American Revolutionary War

The **American Revolutionary War** (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the **Revolutionary War** or **American War of Independence**, was the military conflict of the American Revolution in which American Patriot forces under George Washington's command defeated the British, establishing and securing the independence of the United States. Fighting began on April 19, 1775, at the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The war was formalized and intensified following passage of the Lee Resolution, which asserted that the Thirteen Colonies were "free and independent states", by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 2, 1776, and the unanimous ratification of the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4, 1776.

In the war, American patriot forces were supported by the Kingdom of France and the Kingdom of Spain. The British, in turn, were supported by Hessian soldiers from Germany, some American Indians, Loyalists, and freedmen. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean.

The American colonies were established by Royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were initially largely autonomous in domestic affairs and commercially prosperous, trading with Britain, its Caribbean colonies, and other European powers via their Caribbean entrepôts. After the British gained victory over the French in the Seven Years' War in 1763, tensions and disputes arose between Britain and the colonies over policies related to trade, trans-Appalachian settlement, and taxation, including the Stamp and Townshend Acts. Colonial opposition led to the Boston Massacre in 1770, which strengthened American Patriots' desire for independence from Britain. The British responded by repealing earlier taxation measures. But in 1773, the British Parliament adopted the Tea Act, a measure which led to the Boston Tea Party on December 16, 1773. In response, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts in mid-1774, closed Boston Harbor, and revoked Massachusetts' charter, which placed the colony under the British monarchy's direct governance.

These measures stirred unrest throughout the colonies, 12 of which sent delegates to the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in early September 1774 to protest the measures and deliberate on potential responses. In Philadelphia, the Congress drafted a Petition to the King asking for peace, and threatened a boycott of British goods known as the Continental Association if the Intolerable Acts were not withdrawn. Fighting began at the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775. In June, the Second Continental Congress formalized Patriot militias into the Continental Army and appointed George Washington its commander-in-chief. The coercion policy advocated by the North ministry was opposed by a faction within the British Parliament, but both sides began to see military conflict as inevitable. Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition to King George III in July 1775, but he rejected it, and the British Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion in August.

As the Revolutionary War formally launched, Washington's forces drove the British army out of Boston during the Siege of Boston in March 1776, and British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign. Howe captured New York City in November, and Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trenton and Princeton, which restored Patriot confidence. In summer 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress prepared for Philadelphia's fall by fleeing the city for Baltimore, where they convened at Henry Fite House, and protecting the Liberty Bell by relocating it to Zion Reformed Church in Allentown, where it was hidden under the church's floorboards for nine months.

In October 1776, a separate British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. With Philadelphia still occupied by the British, Washington and 12,000 Continental Army troops secured refuge in Valley Forge from December 1777 to June 1778. At Valley Forge, General von Steuben drilled the Continental Army into a more viable fighting unit, but as many as 2,000 Continental Army troops died from disease and possibly malnutrition over a brutal winter.

France provided the Continental Army with informal economic and military support from the beginning of the war. After Saratoga, the two countries signed a commercial agreement and a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, Spain also allied with France against Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans. Access to ports in Spanish Louisiana allowed American patriots to import arms and supplies, while the Spanish Gulf Coast campaign deprived the British Royal Navy of key bases in the American south.

Closure of American ports undermined the 1778 strategy devised by Howe's replacement Henry Clinton, which intended to take the war against the Americans into the south. Despite some initial success, Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American force in Yorktown in September and October 1781. Cornwallis attempted to resupply the garrison, but failed and was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but Britain's forces in America were largely confined to several harbors and forts in Great Lakes, and fighting largely ceased in America. In April 1782, the North ministry was replaced by a new British government, which accepted American independence and began negotiating the Treaty of Paris, ratified on September 3, 1783, and Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Britain's conflicts with France and Spain.