Joe Giorello - Great Battles for Boys The American Revolution

Great Battles for Boys

Joe Giorello
with
Sibella Giorello

Great Battles The American Revolution

Copyright 2022 by Joe Giorello

EPUB Edition

All images are courtesy of the public domain unless otherwise noted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author and publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

The American Revolution produced some stunning military battles.

But before we get into those clashes, you need to know about some events that triggered this war.

So, lets imagine this:

You and your family live in one of thirteen American colonies. Maybe Massachusetts. Or Vermont. (By the way, a colony is any land ruled by another country, often a country far away.)

One day, your mom gives you some British money and says, Go to the store and buy some tea and sugar.

The colonists drank a lot of tea. After all, they considered themselves British citizens.

But when you get to the store, the prices for tea and sugar have skyrocketedso high that you can barely afford to buy them. You wonder why the prices suddenly went up. The store owner explains that King George IIIthe ruler of England and the American coloniesneeds more money.

Why does the King need money?

Because of his wars.

King George III.

Before the Revolutionary War, there was another war in North America. It was called the French and Indian War. It was part of a larger war between England and France that was also called the Seven Years War.

The French and Indian War was fought mainly in Canada and the northern American coloniessuch as Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

In 1763, King George signed a peace treatyan official document that ends a conflict. The treaty said England would control the thirteen colonies. France could have some land further west, in what was then the wilderness.

Heres a map of that division of land.

The thirteen British colonies are in the darkest color, with French-controlled territory to the west. Note, too, Spain controlled lands even further to the west.

Wars are very expensive. The French and Indian War created huge financial problems for England, and King George decided the American colonists should cough up money for his debt. The King started imposing higher taxesa lot of higher taxes.

Heres an example (and I promise, this information is essential to the battles that follow).

In 1765, two years after the French and Indian War ended, England added a new law called the Stamp Act. It added taxes to just about every piece of paper used by colonial Americans, from newspapers to playing cards.

Official mark of the Stamp Act with the English royal crown.

Two years later, in 1767, more taxes were addedon paint, glass, metals the list went on and on.

The British government insisted these taxes were fair because British soldiers lived in the colonies to protect them from Native American Indian attacks. Many colonists disagreed.

Lets return to your imaginary trip to the store.

When you get home, theres a knock on the front door. Some British soldiers are standing on the stoop. Theyre going to stay at your house. For as long as they want. For free. And your mom has to cook and clean for them. For free.

That bullying was becoming common in the colonies. Laws demanded that people quarter the British troops in their homes.

The bullying combined with the taxes were making the colonists poorer. Just as bad, they had no voice in the British government, known as Parliament. The colonists started saying this phrase: No taxation without representation.

That meant that Englands politicians couldnt just make rules for American colonists without listening to their wants and needs.

American colonists started gathering to protest the British taxes and the quartering of soldiers.

To fight back, the colonists refused to pay the taxes. They also boycottedrefused to buyany British goods.

Other colonists formed groups to coordinate a rebellion against the British King and his government. Among the most famous of these groups was the Sons of Liberty. These men were passionate about America breaking away from England. They wanted an independent countryeven if that meant war.

The colonists drank a lot of tea. Some estimates are that they drank about a million pounds of teaevery year! In 1773, the Sons of Liberty organized a famous rebellion known as the Boston Tea Party.

On a cold winter night in December, the men disguised themselves as Indians and snuck aboard some English ships anchored in Boston Harbor. The men threw chests of tea overboard. One of them described this sneak attack:

We then were ordered by our commander to open the hatches and take out all the chests of tea and throw them overboard and we immediately proceeded to execute his orders, first cutting and splitting the chests with our tomahawks [Indian axes] so as thoroughly to expose them to the effects of the water.

Artists rendering of the Boston Tea Party.

In todays figures, that tea was worth about a million dollars. Naturally, King George was furious. In response, the British Parliament passed the Intolerable Acts. These new laws closed Boston Harbor until the colonists paid for all the tea dumped in the water.

The Intolerable Acts also placed the citizens of Massachusetts under martial law. Thats when the military rules as the government. Under martial law, British soldiers were now in charge of everything. They could pretty much do whatever they wanted to the colonists and not suffer any consequences.

In 1774, the year after the Boston Tea Party, the Americans who wanted to change things formed a Continental Congress. They sent representatives from twelve coloniesGeorgia didnt want to participateand met in Philadelphia in Carpenters Hall. Their goal was to convince King George to get rid of these unpopular laws. The Continental Congress wrote out their concerns and sent the letter to England.

The King never replied.

But he did declare the colonies open and avowed [or certain] enemies.