In 1775, the 13 American colonies broke away from Britain to establish a new nation on the ideals of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' It would be a violent start, with eight years of war against the British redcoats, but one that would forge heroes like George Washington and see victories that would define the identity of the young United States. These heroes and victories remain almost as important today, 250 years later, as they were when America was new.
Click through this gallery for fascinating facts about the American Revolution you probably didn't know…
Relations between Britain and its 13 American colonies worsened in the 1760s, fueled by British attempts to reassert control and enforce unpopular taxes on the people across the Atlantic. Tensions spilled over on March 5, 1770, when British soldiers fired into a crowd in Boston, Massachusetts – the heartland of American resistance – resulting in five deaths.
In court the soldiers were represented by John Adams, a future revolutionary who risked his reputation in his belief that everyone should have a fair trial. The soon-to-be 2nd President offered a brilliant defense that saw seven of the nine accused soldiers acquitted.
On the night of December 16, 1773, around 60 members of a secret organization resisting British rule, the Sons of Liberty, disguised themselves as Native Americans and boarded three ships in Boston Harbor, loaded with tea owned by the East India Company. To protest British laws around the sale of the popular drink, they dumped 342 chests into the water.
It became known as the Boston Tea Party, but besides the tea the Sons of Liberty were extremely careful not to cause any damage. They reportedly even swept the decks clean before they left and, the next day, sent a padlock to replace one they had broken.
Paul Revere’s 'midnight ride' is one of the most iconic moments of the American Revolution. The story goes that on the night of April 18, 1775, the fervent Patriot sped from Boston to the towns of Lexington and Concord to warn the militias that British forces were on the march. In reality, though, Revere was just one in a network of riders sent out that night.
He met up with William Dawes and Samuel Prescott before being detained by a British patrol. It was Prescott who completed the ride, and the famous cry of "The British are coming!" didn't happen either: at this point, the colonists would still have considered themselves British.
The first engagement of the war was a skirmish between several hundred redcoats and 77 militiamen on the town common of Lexington on April 19, 1775. It began when someone’s musket went off, possibly accidentally, and ended with eight colonists dead and one redcoat injured.
The British then marched to Concord, where they met a much larger force. Again, the fighting began after a stray shot was heard, and by its end the war had truly begun. It remains a mystery exactly who fired the 'shot heard round the world' – and the towns of Lexington and Concord still debate which skirmish that famous phrase refers to anyway.
Despite the fact that Americans celebrate independence on July 4, the Continental Congress – made up of delegates of the colonies – voted to be 'free and independent states' on July 2, 1776. It was two days later that the Declaration of Independence was approved. As soon as this was done, the hallowed document was sent to a printer named John Dunlap, who made around 200 copies in total.
These Dunlap Broadsides were widely distributed, but were unsigned. The official copy of the Declaration – the one now seen in the National Archives in Washington DC – was written up by Timothy Matlack later in July and signed on August 2.
Today, the typical image of King George III of England – perpetuated by his show-stealing portrayal in the hit musical Hamilton – is of 'the mad king who lost the colonies.' In the Declaration of Independence, he was a 'tyrant' guilty of a host of 'injuries and usurpations' against the American colonists. This portrayal is of questionable accuracy, but the king certainly became a focal point for Patriots' anger.
They tore down a statue of King George on horseback, which stood in Bowling Green, New York. Made of lead and tin, it was melted down and made into more than 42,000 musket balls to be used by revolutionary forces.
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By the winter of 1776, the Continental Army was in disarray after several crushing defeats, and with enlistments due to run out at the end of the year things were only getting worse for the commander-in-chief, George Washington. He needed a victory, and on December 25 he famously crossed the icy Delaware River with around 2,400 men and attacked the town of Trenton, which was held by German mercenaries.
Washington took the town along with nearly 1,000 prisoners – a Christmas gift for morale. The crossing also launched a 10-day campaign in which Washington crossed the Delaware two more times, keeping the army together to fight another day.
A common misconception about the first president of the United States is that he had wooden teeth. It is certainly true that he suffered from dental issues throughout his adult life, and by the time of his inauguration in 1789 he only had one of his own teeth left.
But rather than wood, his dentures were packed with other materials. The lead frames included ivory, filed-down cow and horse teeth, brass, gold, and the occasional human tooth, most likely taken from slaves. The setup would have been horribly uncomfortable and gave him something of a protruding jaw, which can be seen in the famous unfinished portrait of Washington by Gilbert Stuart (pictured).
An enduring figure in the lore of the American Revolution is Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress who, as the story goes, was visited by George Washington and tasked with sewing a new flag for the United States. The result was the Stars and Stripes. She even altered the design of the 13 stars from having six points to five, which made them easier to cut out.
While the original Stars and Stripes is still referred to as the Betsy Ross Flag, the story is probably apocryphal. Ross made flags for the Pennsylvania navy, but it was most likely Continental Congressman Francis Hopkinson who designed the national flag adopted in 1777.
In late 1777, Washington took 12,000 men into winter quarters at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, at a precarious moment in the war. The capital, Philadelphia, had just been captured by the British and winter would be brutal, with harsh weather and clothing and food dwindling.
Some 2,000 perished from cold, hunger, and disease. Yet it would also be a time of rebirth for the army. Rigorous drilling and training regimes were introduced by Baron von Steuben, a Prussian officer newly arrived in America, and by the time the army emerged in 1778 they were a disciplined fighting force. His methods remained the basis of US military training into the 19th century.
Thousands of African Americans, both enslaved and free, fought in the war in the hopes of carving out their own place in the new United States. This sometimes meant aligning their own fight for freedom with that of the Patriots, but many slaves also sided with the British as 'Black Loyalists' in the belief that it offered their best chance of emancipation.
In 1775, the royal governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, issued a proclamation promising freedom to fugitive slaves who fought for the Crown. They formed the Ethiopian Regiment which saw action in 1775, but was disbanded after just a year, with few men securing their freedom.
Benedict Arnold had risen to be one of the Continental Army’s top generals, praised as a hero for his leadership and fortitude even in defeat. He played a key role in the American victory at Saratoga in 1777 – a turning point in the war, as it convinced the French to ally with the US.
Yet he felt he was overlooked for the even grander promotions that his bravery – he was seriously wounded twice – deserved, and he secretly switched sides. When given command of the strategically vital post of West Point, he tried to surrender it to the British in return for cash. When found out, he defected, and today his name is a byword for traitor.
During the war, some women followed the armies as cooks, launderers, seamstresses, and basic medics, while others stayed at home to maintain their households or businesses. They could also support the army by collecting or making supplies, but a few wanted to fight, and the only way to do that was to disguise yourself as a man.
The best-known case was Deborah Sampson (pictured), who enlisted with the 4th Massachusetts under the name Robert Shurtleff. When shot in the thigh, she hid her identity by extracting the bullet herself, but her secret came out when she was taken to hospital with a fever.
Provisioning the army was a constant problem for Washington and the Continental Congress. From poor administration and severely limited funding to transportation problems, soldiers often struggled to have enough clothing and food, let alone weapons and ammunition.
When times got particularly tough – such as during the winter encampment at Valley Forge between 1777 and 1778 – soldiers had to rely on 'fire cakes.' These were hard, flavorless biscuits made of just flour and water, and cooked on an open fire until they were blackened by ash. They at least lasted longer than unpreserved meat.
Anyone that's seen the smash-hit musical will know that Alexander Hamilton grew frustrated as he worked behind a desk rather than on the frontlines. Straight after the war began he had volunteered with a militia, the Hearts of Oak, and raised a company of artillery in New York. He had fought in seven battles by 1778, before becoming George Washington’s aide-de-camp.
Longing to return to combat before it was all over, he pounced on a minor quarrel with Washington as a pretext for resigning so he could have a battlefield commission at Yorktown. The nature of the quarrel? Hamilton unintentionally made Washington wait a few minutes for a meeting.
The decisive battle that won the war came at Yorktown in 1781. The British, led by Charles Cornwallis, surrendered after a French and American assault on the Virginia town between September and October. But Cornwallis did not participate in the official ceremony – claiming he was ill but possibly out of humiliation – so it fell to his second-in-command to relinquish his sword.
The officer made a blunder, though, by trying to hand it to Comte de Rochambeau, leader of the French forces in America. He was immediately redirected to Washington, who did not accept the sword either and pointed to his own second-in-command.
The revered polymath, inventor, and statesman Benjamin Franklin remains the only Founding Father to sign all four key documents that helped create the United States: the Declaration of Independence (which he helped write); the Franco-American Treaty of 1778 (securing the alliance with France); the Treaty of Paris of 1783 (officially ending the war); and the Constitution.
Fellow Founding Father Roger Sherman has a different but competing claim. He was the only man to sign the four great revolutionary documents: the Articles of Association; the Declaration of Independence; the Articles of Confederation; and the Constitution too.
In the United States, the Frenchman the Marquis de Lafayette is one of the heroes of the war. Arriving in America in 1777 at the age of 19, the aristocrat quickly distinguished himself at the Battle of Brandywine, where, although the battle ended in defeat, a wounded Lafayette showed courage and command by overseeing an orderly retreat.
He rose through the ranks and led a division at Yorktown, before visiting Bunker Hill in later life. He had not fought in the battle there, but took some soil and asked that it be sprinkled on his coffin when he died. His wish was granted when he was buried in Paris' Picpus Cemetery in 1834.
Statistics about the American Revolution are notoriously tricky to ascertain, but it is estimated that around 20,000 men fighting for the colonies were taken prisoner by the British. Many were held in prison ships – old and neglected hulks moored off New York. As many as half of these men died on these ships, from disease, malnutrition, or the treatment they received.
That is compared to the 6,800 thought to have died in battle. The most infamous of the prison ships was HMS Jersey, which had a capacity of 400 but at times held more than 1,000. Those that succumbed were tossed overboard or buried in shallow graves on the shore.
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