Talk:American Revolutionary War/Archive 1

message: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution states:
"1200 Hessians were killed in action and 6,354 died from illness or accident. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessians states:
"17,313 Hessians returned to their homelands. Of the 12,526 of those who did not, about 7,700 were killed in battles."
These claims are contradictary according to my interpretation of the context in each case. Perhaps the contexts are unclear. So, possibly more important is the fact the casualty figures in the first article are dangling, the context is apparently "The War of Independence" but is it really so? Somebody who knows something about history should make an adjustment -- Martin H.
:Fixed -the author of the Hessian article wrongly presumed that 7700 died meant died in battle when in fact it meant died due to all causes -battle, disease, accident, etc. Also of course the first article (American Revolutionary War) casualties means American Revolutionary War casualties - not sure what other context could possibly be meant. Rmhermen 23:11, Jan 6, 2004 (UTC) 
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"Boston was evacuated by British troops in October [1775]."
Hmm. Evacuation Day is celebrated on March 17th in the Boston metro area, presumably to line up with the evacuation, but I suppose it's entirely possible that the date was chosen for other reasons. So is the article wrong, or is the holiday wrong? -- EdwardOConnor
"The largest army seen in Western Europe since Roman times"? I was all set to kill this, but realized that it was *just* barely possible that he only sent part of it and that's what the quoted figure of 75,000 represents. If that's the entire sum, though, it's not even close to the largest army. Spain and France cleared five times that figure in wars during the 16th and late 17th centuries....Does anyone care to stand up for this statement? -- Paul Drye
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* As I threatened earlier, I took out the claim that the army the British assembled was the largest seen since Roman times.
* Similarly hyperbolic was the claim that Philadelphia was the second largest city in the British Empire. While it's true that all English cities were remarkably smaller than London, and the colonial cities were correspondingly far up the list, at least Manchester and Liverpool were still bigger than Philadelphia in 1776 (the twice so or more).
--Paul Drye
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I can't find any reason why the present title for this article is used other than that it follows the 1911 Encyclopedia.  The much shorter exact phrase "American Revolution" just gave me 327,000 Google hits versus only 19,700 for "American Revolutionary War" and 9,800 for "American War of Independence".  Any thoughts?
:Personally, I would refer to it as the "Revolutionary War" (the "American" is just a disambiguator); "Revolutionary War" turns up roughly 3/4 as many results as "American Revolution": 285,000 at google; "Revolutionary War" and "America" together give 143,000 (vs 201,000 for "American Revolution" with "America"); with "United States" instead 117,000 (vs 166,000).
:"American Revolution" strikes me as maybe a little old-fashioned or even pompous -- I think of "the Daughters of the American Revolution" and whatnot. Further, "Revolutionary War" as a topic seems like it would concentrate on, well, the war, as the article at present does. "American Revolution" would, to me, be a little more general a topic and would discuss more the establishment of a new system of government. But, don't take my word for it! I'm not a historian, just an American. --Brion VIBBER
Thanks for your reply, Brian.  I wouldn't try to explain why Google gives different counts to different users.
:(Well, when different users input different queries, it only makes sense for the results to be different! --Brion VIBBER)
I started to question this when I was looking at the List of Battles, in particular the first Battle of Cape Saint Vincent.  It was a naval battle in 1780 between the British and Spanish, which my dictionary of battles classes as belonging to the "War of the American Revolution".  Many naval battles in this war did not involve American troops at all; sending an American fleet into the Indian Ocean (Battle of Trincomalee) at that time would have been an inconceivable squandering of limited resources.  I very much agree that the term "American Revolution" has a broader scope than any title that includes "War" - it would include much of the political activity, and the actions of the terrorist freedom-fighters at the Boston Tea Party.  Eclecticology
:"Terrorist freedom-fighters"? Covering all asses simultaneously, I see. :) --Brion VIBBER
:In Cuba it's also said the revolution also still goes on. So it's not unusual to use the word in this sense as well (of a broader social change), even though that's confusing; a revolution that is stretched out in time is more like an evolution, but then again an evolution normally doesn't start with a revolution, so that word wouldn't apply either. So 'revolution' sounds ok to me, for lack of a better word. DirkvdM June 28, 2005 07:05 (UTC)
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'the American Revolution began much earlier and was a larger scheme including the war  It was?  Care to enlighten us as to what that larger scheme was? -- Zoe
: Over a much longer time line (1760-1783) a broad range of events and ideas make up the revolution, not just the Revolutionary War. I would prefer that we call it something other than a 'scheme' but it included economic, political, religious, and social changes. Lou I 20:27 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)
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I'm new to this project, so if this repeats an earlier discussion, I agologize. That said, has anyone talked about creating the lsarger article describing the American Revolutionn. What I suggest is a much larger scope than the war, but with more detail than you should see in U.S. History. My question for observers is: what are your thoughts about the content and flow of such an article? Lou I 20:27 Apr 1, 2003 (UTC)
Any objections to moving this to American War of Independence? Lirath Q. Pynnor
:Strongly! The war was a fairly large, multinational affair occasioned by the American Revolution (much as the French Revolutionary Wars were large wars occasioned by the French Revolution). Reducing it to just a war of independence for the US seems both misleading and Americentric. This war's really important in the history of Canada, First Nations, Great Britain, even France and Haiti... QuartierLatin1968 22:46, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You make a good point, but "Revolutionary War" is the name with which most Americans are familiar.  It is what most of us learned is school. Rogerd 22:27, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I believe it is inaccurate to say that:
"Loyalties
It should be noted, however, that a large proportion of the population did stay loyal to Britain, or at least remained neutral during the war. Loyalists, known as Tories, included members of the aristocracy who had a lot to lose, as well as recent immigrants who identified more with their birthplace than their new home. Both during and following the war, Tories were forced to flee to Canada or Britain. Many Native Americans also opposed the revolution, believing that they were likely to suffer more at the hands of independent Americans than the British. An estimated 10-15% of colonists were Loyalists, and about one-third of them left the United States. Some 70,000 Loyalists fled, along with 2,000 Native Americans. 50,000 of these Loyalists went to Canada, where they helped form the colonies of New Brunswick and Ontario. Some black Loyalists went to Sierra Leone." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:American_Revolutionary_War)
AS it is seeming ly unsupported and in that:
regarding the American Revolutionary War of Indepdence (please not this as my response to the issues earlier stated) that "One-third loyal, one-third patriot, one-third undecided." (John Adams (“2. Loyalists a. 100,000 left the colonies4. Declaring Independence (WAYCROSS COLLEGE DR. COREY LESSEIG   http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/coless/Am1lec.htm)
(which I recall was corroborated by Dr. Herbert Apteker in lectures attended by Andrew Zito) and in that:
“Loyalists, that sizeable pro-British element, perhaps a majority when open war began, who had stood by established law and imperial unity against revolutionary upheaval” (http://www.canadianheritage.org/books/canada4.htm) “New York City, which was at that time more pro-British than England itself.“ (The Tribes and the States W. J. Sidis chapter 23, http://www.sidis.net/TSChap23.htm) 
The question the colonial elite must have repeatedly asked each other is if the growing class hatred developing in the colonies could be focused against the pro-British elite, and be deflected from themselves, the national elite? (Lecture Notes 3 - The American Revolution African American History - Spring 1999 Department of History, St. John's University by Omar, Ali http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/4275/StJohnsLec3.html ). "about 40% of the population was pro-British. (The Presbyterian Rebellion ( by Harry Seabrook (harry@littlegeneva.com" http://www.littlegeneva.com/docs/presbyterian.htm )
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The lectures and notes that Zito cites are intersting but not entirely accurate. First, we must know that no one knows the TRUE numbers of rebels, tories, and indifferent population. That said, New York City was originally a hotbed of the revolution. From 1765-1775 as many incidents happened ther as the more widely known ones in Boston. By the end of 1775 the royal governor had to leave, and withdraw a small garrison with him. The notes cited claim that there were a great many loyalists in New York. By the summer of 76, there were. Open fighting in New England caused numbers of Tories to leave home. When the British left Boston in March, Tory refugee centers became NYC and Nove Scotia. Everyone expected the British Army to come to New York.
:To net this discussion, I haven't seen anything to cause me to want the article changed. However, eventually the loyalist-rebel or Tory-Whig notes should go to the revolution article, not the war. Lou I 16:06, 20 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Loyalists 

message: I removed the Society of the Cincinnati material from the End of the War section. Ot's jusst not appropriate there. There is a link at the bottom of the article, and a brief description might belong on the Revolution article, not the revolutionary War article. Also, the claim of 'oldest' is false, the Knight of Malta certainly go back farther. Removed material included: The Society of the Cincinnati was formed in May of 1783, and General Washington elected President of The Society. Washington continued as the Society's President until his death in 1799. The Society of the Cincinnati is the oldest military and hereditary organization in the world, and is still active today.  Lou I 12:50, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cincinnati 

message: Conflict spread, and the outnumbered British garrisons in the 13 colonies were quickly defeated.  Outnumbered by who?
--Spencer BOOTH 14:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  please clarify 

message: First the war is summarized from the beginning through Saratoga. Then the whole war is described in more detail, restarting from the beginning to the end. Then the quicker summary starts up again where it left off, at Saratoga. Does anyone else think the story would be less confusing if it were told in order? Art LaPella 02:16, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
*You're right: the merge of the 1911 article and other developments throws this whole article into a sort of a mess. My approach has been to keep working on the lower level biographies, battles, and campaigns before trying to rework this article into a summary. But anyone is welcome to try and improve the outline here. Thanks for your interest Lou I 22:43, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I just added the cleanup tag at the top for this reason.  I think a timeline would be the normal way to approach a cleanup, rather than trying to talk about the different campaigns separately, since they overlap.  Would also be nice to do a pass to remove the 1911 mannerisms about the colonists having good British blood, among other things.  Tempshill 23:52, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  event sequence 

message: Well, as you can see, I've started the much-needed cleanup process. My approach is to throw out the turgid 1911 prose, replacing it with a "just the facts" summary of the various campaigns, in rough chronological order. I figure the challenge will be to summarize the war in a way that will be clearly understandable to the lay reader, without cluttering it up with too many details. So, I concentrate on generals and admirals, with the occassional colonel or chief or other notable, and try to leave discussion of tactics, casualties, etc. to linked articles about specific battles or actions. I'll do New York & New Jersey next. There's much yet to be done, feel free to jump in.--Kevin Myers 01:27, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: First of all, I want to say, bravo Kevin Myers, you're doing an amazing job. I would however like to be able to restore some information I added a while back about Lord Dunmore's War and the Western front in 1775-7, but I also don't want people to take it as a hostile revert away from your cleanup... Also the Western front section as it's currently written has some serious NPOV issues! (I think it's a part that hasn't been cleaned up yet). QuartierLatin1968 22:41, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you! Yes, the Western front needs a lot of work. And by all means feel free to put good ole Lord Dunmore back in the mix. I was thinking that rather than mention Dunmore early on, his actions might be summarized in the first paragraphs of the Western front section. However, Dunmore's War evolves into important early actions in the east -- his Emancipation Proclamation, the Battle of Great Bridge, and the burning of Norfolk -- so maybe he needs mentioned earlier. Lots of interesting things were going on in Virginia, to be sure. Maybe we should visit Virginia & the western front in an early section, and then again later? Have at it! --Kevin Myers 14:55, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got three points. First, I notice we're over 32 kb again -- should I pare back my Western front additions? Second, I have to admit I know nothing about the Treaties of Fort Pitt, so I haven't written about them. And finally, as I started arranging my material according to your (very useful!) outline, it occurred to me that the Iroquois/Ohio Country distinction seemed a bit artificial. Brant, for example, goes from New York to fight at the Battle of Blue Licks in Kentucky. QuartierLatin1968 06:45, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, we're running long, but there's still lots of important and interesting stuff we haven't covered yet in the West: the "squaw campaign," the Cherokee War, White Eyes, Guyashuta, the Brodhead expedition, the Crawford expedition, etc. (The Fort Pitt treaties are not well known; I'll write them up soon.) I'm thinking we should start a new article, something like the Western Front in the American Revolutionary War, or Indian Country in the American Revolutionary War -- maybe someone has a better title idea. So probably the Western front in the main article should be just a short (2-3 paragraph?) summary. I think in the separate article, the Iroquois/Ohio Country distinction might be more relevant, as the Ohio Indians (Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandot, et. al.) are initially at odds with the Iroquois. But in the shorter summary, yeah, we don't need different sections. --Kevin Myers 06:29, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I've pasted the section over to a new article: Frontier warfare during the American Revolution --Kevin Myers 08:48, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A cleanup strategy 

message: An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the American Revolutionary War article, and they have been placed on this page for your convenience.Tip: Some people find it helpful if these suggestions are shown on this talk page, rather than on another page. To do this, just add  to this page. — LinkBot 10:23, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:LinkBot/suggestions/American_Revolutionary_War|Link suggestions]] 

message: The section titled "European-American Colonists" contains several paragraphs that are general statements about the army and are not race-specific.  These paragraphs should be removed to another section or the section should be renamed. Ken Arromdee 03:35, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  European-Americans? 

message: Could be word for word. Someone want to go through them, make sure there isn't any info in one not in the others, and root through the history to see if anything was deleted when those sections were duplicated? TransUtopian 04:20, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Duplicates of West, South and War's End sections 

message: I'm looking now at 1779 figures based on Lord North's return-books in the William Clements Library, and they chart North American troop dispositions at about 39,000, as opposed to listed 60,000. That doesn't include the Irish Establishment (for which there don't seem to be good records), but unless there were 21,000 Irishmen fighting in North America, I think this is a rather inflated figure. Fearwig 03:21, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As indicated in the footnotes, the 60,000 figure is from historian Jeremy Black. It apparently includes Irishmen and Germans, which might account for the difference. It's also possible the returns you're looking at lists only soldiers currently "fit for duty", not the total number of men in North America. Regardless, we should only use figures in Wikipedia that have been published by historians, and not, alas, based on our own readings of published primary material. --Kevin Myers | on Wheels! 13:32, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: a primary source is a source is a source is a source...and should not simply be ignored because it disagrees with another. The statement of an historian writing 200 years later should not necessarily be preferred to that of a man who wrote what he saw at the time. but that aside, you would have to be sure exactly what north was talking about. Still, I think this was more a suggestion to check the article than to scrap it? Sandpiper 20:14, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "A primary source is a source is a source" is a naïve (though common) view of historical documents and what historians do. Historians must consider many factors in evaluating any given primary source. For example, in David Hackett Fischer's Washington's Crossing, he points out that General Howe's casualty reports are always undercounts (Howe apparently had his reasons for not being accurate). An amateur historian (such as a Wikipedian) might repeat Howe's deliberate undercounts at face value without understanding the context. It's not desirable for a Wikipedian to go poking around in primary documents that he or she has not had the broad reading needed to properly evaluate: that's original research, which we don't do here. Plus there's no need, since professional historians are on the job. Now, when two reputable, published, professional scholars are in disagreement, that's when our job here gets really fun, because we can report the disagreement. What we don't do is try to be historians ourselves in any field where the pros have published. (This process is somewhat different regarding Wikipedia articles about current events or popular culture, for example, where professional research might not be published, and Wikipedians can scour the web for primary sources to their heart's content.) --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:19, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistics on British army in North America. 

message: Spain participated by supplying munitions, not troops. The exception was a single expedition led out of Louisiana, but I don't recall enough about it to pretend I'm adding anything useful. Fearwig 03:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Spain entering the war. 

message: I removed the following recent addition...
*NOTE: THE ABOVE STATEMENT [that more blacks fought on the Patriot side than on the Loyalist side] IS FALSE. THOUSANDS BLACK SOLDIERS FOUGHT FOR THE BRITISH SIDE, WHILE ONLY A FEW HUNDRED FOUGHT FOR THE AMERICAN CAUSE.
This might well be true, but it belongs on the talk page, not stuck in the article.  I'll try to check it out if someone doesn't beat me to it. -- Mwanner | Talk 02:13, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The figure of 5,000 black Patriots and 1,000 black Loyalists comes from the link at the bottom of the article, "African-American soldiers in the Revolution". Some recent books have questioned this traditional estimate, though I believe they do not offer a revised estimate (Lengel's General George Washington, Raphael's Founding Myths). There are a number of works devoted to the topic if you look into it further. --Kevin Myers | on Wheels! 03:12, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe the British army promised to free any Black slaves who fought for them, whilst of of course many slaves were made to fight for the Patriots, regardless of whether they agreed with the cause. If this is the case it would explain why many blacks took up the British offer. Grunners 09:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Black soldiers 

message: Someone inserted a little information about US General James Potter into the Harry Potter James and Lily Potter article, saying he was an american revolutionary war hero. I  dumped the information into its own article. Does anyone know anything about him, or have a better view on whether he deserves an article or is mentioned anywhere else? If so, can anyone who knows about this subject sort him out? Sandpiper 13:20, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Notable guy. See here. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 14:17, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Is "General James Potter" the Wikipedia convention?  Shouldn't it be something like "James Potter (generaal)" or something like that? Hbdragon88 21:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  General James Potter 

message: I have started assembling a List of Continental Forces in the American Revolutionary War. This is not a straightforward task, so any help and input would be appreciated. I have also made a proposal for an infobox on the Talk page. --Leifern 00:44, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of Continental unit 

message: All the "colonies" vanished in 1775-76 when the Brits removed all their colonial officials.  Only in Georgia, for a while, did they even attempt to ressetablish a colonial government.  All the former colonies became states and should be called such.
The war was NOT fought between Britain and some colonies. It was fought with the United States of America, a new country. Rjensen 07:12, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That last statement is the old fallacy of reading history backwards. The creation of the new country was a consequence of the outbreak of the war. --Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 07:34, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No fallacy. There was very little fighting before Jul 4, 1776. The Declaration of Independence meant this was not a squabble that could be compromised--that it would be a full scale war. Once that happened the British made it a real war sending a huge fleet and army to capture New York, and the fighting began in earnest. France would not have intervened in a squabble aroiund Boston--the US had to declare independence first.  Once France was involved it became a major world war.Rjensen 08:16, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  States, not colonies 

message: I note that the current "to do list" proposes reducing the "War at Sea" section in favour of a short summary paragraphs without headings. The section is poorly constructed, but reducing it will relegate the primary war efforts of the most powerful participants (Britain and France) after 1778 to an even lower status than they currently have in the article. I raises the issue of what the war was about (and, hence, what this article is about). 
* For the Americans, the war was a clear cut revolution and struggle for Independence (with most in favour and some against). 
* For the British, the war was initially a struggle to retain (or regain) the Americans' loyalty. But from 1778 it became a far more complex war with France and later Spain and the Netherlands. The war with France and Spain soon dominated British concerns, with a significant reduction of effort in America (where arguably the struggle had already been lost after Saratoga). 
* Similarly, for France, Spain and the Netherlands, the war in America was something of a side show. France and Spain were principally seeking revenge for their defeat in the Seven Years War, and their strategy focused on taking British possessions in Europe (Minorca, Gibraltar etc.), the West Indies (Dominica, Grenada, Tobago, Jamaica etc.) and the East Indies. While French support for the United States was of great importance, it was not the primary aim of the French war effort. 
In short, if the "War at Sea", or perhaps "the wider war", is not worthy of significant mention in this article on the  "American Revolutionary War", perhaps the wider war does deserve an article of its own under "American War of Independence". (For comparison, see the way the French and Indian War has evolved as a separate article to the Seven Years War. JimmyTheOne 22:47, 7 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The War in America versus the wider war