a British retreat and Washington's first battlefield victory of the American Revolution. With the British army maneuvering to make his Harlem Heights position untenable, George Washington withdrew from the island of Manhattan, and established a new encampment further north near White Plains, New York.
On October 28, , a flank attack by the British on this new position resulted in the collapse of Washington's line. Thankfully, he was able to orchestrate an orderly withdrawal that preserved the army. Unfortunately, Washington's retreat further exposed Fort Washington, which remained garrisoned on Manhattan.
Although Washington hoped to abandon the fort, his officers convinced him that it needed to be held in order to keep British ships from ascending the Hudson River.
During a carefully-orchestrated, all-out attack on November 16, , British and Hessian forces overwhelmed the fort's garrison after vicious fighting. When he heard the attack begin, Washington, who had stationed himself across the Hudson River in New Jersey, travelled across the river to the enter the fort and personally inspect its defenses. They convinced Washington to leave the fort just 30 minutes before it was surrounded. In a letter written to John Hancock on November 19, , the general wrote that " Fort Lee was always considered as only necessary in conjunction with [Fort Washington] Unfortunately, a large British force succeeded in scaling the heights close to the fort on November 20, Faced with superior numbers, Washington called for the immediate evacuation of the fort, which resulted in the loss of dozens of cannon, tents, and 1, barrels of flour.
There, he faced dwindling supplies, desertion, and expiring enlistments. Realizing that his army desperately needed a victory, Washington planned for a nighttime crossing of the Delaware River in order to attack a Hessian garrison in the town of Trenton, New Jersey. Following a night of misery crossing the Delaware River in the midst of a winter storm, Washington's troops were in position to attack Trenton just after am.
Caught completely by surprise, the Hessian garrison put up a brief fight before surrendering. Washington's troops secured a tremendous victory in their surprise attack on the Hessian garrison at Trenton, New Jersey, but the general was not content. He determined to recross the Delaware River in order to recruit additional militiamen and establish a secure winter encampment in northern New Jersey.
The town of Trenton, New Jersey would once again become a battleground as Cornwallis made contact with Washington's troops. Cornwallis skirmished with Washington's troops on the outskirts of town, before assaulting Washington's main force, which was entrenched along Assunpink Creek. With only one bridge usable to attack Washington's position, the Continental army turned back three British assaults across the bridge.
Despite tremendous casualties, Cornwallis was determined to renew the attack the following morning. Unbeknownst to him, Washington decided to attack a smaller British force in Princeton. Washington managed to miraculously hold the army together and together with news that the French would enter the war on the American side, the tempered army was able to leave in the spring of and recapture Philadelphia.
France then supplied the United States with much needed troops, supplies, and military - especially naval support. The Treaty of Alliance would last until officially despite being unofficially ended by the Neutrality Act of In the British shifted their strategy for the war by moving towards the south. In after a six week siege, the British army captured Charleston South Carolina.
Battle of Camden by Alonzo Chappel. The battle was important in that it came after many defeats in the area and improved moral among American forces. The Battle of Cowpens by William Ranney.
The Battle of Cowpens in was a turning point in the American southern campaign to liberate South Carolina from British control. This battle set into motion the events that ultimately led to the end of the war and the defeat of the British. Surrender of Lord Cornwallis by John Trumbull. After the various battles in South Carolina left his army in terrible condition, General Charles Cornwallis retreated to the Virginia city of Yorktown.
It was there in that a combined French and American army led by George Washington defeated and captured General Cornwallis and his army. This defeat was the last major battle of the Revolutionary War and forced Great Britain to decide to come to the negotiating table.
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