This study considers the subtle and frequently confused relationship of armed force and political control in the British Empire before the American Revolution. It also clarifies a number of points of controversy and uncertainty about the causes of the American Revolution. Originally published in 1965. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

During the American Revolution, British light infantry and grenadier battalions figured prominently in almost every battle and campaign. They are routinely mentioned in campaign studies, usually with no context to explain what these battalions were. In an army that employed regiments as the primary deployable assets, the most active battlefield elements were temporary battalions created after the war began and disbanded when it ended. The Distinguished Corps: British Grenadier and Light Infantry Battalions in the American Revolution is the first operational study of these battalions during the entire war, looking at their creation, evolution and employment from the first day of hostilities through their disbandment at the end of the conflict. It examines how and why these battalions were created, how they were maintained at optimal strength over eight years of war, how they were deployed tactically and managed administratively. Most important, it looks at the individual officers and soldiers who served in them. Using first-hand accounts and other primary sources, The Distinguished Corps describes life in the grenadiers and light infantry on a personal level, from Canada to the Caribbean and from barracks to battlefield.

Military history is an essential component of wartime diplomatic history, Jonathan R. Dull contends, and this belief shapes his account of the French navy as the means by which French diplomacy helped to win American independence. The author discusses the place of long-range naval requirements in the French decision to aid the American colonists, the part played by naval rivalry in the transition from limited aid to full-scale war, and the ways naval considerations affected French wartime diplomacy. His book focuses on military strategy and diplomatic requirements in a setting in which military officers themselves did not participate directly in decision-making, but in which diplomats had to take continual account of military needs. Since military action is a means of accomplishing diplomatic goals, even military victory can prove hollow. The author examines the American war not as a successful exercise of French power, but rather as a tragic failure based on economic and political miscalculations. Among the questions he asks are: What relationship did the war bear to overall French diplomacy? What strains did the limited nature of the war impose on French diplomacy and war strategy? How did the results of the war relate to the objectives with which France entered the conflict? Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The life of Benedict Arnold, the American Revolutionary War general who attempted to surrender West Point to the British in 1780, didn't end after he betrayed his American compatriots. In the newly formed United States, he was condemned as a conspirator and in Britain, he was suspected of the same. He quickly left America, spent a short time in London, and largely operated in Canada and the Caribbean as a smuggler, a mercenary and a pariah. Although much has been written about Arnold's famous fall from grace, this book is the story of a charismatic man of vaulting ambition. With new research and photographs, it delves into his last twenty years. Arnold remains fascinating as a toppled hero and a flagrant traitor. Another American general wrote in the 1780s that Arnold "never does anything by halves"; indeed, he lived on a big scale. This study documents each of the various points of the globe where the restless Arnold operated and lived, pursuing wealth, status, and redemption.

George Washington and his Continental Army braving the frigid winter at Valley Forge form an iconic image in the popular history of the American Revolution. Such winter camps, Steven Elliott tells us in Surviving the Winters, were also a critical factor in the waging and winning of the War of Independence. Exploring the inner workings of the Continental Army through the prism of its encampments, this book is the first to show how camp construction and administration played a crucial role in Patriot strategy during the war. As Elliott reminds us, Washington's troops spent only a few days a year in combat. The rest of the time, especially in the winter months, they were engaged in a different sort of battle-against the elements, unfriendly terrain, disease, and hunger. Victory in that more sustained struggle depended on a mastery of camp construction, logistics, and health and hygiene-the components that Elliott considers in his environmental, administrative, and operational investigation of the winter encampments at Middlebrook, Morristown, West Point, New Windsor, and Valley Forge. Beyond the encampments' basic function of sheltering soldiers, his study reveals their importance as a key component of Washington's Fabian strategy: stationed on secure, mountainous terrain close to New York, the camps allowed the Continental commander-in-chief to monitor the enemy but avoid direct engagement, thus neutralizing a numerically superior opponent while husbanding his own strength. Documenting the growth of Washington and his subordinates as military administrators, Surviving the Winters offers a telling new perspective on the commander's generalship during the Revolutionary War. At the same time, the book demonstrates that these winter encampments stand alongside more famous battlefields as sites where American independence was won.

In this penetrating biography of Thomas Bradbury Chandler, S. Scott Rohrer takes readers deep into the intellectual world of a leading loyalist who defended monarchy, rejected rebellion and democracy, and opposed the American Revolution. Talented, hardworking, and erudite, this Anglican minister from New Jersey possessed one of the Church of England's most outstanding minds. Chandler was an Anglican leader in the 1760s and a key strategist in the effort to strengthen the American church in the years preceding the Revolution. He headed the campaign to create an Anglican bishopric in America-a cause that helped inflame tensions with American radicals unhappy with British policies. And, in the 1770s, his writings provided some of the most trenchant criticisms of the American revolutionary movement, raising fundamental questions about obedience, subordination, and rebellion that undercut Whig assertions about republicanism and popular control. Working from Chandler's library catalog and other primary sources, Rohrer digs into Chandler's political and religious beliefs, exploring their origins and the events in British history that shaped them. An intriguing and thoughtful reappraisal of a consequential figure in early American history, this biography will captivate students, scholars, and lay readers interested in politics and religion in Revolutionary-era America.

Historians have debated how the clergy's support for political resistance during the American Revolution should be understood, often looking to influence outside of the clergy's tradition. This book argues, however, that the position of the patriot clergy was in continuity with a long-standing tradition of Protestant resistance. Drawing from a wide range of sources, Justifying Revolution: The American Clergy's Argument for Political Resistance, 1750-1776 answers the question of why so many American clergyman found it morally and ethically right to support resistance to British political authority by exploring the theological background and rich Protestant history available to the American clergy as they considered political resistance and wrestled with the best course of action for them and their congregations. Gary L. Steward argues that, rather than deviating from their inherited modes of thought, the clergy who supported resistance did so in ways that were consistent with their own theological tradition.

In his celebrated account of the origins of American unity, John Adams described July 1776 as the moment when thirteen clocks managed to strike at the same time. So how did these American colonies overcome long odds to create a durable union capable of declaring independence from Britain? In this powerful new history of the fifteen tense months that culminated in the Declaration of Independence, Robert G. Parkinson provides a troubling answer: racial fear. Tracing the circulation of information in the colonial news systems that linked patriot leaders and average colonists, Parkinson reveals how the system's participants constructed a compelling drama featuring virtuous men who suddenly found themselves threatened by ruthless Indians and defiant slaves acting on behalf of the king. Parkinson argues that patriot leaders used racial prejudices to persuade Americans to declare independence. Between the Revolutionary War's start at Lexington and the Declaration, they broadcast any news they could find about Native Americans, enslaved Blacks, and Hessian mercenaries working with their British enemies. American independence thus owed less to the love of liberty than to the exploitation of colonial fears about race. Thirteen Clocks offers an accessible history of the Revolution that uncovers the uncomfortable origins of the republic even as it speaks to our own moment.

This volume consists of two diaries by William Bamford, an Irish officer in the British Army in the mid-18th century: The first is `A narrative of the campaigns and feats of arms of the 35th Regiment (Royal Sussex)'. It covers the regiment's activities during the French and Indian War and includes an account of the siege and capture of Louisbourg in 1758, British capture of Quebec in 1759, the French siege of Quebec in 1760 and the capture of Montreal, a march to Fort Ticonderoga, Saratoga, and Albany in 1761, a voyage to Barbados in 1761, the siege and capture of Martinique and Havana in 1762, a voyage to Saint Augustine Florida, Charleston, South Carolina, and Port Royal, Jamaica in 1763, and a voyage to Pensacola, Florida and a description of Mobile, Alabama (then part of West Florida), and other parts of West Florida, in 1765, and finally back again to England by way of Havana in 1765. Also included in this section are a copy of a letter from Major General Webb to Colonel Munro dated 4 August, 1757 documenting Webb's refusal to reinforce Bamford's regiment at Fort William Henry, and two anecdotes from 1759 and 1760 regarding Anglo-French battles fought outside Quebec. The second dairy, running from January through December 1776, documents William Bamford's service in the 40th Regiment at Boston after the battle of Bunker Hill, during the winter and early spring of 1776, the British evacuation to Halifax, return to Staten Island, New York, the campaign on Long Island, and the occupation of New York City. In Part II, between the two diaries, a transcribed letter from Bamford relates part of his career, along with his commission as a captain in the 40th Foot.

George Washington and his Continental Army braving the frigid winter at Valley Forge is an iconic image in the popular history of the American Revolution. Such winter camps, Steven Elliott tells us in Surviving the Winters, were also a critical factor in the waging and winning of the War of Independence. Exploring the inner workings of the Continental Army through the prism of its encampments, this book is the first to show how camp construction and administration played a crucial role in Patriot strategy during the war. As Elliott reminds us, Washington's troops spent only a few days a year in combat. The rest of the time, especially in the winter months, they were engaged in a different sort of battle - against the elements, unfriendly terrain, disease, and hunger. Victory in that more sustained struggle depended on a mastery of camp construction, logistics, and health and hygiene - the components that Elliott considers in his environmental, administrative, and operational investigation of the winter encampments at Middlebrook, Morristown, West Point, New Windsor, and Valley Forge. Beyond the encampments' basic function of sheltering soldiers, his study reveals their importance as a key component of Washington's Fabian strategy: stationed on secure, mountainous terrain close to New York, the camps allowed the Continental commander-in-chief to monitor the enemy but avoid direct engagement, thus neutralizing a numerically superior opponent while husbanding his own strength. Documenting the growth of Washington and his subordinates as military administrators, Surviving the Winters offers a telling new perspective on the commander's generalship during the Revolutionary War. At the same time, the book demonstrates that these winter encampments stand alongside more famous battlefields as sites where American independence was won.

In this fresh look at liberty and freedom in the Revolutionary era from the perspective of black Americans, Woody Holton recounts the experiences of slaves who seized freedom by joining the British as well as those -- slave and free -- who served in Patriot military forces. Holton's introduction examines the conditions of black American life on the eve of colonial independence and the ways in which Revolutionary rhetoric about liberty provided African Americans with the language and inspiration for advancing their cause. Despite the rhetoric, however, most black Americans remained enslaved after the Revolution. The introduction outlines ways African Americans influenced the course of the Revolution and continued to be affected by its aftermath. Amplifying these themes are nearly forty documents -- including personal narratives, petitions, letters, poems, advertisements, pension applications, and images -- that testify to the diverse goals and actions of African Americans during the Revolutionary era. Document headnotes and annotations, a chronology, questions for consideration, a selected bibliography, and index offer additional pedagogical support.

The dramatic story of George Washington's first crisis of the fledgling republic. In the war's waning days, the American Revolution neared collapse when Washington's senior officers were rumored to approach the edge of mutiny. After the British surrender at Yorktown, the American Revolution blazed on, and as peace was negotiated in Europe, grave problems surfaced at home. The government was broke and paid its debts with loans from France. Political rivalry among the states paralyzed Congress. The army's officers, encamped near Newburgh, New York, and restless without an enemy to fight, brooded over a civilian population indifferent to their sacrifices. The result was the Newburgh Conspiracy, a mysterious event in which Continental Army officers, disgruntled by a lack of pay and pensions, may have collaborated with nationalist-minded politicians such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Robert Morris to pressure Congress and the states to approve new taxes and strengthen the central government. A Crisis of Peace tells the story of a pivotal episode of General Washington's leadership and reveals how the American Revolution really ended: with fiscal turmoil, political unrest, out-of-control conspiracy thinking, and suspicions between soldiers and civilians so strong that peace almost failed to bring true independence.

The First Mapping of America tells the story of the General Survey. At the heart of the story lie the remarkable maps and the men who made them - the commanding and highly professional Samuel Holland, Surveyor-General in the North, and the brilliant but mercurial William Gerard De Brahm, Surveyor-General in the South. Battling both physical and political obstacles, Holland and De Brahm sought to establish their place in the firmament of the British hierarchy. Yet the reality in which they had to operate was largely controlled from afar, by Crown administrators in London and the colonies and by wealthy speculators, whose approval or opposition could make or break the best laid plans as they sought to use the Survey for their own ends.

The Oxford Handbook of the American Revolution draws on a wealth of new scholarship to create a vibrant dialogue among varied approaches to the revolution that made the United States. In thirty-three essays written by authorities on the period, the Handbook brings to life the diverse multitudes of colonial North America and their extraordinary struggles before, during, and after the eight-year-long civil war that secured the independence of thirteen rebel colonies from their erstwhile colonial parent. The chapters explore battles and diplomacy, economics and finance, law and culture, politics and society, gender, race, and religion. Its diverse cast of characters includes ordinary farmers and artisans, free and enslaved African Americans, Indians, and British and American statesmen and military leaders. In addition to expanding the Revolution's who, the Handbook broadens its where, portraying an event that far transcended the boundaries of what was to become the United States. It offers readers an American Revolution whose impact ranged far beyond the thirteen colonies. The Handbook's range of interpretive and methodological approaches captures the full scope of current revolutionary-era scholarship. Its authors, British and American scholars spanning several generations, include social, cultural, military, and imperial historians, as well as those who study politics, diplomacy, literature, gender, and sexuality. Together and separately, these essays demonstrate that the American Revolution remains a vibrant and inviting a subject of inquiry. Nothing comparable has been published in decades.

As heard on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week. Shortlisted for the Paddy Power Political History Book of the Year Award 2014. In August 1814 the United States' army is defeated in battle by an invading force just outside Washington DC. The US president and his wife have just enough time to pack their belongings and escape from the White House before the enemy enters. The invaders tuck into the dinner they find still sitting on the dining-room table and then set fire to the place. 9/11 was not the first time the heartland of the United States was struck a devastating blow by outsiders. Two centuries earlier, Britain - now America's close friend, then its bitterest enemy - set Washington ablaze before turning its sights to Baltimore. In his compelling narrative style, Peter Snow recounts the fast-changing fortunes of both sides of this extraordinary confrontation, the outcome of which inspired the writing of the 'Star-Spangled Banner', America's national anthem. Using a wealth of material including eyewitness accounts, he also describes the colourful personalities on both sides of these spectacular events: Britain's fiery Admiral Cockburn, the cautious but immensely popular army commander Robert Ross, and sharp-eyed diarists James Scott and George Gleig. On the American side: beleaguered President James Madison, whose young nation is fighting the world's foremost military power, his wife Dolley, a model of courage and determination, military heroes such as Joshua Barney and Sam Smith, and flawed incompetents like Army Chief William Winder and War Secretary John Armstrong. When Britain Burned the White House highlights this unparalleled moment in American history, its far-reaching consequences for both sides and Britain's and America's decision never again to fight each other.

Young Continental soldiers carried a heavy burden in the American Revolution. Their experiences of coming of age during the upheavals of war provide a novel perspective on the Revolutionary era, eliciting questions of gender, family life, economic goals, and politics. ""Going for a soldier"" forced young men to confront profound uncertainty, and even coercion, but also offered them novel opportunities. Although the war imposed obligations on youths, military service promised young men in their teens and early twenties alternate paths forward in life. Continental soldiers' own youthful expectations about respectable manhood and their goals of economic competence and marriage not only ordered their experience of military service; they also shaped the fighting capacities of George Washington's army and the course of the war. Becoming Men of Some Consequence examines how young soldiers and officers joined the army, their experiences in the ranks, their relationships with civilians, their choices about quitting long-term military service, and their attempts to rejoin the flow of civilian life after the war. The book recovers young soldiers' perspectives and stories from military records, wartime letters and journals, and postwar memoirs and pension applications, revealing how revolutionary political ideology intertwined with rational calculations and youthful ambitions. Its focus on soldiers as young men offers a new understanding of the Revolutionary War, showing how these soldiers' generational struggle for their own independence was a profound force within America's struggle for its independence.

The first major work on this enigmatic British general for more than 40 years, William Howe and the American War of Independence offers fascinating new insights into his performance during the revolution in America. From 1775 to 1777, Howe commanded the largest expeditionary force Britain had ever amassed, confronting the rebel army under George Washington and enjoying a string of victories. However, his period in command ended in confusion, bitterness and a parliamentary inquiry, because he proved unable to crush the rebellion. Exactly what went wrong has puzzled historians for more than 200 years. For most Howe has been relegated to the role of a bit player, but, with the help of new evidence, this book looks afresh at his army, his relationships with key military and political figures and his own personal qualities. The result is a compelling reassessment of a forgotten general that offers a new perspective on a man who won his battles, but could not win his war.

The Battle of Eutaw Springs took place on September 8, 1781, and was among the last in the War of Independence. It was brutal in its combat and reprisals, with Continental and Whig militia fighting British regulars and Loyalist regiments. Although its outcome was seemingly inconclusive, the battle, fought near present-day Eutawville, South Carolina, contained all the elements that defined the war in the South. In Eutaw Springs: The Final Battle of the American Revolution's Southern Campaign, Robert M. Dunkerly and Irene B. Boland tell the story of this lesser known and under-studied battle of the Revolutionary War's Southern Campaign. Shrouded in myth and misconception, the battle has also been overshadowed by the surrender of Yorktown. Eutaw Springs represented lost opportunities for both armies. The American forces were desperate for a victory in 1781, and Gen. Nathanael Greene finally had the ground of his own choosing. British forces under Col. Alexander Stewart were equally determined to keep a solid grip on the territory they still held in the South Carolina lowcountry. In one of the bloodiest battles of the war, both armies sustained heavy casualties with each side losing nearly 20 percent of its soldiers. Neither side won the hard-fought battle, and controversies plagued both sides in the aftermath. Dunkerly and Boland analyze the engagement and its significance within the context of the war's closing months, study the area's geology and setting, and recount the action using primary sources, aided by recent archaeology.

From Empire to Humanity tells the story of a generation of American and British activists who transformed humanitarianism as they adjusted to becoming foreigners to each other in the wake of the American Revolution. In the decades before the Revolution, Americans and Britons shared an imperial approach to charitable activity. They worked together in benevolent ventures designed to strengthen the British empire, and ordinary men and women donated to help faraway members of the British community. Raised and educated in this world of connections, future activists from the British Isles, North America, and the West Indies developed expansive outlooks and transatlantic ties. For budding doctors-including Philadelphia's Benjamin Rush, Caribbean-born Londoner John Coakley Lettsom, and John Crawford, whose life took him from Ireland to India, Barbados, South America, and, finally, Baltimore-this was especially true. American independence put an end to their common imperial humanitarianism, but not their friendships, their far-reaching visions, or their belief in philanthropy as a tool of statecraft. In the postwar years, with doctor-activists at the forefront, Americans and Britons collaborated in the anti-drowning cause and other medical philanthropy, antislavery movements, prison reform, and more. No longer members of the same polity, the erstwhile compatriots adopted a universal approach to their beneficence as they reimagined their bonds with people who were now foreigners. Universal benevolence could also be a source of tension. With the new wars at the end of the century, activists' optimistic cosmopolitanism waned, even as their practices endured. Making the care of suffering strangers routine, they laid the groundwork for later generations' global undertakings.

Writing the Rebellion presents a cultural history of loyalist writing in early America. There has been a spate of related works, but Philip Gould's narrative offers a completely different view of the loyalist/patriot contentions than appears in any of these accounts. By focusing on the literary projections of the loyalist cause, Gould dissolves the old legend that loyalists were more British than American, and patriots the embodiment of a new sensibility drawn from their American situation and upbringing. He shows that both sides claimed to be heritors of British civil discourse, Old World learning, and the genius of English culture. The first half of Writing the Rebellion deals with the ways "political disputation spilled into arguments about style, form, and aesthetics, as though these subjects could secure (or ruin) the very status of political authorship." Chapters in this section illustrate how loyalists attack patriot rhetoric by invoking British satires of an inflated Whig style by Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift. Another chapter turns to Loyalist critiques of Congressional language and especially the Continental Association, which was responsible for radical and increasingly violent measures against the Loyalists. The second half of Gould's book looks at satiric adaptations of the ancient ballad tradition to see what happens when patriots and loyalists interpret and adapt the same text (or texts) for distinctive yet related purposes. The last two chapters look at the Loyalist response to Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the ways the concept of the author became defined in early America. Throughout the manuscript, Gould acknowledges the purchase English literary culture continued to have in revolutionary America, even among revolutionaries.

Band of Giants brings to life the founders who fought for our independence. Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin are known to all; men like Morgan, Greene, and Wayne are less familiar. Yet the dreams of the politicians and theorists only became real because fighting men were willing to take on the grim, risky, brutal work of war. We know Fort Knox, but what about Henry Knox, the burly Boston bookseller who took over the American artillery at the age of 25? Eighteen counties in the United States commemorate Richard Montgomery, but do we know that this revered martyr launched a full-scale invasion of Canada? The soldiers of the Revolution were a diverse lot: merchants and mechanics, farmers and fishermen, paragons and drunkards. Most were ardent amateurs. Even George Washington, assigned to take over the army around Boston in 1775, consulted books on military tactics. Band of Giants vividly captures the fraught condition of the war-the bitterly divided populace, the lack of supplies, the repeated setbacks on the battlefield, and the appalling physical hardships. That these inexperienced warriors could take on and defeat the superpower of the day was one of the remarkable feats in world history.