Portal:American Revolutionary War

The American Revolutionary War Portal

Clockwise from top left: Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery at Quebec, Battle of Cowpens, "Moonlight Battle"

The American Revolutionary War began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen united former British colonies on the North American continent, and ended in a global war between several European great powers. The war was the culmination of the political American Revolution and intellectual American Enlightenment, whereby the colonists rejected the right of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation. In 1775, revolutionaries gained control of each of the thirteen colonial governments, set up an alliance called the Second Continental Congress, and formed a Continental Army. Petitions to the king to intervene with the parliament on their behalf resulted in Congress being declared traitors and the states in rebellion the following year. The Americans responded by formally declaring their independence as a new nation, the United States of America, claiming sovereignty and rejecting any allegiance to the British monarchy. In 1777 the Continentals captured a British army, leading to France entering the war on the side of the Americans in early 1778, and evening the military strength with Britain. Spain and the Dutch Republic – French allies – also went to war with Britain over the next two years.

Throughout the war, the British were able to use their naval superiority to capture and occupy coastal cities, but control of the countryside (where 90% of the population lived) largely eluded them due to their relatively small land army. French involvement proved decisive, with a French naval victory in the Chesapeake leading to the surrender of a second British army at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the war and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

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Selected event

Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown by John Trumbull, depicting the British surrendering to French (left) and American (right) troops. Oil on canvas, 1820.

The Siege of Yorktown or Battle of Yorktown, September 28 – October 19, 1781 was a decisive victory by a combined assault of American forces led by General George Washington and French forces led by General Comte de Rochambeau over a British Army commanded by General Lord Cornwallis. Lord Cornwallis had moved his army of 9,000 men to the port town of Yorktown, Virginia, to await relief and resupply from the British Navy. In early September, the Comte de Grasse's French fleet defeated a British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake which had come to relieve Cornwallis, and the armies of Washington and Rochambeau combined to force Cornwallis' surrender.

It proved to be the last major land battle of the American Revolutionary War, as the surrender of Cornwallis’s army (the second major surrender of the war, the other being Burgoyne's surrender at the Battle of Saratoga) prompted the British government to eventually negotiate an end to the conflict, which formally ended with the 1783 Treaty of Paris.

General images -

The following are images from various __-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1A Lexington, Massachusetts memorial to Prince Estabrook, who was wounded in the Battle of Lexington and Concord and was the first Black casualty of the Revolutionary War (from American Revolution)
Image 2Alliance at sail. (from Continental Navy)
Image 3George Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army on June 15, 1775 by the Second Continental Congress. (from Continental Army)
Image 4Eastern North America in 1775. The Province of Quebec, the Thirteen Colonies on the Atlantic coast, and the Indian Reserve as defined by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The border between the red and pink areas represents the 1763 "Proclamation line", while the orange area represents the Spanish claim. (from American Revolution)
Image 5Grenadier of the 40th Regiment of Foot in 1767 (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 6A 1976 United States Bicentennial logo commemorating the American Revolution's 200th anniversary (from American Revolution)
Image 7Continental frigates Hancock and Boston capturing British frigate Fox, June 7, 1777 (from Continental Navy)
Image 81781 drawing of Continental Army soldiers from the Yorktown campaign showing a black infantryman on the far left from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, one of the regiments in the Continental Army with the largest number of black patriot soldiers. An estimated 4% of the Continental Army were black. (from Continental Army)
Image 9Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, published in January 1776 (from American Revolution)
Image 10Join, or Die, a political cartoon attributed to Benjamin Franklin, was used to encourage the Thirteen Colonies to unite against British rule. (from American Revolution)
Image 11Infantry of the Continental Army (from Continental Army)
Image 12Major-general Artemas Ward, one of Washington's key officers (from Continental Army)
Image 13Sir Henry Clinton, British Commander, 1778–1782 (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 14Portrait of Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the Treasury (from American Revolution)
Image 15Continental Army Plaza in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (from Continental Army)
Image 16The Franco-American squadron closely engages the pair of British frigates on September 23, 1779. (from Continental Navy)
Image 17A five-dollar banknote issued by the Second Continental Congress in 1775 (from American Revolution)
Image 18Letter III of John Dickinson's Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, published in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, December 1767 (from American Revolution)
Image 19John Paul Jones, the Continental Navy's first seaman to be appointed the rank of 1st Lieutenant. Oil painting by George Bagby Matthews, c. 1890. (from Continental Navy)
Image 20Louis XVI, King of France and Navarre (from American Revolution)
Image 21John Adams took an active role in the formation of the navy and the drafting of suitable operational regulations. Painting by John Trumbull, c. 1792–93. (from Continental Navy)
Image 22Lieutenant General Wilhelm von Knyphausen commanded Hessian forces in North America. (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 23Press gang at work in British ports, from a British caricature of 1780 (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 24British Loyalists fleeing to British Canada as depicted in this early 20th century drawing (from American Revolution)
Image 25The official Navy officer uniform of 1776 had red lapels and a red waistcoat. The unofficial uniform of 1777, worn by many officers, had white lapels and a white waistcoat, and in addition non-regulation epaulets. From left to right: Lieutenant, Captain (with irregular red buttonhole on the collar), Midshipman, "Commodore" John Paul Jones (with two epaulets). (from Continental Navy)
Image 26Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton commanded the British Legion in the Southern colonies. (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 27Military Governors and Staff Officers in British North America and West Indies 1778 and 1784 (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 28The December 16, 1773 Boston Tea Party, led by Samuel Adams and Sons of Liberty, has become a mainstay of American patriotic lore. (from American Revolution)
Image 29Treaty of Paris by Benjamin West portrays the American delegation about to sign the 1783 Treaty of Paris (John Jay, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Laurens, W.T. Franklin). The British delegation refused to pose and the painting was never completed. (from American Revolution)
Image 30The defeat of the floating batteries at the Great Siege of Gibraltar (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 31George III as depicted in a 1781 portrait (from American Revolution)
Image 32Last page of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War (from American Revolution)
Image 33The Staten Island Peace Conference in September 1776 depicted in a drawing by Alonzo Chappel (from American Revolution)
Image 34Patriots tar and feather Loyalist John Malcolm depicted in a 1774 painting (from American Revolution)
Image 35Field Marshal Jeffery Amherst, Commander-in-Chief of the Forces 1778-1782 (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 36In September 1777, fearing a British Army attack on the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia, American patriots moved the Liberty Bell to this Allentown, Pennsylvania church, where the Liberty Bell was successfully hidden under the church's floor boards until the June 1778 British departure from Philadelphia. Today, inside the Zion United Church of Christ in Allentown, the Liberty Bell Museum commemorates the Liberty Bell's successful nine month hiding there. (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 37British assault on Battle of Bunker Hill (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 38Sir William Howe, British Commander, 1775–1778 (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 39The 1781 siege of Yorktown ended with the surrender of a second British army, marking effective British defeat. (from American Revolution)
Image 40Notice of the Stamp Act 1765 in a colonial newspaper (from American Revolution)
Image 41The death of General Johann de Kalb at the Battle of Camden (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 42The British fleet amassing off Staten Island in New York Harbor in the summer of 1776, depicted in Harper's Magazine in 1876 (from American Revolution)
Image 43Mercy Otis Warren published poems and plays that attacked royal authority and urged colonists to resist British rule. (from American Revolution)
Image 44British regulars and Canadian militia repulse American assault on Quebec. (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 45Abraham Whipple painting by Edward Savage (from Continental Navy)
Image 46New borders drawn by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (from American Revolution)
Image 47The October 1777 surrender of General Burgoyne's army at Saratoga (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 48Johannes Adam Simon Oertel's painting Pulling Down the Statue of King George III, N.Y.C., circa 1859 (from American Revolution)
Image 49Washington's headquarters in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, which is still standing, is one of the centerpieces of Valley Forge National Historical Park. (from Continental Army)
Image 50Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben was a former Prussian Army officer who served as inspector general of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He is credited with teaching the Continental Army the essentials of military drill and discipline beginning at Valley Forge in 1778, considered a turning point for the Americans. (from American Revolution)
Image 51Robert Morris statue honoring American founding father and financier Robert Morris at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia (from American Revolution)
Image 52
Flogging punished men in both armies, navies; here a Royal warship
(from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 531778 drawing showing a Stockbridge Mohican Indian patriot soldier with the Stockbridge Militia in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, taken from Hessian officer Johann Von Ewald's war diary (from Continental Army)
Image 54Joseph Brant led Native Americans and Loyalists in the North. (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 55James Monroe, the last U.S. president to fight in the Revolutionary War, was a Continental Army colonel (from Continental Army)
Image 56An African American soldier (left) of the 1st Rhode Island Regiment, widely regarded as the first Black battalion in U.S. military history (from American Revolution)
Image 57Washington crossing the Delaware on December 25–26, 1776, depicted in Emanuel Leutze's 1851 painting (from American Revolution)
Image 58British bayonet charges were effective; events at Princeton were highlighted in this Trumbull painting. (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 59A 1774 etching from The London Magazine depicts Prime Minister Lord North, author of the Boston Port Act, forcing the Intolerable Acts down the throat of America, whose arms are restrained by Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, and a tattered "Boston Petition" lays trampled on the ground beside her. Lord Sandwich pins down her feet and peers up her robes; behind them, Mother Britannia weeps while France and Spain look on. (from American Revolution)
Image 60This postage stamp, which was created at the time of the bicentennial, honors Salem Poor, who was an enslaved African-American man who purchased his freedom, became a soldier, and rose to fame as a war hero during the Battle of Bunker Hill. (from American Revolution)
Image 61Samuel Adams points at the Massachusetts Charter, which he viewed as a constitution that protected the people's rights, in this c. 1772 portrait by John Singleton Copley. (from American Revolution)
Image 62The September 17, 1787 signing of the United States Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia depicted in Howard Chandler Christy's 1940 painting, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States (from American Revolution)
Image 63The surrender of General Cornwallis's army at Yorktown (from British Army during the American Revolutionary War)
Image 64Thayendanegea, a Mohawk military and political leader, was the most prominent indigenous leader opposing the Patriot forces. (from American Revolution)
Image 65On June 9, 1772, the Sons of Liberty burned HMS Gaspee, a British customs schooner in Narragansett Bay. (from American Revolution)
Image 66Hessian troops hired out to the British by their German sovereigns (from American Revolution)
Image 67The American Revolution was part of the first wave of the Atlantic Revolutions, an 18th and 19th century revolutionary wave in the Atlantic World. (from American Revolution)
Image 68Continental ship Columbus with captured British brig Lord Lifford, 1776 (from Continental Navy)

Selected ships and units

Cannon at Washington Crossing Park, Pennsylvania

The 4th Continental Artillery Regiment, also known as Proctor's Continental Artillery Regiment, was an American military unit during the American Revolutionary War. The regiment became part of the Continental Army on 10 June 1777 as Colonel Thomas Proctor's Continental Artillery Regiment. It was made up of eight artillery companies from eastern Pennsylvania. At the time of the regiment's formation, two companies were already in existence, one from as early as October 1775. One company served at Trenton in December 1776 where it performed well in action. In February 1777, Pennsylvania expanded its two-company battalion into an eight-company regiment. After officially joining the Continental Army, the regiment saw much fighting in the Philadelphia campaign in late 1777. Elements of Proctor's Regiment fought at Monmouth in June 1778 and joined the Sullivan Expedition to upstate New York in summer 1779. In January 1781 the regiment was sent south with General Anthony Wayne, where it participated in the Yorktown campaign, culminating in the October 1781 Siege of Yorktown. The regiment was disbanded in November 1783.

Related portals

Selected picture

John Trumbull painted this depiction of Lord Cornwallis surrendering at Yorktown on October 19, 1781, however, neither George Washington or Lord Cornwallis participated directly.

Selected biography

Daniel Chester French's Minuteman was based on Isaac Davis

Isaac Davis (February 23, 1745 – April 19, 1775) was a gunsmith and a militia officer who commanded a company of Minutemen from Acton, Massachusetts, during the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. His company was selected to lead the advance on the British Regulars during the Battle of Concord because his men were entirely outfitted with bayonets. During the charge on the Old North Bridge, Davis was among the first killed and was the first American officer to die in the war.

Davis is memorialized through the Isaac Davis Monument on the Acton Town Common. He was also the inspiration behind The Minute Man, the sculpture at the Old North Bridge by Daniel Chester French. The sculpture, which French attempted to model after Isaac Davis, is now an iconic national symbol.

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From the American Revolutionary War task force of the Military history WikiProject:

Attention needed: ...to referencing and citation • ...to coverage and accuracy • ...to structure • ...to grammar • ...to supporting materials
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Requested articles: Samuel Cleaveland • Johann von Hanxleden • Claude-Anne de Rouvroy de Saint Simon • Juan Manuel Cagigal y Monserrat
Expansion needed: Quebec in the American Revolution; many existing "<State> in/during the American Revolution" articles • Hercules Mulligan
Images needed: 1780 Black Camp Rebellion • Albemarle Barracks • Battle of Lenud's Ferry • Battle of Wetzell's Mill • Carleton's Raid • Cortlandt Skinner • Daniel Waters (minuteman) • Fort Dayton • Fort Independence (Vermont) • HM galley Pigot • John Swift (general) • King's Royal Regiment of New York • Matthias Ogden • Samuel Holden Parsons • Volunteers of Ireland • Francis McLean (British Army officer)
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Citations needed: Battles in {{Campaignbox American Revolutionary War: Gulf Coast}} • Peter Francisco • Aaron Burr • Charles Cornwallis, 1st Marquess Cornwallis • Continental Army
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