Chapter Overview

Even after the Battle of Bunker Hill, it remained unclear whether most Americans favored independence and would be willing to fight for it.

The Decision for Independence

At the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia in the spring of 1775, many delegates clung to the hope of a settlement with Britain. Radicals who favored independence moved cautiously. Even as Congress approved the creation of the Continental Army, it declared loyalty to George III. The harsh British response to that overture withered the cause of compromise, opening the way for Congress's adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

In the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson set forth a general justification of revolution, denied England any authority in the colonies, and blamed George III for a "long train of abuses and usurpation."

A substantial minority of colonials remained loyal to the king and Parliament. Loyalism was especially strong in those places where violent controversies had raged during the decades before 1776. They feared that the break from Britain would plunge America into anarchy or civil war.

The Fighting in the North

The British planned a conventional war. The British army was a seasoned professional fighting force, while the Continentals, under George Washington, lacked both numbers and military discipline. Washington had to design a defensive, hit-and-run strategy to offset the weakness of his force.

In 1776 the British evacuated Boston, took New York City, and drove the Continentals into a retreat through New York and New Jersey. But as winter set in, Washington recouped some credibility at the Battles of Trenton and Princeton. Many civilians, alienated by the British army's harsh treatment, switched to the rebel cause. In the summer campaign of 1777, the British took Philadelphia but suffered a disastrous defeat at Saratoga, New York.

The Turning Point

The victory at Saratoga marked a turning point. Soon thereafter, France and Spain allied with American rebels. The war spread to Europe, forcing the British to disperse their army to fend off challenges all over the world.

So British forces pulled back from Philadelphia to New York City. The previous winter had been a harrowing one for the Continentals at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Though they broke camp with newly instilled training and discipline, the morale of Washington's Continentals began to fray, occasionally leading to mutinies. The Continental rank-and-file had been drawn from propertyless and desperate Americans; Congress found it easy to neglect them.

The Struggle in the South

The British now turned to a southern strategy, expecting support from those loyal to the crown. Though loyalists were numerous in the Georgia and Carolina backcountry, they met determined resistance from rebel irregulars.

Nathanael Greene, in command of the Continental Army in the South, proved an ingenious strategist. His support for the rebel partisans and his careful treatment of a civilian population disenchanted by Lord Cornwallis's marauding army frustrated British efforts to take the Carolinas. The British, fearful of estranging whites, had chosen not to mobilize one large group of southerners who might have fought with them to win liberty -- African-American slaves. Instead, blacks were recruited, reluctantly, for the Continental Army.

The World Turned Upside Down

Cornwallis made an unsuccessful bid for victory at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. With the tide of war in Europe turning against them as well, the British decided to cut their losses in America and agreed to the Treaty of Paris in 1783. The pact granted not only independence but a generous boundary settlement as well.