[quote author="SSLtech"]I'm so-oooo lucky, being British and being in the USA on this date every year...
I get to hear "Woo-hoooo! -This is the day we kicked your asses!!!" from drunken people who usually think that they're the first to make that comment.... and who also usually also refer to the French as "surrender-monkeys".
-But inform them of the fact that the FRENCH were who won that particular war for them, and they frequently INSIST that you've got it all wrong...
I'm staying indoors with the doors locked, the phone unplugged and the blinds pulled down with all the lights off.
[quote author="Sir Ken Robinson"]Celebrating the date when you sent the Brits home???
...-but we've only just arrived!!![/quote]
Keith[/quote]
Actually, as usual, it was a whole lot more complicated than any of that. Unfortunately, most Americans have no idea what happened. Lots of stuff we were taught in school was only marginally correct and was often biased. The sins of omission were also great.
Yes, in the end (at Yorktown, VA), the French fleet helped trap Cornwallis' army and forced a surrender. Of course that was 1781 and it was two years later that the Revolution actually ended with the British withdrawal leaving a new independent state (or confederation of states) in place.
But what happened between 1775/6 and 1781? Lots. There were the campaigns in the middle Atlantic colonies, New England, and along the Canadian border in the early part of the war. Bunker Hill, Trenton, Germantown, Saratoga, Princeton, Monmouth, etc. These were the largest battles of the war, but after a couple of years, a stalemate had been reached and not much happened.
Meanwhile, in the southern colonies guerrilla tactics were being employed against the British and Loyalist forces. Men like Francis "The Swamp Fox" Marion, Thomas "The Gamecock" Sumter, and Isaac Shelby used their small local forces to harass the British in NC and SC.
In 1780 the British decided to shift to a new strategy in the southern colonies where they believed they would receive more support from Loyalists (Tories). Cornwallis shipped out to Charleston, SC with his army to execute the new plan. He took Charleston and promptly marched inland to Camden where he defeated the Revolutionaries led by Horatio Gates.
Cornwallis and Banastre "Bloody Ban" Tarleton then marched through SC and NC in a show of force, trying to bring the local militias to battle. Many skirmishes occurred during this time, but the tactics employed by the British and Loyalists inflamed the passions of the Whigs and turned many undecided and Loyalist locals against them. At Kings Mountain in northern SC, Patrick Ferguson's Loyalists were defeated and Ferguson was killed in the first major victory for the Whigs in the south.
Cornwallis then moved further south and with a contingent of Loyalists recruited and led by Tarleton, began marching through South Carolina in an attempt to bring the rebelling "armies" to battle and finally subdue the region.
Didn't happen. The Loyalists were not as numerous as expected. The rebels were quite determined. Several brilliant leaders managed to run Cornwallis out of SC, through NC, and into VA where he was trapped at Yorktown. It all began when Daniel Morgan, with a ragtag army beat the impetuous Tarleton at Cowpens, SC. This classic battle is studied in military institutions to this day. After Cowpens, the British retreated into NC and won a pitched battle at Guilford Courthouse, but the victory was hollow as the locals provided no support and the army was cutoff from supplies in distant Charleston, hence the move northward into VA. There were several other important battles in SC in 1781 including Eutaw Springs and Hobkirks Hill.
So Washington and his subordinates in the north fought a superior foe to a standstill in the early years. Then guerrilla leaders like Issac Shelby, Thomas Sumter, and Francis Marion along with generals Daniel Morgan and Nathaniel Green defeated the British in the south bringing it all to an end.
History is a great teacher. I've been to many of these places and have read everything I've been able to find about this fascinating period. If you're curious, let me know and I'll send a list of books...
A P