The American Revolution: How Did 13 Colonies Defeat an Empire?

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On March 23rd, 1775, Patrick Henry made a famous speech to the men of the Second Revolutionary Convention in Richmond, Virginia. In it he said, They tell us that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? We are not weak if we make proper use of those means by which the god of nature hath placed in our power. Echoing through the insuring centuries were his concluding words, Give me liberty or give me death. In those early days of the American Revolution, the colonists seemed to be at a considerable disadvantage. So how did their improbable victory come to pass? Tonight, we will consider the many factors that allowed thirteen colonies to defeat an empire. So just relax and let your mind dripped as we explore the sleepy history of the American Revolution.

Visitors to Washington, DC are generally advised to take in a number of key sites. Among them are the many museums of the Smithsonian Institution, the monuments, and in the right season, the famous cherry blossom trees. However, not everyone is likely to take a side trip to the historic Mount Vernon estate. For those who do, an immersive experience awaits, showcasing a wealth of information about the first United States president, George Washington. At his former home, a high-tech museum reveals an in-depth view of this icon of the American Revolution, allowing the visitor to walk in his shoes. One of the most beloved features of the museum is the 22-minute theater show, in which visitors experience the sights and sounds of the revolutionary battlefield. To make that scene as vivid as possible, the audience is surrounded by fog, the vibrations of cannons, and the falling snow of Valley Forge, which drifts down into the auditorium. These scenes get at the very heart of what most people think they already know about George Washington's victories. Namely, that the Americans managed to win this war due to sheer endurance, besting the British with their home field advantage and their desire to be free. The misery the troops endured at Valley Forge, as well as Washington's key victories at locations such as Boston and Trenton were certainly a major factor in the unlikely ultimate triumph of the colonists over the British. But with historical analysis and 2020 hindsight at our disposal, a deeper dive into the full picture of the conflict reveals other important elements to the Revolutionary War. In concert, all of these eventually undermined what was currently one of the most powerful countries in the world, causing them to lose a battle in which they were strongly favored. Tonight, we'll walk you through a discussion of those contributing factors. In doing so, we won't tell a comprehensive story of the war from beginning to end, but rather, we'll examine questions that have occupied military strategists ever since. How did a rag-tag group of mostly poorly trained rebels manage to pull off such a feat? And what lessons can we learn from their hard-won success? There's no obvious place to begin, but it's important to note that, at the onset of hostilities, the British actually had a fair amount of support from many colonists. When the first battles of the Revolution broke out in 1775, Britain initially looked like an obvious winner. Not only did they have an extremely powerful army and a huge navy at their disposal, but they also had a lot of fans in the colonies. In fact, many people don't know that Benjamin Franklin's own son William was a loyalist to the Crown, a fact which eventually caused him to flee the country and drove a rift between the two men for the rest of their lives. A digital history essay from the University of Houston states that, prior to the Revolution, there were already about 50,000 loyalists forming 70 regiments who were in place to help the British maintain order in the colonies. You'd have thought that the British would have leveraged that loyalist support to quell the rebellion early on. But the essay suggests that the crown squandered that opportunity, mostly due to distrust and snobbery. The loyalist regiments were not seen as being trustworthy or sufficiently competent. Although 15 to 20% of the American population remained loyal to the king, the British made further mistakes later in the war that eroded their support. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. As the saying goes, the pen is mightier than the sword. When looking for a turning point in colonists' sentiment, many historians point to the emergence of a pamphlet by Thomas Paine that was published anonymously in early 1776 It was called Common Sense, and it argued passionately for the cause of independence. Now, it's important to explain to modern listeners that this was no five-page pamphlet such as one we'd find in the information rack of a tourist attraction. Common Sense was composed of 47 pages passionately arguing for independence. Regardless of the varying modern opinions of Paine's motivations or his skill, the important fact to know is that the pamphlet sold 150,000 copies. That doesn't sound like a big deal in today's terms, but consider that the population of the colonies at that time was only 2.5 million people. Therefore, proportionately, it was a wild success, achieving record distribution for a published American work. In other words, pain went viral, colonial style. Being a revolutionary was suddenly much more on trend to the colonies. So more Americans found their passion for freedom, and that was not to the advantage of the British. But the king still had upwards of 40,000 professional British soldiers and 30,000 Hessian mercenaries on the payroll. Meanwhile, the colonists had little more than spunk. To quantify their situation, the colonial army would top out around 20,000 men serving at any given time. Most of them were young, without land, and unskilled in the ways of war. In fact, many were enslaved people or indentured servants who enlisted in place of their enslavers or employers for the promise of freedom. However unpromising, the upstart colonists gave the British a surprising run for their money at the first full-scale conflict of the war, fought at Bunker Hill and Breeds Hill in Charleston, Massachusetts. The British did win the battle, but it was costly, and they lost many more men than they had expected. In fact, on the website for his American Revolution documentary, Ken Burns states that the 40% casualty rate the British suffered there was the highest the British army would ever have until the Battle of Somme in World War I.