19 April: The American War of Independence:

On this date in 1775 the American Revolutionary War started at Lexington Common. 10 things you might not know about the American War of Independence:

1. Complete separation from the British crown wasn't the aim at first. The colonists wanted to maintain their links with Britain but to have more autonomy. The Continental Congress petitioned King George III, denying that independence was the Americans’ objective, and appealing to him to protect the colonies. However, at this point British ministers, and the king, rebuffed the Americans. After that, the colonists began to believe that independence was the only option.
2. Support for the war wasn't universal. The term “spirit of ‘76” refers to the colonists’ patriotic zeal, and while it may have been true in the beginning when, on April 19, 1775, messengers on horseback, including Boston silversmith Paul Revere, fanned out across New England to raise the alarm – and thousands of militiamen answered the call. Later on, though, the novelty wore off; people realised how dangerous it was and the colonists were forced to entice men to enlist with financial rewards for short enlistment terms. By 1778 they were having to conscript men and they even changed their minds about allowing African-American slaves to fight.
3. Enslaved people fought on both sides. The British promised slaves their freedom and so many of them fought for the British as well.
4. It could almost have been described as a world war. While it did begin as a fight for America, happening largely in America, in due course, the French joined in on the side of the colonists. This led to conflicts in other parts of the globe where both France and Britain had interests such as the West Indies; and later on, Spain and the Netherlands joined in as well. This wider war continued for a time after the war in America ended in 1781.
5. There were colonists who sided with the British, too. About a fifth, while they may have supported autonomy, didn't want to sever links with Britain entirely. At the end of the war, many of them moved to Canada which remained closely linked to Britain.
6. It was during the American Revolutionary War that the first Submarine attack took place. The American Turtle, a submersible vessel shaped like a giant acorn, was built by David Bushnell in 1775. In 1776 it was used in an attempt to attach explosives to the hull of the British flagship Eagle, which was docked in New York Harbor. The Turtle was successful in approaching the ship without being seen, but was thwarted by the iron hull of the ship, and failed to attach the bomb, which exploded nearby, causing no damage to the British ship.
7. Some of the earliest patriot victories can be attributed to an extensive network of spies. They used invisible ink, ciphers, and code names. One of the networks was the Culper Ring which was so secretive that it was 150 years before the general public were made aware of it. Their agents were known by numbers rather than names. Now, the identities of most of the code names are known. General George Washington’s code name in the Culper Ring was Agent 711. However, there is one agent whose identity remains a mystery to this day – Agent 355, a woman.
8. Women were very involved in the war effort, not only in they ways you might expect, such as cooking, nursing and sewing uniforms. Some of them also got to fight. One woman, Mary Ludwig Hayes, started out carrying water to and from the battle field, but when her husband was incapacitated, legend has it that she took his place at an artillery canon during the Battle of Monmouth. Another woman, Anna Maria Lane, disguised herself as a man and joined the continental army.
9. The British were favourites to win at the start. The colonists had no regular army and weren't known for co-operating with each other, while Britain did have an organised army and arguably the best navy in the world, ferrying troops to wherever they were needed. When France joined in, however, the British Navy became distracted by skirmishes at sea with French ships. The tide finally turned in 1871 at Yorktown, Virginia. General Cornwallis’s British army was trapped by American and French troops and cut off from relief by the French navy. Cornwallis’s surrender effectively ended the war in America.
10. It's hard to know how many people lost their lives in the conflict because records weren't so accurately kept as they are now. Historians have had to rely on local town records to figure out how many casualties there were. Estimates are around 25,000 Americans and 27,294 British and British allies.

 

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