Battles of the
Revolution
Click on a flag to get more
information about that battle.
Battles of the
Revolution
Click on a flag to get more
information about that battle.
In September of 1774, a group of men representing all of the colonies except for Georgia formed the First Continental Congress. These men asked King George III to repeal the Intolerable Acts. The Intolerable Acts had been passed after The Boston Tea Party. The Intolerable Acts said the colonies had to pay for the tea dumped into the harbor and feed and house British soldiers. Town meetings were banned and Boston harbor was closed by the British. The First Continental Congress agreed to stop trading with Britain until the Acts were repealed. The Congress ordered men to be prepared to fight the British who they knew would not be happy about the stop in trade.
On April 15, 1775, General Thomas Gage was ordered by the British Government to destroy the American's infantry storage in Concord. In order to make this work for the British, they had to line up in "flanking units." That included Light Infantry and Grenadiers from his Boston Garrison. Gage put his Lieutenant Colonel in charge of the attack.
The only problem was that the Americans found out about the attack that the British were planning so they made a plan themselves. They sent out riders like Paul Revere on April 18th to warn the Minutemen the British were coming. The Minutemen who could be ready in a minute gathered together in Lexington. They were going to surprise the British. The first shot fired on April 19th is known as the shot that was heard around the world. After a brief battle, the British marched to Concord. The Minutemen hid in the woods and shoot into the bands of British soldiers as they marched. The Minutemen continued to shoot at the soldiers as they marched back to Boston. In total, more that 90 soldiers were killed and 174 soldiers were wounded.
This battle over Fort Ticonderoga happened on Lake Champlain in the state of New York. Lake Champlain got all of the supplies for the British. The lake and fort were along the invasion route of the British. A group of patriots in Vermont called the Green Mountain Boys decided to make a plan to seize the fort and take it for the Americans. The leaders of the Green Mountain Boys were Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold. On the night of May 10, 1775, they tried their plan. They succeeded in taking the fort without having a single death. The British fought back for the Fort and regained it in 1777. Then in 1780, the British left the fort. They totally abandoned it because they had lost faith in the invasion route.
The Battle of Bunker Hill was the bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War. At least 1,000 British soldiers died or were wounded and over 400 Americans were killed or wounded. This battle happened in June 1775. The British Lieutenant General named Thomas Gage planned to fortify British troops at Dorchester Heights on the south side of Boston.
The American patriots heard that the British were doing this so they decided to stake out Bunker Hill. Bunker Hill was on the Charlestown peninsula which was north of Boston. On the night of June 16, the Patriots moved closer to Dorchester onto Breed's Hill. Early the next morning, the British saw what the Americans had done and sent about 2500 troops across the Charles River. Then under Colonel William Prescott, the Americans' many troops opened fired. The British attacked three times and retreated twice until they got the Americans to retreat ending the battle.
The Bunker Hill Monument
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John Burgoyne, a British general, wanted to capture the Hudson River valley to separate New England and New York from the other colonies. As Burgoyne marched his troops from Canada to Albany, the Patriots attacked them from the woods. The British soldiers had to walk through swamps and forests. It was hard going and sometimes it took them all day just to walk one mile. By the time they reached Saratoga, New York, the British were outnumbered by Patriots who had flooded into the area while the British were marching south. Burgoyne surrendered on October 17, 1777 after two months of fighting. This battle was a turning point. It showed a weakness in the British strategy and proved the Patriots could beat the British. In 1778, France joined the Patriots in their fight against the British.
General Cornwallis retreated from the south to Yorktown, Virginia. He sent one of his servants to spy on the American. What he didn't know was this servant, James Armistead, was already a spy for the Americans. Armistead helped the Americans by giving false information to Cornwallis. George Washington made Cornwallis think he was going to attack New York. Instead Washington organized more than 17,000 American and French soldiers to attack Yorktown. Cornwallis was surrounded and the harbor was also blocked to prevent his retreat. Cornwallis surrendered on October 19, 1781. The Battle of Yorktown was the last major battle of the American Revolution. Some minor fighting continued for two more years until The Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783. In this treaty, the British acknowledged the independence of the colonies which became known as the United States of America and granted the US all of the land west of the Appalachian Mountains.
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