Most Americans think they know
all about the Revolution simply because they are Americans.
In fact, the real story - not
the one in most textbooks - is crammed with little-known facts.
Here are 13 points to ponder:
 The Americans of 1776 had the
highest standard of living and lowest taxes in the Western World.
Farmers, lawyers and business owners in the Colonies were thriving,
with some plantation owners and merchants making the equivalent
of $500,000 a year. Times were good for many others too. (The
vast majority of business owners and professionals were white
males.) The British wanted a slice of the cash flow and tried
to tax the Colonists. They resisted violently, convinced that
their prosperity and their liberty were at stake. Virginia's
Patrick Henry summed up their stance with his cry: "Give
me liberty or give me death!" |
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There were two
Boston tea parties. Everyone knows how 50 or 60 "Sons of
Liberty," disguised as Mohawks, protested the 3 cents per
pound British tax on tea by dumping chests of the popular drink
into Boston Harbor on Dec. 16, 1773. Fewer know that the improper
Bostonians repeated the performance on March 7, 1774. The two
tea parties cost the British around $3 million in modern money. |
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Capt. John Parker of the Lexington
Militia did not say: "If they want a war, let it begin here."
Alerted by Paul Revere, Parker and 78 militiamen mustered on
the Lexington, Mass., town green on April 19, 1775. They wanted
to send a warning to the 700 British soldiers marching on Concord
to seize the weapons and gunpowder there. But Parker had no desire
to start a war. The words were put into his mouth 100 years later.
He positioned his men as far away from the British line of march
as possible. As the British approached, Parker ordered his men
to disperse. The British opened fire on them without provocation,
starting the Revolution.
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Benjamin Franklin wrote the first
declaration of independence. In 1775, Franklin, disgusted with
the arrogance of the British and appalled by the bloodshed at
Lexington and Concord, wrote a declaration of independence. Thomas
Jefferson was enthusiastic. But, he noted, many other delegates
to the Continental Congress were "revolted at it."
It would take another year of bitter conflict to persuade the
Congress to vote for the Declaration of Independence written
by Jefferson - with some astute editorial suggestions by Franklin.
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Nathan Hale was hanged not
only for spying but also for trying to burn New York. On Sept.
20, 1776, American soldiers, some of them members of Hale's regiment,
filtered into British-held New York and stashed resin-soaked
logs in numerous buildings. A spark turned the incendiary devices
into roaring infernos. (The Americans were trying to deprive
the British army of winter quarters.) Hale was caught the following
day, after the fire destroyed more than a fourth of the city.
He admitted he was a spy and hanged without a trial because the
British considered him one of the incendiaries.
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History's first submarine attack
took place in New York Harbor in 1776. The Connecticut inventor
David Bushnell called his submarine the Turtle because it resembled
two large tortoise shells of equal size joined together. The
watertight hull was made of 6-inch-thick oak timbers coated with
tar. On Sept. 6, 1776, the Turtle targeted the HMS Eagle, flagship
of the British fleet. The submarine was supposed to secure a
cask of gunpowder to the hull of the Eagle and sneak away before
it exploded. Unfortunately, the Turtle got entangled with the
Eagle's rudder bar, lost ballast and surfaced before the gunpowder
could be planted.
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Benedict Arnold was the best
general in the Continental Army. "Without Benedict Arnold
in the first three years of the war," says the historian
George Neumann, "we would probably have lost the Revolution."
In 1775, the future traitor came within a whisker of conquering
Canada. In 1776, he built a fleet and fought a bigger British
fleet to a standstill on Lake Champlain. At Saratoga in 1777,
his brilliant battlefield leadership forced the British army
to surrender. The victory persuaded the French to join the war
on the American side. Ironically, Arnold switched sides in 1780
partly because he disapproved of the French alliance.
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By 1779, as many as one in
seven Americans in Washington's army was black. At first, Washington
was hesitant about enlisting blacks. But when he heard they had
fought well at Bunker Hill, he changed his mind. The all-black
First Rhode Island Regiment - composed of 33 freedmen and 92
slaves who were promised freedom if they served until the end
of the war - distinguished itself in the Battle of Newport. Later,
they were all but wiped out in a British attack.
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There were women in the Continental
Army, even a few who saw combat. Probably the best known is Mary
Ludwig Hays, nicknamed "Molly Pitcher." She replaced
her wounded husband at his cannon during the Battle of Monmouth
in 1778. Another wife of an artillery man, Margaret Corbin, was
badly wounded serving in her husband's gun crew at the Battle
of Harlem heights in 1776. Thousands of other woman served in
Washington's army as cooks or nurses.
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George Washington was the
best spy master in American history. He ran dozens of espionage
rings in British-held New York and Philadelphia, and the man
who supposedly could not tell a lie was a genius at misinformation.
He constantly befuddled the British by leaking, through double
agents, inflated reports on the strength of his army.
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By 1779, there were more Americans
fighting with the British than with Washington. There were no
less than 21 regiments (estimated to total 6500 to 8000 men)
of loyalists in the British army. Washington reported a field
army of 3468. About a third of Americans opposed the Revolution.
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At Yorktown, the victory that
won the war, Frenchmen outnumbered Americans almost three to
one. Washington had 11,000 men engaged in the battle, while the
French had at least 29,000 soldiers and sailors. the 37 French
ships-of-the-line played a crucial role in trapping the 8700-strong
British army and winning the engagement.
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The King almost abdicated
when the British lost. After Yorktown, George III vowed to keep
fighting. When Parliament demurred, the King wrote a letter of
abdication - then withdrew it. He tried to console himself with
the thought the Washington would become a dictator and make the
Americans long for royal rule. When he was told that Washington
planned to resign his commission, the monarch gasped: "If
he does that, sir, he will be the greatest man in the world!" |
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