| The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the American War of Independence, was a war fought
primarily between Great Britain and revolutionaries
within thirteen of her North American colonies. The war, which eventually
widened far beyond British North America, resulted in the
overthrow of British rule in the thirteen colonies and the establishment of the United States of America.
The terms Revolutionary War and American Revolution are often used interchangeably, though the Revolution
included political and social developments before and after the war itself. This article refers solely to the military campaign;
for the broader perspective, including the origins and aftermath of the war, see the American Revolution.
Combatants
When the war began, the thirteen American colonies did not have a professional army (also known as a "regular" or "standing" army). Each colony instead provided for its own defenses through
the use of local militia. Militiamen served for only a few weeks or months at a time,
were generally reluctant to go very far from home, and would often come and go as they saw fit. Militia typically lacked the
training and discipline of regular troops, but could be effective when led by talented officers.
Seeking to coordinate colonial military efforts, the Continental Congress established (on paper) a regular army—the Continental Army—in June of 1775, and appointed George Washington as commander-in-chief. The development of the Continental Army was always a work in
progress, and Washington reluctantly augmented the regular troops with short-term colonial militia throughout the war. Although
as many as 250,000 men may have served the colonies as regulars or militiamen in the eight years of the war, there were never
more than 90,000 total men under arms for the colonies in any given year. The greatest number of men that Washington personally
commanded in the field at any one time was less than 17,000.
In 1775, Great Britain had a worldwide standing army of somewhere around 50,000 men. An additional 30,000 German mercenaries (popularly known as
Hessians) were hired by the British over the course of the war. Loyalists—American colonists who
sided with the British—fielded perhaps 50,000 men during the war years. However, according to one estimate, total British
strength in the colonies did not exceed 32,000 men at any one time.
African-Americans, including slaves and free blacks, served on
both sides during the war. Black soldiers served in northern American militias from the outset, but this was forbidden in the
South, where slaveowners feared arming slaves. Lord Dunmore, the Royal Governor of Virginia, issued an emancipation proclamation in November 1775, promising freedom to runaway slaves who fought for
the British. In response, and because of manpower shortages, Washington lifted the ban on black enlistment in the Continental
Army in January 1777. At least 5,000 black soldiers fought as patriots; about 1,000 fought with the British as loyalists. Thousands of black slaves used
the war as a chance to escape to freedom.
Most Native American communities east of the Mississippi River were affected by the war, many dividing over the
question of which side to support. Native American warriors fought on both sides of conflict, predominantly as allies of Great
Britain. An estimated 13,000 warriors fought on the British side; the largest group, the Iroquois Confederacy, fielded about 1,500 warriors against the American rebels.1
France and Spain eventually entered the war
against Great Britain. French military involvement in the war in particular would prove decisive.
War in the North
Massachusetts, 1774-76
In 1774, the British parliament effectively abolished the provincial government of Massachusetts and put the colony under martial law.
Lieutenant General Thomas Gage, already the commander-in-chief of British troops in North America, was also
appointed governor of Massachusetts and was instructed by King George's government to enforce royal authority in the troublesome colony. However, a
series of popular revolts beginning in August of 1774 compelled the newly appointed royal
officials in Massachusetts to resign or to seek refuge in Boston. Gage commanded four regiments of British
regulars (about 4,000 men) from his headquarters in Boston, but the countryside was in the hands of the colonials.
On the night of 18 April 1775, General
Gage sent 700 men to seize munitions stored by the colonial militia at Concord, Massachusetts. Several patriot riders—including Paul Revere—alerted the countryside, and when the British troops entered Lexington, they found 70 minutemen formed up on the village common. Shots
were exchanged, and the British moved on to Concord, where there was more fighting. By the time the "redcoats" (as the British soldiers were called) began the return march,
several thousand militiamen had gathered along the road. A running fight ensued, and the British detachment suffered heavily
before finally reaching Boston. The shooting war had started.
After the battles of Lexington and Concord, thousands of American militiamen converged on Boston, bottling up the British in the city. Late in May, Gage received by sea about
4,500 reinforcements and a trio of generals who would play a vital role in the war: William Howe, John Burgoyne, and Henry Clinton. They began plans to break out of the city.
On June 17, 1775, British forces under
General Howe seized the Charlestown peninsula at the Battle
of Bunker Hill. The battle was technically a British victory, but losses were so heavy that the attack was not followed up.
Thus the siege was not broken, and General Gage was soon replaced by Howe as commander-in-chief for the British.
In early July of 1775, George Washington arrived outside
Boston to take charge of the American forces. The standoff continued throughout the fall and winter, until in early March of
1776, heavy cannons that had been captured
by the Americans at Fort Ticonderoga were placed upon Dorchester Heights, overlooking the British positions. With their
situation in Boston now untenable, the British evacuated the city and sailed for temporary refuge in Halifax on March
17, 1776. The colonial militia dispersed, and in April Washington took most of the
Continental Army to fortify New York City.
Canada, 1775-76
During the long standoff at Boston, the Continental Congress sought a way to seize the initiative elsewhere. Congress had
initially hoped that Canada would join them as the fourteenth colony, but when that
failed to happen, an invasion of Canada was
authorized.
Two expeditions were undertaken. On September 16, 1775, Brigadier General Richard Montgomery
marched north from Fort Ticonderoga with about 1,700 militiamen, capturing Montreal
on November 13. General Guy Carleton, the governor of Canada, escaped to Quebec.
The second expedition, led by Colonel Benedict Arnold, set out from Fort Western (present day Maine) on September 25. The expedition was a logistical nightmare, and by the time Arnold reached Quebec in early
November, he had but 600 of his original 1,100 men. Nevertheless, Arnold demanded the surrender of the city, to no avail.
Montgomery joined Arnold, and they attacked
Quebec on December 31, but were soundly defeated by Carleton. Montgomery
was killed, Arnold was wounded, and many men were taken prisoner. The Americans held on outside Quebec until the spring of 1776,
and then withdrew.
Another attempt was made by the Americans to push back towards Quebec, but failed at Trois-Rivières on June 8, 1776. Carleton then launched his own invasion, and defeated Arnold in
a naval battle on Lake Champlain (the Battle of Valcour Island) in October. Arnold fell back to
Fort Ticonderoga, where the invasion of Canada had begun.
The invasion of Canada ended as an embarrassing disaster for the Americans, but Arnold’s improvised navy on Lake
Champlain managed to delay the fateful British counter thrust (the Saratoga Campaign) until 1777.
New York and New Jersey, 1776-77
Having withdrawn from Boston, the British now focused on capturing
New York City. General Howe, with the services of his brother, Admiral Lord Richard Howe, began amassing troops on Staten Island
in July of 1776.
General Washington, with a smaller army of about 20,000 men, unwittingly violated a cardinal rule of warfare, and divided his
troops about equally between Long Island and Manhattan, thus allowing Howe to engage only one half of the American army at a time.
In late August, the Howes transported about 22,000 men (including 9,000 Hessian
mercenaries) to Long Island. In the Battle of Long Island on August 27, 1776, the British expertly executed a surprise flanking maneuver, driving the Americans back to the
Brooklyn Heights fortifications. General Howe then laid siege to the works, but Washington skillfully managed a nighttime
evacuation to Manhattan.
Having taken Long Island, the Howes moved to seize Manhattan. On September
15, General Howe landed about 12,000 men on lower
Manhattan, quickly taking control of New York City. The Americans withdrew to Harlem Heights, where they skirmished the next day, but held their ground.
When Howe moved to encircle Washington’s army in October, the Americans again fell back, and a battle at White Plains was fought on October 28, 1776. Once more the Americans retreated, but Howe,
instead of aggressively pursuing the withdrawal, returned to Manhattan and captured Fort Washington in mid November, taking almost 3,000 prisoners. Four days later, Fort Lee, across the Hudson River from Fort Washington, was also taken.
General Lord Charles Cornwallis continued to chase Washington’s army through New Jersey, until the Americans withdrew across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania in early
December. With the campaign at an apparent conclusion for the season, the British entered winter quarters. Although Howe had
missed several opportunities to crush the diminishing American army, he had killed or captured over 5,000 of the rebels. He
controlled much of New York and New Jersey, and was in a good position to resume operations in the spring, with the rebel capital
of Philadelphia in striking distance.
The outlook of the Continental Army—and thus the revolution itself—was bleak. “These are the times that try
men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine, who was with the army on the
retreat. The army had dwindled to less than 5,000 men fit for duty, and would be reduced to 1,400 after enlistments expired at
the end of the year. Spirits were low, popular support was wavering, and Congress had abandoned Philadelphia in despair.
Washington reacted by taking the offensive, stealthily crossing
the Delaware on Christmas night and capturing nearly 1,000 Hessians at Trenton, New Jersey on December 26, 1776. Cornwallis marched to retake Trenton, but was outmaneuvered by Washington, who successfully
attacked the British rearguard at Princeton on January 3, 1777. Washington then entered winter quarters at Morristown, New Jersey, having retaken much of New Jersey,
and having secured two bold, morale-boosting victories in quick succession to reinvigorate the flagging revolution.
Saratoga Campaign, 1777
In the summer of 1777, the British launched a new expedition from Canada. Led by General Burgoyne, the intention was to seize the Lake Champlain and
Hudson River corridor, effectively isolating New England from the rest of the
American colonies. Burgoyne’s invasion had two components: he would lead about 10,000 men along Lake Champlain towards
Albany, New York, while a second column of about 2,000 men, led
by Barry St. Leger, would move down the Mohawk River valley and link up with Burgoyne in Albany.
Burgoyne set off in early July, recapturing Fort Ticonderoga from the retreating Americans without firing a shot. He then
proceeded overland towards Albany, but the Americans slowed his progress through the wilderness by destroying bridges and felling
trees in his path. Running short on supplies, in August Burgoyne sent a detachment to raid nearby Bennington, Vermont. The raiders were decisively defeated by local American militia, depriving Burgoyne
of nearly 1,000 men and the much-needed supplies.
Meanwhile, St. Leger—half of his force Indians led by Joseph
Brant—had laid siege to Fort Stanwix on the Mohawk River. About
800 American militiamen from a nearby fort marched to relieve the siege, but were ambushed and scattered by British and Indians
at the Battle of Oriskany on August 6. When a second relief expedition approached, this time led by Benedict Arnold, the siege was lifted, and St. Leger’s expedition returned to Canada. Burgoyne was on
his own.
Burgoyne pushed on towards Albany, his forces now reduced to about 6,000 men. An American army of about 8,000 men, commanded
by the newly arrived General Horatio Gates, had entrenched about ten
miles south of Saratoga, New York. Burgoyne sent 2,000 men to
outflank the American position, but was checked by Generals Benedict Arnold and Daniel Morgan in the first battle
of Saratoga on September 19, 1777. After the battle, the two armies dug in.
Burgoyne was in trouble now, but he hoped that help from the south might be on the way. All along, Burgoyne had suggested that
his invasion from Canada might be supported by a British offensive up the Hudson River from Howe's location in New York City.
However, British war
planners did not coordinate their efforts. General Howe had instead sailed away from New York on an expedition to capture
Philadelphia (see next section). British General Henry Clinton, left in command at New York, did indeed sail up the Hudson in
October, capturing several forts and burning Kingston (then the rebel capital of New York), but his efforts were not enough to affect the
events at Saratoga.
American militiamen, many of them outraged by the reported murder of an
American woman at the hands of Burgoyne’s Indian allies, flocked to Gates’s army, swelling his force to 11,000 by
the beginning of October. Burgoyne, his position becoming desperate, launched a new offensive, the second battle of Saratoga on October 7. The attack was repelled, and General Arnold, though relieved of command by Gates, rushed to the battle
and led a decisive counterattack. Badly beaten, Burgoyne surrendered on October
17.
Saratoga was the turning point of the war. American confidence and determination, suffering from Howe’s successful
occupation of Philadelphia, was renewed. Even more importantly, the victory encouraged France to enter the war against Great
Britain. Spain and Holland soon did
the same. For the British, the war had now become much more complicated.
Philadelphia Campaign, 1777-78
Having secured New York City in his 1776 campaign, in 1777 General Howe concentrated on capturing the American capital of
Philadelphia. He moved slowly, landing 15,000 troops in late August at the northern end of Chesapeake Bay, about 55 miles southwest of Philadelphia.
Washington positioned his 11,000 men between Howe and Philadelphia, but was outflanked and driven back at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The Continental Congress once again abandoned the
city. British and American forces maneuvered around each other for the next several days, clashing in minor encounters such as
the so-called “Paoli Massacre.” On September 26, Howe finally outmaneuvered Washington, and marched into Philadelphia
unopposed.
After taking the city, the British garrisoned about 9,000 troops in Germantown, five miles above Philadelphia. Washington unsuccessfully attacked Germantown in early October, and then
retreated to watch and wait. Meanwhile, the British secured the Delaware River by taking (with difficulty) forts Mifflin and Mercer in November.
General Washington’s problems at this time were not just with the British. In the so-called Conway Cabal, some politicians and officers unhappy with Washington’s recent performance as
commander-in-chief secretively discussed his removal. Washington, offended by the behind-the-scenes maneuvering, laid the whole
matter openly before Congress. His supporters rallied behind him, and the episode abated.
Washington and his army encamped at Valley Forge in December of 1777,
about 20 miles from Philadelphia, where they would stay for the next six months. Over the winter, 2,500 men (out of 10,000) died
from disease and exposure. However, the army eventually emerged from Valley Forge in good order, thanks in part to a training
program supervised by Baron von Steuben.
Meanwhile, there was a shakeup in the British command, with General Clinton replacing Howe as commander-in-chief. French entry
into the war had changed British war strategy, and Clinton was ordered by the government to go on the defensive in the North. He
abandoned Philadelphia and marched back towards New York City.
The Americans shadowed Clinton on his withdrawal, and forced a battle at Monmouth on June 28, 1778, the last major battle in the North. Washington's second-in-command, General Charles Lee, ordered a controversial retreat during the
battle, angering Washington and allowing Clinton’s army to escape. By July, Clinton was in New York City, and Washington
was again at White Plains. Both armies were back where they had been two years earlier. With the exception of scattered minor
actions in the North, like the Battle of Stony Point, the
focus of the war now shifted elsewhere.
War in the West
For more details, see the article: Frontier warfare during the American Revolution
In the American West — which was then west of the Appalachians,
south of the Great Lakes, and east of the Mississippi River — the American Revolutionary War was an Indian War. The British and the Americans both courted Indians as allies (or urged them to remain neutral), and
so many Native American communities became divided over which path to take. The influential Iroquois Confederacy was eventually plunged into civil war, while other groups, such as the Cherokees and Shawnees, split into factions.
Delawares under White Eyes signed the
first Indian treaty with the United States, but other Delawares joined the British.
Indeed, most American Indians who joined the fight fought against the United States, since native lands were threatened by
ever expanding Anglo-American settlement. The British supplied their Indian allies from forts along the Great Lakes, and
tribesmen staged raids on patriot settlements in New York, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Among the Iroquois attacks were
the Wyoming Valley and Cherry Valley massacres of 1778, which provoked the scorched earth Sullivan Expedition into western New York during the summer of
1779. On the brutal western front, every man, woman, and child — regardless of race
— was a potential casualty.
In the Ohio Country, the Virginia frontiersman George Rogers Clark attempted to neutralize British influence by
capturing the outposts of Kaskaskia and Vincennes in the summer of 1778. When General Henry Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit, retook Vincennes, Clark returned in a surprise march in February of 1779 and captured Hamilton
himself.
However, a decisive victory in the West eluded the United States even as their fortunes had risen in the East. The low point
on the frontier came in 1782 with the Gnadenhutten massacre, when frustrated Pennsylvania militiamen executed nearly 100 Christian Delaware
noncombatants, mostly women and children. Later that year, the last major battle of the war, Blue Licks, saw a party of Kentuckians soundly defeated by a superior force of British regulars
and Native Americans. For generations in the United States, the exploits of George Rogers Clark were practically the only stories
told about the Revolution in the West; other parts of the tale were apparently best left unremembered.
War in the South
During the first three years of the American Revolutionary War, the primary military encounters were in the North. One notable
exception was in June of 1776, when General Henry Clinton sailed south to attack Charleston, South Carolina. This ended in humiliating
defeat for the British, and the revolutionaries remained in control of the southern colonies for the next three years. Starting
in 1778, the British once again turned their attention to the colonies of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, where they hoped to regain control with the assistance of southern Loyalists.
Georgia, 1778-79
On December 29, 1778, an
expeditionary corps of 3,500 men from Clinton's army in New York captured Savannah, Georgia. A joint Franco-American
attempt to retake Savannah failed on October 9, 1779. In this assault Count Casimir Pulaski, the Polish
commander of Patriot cavalry, was mortally wounded. With Savannah secured, Clinton could now launch a new assault on Charleston,
South Carolina, where he had failed so miserably in 1776.
Carolinas, 1780-81
Clinton finally moved against Charleston in 1780, blockading the harbor in March, and building up about 10,000 troops in the
area. Inside the city, General Benjamin Lincoln commanded about
2,650 Continentals and 2,500 militiamen. When British Colonel Banastre Tarleton cut off the city’s supply lines in victories at Monck’s Corner in April and Lenud’s Ferry in early May, Charleston was surrounded.
The besiegers dug trenches closer and closer to the city until, on May 12, 1780, General Lincoln surrendered his 5,000 men—the largest surrender of U.S. troops until
the American Civil War. With relatively few casualties, Clinton
had seized the South’s biggest city and seaport, winning perhaps the greatest British victory of the war, and paving the
way for what seemed like certain conquest of the South.
The remnants of the southern Continental Army began to withdraw to North
Carolina, but were pursued by Colonel Tarleton, who defeated them at the Battle of Waxhaws on May 29, 1780. A story (probably exaggerated) quickly spread that Tarleton had massacred many Americans after they had
surrendered. “Bloody Tarleton” became a hated name among the rebels, and “Tarleton’s
quarter”—referring to his reputed lack of mercy (or “quarter”)—soon became a Patriot rallying
cry.
With these events, organized Patriot resistance in the South had collapsed, though the war was carried on by American
partisans such as Francis Marion. General Clinton turned over British
operations in the South to Lord Cornwallis.
The Continental Congress dispatched the "hero of Saratoga," General Horatio Gates, to the rescue with a new army. But Gates promptly suffered one of the worst defeats in
American military history at the Battle of Camden on August 16, 1780, setting the stage for Cornwallis
to invade North Carolina.
The tables were quickly turned on Cornwallis, however. One wing of his army was utterly defeated at the Battle of King's Mountain on October 7, 1780, delaying his move into North Carolina. King's
Mountain was noteworthy because it was not a battle between British redcoats and American troops: It was a battle between
American Loyalists and American Patriots. The Revolutionary War was in many ways a civil war; this was especially true in the South.
Gates was replaced by George Washington's most dependable subordinate, General Nathanael Greene. Greene assigned about 1,000 men to General Daniel Morgan, a superb tactician who crushed Tarleton’s troops at the Battle of Cowpens on January 17, 1781.
Greene proceeded to wear down his opponents in a series of battles (Guilford Court House, Hobkirk's
Hill, Ninety
Six, and Eutaw Springs), each of them tactically
a victory for the British, but giving no strategic advantage to the victors. Greene summed up his approach in a motto that would
become famous: "We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Unable to capture or destroy Greene's army, Cornwallis turned his
attention to Virginia.
Virginia, 1775-81
Virginia had been under revolutionary control since Loyalist forces (including runaway slaves) under Governor Dunmore had been defeated at the
Battle of Great Bridge on December 9, 1775. Dunmore and his troops took refuge on British
ships off of Norfolk. Dunmore ordered the town burned on
January 1, 1776. He was driven from an
island in Chesapeake Bay that summer, never to return.
British forces raided Virginia sporadically during the war. In January 1781, the rebel
capital of Richmond was put to the torch by none other than
Benedict Arnold, who had sold his services to the other side and was now a British general.
In March 1781, General Washington dispatched Lafayette
to defend Virginia. The young Frenchman had 3,200 men at his command, but British troops in the colony, now reinforced and
commanded by Cornwallis, totaled 7,200. Lafayette skirmished with Cornwallis, avoiding a decisive battle while gathering
reinforcements. "The boy cannot escape me," Cornwallis is supposed to have said. However, Cornwallis was unable to trap
Lafayette, and so he moved his forces to Yorktown, Virginia
in July in order to link up with the British navy. As fate would have it, the navy that eventually met Cornwallis at Yorktown was
not British.
War at sea
Main article: Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War
Meanwhile the co-operation of the French became active. In July Count Rochambeau arrived at Newport, Rhode Island. That place had been occupied by the British from
1776 to the close of 1779. An unsuccessful attempt was made to drive them out in 1778 by the Americans assisted by the French
admiral d'Estaing and a French
corps.
Gulf Coast
After Spain declared war against Great Britain in June of 1779, Count Bernardo de Gálvez, the governor of Louisiana, seized
three British Mississippi River outposts: Manchac, Baton Rouge, and Natchez. Gálvez then captured Mobile on
March 14, 1780, and in May of 1781 forced the surrender of the British outpost at
Pensacola, Florida. On May 8, 1782, Gálvez captured the British naval base at New Providence in the
Bahamas.
Caribbean
India
The Franco-British war spilled over into India in 1780, in the form of the Second Anglo-Mysore
War. The two chief antagonists here were Tipu Sultan, ruler of the
Kingdom of Mysore and a key French ally, and the British
government of Madras. The Anglo-Mysore conflict was bloody but
inconclusive, and ended in a draw at the Treaty of Mangalore in 1784.
Netherlands
Also in 1780, the British struck against the United Provinces of the Netherlands in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War to preempt Dutch involvement in a league
of armed neutrality directed primarily against the British Navy during the war. Agitation by Dutch radicals, and a friendly
attitude towards the United States by the Dutch government, influenced by the American Revolution also encouraged the British to
attack. The war lasted into 1784 and was disastrous to Holland's mercantile economy.
War's end
The northern, southern, and naval theaters of the war converged at Yorktown in 1781. On September 5, 1781, French naval forces defeated the British Royal Navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake, cutting off Cornwallis's supplies and transport. Washington hurriedly
moved his troops from New York, and a combined Franco-American force of 17,000
troops commenced the Battle of Yorktown on
October 6, 1781. Cornwallis's position
quickly became untenable, and on October 19 his army surrendered. The war was
all but over.
British Prime Minister Lord North resigned upon
hearing the news from Yorktown. In April 1782, the British House of Commons voted to end the war with the American colonies. On November 30, 1782 preliminary peace articles
were signed in Paris; the formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris was signed on September 3, 1783 and the United States Congress ratified the
treaty on January 14, 1784. The last
British troops left New York City on November 25, 1783.
The reasons for Great Britain's misfortunes and failure may be summarized as follows: Misconception by the home government of
the temper and reserve strength of her colonists; disbelief at the outset in the probability of a protracted struggle covering
the immense territory in America; consequent failure to despatch sufficient forces to the field; the safe and Fabian generalship of Washington; and finally, the French alliance and
European combinations by which at the close of the conflict Great Britain was without a friend or ally on the continent.
Decisive victory eluded the United States on the western frontier. However, Great Britain negotiated the Paris peace treaty
without consulting her Indian allies, and ceded Indian territory to the United States. Full of resentment, Native Americans
reluctantly confirmed these land cessions with the United States in a series of treaties, but the result was essentially an armed
truce—the fighting would be renewed in conflicts along the frontier, the largest being the Northwest Indian War.
Casualties and survivors
The total loss of life resulting from the American Revolutionary War is unknown. As was typical in the wars of the era,
disease claimed more lives than battle. Often overlooked is the fact that the war took place in the context of a massive smallpox epidemic in North America that probably killed more than 130,000 people.2 Historian Joseph J.
Ellis argues that George Washington's decision to have his troops inoculated may have been the commander-in-chief's most important strategic decision.
Casualty figures for the American revolutionaries have varied over the years; a recent scholarly estimate lists 6,824 killed
and 8,445 wounded in action. The number of American patriot troop deaths from disease and other non-combat causes is estimated at
about 18,500.3
Approximately 1,200 German mercenaries were killed in action and 6,354 died from illness or accident. About 16,000 of the
remaining German troops returned home, but roughly 5,500 remained in the United States after the war for various reasons, many
becoming American citizens. No reliable statistics exist for the number of casualties among other groups, including American
loyalists, British regulars, Native Americans, French and Spanish troops, and civilians.
According to data from the Daughters of the American Revolution, the last surviving U.S. veteran of the conflict, George Fruits, died in 1876 at the age of 114. However, Fruits was
never on a pension roll. The last surviving veteran may have been Daniel F. Bakeman (died 1869), who was placed on the pension rolls by an act of U.S. Congress and is listed as the last survivor
of the conflict by the United States Department of Veterans' Affairs.
Notes
- Note 1: For the total number of warriors, see Merrell, p. 393. For
number of Iroquois warriors, see Boatner, p. 545.
- Note 2: Fenn, p. 275. A great number of these smallpox deaths
occurred outside the theater of war — in Mexico or among American Indians west of the Mississippi River.
- Note 3: Chambers, p. 849.
References
- Boatner, Mark Mayo. Encyclopedia of the American Revolution. New York: McKay, 1966. ISBN 0811705781.
- Chambers, John Whiteclay II, ed. in chief. The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999. ISBN
0195071980.
- Ellis, Joseph J. His Excellency: George Washington. New York: Knopf, 2004. ISBN 1400040310.
- Fenn, Elizabeth Anne. Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001. ISBN 0809078201.
- Merrell, James H. "Indians and the new republic" in Jack P. Greene and J.R. Pole, eds., The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the
American Revolution, pp. 392-98. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1991; reprint 1999.
- Wood, W. J. Battles of the Revolutionary War, 1775-1781. Originally published Chapel Hill, N.C.: Algonquin, 1990;
reprinted by Da Capo Press, 1995. ISBN
0306806177 (paperback); ISBN
0306813297 (2003 paperback reprint).
External links
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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