I. Toward Independence, 1775–1776

A. The Second Continental Congress and the Civil War

1. After losing battles at Breed’s Hill and Bunker Hill, in 1775 the Continental Congress created

a Continental army headed by General George Washington.

2. Moderates passed an Olive Branch petition that expressed loyalty to the king and requested the repeal of oppressive parliamentary legislation.

3. Zealous Patriots won passage of a Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms.

4. The king refused the moderates’ petition and issued a Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition in August 1775.

5. Hoping to add a fourteenth colony to the rebellion, the Patriot forces took Montreal in

September but later failed to capture Quebec.

6. American merchants cut off all exports to Britain and its West Indian sugar islands, and

Parliament retaliated with a Prohibitionary Act, banning trade with rebellious colonies.

7. Lord Dunmore of Virginia organized two military forces—one white, one black—and offered freedom to slaves and indentured servants who joined the Loyalist cause.

8. Faced with black unrest and pressed by yeomen and tenant farmers demanding independence,

Patriot planters called for a break with Britain.

9. By April of 1776, Radical Patriots had, through military conflict, transformed the North Carolina assembly into an independent Provincial Congress, which instructed its representatives to support independence.

B. Common Sense

1. Resolutions favoring independence came slowly because most Americans were deeply loyal to the crown.

2. By 1775 the Patriot cause was gaining greater support among artisans and laborers.

3. Many Scots-Irish in Philadelphia became Patriots for religious reasons, and some well educated persons questioned the idea of monarchy altogether.

4. In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense—a call for independence and republicanism. 5. Common Sense aroused the general public and quickly turned thousands of Americans against British rule.

6. Paine’s message was not only popular but also clear—reject the arbitrary powers of king and

Parliament and create independent republican states.

C. Independence Declared

1. On July 4, 1776, the Congress approved a Declaration of Independence.

2. Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration, justified the revolt by blaming the rupture on George III rather than on Parliament.

3. Jefferson proclaimed that “all men are created equal”; they possess the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and that government derives its power from the “consent of the governed.”

4. By linking these doctrines with independence, Jefferson established revolutionary republicanism as a defining value of America.

5. Americans were ready to create republics, state governments that would derive their power from the people.

II. The Trials ofWar, 1776–1778

A. War in the North

1. Few observers thought that the rebels stood a chance of defeating the British; Great Britain had more people and more money with which to fight.

2. Few Indians supported the rebels; they were opposed to the expansion of white settlement.

3. The British were seasoned troops, and the Americans were militarily weak.

4. Prime Minister North responded quickly to the American invasion of Canada in 1775; he wanted to capture New York City and seize control of the Hudson River in order to isolate the Patriots from the other colonies.

5. General William Howe and his British troops landed outside New York City in July 1776, just as the Continental Congress was declaring independence in Philadelphia.

6. Outgunned and outmaneuvered, the Continental army retreated across the Hudson to New Jersey, then across the Delaware River to Philadelphia.

7. The British halted their campaign for the winter months, which allowed the Continental army a few minor triumphs and allowed the Congress to return from Boston to Philadelphia.

B. Armies and Strategies

1. General Howe’s military strategy was one of winning the surrender of opposing forces, rather than destroying them; this tactic failed to nip the rebellion in the bud.

2. General Washington’s strategy was to draw the British away from the seacoast, extending their lines of supply and draining their morale.

3. The Continental army drew most of its recruits from the lower ranks of society, the majority of whom fought for a bonus of cash and land rather than out of patriotism.

4. Given all these handicaps, Washington was fortunate to have escaped an overwhelming defeat in the first year of the war.

C. Victory at Saratoga

1. To finance the war the British ministry increased the land tax and prepared to mount a major campaign in 1777.

2. The primary British goal, the isolation of New England, was to be achieved with the help of General John Burgoyne, a small force of Iroquois, and General Howe.

3. Howe had a scheme of his own; he wanted to attack Philadelphia—home of the Continental Congress—and end the rebellion with a single victory.

4. Washington and his troops withdrew from Philadelphia, and the Continental Congress fled into the interior, determined to continue the fight.

5. General Burgoyne’s troops were forced to surrender to General Horatio Gates and his men at Saratoga, New York.

6. The American victory at Saratoga was the turning point of the war and virtually assured the success of a military alliance with France.

D. Social and Financial Perils

1. Tens of thousands of civilians were exposed to deprivation, displacement, and death as the War of Independence became a bloody partisan conflict.

2. Patriots organized Committees of Safety to collect taxes and gather support for the Continental army.

3. On the brink of bankruptcy, the new state governments as well as the Continental Congress printed paper money that was worth very little.

4. Lacking the authority to impose taxes, Congress borrowed $6 million in specie from

France. When those funds were exhausted, Congress also printed currency and bills of credit.

5. The excess of currency helped to spark the worst inflation in American history; there was more currency, albeit worthless, but fewer goods available for purchase.

6. Merchants and farmers turned to barter or sold goods only to those who could pay in gold or silver.

7. The shortage of goods caused civilian morale and social cohesion to crumble; some doubted that the rebellion could succeed.

8. The Continental army suffered from lack of necessities; the winter of 1777–78 at Valley Forge took as many lives as two years of fighting.