The Continentals Become Desperate

Following the string of defeats across Long Island, morale in the Continental Army plummeted. At one point, in the string of defeats, British officers began blowing their horns used for fox hunting back home. It was a form of mockery that was all too serious, the colonials seemed totally inept, and soon engagements seemed to hardly even be considered battles, but resembled more of a fox hunt. Washington, for his part, placed the blame squarely on his soldiers. In the midst of retreat, he cursed the men as they fled past him, demanding to his officers how he could be expected to defend the colonies with such rabble. The possibility that his own leadership might have been lacking, never seems to have crossed his mind.

Retreat followed retreat and it seemed that the colonial militia and regulars would be eventually wiped out. The British troops proved that discipline can easily win battles on its own. General Howe now marched his men northwest to Ft Washington. On November 16th, the fort's 3,000 defenders surrendered to Howe in a stunning defeat for the revolutionaries. New Jersey was now vulnerable to attack, and Howe sent one of his best men, Major General Charles, Earl Cornwallis to exploit the breach. Washington refused to fight Cornwallis however, and after sending his troops to hold New England, he retreated behind the Delaware River. Howe tired of the chase. He sent Major General Sir Henry Clinton to seize Newport, Rhode Island then retired his men to winter quarters.

The Americans' situation was now desperate. Morale was at a deadly level. Men refused to volunteer, and the troops on hand were melting away from desertion. Washington therefore sought an easy victory that would be glorified enough to restore morale and inspire men to enlist. He chose a site and rolled the dice. On Christmas night, Colonel John Glover launched a three-pronged attack on Trenton, New Jersey, garrisoned by a vastly smaller number of Hessian soldiers, most of whom were drunk from the previous day's festivities and were now sleeping heavily. After a brief struggle, the Hessian commander, Colonel Johann Rahl, surrendered to Washington.

This battle has since been hailed by historians as a master stroke of strategy on the part of General Washington. The actual facts are somewhat less glorious though. He had surprised a drunk, sleeping body of soldiers which he outnumbered several times over and had to beat a hasty retreat as soon as the battle ended to escape British retaliation. The Continentals lost 4 men to the Germans 900 and 1,000 captured. Despite the vastly uneven odds, the victory at Trenton, or more importantly, how it was "sold" to the public, did improve the morale of the army. Glossing over the actual circumstances, revolutionary newssheets boasted of General Washington's "great victory" over the professional, and greatly feared, Hessian mercenaries. It gave the colonials new confidence, but the actual military situation had not considerably changed.

Washington eventually took his entire army across the Delaware, but in the face of Cornwallis' veteran troops, Washington again retreated. It became clear that the colonials would not fight unless they possessed the overwhelming odds enjoyed at Trenton. The British pursued Washington south, and by January 2, 1777 Cornwallis was prepared to "bag the fox" the next day. A British officer, wishing Cornwallis to attack at once said, "My lord, if you trust those people tonight, you will see nothing of them in the morning". Sure enough, Washington retreated once again during the night and the following day attacked a small detachment of British troops at Princeton, before retreating to winter quarters at Morristown. Naturally, this retreat, and victorious skirmish over a handful of troops at Princeton, were likewise touted as "great victories" for General Washington.

The early part of 1777 then saw attention turned to the north. The new British army under Lieutenant General John Burgoyne, nicknamed "Gentleman Johnny", numbered some 7,700 men, British regulars, Indians, American loyalists and Canadians. They marched south from Canada toward Albany, New York. British strategists planned for Howe & Burgoyne to link up and sweep the north colonies. In July a British fleet under William's brother, Vice-Admiral Richard Howe, escorted the British army toward the Philadelphia area.

On July 5th, General Burgoyne forced Ft Ticonderoga to surrender. British troops under Colonel Barry St Leger then moved to surround Ft Stanwix. The colonials rushed troops to the relief of the fort and the two sides met at Oriskany on August 6th, and at first the British were able to force the colonists back. However, Continental reinforcements continued to pour in and the British were forced to fall back. This, however, did not stop Burgoyne's advance south. Continental troops were arriving week by week and the big battle was yet to come.

Hope Shines for the United States, but Not Brightly

On August 16th, colonial troops under Brigadier General John Stark defeated to Hessian detachments under Colonels Baum and Breymann. Losses were 900 Germans and 80 Americans, still this battle was of little consequence other than as a morale booster to the rebels. However, it was here, rather than with the army of George Washington, that the future of the newly declared United States was to be decided to a considerable degree.

Major General Philip Schuyler and Major General Horatio Gates commanded the 6,000 colonials entrenching on Bemis Heights, north of Albany. General Burgoyne knew better than to throw his limited troops away on frontal assaults against an entrenched enemy. September 19th, at Freeman's Farm the British made an attack on the colonists' left flank, but in a fierce battle the British were defeated. The rebels were receiving more men daily, but Burgoyne refused to retreat. Being something of a gambler in his private life, "Gentleman Johnny" decided to take his chances and continue to push on. However, after a second failure at Freeman's Farm, the British were forced to concede defeat and fell back.

Yet, by then, it was too late for General Burgoyne to extricate himself. The force of colonials now numbered 17,000 men, outnumbering the British more than 3 to 1 and had them virtually surrounded. Finally, on October 17th, 1777 there was nothing left to be done and General Burgoyne surrendered his remaining 5,000 men to General Gates at Saratoga. At the time, it would not have seemed like an immense failure to Great Britain, but the political consequences which were to follow ensured that the series of engagements known as the battle of Saratoga would be a turning point in the war.

This victory was clung to by the colonists, especially after the once again embarrassing battles in Pennsylvania. On September 11th, the recently arrived British army met the rebels at Brandywine Creek. Lt General Howe once again played the fox. He staged a phony frontal assault while he sent the Hessians against Chad's Ford and Lord Cornwallis to outflank the rebels' right wing. The surprise was brilliant and complete, Lord Cornwallis' movement was never detected and when the colonists heard fire behind them, they broke into a panic. Major General John Sullivan?s men retreated in confusion, then the Hessians pounced on them. Major General Nathaniel Greene fought a rear guard until darkness forced the British to halt. Washington's army had been humiliatingly defeated again, they retreated yet again and again Howe pushed on in pursuit. His goal now was the colonial revolutionary capital at Philadelphia, and its capture was well within sight.

On September 26th, General Howe entered the capital city without firing a shot. But, there was no rebel government to break up and no leaders to arrest. The Continental Congress, following in the glorious example of their hero George Washington, had fled to York, Pennsylvania when the British troops approached. This humiliation, coming on the heels of the defeat at Brandywine, pressed Washington to do something to recapture a little bit of glory for his faltering forces. His army had been beaten, the enemy was in their capital and Burgoyne, at this point, was still campaigning in New York. He decided he would need another "easy" victory that could be exploited in the press after the example of Trenton and Princeton.

Fortunately for the British, the third time was not the charm with General Washington. He attempted a surprise attack on October 4th at Germantown. He hoped it would go similarly to his surprise attack on the Hessians in New Jersey. This time, however, the British troops turned the battle around and Washington's brilliant surprise attack turned into yet another defeat with 1,073 colonial casualties. General Howe, on the other hand, lost less than half that number. The British were then able to open the Delaware River to their own shipping. Washington was forced to retreat once again, this time to Valley Forge, where he put his troops into winter quarters on December 19th. Thomas Paine wrote inspiring pamphlets about the privations the troops suffered at Valley Forge. What he didn't write was that while the Continental army was starving and freezing to death, Washington was billeted in a comfortable mansion, holding dances and tea parties to entertain himself and his officers.

Once again, another year of war had ended, the third so far. Once again, the hope for a colonial victory looked slim at best. The victory at Saratoga helped maintain the war effort, but there was the looming numbers that could not be ignored. 1,000 dead at the defeat at Brandywine, 3,000 surrendered at Ft Washington, 1,400 more dead at the Long Island defeat, 500 lost in Canada and now the army was in Pennsylvania literally melting away in the frozen, impoverished camp. Other than Saratoga, colonial victories had been few and unimportant.

Little did the revolutionaries know, that a victory of much greater importance was about to be won far away from the battlefield. Saratoga had presented the world with the idea at least, that the American revolt possibly had a chance to succeed. The Kingdom of France began to consider recognition of the outlaw government. Although King Louis XVI had severe reservations, the French were tempted by the opportunity to hit back at the British, who had previously humbled them, at a time when Britain was weakest. Benjamin Franklin, the colonial envoy to Louis' court, had also become a major celebrity among the debauched, chattering, idle rich of the country and soon had all of France going crazy for America. As well as taking a French mistress, Franklin was turning France to the side of the colonies, and by extension, away from monarchist rule. It wasn't much at the moment, but was the only hope the colonies had to that point.

The rebel army also received some help in their winter misery. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Rudolph Gerhard Agustin von Steuben, a major general from Germany was made Inspector General of the army. He drilled the rebel farmers and merchants day after day. Drill, drill, drill, discipline, discipline, discipline were his rules. With ruthless German efficiency, von Steuben proceeded to whip the colonials into shape. On into the new year of 1778, the highly esteemed German aristocrat drilled the men until they collapsed. Then, he prodded them up and drilled them some more. Later on, an embarrassing truth was discovered about Baron von Steuben. He was neither a general nor a baron, he had fabricated his entire past in an elaborate lie for position. Washington didn't care though. The army was disciplined for once, and they moved about with a step of confidence never before seen. Steuben may have been a phony, but he got the job done.

Then, more good news came in for the colonies. On February 6, 1778 the Kingdom of France signed an alliance with the United States of America, agreeing to aid each other in the event of a war between France and Great Britain. In America, toasts were drank in honor of King Louis XVI, the first European ruler to recognize the American nation. Across the ocean in France however, the King was not so enthusiastic about the new alliance, and before too many years had past, would certainly come to regret this alliance and the effects which were to be felt in his own country.

The Continental Congress had also recently been approached by the British. Although the war had still been going mostly in her favor, Britain was growing weary of the cost, loss of life and the infuriating chasing of the colonial army from point to point. Hoping to make peace, the Earl of Carlisle led a British delegation to Philadelphia to try and come to terms with the rebellious colonists. He was authorized to offer the colonies dominion status with full autonomy within the British Empire if only they would cease hostilities and reaffirm their loyalty to King George III. Spurred on by French recognition though, the Congress refused any peaceful settlement with Great Britain and ratified the treaty of alliance with France, an alliance which soon brought in huge French loans and thousands of French troops. The American Revolution had just taken the first step toward becoming an 18th Century world war.

These new circumstances forced the British to go on the defensive in America, at least in the short term. General Howe who, despite having out-fought Washington on numerous occasions, had also missed opportunities to destroy the rebel army, was replaced by Sir Henry Clinton, who abandoned Philadelphia and moved toward New York. Washington attacked, in what would be the northern war's last major battle.

At Monmouth Court House on June 28, 1778 General Washington attacked Clinton's army as it moved north. General Charles Lee led the initial attack on the British rear, and thanks to the hard training of the American forces, they managed to put up a much more effective fight. However, as the British turned to flank them, the colonials again began to break under fire. It was an extremely hot day and casualties became extreme, more so from the heat than enemy bullets. Finally, Lee ordered a retreat and the Continentals began to break for the rear. At this point, Washington arrived on the scene and began berating General Lee for ordering the retreat. Washington managed to rally the men and held off two British attacks before nightfall brought an end to the battle. Although Monmouth is often listed as a draw, it was actually a British victory. Washington's attack on Clinton had been repulsed, and the fact that Washington managed to barely survive the engagement, does not change the fact that the operation was an overall failure. Losses were almost evenly divided with 361 for the colonists and 400 for the British, who reached New York safely, with their army intact.

The War in the West

As the revolution entered the final phase of combat, the struggle shifted away from the start of the trouble in the northeast, where the colonies had been consistently defeated, and toward the southern colonies and territories in the west. In 1777 the Native Indians, furious about colonial incursions into land that had been recognized as their own, began attacking colonial settlements in Kentucky. The revolutionary government of Virginia dispatched Lt Colonel George Rogers Clark to the area to protect the colonists, punish the Indians and secure the area for the revolutionary government.

Upon arrival, Clark soon made his primary target the British city of Detroit, a base of supply from which they had been funding Indian attacks on the rebel colonists. Clark identified Detroit as the key to controlling the northwest and was determined to seize it for the rebel cause. As a necessary prelude, Clark marched into Illinois in 1778 with 175 men, capturing Kaskaskia, Vincennes and some other French villages with sympathetic populations. However, his campaign was not all cakes and ale and the British soon recaptured Vincennes. Clark, an aggressive fighter, was determined to take it back and on February 25, 1779 did just that, again forcing the British garrison to surrender.

British Governor Hamilton surrenders to Colonel Clark

Yet, in spite of this success, Clark's campaign had been a failure. He had worn down his small army through all of this fighting and did not have sufficient forces to take Detroit. Subsequent historians have argued that Clark's battles did succeed in at least making the settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee safer, but even this was a very limited accomplishment. Much of Ohio and Indiana continued to be more or less ruled by the Indians and Tories of the partisan band led by American loyalist Simon Girty. Furthermore, these battles only further cemented the image of the United States as the land-hungry aggressor in the minds of the Indians and was to lead to even further conflict between them and the United States in the future. Detroit, and most of the northwest remained in British hands for the rest of the war.

America Takes Second Place in the Wider War

When France recognized the American colonies and declared war on Great Britain, other nations who had also previously been bested by the British in past conflicts took this opportunity to join the fight while Britain had so much of her strength concentrated in North America. On June 21, 1779 the Kingdom of Spain declared war on Great Britain in the hopes of capturing the strategic British stronghold of Gibraltar. In December of 1780, the Republic of the United Netherlands (Holland) also joined the conflict against the British. Faced with such an array of opportunistic enemies, British strategists were forced to place the American colonies on the back burner while they worried about defending more vital possessions including the home islands themselves.

In North America, General Washington continued to be thwarted by Clinton in New York. The spreading conflict prevented the British from taking any aggressive action, but Washington's army had been reduced by so many defeats that he likewise lacked the strength to storm New York City and attack Clinton's army directly. Washington had planned an attack, making use of the heavy French ships under Admiral Comte d?Estaing, but the sandbar at the mouth of New York Harbor prevented the French ships from being of any use.

General Clinton was, likewise, far from being totally inactive. He launched a number of raids around New York and the surrounding territory in early 1779. The British took Stony Point on the Hudson, but this was later retaken in a daring bayonet charge by Major General "Mad" Anthony Wayne of the Continental army on July 15. However, the most dramatic and controversial exchange took place over the attempt by the British to capture West Point, and the change of heart of a famous American officer which was to prove the most crucial of all. The officer in question of course, was Benedict Arnold. In May, Clinton and Arnold began corresponding, planning Arnold's defection to the British side and to seize the fort the next year.

Benedict Arnold is one of the most fascinating and mysterious men of the American War for Independence. His wife came from a very prominent loyalist family, and she was to play a major part in his defection. Arnold himself had been, undeniably, one of the very best commanders in the Continental army. He had accompanied Ethan Allen in the seizure of Ft Ticonderoga, provided the force behind the invasion of Canada and had stalled the British counter-offensive on Lake Champlain. His skill and courage in battle were unquestioned, yet, his own army seemed to take him for granted. Perhaps it was prejudice against his loyalist wife, or perhaps it was the fact that he was the only major general in the revolutionary army that was not a Freemason, and thus excluded from the ruling clique of the rebel command?

In any event, according to Arnold, it was the French alliance which pushed him over the edge, as he stated his was unwilling to fight side by side with their age-old French enemies against fellow Englishmen. He decided to change sides, vowing to do all in his power to save and secure the British Empire, and thus became the most famous "traitor" in American history. In fact, forever after Arnold embarked on this undertaking, his very name was to become synonymous with treason throughout the United States. The British had sent a gallant young officer named Major John Andre to contact Arnold, but he was captured, out of uniform, going through the rebel lines and the letters he was carrying was discovered. This gave Arnold the chance to escape, leaving Washington to content himself with the execution of Andre as a spy on September 23, 1780. He met his death with such courage and dignity that even the revolutionaries were impressed and saddened by the execution of this young officer. Arnold, for his part, became a general in the British army and worked with British and loyalist forces in the southern campaign.

Other British attacks were also made on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania by American loyalists and Indians who fought with a ferocity born out of the mistreatment they had suffered at the hands of the revolutionaries. Colonial losses in the Cherry and Wyoming valleys were heavy and this caused the revolutionaries to take severe punitive measures. Continental troops marched methodically throughout the region, burning every Indian village they encountered, totally devastating the native population of the region. In fact, this brutality left such an impression that the Indian word for the President of the United States forever after translated to "burner of villages".

The War in the Southern Colonies

With the British being stretched so thin, Clinton was forced to remain on the defensive in New England, but a new effort was made to retake the southern colonies. It was believed that this could be accomplished with a relatively small investment of British troops because of the greater concentration of loyalists in the south. On December 29, 1778 the British captured Savannah, Georgia and repulsed a French and Continental attack which tried to recapture the city. Encouraged by this victory, Clinton launched a major campaign against the port city of Charleston, South Carolina in the Spring of 1780. The result was perhaps the most brilliant and stunning British victory of the entire war. On May 12, 1780 General Clinton captured Charleston, taking General Benjamin Lincoln and 5,400 colonial rebels prisoner. It was a devastating defeat for the revolutionaries and all of South Carolina and Georgia soon returned to British control. Confident of victory, Clinton returned to New York leaving Lt General Charles, Earl Cornwallis in command.

Once again, the British troops dominated the war in the southern colonies. The colonial commander, General Horatio Gates, the "hero of Saratoga", planned an attack on Cornwallis at Camden, South Carolina. The battle was a dramatic match of opposing commanders. Gates, after the victory at Saratoga, had been hailed as the rebels' greatest general, with some even pushing for him to replace General Washington, whose record had been, honestly, abysmal. Cornwallis, on the other hand, had gained a reputation as one of the best commanders in the British army with even some of his colonial opponents like General Nathaniel Greene calling him "the modern Hannibal". On August 16th, the two armies met, with both planning to hold their left flanks and strike with their right. In spite of the fact that the revolutionaries had the British outnumbered by about 2 to1, the battle was a stunning British victory. The colonial militia broke under British pressure and fled in a panic. Even the "famous" General Gates retreated from the field and abandoned his army, fleeing madly north. His reputation was ruined by his cowardly behavior and morale in the colonial army plummeted after the humiliating defeat.

The revolutionaries had nothing left at the moment to confront Cornwallis with. Their primary southern army had been captured at Charleston and the hurried force they mustered together to replace it was destroyed at Camden. The best they could do was to launch guerilla attacks against British supply lines under such leaders as Thomas Sumter, Francis Marion and Andrew Pickens. However, this harassment was not enough to stop Cornwallis, whose cavalry commander Banastre Tarleton had been quite effective at dealing with Sumter's guerillas, and he continued his advance northward, entering North Carolina in September of 1780. The only setbacks suffered by the British were the loss of two detachments Cornwallis had sent to deal with colonial irregular units. On October 7, colonial rebels under Colonel Isaac Shelby defeated Major Patrick Ferguson's American loyalists at King's Mountain. Although it is usually ignored, many of the loyalists who had surrendered were subsequently massacred by their rebel countrymen.

The other engagement came later, after Major General Nathaniel Greene had taken command of colonial forces and in October his subordinate Daniel Morgan won a victory over British forces under Lt Colonel Tarleton's legion at the battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781. Both sides were evenly matched and both commanders had high reputations. The real cause for this loss was the fact that Tarleton had been pushing his legion hard in pursuit of Morgan and when the two sides met at the cow pens, the British and loyalist forces were exhausted and hungry. It is important to note that although Tarleton has been giving the reputation of the villain in the war in the south, mostly because of a single, and highly propagandized, incident at Waxhaw, South Carolina wherein colonial prisoners were killed in a confused situation. However it is often forgotten that the colonial Colonel Francis Marion (a.k.a. the "Swamp Fox") was a notoriously brutal man who killed Indians for sport and repeatedly raped numerous female slaves that he owned. But, Cornwallis continued to hold the upper hand and drove the colonials northward as Greene and Morgan joined forces. On March 15, Cornwallis was attacked by Greene at Guildford Court House. The battle is often characterized as a colonial victory because Cornwallis subsequently left North Carolina and marched into Virginia. This is, however, an absurd and dishonest misrepresentation of the facts. The British were vastly outnumbered (1,900 men to Greene's 4,400) and held their ground, repelling all rebel attacks and inflicting 1,100 casualties on the colonials while losing only 406 troops of their own. The battle itself can only be called a clear British victory. In fact, British losses would have been less except for the fact that Cornwallis was forced to order his artillery to fire on troops engaged in hand-to-hand combat, killing British as well as colonial troops in order to win the battle.

The Final Act

Clinton was opposed to Cornwallis moving into Virginia in April of 1781, feeling the move was too risky. However, it seemed to Cornwallis that Virginia would make the ideal base of operations for campaigns throughout the area. Prior to this movement, British and loyalist forces, some under the former Continental general Benedict Arnold, had ruled the colony, marching throughout the region at will dispersing rebel units and destroying colonial supplies. Cornwallis, with only 7,000 troops who were tired and running low on supplies, also needed to establish a base on the coast where he could be easily re-supplied due to the Royal Navy's rule of the sea lanes.

The British position in Virginia would have likely remained totally secure were it not for the timely intervention of the French navy. Washington was still concentrating on Clinton at New York, but when he heard that Admiral Francois de Grasse was sailing north from the West Indies, he decided to take the opportunity to launch a combined allied attack on Cornwallis at Yorktown. The French fleet was ordered to sail for Chesapeake Bay in the hope of cutting the British off by sea while Washington's colonial forces moved south, along with the French army under Lt General Jean de Rochambeau to besiege Yorktown on the peninsula. The crucial battle actually came on the water when Rear Admiral Thomas Graves attempted to block de Grasse from entering the bay. Unfortunately for Cornwallis, Graves' 19 ships failed to stop the French fleet of  24 ships of the line at Cape Henry and were forced to withdraw back to New York.

With Cornwallis cut off from the sea, George Washington was in position to fight about the only kind of battle he had ever been able to win: one in which the odds were stacked highly in his favor. The depleted British forces numbered only about 7,500 men while the French and colonial forces under Washington numbered some 17,000 effectives. Cornwallis was vastly outnumbered, surrounded and in no position to effect a breakout or hope for rescue. The allied force arrived at Yorktown on September 28 and began attacking the British on October 6th. The British held out for three weeks, already exhausted and with their meager supplies rapidly dwindling. Cornwallis, a proud and fiery soldier, briefly considered trying to cut his way out, but seeing that this was hopeless, finally decided that he had no choice but to surrender and save the lives of his men. He offered his surrender on October 17 and two days later Cornwallis' second in command, Brigadier General Charles O'Hara officially surrendered the British army.

The situation could not have been more infuriating for the British. At that very moment, General Clinton was on his way to Yorktown with a relief force of  7,000 men but was forced to turn back when he learned of the surrender. The liberals in England who wished to end the war made much of the defeat, much to the disgust of the Tories and King George III. Although the loss of so many men was certainly a disaster, it did not imply that the British were beaten in the colonies. They still controlled New York City and Charleston, South Carolina and had consistently defeated the colonial forces in every major engagement. Yet, the British Parliament decided to make Yorktown decisive.

Britain was still more concerned with the wider war against Spain, Holland and France. A planned French invasion was a serious threat to Great Britain and the war in the American colonies was quickly coming to be seen as an unnecessary drain on British manpower that would be better spent guarding more vital areas. Many British liberals had long been calling for an end to the war and the surrender at Yorktown played perfectly into their hands, as well as those of the French and colonial propagandists. When British Prime Minister Lord North heard of the defeat he supposedly cried, ?O God! It is all over?. King George III threatened to abdicate rather than recognize American independence, but finally it was decided that a separate peace with the revolutionaries was the best way to end the war before France was able to gain a significant advantage.

Results of Revolution

In April of 1782, peace negotiations began in Paris. A preliminary peace was agreed upon on November 5, but would only take effect after Britain had come to terms with France and Spain. The United States ratified the treaty on April 19, 1783. The terms were extremely generous toward the new country. King George III recognized the independence of the United States of America, the new nation was granted all of the territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from the Great Lakes and 45th parallel in the north to the 31st parallel in the south and with the additional right of the United States to fish off the Canadian coast at Newfoundland and the Grand Banks. In return, Congress promised to "earnestly recommend" that the individual states return or pay compensation to the American loyalists for property of theirs which was destroyed or confiscated by revolutionary forces during the war. Naturally, nothing of the sort was ever done and up to 100,000 American loyalists were forced to relocate to Canada, England and the West Indies when the British troops withdrew from the United States.

The results of the American revolt were far reaching, yet most people did not realize the effects, or in the case of the United States, made a conscious effort to avoid reality when it came to the negative aspects. For the British, there was a bright side, though evident in the short term mostly. Although they had lost the 13 American colonies they had won the wider war against France, Spain and Holland and as a purely financial matter, holding their West Indies possessions was far more important that holding New England. Most Britons, after such a long and costly war to keep colonies which had seemed so ungrateful at the preferential treatment they were receiving, adopted an attitude of "good riddance" and tried to tell themselves that Britain was better off without them. This attitude persists today, though it is of course impossible to tell exactly how things would have transpired had the colonies been retained. However, it is certain that an opportunity for greatness, the likes of which the world has never seen, was lost by the division of the English-speaking world between two powers.

For the new United States, independence was not entirely the glorious event it was made out to be. Despite the high-sounding words about liberty and equality there was no real change in rights. Slaves were still slaves, the elite propertied class remained dominant with some, like Thomas Jefferson, even increasing their wealth because debts owed to Britain no longer had to be paid, and the only woman with any political rights were those who owned land, and even this would prove fleeting. Taxes, which the revolt had supposedly broken out to stop, went through the roof as the colonies now had to pay for the formation of their own government, their own state governments, their own militaries and all the rest of the infrastructure of an independent nation.

In fact, taxes became so high, particularly for the poor, that many of the middle and lower class farmers and workers were losing their lands, businesses and homes. Gone were the days when King George requested $1.20 a year in tribute, taxes levied by the American government went through the roof and those who could not pay were carried off in chains to prison. As a result of this, in 1786 and 1787 revolt broke out once again in Massachusetts, this time against the United States. Despite all of the talk about freedom, in Massachusetts only land owners could vote, which meant that the poor had no way of influencing politics in their favor. Daniel Shays led a protest against the state Supreme Court, but the rebellion was quickly put down by Major General Benjamin Lincoln. As a result, a new Constitution was later adopted which gave the central government even more power. In 1794 George Washington had to send in government troops again to suppress the "Whiskey Rebellion" in Pennsylvania where farmers were again protesting high taxes and autocratic collection methods.

And yet, probably no other nation was to suffer more from the American Revolution than the Kingdom of France. French aid to the colonies, pushed by the liberal elites of France and the growing army of worshippers the philandering Ben Franklin had collected, had taken the already over-burdened French economy into total bankruptcy. It also made the culture of republican revolution popular and something which could be considered. French radicals began to think that if it was possible for America to successfully revolt, they could to. This, then resulted in the horrific bloodbath that was the French Revolution, costing countless lives, sparking a world war as France sought to dominate Europe and caused the popular spread of radical liberal ideas which the world is still forced to deal with today.

So, it seems that the American Revolution is simply one more of those great rebellions in which the truth is not what is told. The "Founders" were no saintly libertarians, King George was no tyrant and the colonies were not being taxed into oppression. It was, much like the Protestant revolt, the English Civil War and the French Revolution that was to come later; a revolt of the rich. Many hail the success and stability of early America and the freedom which allowed this. Yet, as has been shown, there were rebellions as soon as the war was over, and things would likely have not been so stable were it not for the fact that 100,000 loyalists were expelled from the country, virtually eliminating America's native conservative element, leaving only radical liberals and moderate liberals to set the tone for American life. It is another little known fact that more people actually fled the American Revolution than the terribly bloody French one. In looking through all of this, we can see that there was, perhaps, one honest man among the Founding Fathers, though it was not George Washington but rather John Adams who uttered at least one completely honest phrase in his life if he never did another, and that was his confident assertion that, "The history of the American Revolution will be a lie".

God Bless America and God Save King George.